South Africa gave up its nuclear program after the fall of the apartheid regime.

Theres a lot of evidence linking the Israelis to the South African nuclear weapons program with a lot of people thinking it was a "legitimatised" nuclear program that would only get SA into trouble internationally while Israel could walk away with a lot of improvements scot free, so if US technology and material ended up in Israeli hands, then I have no doubt equally that some of it then made its way on to apartheid South Africa.

There were junk devices back then too.
I got a $15.00 mouse that worked for 2 month and failed.
Laptop Drives were notoriously bad. Memory could fail on you...
I needed to get a new internal modem every few months.

The real difference before 2001 we were expected to pay a couple of grand on your PC. and a lot more for a workstation. Because these things were so expensive they made sure they used quality parts. Post Tech Bubble pop. We started to opt for cheaper/faster/lighter So cheaper and Lighter means more flimsy plastic, where metal was used, but we wanted faster too so they had to cut costs in more areas of quality. Having it last 4 now is considered a good run.

Well at least in the west we actually state that there is a problem. In eastern cultures there is too much ignoring that there is even a problem.

There is nothing wrong about making a fuss about a problem. But after we make the fuss you need to do something to fix it.
Not making a fuss about it makes it too easy to hide away.

Bah, you young whipper snappers, back in my day Ancient was reserved for before God said Let their be light!

Exactly.
Success is largely due to luck.
So they could be worse off today it they invested heavily in say Napster, eToys, pets.com. A lot of stuff with a lot of buzz sometimes dies off rather quickly.

That is the biggest problem. Other then rewarding the people who fix the problem, we try to figure out who is to blame for every freaking thing.

Oh look a flood hit the city unexpected, well lets blame the mayor for not thinking about this unexpected incident.

Or a random guy blew up something, why didn't the CIA/NSA/FBI know that he was doing this...

We are trying to point blame on too many things, and less time trying to solve the problem.

We we can use republican logic.
If they didn't plan for retirement, that means they want to work until they die.
Just like all those people who want to be poor.

Well there is research showing that it is hard to be analytic and empathetic at the same time. That is why a lot of Doctors who are treating difficult cases, seem very detached from the patients, it isn't because they are just a nasty person. But because they are trying to solve your problem, and that gets in the way of being empathetic.
The same thing with tech people, it IS NOT BECAUSE WE HAVE AUTISM or some other issue, but because we are thinking analytically pushing aside our empathy.

Even if we know this, we really don't like it. So while your MD is treating your case, and somehow he seems to be making eye contact to you and seems like he actually gives a shit about your condition and not just enjoying the complexity of the case. You feel better emotionally, he feel better as you are not getting pissy with him, while he is trying to think on how to do his job and make you physically better.

It stood up where there was an actual contract or financially backed transaction in place, not just off the back of a random click on a website.

The problem isn't the name calling. It is that the name calling actually works on people too lazy to think for themselves. They get their marching orders from whatever talking point memo is out (both Left and Right wing) and march in formation.

And while I don't agree with many people politically, I at least have respect and can converse with people I don't agree with, if they at least have a reason for their political beliefs (wrong or right). I often have common ground with people I normally wouldn't agree with, because my viewpoints are reasoned, and sometimes we have the same reasons for the same views.

Above all, the drones are massive and collectively drown out the reasoned voices. And this is to our own shame!

Or, in other words .... "what could possibly go wrong???"

Which, means, they should be merged and brought back together.

This is the unfortunate case of Open Source failure, and a pretty big one IMHO. The fact that they remain split is huge problem, because now I cannot recommend either, even though they are both decent. I have no idea which one will actually survive and prosper, or which one will die a slow painful death. Merging them is really the only REAL solution for my concerns.

The problem with low level languages, isn't anything technical about the languages.
It is about a common attitude among programmers.

As a kid, We learn things by taking steps up.
We Walk/Run, Then we Ride a Bike, then we Can Drive a Car. It is a simplistic way of viewing things. One is better then the other, and you need to be better to use the better method.

The same idea goes with programming languages. (I'll Show my age hear)
You code in Basic, then you go to Pascal, then you can do C finally you will be able to code assembly. It is common for the C developers who start doing C to think oh I am programming in C now, I am an experienced coder, and I will laugh and snark at all you Basic Programmers now. So many of the C applications will have a lot of issues due to these ego's of the time, and people really using the C Language as the wrong tool for the job. It is like using a Car to go a few blocks where your bike or walking would be easier and faster.
So their are ton of legacy apps in C which are not secure because the Managers of software companies thought the same way, and wanted to code it in the Best Language. Even if such an app would probably work and perform much better in Visual Basic.

I think is has more to due with Microsoft lack of advancement in Office... For the most part what we are doing in Office 2013, is the same stuff we were doing in Office 95.
Sure there were some incremental changes that took advantage of newer technologies, some new UI changes that I am not sure if it makes things better. But for the most part things haven't changed too much.
Word is still a word processor,
Excel is still a spreadsheet
Outlook is still a memory hog
Access is still causing businesses to slowly go bankrupt.
Power Point is still making meetings boring.

Using Open/Libra office, we get the stuff that we wan't it is compatible enough to not look like a jerk (say even 10 years ago) for not being able to read the document.