"repairable"? Its a system on a chip. For the most part ... either it works or it doesn't. There's not much to repair. That said.. yeah, I've got an intellivision flashback that died pretty quickly - so i guess its a valid concern.

I'm disappointed in the game selection on the Spirit. It doesn't have the Dungeons and Dragons games (which also go by minotaur and crown of kings to avoid licensing the DnD name).

It does say it sports a usb port for "game expansion" - so maybe there's a way in there. (official or otherwise).

HDMI and wireless are nice though. I really can't be bothered to hook the original one up with its its whole ancient antenna hookup system. The flashback was nice while it lasted because it was at least RCA. I use jzintv now on a PC.

I currently have usb adapters for both the original system controllers and the littler ones that came with the intellivision flashback a few years ago - works very well.

But wireless would be nice, so I might still buy it for the controllers if someone figures out how to get them working with a PC.

Aargh...

Are we only counting pets that were actually mine? Or do family pets count? I've no idea what i would have originally used.

If its the first its LA... or maybe I put L.A. or maybe Los Angeles or sometimes i misspell it Los Angelos... so maybe i did that.

If its the 2nd one, then its St. John's... but maybe I put in St Johns without the apostrophe and period? Does that matter? I might even have put in Saint Johns...

Oh... wait... does it want the city I lived in when the pet was born, or the city the pet itself was born in? Because if the latter then its Mt. Pearl... although i might have put Mount Pearl? Actually that's just where the pet's mother's owners lived.

And I think now you understand why I'm totally locked out of my account in the first place. Good luck getting in.

I own, but do not operate, a few IT companies that manage corporations in the $600MM-$1B receivables range.

Based on our own help desk ticket software, our clients have opened 40% fewer tickets since ChatGPT was rolled out to every desk and phone. 40%. I expect another 40% drop (total 80%) by next year as end users just manage things themselves.

I won't downsize as the tickets aren't really generating revenue as much as headaches. One of my engineers had a broken PDF file that took her 6 hours to fix, and the end user spent 6 days trying to fix it themselves with Ai.

But -- the basic stuff? Reboot your computer stuff? Email rejected because you mistyped a domain name stuff?

You don't need a human, and we would probably have outsource that stuff to India anyway next year if not for ChatGPT etc.

I spend quite a bit on Discord server services, but I'm out.

GFY, Discord and governments, for mandating this bullshit nonsense.

Talking to people in public isnâ(TM)t harassment.

Talking to people on taxpayer funded grounds also isnâ(TM)t trespass.

Tax funded?

Not private property anymore.

Zuck didn't fall asleep at the wheel. He was driving straight for the cesspool, wide awake, and on purpose from the beginning. Anyone who couldn't see where he was going was simply not looking.

I don't disagree, but if you want to supplant the public square with an online space, it needs to be decentralized and ideally should actually belong to the public.

"It uses less electricity than a modern frig"

So that seemed incredible; but after doing some research it is plausible (with caveats). I have a few questions:

1) What 'modern' fridge are you using for comparison? There is a substantial difference between 1982, 2002 and 2022.
2) What are the volumes of the two fridges being compared?

The average 1940s fridge looks to be only 6-8 cu ft; while the average 2000s fridge is 20+ cu ft. Even if it slightly beats the modern fridge on total electricity, it's probably only cooling 1/3 to 1/4 the volume

For example in the 1940s you might be around 400kWh; but if its 7cu ft, its only getting 57kWh/cu ft/year; and comparing it to a 550kWh fridge from 2002 cooling 21 cu ft for 26kWh/cu ft/year. (And that's a 20 year old not particularly efficient "modern" fridge... you could get that down to 300kWh annually on a new fridge if you buy specifically for efficiency)

Sure the 1940s fridge might beat that not particularly modern or efficient "modern fridge" on total use but it's still not really a win unless you only need 7 cu ft. And if all you need is 7 cu fit, in 2025 you can get 8 cu ft for 167kWh year. (60% less electricity)

cites: some data on 2025 fridges
https://shrinkthatfootprint.co...

data on refrigeration energy usage and capacity over time:
https://www.researchgate.net/f...
https://appliance-standards.or...

Fair comment, but the point stands that it's in there and sooner or later it will.

That's such an arbitrary calculation. The big turning point was in the 70s energy crisis when energy star became a thing. And there is a huge efficiency jump from 1970 to 1980; sure 2020s appliances are significantly more efficient than 1980s appliances but is a logarithmic improvement curve and there's no justification to buy one every 10 years.

I bet it uses 4-5x the electricity of a modern one and is slowly leaking Freon too. Nice flex!

You probably could pay for a new basic fridge in a couple years with what you are wasting in electricity to run that old one.

Get a new one without an ice maker and just use ice trays and it'll be rock solid too. (The vast majority of the reliability issues across ALL brands are in the ice makers.)

This is retarded.

1. It isn't for profit healthcare that is the problem, it's THIRD PARTY PAY.
2. I don't use third party pay, ever, for healthcare. I've been insured nonstop for over 30 years, and NEVER ONCE has my insurer paid my doctor.
3. Even when I've had emergencies, I still called around, negotiated a fair cash up front rate, paid cash up front, and billed it to my insurer. My cash up front rate was sometimes below any co-pay negotiated with my insurer, lol.

I just recently had some elective surgery that would have cost me about $2000 on my annual deductible, but I was able to cash pay a negotiated rate of $400 including a follow-up "free". I submitted the $400 to my insurer and they reimbursed me.

Third party insurance exists because YOU VOTERS demanded the HMO Act of the 1970s, which tied health care to employment, and then employers outsourced it to third parties.

Health care is remarkably cheap in the US (cash pay, negotiated) and I don't have to wait months to see a doctor when I call and say I am cash pay. They bump me up fast.

What difference does the age of the iceberg have in relation to where the ice in it came from. The fact that we weren't talking about climate change when this iceberg broke is irrelevant.

The source of the ice in the iceberg under discussion is Antarctica. You didn't even have to RTFA, this was even mentioned in the summary.

That aged well.

Your point? That would be most people by a huge margin.

OneDrive offers
- protection against local hardware failure.
- protection gainst loss in a laptop theft or loss situation
- protection against loss in a fire/flood, catastrophe situation unless you have remote offsite backups (*)
- protection against ransomware
- protection against accidental data overwrite and other common user errors
- simplified data migration to a new device (especially good for people without IT... but its handy for IT too if, people can just sign into a freshly imaged laptop and go)

vs...
- increases risk of disclosure in a cloud breach or phishing attack

(* and if you DO have current remote offsite backups you are probably using the cloud to facilitate that anyway.)

That's not to minimize the risk of a cloud breach... but you need to properly assess your risk profile. Data stored locally can also be targeted and ex-filtrated, the risk is generally smaller, but it remains, especially if its valuable enough to target.)

And I know plenty of people who have had devices break or get stolen many times and lost valuable data, or lost data in an automated low effort ransomware attack (and targeted high effort attacks too)...Point is: for a lot of people, probably even the large majority of people, cloud storage is very much a net positive.

There is almost no scenario where the initial cost to put things into orbit, and the increased cost to build them to exist there, maintain and support them there, and replace them when they fail is ever paid back by the efficiency gain in having it there though.

Unless you've got essentially unlimited free energy to put things into orbit ... but if you have that you probably don't need space solar panels in the first place.