4K BASIC was in ROM, not RAM.

As I recall most Disc-based OSes of the ROM Basic era required 16K of RAM to support the disc operating system...

Please, explain why that advertising campaign isn't winning over more converts? Have Linux usage numbers gone up dramatically since Win 10 went off-support?

Real people that care about security updates (a small minority of the computer using population) don't complain that their 7-10 year-old computer is no longer supported and needs to be upgraded, and people that don't care about security updates won't update their 7-10 year-old computer and happily run Win 10 a few more years.

Apple introduced a $600 iPad with a keyboard.

It's (Mac) Netbook 2.0, nothing more than that.

Kernel support for an architecture does not translate to distribution support for that architecture. Just because a Linux kernel supports a 486 CPU, but that doesn't mean the latest distribution of a given flavor of Linux will run on a 486.

For example, can Ubuntu 2024 LTS run on a 486 machine?

Hasn't this already happened? From 2025 - https://www.zdnet.com/article/...

For instance, the article mentions that the median price of a home is about $500k. This likely isn't enough to buy a studio apartment in lower Manhattan.

Manhattan isn't considered "typical" by most measures. 'Middle class' Americans don't buy apartments in Manhattan, wealthy American buy in Manhattan, middle class Americans rent.

But, but - what about the wage gap?!?! I hear it's worse than ever...

So, to be clear, that means Senators & Congressmen are "upper middle class" by virtue of earning about $175K/yr, right?

"Punative taxes" on EVs? Explain.

When the federal gov't stopped SUBSIDIZING EVs folks called that punative, it's not, it's prudent.

When states talk about assessing road usage fees on EVs to make up for lost road taxes that would normally have been collected on gasoline purchases, some call it punative, it's just prudent.

People aren't 'owed' $7,500 for an EV purchase, nor are EVs entitled to use our public roads for free - so please, don't try and claim treating EVs like ICE vehicles as "punative."

An employer trying to figure out how little they can offer an individual seems like a lot of work, which will blow-up in their face if/when the employees compare compensation packages.

I can't imagine an employer doing this on any sort of large group of employees. Unless you have a mono-sexual, mono-racial workforce, different individual compensation for the same job is just a shit-storm waiting to happen. What if Women are, generally, paid less then men in the same position? Or if minorities are paid less than Caucasian workers?

I've worked in places where one worker ;an older woman) learned she was paid about $5K less than her colleagues, but that was because she came to the job with no experience, the others had 5-10 years industry experience when they were hired. She felt she was 'cheated', it affected her work and her relationships with coworkers. Ultimately they quietly bumped up her pay, but she still complained - it turned out bad for her (impacted her review, cost her a performance raise at year-end).

Bottom line, the worker is owed what the employer offers and the employee accepts. If the offer is too low, don't accept it. It isn't anyone's fault but your own if you accept a too-low offer.

I don't understand the outrage of using publicly-available information to make a business decision - in realpage scandal a company used computers to determine the maximal rent a landlord/owner could charge a tenant, and in this case an employer is using a service to create a profile of a worker from public information to figure out how low an offer the candidate is likely to accept. These are things that have been manually done for decades, but somehow automating it makes it bad?

Employers look at candidates, review their job history, and arrive at a number they think the candidate will accept. That a candidate has gone and used payday loans is (apparently) publicly-available info - the issue is to maybe make the info private?

Employers do background checks, criminal record checks, and, I would assume, some sort of financial background check before hiring certain workers - it's labor-intensive, so probably not very common, but for certain occupations, I'm sure it's standard.

Or, you know, obey the law and drive under the speed limit...

If everyone obeyed the laws, there'd be no need for this kind of "enforcement" exercise, and the third-party company will take down the cameras and move to a new city.

I just love the "pervasive" surveillance network argument - "I know I'm driving a car on a public road with an easily readable license plate, but you have no right to read my license plate and keep track of when and where I was!"

Where exactly does the presumption of privacy come into this argument?

Just a reminder of what can happen when workers strike...

https://www.labornotes.org/200...

I suspect the unionized facility is leased, and this whole adventure could end when the tenant (Amazon) can't negotiate a new lease with the owners (Amazon).

5,000 workers?!

I fully expect negotiations to drag out for years (longer) - Amazon is apparently intending to appeal the previous decision, and even if forced to sit down and negotiate with the workers union, that process will drag on...

I expect this is a war of attrition - Amazon can just maintain status quo and overtime the workforce will turn-over, perhaps to the point that Amazon can get the workers to vote down the union...

Continuing, it can be argued that #1 & 2 have an influence on driver behavior, seeing a police car, drivers self-correct behavior, and knowing a police car typically hides behind a billboard can cause drivers to self-correct behavior as they approach the billboard, for fear there might be an officer behind it.

Getting a bill in the mail two weeks later does nothing to correct behavior, even briefly - the system lets you continue speeding, presenting safety hazards to the community, but the city get the cash...

There are roughly three ways to enforce speed limits:
1) Police officer in plain sight detects speeding, stops the driver, issues summons.
2) Police officer hides, catches unsuspecting driver speeding, stops driver, issues summons.
3) Camera/radar hidden along the street, it logs the vehicle speeding, issues a summons several days later.

Arguably, #1 & 2 have the effect of causing people to obey the speed limit, by stopping the driver they (likely) influence behavior, at least in the immediate aftermath of a traffic stop. #3 is purely about money - they have no interest in modifying driver behavior, they simply want to collect a fine. A speed camera in school zone does not make it safer for children, it doesn't stop the driver going 40 MPH in a 25 MPH school zone, it just sends them a bill.

Was it Wayze that got into trouble when it had an option to avoid driving thru high-crime areas? The provider was called racist, and community leaders insisted they remove the option, so that unsuspecting victims, I mean potential customers could drive by businesses in high-crime neighborhoods...