for these guys is they are that good," - how to sound like a dumb, cliche staff sergeant in a bad movie script.

I don't know about NY-salaries, but including school holidays, 70k a year should get me a private teacher per pupil, right?

That's just pathetic. In my late teens/early twenties, I read about 2-3 novels a week. Calling someone who reads 1/10 of that a "Megareader" sets a very, very low bar. It's ok-is for a moderate reader, but you're privably a really slow reader, have very little time or are just not interested in a book, if you take a month to read it. (Unless it's like a 1000+ pages/letter size 9 philosophical tractatus)

letâ(TM)s skip the battery thermal tests, what could possibly go wrong?

Perverts, obviously. When it's about the internet, never underestimate the power of porn and cats.

it's not discontinued, but in "maintenance" mode, meaning no new features and bug & security fixes for some time until it becomes too old to be supported by newer OSs.

Well, looks like succeeded in the past - and you cannot expect nothing more of a billionnaire.

his own company to himself to artificially unflate it's value (which will probably be a total loss after one day at the stock market). Did he just found Shodan?

It reiterates my view of AI as the great equalizer. You're doing generic art? Be afraid of AI. Your're middle management but your job is more about selling yourself than actually doing competent work, and if you give generic or stupid instructions, people will work around that? Be afraid of AI. Really, it's not true for everyone (roto-artists come to mind), but in most professions, if an AI can do your job, you're already a waste of everyone's time.

regarding the current political climate in the U.S., I would not trust ant "scientific" output that comes at the behest of the gang of idiots at the top.

I'd be surprised if the NASA manages a manned moon landing by then.

Minecraft is a digital copy of Lego (with the idea probably stolen from Douglas Coupland's book "Generation-X") - and with a limited variation of "bricks". imho Lego should go the other way and introduce some redstone logic.

I might not be that old, but in the late eighties we already got Lego kits with electric lights (only you had to attach them to a battery compartment) - I can't imagine that it killed my imagination back them.

Nah, it's mostly just lighting, framing and maybe using an external microphone, I also rent - it's not the value of the background or buying lights, it's the effort you put into presenting yourself. You can make a pretty picture even if you're homeless. But if you don't care, it shows. E.g. It cost's you nothing to not have your laptop-camera pointing at your face from a low angle.

from how they present themselves in video calls. Bad audio quality, bad framing (e.g. those people that occupy only the lower half of their screen), bad backgroubd removal (you don't have to show me your flat, but if the keying looks crappy, maybe you should have used a neutral wall instead), bad lighting (you don't have to do a 5 point lighting setup, but the image should not be noisy as fuck because it's much to dark or half of your face should not be severely overexposed),... all of that shows me that you don't care and don't sweat details and thus influences my motivation for doing business with you. I do overlook glitches due to bad connections, though.