This is such a severe problem that even now, (20+ year old) H.264 is the only codec that you can safely assume every end-user will be able to play, and H.264 consumes 2x (if not more) bandwidth compared to modern codecs at the same perceived image quality. There are still large subsets of users that cannot play any codecs newer than this without falling back to (heavy and power intensive) software decoding. Being able to simply load a new video codec into hardware would be revolutionary, and that's only one possible use case.

Folks say just get on food stamps or medicaid, but it's not that simple. At that level of destitution you may not have a phone, an address, basic ID/documentation, or even a means of getting to the office to apply. Means-testing makes the process so drawn-out and convoluted, that many folks (including myself) don't even bother, because there are more immediate things to worry about (once again speaking from experience).

After years of destitution, I finally managed to make a bit more than twice the FPL and I was still struggling (but significantly better off). Just recently I lost that job for reasons outside my control and after my unemployment runs out I'm back where I started. Everyone I know has a similar story. Any data that says that poverty is decreasing in the US is detached from reality.

Despite the TPM being a pretty good and useful idea as a secure enclave for storing secrets, I'm concerned that giving companies the ability to perform attestation of your system's "integrity" will make the PC platform less open. We may be headed towards the same hellscape that we are currently experiencing with mobile devices.

Average folks aren't typically trying to run Linux or anything, so most people wouldn't even notice if secure boot became mandatory over night and you could only run Microsoft-signed kernels w/ remote attestation. Nobody noticed/intervened when the same thing happened to Android, and now you can't root your device or run custom firmware without crippling it and preventing the use of software that people expect to be able to use (i.e. banking apps, streaming services, gov apps, etc.).

Regardless, this is more of a social issue than a technical issue. Regulatory changes (lol) or mass revolt (also somewhat lol) would be effective in putting an end to this. The most realistic way would be average people boycotting companies that do this, but I highly doubt anyone normal will do that, so this may just be the hell we are doomed for unless smaller manufacturers step up to the plate to continue making open devices.

All of the current Linux phones have major showstopper issues, and saying we're complaining about them being "unable to run modern PC games" is a strawman. The simple fact of the matter is there are no decent mobile Linux options available.

The most endemic problem right now is "Linux" phones that use crummy forked vendor kernels and Halium. For all intents and purposes, these devices are trapped in time and can't meaningfully get software updates for major system components. The 2 decent Halium-free options, the Pinephone and the Librem 5, both still use downstream kernels, and the Pinephone's kernel is maintained by 1 person in their spare time. I think it's apparent that this is not sustainable, and one can't reasonably expect megi to maintain this device forever.

As sad as it makes me feel to say this, I don't foresee these problems improving for a long time. As of now, I remain stuck with a Moto E6 from 2019 (Android 9.0) as it seems to be the final device ever produced with a replaceable battery, headphone jack, SD card slot, and screws instead of glue.

This is purely theoretical, but a 6522 could be used to bitbang SPI, opening the possibility of adding an SD card and Ethernet controller (with a chip like the Wiznet W5500). Add a small amount of SRAM (~16/32Kbit) and a loader ROM, and you'd be able to make the NES into a workable general purpose computer using only the cartridge slot. If needed, one could steal an interrupt from the expansion slot.

Admittedly, this could still be considered "cheating" because the W5500 has a built-in TCP/IP stack, but personally I would feel comfortable saying the NES is hosting the site.

Bitbanging SPI with the 6522 -- https://wilsonminesco.com/6502primer/potpourri.html#BITBANG_...