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Cake day: August 30th, 2023

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  • My favorite racing game is Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed Collection (2013 version). Arcade racing in the style of Mario Kart, it was the one time where Sega did what Nintendont in that genre. Amazing tracks, amazing wide selection of Sega characters to chose as racers (also ralph from ralph breaks movies for some reason), amazing 3 way modes of racing (by land, by water, by air), amazing replayability due to all the racers and modifications possible to choose from, and good price in promotion events.




  • They are very niche for the moment, and yes, they do advertise on Linux related youtube channels, like constantly appearing on The Linux Experiment, which itself is trying to be a more accessible linux and foss news channel avoiding the technobabble and too much details on things, but is accessed mainly by converts (with a bigger sized portion of new and potential converts than the norm for linux channels) so the preaching to the choir also applies. But their marketing is of the form we criticised, dry technical explanations. Let’s hope they increase in size and inspire others to up the stakes (or expand themselves), i think a full desktop SteamOS that companies can make a gaming PC around is also on the horizon, seriously challenging the home consoles.


  • There are some hardware sellers specialized in Linux, no ? the european Tuxedo Computers, and specially the north american System 76 (who is also the developer of PopOS, therefore the closest Linux equivalent of Apple in having both hard and soft wares). They could be the ones to do it by having an incentive (selling hardware in more scale, and merchandising too, also accepting donations). Honestly, a company that focused on just assembling good enough computers that run a very hands-off but functional linux distro (pretty much Ubuntu KDE with flatpaks and lots of pre-installed programs a la Linux Mint), while having a good enough price and most importantly focusing on the marketing in the forms mentioned, could change the status-quo. I agree Fedora, Red Hat, will be catering to companies on the foreseeable future. Ads on Youtube are far reaching and not expensive, and possible to scale with time.


  • GNU Linux users are stuck in the early 20th century in marketing strategies, including you. Rational marketing explaining objectively how product P will help its consumers in XYZ is not the mainstream strategy of marketing anymore. It was surpassed by Irrational marketing, where a company will try to associate specific ideas and emotions with its brand and products, like an ad with big cars riding in rough natural landscapes that will show to everyone who is the real man in the block, who has high income, who is the most sexy, most adventurous, who the hot girl will want to date, etc (and NOT an ad that explains how the SUV has 6x6 wheels, can travel 555,8 miles, carry 1,8 metric tons of cargo, with air conditioning, etc, even if those informations are true).

    Apple did not really explain what their various models of computers are to its clients, they just made several marketing pieces of content (including public performances by steve jobs) that transmitted the ‘‘vibes’’ of what using them ‘‘feels like’’ (i.e. what image apple wanted to associate itself). Being ‘‘futuristic’’, ‘‘smart’’, ‘‘successful’’, ‘‘luxurious’’, ‘‘easy’’, etc.

    They need some actual marketing firm that will do a full psy-ops that manages to associate using linux distros with irrational but desirable traits (ideas, emotions, etc), that common people will identify and start trying to ‘‘Keep up with the Joneses’’ (the joneses being the linux users now). Show using Arch Linux as the knack of genius people that will hack anything they want and earn millions, show using Fedora as the thing of smart successful beautiful rich people, show handsome entrepreneurs doing high middle class work in Mint or Ubuntu, show high score Gamers using RGB PCs with Garuda Linux, etc. That kind of marketing is however generally rejected by Linux proponents.


  • The 2nd part is plain wrong. GAFAM and a handful of others basically control the media now, both journalistic and entertainment media, it’s not a true ecosystem anymore, not to mention control of the economy. Who controls the algorithms and decide what will be shown, what will get viral, and what will not get shown, what will be shown but remain marginal, who earns money through their channel is the one who controls the media and public square. USA’s Government is still a one-party pro-corporation pro-imperialism dual institution, that is smart enough to allow a handful of not too dissonant outsiders to show around but vetoing them when actually necessary. Dissonant voices and opposition already existed before, it’s not because they still exist or maybe are more known that control has diminished.

    And the first part is historically wrong and dangerous for the future. The start of the industrial revolution did not lead to an increase in quality of life, people were mass emigrating away FROM europe (where most of the industry was) TO get to USA, Canada, Australia, Latin America (less or little or no industry, but where they could obtain a piece of LAND, and live off agriculture, in a largely pre industrial way until the early 20th century). Life expectancy was lower in cities than in rural areas until the advent of modern medicine in the 20th century inverted the paradigm. Likewise, there is no ‘natural rule’ that innovation will lead to increase in quality of life for everyone everywhere, and a lot of that increase in quality came not from companies and bosses, but from worker movements that through blood and disruption managed to bargain and establish welfare laws, in a time where the bourgeoisie actually needed those workers to make the large sums of money. That is not really the case today, see automation and offshoring eroding those levers of power.