nfh

Critically, the people who build these machines don’t typically update drivers to port them to a new OS. You buy a piece of heavy equipment, investing tens, or maybe even a hundred thousand dollars, and there’s an OS it works on, maybe two if you’re lucky. The equipment hopefully works for at least 20 years, and basically no OS is going to maintain that kind of compatibility for that long. Linux might get the closest, but I’ll bet you’re compiling/patching your own kernels before 20 years is up.

This kind of dynamic is unavoidable when equipment vendors sell equipment which has a long usable life (which is good), and don’t invest in software support (which is them being cheap, to an extent), and OSes change enough that these time horizons likely involve compatibility-breaking releases.

Honestly? Especially if it was only for cops

I was one of the people who went to college to learn things, but the more I learn, the more I’m saddened by all the people I went to school with who studied things they didn’t enjoy, didn’t particularly care to get better at, all because they saw it as a way to make money. In optimizing for money, they miss out on learning and fulfillment.

This wasn’t that long ago, but I can only imagine how much heavy GenAI use could intensify that effect

Imagine borrowing $200k for an education, and then doing as little work as you can to actually learn the things you’re paying to know

If a problem exists, and you try to fix it without AI, do you even stand a chance at getting promoted?

The way Java is practically written, most of the overhead (read: inefficient slowdown) happens on load time, rather than in the middle of execution. The amount of speedup in hardware since the early 2000s has also definitely made programmers less worried about smaller inefficiencies.

Languages like Python or JavaScript have a lot more overhead while they’re running, and are less well-suited to running a server that needs to respond quickly, but certainly can do the job well enough, if a bit worse compared to something like Java/C++/Rust. I suspect this is basically what they meant by Java being well-suited.

I’ve been using Cinnamon for most of the last decade, but switched to Gnome3 recently, heavily customized to work like Cinnamon. Basically because Wayland is finally stable enough to use.

If Cinnamon gets Wayland support working well, that’s my choice. Otherwise I’ve got some Gnome3 configs that make it work pretty well, and I’d happily run it into the ground too.

But how many of them do you think put it away within a week of using it to make content? I would bet the ratio of people who possess one to people who will be disappointed is huge, assuming there are in fact disappointed users.

Fax is commonly used at least in the US because it has regulatory recognition as a secure means of transferring information, it’s highly interoperable, and it doesn’t really have a successor that has caused the network effect to die out entirely.

11% seems slightly higher than I’d expect, but not crazy. Contracts, medical records, interactions with the government are all good reasons to need to send or receive one occasionally. That about 1 in 10 households did last year? Makes some sense.

I don’t think most people’s sense of “ownership” of a copy of a game has anything to do with whether or not they’ve legally bought a license.

For most of my collection, I own a physical thing, that represents the ability to play that game, using hardware I bought, whether I bought those things today, last year, or even a decade ago. Some of my games are digital, but I still have possession of a copy I bought, and can play it whenever I want. I paid money for the right to play a game when I want, and that’s a notion of ownership.

If someone can take it away from me, that isn’t aligned with my notion of ownership, and also isn’t worth spending money on imo. I own some GameCube games, and yes, technically that means I have a license, but they still work physically and legally. There’s nothing to enforce against me.

The thing that changed is the ability to revoke that license. And that amounts to a different concept than ownership. One not worth paying for.

I’ve long had a mix of Windows and Linux machines, and currently have a gaming desktop with Win10, my old gaming desktop/media center PC on Win10, and my laptop/homelab machines all running Proxmox or Debian. At first I hadn’t migrated to Win11 because Microsoft hadn’t convinced me it’s an upgrade, but Copilot has now convinced me it won’t be an upgrade.

I haven’t decided exactly when, but the Windows 10 EOL is going to drive me to remove Windows from my remaining computers, and just use Linux.

This is extremely cool, thanks for sharing! It’s now on my Steam wishlist

I would happily shell out $60ea for remasters of RA2 and Generals. Improved graphics, proper modem compatibility (64 bit, Proton, ARM chips), maybe a modern vs original balance mode? I’d be happy as a clam.

Renegade had some interesting gameplay ideas as a shooter, and a new C&C FPS has so much story potential. It’s a shame they cancelled the one, but a future release still has that potential. If they do it.

Command & Conquer series as a whole, no releases in 4 years, the last new release was a mobile game in 2018, and the last proper new entry was 2012.

The fan community has (at least) two really high quality mods still undergoing active development, with an actual release in the last two years. Giving this series the Sonic Mania treatment would be incredible, and probably make EA a lot of money, but also is very unlike their usual business practices.