I had a defective item that they wouldn't give me a refund on. I had PayPay step in but I had to raise the priority of my claim before I got someone to actually review the video showing the defective item in action.

I knew it would happen, but not this fast.

The editor doesn't allow for paragraphs and I have no idea how to insert the HTML to do that. I see I'm not the only one here who has this problem. If you don't like it, move along now, nothing to see here. :-)

Honestly, I don't really know what Instagram is about or what it's like, but I get that it's yet another unnecessary social media platform. Unnecessary in the sense that people can live without it, and that there are probably reasonable alternatives to it. I never signed up for Instagram, and it looks like I made the right decision to not join it. I have to use Social Fixer, a browser add-in, just to make Facebook tolerable, to avoid getting recommendations from FB, etc., and other browser add-ins to control FB and keep it from "following" me around the web, keeping track of what interests me, so that they can push ads somewhere to try to lure me into clicking an ad. And I use an ad blocker, too. And when I do see an interesting ad, I don't click on it. I web search and find it on my own to make sure I'm not tracked, but also, so I don't pay a higher price because of the ad referral. (Yes, I realize in most cases it doesn't add to the cost, but I often find things cheaper using my search methods.) Some high points from the article summary: " . . . but I need to be honest: more and more of Instagram is going to become video over time. We're going to have to lean in to that shift while continuing to support photos." I need to be honest here, too. If I was using a service that you're trying to get me to use, so you can sell me stuff, I expect in return that you'll deliver to me what I'm looking for, not to tell me I HAVE TO change to liking your changes. Change things up against my will, and I will have no reason to come to you for content. (Of course, right now, I don't come to them for content at Instagram, and you can bet that after reading how responsive they are to people's desires, I won't, either!) "You can snooze all recommendations for up to a month, but we're going to try and get better at recommendations because we think it's one of the best ways to help creators reach a new audience and grow their following." So I can snooze your recommendations but not turn them off, and after a month you're going to force me to look at them? I don't think so. Another reason to stay away from the app. "We're going to need to evolve, because the world is changing quickly, and we're going to need to change with it." I think you have it all wrong, buddy. YOU'RE the one who is going to need to evolve, to stay in step with what WE want to see. Time to "evolve" in reverse and back this change out of the service. If you don't give people what they want, someone else will likely do so, and even if no one else does, people can go do other things with their time, not play on Instagram. If you want to be m ore like Tik Tok, start up a new service, completely different from Instagram and almost identical to Tik Tok. Call it Timex, or Big Ben, or Look At Me, or whatever. Don't waste shareholder's resources, nor our (the user base) time. If they make Instagram something no one wants, well, no one will use it. I realize there will always be a good part of the user base who will continue to use Instagram no matter what they do with it, just like Fecesbook. But make enough of the user base mad, and they will spend their time and energy, and clicks on ads on some other company's pages. That lowers revenue, which lowers stock price, and that's not a good thing for Instagram. I believe there will be enough fallout over this that they'll back out the changes, and soon. Maybe even sooner than after a month of snoozing those recommendations. In any case, I won't be leaving Instagram behind because I never signed up for it.

Let's see. What is crypto based on? Gold? No. Silver? No. Copper? No. Dirt? No, not even dirt. It's inherently worthless, so trading it like stocks is like, well, nothing like trading stocks. Stocks have some inherent value, though its real value may differ between its assets (minus liabilities) and what stockholders feel it's worth, what they're willing to pay for it. With crypto, its entire worth is only in people's minds. There are no assets to back up the "currency," if you can even call it a currency. It's hard to feel bad for these "investors" who lost their crypto holdings. They would have been better off buying Monopoly money. At least you'd have the paper it's printed on and could maybe even play the board game.

GM has been doing this for a few decades. You get Onstar for free for a period of time, then it is disabled. You have to pay for it to use it from then on. It's in the car and capable of continuing the service, but it gets disabled if you don't pay up.

I have tried some Windows programs with Crossover, which is WINE on steroids. It's WINE-based, but enhanced and refined. It's not free, though, so most just use WINE. Crossover is more for gamers and users of Office suites like MS Office, and used to be called Crossover Office. They then came out with one for gamers, too, and now they combined both branches into one. I have tried WINE, but it's not as good as giving the program the Windows-like environment so that the look and feel of the program is nearly the same as in Windows. Other than that, they're about the same. I get it for free because I'm a tester and also get it for free under a special program they have for unsupported Windows programs, one of which I provided work-arounds for problems in this unsupported program earlier in their software development. There are now no work-arounds needed, fortunately, as it just works now without a hitch. However, WINE, Crossover, or not, I'm not going to pay for additional licenses for my paid Windows programs though. One paid program I have does not require a license for additional installs, though, and it works fine in Linux. To run these programs, I would have to uninstall the program in Windows to get my activation back, then install it in Linux. Not knowing if that would be successful and not knowing if the uninstall process in Linux using WINE or Crossover would give me the activation back, I don't want to take the chance that I might lose what I paid for.

I use Crossover, a refined version of WINE. The only downside is if you use Windows and Linux, you may have to buy a second license for paid programs to run one in Linux. The maker won't care it's on the same PC. And you may register it, but it won't work, so I guess that's another risk. I don't know how I feel about running Linux under Windows, but it's supposed to be possible now.

I use Linux Mint occasionally. If it ran the programs I paid for that I don't see equivalents I like in Linux, I would completely switch. Mint and some others I've tried is not all that different from Windows now. You no longer have to know how to use the command line, though learning how can let you tweak some things if you like to do that. It doesn't throw ads at you, doesn't track your movements across the web (though some browsers you can install will, like Chrome), and has a lower system overhead than Windows. I have run into problems in some distributions that I had to search for solutions, but I was able to address those. With Mint, the only problem I ran into once was it wasn't able to update. I had to do a new installation with the next version. But I can't say Windows never did that to me, either.

Yet they did have advance notice before the findings were published. Whey did they not do the quick fix only after the article went live instead of moving fast as soon as they were made aware of the vulnerability? I don't know Polish law but I hope they have a law that allows suing the company for a frivolous lawsuit so they can not only get some court award, but also recoup their legal exopenses. It also seems a bit ludicrous that they'd sue when it was their fault the vulnerability needed to be disclosed to the public since the company refused to fix the problem when notified. If this ends up going to court, I hope somene sets up a go fund me page so we can support the defendants. I would not be surprised if we would have enough people interested in helping them defend themselves in court that it pays for all their legal expenses. Then pay to have the defendant sue for a frivolous lawsuit in the first place,

I believe court debts can be included in a bankruptcy filing. My car insurance agent told me that's why the other person's attorney files for discovery and finds out how much you're insured for be they realize that people will file for bankruptcy if the jury awards a multimillion dollar settlement against you. That's why you don't need 10 million dollars of car insurance. Unless, of ciurse, you have a lot of money to protect. You can usually keep your house and certain property up to a certain amount in bankruptcy, and your retirement savings have at least some protection. If you can file chapter 7 instead of 13 you protect a lot more property and don't have to make payments to the court over a few year's time. You used to be able to choose 7 or 13 but the law changed and now if you have a certain amount of property you must file for 13 and pay back part of your debt.

What would happen if the student didn't use a laptop with a camera? The plugin would not be able to tell if the eyes were moving "abnormally" in a way to suggest he or she was cheating. Tape could be put over the camera lens Also, switching networks doesn't seem fair. What if your ISP internet quit working and you had to use your phone's hotspot to finish the test? That might not be so far-fetched a thing. I'm glad I'm glad I'm through with college and got my BA and MBA and don't have to put up with this sort of crap. We had some classes where we had to submit our papers through a website that looked for quotations and would flag them for the teacher, who would then check to see if the quote was documented in the references. That's not an invasion of privacy, but I think the plugin discussed here does go over the line since it's assuming certain things that a person might do and there could be legitimate reasons for doing something that would trigger this plugin to report fraud.

Though we do have various surround sound technologies for movies and TV, we don't have surround sound CD music. Back in the early 1970s the latest craze was 4-challen stereo high fidelity music. The technologies were splintered. Record encoding on vinyl had SQ, QS, and CD-4 on vinyl (the most accurate was CD-4). It was possible to broadcast SQ or QS stereo FM. They even came out with enhanced SQ encoding that could make a sound that was supposed to come out of one corner to be less prominent in the other three channels. It wasn't perfect, but it worked out very well. What might have made it mainstream would be a 4-channel cassette tape, as cassette tapes were quite popular back then, but North American Philips corporation had the patent on cassette technology, and they would not allow any company to produce a 4-head, one direction cassette recording system. 8-track tapes were not reliable nor a great technology for great sound but could have been configured with 4 heads and two stereo tracks.. They were noisy, and the tapes were doomed to early wear-out. By the time you were able to get a 4-channel one direction cassette recorder, the desire of consumers for a surround sound 4-channel system had waned. Perhaps it was the extra cost of having a special receiver or amp and preamp that had 4 separate channels, and the additional two speakers needed for the 4-channel sound. We've come a long way from back then, and sound has gotten worse in the digital music processing we have that's popular. Dynamic range in most CDs is worse than on vinyl records when it could be much, much better. try playing a CD disc from Telarc and you'll see what I mean, though they are more for symphony music than pop music (unless they've broadened their offerings since the 80s). Regardless of whether I'm wrong on some of these points, my point is that consumers are fickle, and sometimes downright cheap. Many don't buy into new tech because of the cost of the tech before it becomes cheaper. By the time it becomes cheaper, consumers have given up on the concept and have decided either to not move on or to move onto something else.

This doesn't change the requirements for a BS degree, but it might be just what you need. If you really have a good background in the non-computer subjects you would have to take for a BS degree, take a course (as one of your electives) on how to document experiential learning. You'll get credits for taking the course and credits for your first experiential learning document that could, if you match your experiences and knowledge with a syllabus from your required courses list, get you credit for that class and a course waiver. The course on how to document experiential learning is a good idea if you want to do this, but you might be able to figure out what you need to do in order to earn credits this way without taking the course. I feel I would not have been able to do this if I hadn't taken that course, but you may be different. You may be able to get a copy of another student's document from your student adviser and see how it all fits together. I aimed to document about 75% of the topics covered in any particular syllabus (which must be from an accredited institution, by the way). Two of my documents were requested as "models" for other students to be able to view, so your college should have samples of these available. I got out of 27 credits worth of a bachelor's degree that way. (A friend of mine got out of 45 credits that way!) Some of my documentation was used to avoid taking courses I didn't particularly want to take, and others to just fill elective credits needed towards the degree. The dollar cost for those experiential learning credits? My college didn't charge anything for the first 30 credits' worth of experiential learning, and only $10 per credit after that. This was 9 years ago, but even if it doubled in cost, it would still be a bargain in my book. The real cost is your time. after doing a couple of these, I was able to knock out one of these in 2-3 evenings or part of one weekend. You can also test out of certain classes. CLEP tests give you credit for courses and (I believe) a course waiver. You can also take simple course waiver tests from your college if you really know the subject well. I think you have to score 70% to get the course waiver. But that, unlike a CLEP test, probably doesn't give you credits toward your requirement for graduation, only a course waiver so that you don't have to take that course. You would have to make up those credits some other way. I took one course waiver test to get out of a prerequisite course for an MBA degree. It was for calculus. I never had calculus, so I asked for an outline of what I would be tested on and bought the Idiot's Guide to Calculus, and studied through chapter 6, I think. I passed the test using a calculator that did most of the work for me, but it was allowed, and you have to know what you're doing with any calculator or you will get the wrong answer. (It just made it easier for me.) I never took a CLEP test. I probably should have. There is a fee for taking a CLEP test. I'm sure, whatever that fee is, that it's worth it, assuming that you can pass the test. If you are interested in this at all, I suggest asking your student adviser for more information. If you with to ask me more about this, email me at my username here at a very warm, "high temperature" place for email (a popular web mail place). I don't check that account every day, but I do occasionally check it, hopefully before the spam folder is purged by Microsoft.

Two recent articles on PC Mech alerts had some information on "bit rot" and storage media: http://www.pcmech.com/article/how-to-avoid-bit-rot/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pcmech%2Farticles+(PCMech.com) and http://www.pcmech.com/article/how-long-will-that-media-last/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pcmech%2Farticles+(PCMech.com)