They made great fidget toys.

I loved my slider as well. They made texting so much easier. I went from one of those to a blackberry bold.

I like to hear the howl of the coyotes and the hoot of the great horned owl nearby at night. We have no issues with cats roaming the neighborhood.

Large corporations rarely innovate and try new things. Most innovation comes from smaller players with limited market share taking risks.

Large companies buy out smaller ones who create cash cows from taking large risks. The large company then milks the cash cows until they are completely dead.

The consolidation of studios to a few megacorporations has led to this inevitable end. The solution is simple: break them up. If we have 30 or so similar sized studios competing, we will get better movies/TV again.

Windows did a few vital things that Apple failed miserably on in the 90’s.

Mac dropped support for legacy software and hardware on every new OS in the 90’s. Microsoft maintained backwards capability. It was a major reason windows was more resource intensive and had more bugs. It was a smart move because windows OS was able to handle more software and hardware than Macs. This is the top reason why windows demolished Mac in sales.

Microsoft’s business model allowed greater range of pricepoints. Most users in business or at home do not need the capabilities of the lowest priced Mac model. You don’t need much to check e-mail, browse the web, and do some basic word processing. Apple did not service this largest section of the market at all.

“Due to the success of the program, vulnerabilities are harder to find. The amount we are paying is now insufficient to justify the time and effort for most researchers.”

One year later…

“The largest security breach ever has occured for Google…”

That’s an ad for Mormons. The Mormons are a corporation disguised as a church that has gained extreme wealth. They own a huge real estate empire, universities, and farms plus over a hundred billion in one investment fund.

Thy have been caught numerous times breaking all sorts of financial laws but because of their status as a church it’s hidden.

For the Mormons it’s all about profit and hoarding wealth.

Them “Just order on the Kiosk”

You mean the thing that takes 20x longer to order and tosses all sorts of bullshit ads at me?

Me “No.”

Hey me too, birthday buddy.

I have a strict, “do I give a fuck” policy when it comes to security.

I keep the harder to crack passwords for critical things like banking, etc… since there’s only a few I can remember them. I also always use MFA.

For all the other shit that I don’t give a fuck if it’s hacked it’s the good old *Banana$1234" type password that I reuse for decades and save to firefox’s password manager.

Not quite, in my experience on really cold days my heat pump struggles to keep up. This is expecially true when the outside unit is frosting up. The unit has to reverse and pump heat out of the house.

That’s one of the reasons i run my wood pellet stove on those days. The secondary source of heat takes the load off the heat pump.

I have been on a 3 year replacement cycle of unlocked phones for most of the last decade on my personal phones. I buy whatever lower mid-range android phone looks the best at the time.

My workphone is a flagship due to the insane business discounts they get ($320 for a S23 at launch).

I am currently carrying a Nokia G50 and the S23. I honestly don’t see much difference in daily performance. The G50 makes clearer phone calls. The S23 is a little bit faster.

I am debating going to a 4 year cycle now.

Lol. A swing and a miss. Not even close to what I said. Try again. Since your from, Texas perhaps your should see a Dr about concussive brain trauma.

Here’s a hint. Divide 40million by 2 cows per acre and you get 20 million. That’s about how many acres we need to use to feed every cow in the U.S under irrigated annual crops production. Instead we use around 800 million acres (grassland plus forest).

So 97.5% of the land are we are using to graze cows, we don’t need to use. We do it because the government subsidizes archaic agricultural practices and makes it affordable.

Well that settles it. You too ignorant on the subject to make a coherent reply.

A 1,200 lb lactating beef animal needs around 3% of it’s body mass every day. So around 35lbs of dry matter forage per day. Works out to around 6.4 tons DM/year.

Under irrigation, In areas without freezing temps, 25tons DM/acre is possible (not easy) or 4 cows. In areas with freezing temps 12-15 tons DM/acre can be accomplished or 2 cows (1 cow if the growing season is short)

10-15" rainfall zone produces around 600lbs DM/acre of which around 50% is available (timing issue) this is around 0.15 tons DM/acre. 6.4 tons DM for one cow is around 43 acres.

In a 5-10" rainfall zone it reduces to under 200lbs DM/acre total. Or 0.05 tons DM/acre or around 128 acres per cow. With that much walking their energy needs increase by as much as 50%. Or around 200 acres/cow.

Guess who grew up on a ranch with BLM grazing ground :-) My grandfather decided going bankrupt was a better than listening to a younger more hotheaded me.

This is mostly done in the western U.S. It also takes around 40 acres of land/cow. In drier areas it takes 200 acres per cow.

In an irrigated field, with annual crops, and rotational grazing, we can feed 2-4 cows/acre depending on the location.

We do not need to use 95% of the land we use for pasture.

College e-mail password was a 6 digit non-changeable pin number on windows 95.

Guess what my phone lock screen pin is today.

I wouldn’t carve out an exception for apartment complexes.

Transition apartment complexes to a condo model with HOA fees to cover all the shared upkeep and expenses. Limit HOA fees to real upkeep costs and expenses (no massive profits for a HOA management company).

My sister-in-laws first place was an apartment complex converted to condos. Her mortgage plus HOA fees where the same as the rent on a comparable apartment in he area.

When she got married, had kid, and purchased a larger place 5 years later, she got her down payment plus all of her mortgage payments back (sold it for 10% more than she bought it for).

That makes more sense. I was wondering why you didn’t connect via ATL to CDG and take the train to lyon. It was always faster for me when I did that trip 5 or 6 times per year. However I was traveling with just a carryon by myself.

Where RiF resided for me