neonchaos

It’s a holiday to venerate an ideal steeped in words like “Freedom”, “Self-Determination”, and “Exceptionalism” but is really just commemorating when a bunch of white male landholding slave owners decided they hated being taxed enough to go kill tax collectors and sold the public on the idea with propaganda. The entire system they put in place has built in mechanisms to ensure that true democracy is impossible (and was never really the point) and that the monied interests continue to exert outsized influence over policies and laws that benefit and enrich them.

And also a day when it’s guaranteed that at least a measurable percentage of people will wake up tomorrow unable to count to ten on their remaining fingers.

I think you’re 100% right. There just too much profit incentive on the table. With AI continuing to cash strap companies, the best way to cover some of that debt is by finding other revenue streams. Microsoft already has cost models in place for virtual machines, and dummy hardware specifically for accessing VMs in the cloud. Extrapolate that out as the more “affordable” option ($200 entry free for an HDMI dock with a WiFi card and 32MiB of onboard storage for credential storage) and it becomes very appealing to most people just on the convenience proposition. Then Microsoft data mines the info stored by users to sell for advertising, and suddenly Microsoft isn’t in debt, it’s profitable again.

That’s pretty awesome! My grandfather had a globe I used a few times that had the USSR and Palestine on it.

That’s the House chamber, not even the speaker’s office, just the House of Representatives

“So many people forget that the first country the Nazis invaded was their own.” - Abraham Erskine (as played by Stanley Tucci)

Calling it now, this fucking clown shoe is going to issue am EO attempting to dissolve Congress because he didn’t get his way. And before everyone says that won’t happen because laws, The Constitution, or SCOTUS, I would simply ask, “When have any of those things ever prevented or stopped this walking pedophilic pus-fucker from doing whatever he wanted to?”

Gotta disagree with you there. Crucifiction means he’s likely to be made a martyr and Trumpism will end up being a new major sect of Christianity, with a whole new host of evangelists prostelytizing “his” teachings. In my wildest dreams he’d go the route of Wilson, where a dibilitating stroke forces him to be a prisoner in his own body as the next regime (hopefully) dismantles the fascist apparatus he’s birthed into being. Barring that, I hope he just dies while shitting his pants during a live TV broadcast. Just strokes out, ala McConnell, and shits his pants, loudly and audibly (just like the Forbes video), before face planting off the stage.

I have faith that FOSS will endure. PinePhone is still making inroads as a viable option, mobile Linux is coming along (though I can’t point to a device I’d hold up as a poster model), and Europe’s push for digital sovereignty is likely to accelerate offerings that are neither Google nor Apple based. It’s still early days though, so likely to be a year or two until something viable is on market, and even then the big fight will probably be with banking/financial apps not wanting to support additional platform standards, but if Europe digs in and demands native born OS’s free from the Silicon Valley shackles, there’s a financial incentive to support those alternatives in some way, lest a third party fill the gap/need and eat legacy banking’s lunch.

tl;dr - Google Play Services aren’t installed by default on GrapheneOS and since they don’t have root permissions sideloading can’t be disabled.

GrapheneOS sandboxes Google Play Services, vs on stock the Google Play Services have root access, meaning they have full control and access to the system. This is likely how security settings could be changed without your permission, specifically a software update via OTA that just toggles the developer attestation requirement leveraging something in Google Play to “validate” the package.

In GrapheneOS (GOS) Play Services are sandboxed, which means they only have the permissions you grant them, and since you’re (ostensibly) not root on your device, you can’t give the services root. This means that Play Services can’t block side loading on your device because they don’t have the access/permissions to, and I can’t imagine a world where GrapheneOS kills it just because Google says it’s a good idea.

Further, GrapheneOS has committed to supporting current Pixels until their EOL (End of Life) as prescribed by Google (5 years for some, 7 years for others, from date of release, so YMMV). This means that so long as the device is still supported by Google, you should still receive updates from GOS, meaning it’s still a viable device so long as the hardware doesn’t fail.

GOS recently announced that they’re in partnership with Motorola to release a first party phone with them (Motorola Hardware, GrapheneOS installed) and the first units are expected to be announced or available (don’t quote me on this one as I don’t remember which it was and whether it was speculation or commitment) either later in 2026 or early 2027.

Happy to clarify further if I’m still not making sense (I do that sometimes)

GOS will likely continue to patch/update Pixel devices until the hard is EOL. With the Motorola partnership announcement and new hardware due to arrive either later this year or next, so long as you keep your GOS device for ~18 months, you should be good and without impact. I’m not sure how Google can Nerf devices not running Play Services as root.

Waiting for inevitable EO that says after talking to some of the “greatest legal minds” (no doubt just his own reflection) it has been determined that he “has the absolute right” to dissolve/suspend SCOTUS if they’re going to stand in the way of him enforcing the law. Cue him using the military to shutdown the building and prevent SCOTUS from convening and Mike Johnson will just shrug and say something like “Well, they knew what would happen. It’s not our job to save their branch of gov’t” when questioned on why Congress won’t impeach.

I’ve been going down there same rabbit hole. Right now, I’m trying to learn Slackware. Happy for other suggestions though

I’m not crying, you’re crying!

“Its a 7 letter word, E_stein. Just need one more letter, any guesses?”

“China!”