Great idea. Will do. Just ... umm... how do I find out just WHICH controller chip is used in the USB stick I plan to buy?

I may not be the best example, considering that I have rather intimate knowledge of USB controller chips due to the nature of my work. I may actually be able to find out what controller chip is used in USB sticks. But because of this I can inform you that it is anything but trivial to find out just what controller is being used in a stick. Let's put it that way: Quite often finding it out involves ordering one and a good magnifying glass...

Even assuming that an average consumer knows what a controller chip is (quite unlikely), that one is used in an USB stick (it gets more unlikely) and he knows where to look for it and what to look for on it (now we're getting into the land of fairy tales), it's nearly impossible for him to even know whether he buys something with a "good" or forged chip. And the only way to find out involves disassembling the USB stick in a way that voids the warranty.

The real kicker is that I, someone who could actually find out whether he buys good or forged sticks, i.e. someone who might be at least somehow blamed for using forged goods, could actually maybe even recover the stick from its "bricked" status. Whereas someone who buys a stick in good faith because he has no other option would really now lose his data.

That's fair, eh?

You just reminded me about that.

I looked in my Build 9680. There, in all it's annoying pop-out glory and quite tasteful shadow (but minus any discernible windows border) is the Environmental Variables window in all it's NT 3.1 glory!

Gonads in the LIGHTNING! IN THE LIGHTNING! In the rain...

Gonads and strife, gonads and strife, gonads and strife...

I think the idea is that "xxx" is supposed to be someone that the clickbaitee probably feels is exploiting them for money somehow, and that by learning the trick this one guy came up with to screw over those people, YOU can join in on telling the people exploiting you for money to fuck off too!

"23 hot singles waiting to meet up with you in GEOSTATIONARY ORBIT." -- ads seen by astronauts

On a related note, a person I know who lives in a town with a tiny two-digit population once saw an ad like that claiming there were more hot single women in that town looking to meet up with him than there were people in that town total.

With the PHB somehow becoming a judge?

I distinctly remember when touch screen voting came out the same thing happened in several Republican districts around the country in races which were too close to call.

Mysteriously, people who were voting for the Democratic candidate had their votes changed to the Republican candidate and the same excuse was used.

For reference, reference 2, reference 3.

Western media lost no time to put the blame on burying it squarely on Russia, with RT wasting no time declaring how the temple was originally built by Russian forces and how they will gladly provide archaeological aid to examine it. A convoy is already en route, of course it consists mostly of military material to ensure that any kind of necessary heavy duty equipment will be available. The west immediately complained and sent a contingent of a few thousand observers and advisers, just in case anything needs to be observed or anyone needs any kind of advice. After a few days of heated threats and accusations the only agreement is that nobody gets closer than 2 miles to the ruins until some sort of agreement can be achieved.

Ruins? Oh, right, a stray artillery strike hit the temple. In a rare case of unity both sides immediately agreed on who is to blame: THE OTHER SIDE!

Based solely on the description provided, this would make for a great setting in D&D.

Lich? Wight? Vampire? Evil mage? Jar Jar Binks?

Because they destroy a device of someone who doesn't even know about the bickering behind the scenes. If I have a restaurant and the customers of my competitor park on my parking lot I can tell them to get lost because it's my parking lot and I can decide who may and who may not use it. I may NOT, though, simply go there and trash their cars because, hey, they were parked on my ground.

There is no question. Paypal is quite valuable - worth billions of dollars. Whether you personally like the product is of no consequence or relevance.

Easier != Easy. There are plenty of people with the sort of capital Elon Musk has and damn few of them have accomplished anywhere close to as much. Few have even started one company as successful as Paypal, Tesla or SpaceX much less three.

Then go somewhere else and take your condescension with you. Nobody is forcing you to be here.

Intentional and willful destruction of another person's property for the base reason that he didn't buy with you but with your competitor? I don't know about your country, but over here in socialist Europe we have consumer protection laws that deserve that name.

Er... windows 3.11 had the same minimum spec as Windows 3.1... 2Mb RAM. And a 15Mb hard disk. So the point still stands.

And I have personally contributed to a project that brought Linux networking and TONS of extra features that we'd have died for in the 3.11 era to a single, bootable, 1.44Mb floppy disk.

Sure, Windows 95 upped the ante, but in terms of what you were given was it really that much of an advance? That's where things started to go downhill if anything... networking stack, yes. Firewalling of any kind? No.

And Windows 95: "To achieve optimal performance, Microsoft recommends an Intel 80486 or compatible microprocessor with at least 8 MB of RAM.".

I think you're forgetting how much you could get done in 2Mb of RAM. Hell, Windows 95 can't even boot if you have 512Mb, it was never designed to have that much RAM EVER. I'm just not sure there was ever a feature worth quite that amount of system resources - at this moment in time, my Bluetooth tray icon takes more RAM than Windows 3.1 needed to load everything. I can't see the justification for that at all.

CPU speed, yes, devices nowadays shove data through them a LOT faster than they ever used to so you need to be able to keep up. Disk space, possibly. But RAM usage? Why should a Bluetooth icon take more RAM than an entire former OS?

That's really not that big a deal. Being AS9100 or ISO9000 registered basically involves documenting the stuff you already have to do anyway in order to run your organization well and then actually doing what you document. It's really not all that big a deal. It doesn't mean you produce a good or bad product - it simply means you say what you do and do what you say. Pretty much any company that wants to do business in aerospace is AS9100 certified just like almost every company that works in automotive is ISO9000 (or equivalent) registered.

Anyone who claims that ISO9000 means they produce a good product is either lying or doesn't understand what ISO9000 means. Same with any of the other quality standards.

What have you done that is so spectacular? Go ahead and dazzle us.

Elon Musk has founded several very influential companies, turning those industries upside down in the process. You actually think starting Paypal, Tesla and SpaceX is not impressive? If that doesn't impress you then you plainly don't understand what all that means. You don't have to like the guy but he's certainly earned a measure of respect for his accomplishments.