Ah, yeah, by the way - if you do something harmful at work and are hold responsible for it legally, it’s weird because when you do something clearly beneficial at work the company holds all the responsibility for that, and you hold your paycheck independently of the outcomes of your work.

So how the hell is this even treated as any kind of crime, let alone worth 4 years, is unclear for me. Some people seem to be forgetting that where peaceful protest is punished, violent protest finds a way.

If an intern damages a production database, they (or whoever else) are not (legally) held responsible, despite someone there definitely making a few mistakes leading to loss of profit. But it’s not even considered.

In this case it’s not a mistake, but does it matter? Unless they violated some security process inside the organization, thus illegally gaining access wherever, the story means that they used “maliciously” the access they were given.

In the 1970s this, first, would be an equivalent of what another guy wrote, changing a lock combination and not telling people, a minor mischief, and second, he’d have a union protecting him.

This is clearly disproportional.

A bomb kills\maims people and harms equipment, this is very clearly not a bomb.

In the 1970s this would be a scandal.

So I’ve done plenty of that in my, ahem, practice. And honestly if I had a choice to concentrate and not do that, even if that meant losing my “dead man’s triggers”, then so be it. Extinguishing a perpetual dumpster fire as part of your job is not good. Also someone might be given that to fix after you leave, I’ve been in that role too.

What is this post even about, Iran still has female parliamentarians and female commissioners and even female ministers sometimes.

They are a counterintuitive leftist-islamist hybrid, they are also Shia and most of your stereotypes about Islam are from Sunnis.

The rights that have been rolled back are about clothing, which doesn’t radically differ from West-approved Saudi Arabia or new Syria.

Saying that Iran is more democratic than the USA might be an overstatement, but I’m not sure it’s much less.

Honestly the way Americans, and most of all educated and\or elitarian Americans, behave in society, - it makes perfect sense that at some point it will be sold. Nothing like it really in the world, with the UK as the close second.

It’s still funny, Alaska was sold to the US because the Russian empire’s expectation was for the US to eventually control all of the North American continent. Not even control, but settle first of all. Like with Texas, it’s not very convenient when the main settling power is different from the one having theoretical control.

So honestly a meeting in Alaska would make the best sense as a prelude to selling Kamchatka to the US or something like that. It’s kinda sobering that the US today (contrary even to 50 years ago) is not a society that can settle anything new.

And if we think about it, in the middle of the XIX century it was expected that the African continent will be settled by Europeans similarly to the Americas.

South American states preserved, despite all the crime and poverty and dictatorships, some degree of cultural diversity and even humanism, but don’t look as attractive for immigrants as then. Let’s say they were half-settled.

USA was half of the world’s GDP at some point. It’s not anymore.

The whole Africa was in population less than Europe. Settling it was plausible. Not anymore.

There were fewer Iranians on the planet than European Jews. Not anymore.

So I would say that, sacrificing Native Americans, the humanity has formed an immunity against European empires. It doesn’t yet look so, but the numbers don’t lie. And building combat drones en masse is honestly nothing that the non-imperial part of the world can’t do. Actually the involved defense-related corruption is probably less everywhere else relevant than in the NATO countries.

The only way I’ve ever learned anything is by having a real-world problem that I can solve.

Same thing here except I’m still not a developer. Just from time to time can do something if it’s less boring than going another way.

I’ve even played through the “Turing Complete” game once, because I can’t force myself to repeat it. And it was very interesting, absolutely cool, except that gun has fired. It appears the game changed enough though, maybe it’s a sufficiently different gun to fire again. It’s a game for entertainment, not even talking about real life.

And when there’s a direct incentive, nothing is hard, for real. The hardship is in eyes tiring, time passing, time to render (in case of POV-Ray), migraines. But the task itself just takes it all as a payment, not as an effort.

And I sincerely don’t get why my diagnoses are ASD and BAD despite describing this many times, that is, that happens with ASD too, but honestly ADHD seems the most intuitive abbreviation here.

I’ve just realized that using FPGA for such products is economically sane. I thought before that when they use FPGA for specific end products, that’s because of military-like expectation to be able to change everything, or because of lacking effort and aiming for fans.

I think you’ve missed the joke where Half-Life 3 is still not released.

Yes, all the computer-paper interfaces are cool IMHO. That DataMatrix and QR are mainstream now I mostly like too.

What I don’t like is the wide reliance upon open Internet connectivity, and even worse, upon services in it.

I had CS:Source Steam version, except I gifted it unopened (don’t remember why, probably had enough IL-2 and SW:Battlefront and SW:EAW to play) to a friend, so only saw Steam installation on that friend’s PC until much later.

My first Steam game was Empire: Total War, which is, eh, not too old.

BTW, it’s Russia and most disks you would buy in my childhood were pirate localized versions or just pirate versions, sold in underground crossings or in shabby-looking small stores. Nobody here understood what copyright is and how it’s connected to any right, like - really nobody. It’s baffling really when people who confidently and certainly thought of copyright this exact way then, just like everybody around, are today being judgemental and condemn digital piracy. While the new generation which wasn’t very conscious back then - doesn’t. Two-faced cowards. OK.

I’m really nostalgic over all those small stores, because back then not only they existed, but those ugly malls everywhere didn’t exist. Also in underground crossings everything was cleared (probably to make profit for malls ; of course it was illegal to sell there, but - I really feel more for those people than for the law), but now there are stores in them again, mostly coffee and snacks.

I’ve seen licensed localized versions by 1C on small racks in book stores, though, and those weren’t too expensive or bad, and the selection was usually good, but small, still - the people who decided which games were put there had consistently good taste, I’ve seen Thief various parts, Neverwinter Nights, Silent Hunter, various quests, maybe something else there.

I’ve had licensed WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos, my first non-pirate game, and later got The Frozen Throne.

The only place with really many-many official disks I’ve seen in my childhood was Soyuzmultfilm official store (a rare place, I mean, I live in Moscow, it’s huge and is still cool, and it was even cooler), and that place was kinda expensive (and looked expensive).

Though the games causing more nostalgic feelings for me were Dark Swords (an MMORPG much like MUDs) and Wizards’ World (a browser game much like MUDs with very cheerful global chat in a frame to the left) and Travian (still alive, but was better then). There was something called Wizards’ World II (not sure if it was by the same people), which I really liked (well, it was a plagiarism at HotMM, but a nice one, cool graphics and multiplayer). Unfortunately not around anymore.

Honestly I had more than many kids (born around 1996) did, and I’m really ashamed that my dad got depressed and didn’t see me get more useful before dying from Covid. Lots of it was due to his own idiocy, but he’s done a lot and deserved far better regardless.

Honestly rain is the only thing which always, without a single failure, makes me feel I’m in the same world as then and some things in it are genuinely noble and good. So - it’s raining and people are remembering the time of LAN parties and Steam being unknown. And I’m remembering first installing Settlers, not sure which part. Sorry for the mind dump.

So. 1 TB drives indeed were out before Half-Life 3.

But I’m nostalgic over a simpler time when 1 GB for a game was a lot.