I like RustDesk. If you’re worried about connectivity, you can even run your own relay server.

You stopped a bit short on your delete spree I guess.

No, that was just the first two steps. Just on the “rip shit out” category, I typically churn through at least three separate tools, usually in this order:

• Win10Privacy
• Win11Debloat
• Winslop

I mean, sure, Windows can take as little as a half hour to “install”. But on a personal rig (which also includes my own workflow software and personal data shoehorned back into place), I take another 24-48 hours to gleefully beat it into submission and install secondary programs that bypass the warts it has acquired over the years.

And as a benchmark, XP needed only about 6-8hrs of extra work to reach the same threshold of data migration, workflow software, and improved usability (I was an NT fanboy, IMO the primary improvement of XP over 2000 was the start menu).

If we add up the AI push, the spyware/telemetry explosion, the recent attempts to force the use of a Microsoft Account as the default login, and the massive bloating and instability of Windows in general, it’s slowly becoming time for even non-technical, everyday users to move to Linux.

I just rebuilt my Win 11 Pro Workstation setup (yes, it is the version for stupidly high core and thread counts), and one of the first things I did was to violently eviscerate anything AI in the system. Right after gleefully ripping out all the telemetry and spyware.

And this is why I would never own a vehicle made after 2006.

Dammit. I’ve had an LG plasma for the last 15, and it looks like I’ll have to get that Sony well before I’m ready for it.

The objective is not to win. Winning against America’s imperial might is impossible.

The objective is to make them bleed as much as possible. To make victory as phyrric and as painful for them as possible. And when going up against the most expensive war plane in human history, this means choosing the aircraft that can get as technologically close as possible with as many units as possible on a per-dollar-spent basis.

We can make them bleed much more with 420 fully-functional Gripens than we can with 88 partially-functional F-35s that can be remotely shut down against our will.

We can already figure much of that out from the technological specifications of the F-35. Simply looking at the capabilities can give us strong clues on how to neuter or at least limit the inherent F-35 advantages from a tech standpoint.

The rest of that comes down to how the pilot behaves, and what tactics they have been trained in. And this is where differences in training, corps attitudes, and even pilot personalities can dramatically affect performance.

And while I fully agree with you in regards to pilot training, our problem is that a Canadian fighter pilot is likely to behave (tactic chain, decision trees, emotional responses, etc.) considerably differently than an American fighter pilot. As such, while we need to train our pilots in Gripen jets against F-35 jets in combat-like scenarios, we need to do so against American pilots, not Canadian ones.

And that’s the tough part - how do we get the American administration to willingly play along with activities that are obviously meant to train our pilots to fight theirs, and gain a consistent toehold against pilots in F-35s even if it means losing a few Gripens for every one of their F-35s. It needs to be done with a great deal of subtlety and subterfuge.

Canada needs to put the Gripen factory on an accelerated track, cancel the entire F-35 order, and move ahead with an immediate purchase of min. 50 Gripens using the F-35 funds to cover the gap and train up pilots until Gripens start rolling out of the factory.

Canada’s complete F-35 promise will cost the country $28,000,000,000 ($28B) with billions more needed to bring them up to full operational efficiency, and yet the Gripen costs only $65,000,000 ($65M) per aircraft, allowing us to buy 430 fully-functional Gripen jets instead of 88 partially functional F-35 jets.

Remember: tech superiority does not win battles. Sheer numbers do. WWII demonstrated this overwhelmingly on many different fronts, with many different technologies.

As just one example, the Germans had Tiger tanks that could face off against 6-8 Shermans at a time and win with barely a scratch on their hull, but when 10, 20, or even more came roaring over the hilltop for every Tiger that was fielded, their tech superiority ended being absolutely useless. They got overrun and overwhelmed with sheer numbers.

The F35 can be rendered equally as useless with enough Gripens in the air.

And the Gripens don’t come with a remote kill switch like the F-35 does.

Why… why would hard drives be going up in price?? AI does not use spinning platters of rust, like, at all.

For many places, it’s operational inertia. If you’ve had a hosting account at the same place since 1998, you’re bound to still have username/password access to services like FTP even though other (and better) options exist.

And then there is the issue of sole control. Many greybeards like myself still run traditional username/password auth on services because,

1. We have whitelisted our IP address, and if dynamic, keep that whitelist updated
2. That outside of said whitelisting, the service is a quasi-honeypot meant to protect the machine as a whole. Any connection made from outside the address space of my ISP, by anyone else, is by default considered malicious, and is banned instantly as a precaution. They don’t even get the opportunity to attempt a login; merely connecting to said service is sufficient evidence of hostile intent.

So while my setup is not ideal, it is ideal for myself. if I had anyone else as co-admin, or even clients, things would get stupidly complicated very quickly. But since it’s just me…

…The fuck?

Is Tim Sweeney legitimately outing himself as a pedophile? Does the Parasite Class really feel so comfortable and immune from consequences that they can openly advocate for pedophilia?

I mean, when the crime is going to happen regardless…

Why buy a new car? It would be cheaper to build your own car at this point.

Edison Motors (in British Columbia, Canada) can do a full EV conversion on any pre-1995 vehicle (few complex electronics that require futzing with) for $15k-$50k CAD depending on the type of vehicle and its power requirements.

Pick up a late-80s Type II VW Jetta and it’s likely to be at that lower end.

Pick up a late-70s dent side Ford F-350 dually, and it’s likely to be closer to that upper end.

Still, you’re looking at half to a quarter of what a new vehicle costs.

Israel is currently on an absolutely bloodthirsty genocide bender right about now. The fact that it doesn’t give two shits about women’s rights is quite a bit further down the priority list from where it doesn’t give two shits about life in general, and is violently unaliving most everyone not like them in the region

Pretty ironic, actually.

Sooo… he works multiple part-time jobs?

Weird how a forced technique of the ultra-poor is showing up here.

And this is why I will never own a vehicle manufactured after 2006.

I have just too little control with newer vehicles, be it having to auth with the mothership with every repair I do at home just to get it to start up, or even failing to start up in the first place when the mothership could not be contacted.

I start off with Win10Privacy (which also cleans 11) and then follow up with Win11Debloat. The two work pretty well.

And Microsoft is stuffing AI straight into Windows.

Betchya dollars to fines that this will happen a lot more frequently as normal users begin to try to use Copilot.

That’s what I am saving up for, actually. The numbers of surplussed high-end compute just in my sparsely populated region could probably let me open my own datacentre.

Am I unreasonably disappointed to not find “Correct Horse Battery Staple” - or some variation thereof - in that list?