Small steps are how engineering gets done. It’s a rare technology that proves its value overnight.

Google Maps right now:

MIT administrator dusts off their hands…

“Problem solved!”

Well, pointedly, the question was not: “Does your current health insurance provide good value?”

I’m betting a hell of a lot less than 81% of people would rate value as “excellent” or “good”.

81 percent of insured adults gave their health insurance plans a rating of “excellent” or “good.”

In related news, 81 percent of diners at Michelin star restaurants rated their own food security as “excellent” or “good”.

For what it’s worth, this particular case happened 2 years ago, in Missouri:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/10/15/missouri-abortion-ban-pregnancy-complications/10496559002/

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.

The interaction between Jobs (Michael Fassbender) and Woz (Seth Rogen) pretty much sums up the Apple ][ era.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fweZsmH4Tw

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.

Then they would have to remove the various hooks in the Settings app that actually call and open the Control Panel.

How many are there? I can think of several (advanced mouse settings, advanced network settings, printer properties, date & time has a callout back to the old panel…)

Windows 10 came out nine years ago, so they don’t seem in any particular rush.

Yeah, but ISPs are rich and VPN providers are not. The most recent numbers I can find for Cox (2020) show $12.6 billion in revenue.

But can it run Crysis?

Compared to Defense, State, Homeland Security, Attorney General…

Well, I’d like for him to get a shot BEFORE he’s a senior citizen.

I just wish Mr. Buttigieg wasn’t confined to such a low-stakes role in the administration. It’s great that he gets the occasional moments like this, but he’s not exactly being set up for a run at the Presidency in 2028.

Hillary would have done a MUCH better job with the pandemic. She would have (rightly) seen it as her opportunity to make a mark of historical importance on the Presidency, and started managing the shit out of it, 8 o’clock day one.

Did we need Fauci to tell us that? Trump went on record to the press, several times, claiming that COVID would fade away in a few months. He was wrong, of course, and winter 2020-21 was one of the deadliest periods.