TL;DR

MAGAt

True, and the crusade in 1400AD odd was because the Ottomans invaded the Eastern Holy Roman Empire… Plus ça change plus c’est la meme chose

Jesus fucking christ they’re gonna try to do another fucking crusade in the modern day.

Gulf War 1

Gulf War 2

Bombing Yemen

Etc etc

Modern day Crusades has been going on for nigh 3 decades.

Hmmm that looks like parts listings for the Fairphone 4 to me, why do you ask ?

f the federal government set up a replacement program though, and shipped all the JD machinery to Ukraine where hackers know how to modify the software, everyone but JD would win.

Funny you should mention Ukraine, a decade ago (iirc) Ukraine hackers cracked the JD interface and started making available a tool for farmers to manage their own tractors - John Deere sued

https://www.vice.com/en/article/why-american-farmers-are-hacking-their-tractors-with-ukrainian-firmware/

https://doctorow.medium.com/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors-bc93f471b9c8

Although I suspect you already knew that :-)

But help me understand how it’s possible that our “free market” is enabling this, unless it’s just a controlled market charading as free?

• There are very few markets in the US that actually achieve Adam Smith’s “perfect market” (perfect competition)

• The more expensive the individual item, the harder it is for there to be competition (costs of standing up factories, distribution and support, low volumes of sales etc), it’s extremely expensive to set up in opposition to John Deere

• There are other market statuses other than “controlled” and “free” - the vast majority of US markets are Oligopolies (few sellers many buyers). Processed / packaged foods for example - 99% of market volume is done by a couple of players.

• A century ago there were many farm machinery manufacturers - the individual machines were less expensive in real terms, and the complexity much lower. A virtual monopoly (one very large and a few smaller players) has formed through insufficient regulation to protect competition - the big ones gobble up the small and competition gradually dwindles

Mmm, maybe, I’m pretty sure there’s pretty solid case law precedent on this. It’s been heavily litigated over the centuries.

The parameters around what is within the jurisdiction of the US Federal govt is pretty clear. Fundamentally Article I, Section 8 of US Constitution although there’s a few other loose ends (implied powers).

“The enumerated powers listed in Article One include both exclusive federal powers, as well as concurrent powers that are shared with the states, and all of those powers are to be contrasted with reserved powers that only the states possess”

federal law does supercede state law (Art 6 Sec 2)

Only to the extent that the Federal law is constitutional (ie within its powers) and valid

Hello, recent Reddit convert here and I’m loving it. You even inspired me to figure out how to fully dump Windows and install LineageOS.

I am truly impressed that you managed to replace a desktop operating system with a mobile os that doesn’t even come in an X86 variant (Lineage that is is, I’m aware android has been ported).

I smell bovine faeces. Or are you, in fact, an LLM ?

Yes.

They were always this way, it’s just the mask is now off.

Setting aside the fact that legally a corporation actually is a person, there is such a thing as a corporate culture, and a corporate ethos.

Let’s start with an old microsoft ethos: embrace extend extinguish

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish

Now don’t try to tell me I made it up, there’s enough evidence for it to have its own wiki page.

Similarly there’s FUD an approach they most certainly didnt invent but did an excellent job of weaponising to a fine art.

And so on and so forth. Those of us who have been around a while know the true shape of it, and that leopard has never changed its spots.

I got my MCSE on NT4 back when CNE was much more respected. I still work in IT so yes I too use both windows & linux, that doesn’t stop me having a clear eyed view of them.

They’re also not the worst by a long chalk, google, meta, palantir are all far less principled and far more detrimental to society.

M$ still arent good though, and its woven into their culture

Linux activists definitely root against Windows

That is at least in part because Windows has actively undermined Linux for years, and the older ones of us also remember M$ killing OS/2 (&Novell on tge server side) and learnt our lesson not to trust them even when it looks like they’re playing nice

I’m all for it because it will split Trump’s vote, but there’s really no point as there won’t be free elections for anything more serious than dog catcher in the US until the fash have been forcibly evicted.

The democratic options expired Jan 20th 2025. Resist.

It’s an entire german state cutting off 800k p.a of MS revenue. That’s not piecemeal is it ?

Schleswig Holstein (sp?) are doing so, ditto Copenhagen and Aarhaus (DK) and I believe France are looking into it

I’m shocked ! Shocked I tell you ! Ok, not that shocked

<sigh> I used to be one of those sysadmins, and the short answer is appropriate risk management, better network controls a locked down OS and immediate action to push out the patches for serious issues.

I quite frankly detest M$ but keeping your pc patched isn’t propaganda.

If you know enough to manage the risk (including proper network firewalls and good internet hygiene) then sure, keep going for a while. Zero days aren’t daily, they’re a handful per year.

On the other hand if you have no clue about ITSec then you genuinely need to upgrade asap because you’re metaphorically running around with your genitals exposed.

Your comment leads me to suggest you probably dont have the skills to do an appropriate risk assessment.

But you do you. I’m not your Dad

So here comes alkaline rain to replace the acid rain we got rid of 40 years ago. Genius idea. Not

Yep still exist.

No more security patches. That should be dead to you if you don’t want to host thousands of parasitic bots & malwares