The ultimate answer:

They have been making these things for decades, they know how to make them better, they know how to make them more durable, they know how to making them even simpler to use and fix, they choose not to, for profit. That should be structurally discouraged.

Charge the manufacturers for the FULL, REAL environmental impact of shipping materials and end of life disposal of their products. Yes, that cost will be passed to the consumers, as it should be. It also rewards sale of more durable goods.

I went looking for corroborating stories before I noticed one of them was Onion…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_or_misleading_statements_by_Donald_Trump

Yes, critical thinking is lost in the signing of plainly illegal and otherwise impractical and damaging executive orders.

I wouldn’t be surprised at all if an executive order comes along that allows “Federal Contractors” such as em’s companies to have exclusive right to things forbidden to the open market.

For clarity, I have done it myself - plenty, but not just on Unix boxes.

I had a remote relay box: 8 channels of power control, so I could at least power cycle machines from remote when all else failed.

I actually ended up not using it much at all, it was a nice security blanket, but the last time I decided that I wanted to power cycle something was about 6 years ago, and at that time I realized it had been over 3 years since I had previously used it, and that usage was more of a “let’s make sure this thing is working like I think it should” test.

It’s not Unix, it’s you.

My org recently declared that all remote access to “Office” must be through OS-X or Windows for “security reasons.” So, they put a check on browser IDs and if your browser IDs as being on Linux, they harass you for password re-entry every 90 seconds. Of course, Chrome Network Conditions tab allows you to choose what your browser IDs itself as running on…

Back in the 1990s I developed an app over the course of 6 years, first 3 in C/DOS then we ported that to C++/Borland/Win95 and continued developing it for another 3 years. I was the only coder, we had a dedicated tester / documentation specialist and the algorithms lead who was more of an idea guy than any hands-on code work.

We got bought out. Buyers “needed it in native Win32 because of the depth of the talent pool.” Whatever, I’m here to help if they want it during porting. Buyers estimated 2 developers could port it in about 2-3 months. Yeah, o.k. Never asked for help, but at 6 months in they had expanded the dev team to 6 guys and were still struggling and looking to hire more. Ultimately they reduced scope a little and called it “ready to use” in Win32 after about 15 months. Glad they got it “maintainable” by switching to that Win32 dev environment with such a deep talent pool to hire from, they easily spent more man hours on the port than we spent developing it in the first place.

you can also solve your examole choice by gun grabbing ans shooting the guy if he lets you take it.

Ah, but that wouldn’t be mutually beneficial, would it?

Also, this didn’t take long:

Some federal employees who accepted Trump’s buyout offer are now being notified that their buyout has been denied, and they are being terminated instead.

Every sperm is sacred:

https://youtu.be/fUspLVStPbk

There are some offsetting factors that also prevent the “best and brightest” from rising to power: https://dealbreaker.com/2007/10/icahn-explains-why-are-there-so-many-idiots-running-shit

He moves up the corporate ladder, without a single original idea that might make his boss feel threatened by his potential.

Eventually, he gets to be the #2 guy at the company. He’s a little dumber than the C.E.O., but the board likes him, so he eventually gets to be C.E.O.

Of course, he assigns a #2 who is a little dumber than he is. “And eventually, we’re going to have all morons running our companies,” Icahn concluded. “We might not be that far off from that right now.”

Here’s a gun to your head, now, it would be beneficial to you to hand over your wallet m’kay?

No bullet in your brain, more cash in my hand, both parties benefit! See how that works?

Oh, you have a lump growing in your thyroid, mmmm… that is bad. We can cut that out for you and most people we do that to live a lot longer, but first we need you to mortgage your home and give us the proceeds. See how that works?

spez has too much money to care.

What’s the point of being Uberwealthy if you can’t just do whatever you want, whenever you want?

People keep quoting that Musk gave DT $250million to support his campaign, like hell… Musk bought Twitter and ran it into the ground to support DT’s campaign, that was far more significant, and far more costly than a mere $250M.

Oh, hell yeah. My parents got 4 and 6 year college degrees based off the income of a teacher, hairdresser, mechanic, and night watchman. 100% debt free. Then their parents, who had $0 to their name at the start of WWII, helped my parents again by buying them a starter house. My parents were both school teachers, on that salary they built a new house in a golf course subdivision, new cars every couple of years including a brand new 6 cylinder BMW… Then the 80s came.

I could see myself wanting to own multiple private islands, getting Larry Ellison to sell me Lanai is going to take a lot of money.

Current U.S. leadership: Our billionaires are gonna be bigger than all the other billionaires in the world put together. (I honestly believe there’s an insecurity motive there: if US billionaires don’t amass significantly more wealth, they won’t be competitive in the billionaire world against outside billionaires.)

U.S. Democracy: If one dollar = one vote, I guess we should save all that money we have been wasting on elections.

The real reason for the surge in prosperity of the middle and lower classes after WWII: decimation of the ultra-wealthy throughout the developed world. Remember: the post WWII US income tax on the wealthy was 91% - literal decimation, for those who paid.

https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/whole-ball-of-tax-historical-income-tax-rates

One way a global index can respect local authority would be for the index to acknowledge that within that territory, there is an official name for things.

They can also be pragmatic and acknowledge a common local name, the global consensus name, etc.

In many ways, it’s just a further fragmentation like language.

What I want to know is: what does the vote of a Republican Senator cost these days? Can we start GoFundMe campaigns to get some things changed in our preferred direction?

Saving that for 2029.