With NATs, MAC randomization, WiFi hotspots, user agent spoofing, VPNs, TOR, it seems difficult if not impossible to fingerprint the devices that belong to those who strive to remain hidden.

...but I thought judges weren't supposed to show any bias?

Moot point when that can be the experience with any OS. When people get Linux machines from me, they're already set up as well.

That's been my experience. Meanwhile on Linux everything works out of the box, automatic updates take care of security patches, and I use a GUI to select whatever apps I want and they install just fine, but most of what I need is right there out of the box. Office, browser, music/photo software, video player, stuff to import/export from my phone and tablet, it's brilliant.

And it's all the software I'm used to from Windows, such as LibreOffice, VLC, Firefox, Chrome, Inkscape, Gimp, so there's no problems with relearning the apps or using the same files across any platform for me.

Default Linux installs just work, Windows needs a lot of drivers, patching & reboots, and helper apps, to even be useful.

I subscribe to access the internet, whether or not people put invasive ads/on their sites have nothing to do with it, but there are no "packages" I have to choose and I can do what I want with my bandwidth, so I choose to visit sites that respect me as a user. I do support sites I like by allowing ads, even Slashdot which has offered me the choice of disabling ads.

Sorry, you lost me at "subscribers". I am not going to subscribe to anything full of ads, or that may be full of ads in the future. I'm definitely not going to subscribe to receive user generated content either. This ex-battered cable wife is not making the same mistake.

All my old game consoles. They're still fun, and nostalgic too.

Only if you hate yourself, in 2 player there's a game breaking bug where you can't get past the snake level. Not that it matters because you can't get past the speed bikes unless you're some sort of savant

That high pitched whine is irritating, and I don't have room for a CRT. After a while you won't be able to find them anyway. I wouldn't be able to use it for anything else so why bother? I want the convenience of having my consoles look good on my HDTV. Don't dismiss the problem here. A lot of retro gamers want 240p on HDTVs.

This is not a slashvert, these solutions have been around for a long time, and as for the NES RGB board it's constantly sold out so they don't need our help on that. Actually this was posted on Kotaku a day ago and someone probably found it geekworthy, and it is. Getting 240p to display properly on HDTVs is a huge pain for retro gaming enthusiasts.

Use an emulator?! No thanks, that's like telling vinyl enthusiasts to get MP3s. Accuracy is important, and emulators are a mixed bag, and to ask someone who wants the original feel and the convenience of a console to fuck around with emulators is missing the point. Also try finsing a good legal Saturn emulator that works on Linux. Besides, there's nothing like using the original hardware, control pads, and media.

I don't know why the hell they omitted 240p/line doubling mode from HDTVs. It's truly a pain in the ass. I wish I knew what I was doing, I'd try and implement it in the SamyGo firmware. As it is now, game systems that are supposed to display in a line doubling mode instead display as interlaced, so you get a ton of ugly artifacts. I even bought a few HDMI-outputting VHS/DVD players hoping that it would recognize the mode and display correctly, but nope. Now I'm trying to outfit my consoles with SCART cables and convert to component YbPbR, but the NES doesn't support RGB 15khz mode. This is why we need an RGB board, replacement PPU that supports RGB from a VS DuckHunt arcade board for example, or FPGA-based PPU solution such as Universal PPU.

This has been around for a while now, the only difference here seems that is it's being applied to streaming games and done on the server side for the player, instead of the player side.

Thanks for explaining this! I now feel like I know a lot more about the situation.