Given that the Roberts Court is one of the most corporate-friendly in history, this decision comes as something of a surprise.

Nonetheless, it appears to be largely concordant with the so-called "Betamax case" from the early 1980's which established the principle of significant non-infringing uses as a defense and, despite passage of the DMCA, still largely informs the contours of contributory infringement.

One of the lessons we've had as the Federal, multi-branch nature of the US governmennt has frustrated Trump is that the government may be fucking us over, but it's not doing it in *unison*. It's doing it piecemiel, on the initiative of many interests working against each other, just as the framers intended. The motto on the Great Seal notwithstanding, there are myriad roadblocks to consolidating power in the hands of a single individual. It takes time and repeated failures. This is why the second Trump Adminsitration is worse than the first; they've figured out ways around things like Congressional power of the purse, put more of their henchmen in the judiciary, and normalized Congress lying down and letting the president walk all over them. It's a serious situation, although fortunately Trump isn't long for this world.

No, Unreal Tournament (2014).

It's pretty depressing what happened, actually, because on paper, it was awesome. The base game was free, and it even had a new game mode called Blitz. The amount of maps it shipped with was pretty meager, but the goal was to have modders sell their maps/mods/skins/etc as IAPs within the game and then they got a cut. The game still allowed for private/dedicated servers, and while it lacked some of the polish of UT3, the framework was there and it really worked well as a de facto tech demo for UE4, and was surprisingly stable for an alpha release.

The problem, of course, was that Fortnite quickly became their money printer, limiting how much effort they put into developing the base game, before they finally canned it.

I'm still really bummed about it; I really liked the pre-alpha version I got to play with some friends for a bit.

The request isn't to "gimp" the product features, it's to GIVE USERS THE ABILITY TO OPT-OUT. Users should have the ability to say "no thanks", and Microsoft should allow Windows to behave accordingly. If the argument is that an opt-out control is "gimping product features", then it implies that Microsoft believes users MUST have them, which is a faulty premise that should be corrected...because a $599 Macbook doesn't require iCloud.

While that's true, a responsible generation aims to boost the next generation to a *higher* level than the education they received. The world has become more complex and faster-paced, and even if that weren't true, the consequenes of aiming high and falling short are better than the consequences of aiming for the status quo and falling short.

So while I'm 100% onboard with skepticism that technology will magically make education better, I think the argument that "the education I got worked for me should be good for them" isn't a strong argument. What we need is a better ecducation that would have been a better education fifty years ago: stronger math, science, and language skills, general knowledge, and, I think critical thinking and media literacy. Possibly emotional intelligence -- it's kind of pointless to teach people critcial thinking skills if they are carried away by emotions.

There are no economic or security reasons to blockade Cuba, so that leaves *political*.

It used to be believed that bullies were low status individuals who are lashing out out of frustration. But research has shown that bullying is an effective strategy for achieving and maintaining social status. In other words it's a political winner. So the focus of research has shifted from the bully to the people around him who enable the bullying. The inner circle are the henchmen -- people without the charisma and daring to initiate the bullying, but join in when the bully gets things started. Around them are the audience, the people who wouldn't risk participating but enjoy the bullying vicariously. And around them are the much larger group of bystanders, who don't approve but are waiting for someone else to stop the bullying. Then off to the side are the defenders, who stand up to the bully.

Perhaps the least appreciated supporting factor in the phenomenon of the high-status bully is the silence of the bystanders, which is dependent upon the perception of widespread approval. Since you can't visibly see the the line between the approving audience and the apalled bystanders, the silence of the bytstanders is absolutely essential in sustaining the bullying.

Lot's of Americans are apalled at the idea of using military force to inflict suffering on the Cuban people. But that's only politically advantageous *because* of *them*. Tney are indistinguishable from the relatively small number of people who are thrilled when Trump announced he can do anything he wants wtih Cuba. The gap between actual approval and *perceived* approval is absolutely critical in establishign and maintaining any kind of authoritarianism. This is why would be authoritarian leaders are so focused on punishing and marginalizing any kind of expression of disapproval.

I don't think there is much in the way of misunderstanding.

Still a long wait...and while I could perhaps understand a 15-minute wait (long enough for someone to realize it's a unique request), it's unnecessarily long and disproportionately punishes people who don't kiss the Google ring. Microsoft got called into court for doing FAR less to Netscape.

...which also requires photo ID and a bunch of other hoops, which is a whole headache for FOSS apps. Besides, "verified" means that it's up to Google to bless the developer...which means that Google can decide not to bless a legitimate dev, or can bless an illegitimate dev, or the means of signing an APK can be stolen or leaked...or Google can change the process to require "re-verification" every 30 days at $25 a pop...the process is so ripe for Google to use it for their benefit.

In isolation, perhaps...but it's not like Google is adding this in some sort of broader context that allows for rooting and modding, it's part of an overall trend to make Android just like iOS.

True...but I think there's a bigger problem with balance between safeguards and personal responsibility. Will the next version of Android require a pop-up confirmation after 30 days, or automatically disable the ability to add new sideloaded APKs at intervals? Google isn't stopping here.

This isn't a given; lots of phones don't allow this, or if it's possible, one blows an eFuse...Google isn't adding this delay but also requiring bootloader unlocking from licensees...

Same...but it requires a LOT of research, AND one would have to effectively backup and restore their phone because unlocking the bootloader wipes the phone in the process.

The problem in this case has less to do with what Musi was doing, and more to do with the means of enforcement.

Honestly, I'd agree that the app itself was problematic in what it was doing. I might even agree that there should have been an injunction against Musi.

That, however, isn't the problem.

The problem is that Youtube went to Apple and said "de-list this app for us because it violates *our* TOS"...and Apple said "sure thing". Apple didn't say "give us a court order and we will comply with the court order", which Youtube would only have gotten as a result of winning an actual-trial in actual-court with an actual-judge granting an injunction.

The court system allows for really inconvenient things like "knowing that someone is seeking to compel an outcome against someone", "allowing the defendant to tell their side of the story", "ensuring that the defendant has access to the evidence being used against them", "enabling a (hopefully) neutral third party to hear both sides", and giving the benefit of "government enforcement of the ruling"...those sorts of pesky details that allow for a fair society to exist. Youtube sidestepped all of those things and just asked Apple to do them a solid.

Ultimately, I do think Musi is in the wrong here (if they're not using their own infrastructure or licensing agreements and using Youtube's instead, they should be doing it with an above-board agreement rather than technical loopholes), but the problem isn't the outcome, it's on the very-problematic level of control that allowed Youtube to sidestep due process, enabled by Apple's repeated unwillingness to legitimately allow sideloading on iOS, that the court just legitimized.

So then, let Samsung either pay $X per install like they do on their laptops for Windows, or let Samsung fork AOSP.

They do - they get to control the ad infrastructure and the data that comes from the full Google suite, from hardware vendors like Samsung and Motorola and Oppo. If Google doesn't like it, they can fork AOSP and make PlayOS, and deal with the fallout that comes from pissing off their hardware vendors AND regulators.

And why is that? Perhaps I'll grant the awkward wording where "and then figure out why things don't work" is referring to Google, rather than the user who treated their phone like Linux? Nobody gets Android help from Google directly. Even the phone modders know that installing third party software means that the first party can't help you...so, Google seemingly has no support burden, and users get exactly what they've always had? What's the problem here?

Because the payoff is in keeping people in the Google ecosystem. All the data Google gets to scrape to train their AI has a cost, and that cost is "keeping Android afloat in an open-enough state to keep it as an ecosystem who's side effect is the existence of LineageOS and F-Droid, either of which are used by a tiny segment of users." Android is also an ad platform; every web search shows an ad, and some advertisers pay $50/click for those ads. Android *absolutely* has a payoff, it's just externalized from the users.

Hey, if Google wants to give up AOSP development tomorrow because the fines are too prohibitive, let them. By all means, Google can absolutely do so and release PlayOS as a Pixel exclusive OS, and Samsung can figure out how to move forward with Tizen or their own AOSP fork...but Google's cost for doing this would be "all of the Play Store revenue and all of the ad revenue and a whole lot of the data mining revenue from the 99% of Samsung users who don't use F-Droid or LineageOS".

But more broadly...at what point does Alphabet become big enough to get the "Standard Oil" or "AT&T" treatment?

In 1790, the US population was 94.9% rural. There is no country. in the world today that rural -- Burundi, which looks like blanks spot in the world at night satellite picturs, is 88% rural.

The largest city at the time was New York, with a population of 33,000. Northern Manhattan was near-wilderness, mid-town was farms and country houses.

In 1790 the US was. country you could "police" with sheriffs and volunteer posses, largely to keep the peace. If you got robbed, you hired a private thief catcher. This works in a 95% rural country with just 3.4 million inhabitants. It would be chaos in a country 87x larger.

8GB is plenty of RAM for what most users use their laptops for, if the OS doesn't gobble it up with background tasks. Probably be a good idea to steer clear of Chrome as a browser on these things.

It's actually more like an iPhone 16 Pro runing MacOS in a laptop form factor. Apple basically rummaged through their parts box and pulled out a mobile CPU that'll deliver 50% more single core performance than what's in a high-end Chromebook with only 80% of the power draw. And Apple's got *massive* economies of scale on those parts, so they can afford to deliver a lot of bang for the buck.

The only place the Neo appears to falls short is in RAM, but this is *not* a power user machine, it's for basic office tasks and multimedia consumption. Realistically 8GB is plenty for many users.

In any case, the desktop isn't the center of most users's universe anymore; the switchboard of their life is their smartphone. This is a gateway drug to MacOS IOS integration, and eventually onto the upgrade treadmill. Users will switch seamlewssly between their iPhones and Neos all day long, with data on iCloud and iMusic etc., and when it comes time to upgrade their phone or their laptop, they won't be *stuck* exactly, but if they leave the reservation they lose a lot. But they certainly could upgrade to a *much nicer* Macbook....

It's no wonder the other laptop makers are sitting up and taking notice. Apple has set up a one way conversion ratchet for people tempted by a really nice and perfectly adequate entry level machine at an entry level price.Nobody else has the vertical integration -- chip foundries to device manufacturing, to software platform -- spanning desktop and phones that's needed to do this.

...well, first off, 8GB of RAM *should* be enough for general use. As an example, MS Office 2007 required 256MB of RAM, Office 2003 required 128...and it doesn't have eight times the features to justify the 2GB RAM requirement for Office 2024. Don't get me started on Acrobat. Chrome is another notorious RAM eater, but that tends to be based on the amount of javascript websites are bloated with - there's no reason for a single website to be taking 4GB of RAM, and when they do, it's NEVER for a reason that benefits the user. Admittedly, Hsu is the hardware guy, so it's not really his fault that memory optimization is something nobody is doing anymore...but I do think that a $599 MacBook with 8GB of RAM will help give incentive to revisit the possibility of doing so.

Also in fairness to Hsu, the PC OEMs are still beholden to Intel/AMD/Qualcomm for processors and Microsoft for Windows, and that's going to limit them because Apple can economies-of-scale their SoC in a way the OEMs can't. Similarly, Apple made the jump to ARM in a way that makes the use of a mobile chip viable; Windows on ARM has a place, but somehow I always run into a random issue, like a printer driver or VPN client that doesn't do ARM...Apple's ruthless treadmill makes that a more palatable and expected response in Mac World; Microsoft can't really do the same because "running Windows software" is the reason people buy Windows at all...and while it'd be wonderful if Hsu decided he was going to do an "Asus Linux" and make an in-house distro to make his own vertical, I don't see that being a gamble he's willing to take.

What Hsu *can* answer for, however, are the hardware cues that Asus took from the Macbook that made laptops worse overall. Clickpads are not an improvement over dedicated trackpad buttons. Sealed in batteries are not an improvement over socketed batteries. I'll concede that we don't need serial or parallel ports anymore (perhaps on one model for industrial use), but Asus wasn't exactly showing Apple up when they started shedding ports - they too were on board with with port minimalism, leaving users to carry a bag of assorted adapters to plug their stuff in. Perhaps it's different now, but there was a solid decade where Asus laptops where the most notorious victims of power sockets requiring a resolder after breaking off the motherboards.

So yeah, I'm not crying for Asus on this front.

So,I run /e/OS, and have done so for years. I don't understand what this will validate.

At present, Play Integrity is a means of telling apps that the software that's *actually* running on a phone, is the software that Google *expects* is running on the phone. Now, *in and of itself*, I don't see that as being a problem, because if Google says "this is a modified OS" or "this is a modified bootloader", apps can ignore this fact if it's simply informational. I submit that there should be a requirement for apps to divulge whether they will refuse to run if they are informed of a modified software stack, but any attestation mechanism should be limited in that way.

But let's assume that it's the case - as far as I'm aware, that's how it currently stands. The answer to ""Who" is validating "What"" is pretty simple: "Google is validating that unmodified software is running on hardware". An open source attestation mechanism breaks basically all of this.

So, even if we limited this to official builds of /e/OS and iodeOS (which is a big "if", since both have community builds, and are derivatives of LineageOS, and each have downstream derivatives), now, the app is trusting /e/OS...that the build is unmodified, of software that requires an unlocked bootloader in nearly all instances of its installation? Both OSes have integrated adblockers and other privacy tools, and MicroG that spoofs other data required for apps to run as if there were Google Play Services installed...so, are they saying "we solemnly swear that all of the anti-tracking, adblocking, and signature spoofing meets security standards"? Seems like conflicting signals to me.

If we're stretching "decentralized validation service" to include the public key infrastructure that handles standard Sectigo/Thawte certificates, I guess maybe...but if we're talking something closer to the blockchain...what bank is trusting an anonymous group like that?

Can we define "securely" here, and how a "specific device model" would factor in? Is even /e/OS looking to close the door on rooting and other kinds of mods? Is this the end of the road to /e/OS's community builds? Is this the sort of scenario where the presence or absence of Magisk would alter the calculus? If so, then why would a user choose an /e/OS device - especially if it means the removal of the MicroG mods that make regular Android apps work - over a stock Google phone?

I just can't see how this config can simultaneously keep the modders happy - the people who run /e/OS on their devices and donate to it - along with the banks and other companies who would want reliable attestation.

"$GAME, but where everything is free instead of requiring microtransactions"
"$APP, but without ads or subscription costs"

I'm not saying there's a lack of creativity in the world, but I *am* saying that the ones who would make apps that don't amount to "X but without annoyance Y" are the ones who are probably actual-programmers. This means that Samsung will either have users making apps that directly compete with for-profit games, or the feature is, from a users' standpoint, hobbled and hamstrung to the point of total uselessness, defeating the purpose.