Interestingly, I remember at one time, the whole "Fake it until you make it." slogan meant something much less devious. It used to be a slogan people said about a small business managing to present itself as much bigger than it really was, while delivering on promises and work that would usually only be expected from a much larger business.

To me, that was actually a positive/good thing. It was your classic case of an over-achieving startup, doing more with less and winning outsized contracts that helped it grow to be a formidable competitor with the established players.

I took the financial hit years ago, when I resold my high-end configured Intel Macbook Pro to move to the M1.

As soon as I saw the benefits of the M series processors on the platform, I knew it was the way forward. The Intel Core i9 version of my Macbook Pro had overheating issues where it would throttle its performance down every time it did anything demanding for more than a few seconds at a time. That's just wasted performance at that point.

The battery life on M series is insanely good without feeling like you gave up any processing power at all, which sealed the deal for me.

The idea of Apple using Intel CPUs was always, in my opinion, kind of a hack on Apple's part. They realized IBM wasn't going to live up to their initial promises to keep innovating the "Power" CPU to keep it competitive. There wasn't any real alternative for Steve Jobs and company at that point. They were left "high and dry" unless they just ported everything to run on the same processor all the Windows computers were using.

The M series gets the Mac back to being truly unique again. You're not just buying another Windows laptop on the inside, wrapped in an "Apple shell".

According to a talk I attended by one of the GPS system designers you can jam GPS with a 9v battery.

I guarantee the US can also so big whoop.

I'm pretty sure corporations are worse for the environment than people.

You're confident in suggesting that corporations don't cater to the demand of the market, the customers of whom seems to be waiting for the heads of those corporations to take the bus before they can be bothered to stop pissing in their own pools?

Tragedy of the commons to a tee.

I don't disagree with your first point.

I don't admire billionaires at all. I don't think they should exist. Wealth disparity is unchecked.

But that doesn't prevent me from operating within my own set of principles rather than in a sort of "you first" manner, which strikes me as quite child-like.

If every wealthy person on earth did the right thing, our environment would still be fucked, because they're vastly outnumbered by non-wealthy people.

So you're stuck on a sinking boat with a rich person, and you refuse to plug a hole until he or she plugs a hole.

The funny thing, by the time you smugly drown, they've already left the boat on a helicopter. The wealthy *be definition* will not feel the effects of worsening climate. You (and your kids) will.

I think it'd be far more intellectually honest to admit you just don't care. Nothing wrong with that, per se. It's a hell of a lot more logically defendable than your stated position.

That would be true if the company could ignore the law of the country where it files it's papers. Then again you govern by enacting laws that impose conditions that companies have to follow therefore it's not for BSA to tell Europe how to govern.

While it constitutes a weak argument that "it won't be worth making a new StarGate series because only the original fans would watch" ... I can't argue it may not have been the best series to do more with right now.

I used to love Stargate, as did some of my good friends. But this wasn't one of the sci-fi shows that only got a couple seasons and then got canned too early. This was a very successful show that arguably ran its course, with a LOT of material to watch.

I'd say there'd be more justification to bring back Firefly, or even just do one more good season of "The Expanse" that does justice to the last novel in the series of books.

The rare AI enthusiast

Hey, I know this is the site for devs who are so old that they're out of the game or enthusiasts who wish they could call themselves developers, but AI assisted coding is just plain normal today. It's not even controversial.

In all the projects you love, hate, or don't care about. If you're developing today and not using AI at all, you're the rare developer.

Look at Microsoft history and then tell me about alternatives. If Microsoft sold MSOffice from the start there would be no MSOffice today. If the US is so great why are so many US companies based in Ireland?

Nationalism is basic social welfare for billionaires. Look at MAGA how it's destroying the constitution for the sake of Merica and its billionaires. Hurrah!

Europe is approaching this as some flex on the US because the US with it's orange clown decided that that's what needs to happen. It's not just Europe.

I know quite a few people who refused to vote, in at least selected elections. Had zero to do with being cowardly or lazy. It's much about a realization that after studying the people on the ballot and what the candidates running are likely to do/support? None of them reflected anywhere near what they wanted to vote for.

If there's one thing I think that drug America down a slope to stupidity in politics, it was the huge push to "get out and vote, no matter what!" Swarms of totally uninformed people went to the polls and voted based on any number of ridiculous preferences -- more to get the little "I Voted!" sticker to wear around and feel good than anything else.

The "vote for the lesser of evils" thing isn't a great argument for voting either, ultimately. Sure, there are times when you dislike both candidates but feel like one is a "devil you know" and won't surprise you, while you may deem the other too risky of an unknown. But ... that's also a pretty strong reason Trump won re-election, if we're honest about it. Democrats didn't run a better opponent who people could "hold their nose and vote for" if they generally leaned more conservative in their political beliefs.

Our third party options are realistically non-starters, and that will continue unless one of them has their own huge financial resources to throw at running for office without needing their party's backing.

I mean, come on... This one screams class action. I just got an email link to a list of current class action suits I could click on to see if I qualified, and none of them were over as clear cut a complaint as a company purposely crippling software initially promised to keep working.

Fudge, obviously I meant to reply to the OP. Your post clearly has some basis in being informed on the subject.