That BIOS feature can be disabled… now. But there’s nothing keeping a manufacturer from just not providing that functionality, and requiring only signed firmware updates. Now the machine is more or less locked down.

The fact it can be disabled now is a convenience feature based on historical availability, but that’s absolutely no guarantee it will continue to be there in the future.

You say that based on 30-40 years of companies not really knowing what they were doing, but we live in a world where hardware manufacturers ABSOLUTELY know how to make nearly unhackable, locked down hardware. Smartphones are already like this - if the manufacturer decides you don’t get to install a custom OS, unless you’re lucky enough for there to be an exploit, you don’t get to. Same goes for game consoles. That knowledge can easily be applied to these to make these, if not completely unhackable, so unstable and inconvenient as to be almost the same.

We are absolutely entering this nightmare phase.

He almost didn’t leave last time. He only left because EVERYONE around him forced him to back down last time.

Who, praytell, is going to do that this time?

Yeah. “Fuck corporate” is an absolutely fantastic life philosophy, but Costco is the LEAST guilty of any of them.

I once heard a way to think about this kind of comment…

It’s not that you think they’re being paid too much - it’s that you think it’s too much relative to what you make vs your own work and your own value assessment.

And that doesn’t mean they’re paid too much - it means YOU’RE probably being underpaid too. Be angry at your own boss - not the ones who pay better. This “paid too much” idea is worker vs worker class warfare to keep everyone miserable. Don’t do the capitalists’ work for them. Every worker who does better is ultimately better for all of us.

I gave up my career and started over in something entirely different at a paltry salary, but I got out.

I totally understand your decision, but historically emigration is FILLED with stories of even professionals like doctors and engineers needing to accept very low paid wage work and re-credentialing in exchange for a longer term reset in a better country.

Again, I absolutely get it - but that’s not the same thing as “no choice”.

Even if this WERE a good idea, which it is NOT, it should be OPT-IN for RESTRICTION set by the PARENTS. OS level PARENTAL CONTROLS are stupid but REASONABLE.

Cautiously optimistic nodding to your conclusion

Yes, but it’s going to repeat that way FOREVER the same way the average person got slow walked hand in hand with a mobile operating system into corporate social media and app hell, taking the entire internet with them.

That’s true, but also a group that has a real and vested interest in getting the answer RIGHT. That helps.

Why bother? Elections don’t matter to him anymore. Every election that ISN’T about him is irrelevant and the ones that are, he won’t respect the results of anyway.

That’s intentional, and it’s why ALL of these ridiculous social media companies do it this way.

Only the present matters. Why would you have anything to gain from seeing history? /s

When I think of how twisted and fucked up the world around you has to be to coexist with a Trump supporter? That makes total sense.

No. I think Sony and Nintendo have enough money to continue to take a loss on consoles to make it up in software sales down the line as they always have, and PCs do not have such subsidization.

Just in time for high end PCs to cost as much as a used car.

This, and not even ironically.

Something broken on the laptop? It’s so locked down nobody can do a damn thing about it, and even if I could I can’t spend 15 minutes of class time troubleshooting while the others are waiting, so I guess you’re just not participating today, Billy.

You can use them fine. In fact, you’ll have to on your new Android phone which has no opt out.

The real question is how that didn’t happen automatically when he was stripped of his title.