Living in the US, the last time I tried to buy “Brioche” bread (Sara Lee was the brand), it was just like eating a sandwich made with a dense shortbread.

Someone remind me, what’s the first chapter in On Tyranny?

This is true. Apple’s excuse for it is that it’s used for FindMy and locking down a stolen device. So the Bluetooth and GPS and/or cellular radio still function with the device “off”.

https://www.macrumors.com/guide/ios-15-find-my/

This is honestly exactly what programming is: breaking down big problems into step by step simple problems. If you’ve never considered taking up programming before, I’d suggest you try it sometime and see where it takes you. It’s not hard to learn, it just takes time.

Gentoo with OpenRC is a good option imo

Apparently similarly mechanically powered displays involving cams to actuate number segments were pretty popular back in the day. Here’s a YouTube video I came across one day a while back about one: https://youtu.be/TANe2d0VTGQ