My dad was running a 16-modem BBS system (running an interactive multi-player text game, the Scepter of Goth) in the mid-80s (around '85) running QNX. It was running an 8086 with a 10MB full-height hard drive and 640KB RAM and it was rock solid and ran 24/7 for years. Maybe some of these *nix systems had messed up default configs, but QNX was pretty slick.

I'd say a better solution would be to require imported routers support open distros (OpenWRT).

A better restriction would be to require imported routers to support open distros (OpenWRT, etc).

Advait Paliwal's "horse" argument positions learning as a task, and that alone. Paliwai completely misses the point that learning is about personal growth. Ironically I think that this viewpoint is actually the fault of the education system, to some extent, in that that the the typical education system really doesn't emphasize or focus on or point out how the entire process should and can be seen as a person's investment in their self.

Comcast had a monopoly on good broadband in my area for nearly 20 years, and in my opinion they exploited that monopoly to vastly overcharge their customers. After alternatives finally came to the market (a municipal fiber option), I switched immediately, I also noticed that Comcast *finally* were forced to lower their prices to stay competitive. The cost *difference* was over a $1000/year. So basically, from my perspective, Comcast overcharged me the cost of a vehicle.

So even if Comcast ends up offering a lower-cost service I will never be their customer again.

It's laudable that Prince Mohammad wants to transform his country. The problem with Neom is that it fights against nature in nearly every way, making its failure inevitable.

I wish we could somehow inspire the prince to route all of those resources from Neom to instead work *with* nature to green his country, literally. It's being done successfully in the Dead Sea Valley in Jordan, some of the most arid and hostile terrain in the world, and these permaculture techniques used by the likes of Geoff Lawton could transform Saudi Arabia too. That's what they really need in their wastelands - Life.

I was pretty excited years ago when the first Oculus Rift came out. I bought one and started developing VR software using Unity. However after a couple of months of development I abandoned the effort. I could no longer endure how every day of development often involved significant time in VR where, according to my inner ear, reality did not correspond to virtual reality, and this resulted in some nausea but mostly just a feeling of being wiped out and drained. Feeling wiped out every day for months is no fun at all. That's when I realized that Apple is probably on to something by focusing on AR rather than VR. In AR, there is no physical conflict with the virtual content.

My intro to RPGs was the commercial text-based multi-player MUD "The Scepter of Goth" in the early 80's, which I still feel was a superior gaming experience. A text-based MUD is to a graphical MMO as a novel is to a movie. Both have merits. But you know how a good book can be much deeper and more involving than its movie? Well I experience the same thing with a good MUD. Engaging your mind directly in the generation of the world is something that's difficult to compete with in silicon and source code.

I recently implemented this exact feature for my employer's image-based backup product for Windows systems. I hesitated to post this, at the risk of sounding like a commercial, but I think it's relevant.

The product itself (ShadowProtect) makes snapshot-based backup images. The relevant feature, called VirtualBoot, can be used to immediately boot a specified backup image within a Sun VirtualBox VM, without the need to restore the backup or to convert it to any other file format (lengthy operations). There are many use cases facilitated by this feature, and data longevity is one of them.

By preserving the applications and operating system, along with the data, the data's lifespan is significantly increased, particularly when data stored in proprietary formats (where the source apps are essential in order to consume the data).

BZFlag is a fun multiplayer tank game that you can jump right into and have fun but also has a lot of potential for skill growth. It works well on even crappy video cards.

Here's an amusing Win32 error (error 4006) that a friend showed me. Execute the command for the error description.

C:\> net helpmsg 4006