The Linux kernel (the code) is open-source. Linux Foundation (the people who write said code) is headquartered in the US. The US can decide what Linux Foundation can and cannot do, who works there, etc. They can’t control who uses the code.

I’m guessing most IoT devices are made in China (or increasingly Southeast Asia), so yes.

I hope some OEM (especially those opposed to google) picks up and develops mainline linux like Pine Phone.

Huawei is being forced to do it. But like Android, their HarmonyOS is not 100% open-source. There’s also KaiOS, which some Nokia and Alcatel, and all Jio, devices use.

even Dalvik and the android runtime itself is an inefficient relic of 10+ years ago when mobile devices had at most 2gb of ram and a tiny low power ARM processor.

Both the ones I mentioned are designed to be more memory efficient. KaiOS in particular is aimed primarily at feature phones and entry-level smartphones.

Mint has three prebuilt options, Cinnamon is just the default. Beyond that you can also install other desktops.

I thought it was a Dragon Ball Z reference.

Write down a list of the software you use (e.g. web browser, office suite, notepad, image viewer, video player, … ). Download Linux Mint from here and use Balena Etcher to write it into a pen drive. Switch off your computer, plug in the pen drive and switch on. DON’T INSTALL YET. Run Linux ‘live’ for a couple of hours, see if everything (speaker, printer, webcam, all the software you listed above) is working correctly.

Once you have confirmed that all is well, copy your files into an external hard drive, confirm that everything important has been backed up, and then install Linux from the pen drive. (You can have both Windows and Linux on the same computer, but then Windows should not be given internet access or it will ‘update’ and mess up everything. This can be repaired using, for example, this software, but why bother?)

But I don’t see why VLC shouldn’t be able to run as root, if the user so desires.

For the reasons you described, I won’t run VLC as root, and I don’t think 99% of users would need to. But if someone wanted to do it, the software shouldn’t stop them from doing it (beyond giving a warning and asking them to confirm).

Any distro that can run Chromium / Chrome. And everything other than Teams will work even on Firefox.

What is the reason we don’t run as root?

We are human and make mistakes. Not running as root means the computer will ask us to confirm when we are about to do something major (like a software update, or formatting a partition). This reduces the chance of making big mistakes. (But I don’t see why VLC shouldn’t be able to run as root, if the user so desires.)

Mint works. Most alternatives don’t. I can install Mint on a total newbie’s system, and not have to worry about something breaking two weeks later. Hell, most newbies can install Mint if you give them the USB.

On a deeper level, I think Mint devs are one of the few teams that understand the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ philosophy.

At this point their biggest product is probably Android. That’s a bigger marketshare than Microsoft’s and Apple’s put together. Yes, they’re fucking up now, but the battle is still theirs to lose.

When you have commodity money, the value of the money is derived from the value of the commodity.

The value of the commodity acts as a floor, but the face value is dictated by supply and demand, and demand usually exceeds supply, driving it significantly above the floor. Take gold, for example. Gold’s intrinsic values are (1) it’s pretty and can be used to make decorative items, and (2) it has some applications in electronics. It can’t be eaten, can’t be worn, and it’s too soft even to make tools out of it. Yet, its extrinsic value is huge, because it is publically seen as a good medium of exchange and so a lot of people want it.

Yes, TSMC makes the chips for iPhones, as well as Snapdragon processors used by many (but not all) high-end Android phones. Samsung has their own factory in South Korea, and Huawei has theirs in mainland China. Further, low-end smartphones and most dumbphones use Unisoc chips that are made in China.

As for desktop computers, Intel has factories in the US, and AMD (GlobalFoundries) in Germany and Singapore.

Yes, gold is a commodity, but when used as currency it is acting as a medium of exchange and not as a commodity. Same with pieces of paper with the sign of the reserve bank governor, or data on a computer’s memory. The gold, paper and hard disc all have intrinsic value, but when used as currency they are assigned an arbitrarily higher face value.

What if it was so small and light it was only electrons?

You mean, like how it is now?

And what if it accrues its value from the energy expended to create it?

You want more climate change? Also, value comes only from what someone else is willing to exchange for it.

Maybe using some sort of cypher to ensure anyone could verify it?

Why should anyone else be able to know anything about a transaction between A and B?

There are something like a hundred chip factories across the world. TSMC itself has around 20 (mostly in Taiwan). One dying would definitely raise prices, but we won’t be losing ‘most modern technology’. And of course they’d have lightning cables; they aren’t idiots.

I think they meant that if the students hadn’t told the company, they and their classmates could have done their laundry for free.

for the vast majority of the history of money it was based on a commodity that was valuable in its own sense.

True, but using grain or tools as a currency would make the modern financial system pretty much impossible. Even for simple banking, you need something small and light like gold or currency notes.

A true state backed cryptocurrency used interchangeably with physical cash could be quite useful.

What advantage does this give over a simple digital currency?

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