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I thought this was how credit cards were used the world over. It's certainly how I use them. How do Americans use them that differs from this? Color me confused.

(Also: installments. They are often the norm in my country, but I understand they are less common for Americans).


I don't think that works like that in Europe, cash backs are rare and even fewer people use them.

I have credit card only to be able to rent car on vacation. It is not used outside of that. For other payments I use debit card.


Are you implying the same people that are pessimistic about the internet are also AI hypers or tech entrepreneurs? Because HN isn't monolithic, it's entirely possible -- in fact, likely -- that these are two distinct sets of people who both read HN. I know I'm pessimistic about much of what the hype people like.

Edit: or if you meant the grandparent claims not to be a doomer but is pessimistic about something, I don't see the contradiction. It's more like "I don't generally like sweet things, but this cake is nice". Where's the contradiction?


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World Happiness Report finds this:

"In general, most Western industrial countries are now less happy than they were between 2005 and 2010. Fifteen of them have had significant drops, compared to four with significant increases."

"In eight of the ten global regions shown in Figure 2.2 (covering roughly 90% of the world’s population), those in the youngest age group have higher life evaluations now than in 2006–2010, either in absolute terms or relative to those over 25. Youth wellbeing has only fallen in the NANZ countries [United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand] and Western Europe, both absolutely and relative to adults. [Emphasis added]"

https://www.worldhappiness.report/ed/2026/executive-summary-...


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> I'd be happy to send them back there and let them see for themselves.

I'm curious how you intend to do this.


Are you saying that nothing has ever gotten worse or just nothing in the last twenty years?

Obviously, any pullback in technology or society comes secondary to our psychologically rooted need to whinge.

Some things have objectively gotten worse. Not EVERYTHING as this site would lead you to believe.

"This site" doesn't exist. Individual people do. And you'll see plenty of people all hyped over AI or any new tech here.

I think your comment is dismissive of valid criticism. Sorry, but I'm not convinced by the line of (blanket) argument who goes "the old always complain about the young". It fails to engage with the actual details of the criticism.

What details of the criticism? The comment I replied to had nothing to rebuttal, it was communicating a general mood with zero supporting evidence.

Even worse: the comment was obviously referencing TFA, which your dismissive retort failed to address, falling back to the cliche of "every generation complains about the new and thinks old stuff was better".

It's a thought-terminating cliche that fails to add anything to the discussion. At least you could have made it a top-level comment about TFA, so it wouldn't read as (empty) criticism of the comment you were replying to.


I love the game, but it was truly impossible back then (pirated, no manual, no idea what I had to do) and even today, with an emulator and every hint on the internet ;)

I know it's not actually impossible, some people finished it, but I never have.

Bruce Lee and The Last Ninja though, I can finish either with my eyes closed!


An alternative that's a bit like cheating since it's not a real C64 but a lookalike running VICE is getting a TheC64.

https://retrogames.biz/products/thec64/

It looks a lot like a C64 breadbin, with an actual working keyboard, but inside there's an ARM and of course it outputs to HDMI and has USB ports for pendrives.

It's a good middle ground between "just an emulator on your laptop" and "a real C64 with all the inconveniences".


I despised the limitations of the included BASIC but loved my C64. I also had a pirated Pascal and learned a bit with it (not much). It wasn't a good platform for programming, but it still made me fall in love with computers.

Getting my first PC XT clone with GW BASIC felt liberating, suddenly I could write graphical games with ease! But to this day I still love my C64, wherever it is now.


My dad bought our first C64 from a co-worker and it came with hundreds of disks, mostly pirated and other "scene" stuff.

I don't know if I'll ever get around to "ripping" those disks to sort through and possibly find anything worthy of sending to the Internet Archive. And this is also assuming they still have anything readable on them.


I get what you mean but I think it's fundamentally different.

The folks back then had more control over the (limited) capabilities of the hardware, and in order not to just blindly type code from a magazine (which we all did) you had to develop a good understanding.

The folks with AI today have much better capabilities with (for most, anyway) much lesser understanding of what's going on.

Both are magic, but one is tinkering with spells, the other is figuring out how to ask a (slightly drunk) wizard to cast spells for you.


>I get what you mean but I think it's fundamentally different.

Well, every generation thinks they invented sex, right? Who knows what wild things they may learn to invent? Maybe even Skynet!


I made a specific point, it cannot be simply deflected with "every generation always thinks <thing>".

I used a saying that describes how common it is for individiuals to attribute their experience as something completely different from all that came before or after. Sorry for referencing something that clearly has no bearing here at all. Carry on.

I understand the saying, I'm arguing it cannot be used as a blanket dismissal instead of actually addressing the point. My comment did elaborate a bit after the sentence you quoted.

It's as irritating as those comments like "they said the same about calculators"... well, maybe AI is not like calculators? Or sex, for that matter.


The 8 Bit Guy has a pretty good video about the Tandy 1000, a great machine.

I probably used that machine for 15 years. It became a nice, distraction-free word processor (WordStar!!), a great machine for running Sierra games, and I had Turbo Pascal and Turbo C, and eventually ran DR-DOS, I believe. I almost blew it up once while making an ISA board to connect to some sensors. Replace quite a few caps on that weekend.

My other machine(s) went from Windows 3.11 -> Windows 95 -> Linux, but that Tandy 1000 had a near-permanent spot for quite a while.


I was disappointed with BR2049 but thought his Dune adaptation is actually good...


No, he's a replicant who believes he's a seasoned detective. Nothing Deckard believes about himself is true.

Or, if you believe he's human, his the typical hard-boiled detective, he did behave in the way Ford portrays in the movie. Not subtle, not particularly clever.


> And the actor that played Leon (Brion James) is also difficult to watch (he was a distraction in The Fifth Element as well).

Wow, couldn't disagree more. I mean, Brion James wasn't a good actor, but he aced his role of Leon. Leon is weird, awkward and insecure, while also capable of great violence... which fit Brion perfectly.


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