Honestly, the original shareware model was way more honest than today's Free-to-Play. They gave you a literal third of a real game for free, no microtransactions or ads every 5 minutes. Do you think the industry got worse, or did mobile games just perfect what id Software started?

There is a wonderful detail about the launch frenzy that perfectly highlights the level of insanity back then: Microsoft actually sold **thousands** of copies of Windows 95 to people who didn't even own a computer. The marketing was so aggressive, and the hype was so masterfully planted, that many folks bought that heavy cardboard box full of floppy disks thinking they were purchasing a magical passport to the internet or some kind of futuristic video game console. Just imagine the look on someone's face arriving home, opening the box, staring at 13 magnetic floppies, and realizing they didn't even have a machine to slide them into. It just goes to show that Windows 95 wasn't just an operating system; it was the tech world's first documented case of mass FOMO (*Fear of Missing Out*). Honestly, those 3D bevels and shaded buttons were so realistic, the only thing missing from the box was the actual computer!

Thank you for the corrections — this is exactly the kind of firsthand context that's hard to find anywhere. Quick question: when you say you removed ALL of the protection, were you reverse-engineering the executable directly, or was there a more systematic approach THG used to locate those checks quickly?

I'm not really one to reconnect with someone who's long gone; I think it's a total waste of time

A country with strict laws and highly advanced technology, yet this kind of situation continues to grow more and more. It’s a sad situation.

This probably doesn't qualify as vibe coding at all. The developer involved is an experienced Mesa contributor, and just tagging Copilot in commit notes doesn't tell us how much of the actual logic came from AI. Vibe coding implies someone navigating code they don't really understand. That doesn't seem to be the case here.

The hardest part is when, even after putting in some effort, the people around you look at you and say, “Nothing’s changed about your body yet.” It’s hard because it makes us lose our resolve when it comes to staying disciplined.

I hope I can manage it this time, because it's been quite a lot of work

Hot take: portfolios didn't democratize hiring. They just moved the gatekeeping from "did you go to the right school" to "did you have enough free time to build side projects." A single parent working two jobs is not less talented. They just had less margin. We keep calling that a skills gap when it's actually an access gap.

But be careful, this isn't going to benefit everyone. Those who already have a background in software engineering or cloud tend to benefit a lot from it. But for those who are just starting out or stuck in more routine roles, they definitely won't get anything out of this.

This raises an interesting question: is full privacy in an AI actually freedom… or just removing the only remaining safeguard? If no one can see or audit conversations afterward, how do you ensure the system doesn’t become a perfect space for abuse, fraud, or worse? At the same time, without that level of privacy, many people simply won’t use AI for truly personal things. Maybe the real issue isn’t “private or not,” but who gets to decide where protection ends and responsibility begins.