NittLion78

Never used a Franklin, but I remember the Albert which was a IIe clone. Had a voice synthesizer which you could type words into and it would say them back (poorly) which as a young kid was a good time. Also had a stylus/drawpad for graphics which was kinda neat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_(computer)

I remember the text Games Apples Play and typing the code manually in from the pages on that machine in Basic. Some of them were pretty fun. https://archive.org/details/gapa2

Idk who would even want them as a client. They'll change course on you every 4 years at minimum potentially in massive ways that might force you to change your product putting all your other users at risk - and they might just do that to you legislatively, anyway!

I can testify that Qwant, if nothing else, is a superior image search engine (basically does what GIS used to do 10-15 years ago) and it's better for just getting to a quick answer without your first 4 results being ad-driven.

Unfortunately, when needing to do deeper dives on things, Google is still more or less the best for results past the first page in my experience, though it's rare I need to dig that deep these days.

Alaska, Hawaii, Vermont, and Maine all do not allow for billboard advertisement, so at least there are a few places you can go for respite.

It's also a class Onion article:

https://www.theonion.com/german-luftwaffle-chain-offers-waff...

Anyone remember the Albert Apple ][ clone? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_(computer)

My dad had one of these and I thought it was the coolest because it had the text-to-audio synthesizer. Because it was such nascent tech, it said a lot of hilarious pronunciations which was infinitely entertaining when you're like 7 years old.

I liked his journals from Karateka better than those from PoP. He was much less cocky then and his innovations seemed more novel and exciting, plus you know he was squeezing a lot more out of the hardware from that time.

MoD was really an amazing book, though. Highly recommend for anyone who played the game back when it was still new (or anyone interested in a case study in product management).

I was going to cite the example of the Garmin G1000 glass cockpit. Even moving a cursor around a map requires pushing a physical knob in 360° to guide it.

I started to have the most minor of flight-or-fight symptoms April 2020. I'm guessing I was exposed to covid then but was asymptomatic. Fast forward to August 2021 and I suddenly couldn't lift weights anymore without feeling like my head lost all oxygen. Like, my body can DO the thing but it will be severely punished for having done so.

I've been lucky that I've never had any of the breathing issues, even after I for sure had covid in December of 2021. But the post-anaerobic activity suffering is the worst. The general neurological damage (brain fog, nerve pain, untriggered anxiety) is the most frustrating bit as no one can seem to find the cause of it using any conventional scanning, at least not with me.

Mark Wahlberg's character in Three Kings has to do this after getting shot while wearing kevlar because his lung collapsed.

This is basically the entire plot of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.

As I've said for years, any time you see a glittering urban core full of glass towers, steel bridges, and classic old stone architecture, somewhere there's a Mordor nearby that made all that happen.

All of that was just them dusting off the 1991 playbook from the first Gulf War. That was the first time an ongoing war was mass marketed in the "modern" way, I think (you could argue successful war propaganda has been happening for centuries through other media).

I even remember this thing at the Scholastic Book Fair that was basically a book-magazine thing and contained a large fold out map and a list of all the int'l military divisions that would be participating in Operation Desert Storm; essentially armchair generalship marketed to kids.

I didn't meet any deniers in Alaska two years ago when I visited a week after the 100F temps broke.

One of the strangest buildings I've ever seen. I wonder if it wasn't a street-level stall market or something first because now it's basically a parking lot with an unfortunate building packed under it.

That's Adrian Carmack (no relation to John). He made most of the characters you see in the game out of clay before they were pixelated.

Can't recommend Masters of Doom enough, the book that talks about the history of id Software. That all these guys came together in the same place is a miracle in itself.

Alpha Centauri has a very active mechanic built into it that uses both global warming (on an alien planet, granted) and also the planet itself being sentient enough to attack with its native lifeforms the factions that pollute it the most.

Chicago pretty easily unburied itself out of two major snowstorms and extreme (even by normal standards) cold snaps. At least when it comes to the extreme weather the city faces, that part is handled.

General corruption/waste is another matter. Recycling in Chicago right now is notably inefficient, for example (something like a 9% clearance rate).

You still see a lot of them being brought into wildlife rescue hospitals for lead poisoning from having eaten birdshot or in some other way ingesting fired ammunition. Seems to be the biggest issue in the Midwest for them, anyway.

Either way, as a kid I remember being told to assume you'd never see one and they'd probably be extinct in my lifetime. Now I couldn't even tell you how many I've seen, from as far east as PA and north to AK.

I always found this graph enlightening, but strictly on its face:

https://fee.org/media/17509/prices2-1.png?width=645&height=6...

I don't agree with the argument FEE is trying to make: "Consider each product or service shown. College is heavily subsidized, regulated, and exclusionary, and the costs are soaring. The textbook industry is hobbled by extreme copyright regulation, and can depend on captive buyers. Childcare is one of the most regulated industries in the country. Not just anyone can enter. Every aspect of childcare provision is controlled by the state."

To me, the point is the things that people truly need have risen steeply whilst things that are luxuries have decreased greatly in cost and I believe that's a failing of government to not correct where the market would not. If you're surprised that things like healthcare and childcare are regulated, you've likely never been anywhere they were not, but that doesn't mean the costs to end users have to be so exponentially exorbitant as time marches on.

In Chicago, he's known as three things: a neighborhood, a park, and a statue:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_Park,_Chicago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_Park_(Chicago_park) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/28/Vo...

Most people here couldn't tell you who he is, though.

Adam Serwer summed it up fairly succintly: "The Cruelty Is The Point"

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelt...

I had a high school teacher show us Threads during a breakout portion of 10th grade history where, for 9 weeks, you learned all about nuclear war. It has stuck with me my entire life. Somewhere about 2/3 of the way through the course we watched the film. It singlehandedly hammered into me what weeks of still imagery, theory, and historical facts could not.

What you learn most importantly from it is, while the initial hyper-violent effects of a proper nuclear war are so much more horrendous than anything humanity can imagine based on anything ever seen prior, it's the slowly diminishing quality of life that spirals out from it that reminds you of the futility and pointlessness of it all. When, ten years later, you see life is operating at medieval (or worse) levels, it's a truly crushing feeling.

The film is available on Amazon (for purchase only), I believe. Everyone should watch it, but I cannot emphasize enough that for some people it can be a real stressor. It has no happy ending.

...as recently as 2 weeks ago, no less https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51098209

It helps me, when interviewing people (already past the HR screen), to make assumptions about what we don't need to talk about. I'll still do my checks on your knowledge to make sure you aren't just a cert collector who has no real hands-on knowledge, but it tells me that there are certain things I probably don't have to dig into.

Aside from that, I'd agree - it's a variable to plug into a dumb screening system to make you appear on the "good" list.

Made me think of this exchange from Fight Club:

Narrator: "A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A x B x C = X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one."

Businesswoman on plane: "Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents?"

Narrator: "You wouldn't believe."

Businesswoman on plane: "Which car company do you work for?"

Narrator: "A major one."

I can understand the opposition on a long enough timeline, but to dismiss it from the start is almost certainly a recipe for failure.

I always thought this Demotivator nailed it best

https://i.imgur.com/wlKkBmP.jpg

Of course it won't help the narrative when the Lakes right now are near record highs due to lower levels of evaporation and more rain in the autumn months of the past few years (according to Army Corps of Engineers' data that started records in 1918, anyway). These fluctuations aren't uncommon. Last time they were this high was the mid-80s.

But you're right about the political ramifications of where the Great Lakes Compact line gets drawn. Waukesha, WI is one place that comes to mind where their own water supply became inadequate (mostly due to radium levels) and they requested to have access to Lake Michigan's water. My understanding is within a few years, they'll have the infrastructure in place and be able to legally draw from it.

It doesn't take a deep imagination to think of what a few dozen new such situations will do to Michigan let alone the other Lakes.

At least in the US, I think it's the combination of cheap airfares + the tracks being owned by freight companies, so there's not a ton of profit incentive to make it better and attract more riders.

I assume Canada has a similar history/present.