Iâ(TM)ve had no problems getting any of the various Linux flavors installed on any mainstream (Dell, Lenovo, HP) computer that Iâ(TM)ve encountered. Macs might have taken an extra step here or there.

Usually itâ(TM)s just a case of figuring out where the vendor put securevoot in the Bios and how to bring up the boot menu to select the usb to start from.

If you canâ(TM)t figure how to do those, then DuckDuckGo is your friend. Ask it how to access your systems boot menu.

the ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act = Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act

IT probably took 10 staffers several weeks to come up with that acronym. Impressive, but still...

Got ya beat.

What are you going on about? Geez.

Kids these days...

A couple things to consider. Not that I'm trying to defend facebook, i'm not. But:

1) No one should ever think that their VPN can't see their traffic. They can. But they can prevent outside observers from seeing your traffic. I can use a VPN to prevent comcast from keeping logs on me, or when at the coffee shop on their crappy open wifi so that the rest of the patrons can't see what I'm doing.

2) Even though we're thinking that this app is only for those of us in the West, their VPN COULD (and, I repeat, could - not will) provide a way for people in more locked down countries to access the rest of the web. But that's only if Facebook actually keeps their VPN logs from the authorities.

Whether they would say "Hey, we're Facebook China, you can't demand that we provide logs from Onavo Protect, which is governed by the laws of California" - that's a different story.

But anyone in the Europe, their VPN is a downgrade. Anyone in the US, it's probably negligible. But people in more locked down countries could see benefit, but only if FB is offering it to provide them a benefit and not just try to vacuum up even more info.

But then you have to trust that the issuer of your virtual currency actually has the means to back it.

Rather than just trade tokens which are valued for being the tokens that they are, you're trading tokens which COULD be worth what they say they're worth, but they also could not be worth what they're said to be worth.

It's like depository reciepts from banks in the 1800's. You put gold in. You got a ticket. You can spend the ticket. But can you really turn in the ticket to get your gold back? A pegged currency is akin to that, I think.

The world has many currencies and things work fine. Software that functions with dollars works with euros. And you exchange when you go to a "zone" (country) that uses that currency. No reason a brand new currency needs to be pegged to an existing currency. The issue is that there will be a huge amount of value created seemingly out of thin air. How to account for it? By expending electricity? By sending dollars to a company who says they'll keep them safe for you? Unless it's the Federal Reserve or a suitably capitalized institution, tether being that credible of a custodian for too long. I could be wrong, though. I'vebeen wrong on lots of things before.

All I'm saying is that putting aside the libertarian thing is fine. But there's no reason a borderless currency should be pegged in value to any national currency. So if you accept that, then you need to accept that it'll take the "market" time to figure out how to value this new currency.

I fully agree that Bitcoin is not it, though. And its holders, I mean, HODLers accept that too, many refuse to actually spend it, use it as a currency, and just refer to it as digital gold, and are fine with a payment network with crushing fees. That's fine. They were first to market, but they'll lose the race probably. I think a new one (or maybe on the already existing ones) will arise that is built for transacting, and will attract people who want to transact rather than attempt to hoard or get rich quick. But alas, we're still in the wild west days, people staking claims all over in hope that they'll strike it rich. Soon, I hope people change their mindset and try to build a new economy or economic engine. But that'll take time.

Did they spontaneously cry censorship? Or did they fall for another troll campaign? I really want to know...

The summary makes it sound like exchanges are holding Tethers as part of their reserves.

Why would they do so? What advantage is there to holding a cryptocurrency pegged at $1, to just holding dollars, especially since when your clients cash out, they are also asking for dollars?

Side note, it shouldn't be that difficult to get and audit done to make sure they have sufficient backing for the currency they issued. Just a quick print out of a bunch of bank statements, or perhaps brokerage statements showing T-Bill holdings is all it would take.

As someone who just quit smoking in favor of vaping, yes, nicotine isn't the only thing that keeps you smoking. I think its the combination of nicotine AND the activity itself. Because I've NEVER been able to quite using nicotine replacement (patches, gum, lozenges) or just trying to divert my attention to other things (fiddling with things, etc). But the combination of nicotine AND an activity has done it, and broken the smoking cycle for me.

Right now i'm at 12mg of nicotine juice. Some friends have said "you should start cutting back on that", but for now, I'm not going to mess with it. Maybe a year down the road, I'll try to lower the nicotine intake, but for now, i'm more than happy. Physically, it's better. I was stunned when i started smelling things that I had missed out on for years. Who ever would have thought you'd smell gasoline at gas stations? I was looking for a spill or leak, but then realized "oh, i can smell again!". And, being in a high tax state, rather than spending $80 a week on cigarettes, I'm getting by with $6-$8 worth of nicotine juice.

I hadn't been able to achieve this in any other way but through vaping.

As a long time smoker who switch to vaping, I think these are fantastic inventions from a harm reduction standpoint. As far as I've read, it's a far safer nicotine delivery system than inhaling burning plant products and by products, not to mention the hundreds of additives used for flavoring and to insure even burning, and I'm happy as a clam that I switched.

That said.

Who asked these scientists to study whether nicotine (a chemical we already know is addictive) is still addictive when inhaled as a vapor rather than in smoke? Of course it is.

Next issue is all these vape shops selling their wares to everyone in the world, including varieties with 0 nicotine. Sure, there might be a small market of smokers who have successfully weaned themselves down to 0mg of nicotine. But the far bigger market is likely kids who aren't nicotine dependent at all, and are just vaping because it's cool. Just like they used to start smoking. So, get them started on 0mg, and you've got customers. If they graduate to the nicotine versions, then you have even more lock-in.

In my mind, these should be considered medical devices and sold at pharmacies to people who are smokers, not to the millions of adolescents that are just attracted because of the cool clouds of smoke. But, of course, if these were only sold at pharmacies, we wouldn't have the wide variety of flavorings... Probably just a few knockoff tobacco flavors and a few knock off menthol flavors.

TLDR 1: Of course nicotine is addictive.

TLDR 2: Yes. We should have a discussion about responsible marketing of these devices. That'll never happen, though. Or it'll happen so hard and they'll clamp down so much that we'll all be pushed back into the waiting arms of the tobacco companies.

Amazon, Google, etc. They all launch a service, get people to use it, but not enough people, and then pull the plug.

I have Apple Cloud, whatever its called, for music storage, myself. And it's great, I can stream or pull down my music anywhere I go. But I still need to keep it on my computer (don't save any space), out of fear that they might pull the plug one day. Or just have a server crash.

These companies shouldn't just arbitrarily end services like these. If they have a lot of users, at least put the service up for bids from other developers or companies to take it over.

If we have someone if office that broke the law, we shouldn't leave them in out of fear that their successor's policies are worse. That makes it even more political. If they did something wrong, they did something wrong, that's it. Not "it's illegal, but we'll selectively not enforce the law because..."

IS it the "lefts" fault for forcing people out of jobs after they've been abusing the power bestowed on them? Or is it the fault of the people doing those actions?

Whatever happened to "personal responsibility", which used to be the mantra of the right? Oh, that's gone...

Lawsuits are the punishment to insure they're doing their jobs correctly.

There aren't any "successful treatment lawsuits", but there are "malpractice" lawsuits galore.

Here is the definition of Malpractice from Dictionary.com:

Law. failure of a professional person, as a physician or lawyer, to render proper services through reprehensible ignorance or negligence or through criminal intent, especially when injury or loss follows.

Should I go on and look up "reprehensible", "ignorance", "negligence", and "injury" for you?

Your solution is to not require medicines get vigorously tested before being prescribed?

Or to not be able to sue the bejesus out of the surgeon who accidentally amputates the wrong leg?