Wasn't there an 80186? That literally nobody built anything with? Like, it was almost a proof of concept?

Just today I noted that GIMP 3.2.2 (an application, not an OS) has dropped support for 32-bit x86.

What's more, you really have to know what you're doing to coax it into re-using code, rather than rewriting the same functionality with each prompt.

JavaScript is actually a pretty interesting, powerful language, but one with quite a few problems. (I recommend the book JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford if you want to learn more about that.) TypeScript solves some, but by no means all, of those problems. From what I've heard, it's increasingly popular.

Well, there's also the issue of having a "throat to choke." A large part of using SaaS is that when it doesn't work, it's somebody else's problem to solve.

What a load of contorted nonsense.

What is "OpenSource" anyway? Is that a word?

There was one called Inside UFO 54-40 that had an ending you couldn't navigate to. You had to "cheat" to find it, by just reading a section of the book that you had no way to reach. I thought that was pretty clever.

Similarly, Infocom had a text adventure game called The Lurking Horror that needed you to enter a computer password at some point to continue with the game. The password was only provided in the physical materials included with the purchased copy of the game. But if you knew how to hack into the game binaries, the password was actually there -- multiple times -- in plaintext. That had to be intentional.

Except ICE isn't ordinary police. They're described as law enforcement officers, but their jurisdiction encompasses only a very small range of laws, related to immigration and customs (hence the name). Plugging multiple rounds into U.S. citizens who piss them off for some reason is not within their mandate.

What does it matter if they were eventually released? What business does an immigration agency have imprisoning U.S. citizens ... let alone murdering them?

Here in British Columbia we just changed our clocks for the last time and will remain on UTC-7 indefinitely. Parts of B.C. (the northeast part) have been UTC-7 all year for a long time. The southeast part has been Mountain time (UTC-7/UTC-6) for a long time. Neither are changing how they do time.

I applaud losing the time change but I'm not crazy about permanent DST. People obviously haven't thought this through, what it's going to feel like come November.

...laura

Near-lifelong B.C. resident here...

People have grumbled about time changes as long as I can remember. Pick one. Stick to it. Just do it.

I can't say I agree with their choice. Not so much the crazy late sunset in the summer - we're used to that - but the very late sunrise in the winter. The sun will still set by 5 in December and January. So what?

...laura

Meanwhile, he also wrote "Carrion Comfort," one of the worst-written, most racist, most antisemitic novels that I ever gave up on.

If Mozilla really wanted to benefit the world, it would collect statistics on how many Firefox users deliberately disabled the AI features and publish them, or even aggressively market the results.

"Please" and "thank you" are relics of a bygone age to most people.

The one that pisses me off is the habit of customer service people addressing men respectfully ("sir"), but not addressing women with respect ("ma'am" or equivalent). This isn't an issue in places like Texas, but it's very much an issue here in Canada.

...laura

The especially concerning/scary thing this time is that what the giant corporations want is to make computing seem like "magic." Make a wish into the wishing well that is AI, and what you will receive will be what you wished for ... provided, of course, you keep paying the corporation for the privilege of having your wishes granted.

Never mind having the actual skill, talent, understanding, etc. to make your wishes come true yourself. Just pay, wish, and it will be yours ... and never mind anyone who tells you it used to be possible to get what you want to achieve without paying a giant corporation. Just keep wishing, lean how to wish big, and your wishes will come true.

This seems like the antithesis of how anyone who considers themselves an educator should think.

And the really sad part is they're not just saying this to CS students. They're saying it to writers and journalists, artists, musicians ... basically anyone whose job doesn't involve a hammer, a shovel, or a stove.