Ebby

I second this. It’s an amazing utility for video encoding.

Used it for converting class projects back in the day. The queue feature saved my arse back when prores to HEVC conversions took days.

Weeeelllllll… Yeah I guess you have a good point. If something did happen, finger pointing starts.

Gestures at wires

But it’s right there! I need a 1-day OSHA permit just to yank crap out!

I kinda want one of these. I could load it up with my collection. It’d be awesome. I can imagine my SO’s blood boiling already at the sight of “more useless junk”!

And what do you need an electrician for? Turn off power, open a panel, and disconnect the wires. Snip snip. Frankly, I’m surprised a dedicated switch/breaker for a 3rd party kiosk isn’t mandatory.

If only I had the space …

If I recall you still can through ADB, but it’s a pain and they started locking that down too. Ad blocking VPN (at least the one I tried) didn’t work.

There was a big update about a year ago that very clearly sent the message “this device will show what we want you to see.”

While based on Google TV, they lock down the OS, control the app store, and force their apps. You’re in their walled garden and it’s a pain to break out in any meaningful way.

No thanks. It’s all about data harvesting and ads now.

There was a time it was a neat product, but Amazon tech isn’t entering our household anymore.

Totally right. Forgot what community I was in.

Don’t most? Even Fitbit does that for ages. You can select what apps to receive notifications from.

First of all, the ISP controls cable modem firmware. They have all the settings and manage the device. You don’t get much control there.

As for your question, I’d say no, for 2 reasons. First, designing that capability is expensive and modems are built for cheap reliability. Second, any hardware to spy is more useful installed in a data center accessible to their user base. There is not much point installing unnecessary tech to one endpoint.

As for router, they are beefier CPU-wise. AT&T has in the past prevented users from changing DNS settings and that could lead to lots of tasty data. Deep packet inspection is becoming more prevalent in home routers as is integration with other technologies. (EERO devices for example).

Make sure to fire up a VPN or something when you need.

The user may not be aware they have this tracking technology on their phone. The toolkit may be some app developer integrating a 3rd party library for analytics. Banking apps, loyalty apps, phone companies, games, utilities… they all can rely on 3rd parties for proximity services.

In fact, I was going to mention an app, Exodus, that can reveal these trackers and in scanning my phone, I found 2!. The first is home assistant, which is understandable, but the second is a Health app my doctor office uses! Man, that irks me!

Uhhh that exact technology has been in use for years. Your phone broadcasts/receivers a beacon at regular intervals while Bluetooth is on. Anyone can pick it up if they are looking.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/14/opinion/bluetooth-wireless-tracking-privacy.html

The process is so streamlined companies bragged your advertising profile is updated before you check out.

The Next Major Version of Bluetooth Might Help Advertisers Track Your Smartphone Faster

FIFY

Let’s not pretend this feature didn’t trickle down the data harvesting dog-hydrant to us peons solely for our benefit.

Straight up, Firefox isn’t search, so that’s never going to be competitive. Changing from Google is easy though. That aside though …

Comparing Firefox to Chrome is a little complicated as it comes default on pretty much all Android phones. Yes, we can change, but it’s still installed and running services in the background if I recall. I really hope the move away from useful extensions takes a toll on chrome and brings users over to Firefox.

Million dollar salaries are excessive IMHO and rarely justified. I’m with you on that.

Some things Mozilla does, and doesn’t do, have been instrumental in not only bringing awareness, but security for the web and triggering dialogue. That openness is important and not something Google has been known for.

Google may be covering their butt funding Firefox, but an Internet without Firefox may look much different today.

“Who am I?”

“Why am I here?”

“When I’m done rolling up this booger, should I eat it or throw it out the window?”

Linky

I sort of already do. It’s called dreaming about driving a car.

I think these folks forgot that random dreams play an important role in information processing. I’d rather not mess with that too much.

Haha guess so. Misleading graphic taken out of context. That makes more sense. I never tried the excessive water method. It sounded interesting, but I refer to my point #1 above.

Yeah, took me a while to get through that paper. Pretty detailed, but a little red flag kept waving when all the results are percentages. I finally got down to the meat of the science and was pretty confused on actual levels. I still don’t have a good grasp of exactly how much iAs they measured, as the findings are adjusted for relative exposure by body weight. I suppose that’s the point of the paper, but would have been nice to have some relatable baseline to put things in perspective.

There is also a pretty large margin of error as a exposure 2.75x greater than used to calculate the results was within the same exposure limits linked to the 0.1% risk. That’s easy to add to their charts. Would have been nice.

Wow, lot to unpack here.

1. “Ain’t nobody got time for that.”

2. How much arsenic are we talking about here?

3. “Saving time, water, and energy” is apparently short for boil water, stand around, drain, re-boil more water using more energy, and finish cooking rice. Where is all this time saving happening?

4. “The margin of exposure [to arsenic] is increased to desired levels”. Hmmm I guess if you really think about it that is a true statement, but one heck of a roundabout way to say it. Is this AI perhaps?.

Ha! Yes! Even today USB 5 volts is pretty sweet for low power stuff. USB PD re-complicates things, but it’s not user dependent so that’s a plus.

And you need a loooot of copper to prevent voltage drop especially when a grid of 100 houses 1/2 mile long draw 20-80 amps each. The math starts adding up real quick.

I heard it said many years ago that if DC won the battle, we’d have power stations every 10 miles and power lines as thick as your wrist.

Converting local power is fairly easy, with AC inverters added for universal compatibility.

But, take note of how many DC voltages you use in your house. Devices in mine range from 3v to 25v and some weird one like 19v for a laptop. You’d still have adapters all over the place.