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coffeedrinker

268 karma · joined October 28, 2010

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coffeedrinker··on Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin
People who have grown to know and love ad blocking will move en masse to Firefox. That would be a good thing.

The attempt to force users into a system they don't want when there are other options available results in a loss of users.

coffeedrinker··on Google will shut down Google+ four months early after second data leak
They should modify it so after launch it is based on active users. That will keep good things growing.
coffeedrinker··on Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey
It's just a thought, not a business plan :)
coffeedrinker··on Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey
Because if I'm Safeway and I can get elderly people to come to my business (for shopping, prescriptions, etc.) they won't be shopping somewhere else. The business gains/retains the clientele by providing the driving service.
coffeedrinker··on Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey
I expect the funding model for self driving taxis will be like validated parking. You ride free (or reduced) if you spend $x at whatever business, shopping mall, etc.
coffeedrinker··on Leaving Apple and Google: more devices now supported
Use the ublock origin extension to remove the parts of Reddit that are annoying.

Use the picker to select the problem overlays and create a rule and they will be gone. You have to do this a few times since some seem to be page sensitive.

coffeedrinker··on How to Android without Google
I have the Essential Phone and love it.

Here are some notes on building and installing Lineage OS on the Essential PH-1:

https://headthirst.com/building-and-installing-lineageos.htm...

And some notes about setting up a phone without Google Play Services:

https://headthirst.com/life-without-google-apps.html

coffeedrinker··on GDPR: Programmatic ad buying plummets in Europe
I hear this argument a lot but I disagree.

While some advertisements can alert you to a product that will be helpful, many have the psychological intent of producing dissatisfaction and are an attempt to compel you to purchase something you do not need and your life probably would be better off without. Advertising is deliberately about producing discontent and it makes people more unhappy and more dissatisfied with their lives.

I would rather see ads that I can immediately dismiss than have ones that make me start desiring that which I don't really need.

coffeedrinker··on Zero-Width Characters: Invisibly fingerprinting text
I use LibreOffice and these appear as grey characters (at least some of the characters do). I've wondered what the grey characters were in the past and now I know.

Copy and paste the examples into LibreOffice and you will immediately see them.

coffeedrinker··on Don't Buy Anyone an Echo
Almost everyone I know willingly puts themselves under corporate surveillance (credit card?, cell phone?, license plates on car?, web browser?, cable tv?, netflix?, shopper rewards and discounts?).

If you were in my house Amazon wouldn't even know it was you talking.

coffeedrinker··on Don't Buy Anyone an Echo
I'm more concerned about people I know taking pictures of me and posting it all over Facebook and the rest of the internet. That is far more invasive than this Amazon device. I have no say in that.

As with most privacy things, there is particular privacy and general privacy. In particular, I don't think amazon or google have any intention of examining me. It is all just computer AI doing its thing. One in a sea of millions.

coffeedrinker··on Don't Buy Anyone an Echo
I use mine almost exclusively for playing music. I just bought a second one and found they can sync play (which makes for a nice whole house audio solution for cheap). They also function as in house intercom.

I have no concerns over privacy. My web browsing habits and phone leak far more personal data to google.

coffeedrinker··on Google engineer finds USB Type-C cable that’s so bad it fried his Chromebook
Anker.
coffeedrinker··on Web Fonts Collateral Damage of Ad Blockers
I use Chrome and a plugin called Font Changer that lets one override fonts on pages. I don't need to have it turned on for all sites but it can be done. Mostly I just have everything set to Arial (I don't like reading any serif fonts on screen). Perhaps there is a plugin for Firefox that does a similar thing.
coffeedrinker··on Groupon Is Laying Off 1,100, Shutters Operations in 7 Countries
But rudeness in wait staff is a self-fulfilling prophecy. They treat you poorly so how can they expect a generous tip?
coffeedrinker··on Apple brings ad-blocker extensions to Safari on iPhones
If extensions like this became ubiquitous, I wonder what Google's response would be? Would they refuse to run their apps on iOS like they do on Windows Phone, or would they still have a sufficient revenue stream to not see this as an attack against them?

How would web site operators respond to this?

coffeedrinker··on Adblock Browser for Android
I tried AdBlockPlus last year on my android tablet. It had a bug that didn't close video streams. If you started watching something and closed the app or started another stream, the old stream(s) get coming as well. That burned through a lot of data.

Now I just root my devices and use a hosts file (MoaAB - Mother of all Ad Blocking).

coffeedrinker··on PayPal penalised for 'deceptive' practices
PayPal has some serious issues with regards to what you say, but I used it last summer to transfer money from USA to Europe for my daughter and the fee was a fraction of what the bank wanted. Banks can be pretty scummy in their own way.
coffeedrinker··on Sync 2.0: Skip the Cloud, Share Direct
Ten folders puts me at the limit just on my family LAN with each user having their own folder and me having a couple so I can have a smaller set for syncing to laptop and a larger one for desktops.

I just installed SyncThing...

P.S. I just found out it is written in Go so that is a big plus for me as well.

coffeedrinker··on Replacing Dropbox with BitTorrent Sync
I've been using btsync for a long time. I have seen high cpu or net utilization, but it was because of a changed name on one of the computers that were syncing. The other instance was still trying to connect to the device using the old name. The solution is to delete the synced folder and reestablish it under the new name. It does not need to recopy the data, but it does need to reindex.
coffeedrinker··on Safari is sending every search query to Apple
Safari private browsing is broken too. Just private browse, quit safari, reopen safari and then check in the preferences on the privacy tab and see the cookies, etc.
coffeedrinker··on ChromeOS will no longer support ext2/3/4 on external drives/SD cards
My 14 year old daughter runs chromeOS and xubuntu on her Chromebook and she takes it to school and she has never had a problem with it being wiped. She is, however, aware that files stored on that machine internally could be lost and she takes precaution.

I bought our first HP Chromebook 14 as refurb off and love it so much I bought a second one. They are both in constant use in our household. My wife even prefers to use hers over her desktop.

coffeedrinker··on How con artists trick your mind
To see how this relates to computer security, download the pdf linked in the article. After it exposes the methods of exploitation, it gives examples of internet computer scams.

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/techreports/UCAM-CL-TR-754.pdf

coffeedrinker··on Notes on the Celebrity Data Theft
I agree, but until Google gets the fix in you can have no way of knowing what it will look like because it all depends on the hardware and how it has been scaled.

I only came across this because my daughter's new laptop with an HD screen made Chrome look awful and I didn't understand why since it looked good everywhere else.

coffeedrinker··on Notes on the Celebrity Data Theft
Turn of the DPI scaling in Windows.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2900023

Google around for the actual steps.

coffeedrinker··on AppleID password brute force proof-of-concept
>Still, I expected better from Apple.

Here is another flaw in iPhone. If a person is casting their screen to an Apple TV and must enter their PIN number, the screen will highlight each button press on the TV. No fingers in the way to even block it. Simple solution: don't broadcast this or don't provide screen feedback for entering the PIN.

coffeedrinker··on Always Hungry? Here’s Why
I do not know if this has anything to do with anything, but I do know that warmer weather affects how much I eat.

Whether summering in Italy or in hot weather in the US, I don't experience hunger the same way as when I am in cold weather. My guess is my body does not need as much energy to generate heat, and I tend to drink much more water (sweating) than have a desire for food.

Of course, this is my personal experience and genetics and does not explain obesity rates in hotter parts of the US (unless rather than water people are drinking Coke).

coffeedrinker··on My Quest to Build the Ultimate Music Player
I really like Clementine and since I triple boot (Linux, Mac, Windows) I wanted a player that would work the same regardless of OS.
coffeedrinker··on There’s something rotten in the state of online video streaming
Netflix is unwatchable during prime time where I live.

However, I have also noted that on two separate occasions when I began examining the Frontier FIOS site, I received a personal knock on my door from my local Comcast representative. Wondering if there was a connection to my search for another provider and the person at my door, I asked her if she was talking to everyone in the neighborhood or just me. It was just me--they sent a person out to personally ask me about my Comcast service.

All they have to do is fix the evening streaming.

coffeedrinker··on No Combat Without Movement: Enders Game as Maneuver Warfare Primer
Life is difficult. For me, the point is to let yourself grow stronger to meet those challenges rather than giving up.

I like to think that God is actually deliberately making things harder for me on/with purpose. Keeps me fighting.

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