toddestan

I still have that exact model of Dell sitting in a closet. Was in regular use until around 2014 or so. Even ran Vista on it for a while.

It was not my dorm room PC though, that was an Athlon XP box I put together myself.

With the N64, it helps if you can hook it up to a TV from around that era too. Games like Goldeneye look terrible on a modern LCD. I had that experience myself - "Man, I know I'm used to modern games now, but I don't remember these games looking this shitty". Then I dragged out my old CRT and hooked it up, and instantly it was "Now this is how I remember these games looking like".

At best, I've seen a small discount and whatever is traded in is junked to keep it off the second-hand market.

I'm not saying that old hardware is useless. I make good use out of old hardware too. I have an old i5 Dell from about 2012 running ZoneMinder, a Phenom II system from around 2009 that I use a Linux server, an even older Core 2 Duo system that's a glorified MP3 player, and even a very early 2000's Pentium III that I use for a router (sadly I'm going to have to retire it from these duties soon - it can barely handle a 100 mbps DSL connection, and it's too old and outdated to run the modern router distributions).

However, for every one of those computers I have another one like it sitting in a closet plus a few extras. All the geeks and tinkerers I know are also swimming in old hardware. If I really wanted to get rid of this stuff, I'd have a hard time giving it away. Economically, this stuff is worthless. The supply greatly exceeds the demand(*)

(*) well, except maybe the Pentium III... it's old enough now that retro gamers may be interested...

I've never had to present my SS card or a photocopy of it for any job. They of course ask for my SSN as they legitimately need it, but that's it.

If all she uses the computer for is playing Sims 4, another option is just let her continue to use Windows 10. If she's running it through Steam she's probably got another 3-4 years before that stops working.

That's true, but the supply vastly outstrips the demand. They may make great Linux machines, but the majority of 10-15 year old computers have little to no economic value.

That's interesting. I always felt the newer Bond films were taking themselves a bit too seriously. I suppose this might be why.

Theoretically, yes. A human would be smart enough not to drive right into a painted wall, using only their eyeballs combined with their intelligence and sense of self-preservation. A smart enough vision system should be able to do the same.

Using something like LIDAR to directly sense obstacles would a lot more practical and reliable. LIDAR certainly has enough distance (airplanes use it too), though I don't know about the systems Tesla used specifically.

I remember my first game of Stellaris many years ago - I had bought some pack that included some of the DLC out at the time. The crisis was bugged so that even after I beat the crisis and wiped it from the galaxy, the game didn't recognize that I had done so which left the game unbeatable. This was my first playthrough, no mods or anything like that, and I hit a game-breaking bug.

I played quite a bit of Stellaris as it was (still is?) a fun game, but I am more of a casual gamer and every time I picked the game up again they had changed at least one major mechanic, and there was yet another DLC out if you wanted the full experience. Encountering bugs in a play through was common, and game breaking ones would still pop up from time to time. Finally I just got fed up, especially for the cost of some of the pricier DLC you can buy a game like Factorio which is a much better value.

So at this point I'm done with Paradox. I suppose if I really had the urge to play Stellaris again I'd find something out on the high seas, but there's enough other, better polished, games out there to keep me busy.

It wouldn't happen. The Republicans would either gerrymander the hell out of Canada in their favor, or Canada would just be another unincorporated territory like Puerto Rico - part of the US but no representation in Congress.

The Republican propaganda machine has already convinced a bunch of people who grew up during the cold war that Russia is now the good guys. It'll take some time, but I don't doubt they could do it.