Its Technical

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Libertas
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Re: Its Technical

Post by Libertas »

ProfX wrote: Mon Sep 12, 2022 4:37 pm Lot of fascinating stuff going on in sci-tech news ... fusion power seems closer with recent experiments, the Jetsons seem finally able to get flying cars which are appearing on the market, James Webb telescope found nearby exoplanets that look earth like and have water ... life?

And now this.

[from Twitter]
Atlantic@atlantic.com
We've managed to produce at least one basic need of future human missions to Mars: A toaster-size machine has gotten quite good at making breathable oxygen out of the alien atmosphere, @marinakoren reports.
theatlantic.com
Just Like That, We’re Making Oxygen on Mars
A small experiment on a NASA rover is tinkering with the alien atmosphere.
[end]

Now, before Elon Musk explodulates about terraforming Mars ... the aliens did not leave behind any tech for us (unlike Totall Recall) :D , and just bear in mind it didn't work so well in Red Planet ... scaling this up ... well it's the same problem with fusion, basically. Not going to be blue skies on Mars for a while. :|

But baby steps, folks.
Wow, that is more than a baby step professor!

Exciting news!

Cons hate science.
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ap215
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Re: Its Technical

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Dumbest move by the shareholders he's a maniac he won't make it better. :problem:

Twitter shareholders voted Tuesday to approve Elon Musk’s $44 billion bid to buy the company and take it private.

The vote comes as Musk seeks to scrap the deal, casting doubt onto Twitter’s self-reported percentage of fake accounts and alleging the company was not as forthcoming as it should have been with its explanation of the calculation. Twitter has stood by its figure of less than 5% of monetizable daily active users being spam or fake and has said it’s provided Musk plenty of information meeting the requirements of the deal.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/13/twitter ... mpany.html
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Re: Its Technical

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South Korea fines Google, Meta over privacy violations

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s privacy watchdog has fined Google and Meta a combined 100 billion won ($72 million) for tracking consumers’ online behavior without their consent and using their data for targeted advertisements.

South Korea’s Personal Information and Protection Commission said it fined Google 69.2 billion won ($50 million) and Meta 30.8 billion won ($22 million) after a meeting where officials agreed that the companies’ business practices might cause “serious” privacy infringements.

https://apnews.com/article/technology-s ... position_9
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Re: Its Technical

Post by ZoWie »

I wonder whether Musk's legal fight with twitter over the deal he pulled out of later is why suddenly this former security supervisor is singing like Kate Smith to Congress over a whole bunch of sloppy security lapses at the twitter engineering department.

Not that the lapses aren't real. Don't trust twitter with any information you don't want the world to know.
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Re: Its Technical

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Apparently an unknown windows update installs Spotify on computers running Windows 10 or 11. I've had it happen on two machines now. When this happens, Spotify starts up automatically on boot up. You get a screen asking you to log in or create a login.

People are pissed. Microsoft is saying nothing, and Spotify is saying nothing.

It's easy enough to uninstall Spotify, but having a PUP installed by a routine security update, if that's indeed what happened, does not give me a warm fuzzy feeling. Something appears severely amiss here.
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Re: Its Technical

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ZoWie wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 6:10 pm Apparently an unknown windows update installs Spotify on computers running Windows 10 or 11. I've had it happen on two machines now. When this happens, Spotify starts up automatically on boot up. You get a screen asking you to log in or create a login.

People are pissed. Microsoft is saying nothing, and Spotify is saying nothing.

It's easy enough to uninstall Spotify, but having a PUP installed by a routine security update, if that's indeed what happened, does not give me a warm fuzzy feeling. Something appears severely amiss here.
We have apple phones but I have a PC laptop. It wants me to upgrade to 11, but I havent yet. Not sure if I should.
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Number6
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Re: Its Technical

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ZoWie wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 6:10 pm Apparently an unknown windows update installs Spotify on computers running Windows 10 or 11. I've had it happen on two machines now. When this happens, Spotify starts up automatically on boot up. You get a screen asking you to log in or create a login.

People are pissed. Microsoft is saying nothing, and Spotify is saying nothing.

It's easy enough to uninstall Spotify, but having a PUP installed by a routine security update, if that's indeed what happened, does not give me a warm fuzzy feeling. Something appears severely amiss here.
I’ve noticed Spotify appearing on my computers. I don’t like it when Microsoft loads a non-essential program without my permission. I went to the control panel and uninstalled Spotify from my computers.
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Re: Its Technical

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Libertas wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 7:51 pm We have apple phones but I have a PC laptop. It wants me to upgrade to 11, but I havent yet. Not sure if I should.
I’ve been using Windows 11 since it came out and other than loading Spotify without my permission I haven’t had any problems with Windows 11.
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Re: Its Technical

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Number6 wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 8:36 pm I’ve been using Windows 11 since it came out and other than loading Spotify without my permission I haven’t had any problems with Windows 11.
Thanks
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Re: Its Technical

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Windows 11 has been completely trouble free here. One machine was upgraded from W10 and the transition was next to seamless. All the changes are evolutionary, not revolutionary, and most of them are not really noticeable.

There have been two recent problems with the update setup which is common to both systems. One was human error, the other seems to have been some kind of secret marketing tie-up that no one seems at liberty to discuss. The first one broke the sound device structure on machines which had a certain variable set to allow "enhancements." I'd be an hour explaining it. MickeySoft admits they messed up, blames human error, and is offering a rollback for that particular problem. Oddly, though, they admit that if you did the update the rollback won't work, without noting that if you didn't do the update you don't need it.

You might never notice the difference. It's super-technical and different for every combination of user, software, and machine. Here it broke "stereo mix," which remains broken. I can't recommend my work-around because it sets up feedback loops. I deal with these, but if you don't know the guts of the situation they can ruin your day in a hurry.

So the short answer is that, in my situation, if you did the update you're screwed. But none of you have this situation.

The second situation is that they secretly put Spotify on every computer that did the September "security and quality" update. They were busted on it, and they won't talk about it. It was intentional. You can't hack the whole Windows Update process. It has to have been intentional. Now they won't admit it, even though it's out there and the changes to the registry persist if you don't do a full uninstall, not just the quickie one that deletes the files and boot instructions but not the registry keys.

My point is that the update routine is key to staying one step behind the hackers, instead of years behind. It can't stop zero-day exploits, so you'll always be vulnerable to those, but it can keep you more secure than not doing the updates at all. If we can't trust the updates not to pull underhanded stunts like secretly putting Spotify on millions of computers and letting it stop the user's boot and demand that they create an account, then the updates become part of the problem regarding potentially unwanted products. Who's to say that the next time it won't add something that we can't uninstall, and which will harass us with popups and ads forever?

If that happens, Windows becomes worthless. It's doomsday. I don't want to imagine the consequences if this happens. It's much less painful in the long run to organize whatever kind of user revolt will wise Microsoft up that they can't hide some allied vendor's PUPs in the security updates and then refuse to talk about the situation.
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Re: Its Technical

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ZoWie wrote: Mon Oct 03, 2022 11:24 am Windows 11 has been completely trouble free here. One machine was upgraded from W10 and the transition was next to seamless. All the changes are evolutionary, not revolutionary, and most of them are not really noticeable.

There have been two recent problems with the update setup which is common to both systems. One was human error, the other seems to have been some kind of secret marketing tie-up that no one seems at liberty to discuss. The first one broke the sound device structure on machines which had a certain variable set to allow "enhancements." I'd be an hour explaining it. MickeySoft admits they messed up, blames human error, and is offering a rollback for that particular problem. Oddly, though, they admit that if you did the update the rollback won't work, without noting that if you didn't do the update you don't need it.

You might never notice the difference. It's super-technical and different for every combination of user, software, and machine. Here it broke "stereo mix," which remains broken. I can't recommend my work-around because it sets up feedback loops. I deal with these, but if you don't know the guts of the situation they can ruin your day in a hurry.

So the short answer is that, in my situation, if you did the update you're screwed. But none of you have this situation.

The second situation is that they secretly put Spotify on every computer that did the September "security and quality" update. They were busted on it, and they won't talk about it. It was intentional. You can't hack the whole Windows Update process. It has to have been intentional. Now they won't admit it, even though it's out there and the changes to the registry persist if you don't do a full uninstall, not just the quickie one that deletes the files and boot instructions but not the registry keys.

My point is that the update routine is key to staying one step behind the hackers, instead of years behind. It can't stop zero-day exploits, so you'll always be vulnerable to those, but it can keep you more secure than not doing the updates at all. If we can't trust the updates not to pull underhanded stunts like secretly putting Spotify on millions of computers and letting it stop the user's boot and demand that they create an account, then the updates become part of the problem regarding potentially unwanted products. Who's to say that the next time it won't add something that we can't uninstall, and which will harass us with popups and ads forever?

If that happens, Windows becomes worthless. It's doomsday. I don't want to imagine the consequences if this happens. It's much less painful in the long run to organize whatever kind of user revolt will wise Microsoft up that they can't hide some allied vendor's PUPs in the security updates and then refuse to talk about the situation.
Is "stereo mix" an app or a function of the OS? Looking it up I guess it is part of the OS. I dont use it so I guess I can go ahead with this.

I had McAfee on here free when I bought my LG laptop and it is renewing in 3 weeks, I could not renew it and just use Microsoft Defender, opinion?

The trick is getting ALL of McAfee off of the computer.

Is it going to change my web browser default?
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Re: Its Technical

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Libertas wrote: Mon Oct 03, 2022 1:17 pm Is "stereo mix" an app or a function of the OS? Looking it up I guess it is part of the OS. I dont use it so I guess I can go ahead with this.

I had McAfee on here free when I bought my LG laptop and it is renewing in 3 weeks, I could not renew it and just use Microsoft Defender, opinion?

The trick is getting ALL of McAfee off of the computer.

Is it going to change my web browser default?
I just use Windows Defender and so far I haven't had any problem with it. I have Spectrum for my cable provider and it uses MacAee antivirus so I guess I'm doubly protected.
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Re: Its Technical

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Libertas wrote: Mon Oct 03, 2022 1:17 pm Is "stereo mix" an app or a function of the OS? Looking it up I guess it is part of the OS. I dont use it so I guess I can go ahead with this.

I had McAfee on here free when I bought my LG laptop and it is renewing in 3 weeks, I could not renew it and just use Microsoft Defender, opinion?

The trick is getting ALL of McAfee off of the computer.

Is it going to change my web browser default?
The uninstall of just the app shouldn't change the browser default, and if it does, it's stupidly easy to go to the browser you want and find the set as default button and do same. There are programs such as Revo Uninstaller which can be configured to look for traces in the registry, etc, but they might not be as good at finding all the various leavings of stuff that came pre-installed on the computer.

McAfee was the hot setup many many years ago, but he turned out to be something of a loon, and I won't have his stuff on my computer. His decline was a good, if unintentional, predictor of what the Internet has since done to US politics.

Stereo Mix is in the OS. It may or may not be documented, since I get the idea that MickeySoft would rather we just forget about it. Not that long ago, Windows sound had various mixes, with virtual sliders for all manner of inputs and outputs. It was flexible, like a good mixing board. If you knew anything about pro audio, you could pretty well use that to get any setup you liked. Since the purpose of the Internet is now to turn us all into brainless consumers, Stereo Mix is now at best a deprecated feature. I was able to restore it after the update, but the apps didn't seem to recognize it any more. Since then, I've gotten it to work, sort of, but not very well.

I don't think it does as much as it used to. If the idea was to break third party sound card apps, well, they have succeeded. It might also be, though, that Windows just got too bloated for its own good and now one department doesn't know what the other ones are up to.
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ap215
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Re: Its Technical

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Beats: Italian antitrust fine for Apple and Amazon cancelled on appeal

An antitrust win for Amazon and Apple in Italy, where an appeals court has cancelled a multimillion-dollar penalty the pair were hit with last year for alleged collusion following an investigation into the reselling of Apple and (Apple-owned) Beats kit on Amazon’s Italian e-commerce marketplace.

The original €203 million (total) penalty had already been reduced to €173.3 million, earlier this year — due to an error in the competition watchdog’s calculations. But today the regional administrative court of the Lazio region cancelled the fine altogether (via Reuters).

https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/03/italy ... cancelled/
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Re: Its Technical

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I meant will going to 11 change the browser, but I can change it back in browser settings. And in the OS pretty sure, at least with 10 you can.
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Re: Its Technical

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The free upgrade to W11 did not change the browser default. I can see where they might try to set it to Edge, and periodically I get nag notifications telling me what a great browser it is, but at least here it didn't take over.

Even if it did, it's a 30-second hack to set it back to the one you want.

The changes I had on the computer I did were related to the position of things on the screen. It wanted to put the task bar in the middle, but I'm too used to having it on the left. Little stuff like that. Also, widgets are back. They're pretty, and hopefully secure this time, but they were getting a bit uppity regarding nag and spyware issues, so I sent them on their merry way. I was wondering whether Cortana would try to become an unwelcome guest with big ears, but she stayed in her suspended animation.

Fortunately, it's all ridiculously easy to change. Not always well documented, but easy.
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Re: Its Technical

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ZoWie wrote: Mon Oct 03, 2022 6:55 pm The free upgrade to W11 did not change the browser default. I can see where they might try to set it to Edge, and periodically I get nag notifications telling me what a great browser it is, but at least here it didn't take over.

Even if it did, it's a 30-second hack to set it back to the one you want.

The changes I had on the computer I did were related to the position of things on the screen. It wanted to put the task bar in the middle, but I'm too used to having it on the left. Little stuff like that. Also, widgets are back. They're pretty, and hopefully secure this time, but they were getting a bit uppity regarding nag and spyware issues, so I sent them on their merry way. I was wondering whether Cortana would try to become an unwelcome guest with big ears, but she stayed in her suspended animation.

Fortunately, it's all ridiculously easy to change. Not always well documented, but easy.
HOw do you change the the task bar back? If you have the info handy, if not I can google it. I also like my pinned stuff where it is at , the chrome button, malwarebytes button etc...
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Re: Its Technical

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settings > personalization > taskbar > taskbar behaviors > taskbar alignment
select "Left"
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Re: Its Technical

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ZoWie wrote: Mon Oct 03, 2022 8:36 pm settings > personalization > taskbar > taskbar behaviors > taskbar alignment
select "Left"
thanks
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Re: Its Technical

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NHL to use digital advertising on boards for 2022-23 season

The newest idea, as first reported by Greg Wyshynski of ESPN, will be the use of digitally enhanced dasherboards (DED) for each and every game throughout the 2022-23 season.

The DED system will have advertisements on the dasherboards change throughout the course of a game, with any particular brand being able to purchase a 30-second increment. These will change plenty throughout the course of a game, as teams will have 120 increments to fill. The NHL will also be allotted 90 seconds of institutional time for their own advertisements.

https://sports.yahoo.com/nhl-to-use-dig ... 22565.html
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Re: Its Technical

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Duh. 😒

Harvard expert: The Twitter deal could be bad for Elon Musk—and for the rest of us

Elon Musk’s controversial bid to buy Twitter could be bad news — for both the world’s richest person and the general public, a Harvard expert says.

The pending $44 billion acquisition of the social media platform could financially damage Musk’s other companies, keep his eyes away from crucial research and development efforts and negatively impact the country’s public discourse, says Bill George, a senior fellow at Harvard Business School and former CEO of medical technology company Medtronic.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/12/harvard ... -musk.html
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Re: Its Technical

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ap215 wrote: Wed Oct 12, 2022 5:31 pm Duh. 😒

Harvard expert: The Twitter deal could be bad for Elon Musk—and for the rest of us

Elon Musk’s controversial bid to buy Twitter could be bad news — for both the world’s richest person and the general public, a Harvard expert says.

The pending $44 billion acquisition of the social media platform could financially damage Musk’s other companies, keep his eyes away from crucial research and development efforts and negatively impact the country’s public discourse, says Bill George, a senior fellow at Harvard Business School and former CEO of medical technology company Medtronic.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/12/harvard ... -musk.html
Broken record here, but when he reinstates the traitor, America ends, probably. Guess who could prevent that, cons including those on this board, but they are not patriots so they wont.

The America for better or worse that we all know or knew, is gone. The question is what replaces it and will we survive. It wasn't that long ago when folks warned about this they were yelled at, remember!
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Re: Its Technical

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Elon Musk Is Under Federal Investigation for 'His Conduct' in $44 Billion Twitter Deal

Elon Musk is being investigated by the federal government amid his legal battle with Twitter.

In a Delaware court filing dated Oct. 6, Twitter asked to see communications between the Tesla founder, 51, and federal agents. The papers were unsealed Thursday, according to Bloomberg.

https://people.com/human-interest/elon- ... tter-deal/
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Re: Its Technical

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Rollercoasters have triggered some new iPhones to make emergency calls.
According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), at one US amusement park the plummeting rides activated the phones' crash detection system.

The feature was introduced in the new iPhone 14 and Apple Watch Series 8, Ultra and SE with the latest OS.

Apple told the newspaper the technology is intended to provide "peace of mind" and will continue to improve over time.

Although a new feature on the iPhone, the crash detection system recently demonstrated its utility alerting emergency services to a fatal accident in Nebraska.

According to Apple, the system is designed to detect severe car crashes - such as front-impact, side-impact and rear-end collisions and rollovers.

The phone uses a number of sensors to detect a crash, including sound, changes in air pressure caused by airbags deploying, motion sensors and GPS.

Following a detected crash, users are given an option to call the emergency services or dismiss the alert.

However, if after 20 seconds the user does not respond, the phone automatically calls emergency services, giving the location of the incident. It also sends a message to a user's emergency contacts if they have them.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63157888
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Re: Its Technical

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ap215 wrote: Fri Oct 14, 2022 2:25 am Elon Musk Is Under Federal Investigation for 'His Conduct' in $44 Billion Twitter Deal

Elon Musk is being investigated by the federal government amid his legal battle with Twitter.

In a Delaware court filing dated Oct. 6, Twitter asked to see communications between the Tesla founder, 51, and federal agents. The papers were unsealed Thursday, according to Bloomberg.

https://people.com/human-interest/elon- ... tter-deal/
Fingers crossed, traitor will ask his followers to kill us the instant he is put back on.
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