The figures can be entirely correct and still the answer can be "no". Why? Because Android might use the Linux kernel, but it isn't really a Linux distro in any meaningful sense of the word. And Steam Deck and Chromebooks *can* have some reasonable facsimile of a Linux development environment, but I'd expect maybe 0.1% of users to actually turn it on.

So most of those folks are Linux "users" in much the same way that TiVo owners were linux "users", i.e. they are using a device that deep down, at a level that the user is unaware of, runs some small subset of what a Linux distro typically contains, with a bunch of stuff on top that they mostly aren't in control over.

It's like calling Mac users UNIX users. It's technically correct — the best kind of correct — but grossly misleading.

Next will be incredibly tight regulation on VPN access and use. Leading up to government-run vpns and a Chinese style great firewall.

This is a authoritarian power grab and once authoritarians start grabbing power they don't stop.

I don't think it's anything that can be stopped because voters are too distracted by the culture war bullshit.

The next step is to ban vpns. They will be more tightly regulated than guns.

Not that it matters because human civilization is collapsing but all this think of the children bullshit is just a power grab by authoritarians.

We can't do anything about it because we're too busy worrying about woke trans drag queens forcing us to say happy holidays while playing Mortal Kombat on the Sega Genesis.

Mod parent funny and file it in the set of sets that do not contain themselves.

Not a bad FP branch, but no explicit mention of "moral education", which I think is a that crux of it. It's not just that they want them (= the masses?) to obey orders. It's not even that they want them to obey illegal orders. It's more that they want them too naive to know the difference between good and bad.

Poorly trained monkeys with nuclear weapons and rockets. What could possibly go wrong?

But that would have ended with Russia not being owned by Russians.

The only thing "Russian" about the people that own Russia now is the country on their passports, which they probably don't use anyway because of the sanctions etc. from Ukraine and that many have citizenship in whichever country they have moved to. They sure as hell don't give a damn about the country, it's people, or anything else "Russia", besides their ability to keep extracting money and influence from it.

Of course, you could say that about a lot of the people that essentially own the rest of the world too.

Doubly so in this case, albeit of a slightly different nature. I keep coming across IP addresses that are managed by Cloud Innovations all the time, and almost always leased out to some sketchy ISP that is either heavily compromised by botnets, or an out and out "bullet proof" hosting provider. The latter are particularly interesting as they are presumably raking in the cash because they both covering Lu's rental fees and maintaining a business relationship because they keep cycling to new subnets as the previous ones get blocked. That implies they are not defaulting on the rental fees, and Lu is either oblivious to what that continual changing of ranges for the same customer implies or is fully aware of, and therefore supporting, this kind of activity.

10m IPs, huh. /checks blocklist. Yeah, I've got just over a third of that blocked & flagged as "Cloud Innovations" at the moment, most of which are in /16 and larger IPv4 allocations. About 7m to go, I guess... Thank $deity for IPSets...

... no.

You're not thinking about the trillions of dollars and cheap imports that being the world's primary currency gets you. It's a form of economic colonialism and China would love to have it. So would any European country.

AS I recall, someone tried using chemical SNAP generators with lasers and Neural Networks in the 1980's or 90's.
The system tried to shoot down the moon. Again. Happened before too, with a straight radar system (the Soviets tried? Might have been the US, I forget).

Pretty much. The lady that did the spreadsheet was shocked that it worked much better as a web application. She asked for PHP and SQL training. I helped her get the first basics, then since she wanted to change professions pointed her to professional training. I was concerned I'd show her bad habits, not being expert in it.

Nope. This has been the truth ever since the internet became a thing people could use. The reasons are wrong however.

In 1991-1999 if you wasted your time and money on a college degree, that degree was completely worthless by the time the dotcom bubble burst in 2001. So if you learned Java, Flash, or 30 other "new" products at the time that have since been flushed down the toilet by Adobe, you wasted your money.

The same is happening with "AI" now. If you jumped into the many "AI" stuff colleges are pushing out in the last 3 years, the AI bubble is going to crash before you ever get hired.

The point is that all the entry-level jobs were first hollowed out by outsourcing, then offshoring, and then finally AI. If you wasted your money and time at a college without a job waiting for you, you absolutely wasted your time and money.

Only two career paths are not a waste: Construction, and Medical. These will never be replaced by AI/Robots, because people will not feel safe. Look no further than the "autonomous driving" we do not yet have, and the completely absent "Flying cars". These do not exist because the cost to do it competently will never exist in the current legal framework. Nobody is going to allow a robot to operate on them without the operator being in the room. And nobody is going to allow a robot to assemble a tower without a construction crew around it.

America is very close to handing nuclear launch codes to religious lunatics. One more election and it happens.

These people believe God will protect them from literally anything. I know because I have family like this.

They will launch those nukes. And is America's empire fails we are going to have to start doing military expansion to maintain our economy. We are already moving into Venezuela to take the oil for exactly that reason. Canada and Mexico and the rest of South America will follow. Europe will be next and eventually we'll try our chances with China.

The rest of the world ought to be interfering with the Russian interference that's getting us into this mess but they're all hoping that America will collapse letting them take over as the primary world power and letting their currency take over as the world's de facto currency. If they can pull that off then they're a billionaires get to become the first trillionaires instead of our billionaires becoming the first trillionaires.

The problem is everyone is underestimating how fucking crazy my country is. We will launch those nukes folks. Especially if the religious lunatics who are currently running our government finish the project 2025 work they've been planning for 60 years and end up in total control.

Quoted against censor trolls, but also lack of moderators with funny bones. You were going for Funny, right? Just another case of Poe's Law.

There's a lot more to college than just the academics. College is where you meet the friends you'll keep for life, and often your future spouse. Going from dormland to a shared house with friends as roommates is a gentle transition from living at home to being on your own. The social interaction isn't the bullshit of high school; this is where people start to develop the social skills of adults. At college you choose who you spend most of your time with. When working you spend time with the people your boss hired, like them or not. I think the experience of going to college is important for growth and wellness. And it's hell of a lot of fun too.