[Arm-netbook] System 76 - Entering Phase 3

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

On Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 4:25 AM, Lyberta <lyberta at lyberta.net> wrote:

> There is a line that you may cross after which there is almost no
> return. If the whole world is extremist and fascist, then you fix it
> with extremism and terrorism.

 y'know... there's a famous black civil rights activist who, when
faced with a fascist / aparheid "law" he was accused of violating,
responded "go ahead and arrest me: because if i comply with your law
it's far worse than *anything* you could do to me by putting me in
prison".

> An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind

 you know that that saying actually means that if you take someone's
eye, then *yours* will be taken, right?  it's *not* giving you the
"right" to respond with violent force against violence: it's a
*WARNING* to you that violence committed is a downward spiralling
trap.

> Fuck. I hate this world, I hate myself.

 i have a wise friend who very kindly gave me a definition of stress.
he said it's when people make a comparison between the external
(perceived) world and their internal view, cannot cope with the
difference... and seek to blame the EXTERNAL world.  "i hate your
tie!!  yesss... it's the *tie's* fault!" :)

 ironically i had never considered before the scenario where the
"target" of the emotion/stress *was* actually your "self".

 lyberta, do look up eckart tolle's story, it's very very funny (and
relevant).  ok ok i can't resist telling the tale: he was an academic,
in some of the worst (bitchiest) back-stabbing in-fighting for funding
and "status" academic environments it's possible to be in, and it was
really *really* getting him down.  so one day he woke up and said to
himself, intending to kill himself, "i can't live with myself".

 except, the academic in him went, "hang on a minute, what the hell?
what the hell is the damn difference between this "I" and this
"myself"?? in that stupid sentence!  *I* can't live with my "self"??
wtf??"  and the sudden and revelationary recognition of the incredible
cognitive dissonance between two "things" - two "selfs" - in his mind
which he *wasn't even aware were separate" resulted in what's known in
the trade as a "kundalini whiteout".

 when he came to he found he was still sitting on the bed but he could
perceive things in a totally new way.  i won't go into the rest of the
story but he's now one of the western world's best known "spiritual
masters", so his books (including audio books) are well worth reading.


>> And anyway something that is not widely known: when arm netbooks started
>> becoming a thing OEMs were putting linux on them( of course). Microsoft saw
>> a very threatening market emerging and raged hell upon them that if they
>> kept doing this the sales of their other models would suffer due to them
>> removing the OEM discount on the windows license.

 i heard they were just out-and-out blackmailing companies.  i've
heard a lot of these stories.

>> After that they proceeded
>> to change the model so instead of charging per machine they charge per
>> model. So basically even if you buy e.g. a Dell Lattitude with Ubuntu
>> preinstalled and then wipe it and replace it with an FSF approved distro
>> YOU ARE STILL PAYING THE WINDOWS LICENSE. Now some people might disagree
>> with me, but for me libre software is a war against oppression and is
>> directly competing with microsoft etc( disagree as in that we do not
>> compete but exist to fulfeel our own needs). So just for this reason, if
>> you need to buy an x86 computer and a libreboot model is not an option it
>> is better to buy a system76 instead of e.g. a dell or a thinkpad and then
>> install gnu/linux on it.
>
> Interesting observation.

 agreed.

> I have bought Dell laptop with Ubuntu
> preinstalled as it was the only model with GNU/Linux distro I could find
> quickly.

 well, now you're aware of two other possible companies: system76 and
thinkpenguin.  yay!

l.