If a factory can afford robots, they already have acquired it. Industrial robots excel at their work already due to them being extremely precise already. If you need transportation robots, there are already ones that euter run on embedded rails or are already fully self-driving using wheels. Humanoid robots solve no issues that the industry hasn’t already solved. It would just be a robot that would be less stable compared to any other transportation robot nor as precise as stationed ones while also more complex, and thus easier to break down, with the only upside it being that it’s more of a generalist, but that is also sort of a moot point because a human could do it still cheaper.

The real use case of humanoid robots is very niche, with it being in environment where classic robot models fails, that being an environment that cannot be modified for classic robot use (e.g. mountainous terrain) where flying is not a viable option. After all, the human body, and the bodies of quite a few animals, excel at climbing rough and steep terrain whereas most, if not all, currently commercially available robots fail at it, or at the very least do very poorly.

This is why I appreciate immutable distros so much. Sure, you can’t really do super sick stuff by tinkering with system files or modify some system components to make it your dream system, but the average user really doesn’t need that. In most use cases, the flatpak version of a software will just run fine, sometimes even better than the standalone version due to certain outdated dependencies being hard to acquire/install that the Flatpak just integrates. Sure, Flatpak also has issues, but for the most part it works for the end user.

I wouldn’t say you’re too cynical with that view. I mean, the 2 German public broadcast channels (ARD, ZDF) are under constant fire for basically catering to an audience that is slowly dying out - both metaphorically and physically. Sure, some of these shows still have some popularity with younger generations, but that is few and far between. It’s pretty much the same idea that plagues big corporations - change is scary as it poses a risk, so they avoid it - even if they literally have nothing to lose.

And I agree that the fractured streaming environment made it ever harder to license content. However, I don’t think they should focus on licensing content to begin with. Instead, offer more grants for independent studios to create publicly available movies and shows. I mean, as we speak, Glitch is funding multiple shows to be viewed for free on YouTube. Why can’t public broadcast channels do that more too?

As an example of the system being reworked into a better one: Germany’s equivalent not only finances public broadcast channels, but also youtubers through the program FUNK. Granted, a lion’s share still goes into the old TV channels, but at least that includes the French/German channel Arte, which has some top notch content (though usually documentaries) that it regularly uploads onto YouTube.

Do you really need the entire installation? Would only the user folder(s) (C:\Users) suffice?

Alternatively, you could install Linux mint on a large enough USB stick and run it off there, if you don’t mind the longer read/write times. You’d also need to change the boot order for it too.