The first time I opened an invite steam said I couldn't join, but on a whim I opened it a week later and it worked. I still live in a different city so don't know what happened.
calamityjanitor
Another aspect is the social graph. It's targeted for normies to easily switch to.
Very few people want to install a communication app, open the compose screen for the first time, and be met by an empty list of who they can communicate with.
https://signal.org/blog/private-contact-discovery/
By using phone numbers, you can message your friends without needing to have them all register usernames and tell them to you. It also means Signal doesn't need to keep a copy of your contact list on their servers, everyone has their local contact list.
This means private messages for loads of people, their goal.
Hey, we know this account sent this message and you have to give us everything you have about this account
It's a bit backwards, since your account is your phone number, the agency would be asking "give us everything you have from this number". They've already IDed you at that point.
KVMs usually jump from 2 inputs to 4. Ones that do 4 inputs and 4 monitors exist but you're entering "enquire for price" territory.
Why do you need so many laptops/screens?
To me I'd consider Linux not standardized since anything outside the kernel can be swapped out. Want a GUI? There are competing standards, X vs Wayland, with multiple implementations with different feature sets. Want audio? There's ALSA or OSS, then on top of those there is pulse audio, or jack, or pipewire. Multiple desktop environments, which don't just change the look and feel but also how apps need to be written. Heck there are even multiple C/POSIX libraries that can be used.
It certainly can be a strength for flexibility, and distros attempt to create a stable and reliable setup of one set of systems.
I once had a coworker that used a mini PC instead of a laptop for work. Being lighter, and more powerful worked well for him.
My understanding is that each brand will contract out the design and manufacturing, with potentially totally different factories and people involved. So the same brand will have models that are built totally differently, in terms of quality and ethics. This happens from the cheapest no name products to big western brands. Make sure to check reviews for the specific model, and not blanket trust one brand to be 'good'. Notebook check and robtech on youtube do mini PC reviews.
I feel you on the ethics side, and unfortunately it's pretty difficult to ever avoid. You can try buying second hand, at least save something from landfill and get a bargain.
lol kinda, it was a real office with 3 staff: CEO, CFO, and assistant. I was weirded out seeing all three were ~20 years old. He said I could make my own subsidiary and be my own CEO one day. I asked for the parent company name and did a quick Google when he stepped out of the room for a second. Not only saw the MLM stuff but also a culture of employee abuse and hazing in the subsidiaries. I just walked out at that point.
"So it's like a pyramid, but upside down"
- MLM I interviewed for.
ZFS doesn't have fsck because it already does the equivalent during import, reads and scrubs. Since it's CoW and transaction based, it can rollback to a good state after power loss. So not only does it automatically check and fix things, it's less likely to have a problem from power loss in the first place. I've used it on a home NAS for 10 years, survived many power outages without a UPS. Of course things can go terribly wrong and you end up with an unrecoverable dataset, and a UPS isn't a bad idea for any computer if you want reliability.
Totally agree about mainline kernel inclusion, just makes everything easier and ZFS will always be a weird add-on in Linux.
I'm moving house this week and unearthed my galaxy invader 1000 handheld. Had to play a couple rounds on the spot! Apparently from 1980.
I didn't know about Until the End of the World (1991) till recently. Can't say it was worth watching, but bounty bear was amazing.