NaibofTabr

The Laundromat (2019) attempts to describe the human impact of this kind of large-scale money laundering. It’s worth watching.

This projection of the 4-dimensional being into 3D space appears as the Mandelbrot set. Weirdly, it appears to be the Mandelbrot set no matter what angle you look at it from in 3D space.

The most important reason for OSHA to exist is to prevent managers from cutting corners on safety. Without regulation, the companies will risk peoples’ lives to save a few dollars.

“You miners don’t really need dust masks, right? PPE is for sissies!”

Just don’t walk behind them, or they might try to kick you.

This is really good advice for basically every animal with hooves. They mostly have a blind spot directly behind, like horses:

If you walk up behind them inside that blind spot and then move out to either side and suddenly appear in their vision, they’ll react defensively, usually by trying to kick you with their hind legs.

Basically if you can’t see the animal’s eyes then assume it can’t see you, and stay out of kicking range.

I’ll take “what is reductivism?” for $400, Alex.

Wait, wait… I don’t understand… wait maybe? d0 j0o und3rst4nd l33t? _{i used to know some l33tspe4k… kids these days can’t even be satisfied with the language…}

I’m sorry, I don’t speak tiktok… please wait right there while I try to find a translator… _{and an isolation unit}

No, I think it’s an invalid comparison. Do you struggle with reading comprehension?

It’s spreading. We need containment.

I think it’s contagious.

Considering that this particular incident happened near the Second Thomas Shoal:

which is awfully close to Philippine territory and nowhere near China, I find your “but-what-about” attempt here specious and shallow.

I don’t think it’s valid to compare a full-scale ground invasion with smashing up a patrol boat. Ground invasions are overt acts of war, no matter how much the invader might want to label them as “special”. In this case I don’t think China wants an open conflict with the Philippines, not yet anyway. If you’re actually invading you don’t vandalize one boat with hand tools and then run off, like teenager leaving a burning bag of shit on someone’s porch.

This is about China doing whatever it wants, and international law be damned. It’s more of a Cartman-esque demand for obedience and submission.

China is probing the US’s willingness to get involved in another conflict.

“Stupid and petty” is how international bullies operate. Pointless violence is how immature people express their “strength”.

I know there have been maritime issues between China and others within the last few years or so

All of the maritime issues have been caused by China attempting to claim the entire South China Sea as their private property, in defiance of international agreements about national coastal waters. All of those issues were provoked by China trying to exert control over coastal waters that are rightfully the property of other nations, such as Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines. China is a bad neighbor.

It factors into China’s ambitions to control the entire South China Sea:

Straight-up imperialism. All your ocean are belong to us.

Yeah, attacking a military unit seems like an act of war to me. Pretty blatant. Demonstrates that China only behaves as a bad actor with its neighbors, and can’t be trusted to be anything other than a bully.

This is basically China daring the US to do something about it. We shouldn’t take the dare, but we should respond with a show of support for the Philippines. China is flexing because they think the US is too busy with Ukraine, Israel, and the upcoming election.

Steve is one of those guys that has done so much with computers that if you have a problem it’s highly likely that he’s already dealt with that problem too and has a solution or workaround, or knows where to find one.

Yeah, I started listening to the podcast a couple years ago, and based on that I’d trust Steve’s opinion on basically everything related to computers & networking - largely because I know he’d be able to explain in detail why he has that opinion.

InControl by Steve Gibson allows you to set a specific Windows release version and prevent further feature updates, but does allow security updates:

InControl controls Windows automatic updating/upgrading system by targeting it to a specific major version and feature update release. By default, the current release will be used. So if you “Take Control” with the major version and feature release shown in the boxes in the lower left, Windows will remain right where it is – only installing monthly security updates – until you “Release control”.

Also:

Like all of GRC’s ultra lightweight freeware utilities, no setup or installation is required. Just run the utility with administrative rights. InControl’s operation can be scripted from the command line, and full technical details about the Registry keys it changes is provided.

Yeah this really shouldn’t be that difficult. Pop the old bill reader out and swap a new one in. It seems like there’s a pretty big financial incentive for someone to figure out how to implement that, at least for the most common vending machine models.