Aug 23, 2026 · 1 hr · 13 segments
Join hosts Bill, Charlie, Eric, and Majid in episode 78 of Linux OTC to dig into phone security, payment scams, and the state of KDE Plasma distros. Charlie opens with a story about a China-specific…
Eric, you ain't the boss of me.
How are you doing, Eric, man? It's been a while.
Yeah,
doing all right.
How are you?
I'm okay, man.
I'm okay.
I realized that, you know, if something is too good to be true, it often is.
Everything okay now,
Charlie?
No audio.
You had what, Majid? Oh, never mind.
Yeah.
So I'd bought a device.
I'd got it cheap because it was a China only model.
And I thought, well, it doesn't matter.
What difference does it make if it's a China only model? And then I was...
It then turned out that Google decided that it was going to stop Google Pay working on all China-specific devices.
And so suddenly I found myself in the cinema having gone to watch Spider-Man with my boys, not being able to pay for the popcorn.
And I was thinking, and initially I just thought it was just me.
I thought, you know, use the error.
I must've done something wrong or whatever.
Anyway, managed to pay for it with something else.
But yeah, 20 pound actually no I actually wanted it because I was hungry yeah oh yeah I'm only buying it for the kids honestly yeah it's nothing to do with me nothing yeah you know anyway and Anyway, and then the next day I found out it was because, yeah, Google had pulled that functionality for all China specific devices because they don't run Google stuff anyway.
Eric, you ain't the boss of me.
How are you doing, Eric, man? It's been a while.
Yeah,
doing all right.
How are you?
I'm okay, man.
I'm okay.
I realized that, you know, if something is too good to be true, it often is.
Everything okay now,
Charlie?
No audio.
You had what, Majid? Oh, never mind.
Yeah.
So I'd bought a device.
I'd got it cheap because it was a China only model.
And I thought, well, it doesn't matter.
What difference does it make if it's a China only model? And then I was...
It then turned out that Google decided that it was going to stop Google Pay working on all China-specific devices.
And so suddenly I found myself in the cinema having gone to watch Spider-Man with my boys, not being able to pay for the popcorn.
And I was thinking, and initially I just thought it was just me.
I thought, you know, use the error.
I must've done something wrong or whatever.
Anyway, managed to pay for it with something else.
But yeah, 20 pound actually no I actually wanted it because I was hungry yeah oh yeah I'm only buying it for the kids honestly yeah it's nothing to do with me nothing yeah you know anyway and Anyway, and then the next day I found out it was because, yeah, Google had pulled that functionality for all China specific devices because they don't run Google stuff anyway.
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