Windows 2000 was a good operating system by any measure. It was rock solid, capable, well-supported, could scale from desktop to large enterprise deployments and everything in between, reasonably secure compared to their previous operating systems, etc. I never did like Microsoft operating systems, but Windows 2000 was actually good. It was a breath of fresh air at the time. We had NT 4, which was stable and reliable, but was limited by a lack of DirectX and became cumbersome in large deployments. Then we had Windows 95/98/ME, which was the garbage that crashed all the time.

My parents actually did take me to that movie, but I was an infant so I don’t remember. Apparently, it was my first movie. I guess they thought Aliens would be ok after my dad took me to see Rambo: First Blood Part II. Movie ratings didn’t even reach the level of loose guidelines during my childhood. Lol

Aliens.

That movie scared the shit out of me. It’s been more than 35 years and I still don’t like that movie.

It’s horrible. My laptop with hybrid graphics works ok except for a brief flicker every time it wakes from sleep. It’s not a big deal. My desktop with dedicated nvidia is a hot mess - constant flickering. Steam is borderline non-functional and there are all kinds of graphical glitches on the desktop. I’m stuck with X11 on that machine.

Then what’s it for? Looking pretty?

Framework if you want to repair it yourself and Lenovo if you don’t. Lenovo makes a good machine and has very reasonably priced on-site support options.

There are all kinds of people who are Christian. Their worldviews and interpretations are as varied as anyone else. Most of the ones I know aren’t the type to go cherry picking passages to use as an excuse to mistreat others. Many quietly lead their lives as an example of Christian faith. It’s often acknowledged among Christians that no one - Christian or otherwise- is perfect and no one but God can judge others.

There are others who didn’t get that memo. They take it all very literally. It’s like they completely missed the point of the four gospels in which one of the themes is Jesus at odds with the Pharisees who are so stuck on the Old Testament that they forget love and compassion. It’s not that the New Testament contradicts the Old Testament so much as it’s teaching that going through the motions and following the rules exactly as written is not the same as living with God and showing humanity towards others.

In my experience, this latter group is often comprised of people who grew up being taught strict adherence to the Bible, with a particular focus on the Old Testament, and born again types whose rigid compliance keeps them on the straight and narrow.

Not all Christians are Republicans or conservative. You really have all types, from the ones you’re talking about to some pretty liberal, polar opposite ones. Some identify with conservative politics because of their Christian views and others are avowed liberals for the same reason.

Most of the Christians I know are good people, and their happiness and just how they live their lives is something you want for yourself. They lead by example. I’ve been around the other ones too and I’m not particularly fond of hanging out with them. Ironically, those were the ones whose outward attitudes and behavior in private were completely contradictory. Basically, they were the kinds of people you probably don’t want to be around regardless of religion.

That’s how I got mine. It’s the best way to buy good office furniture. I’ve heard good things about Steelcase.

I bought a used Herman Miller about 12 years ago for around $700. Worth every penny. It still feels the same as the day I got it. I would have spent more on cheaper chairs over the same period of time.

538 is bullshit. They are wrong as often as they are right. People don’t prefer Trump to Biden or anybody else for that matter. There’s just not a lot of enthusiasm for Biden.

Biden is old and boring. Otherwise, he and his administration have been competent. He has a lot of shit on his plate between the division in our country, war with Russia, and now Israel getting into shit at the worst time possible. Iran is also simmering over there and we have the usual shit from North Korea. Throw in relations with China and this administration has as many challenges as any in recent memory.

The upside is we have a great Secretary of State and the rest of the cabinet has been pretty solid overall. And don’t forget, the administration and the Fed managed to stave off a recession in the midst of all of this, which is a pretty difficult balancing act when dealing with all these external problems requires significant government spending. The Biden administration is doing a much better job than people realize.

In contrast, Trump fucks up everything he touches. Half these problems have his fingerprints all over them to begin with. A reasonable person knows he is not a good executive, even-tempered or capable of engaging with real leaders. This is a guy who turned a $5M judgement against him into $83M because he can’t control himself. He is stupid and reckless. Do you trust him to sit across from a guy like Xi Jinping? I sure as hell don’t. One of leads 1.6 billion people with an iron fist and the other is a clown masquerading as a mafioso.

For Trump to win, he would have to get a lot more votes than he did during the last election in which he was more or less trounced. I just don’t see that happening. Who didn’t vote for him last time and is looking at him now and thinking he’s the guy? He is the worst presidential candidate in the history of our country by a long shot.

Already working on getting permanent residency in another country that doesn’t share a border with the U.S. Not specifically because of loser Trump but we will be more likely to use it if that fucker finds his way back to office.

Honestly, I would be shocked if he ever wins another election or somehow manages to come out on top. He lost by a lot of votes last time. Since then, we watched him on TV while he incited an insurrection, his subsequent behavior suggests he may want to start a civil war, a jury determined he is a rapist, and enough other shit to write a book series.

His post-presidency career is selling NFT’s, shoes, begging for handouts from his idiot followers, criminal defendant, and whatever other scam he thinks of when he wakes up. He’s a petty hustler who inherited money. He’s a loser.

More importantly, he is a criminal. He can’t help himself. He is going to cheat in the election because he cheats at everything. He cheats on his wife, cheats on his taxes, cheats in golf, cheated in an election. He is going to cheat and he will be caught red handed. It’s not unreasonable to wonder if he might get himself arrested for what he does in this election.

He’s already facing four criminal trials. He’s not beating 91 felony charges, especially when most of them are from the feds. They don’t lose cases and they don’t bring high profile cases unless they have the defendant dead to rights.

He is toast and he knows it, which is why he’s so desperate to delay the trials and win the presidency. He is arguably a domestic terrorist. He is arguably a national security threat. The three letter agencies are probably on him like flies on shit. If they’re not, they fucking should be. I don’t believe he will ever be permitted to set foot in the White House again, and that’s assuming he wins in the first place, which he won’t, or cheats his way to victory, which also won’t happen. He’s done.

Starfield. I want to like it - and there are some things I really do like about it - but it’s just not a very good game. The menus and inventory management is atrocious, which is unforgivable when you have to spend so much time on those screens. The enemies are bullet sponges. It’s not fun dumping a magazine into a guy, reloading and doing it again while the guy just walks right into it like you’re spraying him with a garden hose. I’m ok with there not being a map on remote planets, but it makes no sense that there wouldn’t be one in a city. It’s the kind of stuff you’d overlook if it was an indie early access game, but it doesn’t fly when it’s a $70 game from a major studio. I can’t imagine what they were doing all those years the game was in development because it’s not reflected in the product.

How is getting an MBA from Stanford nepotism? She probably worked her ass off not only to earn the degree but to be accepted to the university in the first place. Without knowing anything about her, I’m going to assume she’s a total rockstar until there’s a good reason to believe otherwise.

I don’t know. Probably. The world’s a big place with a lot of people.

There’s a guy who sits out in front of my cafe every day. You wouldn’t think he was homeless if you saw him, but I see him out there all day every day. He goes to the gym a few doors down for showers and to the laundromat around the corner to wash his clothes. He doesn’t look like he’s on drugs or anything. He’s in his 50’s, his hair is always combed, he’s always clean, appears lucid, etc. He looks like a regular guy you would see at an office job.

The weird thing about him is he does absolutely nothing. No book, no phone, nothing. He just sits there and stares into the parking lot for hours. I don’t know how he does it. We used to say good morning to him and, after he never responded, we kinda just stopped paying him any attention.

Most of the homeless people around here are drugged out zombies. They literally look like they just came off the set of The Walking Dead. This guy in front of my place is the one I notice all the time because of how normal he looks.

The wealth tax has never sat well with me either. We are talking about taxing someone based on the value of an asset that they would need to collateralize or liquidate to pay the tax bill. That doesn’t seem right or fair to me.

On the other hand, I read today about Trader Joe’s and their suit against the NLRB and I’ve changed my mind. They engaged in a bunch of shady union-busting behavior, they got caught, and now they’re arguing the NLRB is unconstitutional. Meanwhile, the NLRB has been wielding this power for like 90 years.

Where we’re at is, obscenely wealthy people who break the law are essentially giving the government the finger and saying they should be allowed to do it. They’re acting as if they believe they are powerful enough that they are no longer subject to laws. Trump and Musk are no different. I’m sure there are plenty more.

It used to be people like that were mostly normal. They would make contributions, get their way most of the time, get some pushback when they went too far, maybe kicked and screamed a little bit, but they would eventually get in line.

Now, they simply say the rules are bullshit and they shouldn’t have to follow them anymore. These people are undermining our government and subverting the rule of law. It’s time they get kicked in the teeth.

They derive their power from wealth. Although our government has plenty of problems, it’s still ours if we can hold onto it. It’s time to make a statement to anyone who dares threaten that. FAFO. I’m all for taxing these fuckers.

Dude, just build a better product and let it speak for itself. Or maybe try contributing to kbin. It’s not cool to always be harping on the guy for his development pace and trying to pull people over to your fork. Like, we’re supposed to hop over there because you’ve made more commits this week? How do we know your project would be any better off if it ever blows up the way kbin did?

That kbin dude got tens of thousands of subscribers overnight and then put on blast with bug reports and feature requests. He’s done a good job running the site too. He’s got a pretty good track record as far as I’m concerned. He hasn’t asked for shit in return except a little space to maintain his sanity.

I hope he will be running from a psycho with a shank at ADX Florence in 2028. There’s a decent chance he will be dead in 2028 though. He’s not exactly the picture of fitness and good health. He’s an old, fat pig who lives on junk food.

More seriously, he has zero chance in 2028 if he loses in 2024, which is almost certainly what will happen. He’s been decisively rejected by voters once already. I find it hard to believe he has won over any new voters with his behavior since the last election.

Or maybe the government will step up and treat him like the terrorist that he is. If it was anyone else, they’d be waterboarding him with Diet Coke at Guantanamo right now. I mean, he’s openly calling for states to send the National Guard to Texas to fight the federal government. This fucker is on trial for insurrection and he’s out trying to incite another insurrection. Holy shit.

He’s had his deranged followers make threats against judges, prosecutors, federal agents, etc. He’s threatened his opponent in the primaries with a federal investigation if she doesn’t drop out of the race. He’s threatened her donors.

This dude is straight up nuts. I think it’s a legitimate question whether he’s eventually detained for the safety of the public pending his trials. At what point do the feds have an obligation to protect the country from this lunatic?

Forget about him and 2028. He might not even make it through 2024.

The headline makes it sound like a bad thing, but that’s more than plenty for launch if they are distinct apps that represent a variety of use cases. Frankly, it’s a lot more than I would expect for a new product like this. Sure, there’s VR and AR available now, but Apple has a track record of rolling together existing tech in a package that’s more accessible and often more useful. You can throw a few things out there to showcase what’s possible, but you also have to wait and see how consumers actually want to use it. They will find use cases the creators didn’t think of or were unsure about. Then the floodgates can really open up in terms of apps. I really wouldn’t be surprised to see people wearing these things out in public.

It feels smaller than other streaming services. The quality is there though. I like Disney+ a lot at night when I have some time to watch TV before going to sleep. It’s not a bunch of murder or negative and depressing shit like some other services. I like some true crime and violent action, but I don’t exactly enjoy it right before bed. I’d rather put on Rescue Rangers, original Star Wars or some other stuff I enjoyed as a kid. If you’re into nostalgia, Disney+ probably has more of it than any other service and they still have a bunch of new stuff too. It’s a great service.

I’m not the one you replied to, but I bought an Odroid when it was difficult to get a pi. I wouldn’t say it’s in the same category. It’s bigger, more expensive than normal pi prices and more powerful. It’s probably perfect for what you’re looking for. Where you might run into trouble is if you have very tight power consumption requirements or plan to use add on boards.