I want to push back on this part:

Only if Microsoft acquires a major CPU chipmaker.

In the USA, and other parts of the world, a small number of Billionaires are buying up everything. A small number of wealthy people could each own a part of the supply chain and for it on the vast majority.

For extra enforcement, add in a legal or cultural push for reporting or shunning violators through the media companies owned by that same group.

Just adding links for the lazy…

Clipper Chip
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip
https://www.cryptomuseum.com/crypto/usa/clipper.htm

The computers in the store, yes. I expect all computers in the store to be phones and the cell company will verify.

Open Source computers will be more important. Might need to brush up on wire wrapping… (Implication being that chip supplies might become dedicated to only those manufacturers that lock the product down.)

From “the monitor goes dark”, it would be helpful to split monitor issues from computer issues. When the computer becomes unresponsive, do any “non-monitor” functions still work? Does the DVD-drive tray eject or does audio continue to play? Any other details? Do any other lights on the computer stay on, like keyboard and mouse lights?

If the issue is primarily the monitor, then splitting between the physical monitor and the video card would also be helpful.

How old is the hardware?

When you say “nothing is logged”, is the hard shutdown logged or anything after the time of the event? Or does “nothing is logged” mean the normal items are logged, but nothing of interest is logged? Some issues, especially hardware ones, stop the computer from logging.

Story: I once had a 15+ year old computer do something similar. The screen would go dark, but the lights on the keyboard stayed on. I had to hard power the system off and sometimes on boot the monitor wouldn’t work. A monitor swap didn’t fix the issue, but a USB video card did. The video card had failed. (Looking up what I think the interconnect was, the system may be 20 years old at this point.) NOTE: The system was not functional long term with a USB video card due to how the BIOS in the system handled the two video cards.

Likewise, I burned a Debian install DVD about 6 months ago. A FreeBSD install disk about 9 months ago.

theres so many things to do with a pc that i dont know where to start

Pick the first project that you think of and chase it down. If it sucks, then reformat the drive and do something else. Video game systems and file servers are great. So is installing a different OS on each, just to experience the differences side by side.

Do NOT continue “analysis paralysis”.

I understand the failure rates for the GPUs is huge. The duty cycles tend to be high, with power and cooling issues.

(Actually the power issues are wild and can destroy power distribution and generation equipment. “Power Stabilization for AI Training Datacenters” 21 Aug 2025 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.14318)

Another advantage of cookbooks. (There are good ones, but a lot are junk.)

No advantage to using social media tied to your name or identity.

Be a hermit crab. Start new accounts periodically. Be certain they are not tied to your meat space persona.

I agree with you. The implications are staggering.

The kernel change in WinXP really helped stability. It was certainly easy to have a bad install with any of them though.

Win98 SE was my personal “best experience” with Windows, with WinXP a close second. (Though this likely has to do with the hardware and tasks I was experiencing at the time.)

Remember how much people HATED Win95? They still moved to it to escape DOS, but still. Loads of hate.

Ah, but I bet those monkeys produce more text than Shakespeare! At least within the last 6 months!

Seems a better prompt could solve that.

One’s dishwasher is not exposed to a harsh environment. A large percentage of code is exposed to an openly hostile environment.

If a dishwasher breaks, it can destroy a floor, a room, maybe the rooms below. If code breaks it can lead to the computer, then network, being compromised. Followed by escalating attacks that can bankrupt a business and lead to financial ruin. (This is possibly extreme, but cyber attacks have destroyed businesses. The downside risks of terrible code can be huge.)

Alternative Headline: Billionaire Signals States Should Speed Fiber Rollout

Perhaps this could tax the huge data centers being built in the USA, which tend to get huge local tax incentives. But, if I had a data center I was trying to kit out, this would encourage me to setup shop any place other than the USA. (Latency matters, but not equally for everything.)

Didn’t Nancy Regan, wife of former USA President Ronald Regan, did this as well. (Ronald was apparently not mentally fit for the last few years as well.)

50 years ago was 1975. Inflation, depend on the month was between 6.9% and 11.8%. (https://cpiinflationcalculator.com/1975-cpi-inflation-united-states/)

A random comparison of costs. (https://www.amerititle.com/2025/02/1975-vs-2025-traveling-back-in-time-to-compare-costs/) Mortgage rates are down from 1975 levels. Another random site (http://www.1970sflashback.com/1975/ECONOMY.asp)

Is everyone better off? No, Homeless people in both years had a hard life.

Does any of this invalidate what you said? Nope. This is for other people.

Air also does not make things wet when it leaks.