Maybe it's a case of the experienced developers have retired or been replaced for being too expensive, and the new generation doesn't have the knowledge or experience and are having to learn it all again the hard way.

I remember well when the original Halo was released and the hype around it. I grew up on Wolf3D, Doom, Doom II, Quake II and Quake III. I completed Halo in under a week when it was first released and was just left thinking: WTF was that? Waste of money. Each to their own, eh?

Why would you drink cider if you want sparkling wine? If your criteria is that you want a yellow drink with bubbles, fine, but that also doesnâ(TM)t sound like your average champagne drinker either.

Itâ(TM)s like expecting somebody who wants a BMW will be happy with a Ford instead. Theyâ(TM)re more likely to just delay the purchase of the Beamer until they can afford it, and also have less money to spend in the local economy.

Right, but as I just said obeying a disallow directive isn't legally mandatory, so it doesn't mean much.

The difference depends on context, of course.

Generally speaking there are several cases to consider:

(1) Site requires agreeing on terms of service before browser can access content. In this case, scraping is a clear violation.

(2) Site terms of service forbid scraping content, but human visitors can view content and ...
(2a) site takes technical measures to exclude bots. In this case scraping is a no-no, but for a different reason: it violates the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
(2b) site takes no technical measures to exclude bots. In this case, the answer is unclear, and may depend on the specific jurisdiction (e.g. circuit court).

(3) Site has a robots.txt file and ...
(3a) robots.txt allows scraping. In this case, even if the terms of service forbid scraping, the permission given here helps the scraper's defense.
(3b) robots.txt forbids scraping. In this case obeying robots.txt isn't in itself legally mandatory, but it may affect your case if the site takes other anti-scraping measures.

Not *explicitly*. Offering such a database would be an invitation for people to look at the whole data broker industry. So what you, as a databroker who tracks and piegeonholes every human being who uses the Internet to a fare-the-well, do to tap into the market for lists of gullible yokels? You offer your customer, literally anyone with money, the ability to zero in on the gullible by choosing appropriate proxies.

For example, you can get a list of everyone who has searched for "purchasing real estate with no money down". Sad people who buy colloidal silver and herbal male enhancement products. People who buy terrible crypto assets like NFTs and memecoins. Nutters who spend a lot of time on conspiracy theory sites.

It's kind of like doxxing someone. You might not be able to find out directly that John Doe lives on Maple St and works for ACME services, but you can piece it together by the traces he leaves online. Only you do it to populations wholesale.

wait a week or two and the details will change completely.

Trump is nothing if not mercurial. His fans will tell you he's playing 11 dimensional chess... I have my doubts, but let's say that's true. The problem is that when it comes to the economy it's not chess. It's more like basketball, and the President is the point guard calling plays, except the play being called keeps changing before the players can execute the last call. It's a tough time to be running a business, you can't plan out more than a couple of weeks.

I'm on a Mac you insensitive clod!

I suspect Steve Jobs refusing to let Flash on iPhones and iPad was a bigger stumbling block for most people than all the security concerns (although he too cited abysmal security). The loss of a huge chunk of the mobile market made Flash untenable.

Steve Jobs' thoughts on Flash:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

This is just the modern equivalent of those shitty "funny" emails that were forwarded around by at least one person in every office in the 90s. It's just become easier, more accessible and the tools more powerful.

Right, the economist refer to this as "externality". Fossil fuels aren't cheap, if you factor in the costs that people using them transfer to third parties. Theoretically, if the true cost of using fossil fuels were factored into every pound of coal or gallon of gasoline consumed, then we would use *exactly the right amount* of fossil fuels. Probably not zero, but not as much as we do when we pretend pollution isn't a cost.

You mean: Ukraine was defending itself in the Donbas after Russia supplied weapons and manpower to the separatist militias and agitated the situation? Asking for Russian peacekeepers to help was just part of the little man in the Kremlin's disinformation and subterfuge campaign.

Ukraine wasn't threatening their neighbours. Ukraine hadn't invaded or attacked their neighbours. Ukraine hasn't fought a 10 year war with one of its neighbours. Ukraine hasn't fired the equivalent of Scud missiles at an innocent third country like Iraq did with Israel. Ukraine hasn't used WMD against ethnic groups of its own population. Unlike Iraq, Ukraine wasn't developing WMD and in fact, voluntarily gave them up. Ukraine was on a peaceful path towards EU membership. The US lead invasion of Iraq was in a response to all of this and stop them threatening and attacking everybody, and then left, which is the opposite of Putin's aim which is genocide and the extinguishing of a separate culture and sovereign nation. You simply can't compare the two.

Yet the pain points that Linus raised over four years ago still exist today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Youâ(TM)ve just reminded me of a wonderful holiday I had to Peru nearly 20 years ago, thanks. Coffee at breakfast though seemed to be a constant trade-off between flavour and temperature: if you wanted it hot, it was going to taste watered down and shit like N. American coffee; wanted it to taste good, then it was going to be cold!

I like espresso, and as somebody who is caffeine free, I can put five or more shots in a mug with no consequences and enjoy a large coffee that tastes good!