It definitely happens.

He’s got my vote.

These people went through the process I described above. I’m not saying you need a degree to do scientific work. I’m saying you need to do scientific work to achieve scientifically relevant results.

Easy. First you survey the existing literature for your theory. Chances are, somebody already came up with it, or, more likely, debunked it. If that’s not the case, you write up a paper, presenting your theory together with its supporting evidence and submit it through the usual channels. I know that sounds pretty discouraging, but the chance of some rando contributing something meaningful are pretty close to zero

I had to learn to program CNC machines with punch tape back in the eighties, so not too far off.

Nominalistic Determinivity

Large corporations don’t buy small companies to make better products. They buy them to eliminate the competition.

But that would require travelling to the US. I’ll have to pass on that until some semblance of sanity returns there. I don’t expect to see that in my lifetime.

Indeed I haven’t.

I’ll take “that totally happened” for 200, please.

If you disregard some minor hiccups, like the civil war, the multiple colonial wars, the famines, the purges, the gulag and other such trivialities.

You mean violent overthrow of the existing system and establishment of a totalitarian empire? That’s sure going to help.

There’s probably some lightweight Linux distro you can get to run on it. It could be used for some edge computing, like Pihole.

Mint is still a great choice if just for the ease of installation. I agree they’re lagging behind a bit in the transition to Wayland but for most users that’s not really a big issue. Mint also has one of the largest communities so getting support will be easier. To me Mint is still an excellent choice for getting started with Linux. I’ve been using it for years and I see no reason whatsoever to switch.

I believe the alien cow fart theory!

OP has management material written all over him.

Think of it that way: those nice people are sending you money every month and all you have to do is go there and look busy. Certainly not the most rewarding way to spend your day but having money is nice.

Thanks.

I have no idea what any of those things are. Which is not to say, you shouldn’t post this here, but a bit of context would be nice.

Yummy!