Crash Team Racing PS1 was IMHO better than Mario Kart N64. The wumpa fruit added a neat dimension, and the ability to select weapons for battle mode was great.

I just wish we’d have neither inflation nor deflation.

Some tech has followed this pattern. For example: entry level Mac laptop in ~2000 was the iBook, priced at $1599 ($3k+ in today’s dollars). The current entry level Mac laptop (M4 Air) starts at $999 — cheaper in absolute dollars, and way cheaper in relative dollars.

(Macs are just an example since Apple doesn’t have a very extensive product list, so there’s only one “entry level” laptop to choose from. And yes it’s fair to ask if the relative specs have just gotten worse, but I think this is also the opposite — the iBook was iirc criticized as being underpowered, whereas the M4 Air is afaik well regarded.)

I am the Walrus?

Missed opportunity to replace “dozen” with 11 ;)

Once I pulled an HDD out of an old TiVo for a desktop build (Gentoo, I think — this was a while back). I called the machine “voit” because it was an anagram of TiVo — but I particularly liked that it’s a homophone for Voight, of Voight-Kampff fame.

Interesting, TIL — thanks!

Books has become e-books.

To some extent — but have you been to a hip bookstore recently? They exist, and are very much alive.

Cashless requires power all the way from PoS to wherever the servers live.

Edit: see below

It makes for a mean cappuccino, and is environmentally much, much lower impact.

My comment from another thread: https://startrek.website/comment/16491624

tl;dr: tiny production, would be astonished if they got $6k out of it, and that’s not counting time, props, transportation, etc.

It’s for 5 performances on the calendar, tickets are $30. It’s a 49 person theater — and some of those seats are sure to be friends and family comps. Venue costs between $200-$250 per performance.

It would be a miracle if they got $6k from tickets after venue fees. And that’s not counting time, cost for props, transportation, etc.

This is small time artsy theater. Suggesting that it’s a cash grab is a bit insulting to those involved.

Compensation for engineers in the Bay area will average much higher than $200k, and that’s not counting benefits (medical, etc.). So cost to the company will be way higher than 200k/employee.

For a project that has hardware, there will be large expenses associated with that — custom silicon has huge setup costs, for example.

And you’re worried that the show is starting small???

I didn’t say I was worried; the headline left a lot of wiggle room for interpretation, I was adding some detail.

Looks like it’s Taylor Street Theatre, a 49-seat venue.

Oh, I tried that once or twice — I’ll have to try it again!

There’s so such thing as starter “discard”! Add water, oil, sugar, salt, baking soda and you’ve got some vegan sourdough pancakes. Or use any of a number of other recipes — but no sense in wasting it.

You mentioned ham radio — definitely fun! It’s a process to get into it though, as you need to study/pass an exam, and then you need a radio. Radios range from cheap ($25 or so) in the VHF/UHF (“walkie talkie”-style) to more expensive for an HF rig ($1000 range for 100W HF). If you want to get into low power (“QRP”) it can be much cheaper. You also need a fair amount of space for a good antenna setup…

There are tons of different communication modes, some without a computer and, like you mentioned, some that use computers. wsjtx and fldigi are popular programs.

Good luck!

D’oh, I’m a doofus — it’s search that I was thinking of (apt-cache search, not apt-get search).

Can apt-get refresh package list?

Edit: yes…yes it can. I was confused.

I could be wrong but I think these are prepaid, not paid on delivery…