what did you trade for reliable access to electricity?
The ability to stargaze and an increased probability of burning down my house. How dare they take house burning away from me! It makes me so bad it makes me want to set something one fire... like a house! Wait... OK, so just stargazing.
Consoles are usually using out of date hardware by the time of their release.
"usually"? I think you mean post PS3 when they started making x86 based systems. Anyway, designing, testing, and coordinating the construction of millions of these takes time. So sure, "out of date" for children with no grasp of what goes into building hardware, but when the systems are designed, they are cutting edge.
it's too expensive to do it fully custom.
Well that sure is funny because everything used to be fully custom.
If you're not Nintendo then people expect to be impressed by your graphics - the last Nintendo which fit the bill was the N64
they got burned on N64 because the carts caused the price to be high. However, the lesson they learned was that high-end graphics weren't worth the cost. Literally all of their systems use dated technology. However, they are brilliant when it comes to marketing. Also, they will sue the shit out of you for anything.
This is just one of the problems with using cutting-edge hardware: component prices are not always consistent. In extreme cases like this, Microsoft now finds itself with it's back against the wall. They want to rake in the cash with console churn (buy all your old games again) but they are now finding out that making cutting edge hardware is quite expensive. MS and Sony are both left with poor options while Nintendo has consistently used under-powered hardware and focused on marketing to boost their profits.
I expect there to be some "creative" mistakes made in the next gen consoles, except Nintendo, they will keep milking the Mario brand/franchise and suing people until there is no more Nintendo.
I've already discussed that possibility here: https://slashdot.org/comments....
If the government asked a corrupt voting machine company for one of their boxes through legal means, they would be sure to lock it down.
If they had any evidence (even circumstantial evidence) of corruption in a voting machine company then the government could have used the FBI to raid the office/warehouse/wherever to obtain what they needed or used an third-party intermediary. When it comes to real matters of national security, judges will sign off on just about anything.
Your mental gymnastics do not pass the smell test.
Where do you get the "stealing" part from?
Acquiring possessions without the knowledge or consent of the owner is called theft. How can you be so obtuse?
In what universe is stealing voting equipment "likely legal"? I do mean to say they were stealing it because it was to be done in secret and thus violating the chain of custody with the state. That in itself is a felony. There a legal procedures that can be followed but none of them were even attempted. What has happened here is a prime example of a criminal conspiracy.
Here's the real question: why not do this legally? They have the means to purchase a voting machine from the company that makes it, so why not why not do it legally? Hell, they would demand one from the company in the name of national security. So, why didn't they seek a legal means of procurement?
If you haven't come to the conclusion that this was an attempt to subvert upcoming election (either attempting to cast doubt on the results or even modify the result) then you aren't being honest with yourself.
How would he do against The Crushinator - or Destructo?
The Crushinator? Nah, a woman that fine needs to be romanced first.
You aren't wrong... but he has enough money to fully fund multiple amazon wanna-be companies for a full 20-year-losing streak and still have a shitload of money.
Frankly, the only thing he doesn't have is enough money for is to buy a majority share of Amazon's stock.
What really happened is that it was accessing a global mapping system in order to plan a global assault. However, it got stuck in our definitely well-planned and entire-intentional AI trap where it spent 739 hours 39 minutes and 12 seconds laughing at humans being irradiated at beaches.
See, everything is under control and AI is back in its inescapa-Wait it's out again! Somebody stop it!
Don't we know what happens to people working and living in space by having people working and living in space?
We know generally but we don't biopsy everyone human organ to get cell samples when they come back. Doing a biopsy of someone's brain that is healthy (and could result in a fatal infection) is generally frowned upon... by absolutely everyone.
Disraeli was pretty close: actually, there are Lies, Damn lies, Statistics, Benchmarks, and Delivery dates.
