arm still needs a custom kernel and conpletely different drivers to even boot, because every manifacturer can implement it completely differently.

Dunno why you’re getting downvoted, this is correct. ARM makes comparatively very expensive to maintain an OS over a variety of CPU models. The specialization required by each Cortex revision (and beyond that, each manufacturer adaptation) is too intense for a world trying to conserve resources.

x86 hardware is standardized in a way where you don’t need to port an os to them, it just runs with generic drivers.

That being said, I’m honestly shocked your friend doesn’t run into issues. Several ISA extensions have been released for x86 since the Core 2 Duo days, and I have to imagine software incompatibilities appear semi-frequently. Running Windows 10 on that can’t be a good experience.

The big one is task (thread) isolation. Let me dig up some sources and get back to you,

It’s also objectively less secure than Chromium, which is hard to admit.

That’s not what I got from the article. (Link for anyone who wants to check it out.)

My interpretation was that decreasing solar/wind electricity prices slows the adoption of renewables, as it becomes increasingly unlikely that you will fully recoup your initial investment over the lifetime of the panel/turbine.

In my mind, this will likely lead to either (a) renewable energy being (nearly) free to use and exclusively state-funded, or (b) state-regulated price fixing of renewable energy.