220: Data Has Weight, Laws Have Teeth, Linux Has Jokes | Linux Out Loud 122

March 7th, 2026  |  1 hr 1 min

age verification, bsd, california ab 1043, colorado age verification law, cups, deskflow, first lego league, framework laptops, lego spike prime, linux, linux distributions, open source, printer server, privacy, robotics, steamos, surveillance, wayland, zigbee

In this episode of Linux Out Loud, Wendy, Nate, and Bill start in the server room and end up staring down new “for the children” age‑verification laws aimed squarely at your operating system. They talk through wrangling tablets and printers with CUPS, why Framework laptops keep surviving industrial abuse, and how Deskflow brings Synergy/Barrier‑style magic to Wayland setups. From there, they dig into the new FIRST LEGO League robotics kits and what might be lost when classroom‑friendly AI kits replace hands‑on engineering. Finally, they unpack California and Colorado’s OS‑level age‑verification bills, what “OS providers” really means, and why small Linux and BSD projects are already threatening to block entire states rather than bolt surveillance rails onto their distros.