One thing I did that helped was push out a program called UnChecky (Google it, or just add dot com for their site) to our domain.

They maintain a list of installers that do the default-on bullshit options, and when one of those installers is run it uses UI automation calls to turn off all the bundled offers.

I think it is/was more targeted at end-users that hammer the OK/next buttons until things go away, but with the event of updater software silently installing bundled crap it is easy for even a seasoned vet to fall into this trap since there is little to no indication of what the installer is doing.

May be an option to look into adding to ye ole toolbox.

Not at all. Once you point the gun at someone, that is force.
NOT pointing a gun at someone and doing the same would be implied force, which still qualifies.

Asking the town hall to make a new law, to which the town hall says NO, and no one comes to any bodily harm nor has a gun pointed at them afterwards however - is not force.

Are you claiming these 40 new arrivals are pointing guns at people or the equivalent?
Are they even threatening violence?

I saw nothing even close to that in the article. No threats implied or otherwise were reported on. No guns were reported to be in use.
Nothing but the normal town hall processes that is democracy.

Fair enough, I too agree it is a waste of time, but unfortunately short of some mass population cleansing or something equally terrifying, I feel this is still one of the better ways of handling things.

Far from claiming the government works [adjective not needed], it at least seems to be serving its purpose.
Listen to the minority, judge any basis for harm or loss, and act accordingly - even if that action is to reject their claims.

Oh no, far from. I agree these people are at best hypochondriacs that are full of shit, and at worse real-life trolls full of shit.

I'd even go so far to say that putting up with the needs of the many over the few is simply one of the prices to pay for living in a civilized society.
That puts the onus on them to change their life style as they want it.

Shy of any real forcing their will on others I may be missing here, my take on the article was they are kinda doing just that.

Don't want to believe there is EM radiation around you? They believe an EM blackout zone such as the one around the observatory makes them happier? Then move to the blackout zone (which they did)

They want to believe florescent lights give them problems? Them replacing their own lights to avoid such perceived problems is the right thing to do.

I'll even grant going so far as requesting others do the same for their benefit isn't at all out of line.
So long as it is a willing and voluntary change that isn't being forced upon them (which is how I read the article) then I see no problem.

It all comes down to voluntary requesting vs forcing upon others.

I already posted a similar reply to someone else, but basically what I said was:

I saw nothing mentioned except the new arrivals requesting things at a town hall meeting, and ultimately being ignored.

I would be surprised if 25% of a population was enough to force anything on anyone via voting or passing new laws. If I am incorrect on that fact then I admit I would revise my previous statements, as well as call bullshit on such a situation.

But so far as The Guardian article linked in the slashdot summary, I didn't see anything more than the new arrivals asking for things and the existing population saying 'no'.
And I don't see any problems with asking.

You'd have a point if that was happening, but I saw nothing mentioned but the new arrivals requesting things at a town hall meeting, and ultimately being ignored.

Making a request is not, IMHO, forcing your will on others.
I even used a reverse example in my first post, that the observatory might ask the new arrivals to stop using radio transmitters if it's discovered they are doing so.

Now to my basic math skills:
120 original people + 40 new people = 160 total people
40 new people / 160 total people = 0.25 , aka 25% of the population.

I would be pretty surprised if 25% of a population was enough, even if all voting en-mass, to force anything on anyone.
I may actually be wrong there, although if so I would agree that situation would be complete bullshit and shouldn't even be possible let alone reality.

Perhaps there are other articles not linked to by slashdot or the guardian that supports the claim that these people are forcing anything?
If so I'll gladly admit ignorance of the situation.

So why does this matter to you?

These new people aren't responsible for no-wifi, the radio blackout was put in place for the observatory.
If these people wish to relocate to an existing radio blackout area, that makes them happy, and it doesn't affect you in anyway - why not leave them be?

Again, why does this matter to you?

Let them be "stupid" where their stupidity won't harm anyone. Why can't we just leave them be?

Short of their stupidity resulting in them carrying around a radio transmitter they aren't aware is actually a transmitter, they aren't hurting anything.
And even in that case, I would imagine just telling them the thing is a transmitter would very quickly get them to shut it off willingly, maintaining the radio blackout.

But short of that I don't see why anyone would care that stupid people are going out of their way to be stupid in a place that stupidity doesn't harm anyone.
In fact, good on them for finding an existing radio blackout zone to use, instead of forcing it needlessly on everyone around where they used to live.

Moral of the story: Leave motherfuckers alone.

Many people (purposely) confuse two different labels together, namely "computer expert" and "self-proscribed computer expert"

The former mostly knows what they are doing. The later does not but thinks they do.

This is a case of being the later.

Actual computer experts don't need to ask "do HDs die?" because the answer is "yes, always"
We also don't ask "when will it die?" because the answer is too variable, thus we immediately take steps so /when/ it dies the negative impact is minimized or removed (raid, copies, and backups)

It is frequent however that the self-proclaimed expert will both continue to ask these questions followed with taking all the wrong steps to safeguard against the fact a single storage device Will die.

A more interesting question would be, how many times has a hard drive inexplicably not died after 5, 10, or 15 years?
I still have a 1 GB SCSI Quantum Fireball brand HD that ran spunup for around 8-10 years, and even now after 23 years later it still spins up and is readable.
Quite an amazing exception to the rule IMHO. Especially with a name like "fireball", something one generally doesn't want associated with their data storage :P

Better than that, you can just swap out the internal HD with another HD (or SSD) of your choosing.

It must be a 2.5" drive that is 9.5mm (or less), and 5400rpm to match the built in drive but faster drives will show the speed improvement.

You can then backup your game saves to a USB drive, swap out the internal drive, format the new internal drive, restore your saves from USB, and go about installing games again.

The only annoying part is if you already have a ton of games on the internal drive.
I don't know any way to copy those along, you have to redownload them AFAIK, so hopefully you have a good ISP.

I know a few people that did this using 512gb SSDs for the speed boost.
On my friends SSD'ed PS4 I got to play GTA5 before and after the upgrade, and you could very much tell the difference in speed. Much closer to PC loading times than stock console.

For extra capacity, I think the largest "thin" 9.5mm HDs out there are 2tb, but that too is only a matter of time and I may already be out-of-date wrong with that statement.

BTW the PS3 is just as easily upgraded.
I never owned a PS2 so can't comment there (does it even have an HD?), and the PS1 certainly did not.

This post has no useful content. That said:

I just wanted to say thank you very much for the link FreeUser! It's been slightly frustrating at best trying to keep up with all the partial yet somehow already out of date blogs to get the same information.
It is very much appreciated.

Sorry for the multiple replies.
I was following up on comment replies to me before I saw the update on this article that IMAX Corp has already apologized.

So good on them, it's refreshing to see a human with common sense step up to the plate and put an end to the legal departments nonsense, instead of doubling down with a misunderstood legal threat.

So they ended up answering my previous posts question, and do want people to refer to IMAX theaters as IMAX. Which is good, as "That shitty theater" is too many syllables to roll off the tongue quickly.

Where do you see them using IMAX as a generic large screen?

I only see: It's like saying, 'I have an IMAX theater in my house.'

Sounds like he is referencing an IMAX theater itself and comparing one thing (The VR headset) with one other very specific thing, an actual honest to god IMAX theater.

If I ask my friend very specifically 'Do you wanna go to IMAX?' - I am not going to end up driving to some random movie theater - I really honestly do mean to reference a real IMAX theater.

How can I legally refer to IMAX theaters if not by name?
More so, why should I not reference IMAX theaters specifically by the name the IMAX Corporation has requested via trademark that I use to reference it?

I could see how IMAX Corp may be upset if I always referred to their theaters as say "Those shitty theaters", despite the fact there is no law preventing me from doing that, but that is because A) I am referring to an IMAX theater as something else, and B) that something else happens to be insulting.

Well here is the difference, if IMAX Corp wants to claim I can't call their theaters "IMAX Theaters" - then I will pick my own name.
They do have a trademark on IMAX however, so I couldn't do the reverse and refer to something else as an IMAX theater.
But they have no trademark on "That shitty theater" so they can't prevent me legally from referring to any theaters of my choosing as "That shitty theater"

Which do you think they Really want?
Me calling their theaters by the name they request I use, aka IMAX
or me calling their theaters an insulting name that they have even less (read: no) control over?

Once again, -1 offtopic to you.

Please try to keep the discussion somewhat on topic. Pointing out situations that haven't happened isn't useful to anyone, and in fact is quite harmful to your own reputation.

If they didn't want the world to refer to IMAX as the name "IMAX" then they probably shouldn't have filed a trademark on IMAX, which legally enforces us to refer to IMAX only as IMAX and nothing else, while also not referring to anything else as IMAX.

There was no claim that the VR headset was IMAX, and I see no other references claiming IMAX to be called something else, so all is legal from both directions.
The only reference I see is calling an IMAX theater IMAX.
I see no evidence of your claim that they used IMAX to mean "large screen movie", only specifically the IMAX theaters.

In case you lack understanding (as your posts seem to commonly do) - filing a trademark means you are demanding at legal threat that others only refer to your product/service using that mark.

The fact a trademark was filed is completely on their head, so they can't very well as claim after the fact such a trademark doesn't exist and demand we refer to their product/services in unlawful and confusing ways such as not-IMAX.

But divide by zero isn't covered by either of those two rules of algebra.

Asking what is X divided by zero is no different than asking what is Y plus red, or what is Z times pineapple.

I say focus on a proper mathematical answer for multiplying by blue first, and then apply it to the equally nonsensical divide by zero question.

and

The other day I went to portableapps.com to rebuild a new toolstick when I remembered they sell pre-loaded flash drives also. Seeing as part of that purchase would support portable apps I figured I would check out the prices in their shop.

It was then I saw they have a new (to me) encrypted flash drive that looks and reads to be pretty impressive.

Flash drive #2, the Carbide:
http://portableapps.com/shop/h...

Or if you just want the drive from the source without the portable apps involvement:
http://worldsbestflashdrive.co...

I only just purchased one for myself last Friday so it hasn't arrived yet, but now I intend to do similar to what you had in mind - my portable keepass app and database, and important documents like taxes and medical records.

May be worth looking into for those occasions LastPass isn't suitable, primarily for me being document files.

Also for what it's worth I fully agree with your comparison of keepass and lastpass strengths, and am saying that as an avid keepass user. I'm not here to convert you, just wanted to share a third option that I'm still a bit excited for finding.