There is a hidden gotcha for people who avoid using a Microsoft account to log in to a personal Windows machine.

It has become common for a new laptop to be supplied with bitlocker disk encryption enabled, without the user being aware.

If you log on using a Microsoft Account then the bitlocker key gets stored in the account. Microsoft can give the key to police or feds when they seize a laptop. If Windows stops booting for some reason, or the key gets erased from the TPM which is not uncommon, then to take the drive out of the computer and retrieve your files you need the key and you can get it from the Microsoft account.

If someone jumps through the hoops to avoid using a Microsoft account then later they can find they can't take the disk/ssd out and read it by connecting it to another computer. If the computer stops booting, they did not save the bitlocker key because they did not know the drive was encrypted and did not have an up to date backup then, oh no, they have permanently lost their files.

If Windows gets as far as reading the bitlocker key from the TPM chip (which happens before user log in), then sometimes it is possible to solder wires to the I2C bus, record the data with a hardware logic analyzer and spend a week customizing some software from github to extract the bitlocker key. If someone takes their personal windows laptop to a local computer shop or IT department then they almost certainly are not capable of that. Some models of laptop, intended for business, have a BIOS option to erase the TPM if opening of the laptop case is detected.

There is a security choice between:

1) Bitocker encryption and MS account: If my laptop gets lost or stolen then whoever has it will find it very difficult to access my files but Microsoft can prevent me logging in to my own computer, if I don't have access to the email I used for the Microsoft account or the Microsoft account password then I may loose my files later.

2) No disk encryption. Someone who steals or finds my laptop can access my files.

3) Bitlocker and windows login with an MS account. If you don't have backups and you didn't save the bitlocker key then you may be screwed later.

I hate Microsoft trying to force me to use a Microsoft account on a personal Windows laptop and I hate the boobytrap of bitlocker that you did not know was in use even more.

Perhaps Mullvad Browser, which is a fork of firefox.

It is privacy-focused and they seem to be putting enough resources into it to keep up with security patches for issues with firefox.

On some Dell tower PC's from around 2008, the notification was that at the next boot, the BIOS firmware showed a message saying something like "A single bit memory error was detected and corrected, press F1 to continue."

I have some sticks of RAM (in a box of junk somewhere) that caused the message on the hottest days of the year.

From here it looks like this affects any slashdot user with a space in their username.

I just tried clicking through tot he profiles of a dozen slashdot users with spaces in their usernames and they all say "The user you requested does not exist".

That worked because receivers made before about 2010 all converted the desired station down to 10.7MHz using a local oscillator signal.

The local oscillator frequency can be 10.7MHz above or below the desired frequency so the effect is different between different models of radio.

The local oscillator signal leaked out of the radio very weakly but enough to be picked up on another radio a few feet away.

These days most of the crappy ten-dollar domestic radio receivers use a single chip silicon tuner. They have a couple of chips on a circuit board, they don't contain a load of coils, capacitors and tuning cans like old radios.

Silicon-tuner radios have much lower LO leakage because the signal generation circuitry is in a tiny silicon chip.

No, you can't expect people who buy a laptop with windows pre-installed to know that they should check for bitlocker. If you jump through the hoops to set up a new laptop without a Microsoft account there is no warning if the drive is encrypted.

It is now common for laptops to be shipped with the harddrive/ssd encrypted with bitlocker. Many people are unaware of it.

If you don't create a Microsoft account then later if the laptop goes wrong and won't boot you can't access your files by connecting the harddrive or ssd to another machine. Without a Microsoft account you can't get the bitlocker key.

If a laptop with bitlocker boots to a login screen then the bitlocker key has to be stored in the laptop, in which case it can be obtained by soldering wires to the I2C bus and using a logic analyzer. It is way beyond the technical ability of the average person but can be done.

To mitigate that, some corporate laptops are set up to erase the TPM if the laptop case is opened. You opened such a laptop to add more RAM and can't access the email that was used for the Microsoft account?, any files you didn't back up separately are gone forever.

Patronage typically leads to at least a public "thanks to...", unless you want to remain anonymous. NFT does nothing here in either case.

But if it convinces some more people to give you a patronage... well, again, it's useful for that.

But they don't. NFT adds nothing here. It guarantees nothing here. Only by assigning shared ownership (via copyright law) and contractually agreeing on payout terms do you get that. And then, you don't need NFT to do it.

Just like every other use of "the blockchain" and related "technology;" the only actual use is convincing someone else to give you money. So ask yourself: are you convinced, or are you the one making the money?

Also, why has no one made PtbarneumCoin?

E3 was pretty relevant in 2000. It was still fairly relevant in 2013 when the stumblings of Microsoft with the XBox One (that is, the first XBox One, not the XBox One S or X, or the original XBox) lead to Sony's wildly successful "this is how you share" video a day before E3 and their press conference, and them basically dominating the generation.

Its relevance has been going downhill since, though, since everyone realized they didn't really need E3 to have a conference or communicate with fans, etc., given this newfangled Internet thing all the kids were watching videos on anyway.

I mean, when we were kids, it was child actors peddling goods on TV, in movies, magazines, or whatever. Commercials, movies, shows... anything for kids was basically to sell merchandise after the fact. Remember video game magazines? Saturday morning cartoons? Unless you lived under a rock, had no TV, were permitted to see no movies, read no magazines, etc (I knew a few kids like this), your entire childhood was steeped in targeted commercialism.

Surely you realized this at some point. Which is why I have to ask: why this? The medium and format changed a bit, but little else.

Google: usually takes you where you want to go, unless your search happens to include a single trending term in which case you will never what you're after.

Bing: takes you to the knockoff of where you want to go, with a bunch of extra "features" thrown in; if you use Microsoft products, tends to sneak in like a creepy landlord

Apple: would take you to one of 3 curated sites, and that's where you want to go; if you don't think so, no, that's where you want to go; it would be impossible to ensure privacy and security and comply with the CCP otherwise

DuckDuckGo: takes you to the 4th page of Google search results

I meant to add: This assumes this is a problem anyone (who can) actually wants to solve. I would not. With "CODB" fines, the company makes money, the government makes money, the people in charge can claim they've done something, people who otherwise don't care can reassure themselves something has been done, and the few left aren't enough to matter.

Anything else would cost those-involved money. The thought of implementing the above would likely scare the crap out of everyone involved.

There's a wonderful 2-part solution:

1. Halt stock trades for 3-6 months
2. Directly fine all investors

The first prevents this from turning back into "cost of doing business" where you can sell a bit of stock to pay for your profits. If you put everyone making money suddenly on the hook, you can bet change will happen fast, as people dump stock on reports companies are misbehaving (as they-personally will be liable), or sue the company for damages.