People assume programmers know all about hacking. Because we “know about computers.”

It doesn’t have a sound, it’s just the words themselves.

A year or two ago I read about some guy who is still managing the trailer park he inherited from his dad with a TRS-80 (I think), using an app he wrote way back when. If it works it works!

Great question! If it’s only a few GB I wouldn’t bother with tape. There are other options like

• Google Photos - I’ve been using it for 10+ years without filling up the free 10 or 15 GB, whatever it is.
• Burning a bunch of DVDs, repeat every 5 years.
• Get a couple cheap hard drives then replace 1 of them every 3-5 years so one is always fairly new.

What “mere users” wanted used to be the prime directive for software development. Now it’s whatever scheme the marketing team comes up with.

For a truly peak UI make the text very light gray on a white background, in the thinnest font possible.

The main point is that these interactions happen much less often IRL than online, where the anger trolls post relentlessly. If they acted like that in person almost nobody would ever talk to them, but for some weird reason they get a lot of takers online.

And Gloucestershire sounds like Glousteshire.

In his comments on the Jeeves & Wooster series Stephen Fry talked a bit about English family names. Among others, he said Mainwaring is pronounced “Mannering”, and Cholmondeley is “Chumley”.

Same here. One of my favorite bit-part actors is Siobhan Fallon, who played the wife of “Egger” in Men in Black. She absolutely stole the few scenes she was in. I didn’t know I was mispronouncing her name for years.

Just mentioned this in another thread - Kraken. I say it phonetically - "krayken - but for some reason the world says “cracken”.

People who naievely pipe AI output directly to end users are ignoring the fundamental principle that writers need editors. AI isn’t at fault any more than a junior copywriter would be at fault for screwing up. In both cases their job is to produce rough copy which an editor is supposed to make a pass over. The problem lies with the management decision to remove the human editor from the process.

Mediocre managers have always looked for magic bullets to fix problems they aren’t smart enough to handle. They’ll bring in consultants who give a seminar and leave a set of binders behind, and say do everything this way now, believing the sales pitch that said it would revolutionize the whole department. These same talentless managers are embracing AI with the same false hopes and implementing it just as clumsily.

I think that’s ths slur of familiarity, like how people in New Orleans call it “norlans”.

Carpentry guru Norm Abrams always says “draw” too. “Let’s see how the draws fit…”

I pronounce Kraken phonetically - “krayken” - but the world seems to prefer “cracken”.

Yeah a lot of people in this thread seem to be comparing their personal good ol’ days with now, rather than thinking broader.

Without elaboration all you’re saying is smart phones are poopy.

A few technological aspects of life are incredibly easier and more accessible. We have instant access to any form of information, from porn to encyclopedia articles. Comparing prices and ordering things - commonly called “mail order” 30 years ago - took weeks compared to a couple days now. Communication is far easier and cheaper - talking between San Francisco and Stockholm or Singapore would have cost several dollars per minute 30 years ago, and now it’s a built-in feature of network access. Most of us have in our pockets a telephone, photo/video camera, advanced computer, entertainment and game console. There have also been some notable medical advances - my friend died from leukemia in the 90s, and it’s very treatable now, along with various kinds of tumors.

Absolutely agree. There’s a minority of highly polarized people who encourage a false binary view of the world - where anyone who doesn’t 100% agree with you is your enemy, and questioning even a subtle aspect of an opinion is an all-out attack. These people post so much they dominate forums and create the false appearance of trends. Most people aren’t nearly that polarized.

Mine! Mine! Mine!