Perhaps being one of the first major Distros in the sense of being easy enough for many less tech inclined to switch from windows and not need to know as much command line.
I had tried older and other versions of Linux but back then Ubuntu mostly just worked. Being a leader in that sense has held them in the place where its safe to dive into Linux despite the various other flavors that can do it better. The PR is a lot to overcome for newbies that are overwhelmed on it. It’s only later after getting a footing you will be brave enough to try over flavours.
For me Linux Mint is a no brainer place to start with my older hardware than Ubuntu now but I don’t think they have the word of mouth like Ubuntu. At least with Ubuntu if they are even aware of something more than Mac or Windows they have probably heard of the name not really knowing what it is. Many aren’t Googling Arch for first time installs I suspect.
We all assume people are at least as smart as we think we are but honestly they aren’t. It’s scary how many stupid people there are even if you are at the lower part of the average. Millions… It’s always the lowest common denominator that the world ends up being built for it seems and that means it’s not required for millions above that…
Well in the reddit case there’s a payoff and then one gets to walk away from the sinking ship. They just need to get things pumped up for the IPO and then who cares what happens from there. It’s time to cash out and it becomes someone else’s problem to deal with.
This IPO is the only thing that going to give them anything remotely near Musk money and it’s not going to anywhere near at much where one can crash and burn another social media site for the hell of it…
One has to wonder about the medical issues he was experiencing in the past couple of years were.
I’m pretty sure addiction doesn’t make one healthier or younger so you wonder what type of damage has incurred over the years of his struggles. Perhaps he had heart issues or something else that will surface in the hours and says ahead.
Still sad to hear he’s passed. Money can make some things easier in life without a doubt but it can’t fix everything it seems.
I remained a blackberry user for too long. I had a number of them and I wasn’t interested in the Apple phone. Then I had a terrible BB Storm which would freeze up all the time.
I called my telco frustrated by the POS. They gave me a $100 credit to go buy a pay and talk android phone (LG something) and wait for a month for the Samsung S2 to come out. Once it arrived I would be sent one. The pay and talk LG blew my blackberry out of the water as it was a full internet experience unlike the BB that was translating all internet experiences to reduce data used on networks that couldn’t handle data to start out with.
The S2 was amazing compared to my BB’s. I did miss the physical keyboard until I started using Swype. Then I couldn’t go back.
I recall minutes being a big revenue generator for telcos, then it became data once the networks could handle it with the iPhone. Now it seems like they are giving away tons of data these days. What’s driving revenue now for them I wonder?
Seems like this issue is across a few different industries. I had two CnC machine running software on old PC’s with special cards to interface with the drives. One was running in a Dos box while the other was running windows XP. We could never afford any down time so it was fine some old PC’s that can still run this stuff.
For the traditional law and order crowd (not so sure now) wearing anything the US flag is unlawful until 1989 but now is still considered poor Etiquette and rarely acknowledged as such.
I think there’s a larger emotional attachment for some, especially those that served in the military and had friends die just to get that flag up the next hill, or to fly over the next objective. In this military case I suspect it’s much more than a piece of cloth, it’s their memories of those brothers in arms or even the greatest time in their lives.
In Nationalistic countries like WW2 Japan, Germany, modern America, a person’s whole identity is contained in that flag. While the Rebel flag is traditionally the sign of rednecks for many or the love of a regional area one grew up in, it’s the representation of oppression, racism, and losers from a very short span of time in American history. That last part might trigger some more than the oppression and racism parts as that’s their identity one’s talking about.
Even as a Canadian I’m saddened to see our flag fly with US political party flags as a protest and how it now represents a very vocal fringe segment of our society when previously we weren’t as “Patriotic” with our flag waving outside of Canada Day or sporting events. This previously reserved aspect was yet another thing that was a difference to our southern cousins. It’s been hijacked when it didn’t have that connection previously.
This can also be equated in some ways like someone’s childhood blankey being jumped on and burnt could cause some great grief due to memories of their mother or grandmother that made it. Humans have a great ability to package and attach meaning to things no matter the extreme.
Then one is up against feelings, not logic of right or wrong. Punching someone then becomes a larger possibility as it’s emotionally not connected to the logical side of us.
Feelings are a hell of a thing and those burning or waving flags know this and this is why it can get the attention they want.
I never made it past Napster mp3s into whatever Apple or Spotify offers. I did eventually rip all of my CDs to Flac before giving them away.
I also upload them to Play Music once they bought out Songza but that service changed over to YouTube Music not long after which I share with 5 people so I have gotten use to that as my ad free radio and YouTube.
Accuradio was another favorite along with Jango many years ago but that was with a ad blocker then.
I still have a portable MP3 player that I used for plane trips. Now it’s just a nostalgia listen to the time when I loaded it in the late 2000s.