Oh good, so when AOSP is dead in the water, at least GrapheneOS can release hardware without an OS on it?

I guess there is logic to it, the most secure mobile device you can have is none…

That’s good to hear.

Not sure why everyone seems to think GrapheneOS is going to be immune and unaffected by Google actively trying to fuck AOSP to death.

Ah, good point, it didn’t require source code release so much as self-hostability in some form.

I’m convinced it is some sort of insurance fraud a la The Producers. They found a way to make more money by flopping HARD than getting middling success, and flopping hard is a LOT LESS work. If their choice is A) spend a lot of money and time making a really good game that will capture the attention of the entire market; or B) spend a bit of money and time making something that looks convincingly like a real attempt at making a good game to some corpo-fuckwits at an insurance company and then nuke it hours after release… Well. Yea, they’ll do the second one.

That’s literally what the “stop killing games” movement was/is pushing for, at least in Europe. Really hope it goes somewhere, but it’s kind of stopped making noise lately (at least that I’m hearing), what with the US speed-running fascism more and more every single week.

released […] on January 26, 2026. The studio has announced that the game will be shutting down on March 12, 2026.

What the fuck is happening in “triple-a” game dev world?

I’m not sure I’m mentally prepared to replay it. The first time through nearly kicked off an early mid-life crisis. I was waking up in cold sweats having an existential crisis for like a week. Such a good game, but at least in my case, absolutely zero replay-ability. lol

Oh, yea, like in the game’s present you are right. I was meaning in the game’s past; where all the humans went and what info you get through the like audio logs or whatever.

Guess it should be wrapped in spoiler tags just in case…

he would need to leave his physical body to join her in the metaverse through a process called “transference.”

Wait a minute, isn’t that the plot to the game Soma? People sending their “soul” to the digital world through “transference”, and act of immediate suicide after a brain scan.

The text of the bill doesn’t mention anything about being able to “alter or disable the binary blob that performs the age verification”. You are adding a lot of interpretation that is not written, and would have to be decided by courts. The bill only says “person or entity that develops, licenses, or controls the operating system software on a computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device.” They don’t define “control” anywhere to mean having anything to do with code or development. It could just mean administering accounts. Yes, it is a poorly written hack-job of a bill, but nothing about it is specifically carving out special treatment for servers or closed source OS’s.

I mean, I sort of get what you are saying but it also feels a little like Grimes’s boots thing from Terry Pratchet. Like, I can spend $200- $300 and get a phone that will stop getting security updates in 2-3 years… Or I can spend $700-$1000 to get a phone that comes with 7-10 years of security updates. Money per year, you are the same or better off if you can afford the up-front cost of the more expensive product, and we are generating a lot less techno-garbage clogging up the planet.

Generally, I hate the hard limit of use of these things. Coming from desktop computers, if you spend more money the machine is faster, but if you don’t need the speed you can use the cheap machine just as long (or longer if you really don’t need performance). All phones feel like they are just a subscription model.

Yea, except you aren’t getting security updates either… Basically anything connected to the internet should be getting security updates…

You keep saying that, but nothing about it is carved out specifically one way or the other for FOSS. As it is worded, any network sysadmin is considered the “OS Provider” exactly the same under Windows or Linux as they “control the operating system software on a computer”. They don’t “develop” or “license” the software in either case, windows or Linux. They control the OS the same amount under either windows or Linux.

Maybe it could be argued they are more likely to choose windows since the people developing and licensing the software are a big corporation and is therefore more likely to be compliant? But it isn’t like Canonical and RedHat are just some guy in a basement - these are commercial entities developing and licensing software just like Microsoft.

I agree the definitions in this bill are absolutely insane - the idea that the developer, licensor, and administrator of a computer’s OS would ever be the same person is astronomically unlikely. Maybe they mean something different by “control”, but it isn’t defined so that makes it up to the courts to decide with no direction.

I love the definitions section… So, first it defines the 4 age brackets a user can be: Under 13, 13-16, 16-18, or over 18. Then they define “Child” as anyone under 18. Then, and this is where it gets good, they define a “User” as a “Child”. So by these definitions, no one can be considered a user if they are over 18. (which, then, why is there an “over 18” age bracket defined earlier??)

Not only do these people not seem to understand technology, they also don’t understand that people over 18 use technology, or maybe exist?

Nothing about it specifically changes if it is Windows or Linux. By the definitions in the bill, they are just as much the “OS Provider” under Windows as they are Linux.

My biggest concern is the life cycle of the device. I almost went with Motorola for my last phone, but saw that you were lucky to get 3 years of OS updates. Is that likely to be better on GrapheneOS? If so, that is a huge win imo. If not, it still isn’t ideal because I don’t want to have to buy a new phone every 2 years…

Interesting catch, weird AI image maybe?

Any and all advice anyone gives you is going to be heavily weighted by their personal experiences, which is not bad, but also may not be your experience. Truly the best thing to do, if you are willing, is to try a bunch.

Download several different distributions. Get as many USB sticks as you reasonably can. Flash a different distro to each drive. Boot to them one at a time, and try them out. See what you like about one versus another. Hopefully you find one that just “clicks” for you, and then you actually install it to the computer. From there, if everything works, great - enjoy your computer. However, if you immediately run into problems, just go install your number 2 favorite and see if those problems exist there. There’s a reasonable chance they won’t.

Good places to start:

• Mint
• Debian
• PopOS
• Fedora (check out their “spins”, there are a lot of flavors of Fedora)
• Bazzite
• OpenSUSE Tumbleweed
• Cachy
• Endeavor
• Garuda

(There is a thing called Ventoy which kinda lets you use several distros from one usb stick, but I’ve also seen several distro’s instructions warn against using it so maybe it isn’t the best choice for a new convert). Also, obligatory stay away from Manjaro. It isn’t worth it as a new convert…

So the government wants “full self-driving” attack drones. You know, just in case the military actually disobeys an unlawful order?

How many pieces of science fiction do we have where the “bad guys” are literally just killer robots we created and then realized we didn’t have control over? Why would we decide it is a good idea to literally build terminators? I’m convinced the government will actually build the “orphan crushing machine” next…