…attracting criticism from lawmakers, who warn it could…

Oh my, if only there were someone with the resources and authority to do something about it.

Are we talking t-bone or ribeye?

…why not just use the CC on Amazon?

I think it’s because people think giving pure cash is thoughtless and basic.

This idea needs to die. I’d rather have $10 cash that I can stash away to save up for something that I actually want than a $25 gift card that locks me in to a single store.

I’m at a stage in my life where I can generally buy little things when I want to. But my wife and I don’t make enough to regularly drop hundreds or thousands of dollars on non-essentials, and my other family members can’t do more than $25 or maybe $50 for birthdays or Christmas.

It took me years to convince my parents and wife to just give me cash. When I finally did, it enabled me to save up for a $1k guitar over several years.

I’d much rather have one awesome gift every 5 years than a steady stream of $35 gift certificates to various stores and restaurants.

Not giving someone what they’re actually asking for is far less thoughtful than cash.

I got a Dunkin Donuts card a few years ago too. The nearest location to me is about 600 miles away. Awesome.

Cognitively and logically, I understand.

But emotionally, it’s just another one of those little reminders of the passage of time that hits unexpectedly hard.

I think it’s because my only memories of it are from when I was young. Quake 3 Arena was released almost a year before the PS2, but I’ve never really stopped playing it, and still sometimes get in-person LAN parties together to play it. It feels just as old as I am, and I associate it with good memories from every age.

But I haven’t touched or even thought about a PS2 in decades. So when it suddenly jumps to the front of my mind, only old memories come with it. Then you start to think about the friends you played it with, and everything that’s happened to you all between them and now. Kids, marriages, divorces, houses, bankruptcies, jobs earned and lost, deaths, etc… Some are doing great, some not so great, but most you just don’t know because you’ve lost contact.

So yeah, it seems silly on its face, but sometimes random thing just pull you into the past unexpectedly, putting the present and the path between them both in stark contrast. This just happened to be one for me this time.

I’m more concerned with the transformations from customers to product.

“Hey, buy our expensive shit but also give us all your data so we can also sell it to other companies.”

A lot of unpopular “features” and behaviors used to have DISM, policy, or registry workarounds. And MS seems to love to kill those workarounds during later updates.

If MS isn’t letting people uninstall it, there’s a reason for it, and I’d be willing to bet that users will one day find that it has been magically re-enabled by an update.

They don’t care as long as they can get in, make a few bucks, and get out. Long-term stability isn’t the priority anymore, just quick profits.

scythed

Nice to see a new verb used in a headline.

PS2 is retro now? Damn, getting old really does sneak up on you.

porn collection

Harry Potter fan fiction

These two are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Your analogy is very incomplete. No one is saying that Intel’s products or technology is “moving backwards”, but rather that their market share and performance as a company are declining.

Take your person “standing still” and imagine they were previously in the lead during a marathon and suddenly stopped before the finish line. They’re not moving backwards, but their position in the race is dropping from first, to second, to third, and they will eventually be last if they don’t start moving again.

I sometimes name booleans after the action that will be taken rather than the condition they represent For example, I might have booleans called “doQuickInit” or “invertResult”. I find this very useful when the value of a boolean is determined by a complex series of conditions that are not actually true or false.

It’s only a matter of time before it’s not an option anymore. Every shitty new behavior they put in is an easy-to-use option at first, then a registry setting or policy, then even that goes away and it gets baked in.

Hot and sexy nude planks of Canadian Maple plywood.

Embedded software developer here.

Oh damn, I thought I was going to be the only one here!

I don’t know how you get by with only one. Between source code, simulators/emulators, datasheets, requirement specs, log files, e-mails from senior devs with tribal knowledge not written down anywhere else, and a bunch of other bullshit, I sometimes find 3 24" monitors to be lacking.

Distractions aren’t a problem because I can easily use up all that screen real estate for a single task.

From the hovertext: “I wrote 20 short programs in Python yesterday. It was wonderful. Perl, I’m leaving you.”

After years of a dozen other languages, I finally tried Perl the other day.

Never again, if I can help it.

Working with small ESD-sensitive electronics and using a proper grounding strap and mat with large resistors in series to provide protection from shock? Absolutely.

Wiring up a car battery or working with mains power? Absolutely not.

Using multiple desktops may help you keep all those open programs more organized. :)

I use only use them at work. One desktop is for e-mail, chats, and my music player, the other has all the stuff I need for whatever I’m actually working on at the moment. If I’m switching back and forth between two unrelated tasks, I might use a third to keep everything for the two tasks separate.