The actual problem is lack of software.

The CAD systems and controller software development suites that I need to do my job are only available under Windows.

The art and design software my brother uses is only available for macOS or Windows.

Lots and lots of engineering tools and other stuff, only available for Windows.

You can use Linux if you need some basic gaming, webdev or development for Linux itself, and web browsing. If your needs extend to professional software outside these spheres, which a LOT of things do, then you have to use Windows.

Just consider the number of documents that are written in Word or spreadsheets in Excel. If you are using macros, or even basic functionality like revision tracking and review notes, which most professional places use, you have to keep using MS Office. That's just kind of how it is.

Nobody has to like reality, but denying it will only get one so far.

While true, if it had the lions share of the market, it would also be plagued with the same kinds of problems that Windoes is due to the need to maintain software compatibility between versions, including reproducing bugs and such.

It would also be a larger target for malware and supply chain attacks than it is already, and the open, hobbiest developer model a lot of projects use wouldn't hold up.

The fact that many of the graduates of these religious schools go on to do well in university and in professional life afterward is proof enough that they are teaching academics at an appropriate level.

I was homeschooled using a Christian curriculum, have worked at a nuclear science facility for the last decade or so. So yes, they teach hard science just fine.

Both my kids are in the local public school, and it is my biggest regret as a parent that I allowed them to go there. I got a better education reading my own textbooks 2 hours a day than they get with "professional" instruction 7 hours a day. At 16 I could read at a college level, do algebra and trigonometry, had a good knowledge of world and US history and the functioning of government, the "education" my kids get at their school is an absolute joke.

Also, just because its a public school doesn't mean it isn't stuffed to overflowing with indoctrination. My daughter's French class has spent an entire month covering the French alphabet, kindergarten stuff, my son in high school has a 3 year math program that in that time period barely covers Algebra II. However, they are forced to listen to their liberal harridan teachers moan about capitalism, the oppression of the white man, the "structural racism" of the United States, how to properly use pronouns, acceptance of LGBTQIA+-LMNOP alphabet soup garbage, that religious institutions are filled with hateful racist people, that the people who burned down business districts because a criminal died in front of a camera are an oppressed minority who should be coddled rather than punished for civil disobedience.

Public education is a sewer of idiotic leftist indoctrination, and while they manage to brainwash a lot of kids into their degeneracy, those they don't turn from it HARD, and lose all faith in education as a system.

Techbro and Fintechbro is a venn diagram eith a lot of overlap. Lots of random people are familiar with "greek" analysis.

There is even a big tech site called "Seeking Alpha"

A direct example is that the tires on my truck are qualified to 118MPH, even though there is no legal situation where I could drive that fast. They are qualified to what is considered a high enough speed above expected usage that the manufacturer can be reasonably assured they will perform with enough engineering reserve to survive moderate levels of abuse. Engineering products for public usage always works like this, you have to control legal liability, and you do that by overshooting to a reasonable degree.

The sizing of the motor and cabling comes with an engineering margin on top of the requirements, in order to guarantee performance across the range of usage the machine is likely to see, including some degree of extra stress for short-duration overloads, exposure to adverse conditions or harsh usage, things like that. The size of the margin will be determined by how conservative the designer is and how risk averse the company is to losing money on warranty work.

Unlocking additional capacity with software means it had to be there to start with, but wasn't necessarily intended for normal usage. It might be that the data on the vehicle actually shows that the motor and support components are rarely operating near their maxes, so they can be relaxed while maintaining sufficient engineering reserve, but it could have just as easily gone the other way if the calculation was off, where you don't have enough of something to meet your requirements plus safety margins.

Not everything is some nefarious money grab by greedy corpos, electrical and mechanical engineering are hard disciplines with small room for error.

Presumably enforced by the ISP blocking the protocol altogether. Some ISPs do this with Torrent already, its no big deal to extend that to other protocols that are problematic.

This is why I keep around one of those drinks you only get to taste once, 00 buck.

Being 100% serious, Steve Jobs is one of the primary reasons why I have never owned an Apple computer, and never will.

Incidentally my last 4 cars have also been Fords, because they didn't take government bailout money when Government Motors did. Will never buy another GM car either.

You are not paying for the increase of the power cap, per se. What you are paying for is the extension of the car's warranty and maintenance agreements to cover wear and stress that it would have never experienced at the power level the vehicle was sold at.

When I buy analog input modules for PLCs (specialized control computers for industrial processes) I know that the hardware in there doesn't cost anywhere even close to the $2500 per module I am paying, maybe closer to $150-225 realistically. I am paying for the destructive testing and certifications that were done to ensure the component will meet all of its performance metrics over the expected life of the product, as well as the support of a large company who will help me deal with unforeseen issues or unusual conditions that neither of us could have predicted.

Almost all of these types of discussions on Slashdot devolve into a fundamental misunderstanding of how hard businesses that carry a lot of legal liability work.

Companies are free to charge for whatever people are willing to pay for. If nobody wanted the increase in power, it would make no sense to offer it because there would be nobody interested in buying it.

That they are offering the improvement at all indicates either they see a market of people who are willing to pay for it, or it is something they had already developed and it costs them next to nothing to offer it even if there are few takers. From a technical standpoint, it is probably both things in this instance.

For some of your examples: Singers already charge for their vocal range, but we call it their fee for being there at all, if their range wasn't needed they wouldn't be hired in the first place. Furniture is often sold in pieces and parts, including things like additional leaves and legs for tables because not everyone has the space or need for an 8 foot table and it is economically easier to make a table that is expandable.

In software it is common to license by the core, or in my particular industry of industrial control software many HMI packages are licensed by tag count (you can think of it as database row size limits) and a lot of the development software is licensed by seat. If companies were not willing to pay for things this way, they would not be offered because they couldn't be sold.

That some people cannot afford the additional offerings is just life. Unless you are a loon that thinks you are owed the labor of another person just because, it is wrong to force someone to give you something they worked on for free. This is explicitly why things like access to a doctor is NOT a human right.

I think the deal is that in Germany modifying software in your car is illegal, just like everything else fun in Germany.

This is why homeschooling rates are increasing. The public schools are a joke, and increasingly a threat.

What is the POSIX specified API for graphics, again? There isn't one. The API used for writing graphical applications under Windows, the Windows API has remained stable since the 90s when I first learned to program for it from the old Petzold book. That is as stable and common as you can get for PCs.

At the time that Microsoft became essentially a PC OS monopoly in the Unix market there was OpenWindows, Display PostScript, NeWS, IrisGL and X11 all competing. Which would Microsoft be required to support? Eventually X11 won out, but even now there is a bunch of fractious bullshit in Linux-land between X11 and Wayland.

If you use a MS account it travels with you, and migrated between computers that you use as you upgrade and replace.

And before I get the pearl clutching about all the evil things Microsoft is doing with my PI through the account, save it. Their protection of my data has been as good or better than most of the financial institutions I've dealt with, there is little to complain about.