Are you from Arkansas?

I’ve never experienced that and I’ve never worked outside the US. I’ve only ever seen a note needed for FMLA. (Extended medical leave)

Admittedly, the morality of this particular point probably relies on further context. On its face, I suppose you’re correct. However, it’s worth pointing out that for instance the only reason DOS was chosen is because Bill Gates’ Mom was on the IBM board (also because the owners of Digital Research blew it, but that’s a story for another time). Further, IBM had funded Microsoft pretty heavily to help development of the NT kernel with super cushy terms because of the aforementioned relationship with the board. So while, yes, on the one hand you could classify this as competition and it’s a little hard to feel bad for giant corporations, on the other hand this was Bill Gates being a twat and taking advantage of what was essentially a favor. There’s a reason the movie about him and Steve Jobs back in the day was called “Pirates of Silicon Valley“.

Story time: There was another operating system very much like Windows called OS/2. This operating system was made by IBM and Microsoft. It even had DOS and NT kernel compatibility and is where the NT kernel came from. While MS and IBM were working on OS/2 MS secretly developed Windows and made deals with third-party PC manufacturers like HP and Compaq for them to run Windows and not OS/2. Despite the fact that Microsoft was where it was then because IBM had chosen DOS for its PC operating system until that time.

OS/2 still got an interesting life though. It was widely used as an embedded operating system well into the 2000s. If you ever used an ATM or cash register in the early 2000s you almost certainly used OS/2.

Windows did not get where it is today through organic growth. It did so by standing on the shoulders of giants and dealing under the table.

People already pay that much just as a subscription. Given that that $350 came with like 10 years of support; Yes I honestly think that people would pay a couple hundred dollars for a game like RuneScape or something that came with a 10 year guarantee.

I think the point is more that when they decide they don’t want to run the servers anymore they should have to release the server code or in some other way allow the server to be run locally so that the game isn’t useless.

Also, until about 15 years ago, it was completely expected that you would buy a software once and they would still run their servers. That’s why windows used to cost like $350 in mid 2000s dollars, you could still reasonably expect to get online updates for it years later.

I get what you are saying, but the Saturn V was never intended to be an ICBM. Depending on what numbers you look at too, they weren’t actually that well funded. Some of the largest estimates that I’ve seen place NASA’s inflation adjusted budget between 1960 and 1973 at just under $600 billion. Or roughly half of what we’re spending in one year on the military currently.

To put it another way, at its absolute peak budget NASA received roughly 4.6% of the current military budget.

As a Native American I have bad news for you about how long the world will sit idle while people are genocided and land is seized.

AI doesn’t have cognition and it doesn’t do research, it’s a piece of software that cannot think or learn.

As a Native American I have been asked more than once if I live in a teepee by other Americans. I often respond that I do but it has doors and windows and running water and we call it a house.

We absolutely saw those photos in school in the US… maybe this person just didn’t pay attention?

If you don’t connect your Fire TV or other Amazon device to the internet it will talk to your next door neighbors Echo or whatever to send your data back to Amazon.