You've had fun living on the industrial legacy of your state's early innovators, but it's not going to be easy to live like the Jetsons when today's California requires ten years of impact studies and a hundred-lawyer HR staff before you can back your Prius out of your own driveway.
Speaking of the Prius, I saw a traffic accident in San Francisco...a Prius and a Vespa collided at an intersection.
people need to stop suppressing the beliefs of others simply because you disagree with them.
The problem is that so many Leftists adamantly believe in an ideological/political structure that cannot hold up to logical, intellectually-honest debate or comparisons with others. If such were widely allowed in public discourse, they would not gain adherents and would lose nearly all support.
[No] It's getting dumber. Abstract concept after illogical process. Teach people how these machines really work and kids can do it.
You're kind of on the right track.
It's not that programming is significantly harder, it's that good programmers need to have the ability to learn how to think logically and critically, which in the modern US "education" system, such skills are anathema. Not only are the skrools not teaching critical-thinking skills, those skills are actively dis-incentivized and even outright punished in some cases.
Today's US high-school seniors in many regions are being taught only about 50%-60% of the amount of stuff I learned in 6th and 7th grades, hardly any history or civics, and all the rest filled with SJW "socialization" bullshit and learning to feel and vocally accept guilt if you're a cis white male.
Programming is not harder, people have intentionally been dumbed-down by those in power over education such that they simply are not as capable in general as people once were. Ranchers don't want educated cattle that can oppose their agendas. It has a few downsides, but hey, that's what H1B and offshoring is for, right!?
Well shit it looks like people at the NLRB didn't read the actual memo either. Damore had written specifically against forming stereotypes based on differences in population distributions because of their overlaps.
The NLRB called such quantifiers defining the scope and context of what he wrote "softening language" (although how one could possibly construct a meaningful argument regarding real-world problems without quantifiers puzzles me). The NLRB knows what Damore *really* meant [nudge-nudge, wink-wink] even if he wrote the exact opposite and cited multiple peer-reviewed scientific studies from multiple sources to back it up.
What an evil genius Damore must be to have written a cited memo that to most of us means what the words and citations say, but actually means the total opposite. Thank goodness we have people like the NLRB to tell us all that the memo actually means the exact opposite of what it says repeatedly and emphatically throughout.
Keep a wary eye on facts folks...many are apparently misogynistic, bigoted, and 'hateful' on their face.
... to see Ajit Pai in an orange jumpsuit being led off to prison in handcuffs. Maybe that would wipe the stupd shit-eating grin off his face. He is an arrogant sociopathic twat, and I would love to see justice served. But I don't expect to.
Nice how you can be so certain of a crime having been committed with only some allegations and a fraction of the facts to go on.
It couldn't be that, no matter the timing of this rule change or the enactment of any similar change in regulation, there would be major players who jump at the chance to take actions the old rules prevented. Right? That's just too simple and logical. It *must* be some criminal shenanigans if it's someone on the "other side" doing something you disagree with.
Especially if that guy knows a guy who knows a guy whose granddaughter once attended a corporate party for employees where her boyfriend worked. He may as well be carrying bags of money with corporate logos into his office.
If someone broke the law I'd like to see them pay the price, but this smells too much like witch-hunting and the Spanish Inquisition.
Here's a radical idea; How about waiting for facts before calling for somebody's head on a pike just because you disagree politically? I know, that's crazy-talk, but give it a try sometime. Might start a trend that ends up saving *your* bacon down the road.
I've seen indie bands get DMCA notices on their own original copyright materials. Whatever they are using for take down notices is already broken turning that into an auto filter would be a tool to protect our business model and markets from competition. Excellent!
FTFY
People talk like they assume that the stifling effects are a bug, and not a deliberate feature for the copyright cartels.
Is there a reason to single them out? Are their denials insufficiently vehement?
It's likely because they would not compromise the security of their products for the US in the manner that US TLAs demanded.
As a US citizen I feel safer using products that *I know* are back-doored by the Chinese or Russians than I do using products possibly back-doored by US TLAs.
So why should the average Chinese person who puts out less than half the level that you do care either?
They shouldn't, beyond common-sense and pragmatic/realistic/economically-feasible steps to not shit where we eat, as should all people including the US.
It isn't about "caring", it's about math. The point is that in order for CO2 emissions to be reduced enough to have any meaningful effect on global average temperature rise, the US would have to almost eliminate it's emissions and China, India, et al would have to stop developing or even possibly DE-develop in some areas.
Trying to halt or significantly alter the rate of global average temperature increase, especially in the face of a booming global population and industrialization, is pissing into the wind. Adaptation should be where the focus and emphasis is, not trying to halt or reverse a planet's global climate trends by artificially impeding development.
That's a fool's errand only suitable as a political propaganda scare tactic to advance political/ideological goals unrelated to climate or science.
Yes because somewhere someone else is producing 1/5th of the emissions per capita of the people in the USA it is all *their* fault and we can't do anything. "America First!... in emissions per capita".
Per capita is meaningless in relation to *TOTAL GLOBAL* levels. But you likely already know that and are simply hoping you can blow it by others because 'muh Party!'.
Australia has a very high CO2 per capita average, but a small total population so the total amount of CO2 Australia contributes is small. China and India have a low per-capita average but enormous populations, so they contribute a large percentage of the total CO2 released. Sort of a CO2 emission "economy of scale'.
China, India, and other developing nations are producing more total CO2. The US cannot make up for their increases even if the US reduced CO2 emissions to zero. If the US stops trading heavily for consumer goods with china then their economy goes in the crapper, their budget for infrastructure will shrink, and new power plants will be coal and CO2 emissions will then begin to increase even more rapidly.
After the war is over I'm going to buy a British radio set â" then at least I'll own something that has always worked.
And speaking of British radio sets, Mullard, a now-defunct British maker of vacuum tubes, were and still are a world standard for vacuum tubes. Old-stock "new" original Mullards go for ridiculous prices these days among audiophiles and electric guitarists and are quickly scooped up, when they can be found at all.
There are current-production tubes labeled "Mullard" but the rights to the brand name were acquired by a Russian company called Sovtek who market tubes under several brand names, including other now-defunct makers like Tung Sol as well as the Mullard badge. None of them are equals to the originals, often markedly different in how they perform and sound from the originals.
Trabants were partially made of plywood, weren't they?
Yes. Also, many WW2-era German, Russian, and British aircraft of many types including fighters, especially early in the war for the Soviets and late in the war for the Germans, used various types of laminated and/or compressed wood, some as a major percentage of the vehicle. The British Mosquito was one of the fastest aircraft in the WW2 sky and made the first bombing runs on Berlin due to it's speed, payload capacity, long range, and was made largely from wood. It served many different roles from heavy fighter, to twin-engine fast bomber, to fast reconnaissance, and more. Pilots loved the "Mossy". It was such a great aircraft the Germans tried to copy it, but with only limited success.
There is literally nothing preventing you from going; making your voice heard; and seeing how and why your tax dollars are being spent.
If there IS something preventing you from doing that; you should REALLY go do something about that;
Rather than sitting at home typing incorrect responses to people you've never met; about problems you likely don't have; why not go *DO* something that makes a difference?
What, do you actually think nobody is trying?
Try Googling "stonewalls FOIA requests". Some don't respond, some just flat out tell you you've received everything you're going to get from them, which is typically "no responsive documents" when it's obvious from other sources and evidence that relevant documents most certainly do exist. The courts and lawyers slow-walk it such that you'd grow old waiting for a resolution with endless stays, reschedules, motions, appeals, etc etc etc.
Hell, the US Congress often cannot get government agencies, departments, etc and their officials to provide data/documents when legally required by law to do so! Hard drives are being wiped/smashed/Bleach-Bitted after becoming material evidence, files are being deleted, possibly even murder committed, and surprise-surprise, nobody is going to jail.
Except some of the children will be more than clever enough to re-flash the phones with their own preferred ROMs.
The headline of TFA made me chuckle.
"Child proof."
Yeah, right. Hell, I remember *myself* as a kid...I'd have toys and stuff taken apart before we even got the stuff home, as I wanted to see what made it work, and could I make it do something other/cool? My father (a grizzled ww2 combat vet infantry sergeant) used to swear up and down that if the Second Coming arrived, "..that damned boy would have Jesus apart in 5 minutes!"
Kids these days with tech? Forget about *that* noise! Many adults I know have their kids setting the parent's devices up and configuring stuff for them, instead of the reverse! You'll have the adults locked out long before you reach a level (if it even exists) that would prevent kids from getting in.
If the US TLAs were smart, they'd simply employ roomfuls of 6 to 12 year old kids as their elite "cyber-warrior hackers". There would be no system safe from them anywhere.
I hope you're being facetious. First amendment applies only to the government silencing people. Also, YouTube isn't silencing anyone - they are just not placing ads and putting them in a spotlight. It's their platform. Don't like it? Don't use it.
You're quite correct. They are free to implement any lawful policies, rules, terms, conditions, etc that they wish as it's a private company not a government entity and thus not bound by the 1stA.
What they're *not* free to do however is to enforce policies, terms, and rules arbitrarily, unequally, and unfairly. I believe there's likely more than enough evidence for a lawsuit and/or unfair trade practices case prevail against Google/YT. Of course IANAL, but still it seems at first glance that there's got to be actionable torts and/or some sort of fair trade practices/consumer protection/contract laws that may apply here being violated.
US Courts, judges, and juries generally don't tend to look favorably at a business's legal position when individuals are treated differently by that business because of their lawfully-held political/ideological/cultural/religious opinions or viewpoints
Clearly making money off of the illegal thing is enough. Courts are allowed to employ the common sense eyeball test, obfuscations don't get you out of trouble.
Although true, I still have trouble believing they would not simply find something else to charge him with even if he ran the site on his own money. Look how far authorities have gone, in some cases even breaking their own laws, not to mention issues regarding national sovereignty, in order to go after those they perceive as threats to the copyright cartels and their business models.
We can add him to a long line of useless internet stars. May he serve as an example of what not to be.
Yes, and also thank $DEITY Google/YT is protecting our children from horrors like PragerU by putting them behind an "adult content sign in and confirm " wall./s
Yeah, no political bias there at all. What's really hilarious is all the snowflakes that call PragerU "Nazi" and "fascist" when Prager is a Jew.
Where does the city get the authority to tell people that they are not allowed to rent out their homes?
According to the American theory of governance, a government only has authorities that are delegated to it by The People. Well, nobody in Detroit ever had the authority to dictate whether a private individual could rent out his home, so there's no way that anybody was ever able to delegate to the city such an authority.
Whence comes this authority, I ask. WHENCE?!
"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun" -- Mao Zedong
The reality is that they can do anything they damned well please until and unless someone with more guns either convinces them to, or makes them through force, stop. It sucks and puts people in general in a position with no really "good" choices, but there it is.
It's bad enough when those in power are generally relatively indifferent, but when they become more aggressively authoritarian, then the really bad shit starts. I think we're at the beginning of, or nearly so, of the second stage...if not already well on our way.
I don't have any answers, all I can advise is to be certain of your principles by doing your own homework and not blowing it off or taking other people's opinions as your own, and stick to those principles *especially* when doing so may be really hard or unpopular to do.
What differences do you want to see between the desktop and server versions, other than server services DHCP, print, AD, DNS etc The Linux kernel and user land are pretty much the same between desktop and server maybe plus some tuning but you can go from server to desktop with a few package add/delete and back
Exactly right. I've turned a couple of my old linux PCs into servers of various types depending, when the hardware finally got too ancient for daily desktop use. It was relatively easy and many had package managers that automated the package changes necessary for you. Heck, if you didn't mind the wasted resources/space, and wanted to leave the X server (or whichever other) and Gnome/KDE or whichever desktop you use intact, adding just a few packages will have you a server ready to configure in short order.
When I've turned an old box into a server that's how it typically would go; Boot it up, open the package manager and install the server packages needed, configure and test it, then often after all that I'll leave it working for a while with the desktop intact both in case I have to tweak something that crops up in the first week or so, and also after all that crap I just don't feel like digging back in to strip the OS down right away as long as the extra bloat isn't slowing things too badly.
As to TFA and the iPhone source code leak, one would hope that US TLAs would take the chaos that's sure to result as an object lesson regarding "TLA crypto backdoors" or any similar nonsense regarding private sector security., but alas, I fear they don't want to learn anything that might interfere with expanding their power and control as they desire.
Gotta love these idiotic conspiracy theories. The entire opioid market is worth only about $13 billion annually.
Opioids are only one of the medications that kratom displaces, not to mention the doctor/health care appointments never made, tests not ordered/paid for, other treatments, specialist fees, medical billing/insurance, etc etc.
It's always about the money and control. Kratom (and marijuana) threatens that, so it (they) must go.
Gotta love these idiotic conspiracy theories.
No conspiracies required, just your bog-standard entities in an industry using the tools at their disposal to protect and grow their incomes as we see in other industries and business sectors on an almost daily basis in the news.
simpletons like you
Exsqueeze me? For someone who apparently only looks at issues surface-deep as you've demonstrated by only looking strictly at opioids in this case, you have no room to cast aspersions.
Slashdot Mirror
You've had fun living on the industrial legacy of your state's early innovators, but it's not going to be easy to live like the Jetsons when today's California requires ten years of impact studies and a hundred-lawyer HR staff before you can back your Prius out of your own driveway.
Speaking of the Prius, I saw a traffic accident in San Francisco...a Prius and a Vespa collided at an intersection.
There was glitter *everywhere*!
Strat
people need to stop suppressing the beliefs of others simply because you disagree with them.
The problem is that so many Leftists adamantly believe in an ideological/political structure that cannot hold up to logical, intellectually-honest debate or comparisons with others. If such were widely allowed in public discourse, they would not gain adherents and would lose nearly all support.
Strat
[No] It's getting dumber.
Abstract concept after illogical process.
Teach people how these machines really work and kids can do it.
You're kind of on the right track.
It's not that programming is significantly harder, it's that good programmers need to have the ability to learn how to think logically and critically, which in the modern US "education" system, such skills are anathema. Not only are the skrools not teaching critical-thinking skills, those skills are actively dis-incentivized and even outright punished in some cases.
Today's US high-school seniors in many regions are being taught only about 50%-60% of the amount of stuff I learned in 6th and 7th grades, hardly any history or civics, and all the rest filled with SJW "socialization" bullshit and learning to feel and vocally accept guilt if you're a cis white male.
Programming is not harder, people have intentionally been dumbed-down by those in power over education such that they simply are not as capable in general as people once were. Ranchers don't want educated cattle that can oppose their agendas. It has a few downsides, but hey, that's what H1B and offshoring is for, right!?
Strat
Well shit it looks like people at the NLRB didn't read the actual memo either. Damore had written specifically against forming stereotypes based on differences in population distributions because of their overlaps.
The NLRB called such quantifiers defining the scope and context of what he wrote "softening language" (although how one could possibly construct a meaningful argument regarding real-world problems without quantifiers puzzles me). The NLRB knows what Damore *really* meant [nudge-nudge, wink-wink] even if he wrote the exact opposite and cited multiple peer-reviewed scientific studies from multiple sources to back it up.
What an evil genius Damore must be to have written a cited memo that to most of us means what the words and citations say, but actually means the total opposite. Thank goodness we have people like the NLRB to tell us all that the memo actually means the exact opposite of what it says repeatedly and emphatically throughout.
Keep a wary eye on facts folks...many are apparently misogynistic, bigoted, and 'hateful' on their face.
Strat
... to see Ajit Pai in an orange jumpsuit being led off to prison in handcuffs. Maybe that would wipe the stupd shit-eating grin off his face. He is an arrogant sociopathic twat, and I would love to see justice served. But I don't expect to.
Nice how you can be so certain of a crime having been committed with only some allegations and a fraction of the facts to go on.
It couldn't be that, no matter the timing of this rule change or the enactment of any similar change in regulation, there would be major players who jump at the chance to take actions the old rules prevented. Right? That's just too simple and logical. It *must* be some criminal shenanigans if it's someone on the "other side" doing something you disagree with.
Especially if that guy knows a guy who knows a guy whose granddaughter once attended a corporate party for employees where her boyfriend worked. He may as well be carrying bags of money with corporate logos into his office.
If someone broke the law I'd like to see them pay the price, but this smells too much like witch-hunting and the Spanish Inquisition.
Here's a radical idea; How about waiting for facts before calling for somebody's head on a pike just because you disagree politically? I know, that's crazy-talk, but give it a try sometime. Might start a trend that ends up saving *your* bacon down the road.
Or, not.
Strat
I've seen indie bands get DMCA notices on their own original copyright materials. Whatever they are using for take down notices is already broken turning that into an auto filter would be a tool to protect our business model and markets from competition. Excellent!
FTFY
People talk like they assume that the stifling effects are a bug, and not a deliberate feature for the copyright cartels.
Stop assuming that.
Strat
Is there a reason to single them out? Are their denials insufficiently vehement?
It's likely because they would not compromise the security of their products for the US in the manner that US TLAs demanded.
As a US citizen I feel safer using products that *I know* are back-doored by the Chinese or Russians than I do using products possibly back-doored by US TLAs.
Strat
So why should the average Chinese person who puts out less than half the level that you do care either?
They shouldn't, beyond common-sense and pragmatic/realistic/economically-feasible steps to not shit where we eat, as should all people including the US.
It isn't about "caring", it's about math. The point is that in order for CO2 emissions to be reduced enough to have any meaningful effect on global average temperature rise, the US would have to almost eliminate it's emissions and China, India, et al would have to stop developing or even possibly DE-develop in some areas.
Trying to halt or significantly alter the rate of global average temperature increase, especially in the face of a booming global population and industrialization, is pissing into the wind. Adaptation should be where the focus and emphasis is, not trying to halt or reverse a planet's global climate trends by artificially impeding development.
That's a fool's errand only suitable as a political propaganda scare tactic to advance political/ideological goals unrelated to climate or science.
Strat
Yes because somewhere someone else is producing 1/5th of the emissions per capita of the people in the USA it is all *their* fault and we can't do anything. ... in emissions per capita".
"America First!
Per capita is meaningless in relation to *TOTAL GLOBAL* levels. But you likely already know that and are simply hoping you can blow it by others because 'muh Party!'.
Australia has a very high CO2 per capita average, but a small total population so the total amount of CO2 Australia contributes is small. China and India have a low per-capita average but enormous populations, so they contribute a large percentage of the total CO2 released. Sort of a CO2 emission "economy of scale'.
China, India, and other developing nations are producing more total CO2. The US cannot make up for their increases even if the US reduced CO2 emissions to zero. If the US stops trading heavily for consumer goods with china then their economy goes in the crapper, their budget for infrastructure will shrink, and new power plants will be coal and CO2 emissions will then begin to increase even more rapidly.
Strat
After the war is over I'm going to buy a British radio set â" then at least I'll own something that has always worked.
And speaking of British radio sets, Mullard, a now-defunct British maker of vacuum tubes, were and still are a world standard for vacuum tubes. Old-stock "new" original Mullards go for ridiculous prices these days among audiophiles and electric guitarists and are quickly scooped up, when they can be found at all.
There are current-production tubes labeled "Mullard" but the rights to the brand name were acquired by a Russian company called Sovtek who market tubes under several brand names, including other now-defunct makers like Tung Sol as well as the Mullard badge. None of them are equals to the originals, often markedly different in how they perform and sound from the originals.
Strat
Thatâ(TM)s because there was a woman standing behind him who wasnâ(TM)t accompanied by her husband and had authority over a bunch of men.
Wait, Obama was there!? And without Mike..err...'Michelle'?
Strat
Trabants were partially made of plywood, weren't they?
Yes. Also, many WW2-era German, Russian, and British aircraft of many types including fighters, especially early in the war for the Soviets and late in the war for the Germans, used various types of laminated and/or compressed wood, some as a major percentage of the vehicle. The British Mosquito was one of the fastest aircraft in the WW2 sky and made the first bombing runs on Berlin due to it's speed, payload capacity, long range, and was made largely from wood. It served many different roles from heavy fighter, to twin-engine fast bomber, to fast reconnaissance, and more. Pilots loved the "Mossy". It was such a great aircraft the Germans tried to copy it, but with only limited success.
Strat
Who buys these stupid annoying things. If I see one I will put it out of its misery, it is so fucking ugly, like a Trash Can 2.
That's not an "Apple-enough" name!
Sp-iCan!
t goes along with many of the other Apple products.
Sp-iMac
Sp-iPhone
Sp-iMacPro
Sp-iMac-Mini
Sp-iPod
Such meme. Much wow.
Strat
There is literally nothing preventing you from going; making your voice heard; and seeing how and why your tax dollars are being spent.
If there IS something preventing you from doing that; you should REALLY go do something about that;
Rather than sitting at home typing incorrect responses to people you've never met; about problems you likely don't have; why not go *DO* something that makes a difference?
What, do you actually think nobody is trying?
Try Googling "stonewalls FOIA requests". Some don't respond, some just flat out tell you you've received everything you're going to get from them, which is typically "no responsive documents" when it's obvious from other sources and evidence that relevant documents most certainly do exist. The courts and lawyers slow-walk it such that you'd grow old waiting for a resolution with endless stays, reschedules, motions, appeals, etc etc etc.
Hell, the US Congress often cannot get government agencies, departments, etc and their officials to provide data/documents when legally required by law to do so! Hard drives are being wiped/smashed/Bleach-Bitted after becoming material evidence, files are being deleted, possibly even murder committed, and surprise-surprise, nobody is going to jail.
Strat
Except some of the children will be more than clever enough to re-flash the phones with their own preferred ROMs.
The headline of TFA made me chuckle.
"Child proof."
Yeah, right. Hell, I remember *myself* as a kid...I'd have toys and stuff taken apart before we even got the stuff home, as I wanted to see what made it work, and could I make it do something other/cool? My father (a grizzled ww2 combat vet infantry sergeant) used to swear up and down that if the Second Coming arrived, "..that damned boy would have Jesus apart in 5 minutes!"
Kids these days with tech? Forget about *that* noise! Many adults I know have their kids setting the parent's devices up and configuring stuff for them, instead of the reverse! You'll have the adults locked out long before you reach a level (if it even exists) that would prevent kids from getting in.
If the US TLAs were smart, they'd simply employ roomfuls of 6 to 12 year old kids as their elite "cyber-warrior hackers". There would be no system safe from them anywhere.
Strat
See Subject.
https://youtu.be/bVDDYQlmq0w
Strat
I hope you're being facetious. First amendment applies only to the government silencing people.
Also, YouTube isn't silencing anyone - they are just not placing ads and putting them in a spotlight. It's their platform. Don't like it? Don't use it.
You're quite correct. They are free to implement any lawful policies, rules, terms, conditions, etc that they wish as it's a private company not a government entity and thus not bound by the 1stA.
What they're *not* free to do however is to enforce policies, terms, and rules arbitrarily, unequally, and unfairly. I believe there's likely more than enough evidence for a lawsuit and/or unfair trade practices case prevail against Google/YT. Of course IANAL, but still it seems at first glance that there's got to be actionable torts and/or some sort of fair trade practices/consumer protection/contract laws that may apply here being violated.
US Courts, judges, and juries generally don't tend to look favorably at a business's legal position when individuals are treated differently by that business because of their lawfully-held political/ideological/cultural/religious opinions or viewpoints
Strat
Clearly making money off of the illegal thing is enough. Courts are allowed to employ the common sense eyeball test, obfuscations don't get you out of trouble.
Although true, I still have trouble believing they would not simply find something else to charge him with even if he ran the site on his own money. Look how far authorities have gone, in some cases even breaking their own laws, not to mention issues regarding national sovereignty, in order to go after those they perceive as threats to the copyright cartels and their business models.
Strat
What reason did YouTube give? Just some generic social justice prattle?
"Inappropriate Content".
Go read up on PragerU's website. https://www.prageru.com/
The irony is over 9000.
Strat
If I'm paying, why the fuck would I tolerate ads? at least viacom doesnt have any content that compels me to pay for ads.
What part of "ad supported" do you not understand?
In small words, it means you don't pay, you just see ads for stuff.
Geez! Way to further dash my hopes for humanity's survival, Bro!
Strat
We can add him to a long line of useless internet stars. May he serve as an example of what not to be.
Yes, and also thank $DEITY Google/YT is protecting our children from horrors like PragerU by putting them behind an "adult content sign in and confirm " wall. /s
Yeah, no political bias there at all. What's really hilarious is all the snowflakes that call PragerU "Nazi" and "fascist" when Prager is a Jew.
Strat
I'll just leave this here. :)
https://youtu.be/K0ug6U26ep0
Strat
Where does the city get the authority to tell people that they are not allowed to rent out their homes?
According to the American theory of governance, a government only has authorities that are delegated to it by The People. Well, nobody in Detroit ever had the authority to dictate whether a private individual could rent out his home, so there's no way that anybody was ever able to delegate to the city such an authority.
Whence comes this authority, I ask. WHENCE?!
"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun" -- Mao Zedong
The reality is that they can do anything they damned well please until and unless someone with more guns either convinces them to, or makes them through force, stop. It sucks and puts people in general in a position with no really "good" choices, but there it is.
It's bad enough when those in power are generally relatively indifferent, but when they become more aggressively authoritarian, then the really bad shit starts. I think we're at the beginning of, or nearly so, of the second stage...if not already well on our way.
I don't have any answers, all I can advise is to be certain of your principles by doing your own homework and not blowing it off or taking other people's opinions as your own, and stick to those principles *especially* when doing so may be really hard or unpopular to do.
Strat
What differences do you want to see between the desktop and server versions, other than server services DHCP, print, AD, DNS etc
The Linux kernel and user land are pretty much the same between desktop and server maybe plus some tuning but you can go from server to desktop with a few package add/delete and back
Exactly right. I've turned a couple of my old linux PCs into servers of various types depending, when the hardware finally got too ancient for daily desktop use. It was relatively easy and many had package managers that automated the package changes necessary for you. Heck, if you didn't mind the wasted resources/space, and wanted to leave the X server (or whichever other) and Gnome/KDE or whichever desktop you use intact, adding just a few packages will have you a server ready to configure in short order.
When I've turned an old box into a server that's how it typically would go; Boot it up, open the package manager and install the server packages needed, configure and test it, then often after all that I'll leave it working for a while with the desktop intact both in case I have to tweak something that crops up in the first week or so, and also after all that crap I just don't feel like digging back in to strip the OS down right away as long as the extra bloat isn't slowing things too badly.
As to TFA and the iPhone source code leak, one would hope that US TLAs would take the chaos that's sure to result as an object lesson regarding "TLA crypto backdoors" or any similar nonsense regarding private sector security., but alas, I fear they don't want to learn anything that might interfere with expanding their power and control as they desire.
Strat
Gotta love these idiotic conspiracy theories. The entire opioid market is worth only about $13 billion annually.
Opioids are only one of the medications that kratom displaces, not to mention the doctor/health care appointments never made, tests not ordered/paid for, other treatments, specialist fees, medical billing/insurance, etc etc.
It's always about the money and control. Kratom (and marijuana) threatens that, so it (they) must go.
Gotta love these idiotic conspiracy theories.
No conspiracies required, just your bog-standard entities in an industry using the tools at their disposal to protect and grow their incomes as we see in other industries and business sectors on an almost daily basis in the news.
simpletons like you
Exsqueeze me? For someone who apparently only looks at issues surface-deep as you've demonstrated by only looking strictly at opioids in this case, you have no room to cast aspersions.
Strat