Slashdot Mirror

Netflix could start streaming in AV1 before the end of this year, with Chrome browsers likely being first in line to receive AV1 streams.

But Chrome is a famously poor choice for Netflix - it only supports 720P, despite that it's apparently possible to force 1080P playback with tweaks.

(To be clear, the 720P limitation appears to be Netflix's doing, not Chrome's.)

>"It's amazing that the app can demand access to everything (address book, camera, sms, phone calls, location, etc.) and my choices are accept or don't install. Why isn't there an easy option"

Google was about to introduce PER APP permissions that allowed you to deny single permissions and developers revolted and Google caved in and ditched it. Doesn't matter anyway, because they would then design the apps to just say "OK, if you won't give me your contacts, then I will just not work".

However, you can still get that, but you have to root the phone and install your own 3rd party Android. THEN you can turn off any permission you like. And if the app can't or won't deal with that, there is a setting to feed it FAKE DATA! *THAT* condition is when you know you actually own your own phone.

https://github.com/M66B/XPriva...

Unfortunately, not only is the above damn complicated, there are other apps that will sense you rooted and then not work at all.

And so the war continues.

Is this the source code you're complaining about them not releasing?

https://www.dji.com/mobile/ope...

https://github.com/MAVProxyUse...

I guess you've never heard of crouton? I've got an Acer Chromebook 14 (aluminum, 14", 1080p IPS display, great keyboard/trackpad) for $250 that's running Ubuntu (xenial). Battery life is great and performance is fantastic for the light duty I use it for.

which extensions?

One such extension installed on my copy of Firefox ESR 52 is Keybinder. It cannot be ported because XUL keysets have gone away, and the feature request for adding a WebExtensions counterpart to XUL keysets shows no meaningful activity.

Check out wee-slack which is a python script for weechat that uses the slack api. Very easy to setup and works great. You get a lot more features using this and it's a good enough alternative for me.

C'mon. As much as I despise them, I'm sure there are script-kiddies who can code Keras or PyTorch at Microsoft.

https://www.kaggle.com/gaborfo...
https://github.com/Cadene/pret...

from my understanding a game "dev" does very little programming in the traditional sense

I work on a VR project at my day job (basically a video game). Your statement that we use a "pre-made" game engine is basically like saying that nobody does any "real" programming if they use a library or some code that someone else wrote. In other words: yours is a no-true-scotsman statement.

These guys are mostly doing scripting

We used both C++ and Unreal Script when we were using UDK (Unreal Engine 3). But everything we do now with Unreal 4 is C++ (and some Blueprint stuff to hook the GUI together).

world building, animation, modeling, progress triggers, hit boxes, etc.

Yes, that's the problem domain. And how do you think these things get implemented? With code.

So assuming I'm correct on that, Lint would be useless for this.

You're not really correct on all that. Also Lint and other static analysis tools are useful. John Carmack has some great insight into all this and how static analysis tools can help and fit into game development. As evidence: the Doom 3 source code is pretty generally very good.

And even this GitHub project.

I was going to mod you up, but that last link is useless in the context of this conversation. My home town of 10k people in the middle of the midwest is on it..

It is actually considered a "major world city" by this UK data center. And this list from a Japanese site. And even this GitHub project.

It's everything you wanted.

Tells you (or can) every time a program accesses a resource, and gives you the option of allowing it, or feeding it fake data.

Want every app to see an empty address book, no problem.

GPS at N 0.0, W 0.0? Easy!

Feed a randomized Google advertising id, IMEI, serial number, etc every time you run an app? That's one of the defaults:)

You can start our giving the app no permissions, and it will pop up a screen asking you to allow or deny everything it does.

It's fun to see how often apps try and pull shit, and stop it dead in it's tracks.

Also available for Android 6+
https://github.com/M66B/XPriva...
Cheers!

https://github.com/M66B/XPriva...

TLog - Based specifically on your post, I rolled it up into a publicly consumable form (the tool is in production - but there may have been some errors in the "cleanup" as a public project - so feel free to submit bug reports if you have problems - I did a quick test install, so I'm pretty sure it should work out of the box).

If you wish you could put your todo lists and project notes on 3x5 cards and search/sort them by tags and keywords... this is the tool for you. If you're looking for a flashy UI with drag/drop and where you have to click a million things and scroll around here there and everywhere to put things in the right list, use Trello or something similar. If you want something as simple as pencil and paper, but with searching, editing, sorting... this is the tool for you.

It's being actively developed/maintained for my uses (bug reports and issues and feature requests will be considered - but I didn't create it as a public project, so, honestly, as long as it continues to work for me and my purposes, unless you're willing to issue a pull request or front some $$... only things that are "interesting" to my purposes will be further developed). It is also undergoing expansion for use as a general remote logging tool.

In any event, it's simple and effective - easily purposed for "todo" lists and a million other things.

The constant need to rewrite the lists - and sort through pages and pages of crossed off items everytime I needed to clean things up was irritating. While I like the sentiment - and for quick short term lists, pencil and paper are VERY helpful - it's very difficult to cross reference lists and tasks and items that are related across several pages. And if you have a need to switch contexts regularly (home, job1, job2, etc,) keeping those lists manageable becomes a nightmare - and you spend almost as much time updating your lists as you do getting things done (ok, a bit of an over exaggeration, but it's kind of like those bosses who want time logs of everything and get ticked off that one of the entrys each days is, "spent 15 minutes filling out time log").

Quick, easy, searchable, flexible, self-hosted, and multi-user these are my requirements.... I ended up rolling my own - and ended up VERY happy with it.

Anyone who can set up a publicly accessible webserver running PHP can download it and give it a try. (Working on a public demo - watch the github README for details).

Most apps need an "always on" connection to the web to work correctly - and more often than not are just interface tools to access some datastore on the web. At that point, why not just write a decent JAVASCRIPT app and host it on a web page and save the memory on my phone? There are even datastore solutions for JS now so you can buffer data between your script and the online datastore.

Since we're hawking our own wares.... take a look at this one: tlog the structured logger

Browser based access - self hosted - multi-user - and reminscent of the good old days when we were taught to take notes on 3x5 notecards - one fact per card - but with the added benefit of searchable arbitrary tags. Use it for todo's, project management, shopping lists, or any of a million other things. Fast, responsive, easy. No goofy convoluted interfaces. Type, save, go. Add, delete, edit, search, sort.

I built my own, as part of a bigger, modular web based framework:

https://github.com/Hackerfleet...

It is still WiP and i'd be happy if someone is interested in it, maybe even adding some more features etc.

The todo.text format https://github.com/todotxt/tod... doesn't seem to have a simple date field. The closest I see is a FINISH START pair, each specified as a 10 character YYYY-MM-DD string. That's a lot of typing for a number that can be specified as YYMMDD. It's been a long time, but I'm pretty sure I looked at that and decided that the format was intended for someone with more patience than me.

On Github

On Google Play

Don't overlook the fact that comments are HTML formatted.

• No funky BB code or markdown-flavor-of-the-day.
• Just straight, sanitized hypertext markup language.
• Acts as small difficulty bump to raise that submission bar.
• All the bold and fancy font variations you want.
• No blink but lynx compatible links

At least keeps one in practice for writing real web sites.

Slashdot's moderation system is still hands down the best I've come across.

And for April first implement radio controls so you can toggle categories.

But lock it so that you can only turn on Funny. Or enable only Troll when set for +5 only.

I only tangentially use node for development work, but once I saw people on message boards tossing around sudo commands to install stuff I immediately looked up how to avoid that. The solution is here: https://github.com/creationix/....

Basically, it installs node and all node executables into an .nvm directory in your home dir and then modifies your path to point to those distinct version. It also allows you to utilize multiple different node versions across different projects through the use of project specific .nvmrc files.

Using nvm would have avoided this bug, assuming you run as a non-privileged user...you do, right?

Yeah it's not like the bumblebee sudo rm -rf /usr bug. Now THERE was an update that needed a reinstall!

https://github.com/MrMEEE/bumb...

Do you guys really need to inject your rightwing politics into literally EVERY story????

It's a memorial to the language which attempted to shatter the glass ceiling but was stopped by the patriarchy.

Has this vulnerability in Transmission been fixed? https://www.securityweek.com/c...

Throwing away the mod points I've used in this thread so I can answer you:
Yes, it was.

I had a quick look at Mycroft and it looks as if it needs to phone home to some third-party server.

You can use Mycroft without Mycroft home, although presumably many skills will depend on it.

Why don't you read my bug report at aides web site?
The demo mode is supposed to be a full mode for a certain amount of time and then degrade to a simple mode. However it is only a simple mode. Hence I have no idea how good it would be in full mode. As I have my Mac Book with me everywhere I go, it is a lost sale for AIDE. (A shame that they reside in the same town as I do)
The device should be irrelevant, but FYI: it is a Lenovo Yoga Book.

What tools do you recommend for people who want to do development other than as a profession?
For Android? Android Studio, that implies a laptop or desktop with Windows, Mac OS or Linux. Obviously enough knowledge to have a local git repository and backups of it, or knowledge and internet access for a repository at http://github.com/ or http://bitbucket.com/

Beyond that it really depends what you want to do. Gradle knowledge and basic shell scripting would be helpful. If you want to top that, a jenkins CI environment (http://jenkins.io) and an Android installation in a VM (https://www.virtualbox.org) might be interesting. However on Mac OS I had bad luck to integrate Android VMs with Android studio. (A VM would only be useful for programming without attaching a physical device and/or automate UI testing with click robots)

All those tools are "free", so it does not matter if you develop professionally or as a hobbyist.

But think of the possibilities!

Now that it has a standard OS, you can run emulators on it, maybe even a Switch emulator!

OK, but only if it's written in Javascript...
Hey, it's not like there's no precedent!
https://github.com/fcambus/jsemu

Are we really going to have a front-page entry for every little change or feature in every web-browser out there?.. Seriously?

But, if we are, Google's own tracking of your usage of their search results is pretty invasive too. Will Chrome remove that tracking too, the way some Firefox-extensions do?

https://github.com/ZeroDot1/Co...

What is "Medium Mode" I can't find any setting in uBlock Origin to set the "mode". I run it with its default settings and the site loads fine.

It just means "Block third party scripts and frames by default". You need to check "I am an advanced user" and then enable the two global blocks as explained here

https://github.com/gorhill/uBl...

And then you need to work out what exceptions you need to make to get a site to work.

E.g. for slashdot I had to add a local whitelist entry for fsdn.com

https://i.imgur.com/0MVTaqq.pn...

Is clicking two links to see for yourself really that hard?

For the entitled weenies who can't do ANYTHING for themselves and need us actual adults to do everything for them:

https://github.com/bijij/ViewI...

Abstraction ensures everything is Enterprise Grade. Enterprise Grade Abstraction means that your message-passing custom python server can be containerized, automatically benefitting from parallelization and with merely 1,000 VM instances perform as well as compiled software on a two-processor machine.

http://todogroup.org/opencodeofconduct/

This cancerous shit-smoking beast is adopted by projects that want to die. It's the product of known trans rabble-rouser Coraline Ada Ehmke. If you want to see how this kind of crap plays out, see the Opalgate controversy "issue thread" and the subsequent "Create a Code of Conduct" thread where Coraline tries to put in place this thing that lets Coraline oust people who disagree with her. The various SJW comments in those threads are extremely enlightening as they illustrate very well how laying down subjective "rules" like this opens a project to subjective interpretation based on the feels of any given person that wants to bully others USING THOSE RULES AS THE HAMMER TO BEAT OTHERS DOWN.

Oh, you want more than one single thread? How about this: Drupal ousts Larry Garfield for his sex life. Adria Richards and "Donglegate" and how she got a father of four fired for something that she both interpreted incorrectly and was guilty of doing publicly at the same event herself. Rust is full of SJW/PC nonsense. You can find these examples all over the place. Adopting these codes of conduct is like drawing a mustache on your project's upper lip with feces.

http://todogroup.org/opencodeofconduct/

This cancerous shit-smoking beast is adopted by projects that want to die. It's the product of known trans rabble-rouser Coraline Ada Ehmke. If you want to see how this kind of crap plays out, see the Opalgate controversy "issue thread" and the subsequent "Create a Code of Conduct" thread where Coraline tries to put in place this thing that lets Coraline oust people who disagree with her. The various SJW comments in those threads are extremely enlightening as they illustrate very well how laying down subjective "rules" like this opens a project to subjective interpretation based on the feels of any given person that wants to bully others USING THOSE RULES AS THE HAMMER TO BEAT OTHERS DOWN.

Oh, you want more than one single thread? How about this: Drupal ousts Larry Garfield for his sex life. Adria Richards and "Donglegate" and how she got a father of four fired for something that she both interpreted incorrectly and was guilty of doing publicly at the same event herself. Rust is full of SJW/PC nonsense. You can find these examples all over the place. Adopting these codes of conduct is like drawing a mustache on your project's upper lip with feces.

>> iOS hasn't been a "Walled Garden" since iOS 8, over FOUR years ago.
What is it then ?
A golden cage ?

Haha.

What I meant was that Apple has officially supported "side-loading" of applications on iOS devices (without Jailbreaking) since the release of iOS 8, which, IIRC, happened in 2014.

Two ways to do this:

1. If you have a Mac, you can use XCode (free, no developer license required) to download and "make" any one of a number of Open Source iOS Apps available written in Objective-C and Swift. Here's some sources:

https://github.com/dkhamsing/o...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

This list has some amazing Open Source Apps written in Swift:

https://medium.com/@pradeep_ch... ...and that's just the beginning. Search For "open source ios apps" for a real eye-opener!

Ok, so you don't have a Mac? You can still play, thanks to the folks at Cydia...

2. You can upload any number of precompiled ".ipa" packages into your iOS devices using Cydia Impactor (which does not require Jailbreaking), which has versions that run on Mac, Linux and Windows. And of course, there have been websites that offer these packages. Again, Apple is FINE with all this... (Or at least fine with the many apps that don't require Jailbreaking) :

http://www.cydiaimpactor.com/

https://www.ultimatetech.org/t...

https://www.unlockboot.com/bes... ...and like with the open source list, above, there are many other search results. Try a search for "iOS .ipa files download sites".

So, THAT's what I meant by "no longer a Walled Garden"; because it just ISN'T, and hasn't been since September, 2014:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

Weren't expecting THAT answer, were you?

I'll just leave this here. Hugs! :) https://github.com/ciafwywcoc/...

Yes, K9mail is great, highly configurable etc.
But another big thing missing is, you can't create/delete custom folders (here is the 9 year old bug).
So _if_ you depend on that, you have to use another (web)client to manage folders.
Most people use K9mail/Android as a secondary client anyway, which is the reason such core functionality isn't implemented.
But not my mom, so for her I had to set up Typeapp which can create folders (or you can also try Maildroid).
Otherwise, happy K9mail user as well.

https://github.com/Ybalrid/Fre...

Change log:
2018/01/01 - Added 14 Useful Links. Disable Intel ME 11 via undocumented NSA "High Assurance Platform" mode with me_cleaner, Blackhat Dec 2017 Intel ME presentation, Intel ME CVEs (CVSS Scored 7.2-10.0)

Intel CPU Backdoor Report
The goal of this report is to make the existence of Intel CPU backdoors a common knowledge and provide information on backdoor removal.

What we know about Intel CPU backdoors so far:

TL;DR version

Your Intel CPU and Chipset is running a backdoor as we speak.

The backdoor hardware is inside the CPU/Bridge and the backdoor firmware (Intel Management Engine) is in the chipset flash memory.

30C3 Intel ME live hack:
[Video] 30C3: Persistent, Stealthy, Remote-controlled Dedicated Hardware Malware
@21:43, keystrokes leaked from Intel ME above the OS, wireshark failed to detect packets.

[Quotes] Vortrag:
"the ME provides a perfect environment for undetectable sensitive data leakage on behalf of the attacker".

"We can permanently monitor the keyboard buffer on both operating system targets."

Decoding Intel backdoors:
The situation is out of control and the Libreboot/Coreboot community is looking for BIOS/Firmware experts to help with the Intel ME decoding effort.

If you are skilled in these areas, download Intel ME firmwares from this collection and have a go at them, beware Intel is using a lot of counter measures to prevent their backdoors from being decoded (explained below).

Backdoor removal:
The backdoor firmware can be removed by following this guide using the me_cleaner script.
Removal requires a Raspberry Pi (with GPIO pins) and a SOIC clip.

2017 Dec Update:
Intel ME on recent CPUs may be disabled by enabling the undocumented NSA HAP mode, use me_cleaner with -S option to set the HAP bit, see me_cleaner: HAP AltMeDisable bit.

Useful links (Added 2018 Jan 1):
Disabling Intel ME 11 via undocumented HAP mode (NSA High Assurance Platform mode)
me_cleaner: Set HAP AltMeDisable bit with -S option
Blackhat 2017: How To Hack A Turned Off Computer Or Running Unsigned Code In Intel Management Engine
EFF: Intel's Management Engine is a security hazard, and users need a way to disable it
Sakaki's EFI Install Guide/Disabling the Intel Management Engine
Intel ME bug storm: Hardware vendors race to identify and provide updates for dangerous Intel flaws.
CVE-2017-5689: An unprivileged network attacker could ga

Change log:
2018/01/01 - Added 14 Useful Links. Disable Intel ME 11 via undocumented NSA "High Assurance Platform" mode with me_cleaner, Blackhat Dec 2017 Intel ME presentation, Intel ME CVEs (CVSS Scored 7.2-10.0)

Intel CPU Backdoor Report
The goal of this report is to make the existence of Intel CPU backdoors a common knowledge and provide information on backdoor removal.

What we know about Intel CPU backdoors so far:

TL;DR version

Your Intel CPU and Chipset is running a backdoor as we speak.

The backdoor hardware is inside the CPU/Bridge and the backdoor firmware (Intel Management Engine) is in the chipset flash memory.

30C3 Intel ME live hack:
[Video] 30C3: Persistent, Stealthy, Remote-controlled Dedicated Hardware Malware
@21:43, keystrokes leaked from Intel ME above the OS, wireshark failed to detect packets.

[Quotes] Vortrag:
"the ME provides a perfect environment for undetectable sensitive data leakage on behalf of the attacker".

"We can permanently monitor the keyboard buffer on both operating system targets."

Decoding Intel backdoors:
The situation is out of control and the Libreboot/Coreboot community is looking for BIOS/Firmware experts to help with the Intel ME decoding effort.

If you are skilled in these areas, download Intel ME firmwares from this collection and have a go at them, beware Intel is using a lot of counter measures to prevent their backdoors from being decoded (explained below).

Backdoor removal:
The backdoor firmware can be removed by following this guide using the me_cleaner script.
Removal requires a Raspberry Pi (with GPIO pins) and a SOIC clip.

2017 Dec Update:
Intel ME on recent CPUs may be disabled by enabling the undocumented NSA HAP mode, use me_cleaner with -S option to set the HAP bit, see me_cleaner: HAP AltMeDisable bit.

Useful links (Added 2018 Jan 1):
Disabling Intel ME 11 via undocumented HAP mode (NSA High Assurance Platform mode)
me_cleaner: Set HAP AltMeDisable bit with -S option
Blackhat 2017: How To Hack A Turned Off Computer Or Running Unsigned Code In Intel Management Engine
EFF: Intel's Management Engine is a security hazard, and users need a way to disable it
Sakaki's EFI Install Guide/Disabling the Intel Management Engine
Intel ME bug storm: Hardware vendors race to identify and provide updates for dangerous Intel flaws.
CVE-2017-5689: An unprivileged network attacker could ga

Change log:
2018/01/01 - Added 14 Useful Links. Disable Intel ME 11 via undocumented NSA "High Assurance Platform" mode with me_cleaner, Blackhat Dec 2017 Intel ME presentation, Intel ME CVEs (CVSS Scored 7.2-10.0)

Intel CPU Backdoor Report
The goal of this report is to make the existence of Intel CPU backdoors a common knowledge and provide information on backdoor removal.

What we know about Intel CPU backdoors so far:

TL;DR version

Your Intel CPU and Chipset is running a backdoor as we speak.

The backdoor hardware is inside the CPU/Bridge and the backdoor firmware (Intel Management Engine) is in the chipset flash memory.

30C3 Intel ME live hack:
[Video] 30C3: Persistent, Stealthy, Remote-controlled Dedicated Hardware Malware
@21:43, keystrokes leaked from Intel ME above the OS, wireshark failed to detect packets.

[Quotes] Vortrag:
"the ME provides a perfect environment for undetectable sensitive data leakage on behalf of the attacker".

"We can permanently monitor the keyboard buffer on both operating system targets."

Decoding Intel backdoors:
The situation is out of control and the Libreboot/Coreboot community is looking for BIOS/Firmware experts to help with the Intel ME decoding effort.

If you are skilled in these areas, download Intel ME firmwares from this collection and have a go at them, beware Intel is using a lot of counter measures to prevent their backdoors from being decoded (explained below).

Backdoor removal:
The backdoor firmware can be removed by following this guide using the me_cleaner script.
Removal requires a Raspberry Pi (with GPIO pins) and a SOIC clip.

2017 Dec Update:
Intel ME on recent CPUs may be disabled by enabling the undocumented NSA HAP mode, use me_cleaner with -S option to set the HAP bit, see me_cleaner: HAP AltMeDisable bit.

Useful links (Added 2018 Jan 1):
Disabling Intel ME 11 via undocumented HAP mode (NSA High Assurance Platform mode)
me_cleaner: Set HAP AltMeDisable bit with -S option
Blackhat 2017: How To Hack A Turned Off Computer Or Running Unsigned Code In Intel Management Engine
EFF: Intel's Management Engine is a security hazard, and users need a way to disable it
Sakaki's EFI Install Guide/Disabling the Intel Management Engine
Intel ME bug storm: Hardware vendors race to identify and provide updates for dangerous Intel flaws.
CVE-2017-5689: An unprivileged network attacker could ga

Change log:
2018/01/01 - Added 14 Useful Links. Disable Intel ME 11 via undocumented NSA "High Assurance Platform" mode with me_cleaner, Blackhat Dec 2017 Intel ME presentation, Intel ME CVEs (CVSS Scored 7.2-10.0)

Intel CPU Backdoor Report
The goal of this report is to make the existence of Intel CPU backdoors a common knowledge and provide information on backdoor removal.

What we know about Intel CPU backdoors so far:

TL;DR version

Your Intel CPU and Chipset is running a backdoor as we speak.

The backdoor hardware is inside the CPU/Bridge and the backdoor firmware (Intel Management Engine) is in the chipset flash memory.

30C3 Intel ME live hack:
[Video] 30C3: Persistent, Stealthy, Remote-controlled Dedicated Hardware Malware
@21:43, keystrokes leaked from Intel ME above the OS, wireshark failed to detect packets.

[Quotes] Vortrag:
"the ME provides a perfect environment for undetectable sensitive data leakage on behalf of the attacker".

"We can permanently monitor the keyboard buffer on both operating system targets."

Decoding Intel backdoors:
The situation is out of control and the Libreboot/Coreboot community is looking for BIOS/Firmware experts to help with the Intel ME decoding effort.

If you are skilled in these areas, download Intel ME firmwares from this collection and have a go at them, beware Intel is using a lot of counter measures to prevent their backdoors from being decoded (explained below).

Backdoor removal:
The backdoor firmware can be removed by following this guide using the me_cleaner script.
Removal requires a Raspberry Pi (with GPIO pins) and a SOIC clip.

2017 Dec Update:
Intel ME on recent CPUs may be disabled by enabling the undocumented NSA HAP mode, use me_cleaner with -S option to set the HAP bit, see me_cleaner: HAP AltMeDisable bit.

Useful links (Added 2018 Jan 1):
Disabling Intel ME 11 via undocumented HAP mode (NSA High Assurance Platform mode)
me_cleaner: Set HAP AltMeDisable bit with -S option
Blackhat 2017: How To Hack A Turned Off Computer Or Running Unsigned Code In Intel Management Engine
EFF: Intel's Management Engine is a security hazard, and users need a way to disable it
Sakaki's EFI Install Guide/Disabling the Intel Management Engine
Intel ME bug storm: Hardware vendors race to identify and provide updates for dangerous Intel flaws.
CVE-2017-5689: An unprivileged network attacker could ga

I've been failing at rooting my Verizon S5, I'm using it on AT&T's network and it's got a bunch of Verizon bloatware.
I just figured out that you can remove bloatware, even without root.

So... you can remove it.

I use Hover Zoom+ to get immediate views of the images without clicking anything. https://github.com/extesy/hove... https://chrome.google.com/webs...

> it deliberately makes it difficult to disable Cortana

This example is symptomatic of the whole win10 approach. The *majority* of people I've seen first exposed to Cortana do not like it. It's not much better than "Clippy reborn". In previous versions of win10, disabling it and going back to a regular search box was a simple switch in a sensible location. Then in their wisdom Microsoft decided to get rid of the switch in an update. To achieve the same outcome requires editing the registry and fiddling around with other low-level settings. That's fine for some people, but why would Microsoft make it so difficult for regular users when it previously was an option? Why?

The whole system is riddled with that attitude. Worse, subsequent updates persistently ignore the changes and put everything back again. Thankfully there are people out there who have taken the time to bundle up the hard-to-tweak options into scripts that you can re-run after a new update screws it up. I use Win10-Initial-Setup-Script, which lets you tweak most things and put the settings into a profile once you've gotten them the way you like.

gorhill, the developer of uBlock Origin and uMatrix uses uBlock Origin in Medium mode, not uMatrix.

https://github.com/gorhill/uBl...

https://www.wilderssecurity.co...

What does uMatrix do that uBlock Origin doesn't do in Medium Mode? As part of my holy war on Facebook, Google and third party javascript, I'm always interested in learning of new weapons.

gorhill, the developer of uBlock Origin and uMatrix uses uBlock Origin in Medium mode, not uMatrix.

https://github.com/gorhill/uBl...

https://www.wilderssecurity.co...

What does uMatrix do that uBlock Origin doesn't do in Medium Mode? As part of my holy war on Facebook, Google and third party javascript, I'm always interested in learning of new weapons.

And yet it can't even play Spotify using voice control
A major fail. The walled garden works as long as the services you are tied to are actually competitive with the alternatives. Apple Music sucks in terms of compatibility. I want a service I can use to play music anywhere

Do you have to use Apple software or hardware as a sound source? If so, I won't even bother reading reviews, since I've never once used either of these things and have no desire to.

It uses AirPlay as its audio protocol; but that is available on many devices and applications, including, but not limited to, Spotify.

Here is an AirPlay Server. Also does GoogleCast and Miracast:

https://www.airserver.com/ ...and another one:

http://www.airsquirrels.com/ai...

Here's a Free one:

https://www.5kplayer.com/airpl...

Here's a money-grubbing one:

http://www.x-mirage.com/x-mira... ...or Roll-Your-Own:

https://github.com/jamesdlow/o...

https://github.com/watson/airp...

So, yeah, it's AirPlay; but, as you can see, that Protocol isn't exactly non-accessible.

So, to say "I can't use a HomePod because it only uses AirPlay" at this point, is like refusing to buy a WiFi router, and then complaining you can't connect to your home network with your smartphone...

And yet it can't even play Spotify using voice control
A major fail. The walled garden works as long as the services you are tied to are actually competitive with the alternatives. Apple Music sucks in terms of compatibility. I want a service I can use to play music anywhere

Do you have to use Apple software or hardware as a sound source? If so, I won't even bother reading reviews, since I've never once used either of these things and have no desire to.

It uses AirPlay as its audio protocol; but that is available on many devices and applications, including, but not limited to, Spotify.

Here is an AirPlay Server. Also does GoogleCast and Miracast:

https://www.airserver.com/ ...and another one:

http://www.airsquirrels.com/ai...

Here's a Free one:

https://www.5kplayer.com/airpl...

Here's a money-grubbing one:

http://www.x-mirage.com/x-mira... ...or Roll-Your-Own:

https://github.com/jamesdlow/o...

https://github.com/watson/airp...

So, yeah, it's AirPlay; but, as you can see, that Protocol isn't exactly non-accessible.

So, to say "I can't use a HomePod because it only uses AirPlay" at this point, is like refusing to buy a WiFi router, and then complaining you can't connect to your home network with your smartphone...

Ok I just made that up but it's actually a thing O_o

https://github.com/gnonio/gl-c...
http://gpu.rocks/

Most things can be explained very simply

"For every complex problem there is a simple solution that is wrong."

If you can handle the technical side:

• The original whitepaper that started it
• Mastering Bitcoin
• Bitcoin Source Code

That's all you need.



To address your other points:

Sidechains are divorced from the block so require other layers of trust and are therefore not blockchain.

You're absolutely right. Blockchain was only one of the inventions in the whitepaper. The system doesn't work with it alone. And if you can replace the buzzword "blockchain" with "database" in an application, it's not interesting and adds little to no value.

51% attack is completely possible, in 2 cases especially. ...

Right again. Bitcoin may not be what fintech applications are written on in ten years. But it will be a cryptocurrency that is trust-less, fungible, censorship resistant, immutable, peer to peer, and open. Bitcoin introduced decentralized security through computation that can operate in highly hostile environments. It is currently the most "anti-fragile" cryptocurrency because of size, but another may take its place.

Only 3 of the top 4 pools need to conspire to further their own self interest

This attack has been tried and will be tried again. It's a long story, but the current result is a fork called "Bitcoin Cash". So far it hasn't gained the same traction as the original "Bitcoin".

even if they are able to disrupt the network for their own purposes with 30% of the hash rate

Has most likely been tried very recently. Many suspect that spam transactions that drove transaction rates up for many weeks were exactly this. Transaction rates are lower again. These attacks are very expensive to continue. They require an immense amount of electricity.

Maybe there is a simply a spam attack possible that delays all transactions for many hours or days.

same as above

Maybe there is a trust attack where proof appears from multiple sources.

You mean a Sybil attack. Currently highly unlikely based on how the code works. Read through the source code.

When does a classic man in the middle attack become 'worth it', impersonate the work originator.

If you're talking about the network, it doesn't. With the amount of electrical power required, it's always much more profitable to simply mine bitcoin.

If you're talking about individuals, many are doing this right now and draining people's wallets. It's one user at a time. It does not affect the whole network. Crypto allows the user to be their own bank. This carries significant risks at the moment. I wouldn't recommend it to the masses yet.

if its not regulated out of use by governments in short order anyways

Some governments can make it go underground (like in Venezuela). But it's impossible to stop (like in Venezuela). Unless you destroy every computer on the planet that runs a full bitcoin wallet.


I encourage you to be skeptical. Be highly skeptical. If you dig into it, you'll see that your ideas on compromising this system are not new. You'll find a multitude of other attacks that have been accounted for as well. Bitcoin has been under attack since day 1.