RickRussell_CA

Currently, PopOS although I’m not really that enthusiastic about it.

What? Why would you choose that over Baptist Church of Missouri SynodOS, you heretic?

Certainly, but Apple was comparing itself to other computer companies with international reach, not to the white box PCs coming out of the Floppy Wizard store in the strip center.

So, I lived through that time, and I supported computers professionally during that time. I started working at a university help desk in 1989.

It’s easy to go back and look at Apple products and white-box PCs of the era (or quasi-legit clones like Compaq, HP, Gateway, etc) and say, “oh, on specs, the Apples were MASSIVELY overpriced – you can get a much better deal with the PC”.

The problem was that PCs were nowhere near on par, functionally, with Macintosh.

• Networking. We were running building-wide Appletalk networks – with TCP/IP gateways – over existing phone wires YEARS before anybody figured out how to get coax or 10base-T installed. We were playing NETWORK GAMES (Bolo, anyone) on Mac in the late 80s.

• And when they did… what do you do with networking in DOS? Unless you ran a completely canned network OS (remember Banyan, Novell, etc. ad infinitum?) and canned apps specifically designed to work with it, you were SOL. Windows 3.0 and 3.1 were a joke compared to System 7.

I configured PCs and Macs for the freshman class in 1995. For the Mac? You plug the ethernet port in and the OS does the rest. For the PC… find a DOS-compatible packet driver that works with your network card, get it running, then run Trumpet Winsock in Windows 3.1, then… then… it was a goddamned nightmare. We had to have special clinics just to get people’s PCs up and running with a web browser, and even then, there were about 10% of machines we just had to say “nope”. Can’t find a working driver, can’t get anything working right. Your IRQs are busted? Who fuckin’ knows. I ran the “Ethernet Clinic” until the late 90s, when Windows 98 finally properly integrated the TCP/IP layer in the OS.

• Useful software on the Mac had a pretty consistent look & feel. On the PC? Even in Windows 3.1, it was all over the map. You might have a Windows native program, you might have a DOS program that launches in a console window, you might have a completely different graphical interface embedded in the software (Delphi apps, anyone?). Games were using DOS into the mid 90s because getting anything working right in Windows 3.1 was a total fuckin crap shoot.

Windows 95 started to fix things, finally. And Windows XP would finally bring an OS with stability comparable to Mac (arguably WIndows 2000 as well, but it was never really offered on non-corporate PCs).

The short version is: that $3000 Mac could do a lot more than that $1800 PC, even if the specs said that the CPU was faster on the PC.

Well, that button probably dates from the late 80s or early 90s, when Apple was comparing Macs to branded IBM PS/2s and such that were sold to schools and enterprises.

And they weren’t wrong, at the time. Those PS/2s were fuckin’ expensive.

“Main Quest”. What does that even mean? That’s nonsense.

The idea that anyone finishes a game of Civilization is a myth.

What, is this a Canadian assassin?

I went through two defective EVGA cards within the original card’s warranty period. On the second card, EVGA tried to deny my warranty.

They eventually made it right, after I shamed them on Reddit.

What is a sport? Why does it exist?

It exists because people come together to play it. And maybe because some people are willing to pay for tickets to watch it, or sometimes because powerful people want it (to sell product, to train people in national defense, etc).

If you’re not engaged with any of those stakeholders, you can’t change the sport. Ideas about the limited women’s class of sport will only change if the players & organizers want it to change – or in the rarer case, because the ticket buyers demand change. But many of these sports are not driven by ticket sales, so there is limited opportunity to win hearts and minds.

Harrison Bergeron

I not telling you to accept or be happy with anything. I am saying that if you want women’s sports to work the way you think they should work, you’ll need to go through their governance bodies.

That really doesn’t answer my question, it just splits it up between different bodies.

Sorry, that’s just reality.

I can’t give you a general answer that applies to all of women’s sport, and for a specific answer regarding a particular women’s sport, you’ll need to consult with the governing body of that sport, and recognize that body may pander to interests (commercial, or the preferences of its participants and other stakeholders, etc) that have nothing to do with how you prefer to define “woman”.

The determination of who may compete in limited-class sports must be made by rules.

It’s not a matter of who you or I think is a woman who qualifies. Only the governing body of that sport makes that determination.

He is on the UK Sex Offenders’ registry.

Is this controversial? You’re paying for the storefront.

By M. Night Shamaladingdong

He’s got radioactive nuts.

Where did he get a squirrel-sized spider costume?

Did Squirrel Girl make it for him? DID SHE ALREADY HAVE ONE JUST IN CASE?

Try ChatGPT instead of MultiVac