So many questions, so many dollars.

And wham, pre-reviews show folding and creases, like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Thick and heavy for a phone, but if you want something that can be an actual tablet, you gotta make some serious trade-offs. When when using it as a phone OR tablet on a table, there is that bulge with the cameras so it can't sit flat. And that inner big screen is soft and scratch-prone. Hmm.

>"In practice, it is seen more as an unwanted evil, like car crashes, than as bad choices that needs the attention of family members or mental health professionals."

What it needs to be is children not having unsupervised access to devices that have unrestricted internet access. Social media is certainly detrimental, but there are millions of other "dangerous to children" sites/apps, not to mention texting or media'ing to/from strangers. Children cannot comprehend or deal with the crap they read/see/hear on the Internet. In many, it can cause all kinds of agitation, addiction, bullying, psychoses, dysmorphia, depression, obsession, suicidality, etc.

Children do not need smart phones. If the parents want their children to have them, then the responsible thing is to lock them down with a very small whitelist of safe sites and apps, and call/text/media only to/from known contacts that the parent knows and approves. Same goes for tablets/laptops/desktops.

There is tons of good educational stuff available for devices without the risk of being brainwashed, picked on by other children, sucked into conspiracies, led down who-knows-what rabbit holes with hallucinating AI's, groomed by pedophiles, amplifying any stupid thing they might have ever written, lured into scams, thrust into adult concepts and conflicts, etc. It is hard being a minor, why would a parent want to make it 100 times worse? So it is convenient to shut them up? Because "all my friends do it"? Because it is cheap "entertainment"?

>"we've got a new social norm. It's illegal for tech companies to give unsupervised access to social media. Have you been paying attention at all?"

1) It shouldn't be up to the "social media" companies.
2) They have no way of determining if someone is a minor other than to strip ALL people of their privacy.
3) That isn't a "social norm", it is just a law. Big difference.
4) And the "social norm" should be no unrestricted access to the Internet at all, not just so-called "social media." There are MILLIONS of other sites children should not interact with.
5) There is no good definition of "social media", so they are just listing some of the popular ones.

This doesn't solve all the problems, and in the process, it makes new ones that are just as bad- penalizing adults is one of them.

>"So you're saying the restrictions need to be stronger to capture some of that other 99%? Or were you planning on banning phones and computers themselves?"

We are talking about minors. They shouldn't have unsupervised access to unrestricted devices connected to the Internet. I am not saying we ban anything for adults. But children should not have access to things that are dangerous. And that isn't up to companies or government, but to parents and their agents. We need to set a new social norm that it is not OK to just give unrestricted devices to minors. Just like it is not OK to give them unrestricted access to knives, medications, alcohol, strangers, vehicles, junk food, etc. That should NOT involve "ID"'ing everyone for every web site.

>"Is almost universally not about the children. In this case it's about de-anonymizing the Internet to aid in mass surveillance."

Bingo.

Because the kids will just get their fix on one of the 99.99999999999% of the sites that are NOT being blocked to them.

The problem is that kids SHOULD NOT HAVE UNSUPERVISED ACCESS to devices that can go just anywhere on the Internet in the first place. Or call/message/txt/media to/from any stranger. The devices are the problems. Parents should be parents and give their children restricted devices. Instead, we try to force every human (which means all adults and children) to PROVE who they are before they access popular sites. It is a big business/government wet dream come true.

>"If we are adding in FreeBSD, Android etc, might as well also add in MacOS. They are all quite similar from a user point of view and all based off one or the other NIXes"

Not really. It isn't free, much of it isn't open, doesn't use X11 or Wayland, doesn't use any of the Linux desktop environments, and it really only runs on Apple hardware. Very different in many ways from Linux or BSD.

Although I think that throwing "unknown" and "BSD" into the Linux count is not valid.

>"to justify to insurance companies why you are using a free open source project as a main tool."

This assumes that MS-Office is somehow less prone to bugs, errors, issues. Just because more people use it, or that it is closed source, or that it isn't free, or that it is from Microsoft, doesn't mean it is safe (or "safer"). It also doesn't necessarily mean there is any liability that can be shifted. Most commercial software requires you to sign away liability (or greatly/specifically limit it, perhaps to only the cost of the software) in the terms of service.

>"So a very tiny amount. Europe pays the vast majority..."

Europe is not a country. And not all of Europe is in NATO. Even the concept of "Europe" isn't perfectly well-defined.... some would say Russia is also in Europe. The NATO protection is, primarily, of European nations. Yes, it helps everywhere else, too, to keep NATO's "enemies" in check. But the USA is 1 of 32 members and yet pays more than five times 1/32nd.

>"I don't have an issue with Donnie hammering on those, I just wished he would have made clear that this was about overall defense spending."

He is often unclear, unfortunately.

>"Of course by abandoning Ukraine he now gives EU[...]"

I am not aware of him ever vetoing any support legislation, or threatening to do so (I could be wrong on that). He was confident he could work out a deal and quickly. Apparently Putin is not so cooperative.

>"It was Putin who succeeded in getting these countries to up their budgets."

Keep in mind the big invasion didn't occur until 2022, years after Trump left office the first time (which is when he was calling for them to live up to their obligations). Of course, Putin was already hostile before that and had already invaded during Oboma admin, but that apparently didn't motivate them.

Part of the treaty is to keep up their own military/defenses and they were not doing so (and for a long time and getting worse). Member states were expected to pay at least 2% of their GDP into defense/readiness, annually. "Donnie" wanted to make sure that the countries were ready and able to defend themselves and come to the aid of other member states, instead of immediately relying on other member's resources when it is too late. That is not an unreasonable expectation.

There are also direct contributions to NATO, itself, to cover its operating and management costs. "The total budget for these common funds is approximately â4.6 billion for 2025. Contributions are based on a cost-sharing formula that considers each country's gross national income." And the USA covers 16% of that operating budget, more than any other member.

>"And then you look at Europe, with their two years of maternity leave, and worker protections, and way more paid holidays, and universal healthcare, and they all like to look down their noses at Americans, while they benefit from a massive security umbrella that the US provides, which frees up the funds to spend on social programs."

While simultaneously NOT PAYING THEIR AGREED OBLIGATIONS TO NATO, leaving the USA to absorb that as well. I will now get downvoted by reminding people that it was Trump that demanded they start paying their obligations, and succeeded. https://www.usatoday.com/story...

"Rutte then nodded along as Trump recalled demanding that NATO nations pay up their fair share during his first term as president. [...] very few were paying, and if they were, they weren't paying their fair share, [...] After making it clear that U.S. wouldn't support NATO if member states didn't step up, the money started pouring in, [...] The U.S. contributes 3.4% of its GDP and about 16% of NATO's annual budget. [...] By 2024, all non-U.S. NATO allies spent the 2% target on average for the first time."

>"Saying Libre Office replaces MS Office like saying a tricycle vending cart replaces a step van."

I never said that LibreOffice can replace all the functionality of MS Office for everyone. You must be thinking of someone else. It can, indeed, replace all of what most people do with MS-Office, and most of what the rest do.

>"For instance, Libre Office has no support for group editing."

It does support tracking, authorship, and also "check in/out" on remote file locations, but not really true group editing. They are thinking on that, though:

https://design.blog.documentfo...
https://bugs.documentfoundatio...

>"In the UK we have an annual inspection, but not until the car is 3 years old (from the point of first sale). They have said they will have a free odometer reading at the same place that does the annual check for the first two times."

Here it is every single year. Varies by State, of course. Some States it is 2 years, some have no inspections at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Oh, it must have changed a lot. I don't remember there being so many that have no inspections. Only 14 of 50 have regular inspections now. But my point was, they already have the info here, so it is ridiculous to play these games about mileage here.

>"The more annoying part is that you have to pay up front, i.e. estimate your annual mileage and then at the next odometer check you get a refund or pay more depending on if you are under or over. I can see why they did it, car tax is paid up front for the year too, and it allows people to spread it over monthly payments."

That is just stupid and unnecessarily complicated (making it in advance instead of arrears). Besides, it could still be made in payments if in arrears. It is not like the government will be starved of much precious revenue by it being one-time delayed this relatively small tax. Yeesh!

>"Switching from Microsoft to Google is like switching from Hitler to Mussolini. Move to Libre Office or the like."

Yeah, really.

But 20 million cells? That seems ridiculous. Why aren't they using a database for something that huge?

Anyway, I had to check... LibreOffice Calc supports more than 1 billion cells from 16,384 columns by 1,048,576 rows. Hope the machine has a lot of RAM if trying to push that :)