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Comment Re:Privatizing the NSA (Score 5, Insightful) 35

And even if they do win, they will not be able to remove them. Trump really knows what he's doing, embedding loyal and deeply ideological people deep into the state institutions. He always talked about the deep state conspiracy. It never existed before, but does now. Dems will have to essentially do what Trump did (rule like a king) to undo it all. Either way it doesn't bode well for the future of the Republic. The United States will live on in some form, but it won't be at all like it was before Trump barring some miracle.

It's a bit like the fall of Rome. Few people alive during those times would have recognized what was happening, and many were probably in denial, and did not see any sudden "fall". It is only years after the fact can we look back and clearly point to specific things that mark the change and decline.

Comment Re:Is Bonta an economist now? (Score 2) 171

If what you say about "raping" the big companies by unions were true, the big media companies would be getting smaller and poorer, not richer and larger. No matter how you cut it, more and more wealth is being concentrated in fewer and fewer people, and that is accelerating. And they get handouts from governments all the time (our tax dollars).

Comment Re:Huh (Score 1) 80

To be fair, isn't that what a distribution is? I mean Linux Mint is just Ubuntu, Linux Mint Debian Edition is Debian. Lots of distros based on Ubuntu and Debian, including Devuan. All of them could be said to be opinionated customizations of the base distro.

I did find it funny that he keeps saying he has 30 years of Linux experience but doesn't seem to know anything about systemd. Connects to the mossad? Kind of lost all credibility at that point in his video.

Comment Re:Relavant XKCD comic (Score 1) 80

Why can't these things just be an add-on package to an existing distribution

That's essentially what he's done. It's just Devuan with a custom package set and some scripts to make a better post-install experience. I don't think he maintains his own core OS repos other than the packages he's added on (nvidia installer, themes, etc).

I watched some of his video and I wonder if his purpose would be better served by building on NixOS. All of his post-install automation could be done quite reliably by some .nix scripts and flakes.

Comment Re:Lost me at "Flatpak" (Score 1) 80

I used RPM since RedHat 5.1 days (and the really, really rough transition from libc to glibc). That was definitely dependency hell without a tool like yum. Thankfully yum and dnf eliminated any problems rpm had with dependency hell.

Lately the only major dependency hell problems I've had are with apt on debian. By far I've had more problems with apt than yum/dnf.

Comment Re:Massively stupid (Score 4, Insightful) 133

Chinese companies learn from the best (us). And they are only responding to demand. The blame for low-quality goods cannot be placed on China. The blame is squarely back here at home because low-quality, cheap goods are exactly what the American market is demanding, and demanding big time (Temu and Shein are wildly popular). No one wants high quality goods at higher cost. We all say we do, but in reality we don't, and our buying habits just reinforce that. No you can't blame China, sorry. The destruction of American industry is entirely a problem of our own system. American companies deliberately destroyed American manufacturing (and employment) in the name of short-term, quarterly profit. China didn't cheat and steal our jobs: we gave it all to them on purpose. No amount of tariffs and taxes will change that.

And for the record, I've had to deal with poor quality goods made in the US as well. Cutting corners to save pennies applies just as much to American manufacturers (maybe even more so) as it does to Chinese manufacturers. For example, Eaton Cutler-Hammer electrical panels are the most flimsy things I've ever dealt with. Every possible cost was cut.

Comment Re: We are also paying the Germans 1.2 billion (Score 5, Informative) 138

Better deals? You mean pay double and be happy. Tariffs don't ever make domestic goods cheaper and more available.

It's convenient to blame China of course. It's a lot more palatable than realizing that our own system has screwed us. Because we're the best in the world and if we can't do it cheaply and affordably, they must be cheating! Unfair trade! Unfair to the biggest power in the world.

But the simple fact is American companies put you in this situation. China didn't get ahead because they cheated. They got ahead because American companies deliberately gutted manufacturing and fired workers to improve their bottom line, and China responded to the demand, willing to take slightly lower short-term profits. Tariffs won't fix this (if it actually is broken). In fact they make it much, much worse. American companies aren't incentivized to ramp up production and drive down prices. In fact it's the opposite. With no competition, what capacity you do have will remain the same while prices double and triple. It's all about that sweet sweet shareholder profit (and CEO pay out). There will never be self sufficiency as long as the Harvard Business School mentality drives corporations. Meanwhile enjoy your massive tax increases that fund an ever-decreasing amount of social services.

That is why things were so bad during COVID.

Comment Re:Go to Court... then face Retaliation? (Score 1) 87

So fascinating! Tariffs all together are the largest tax increase on American citizens in many years. While they do cause damage and harm to others, you are the ones who pay it. Glad you are happy to contribute your part. And yet while they harm the American consumer, they don't seem to do any of the positive things that you suggest. Near as I can tell all they've done is driven up prices and enriched those who were already rich at the expense of the rest of Americans.

Comment Re:Congress won't act (Score 1) 210

Yes it's very interesting how quickly we have learned that the Constitution is simply a piece a paper with no inherent power, except as people honor it. Once that honor is gone, the constitution is gone. Congress and the courts also have no real power, except that which is granted voluntarily. Courts can rule until they are blue in the face but when a president just says, "so what" everything is lost. We all got extremely complacent, thinking that all people, especially presidents, ultimately uphold the constitution as we do individually. Despite generations of talking about freedom, it's astounding how quickly so many just don't care about it actually, and are happy to have a king.

I agree with John V. Last: It's worth fighting for, even if I'm not hopeful about winning. At least you can tell you kids you stood up for the constitution and freedom, even though you lost. The next 10 years will be very interesting.

Comment Re:Stick but no carrot (Score 1) 59

Manufacturing didn't move to China because the Chinese were cheating and undercutting American companies. Rather it was a deliberate decision on the part of American companies to kill local manufacturing and eliminate jobs (employees are simply costs to reduce), in order to maximize short-term quarterly gains. No amount of tariff and government banning will fix that.

Comment Re: This is ridiculous (Score 1) 48

If Apple's RAM is on the cpu die, then they aren't beholden to any RAM supplier! As long as they have fab slots to make their M cpus, they have RAM too. So if demand for RAM is hurting their ability to get fabs to make their M series CPUs, then they are hurting way more than just for high RAM prices.

Comment Re:Tortious interference (Score 1) 28

This is true. And if you don't use any Google services with an alternate firmware, you still can.

Developer verification is enforced through Google Play Services, even for apps that are installed from other sources. It's a pretty neat way of allowing third-party app stores while still guaranteeing their cut.

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