I mean, if what we’re using is pulled from a chipset on the motherboard whose storage space isn’t rewritable from the OS interface, wouldn’t that be called firmware? You are using a flash chip to boot after all.

Yes

“Let’s get this out onto a tray.”

“Nice.”

The OpenXR standard (created entirely by Valve and HTC) is open to everyone, alongside their SteamOS work for the Steam Deck (with the sole exception of the steam client).

Yes, it is a decision that they can make, but I personally don’t consider it unreasonable or irrational. They allow almost all of the other fruits of their labor to be used, and have no problems with things like fan derivative works.

Quick, draw r34 and shitty memes!

Valve doesn’t mind allowing the competition to use some of their more critical contributions such as Proton (and SteamOS code outside of the store/client launcher), so I don’t consider their situation problematic at all. Heck, competition (such as GOG) can have their users take advantage constantly by having their games load through Proton.

We’re distributed, though. No single point of failure, and I’d imagine many of the instance owners already had an anti-Amazon bent to begin with.

Fediverse didn’t have outages :)

I’m inclined to believe IoT would still have a partial advantage because of it being devoid of any unnecessary components - FSE still includes their “Gaming AI” and the Microsoft Store because it’s for home users rather than enterprise customers.

Your description mentions “Eden being taken down (legally)”, so I was wondering if that was a typo.

Didn’t Yuzu get taken out legally? Not Eden (albeit it is a fork)?

“For in mankind’s endless, insatiable pursuits of power, there shall be no price too high, no life too valuable, and no value too sacred. Because war, war never changes.”

I think we have a bit of a degree of “Yep, that’s Microsoft alright” mood as a whole because it’s accepted that things are going to get worse for their users perpetually, so I personally stopped giving a shit because I already left before win10 EOL anyway. I’m guessing there’s a similar mood among others who already saw the writing on the wall.

Shit, good point.

Can’t you do that at a consulate? Or is that not possible for Russian citizenship holders?

Wouldn’t that lead to a “Clipper Chip” situation where somone figured out how to isolate the issue? I think the Graphene team already did it.

Correction: GrapheneOS has implemented permission controls for sensors. It also has sandboxing and permission scopes to prevent many of those leaks.

However, Graphene is not available to everyone, and it’s still problematic due to bystanders/passerby.

Any good places for a dual citizenship application outside of the US? Asking for a friend.

Hope you are living better wherever you moved to. I’d buy you a drink if I could.

3d printers? Pipes, nails, and cordite/fulminates?

Factory built firearms I can believe, but I don’t believe that the populace would be incapable of constructing their own, nor would be unwilling to if push came to shove.

It is a modern phenomenon, but there is no effective way to fully disarm a population without vetting and restricting the imports and purchases within the entire economy (including the internet/communications infrastructure), which I’d imagine the UK doesn’t want to do.