Honestly, I’m not 100% sure. I would bet that a modern compiler would just “do the right thing” but I’ve never written code in such a high performance fashion before.

Especially these days. Current-gen x86 architecture has all kinds of insane optimizations and special instruction sets that the Pentium I never had (e.g. SSE). You really do need a higher-level compiler at your back to make the most of it these days. And even then, there are cases where you have to resort to inline ASM or processor-specific intrinsics to optimize to the level that Roller Coaster Tycoon is/was. (original system specs)

It’s also worth noting that the launch PS3 also had a whole PS2 inside of it, which partially explains the inflated price point. I say partially since I’m prrety sure that a PS2 slim cost a lot less than $330 in 2006 dollars; they could have just bundled both consoles or offered a rebate on a PS2 purchase and called it a day.

margarine is absolutely fine

It’s hydrogenated cooking oil; trans-fats. It is absolutely not good to eat regularly.

Apparently that’s no longer true. Thanks fellow lemmings for setting the record straight.

That said, I do appreciate it for it’s long shelf life and availability when better foods are expensive or unavailable.

To me, aspartame tastes plastic-y and reminds me of how hot asphalt smells. It has more of a chemical taste than a sweet one. Toothpaste gets a pass only because of all the mint that masks it.

Sucralose (Splenda) can taste rather like aspirin in the right concentration. Again, it’s “sweet” in a way but isn’t quite right.

but here we are, back there.

The upside is that if you’re ever prompted to install a thing to your browser to use a site’s features, it’s because the built-in sandbox is too restrictive for what they want. It’s an immediate red flag.

I also view prompts to “use our (phone) app” the same way. I’m already seeing your site, in my browser, with ten different kinds of adblock and tampermonkey scripts running. I already have what I want, and I’m not letting you anywhere near my data plan.

Clearly, it’s time for a “no means no” extension.

Hot take: voter suppression would be far more widespread, as it would stalemate the current “interim” government into power. Permanently. The current system, for all its flaws, doesn’t have that weakness.

Getting overlooked and lumped in with their parent’s generation in a discussion about poor fiscal/political decisions, is the most gen-x thing ever.

a lot of devs love watching stuff like speedrunning

True, but some of them hate it. But with the growing presence of speedrunning friendly features in new titles (looking at you, Supergiant), I think that’s becoming less of a problem.

Either way, these “devs watch” reaction videos are fantastic.

Fastest answer I could find was from 2021: 285GB.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65995150/is-it-possible-to-find-out-the-total-size-of-all-existing-npm-modules-in-the-npm

So make sure you have over half a terrabyte of free storage before you try this. These libraries can do things on install, like download and compile binaries. Then there’s overhead for inodes and such, since we’re talking about millions of files. So the impact to the filesystem is going to be much, much bigger than any figure cited like the above.

Exactly. I tell this story to remind people that cynics aren’t just old cranks on internet forums. They’re also salespeople that decided to make some cash on our way to (consumer) hell, and they’re entitled to a turn at holding the pitchfork.

Slow down there, Satan. I kid you not, I had someone approach me to help develop technology like this a long time ago. The idea was to break into video streams at the ISP and insert advertising on the fly w/o prior approval.

My reaction, after realizing this person wanted to turn the internet into an ad-encrusted wasteland*, was: “What happens when that video stream is something live with a LOT of money behind it, like the Superbowl?” The legal and professional ramifications didn’t even clock with this guy. It was squarely in the “not my problem” category.

(* More-so than it is now. I’m not saying we’re getting off light, but this guy was a-okay with making everything look like the hallway bulletin board in a college dorm.)

Nord VPN can protect you from 3rd parties* that spy on your activities and sell your data.

*Disclaimer: The Eye of Sauron does not apply. Offer not valid in Mordor.

Just don’t tell their investors who are clearly pushing to make it a social media hub.

Edit: it’s the second-to-last place I would ever consider for that purpose. Right after Venmo.

This is a good point. My interactions with the Fediverse over the last few months has been sublime. Maybe users here are just proportionally more active?

Numbers are nice, but they’re not everything. Yeah, we could onboard 2 billion lurkers, but how would that improve anything?