Modern macOS Is Now Older Than Classic Mac OS Was In 2001.

Well, that did indeed make me feel old, especially since I was using computers well before classic MacOS even came out. My first computer was a TRS-80 that my dad got used by trade, doing mechanic work for someone. I remember pretty well when original MacOS was released as that was about the time I started reading computer magazines in earnest. Yep, I was eight years old, but remember I’d already started reading adult books and magazines (like National Geographic, etc.) two years before. Computer magazines were far less challenging than NatGeo.

Anyway, of course the wisdom of the time was that GUIs were for loser incompetents, and real computer users stuck only to the command line always. Some of that still persists though more computer types these days recognize using the right tool for the job. Hell, even recalcitrant Cisco provides a suite of quite useful GUI tools that are far superior to the command prompt for most things — something they said they’d never do.

Damn. You can see why there are few conventional battles against American forces any longer. It’s suicide.

In the end, 200 to 300 of the attacking fighters were killed. The others retreated under merciless airstrikes from the United States, returning later to retrieve their battlefield dead. None of the Americans at the small outpost in eastern Syria — about 40 by the end of the firefight — were harmed.

The opposing force had artillery, modern tanks, and APCs. They were not amateurs charging the lines on foot. And they were absolutely massacred. America’s military spending is out of control, and there is no way we should be in Syria, but compared to even what we could do when I was in the service, we can bring absolute hell to a conventional opposing force in a way we could not have dreamed of when I was in. What were those fighters thinking, fighting that way? What was the purpose of that? It makes no tactical or strategic sense, unless it was capabilities assessment? If so, that’s a high price to pay.