I end all my sentences in semicolons;

Amazon (and others) are doing their part to piss on customers. Amazon blocks Google, Google blocks Amazon, and on the pissing match goes while their customers are the ones getting drenched and angry. There is a lot of functionality in this devices and services but if enough things don't work then someone else will move in to fill that role. The technology is no longer bleeding edge. Even Apple has lost much of its edge. Microsoft found out the hard way that things change and it can happen to Amazon, Apple, and Google too if they don't learn to make their devices and services play nice together. I'd love for all of these big players to step back and just consider how much more tablets, phones, set-top boxes, consoles, voice agents, etc could do for their customers if only they would work together. Why fight over a little pie when you can share a much larger pie?

Obviously you've never tried. MacOS' Unix bits are pretty stable and function as expected other than a bit of changes here and there such as in how stuff is configured. Cygwin, Microsoft's own Linux-bits port, or one of the many other efforts such as what you get with Git are all pretty buggy and can vary wildly. I'm glad Microsoft is finally making the effort but it's still very rough. Often crashes the entire computer and lots of common functionality is just missing as if they compiled everything for maximum lameness. Don't quite see the point of Wine but then I don't use Desktop Linux for serious work anymore as, after decades of trying, it just never got to a truly usable state and even tended to get worse. Combined with how awful most Windows apps are I can't imagine wanting to run a Windows app on a Linux desktop.

Whoa whoa whoa.. back up a bit with the gender mud, I'm pretty sure Obama wants to be called he.

Doesn't matter. They'll just be calling us all "cucks" since we don't beat our wives or espouse genocide against people of color.

The camera "sees" the user and even knows which user it is seeing. The camera then locks the screen immediately when the user is not present.

How long before the computer "sees" the user and notifies the police that they can pick up their known dissident. I mean, really, given the kind of governance we're about to enter into, this (not to mention Alexa-like audio surveillance "features") are the last thing I'd want on any equipment in my home.

And no, I don't have anything to hide. But conversely, I also don't use the restroom in the middle of 5th Avenue. Privacy is a thing, even in a world full of morons who think it isn't.

Yes, quite carried away. Your exposition is quite naive in thinking that people think in the scope you think they do. The failure to respond has been repeated historically quite a number of times.

And I think your timing of off by 50+ years, nothing will happen until people are really starving.

Nothing will likely happen until the 0.1% are starving, by which time it will be too late to do anything. The only reason to even hold out what little hope there is, is that people like the grandparent are at least thinking about, and worrying about, these things. If enough do, then real change can happen. Like the outcry that forced the Republicans to back off (at least for now) gutting the House Ethics committee, when the masses do voice their concern, they are heard. Unfortunately we all feel too weak, and too powerless, to make much noise unless things really hit the fan (by which point it is often too late). This is not an accident, and there are very specific reasons we as citizens are constantly made to feel powerless (hint: it benefits those running the show, on whichever side of the aisle).

While this request has DRM implications I really don't like (lense to screen encryption) and is no doubt an MPAA wet-dream, I unfortunately have to support this, as the clear and present danger to journalists, and the potential for regimes like the Trump Administration, Putin, et. al. to distort or destroy evidence of wrongdoing, demand something like this. At least with encryption journalists can keep their data safe, and if done properly, we can detect changes to the raw video/audio data. Both of which will be critical if we don't permanently want to live in a so-called "post-truth" reality (which really means "nothing but lies, lies, and more lies" reality).

Why should he care what they say? If you show up to their court you are acknowledging their authority. Just because some retard waves their arms and makes some noise doesn't mean you have to do what they say. Just because some suit thinks their music has value or even that money has value doesn't make it so. Just ignore the kids and let them make all the ruckus they want.

You can buy their little Android tablets for $40 each. They aren't on par with an iPad but they are cheap enough to be disposable. I bought the six pack so I could give each of my kids their own. Seriously needed a case and screen shield but with those the units are reasonably durable and good enough for most users. The worst issues are caused by Amazon's stupid policies. Encryption is just one more issue. They don't work with Google Play and don't court developers so many common apps aren't available or don't work well. Freetime is a good idea but has idiot limitations such as not allowing parents to give kids normal web access or allowing in-app purchases ( to even just restoring purchases). Of course if I was going to use any device for nefarious purpose I'd write my own apps that included their own encryption â" regardless as to what the OS provided because obviously you can't count on corporations to shield you.

But will it get you a job? Only employers know what it is important to know.

Remember, consumer: 2 + 2 = 5

You'll do fine around here.

This is so boneheaded it beggars belief. The straightforward solution is to require the UEFI variable filesystem (or whatever it is called these days) to be mounted read-only, and require (UNIX anyway, but something analogous ought to work for Windows too) an application to do a "mount -o remount,rw" to do whatever it needs to do, then do a "mount -o remount,ro" when it's finished. Not as nice as having UEFI not be seriously broken, but workable, and there's not much of an excuse for things like systemd, openrc, etc. implementing this where appropriate (and for any UEFI crap that can brick a system, this is appropriate).

Applications don't like it? Tough, patch the damn things. Requireing firmware to be exposed to harm like this on any operating system is unacceptable.

Waiting for all the morons to blame cannabis.

The citizens of Woodland, N.C. have spoken loud and clear: They don't want none of them highfalutin brain cells in their good town. They scare off the kids. "All the young people are going to move out," warned Bobby Mann, a local resident concerned about the future of his burg. Worse, Mann said, brain cells suck up all the intelligence from everyone else. Another resident -- a retired science teacher, no less -- expressed concern that a proposed school would block education, and prevent nearby kids from growing up. Jane Mann then went on to add that there seemed to have been a lot of cancer deaths in the area, and that no one could tell her brain cells didn't cause cancer. "I want information," Mann said. "Enough is enough."

Given that we're talking about geometric structures, maybe they're rodents of unusual shape...

The many angled ones. They live at the bottom of the Mandelbrot set. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Sigh.

First, only an idiot would want a monoculture, particularly in the Linux world, so to those saying "just to systemd full bore or go to (someplace else)" the rest of us need to respond with a very loud and resounding: Fuck You.

That said, things aren't nearly as dire as this post implies. Reading from the responses to the bug he himself linked to, I find the following:

So while I'm sure the systemd zealots would love to see KDE, Gnome3, etc. only work with systemd and drop support for all other distros, this doesn't appear to be happening. In the case of KDE, ConsoleKit2 is supported (and therefor Funtoo, Gentoo, Arch with OpenRC, etc. will continue to work just fine).