My advice (even if you do decide to use a separate device for gaming) is to get rid of anything that does telemetry, tracking, ad service, or AI. If you have a pro version or enterprise version of windows 11 you can use Group Policy Editor to remove or disable a lot of stuff and what is left is usually taken care of by Registry Editor in the command line. You can find many guides online that will walk you through how to debloat and remove a lot of the stuff MS uses to track you. I recommend this for anyone who uses windows.
There’s also a lot of stuff you can turn off from the setting menu that may help if you’re privacy conscious. It also might not hurt to make your account local rather that one attached to outlook or MS services (I recognize this may not be possible depending on what you use for work).
You may also want to try a different distribution of Linux that’s specifically made for gaming. I don’t know what kind of graphics card you have but the proton compatibility layer has been getting better overtime and so you might give that a shot.
I don’t think you’re really addressing what I said. You took one thing out of it you didn’t like to argue about and left the rest as if it didn’t exist.
There is nothing stopping this establishment (regime, government, whatever you want to call it) from deciding that the Real ID is the only valid government ID and that state ID or Driver’s License isn’t a valid form of identification. You posit that the Real ID could in some way be invalidated or change the rules making it unstable for things like voting or identification in certain circumstances and that this is a reason to get a passport or a State ID.
This neglects states where it is illegal to have both a state ID and a driver’s license, people who can’t afford both, people who can’t afford a passport etc.
Most state websites will mention somewhere that a state ID acts as a form of identification within the state. Meaning the federal government could absolutely not consider it a valid form of identification. Other states aren’t even required to take your state ID as a valid form of identification.
You’re also neglecting that plenty of states haven’t enacted a mandatory Real ID program yet or it hasn’t gone into affect yet, however that may happen in a year, two years etc and so not getting a Real ID upon renewal will end up costing them more money they don’t necessarily have.
Your reasons for not getting a Real ID aren’t even particularly clear and you didn’t answer any clarifying questions.
What makes the Real ID more dangerous than a State ID or Passport?
How much more expensive is it to get a Passport than a Real ID?
Is the process to receive a Real ID in some way more of a risk to personal privacy?
If it is a risk, what are the risks to personal privacy while getting a State ID or Passport?
Is there a reason to believe that this regime or one in the future will preclude Real ID from being used to prove things like citizenship status or voting rights?
I have been waiting over a year to get a passport. They’re so backed up that they literally just send you your documents back and ask you to reapply in a given amount of time. It’s also more expensive to get a passport than it is to get a driver’s license or “real ID” and you may not have the option to just not have one if you work somewhere that requires it (like an airport).
If your concern is that they might change the rules about being allowed to use Real ID for voting (or that having a Real ID would be a requirement for voting, excluding non-Real ID licenses or state ID’s because the government could potentially invalidate the ID you do have, I’m going to point out that in this time where ICE is literally stealing people off the street regardless of their legal status in the country and deporting them, what you’re suggesting doesn’t make sense especially with the higher bar of entry for a passport, and the fact that some states do not any longer provide any other option besides passport or REAL ID.
ISP’s give us access to the Internet. And we pay them for it. Google makes money via ad aggregation. We already know they were able to do this without siphoning up all your data because they literally made money doing it before 2004 when they launched Gmail. What you’re talking about already exists though. User subscriptions for Email, VPN’s, Search Engines etc already exist and people are using them. People are paying for them.
People also generally understand that if they aren’t paying for a service then they are the product. The thing is though, lots of those people are fine with ads so long as the ads don’t get in the way of them enjoying the product. If I open a website they don’t need to have a full page ad open up when the site page loads. But they do that anyway and that’s what people are largely pushing back against.
Additionally, if these companies want our data? They should do a much better job of safeguarding it, or be held responsible in a meaningful way.
I’d love to know what you do when you can’t find a DVD still in print? Media companies like Disney and Paramount etc have been deliberately limiting the number of DVD’s and other physical formats available, putting whole movies and series “in the vault” for the purposes of manufacturing scarcity. Piracy is largely a matter of economic affordability and ease of access. I can pirate. The point is when I had these titles available to buy, I bought media rather than pirate it. I preferred to. And when it’s not easily available or locked to specific services I’m boycotting etc there’s few avenues left. I can appreciate that you were trying to give me a legal avenue to obtain what I want, but I feel like you missed the forest for the trees here.
I was. Until they made that so difficult and time consuming that the barrier to entry was too high. Not because of the price. But because of availability. When Google play music was a thing? I bought music. When streaming took over I moved to Bandcamp. But Bandcamp doesn’t have everything. There’s no music stores anymore where I can just go and buy music. It’s all Amazon and similar.
I’d love to own the ghibli collection. But to get it I have to buy the DVD’s (and have a DVD player to play them on), or I have to pirate them. No digital store front seems to have the whole collection. This happens all the time with media that I’m willing to pay for.
People are lonely. They lack the kinds of interactions in their lives that make them feel comfortable and more importantly allow them to feel seen or understood. The mindless scrolling temporarily fills the void they have in human interaction while allowing them to interact themselves if/when they want to.
Humans are “addicted” to human interaction and the algorithms take advantage of that fact to make a product out of them.
Additionally, human brains seek out novelty. A lot of our day to day lives are filled with work and duties (chores, bills, children) etc. People in the 1920’s weren’t addicted to the news paper. They needed something to do with their free time that didn’t break the bank. Increasingly there’s just not that many things that you can put down to switch gears that fit that bill.
"Thank you for responding. It’s not nearly as polarizing as you suggest once you look at the numbers.
The American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA) was advanced by the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 20, 2022, with a 16-6 bipartisan vote.
Senators who voted in favor (Yes):
Democrats:
Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL)
Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)
Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
Senator Christopher Coons (D-DE)
Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT)
Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI)
Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ)
Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA)
Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA)
Republicans:
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
Senator John Cornyn (R-TX)
Senator John Kennedy (R-LA)
Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC)
Senator Mike Lee (R-UT)
Senators who voted against (No):
Republicans:
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX)
Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE)
Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO)
Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR)
Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)
Senator John Kennedy (R-LA)
Now tell us again how the “bipartisan” bill where EVERY NO VOTE IS REPUBLICAN is evidence that the Democrats are not committed to antitrust reform?
Schumer didn’t oppose the bill. You know very well that he made a strategic decision to not bring the bill to a vote because the Silicon Valley tech bros opposed the bill and THANKS TO CITIZENS UNITED, their money is SPEECH.
The people who brought you that decision were ALL REPUBLICAN appointees. Every single one.
In a 50/50 divided Senate (with two independents in the D column but Sinema and Manchin working against the caucus), there was a POLITICAL REALITY to contend with. Sadly, the money screws up everyone.
You are 100% wrong about this alleged reversal of “little guy” roles, and you seem to be deliberately obtuse about the facts."
This is a quote directly from the reddit thread where he made his secondary statement after the first one on shitter went viral. Context is important and he still has yet to actually answer to this.
Technically you can. But there’s more to it than simply drawing up districts to influence the Electoral College.
I agree generally with what this says. However, in the most recent ban in Australia, we don’t even know how they’re going to make this law enforceable, and VPN’s do still work at the moment. The people it detrimentally effects havebeen given a headstart here and they know it. VPN’s are just the tip of the iceberg.
This comment is not the original. He changed it.
Actually really good. Deckyloader took care of a lot of the stuff I needed for the legion go’s native controller and so on. Only thing that’s bugging me at the moment is for some reason I can’t control or change the RGB for the thumb sticks or power button. The setting isn’t in the controller settings where it should be. But everything else just works, and it’s been great so far.
It turns out that steam os (Bazzite) has this already enabled. I just didn’t understand what I was looking at because windows displays battery level and setting differently and the battery always read at 80% on windows when plugged in vs not. On Bazzite it reads as “full” but the bar only shows at 80% which is hard to see on a small screen but easier to see when docked to the TV. Thanks for the pointers though.
RAM (Radar Absorbing Material) coatings have existed for quite awhile. We use them for all kinds of stuff in the military industrial complex. The main question I have is who is doing upkeep to make sure that material/paint is intact and still maintains efficacy. And also how much is that going to cost? This isn’t new tech, but it sounds like some company is trying to market it to people afraid of 5G based entirely on the commentary here.