It can hallucinate all it wants and nobody will be able to tell the difference.

I assure you, you're paying for them. Dell doesn't give away free product. The cost of those components is included in the price you pay.

Like there's a guy who's moderating the ads?

I've previously reported any amount of utterly illegal, misleading, out-right lies, etc. ads on Facebook in the past and nobody cares. They take your report and then a month later they tell you that they found no violation.

The only moderation they do for advertisers is "Enter your credit card details".

It's kind of the reason they're in this mess in the first place.

Okay, so...

Back in the day, on Windows... 98 through to about 7? I used to use ZoneAlarm on my Windows machines.

Was that because we didn't have a network firewall at home? No. We did. In fact, I used to do quite a bit with Freesco (a single-floppy Linux router distro, designed to replace Cisco routers with commodity PCs). Our networking was DAMN good for a home network.

But I liked to use it because it would POP UP and tell you something was using the Internet. What port. To what domain/IP. That it wanted to listen on a port rather than send data? Allow or Deny? What kind of software profile to apply to this? Is this a game (i.e. some random outgoing stuff only)? Is this a web browser (let it do what it likes on 80/443)? Etc. To what zone? Internet? Local Network? etc.

That, I find, is the ONE THING that's still actively missing from all modern operating systems. I want that on my phone. I want that on my Windows PCs (Windows Defender doesn't even come CLOSE). I want that on my Linux PCs (but less of an issue there, for sure, and it's more difficult because they don't necessarily have a GUI by default).

A decent application firewall is severely lacking in modern machines, and part of that is the "UAC fatigue" that Microsoft introduced, where you got a dialog asking you inane questions about deep-level technical stuff. But I *want that*. The closest I've found is Comodo Free, which does the same. And you would be AMAZED how many programmes automatically do a DNS lookup and check-home as their very first action on a modern Windows machine. Basically EVERY piece of software you use. Every game. Every application. Every part of Windows. Every service.

And it's mostly unnecessary.

I would give my right arm for a decent GUI version of this, especially now that I'm entirely Linux again after 20+ years. Not because I expect it to defend me against attacks like a software firewall is sold as doing. But because I want to know why, in the ever living fuck, every tiny application thinks it has to immediately connect out to the Internet on random ports to talk-home in order to operate. So I can eliminate that feature / software.

Honestly... if there ever is a world war, the Internet will be the first thing under attack. And you'll realise - as I did even many years ago, how much stuff just jams up if it can't immediately DNS-lookup and connect out of your network. And how some stuff just then immediately stops working when you deny it, as in the programme just stops loading completely until you allow it.

There is no left in America, they moved to the right.

The Dems are probably about level with Ronnie the Ray gun, possibly a fraction more to the right.

If you think the Dems moved 51% to the left, then the reality is you moved 55% to the right, and the Republicans moved even further.

Except none of that actually happened.

Pushing more and more people into dense urban landscapes that are hostile to life does not lead to happy people? You don't say...

You're so brave!

The organisation, after Musk took over, became a cesspit of far-right extremism, in which anything the far-right "disagreed" with (such as facts and other inconveniences) were censored.

The EFF has, by this announcement, basically said that censorship did not bother them at all, that extremism did not bother them at all, that death threats against the left didn't bother them, that the only thing they were bothered by was the fact that the intellectuals had all left.

That does not give me overwhelming confidence in the EFF as being concerned with freedom.

Your Example Dell PC doesn't "need your leftover keyboard, mouse, and monitor", because Dell is happy to sell you new ones if you'd rather not supply your own.

Mac Mini is the same.

Which it was.

Anyone with a brain, having just invented a deliberately anonymous cryptocurrency that starts to take off, would NOT EVER touch the seed coins, especially once it became obvious that everyone was watching their movement.

The second that stuff moves, Bitcoin value tanks AND the ultimate destination of all those coins becomes international news. Hardly anonymous.

No, whoever they were, and for literally whatever reason they started the project, they would have created other additional accounts later on, capitalised on those, had no connection to the original accounts, and still be a billionaire now. But just one of hundreds / thousands of others that are all untraceable and not really being watched.

And when Bitcoin mixing services came out, they'd have been all over it - just to preserve anonymity if nothing else.

We know precisely one thing about Satoshi - and that's that they don't want to identify themselves. Maybe there is $138bn sitting in an account they could in theory get access to. But it would immediately reveal information about themselves that may well work against them - taxation authorities would be all over it, press, public, every penny would be traced to its final destinations, etc.

So even if they only had, say, a couple of million in another account... they'd use that. Not everyone wants to be a stupendous billionaire in the public eye. You have to be a bit of a sociopath to be a billionaire at all. And then think of things like security, press, public scrutiny, etc.

Maybe they've got enough to live a life of luxury, that they've properly declared, never have to work again and, ultimately... still stay absolutely anonymous.

The one thing we know is that they understand anonymity. Why on earth would we ever expect them to do the most stupid thing ever and reveal themselves, rather than just hide amongst a large crowd and enjoy the rest of their life?

I would think the transmission could be for a split second, at random times that only the American military knows, spaced perhaps even hours apart. Transmission could contain GPS coordinates, encrypted, it would be useless for locating because it was so short and frequency chosen to echo off rocks well.

Current base price for a Mac Mini is $599. So, there's that.

If that's a barrier to entry, it's one that is shared by 90% of the (non-laptop) PC market, and it never seemed to bother PC users. It's not like Apple won't happily sell you a keyboard, mouse, and monitor along with your Mac Mini, if that's what you want to do.