Some good stuff there. Not ominous at all.

Love Tasting History!

Im one of the 10,000. I didnt know about this theory (conspiracy theory?).

EDI as well

I can’t think of any windows specific games I’ve payed for the last two years.

Flash drives and periodic transfers.

Housing Taxes also increase.

Htop or top

If it’s on Zillow then yes. The trick is to find houses that are not on MLS/Zillow…but realistically there are none. GL! We got ours wnd in one year it went up 40%in a year.

Also in my area that house is a steal and would have offers before it hit Zillow.

That’s rough buddy.

I hate that I understand this. Well done.

7 was the windows where the configuration options started become less pronounced. You had to “know” where to go to change any system configurations. There were also many different ways to do the same operations that XP and some other windows had just one way of doing a thing. I remember something like multiple ways of powering off windows just one example.

Its better than modern day windows in that it had better backwards compatibility layers (in my opinion).

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Im glad games work on proton/wine nowadays.

I grew up in the era where my first computers were MSDOS, then over to win 95, then XP. Back then, most of the iterations on Windows were revolutions in what you could do with your machine. But ever since vista…its just been terrible one way or another. I didnt really enjoy Vista, 7, 10, or 11. They all do relatively the same thing. Theres no “killer” app that is exclusive. Even the AI stuff in win 11 is more a hindrance.

Enthusiasts forget, most people don’t care about their operating system, they care about running their programs. Before you HAD to use MS products to run your programs. Nowadays, most programs are going cloud/hybrid in some manner.

I have an old mac mini that was a server for a good 4-ish years.

The good:

1. They are pretty good at sticking in a closet and forgetting about them.
2. Specs are always on the decent side and some of the older models are easy to upgrade.
3. Power is ok. It sips power
4. It can run for years without issues. I still have two mac minis I used for CI/CD jobs, thin clients, etc…
5. Its a cheap mac. If you need mac for something, like building custom mac specific applications, then its a decent little machine.

The bad:

1. CPU is usually lacking compared to any computer of the same price range.
2. MAC OS. Its good at desktop but as a server, it just doesn’t have the same options/ease of use as a good linux box. You can get around that by dual booting, but its just another headache. Docker/VMs are also an option, but the RAM/CPU usage would take a hit.
3. The newer the model, the harder it is to upgrade.

I would use it as a specialty server if you have something you do automatically only macs can do. Or as a thin client/vm box.

I used to use it as a CI/CD box before github actions was a thing. If you happen to have one, sure set it up for fun. If you dont and are looking at buying one, I would suggest a cheap dell desktop or (depending on what you want to host) a pi 5 or thin client and throw linux on it.

Get a new number. No really, it helped me in the same situation.

In my area:

1. My area is a relatively Low cost of living area surrounded by people that have money. When they want to work remote but still stay in the same state, some % come east for cheap housing. They can pay cash for houses.
2. Corporations are buying houses, then renting. Less houses on the market. They also pay cash for houses.
3. People with multiple houses can use the aforementioned houses to buy up more housing to rent, creating a investment loop. Its in their best interest to keep the houses as small businesses/revenue streams.
4. There are apps that hook into MLS (example: https://www.mlslistings.com/more/mobile-app/) which means investors can make an offer faster than the general public or set up alerts (think stock market) that hook into the API. Ever wonder why some houses get multiple offers before or right after they are listed? This only works if the company/entity selling the property decides to add in the info into MLS and not just go with the defaults.
5. More people are alive today than yesterday. They need housing. There are less houses getting built, or being built for owning. For renting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrxZqPVFTag

Source: Used to work for a company that did this sort of buy/selling of properties.

Interesting site. Whats the deal with matrix.gvid.tv?

Yep. And to add to your statement, its probably to make torrenters/massive downloaders pay or curtail their activities. Then streaming came along, voice chat, etc… that both helped us entertain ourselves and work within the home from the pandemic. If people didn’t have unlimited plans, they would switch ASAP because it was no longer a want, it became a need.

Home internet did happen to have a limit in most places prior to the pandemic (at least in California). It was one of the big quiet changes that occurred. For example, ATT used to have 150GB limit about 5 years ago but it kept getting bumped up.