A long time ago I read that around the time Linux was getting started, the BSD/UNIX wars were putting a legal cloud around any BSD derivative. IIRC, Linux started a year or two before FreeBSD. This gave Linux an early first-mover advantage, which proves to be quite important. I would also say the Linux had a bit more desktop/multi-media support, which helped adoption. FreeBSD also had low-cost competition from Wind River or something like that, that had a BSD derivative.

Oracle was just one more company to use Linux, to most people. It was Google, Amazon, Facebook, and many other internet 1.0 companies that were household names and "Tech-darlings" that gave it credibility and associated it with innovative start-up culture. Oracle was more of a me-too. Linux was a huge behind-the-scenes part of the internet boom.

That's my point exactly. The developers would demand better "Development systems / IDEs, compilers, database engines, and so on". They would spend that time they are waiting for compiles to finish devising better development toolchains and writing tighter code. The exact specs I mention are just an example, but the least they could do is test on more realistic spec'd machines.

I grew up in the 640k RAM DOS days. It forced people to write tight code. Constraints force people to be frugal. Look at how great the Norton Utilities for DOS were.

As long as developers keep getting the fastest computers, with much more resources than the average consumer PC, programs will be bloated. If you gave all programmers I3's with 8GB of RAM, you would see a massive reduction in code bloat and a huge increase in efficiency -- but at the cost of developer time. They are simply not feeling the pain that normal people with average or older computers feel.

I was thinking about getting a new cell phone but was perplexed by the choices. With Motorola phones off the table, it makes the decision easier. Perplexity is already making my life better and I've never even used it!

In my state, the speed limit it 80 and the flow of traffic is sometimes about 90. It's wide open spaces, relatively straight roads and light traffic, until it snows and the prudent speed is closer to 35.

That said, I'm amazed that it's legal to sell cars that go over 100mph on public roads. There just is no lawful purpose, outside of police cars and maybe ambulances.

This reminds me of two modems negotiating the fasted protocol both support.

The warrant would need particularized suspicion and probable cause, but this was a fishing expedition. And the business record exception is a joke.

It would be so easy to safeguard this with a switch that's a hardware disconnect for the mic, but I'll bet that won't be included.

You seem to be ignoring the fact that the "purchaser" already bought a license to listen to the songs, which is the lion's share of the cost of physical media. Content Shifting from one physical media format to another, for personal use, is already protected under Fair Use, though companies try to block that with DRM.

For what you write to make sense, the music companies would have had to give a steep discount on purchasing a different format, because the individual already owned a license for in-home use. There is no reason but greed to charge a person three times for something they already bought a license for.

You used to see this with software where once you bought a license, you could buy replacement physical media for a nominal fee. It was the license that counted.
The one time I bought a CD on Amazon years ago, I was immediately given access to all of the mp3's on the CD, proving that it's possible to do this in a cost effective manner and the main thing was the license.

Their books are shit-tier.

For most things, 8K isn't useful but would use 4x the bandwidth of 4K. Most of the stuff I watch via streaming, if advertised as 4K, is so compressed that it's about the quality of good 1080 uncompressed.

If you're shooting a feature film, by all means shoot in 8k so you can crop as necessary, but for home use, I wouldn't want 8k unless I had a 20 ft screen or larger.

I'm also GenX. The thing is, advertising works. Even for people who think they are "immune" to advertising. It's a multi-billion dollar industry for a reason. It effects our thought processes and purchasing decisions. It's really just propaganda with a commercial end. It skews your perception of what's normal and what you ought to have and wear.

The point is that adblocking saves you more money than you can imagine.

By law, as a publicly traded corporation, shareholder profits are the top priority.

My work has some level of adblocking at the firewall as a security measure. Malware has come in through 3rd party ads, so this is reasonable. There's no way end-users can disable it (outside a VPN).

You're absolutely right. The previous system was to just hand out obscene power and wealth to your inbred children, who could kill people with impunity. However bad our current system is, it appears to be an improvement over the previous system.