Assuming the electronics/motor can handle reverse polarity and spin the wrong way, the geometry of the fan blades is far from symmetrical. Therefore, the efficiency is going to be greatly reduced when the fan is run backwards. Physically rotating the fan 180 degrees on the Z-axis bypasses that issue but takes longer.

Yep, I pretty much disable automatic updates to ALL software, including windows and all the software on my phone. I then download and install them manually at my convenience when they've been in the wild for a few weeks without report of serious issue. In addition, for software that cannot be rolled back to previous versions AND is not network-facing then I don't update at all unless the update fixes something that was bothering me, just in case the update breaks something or makes anything worse (which has happened before).

FYI you can bypass the TPM requirement of win11 pre-install reasonably easily. Although it's likely that any features within windows that explicitly rely on the TPM to function won't do so, none of those features are required for the average home user or gamer.

This. Not being an idiot (part of which is using a decent firewall) does a lot more to protect a home/single-user machines then any updates from MS.

Depends what you mean by "in operation". I've had many drives powered on for 10-15 years and they still working fine. If you mean 5 years of transferring data, saturating the read/write speed of the drive for the whole time than perhaps I can believe the figures.

Hard drives last 5 years and solid state storage lasts 10? Since when? It may be prudent to replace them for mission critical usage at that time but they usually last much longer. I have [insert anecdote about long-lived drives] and I'm sure many others have similar experiences. And remember the plural of anecdote is data.

I've used this app and a handful of old android phones to set up a half-decent CCTV system covering the exterior of my house, all for a cost of zero. Motion detection works reasonably well, each phone stores a few days' worth of footage to its local memory (footage is only saved when motion is detected and for a user-configurable time afterwards). The stored footage and live video from every camera can be viewed from any browser over the internet, so I can monitor my cameras from anywhere, and most importantly this happens without anything being stored in the cloud. If I wanted, I could easy set up a laptop, some scripts and a NAS to record all the footage 24/7 rather than rely on limited (and slow) local storage in each phone.

Good for convenience I grant you, but you're relying on Apple and a solid internet connection each time. And you're giving up your privacy by allowing Apple to sift through everything in your backup, which they will use however they please. If my windows machine gets destroyed, I can be up and running (files & settings) within a couple of hours from personal backups, zero reliance on Microsoft, zero reliance on network connectivity, zero access to the data to anyone but myself. Why can't phones just be like that?

This comparison is completely useless. As with most things at large scales, performance per watt or performance per dollar is what actually matters. Maybe these figures are in TFA somewhere? If Nvidia's hardware was slightly faster than Intel's, but Nvidia's hardware used twice the watts during the benchmark, assuming they are similarly priced then intel has the better offering.

A great game I remember playing very fondly, especially on the harder difficulty settings. Extremely overdue for a remaster IMHO. I don't claim to know the details but I've been told that such a remaster is highly unlikely due to complex ownership of the FarCry IP between Crytek, EA and Ubisoft. Maybe this source leak might grease the wheels on a community effort to update and re-release this classic game?

The fact that you can't grasp that illegible symbols designed by morons are a thing speaks volumes about your logic skills.

My rebuttal to this is simple. Calculate the ratio of the average wage to the average house price in the 70s. Do the same calculation with today's figures, compare those two ratios. Your generation did that to the younger generation.

Very true, and I thank you for being honest enough to admit it.

Personally I'm fascinated with old technology and the history of technology. I also collect various bits, my Atari 2600 gets regular use, as does a CRT TV, the VCR less so. While not a boomer, I'm old enough to remember the world before the internet, I regularly socialise with people in real life.

But I also enjoy modern videogames. Nobody in my IRL social circles plays the same games as me, so I go further afield to find team mates. The internet, and discord specifically allows me to connect with fellow fans of my preferred games anywhere in the world. We can still have emotional connections over a voice chat, the fact that they are on a different continent is irrelevant, which is fantastic.

So, is there anything in your post that is an on-topic response or rebuttal to anything I said in my original comment? Or is your whole post a nostalgic exercise in how things were better in the 70s? I mean, honestly, while you had some interesting anecdotes and it was a good read (thanks for taking to the time to write it), is it really anywhere close to on-topic for this thread? Was it modded as such? Slashdot really is boomer central haha.

Chatrooms are very rarely exclusive, many are searchable and freely joinable within discord. Others are not searchable but the invite is posted publicly on the web somewhere. And in general people are far more welcoming on discord vs. on facebook in my experience.

Ok the conversation mechanics are not the best, something more similar to a simple BB forum would be much better IMHO with distinct threads for separate conversations. But if the group admin has done a decent job it won't be too bad, and there's a reasonably capable search function. If you're used to the old days of big IRC rooms with dozens of conversations happening atop each other in the same room then you'll be fine, discord is certainly no worse in this regard. Voice chats with 10+ people can get a bit hectic and confusing though depending on the vocal discipline of the participants.