
Trouble with space rubbish? Sounds like a job for this lot: https://youtu.be/-mR-gz9EFO8
75 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Jun 2015
VPNs will be the next thing under the spotlight when the morons that pushed for this realise that kids will be installing free VPNs from the Chrome store to circumvent it - in fact, I expect the number of such offerings to skyrocket, particularly as most of them are little more than proxies with little-to-no privacy (always read the small print kids).
Still, in the spirit of *ahem* 'sticking it to the man', if you are looking for a decent, free (if slightly slow) VPN, ProtonVPN's offering is ace.
I used Hotmail in its original incarnation for a bit but seem to have lost my password (or the will to live) around the time of Microsoft's acquisition. It was never really that good but at the time it was pretty neat to not have your email address held to ransom by your ISP (anyone remember Demon and/or Blueyonder?).
Later I was one of those misguided fools that bought into Apple's MobileMe service (which if I recall, even Steve Jobs said was execrable) - over time it improved and eventually got subsumed into iCloud so both email addresses now point to the same account which I continue to use.
I keep expecting Apple to kick me off for being a freeloader (I no longer own any ithings) but I really can't be arsed with switching to something else and wouldn't touch Google with a barge-pole. I did set up a couple of Protonmail accounts but without IMAP they're more novelty than utility - maybe I should quit being a tight-arse and *gulp* pay for my email account...
I just picked up a 3B+ to build a small HTPC for a friend of mine that wanted an easy way to catalogue and play his Blu-ray collection.
I was fully expecting a bunch of tinkering under the hood to get it working but nope - I just downloaded LibreELEC, plugged in the USB receiver for the remote control I got him and... it just worked.
Kinda anti-climatic really. I spent more time showing him how to use it than actually setting the thing up.
I have a first-gen 2008 Time Capsule I've been using as a wireless hub and NAS for 10 years on my Windows and Linux machines - amazing piece of kit that just keeps on trucking. I also bought a couple of AirPort Expresses around the same time - one my ex-wife nabbed, the other's currently attached to 20 meters of ethernet cable and acting a a wifi receiver for a friend's business so he can get internet access.
These really were product of a different age - dead easy to set up and completely reliable - the thought of replacing them someday with modern tat just makes me sad. Bah.
Are nicotine patches addictive? Nicotine gum? I'll save you a Google search - no. There's no evidence suggesting that nicotine by itself is addictive - what IS addictive is the cocktail of nicotine and additives in tobacco cigarettes which when smoked get the nicotine into the bloodstream far quicker than patches, gum or indeed e-cigarettes.
Then there's the whole psychosomatic ritual of smoking - lighting up when stressed, after a meal or outside the pub with friends/colleagues - there's multiple factors at play that end up making smoking an incredibly difficult crutch for some people to quit. On of the reasons vaping has been successful for many people is because it better replicates the smoking ritual than patches or gum can.
Netflix only has *some* content - it'll never have *all* the content.
For example, were I in the US and wanted to watch say Stranger Things, The Man in the High Castle and Star Trek: Discovery I'd need separate subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon Prime and CBS All-Access.
This will only get worse since Disney is planning on pulling all its content (including Marvel/Lucasfilm) from Netflix in the future to host exclusively on its own forthcoming streaming service.
The future of legitimately streaming movies and TV shows is going to be *very* expensive.
This whole 'Safe Harbor' thing needs to die in a fire.
The original intent was good and whilst it offers blanket protection to the most egregious offenders such as Facebook and Google, it also protects blogging platforms like WordPress and even internet forums.
But the sheer volume of bullshit going on with Facebook is irresponsible. Perhaps 'Safe Harbor' should be something that can be won and lost by responsible moderation?
Leaving everything to algorithms allows both Google and Facebook to hire bugger-all staff to police their content and thus allows them to grow exponentially into these monopolistic monsters (if they had to pay for an army of moderators, Facebook's current business model would be unsustainable).
I'm not in favour of censorship but Safe Harbor clearly isn't working the way it was originally intended.
Well, it was the year of *my* Linux desktop - this year I finally got tired of watching the train wreck that's Windows 10 and started migrating to Linux - starting with Mint 18.2 on my laptop funnily enough.
All-in-all it's been pretty smooth sailing - the only fly in the ointment being that the proprietary AMD drivers have a shit-fit on Mint so my workstation had to use Ubuntu 16.04 so I could run DaVinci Resolve.
It's going to be hard waving goodbye to PC gaming but as time goes by there's less and less new releases that interest me and there's no shortage of retro stuff on Linux (plus a reasonable collection of Steam games) so it's not all work and no play :)
I was under the impression that most/all (desktop?) browsers supported this anyway - Vivaldi certainly does allowing you to block 3rd party cookies altogether. Maybe it's different for mobile browsers?
I've been blocking 3rd party stuff for ages and it never seems to impact the usability of the sites I visit though I guess YMMV.
The uh, 'big guns' of the industry (PornHub, RedTube etc.) will have no choice but to comply - not through fear of being fined but because they won't want to fall foul of the Great Firewall of the UK.
The smaller porn aggregators will likely slip through the net since clearly UK.gov has no clue how many porn sites there are out there.
Even Paris can see that this whole thing is just (ironically) political masturbation.
With the increasing vulnerability of cloud-based services (not to mention governments wanting access to everything online) I've finally retired my LastPass account in favour of KeePass - I share the database via Sync.com (like DropBox but encrypted and zero-knowledge their end) and keep the key local.
LastPass just has a huge target painted on it these days.
That's the trade-off for ad-blocking/privacy - running your connection through a VPN, using an 'exotic' browser (Vivaldi in my case), using uBlock or similar (TunnelBear Blocker's nice by the way) all give you a relatively unique fingerprint in comparison to the proles - given that my ISP has no clue what websites I'm looking at and that I'm ad/malware free whilst I do it, I think that's a worthwhile trade*
Of course, if you're doing something naughty and you get tracked down as a consequence of trying to be anonymous you may consider otherwise.
*That doesn't mean I wouldn't be keen to adopt anti-fingerprinting though - I'm hopeful that's coming in the next round of the privacy wars.
You've been misinformed - most typical uses of Tor (say for instance, using Tor Browser) don't turn your device into a gateway - you have to set that up yourself if you want to do that (and of those that do, many do it on rented servers).
If you're just browsing the web with the Tor Browser then you're connecting in much the same way as you connect to a VPN - and like a VPN, your traffic is spilling out of another Tor node somewhere in the world along with all the pedophiles, pirates, terrorists and innocent people who value their privacy.
In other words, nobody's going to be downloading kiddie porn from your IP address whilst you're using Tor.
Personally, I prefer to use a VPN to keep my browsing private - not because of any inherent concerns about Tor but simply because it's usually faster.
“This undermines the value of FAPL’s rights and, if unchecked, is likely to reduce the revenue returned by FAPL to football clubs, sports facilities and the wider sporting community,”
And who decides the 'value' of FAPL's rights?
Clearly the streamers aren't being offered a compelling product/price point by the rights owners.
I seem to recall there was extensive debate over whether to ban dual tape decks for just that reason ('home taping is killing music' ring a bell?) - can't remember what the resolution was off-hand but it also applied to writable media (CDs/DVDs) - some countries even levy a tax on writable media assuming it'll be used for piracy.
It all comes down to the intended use of the device I think - these devices are purposely assembled to facilitate copyright infringement. If they'd left out the Kodi plugins then they'd be completely legal but selling an out-of-the-box piracy solution isn't going to end well.
Which is why I'm still using my circa 2010 Photoshop CS5 and MS Office 2010.
Unfortunately Microsoft (being the asses they are) won't allow me to install it on my laptop since I've supposedly used all my registrations (which I haven't) - subsequently neither they nor Adobe will get a penny from me for these products in the future.
They're both gradually becoming less relevant anyway - if I was in the market for a PS and or Office replacement there's plenty on interesting alternatives for the consumer (not so much for big business though).
Exactly - I don't often read privacy policies (since I assume most of the time my personal data's going to be sold to the highest bidder irrespective of the service) but with VPNs it's worth reading the fine print - Tunnello (a free VPN) has got terrific feedback from users but they log your activities on their service - all you're really getting is 'free' IP spoofing. Caveat emptor.
tunnelbear.com are doing a yearly subscription for $39.99 at the moment and look to be one of the better VPNs. You can use them via a browser plugin or a phone/desktop client. Their privacy policy's pretty good too (unlike some free VPNs I've used).
They don't allow Bittorrent so if that's a factor they're not the VPN for you but all your browsing will be covered. Disgusting that ad/tracker-blocking+VPN+ProtonMail would seem to be essential for exercising your 'freedom' on the internet these days.
"We can debate the theoretical merits of DirectX 12 technology, but to cite DX12 as a compelling reason for installing Windows 10 is simply to highlight how utterly unnecessary Windows 10 really is."
To some gamers DX12 is/will be a compelling reason to 'upgrade' to Win 10 - for me, it's the only reason I'd even contemplate it (there's zero other reasons to switch from 8.1) but even then, I decided to stick with what I have.
Vulkan may well become a serious alternative (and I hope it does - one less reason to switch) but as of right now they're both pretty much vapourware in terms of actual real-world support (Doom excepted).
Nope. I'm sticking with 8.1 Pro until 2023 and then I'll decide whether I'll stay with Windows (if Microsoft have reformed their privacy policies) or if Linux is where I'm headed.
Apart from DX12 there's no compelling reasons to switch from 8 to 10 (and in my opinion, plenty of reasons not to) so I'm going to sit this one out.
Well, he snuffed it so young that they hadn't had time to build him a proper tomb so I believe they stuck him in whatever was available. What's truly impressive is the amount of treasure they squeezed in there with him (the tomb was filled to the brim) - if you ever get the opportunity to visit the Egyptian Museum in Cairo I highly recommend it - if only to see his funerary mask face-to-face.
I gave Windows 10 a fair shake whilst it was in beta and after its release and I've come to the conclusion that other than the (crippled) start menu and DX12 it simply doesn't offer anything compelling over Win 8.1 so that's where I'll be staying until 2020 - after that? Who knows - if MS have clued up to user privacy being a big deal and they put genuine effort into making a secure OS (like Apple have been doing with iOS) then maybe I'll 'upgrade' to whatever they're selling then.
If not it'll probably be a flavour of Linux - not that I want to - I'm pretty happy with 8.1 and all my applications and games but Win 10 is a course change I'm not willing to follow and if I have to make changes and/or sacrifices to switch then I will. I built this PC - Windows is just a guest on it.
Windows applications I use daily that rely on QuickTime:
DaVinci Resolve
The Foundry Nuke
Blackmagic Fusion
LightWave 3D
Modo
TMPGEnc Authoring Works
TVPaint
Sony Vegas Pro
Lightworks
Red Giant PluralEyes
FilmConvert
If it's a pro-video application, chances are it needs QuickTime (especially since ProRes is ubiquitous in the industry) - time for them to switch to ffmpeg methinks (and to tell Apple to fuck off when they threaten to sue because ProRes is proprietary).
It's not irrelevant - you do have a *choice* after all. Admittedly, going to jail for not handing over encryption keys probably wouldn't be much fun but I'm thinking sooner or later somebody innocent will *have to* in order to get this ridiculous law repealed.
Anyway - the question I answered was about authorities taking an interest in ProtonMail and they already have - apparently PM is actually recommended in ISIS circles (https://protonmail.com/blog/privacy-encryption-and-terrorism) - but the only data ProtonMail can give law enforcement is encrypted (unlike say Lavabit).
Regarding security - well, anything's possible but PM is open source so the code can be audited and after that (supposedly) state-sponsored DDoS attack I suspect security is foremost on their mind (although if you read their blog you'll appreciate that it always has been).
If you're truly opposed to this bill then take action should it make it into law - there's numerous ways to protect your privacy (VPNs, ProtonMail etc.) - make use of them. Nothing says 'fuck you' better than their 'internet connection records' being a long list of foreign VPN gateways.
They're getting the wrong message here - Eyeo's 'protection racket' will be their own undoing since many users are advocating uBlock Origin as a superior alternative to AdBlock Plus' 'acceptable' ads.
Fighting back against AdBlock's questionable policies is fiddling whilst Rome burns...
Yep. Long-time user of ABP - previously had acceptable ads turned on (I'm not a *total* freetard) but ABP's idea of 'acceptable' and mine clearly differ and thanks to this article I'm now running uBlock Origin instead (plus hosts and Ghostery which I still send anonymized data with 'cause I do believe in supporting developers). Good job Eyeo - enjoy your short-term profits before the rats abandon the ship.
Wonderful! These books were fantastic - really approachable and well illustrated. And with some great emulators out there for the Spectrum and C64 now anyone can experience the thrill of typing in a long listing, running it and finding out it doesn't work ;) Just downloaded all of them!
Here's another blast from the past: https://archive.org/details/inputmagazine&tab=collection
I have a SuperMicro X5DAL-TG2 motherboard with dual 3Ghz P4 Xeons that's been in daily use for 13 years now - it's been re-housed in a number of different cases and has had the fans replaced several times but other than that it's still the same machine (including PSU/GPU/RAM/HD) as when I built it.
It used to be a 3D workstation but now it's a general-purpose office machine running in a friend's business - I'm pretty sure it'll outlive me!
My current PC's doing pretty well too - it's an Asus P6T Deluxe motherboard with a Nehalem i7 I built 6 years ago - the only part I've changed on it is the GPU (got a better one and still have the old one) - it's actually housed in the Cooler Master Black Widow case I originally bought for the SuperMicro and uses the Western Digital Raptors I bought back in 2003 for the SuperMicro too :)
"As part of a campaign into UK councils' cyber security conducted last year, The Register was told that Lincolnshire County Council's AV solution(s) - the specifics of which the council declined to disclose - had thrown up 196,553 malware alerts in 2015."
195,553? WTF? Where were they browsing?? I had exactly 2 malware detections via Malwarebytes in 2015 - both from files I probably shouldn't have downloaded - and none whatsoever from spam emails.
PCs tend to be in use for a lot longer than any given i or Android device too - I built my current desktop in early 2009 (i7 Nehalem) and simply haven't had the need to replace it (over the course of 6 years I've added more RAM and replaced the graphics card once).
On the mobile/tablet front, since then I've had:
iPhone 3GS (given to a friend)
iPhone 4 (sold)
iPad 1 (sold)
Samsung Galaxy Ace (sold)
Lumia 520 (current phone)
And I suspect I've invested in far fewer mobile devices in that time than many on el Reg.
A slowdown in desktop CPU innovation has stymied the PC upgrade market (why would I switch from Nehalem to Skylake?) plus PC gaming being held back by the console gaming albatross means there's simply nothing coming down the pipe (except VR possibly) to prompt a new motherboard etc. The system I have does everything I need it to (video, graphics, audio, games) - perhaps the next generation of consoles will finally render it obsolete for gaming and then I'll upgrade - so what's that? 3-4 years from now on its 10 year anniversary?
Oh, and my *last* PC (a Prestonia-based dual-Xeon) is now 13 years old and still going strong...
ProRes started gaining traction as Final Cut began to win industry acceptance. Admittedly for a long time it was exclusively an intermediate codec and frequently used in its 'Proxy' and 'LT' flavours purely for editing (and of course, requiring lengthy transcodes) - prior to that the QuickTime Player and bundled codecs were somewhat of a (divisive) novelty on the PC - some of the codecs were useful (the Animation codec got a lot of use in the early days of CG) but for the most part it was a slow, buggy piece of crap that didn't offer much value to Windows users. These days it's a necessary evil.
Mac-side the story was different since QT was an integral component of the OS - QuickTime's always been understandably more robust there.
And yeah, the industry's changed a bit. If you're shooting Hollywood stuff then Red cameras use their own format (Redcode) and the Arri Alexa shoots ProRes. Typically a DIT will apply a rough grade to footage on-set which'll be provided to the Editor (and Colourist) as LUTs so the footage can be screened to the Director and DP without it looking like ass (footage is recorded in-camera in Log modes for maximum dynamic range).
Editing computers are easily powerful enough these days to work with lightly-compressed 4k footage so once the edit's ready to go to the Colourist, all that's needed is an XML or AAF of the edit. The Colourist will work with the original footage and will be responsible for the final render of the movie. VFX stuff happens in the background whilst all this is going on with stuff getting added to the film right up to the final render. VFX is delivered in the highest quality possible so might go to the Editor as ProRes but most likely will go to the Colourist as DPX, EXR or ProRes 4444.