>"Here's an ambiguous prompt that will delete all your extensions, themes, and custom settings if you answer "yes". "
Yeah, I really hate that thing. I really don't understand why they added that "feature." In any case, it can be disabled. Go to about:config , create a new boolean with the name âoebrowser.disableResetPromptâ and set it to âoetrueâ. Or manually add to your prefs.cfg:
lockPref("browser.disableResetPrompt", true);
>"Firefox users were choosing Startpage long before today"
Yep. I have been using StartPage and DuckDuckGo as my sole search engines for many years. DDG has been included in Firefox for quite a while, but not StartPage. So I am glad to see it added, although adding it yourself is not difficult.
StartPage is essentially Google search without Google spying on you and without AI and other annoyances.
DuckDuckGo is essentially Bing without Microsoft spying on your and without some of the annoyances.
>"They should have always been limited to 10-15 items. No more than you can carry in a hand basket. It's infuriating when you have 1 or a couple items and you're stuck waiting behind someone who's purchasing a heaping cart full prepping for the apocalypse"
[My Walmart is 15 items] And it is also infuriating when you have 16 to 30 items and are stuck in a GLACIAL line with people who have 50 to 100 items. AND then muck around with their stupid phones AND multiple payment methods at the end AND with readers that don't allow tap to pay.
I prefer self-checkout, if the self-checkout is done correctly, but often have "too many items" to use it. Ultimately, I don't care if it is self-checkout or not. I just want to get the F out of the store without waiting forever.
My Target is always TREMENDOUSLY faster than my Walmart. Always. Target has many more open checkouts and with fewer people in each, and moves much faster. They have fewer self-checkouts than Walmart, but at Walmart, there is often a queue 10+ deep just to get into the self-checkout. But at least it is a single queue, so it moves faster than most non-self checkout lines. But Target generally has fewer people checking out, so that is a factor. Anyway, I guess it depends on the store.
Single queue lines are always WAY more fair. I don't care which register line I stand in, it is usually wrong. The one next to me moves faster. I wish all checkout lines were single-queue but they are not as space-efficient. And there are times a single dork will hold up the entire process because he/she doesn't quickly see and go to the next open register.
Sigh.
>"The backstory. Walmart refuses to accept contactless payments because [...] your name and credit card info does not show up to be harvested when you use a contactless payment. They want your name an credit card info for their mountain of data they harvest."
https://www.rfidcard.com/nfc-p...
That supports the idea if you use the tap instead of insert on a credit card, the merchant can't know who you are. Is that really true? If so, that is fantastic for privacy. And it would explain resistance to the technology.
But...
https://beyondbancard.com/tap-...
OK, that information says inserting the card is no different. The merchant still doesn't know who you are. It is SWIPING the card that reveals your number/id. So in that case, there is no practical difference between tap to pay and insert card.
I think that info is bogus, because I have had purchases show on my Walmart web account when I use a credit card via their only normally-supported option in the store, which is to insert the card. Other info I read says the card transaction doesn't reveal who you are, but the payment processor will share that info with the merchant later, in the background.
More research keeps coming up with conflicting information. When and how does the merchant/vendor know WHO YOU ARE when using a card?
But even calling it "evidence" sets up the bias. Destroying data for possible crime is a way to put it, but then that seems like minority report.
Destroying something law enforcement believes is evidence in that moment is literally Obstruction of Justice, and destroying evidence is literally a crime specifically for that reason. There really isn't much grey area here.
Dude, this has been settled case law for centuries. If it weren't, literally all customs inspections at the border would be illegal under Federal law absent an individually-signed search warrant.
You're free to do whatever you want to your own data (subject to previous judicial order), but the moment a legitimate authority -- whether state or local law enforcement or a Federal agency like Customs and Border Control -- indicates that your data/property is subject to search or review, destroying such data is literal obstruction and will get you as much of a charge as if you flushed evidence away while a cop was asking for it.
If the LEO or agency is overstepping their bounds, once you've been put on notice that you're the subject of an investigation the proper remedy is judicial review and a lawsuit. You don't get to #resist, and you certainly don't get to blow up your phone just because someone taught you this One Weird Trick.
Have fun in jail, bro.
having someone do the work for you absolutely reduces your learning of the homework material. it also reduces your time spent but your red herring is glowing nice and bright.
He's got a valid point. For example, if you use wolfram alpha after you do a math problem to check the result you came up with you can actually learn MORE than just doing the problem yourself, and may even add to the time the work takes, as if your result is wrong, you'll spend extra time working out where you went wrong and fixing it. And ultimately learning more in the process.
OTOH - If you use wolfram alpha to DO the question for you, you will learn nothing at all.
But further to that, you can even use tools to save time and learn more.
The other day, my daughter and I chatted about docker build scripts while she was doing her homework (which used docker containers), and that conversation clarified a lot of details and subtleties. (I learned a few things in the course of that conversation myself.) Nothing we talked about wasn't in the documentation, strictly speaking, but the conversation was a more natural way to learn and address the specific details we were talking about, with examples, and use cases that we came up with on the flay to make sense of and highlight those specific nuances. She probably could have read and reread the docs and easily spent more time on it, while learning less.
Now, in this case, she was learning 'from me', but you could swap "Dad" out for an "LLM", and get the same benefit.
All that said, I don't think the AI systems we have right now are likely a good idea for homework. The temptation to use it self-destructively is just going to be too high for a large number of students. Probably the majority of them. But it definitely can be used to learn more, and even learn more faster in the hands of someone who uses it for that.
So let me ask you
There's a lot wrong with your question.
Firstly, China's gun laws are among the strictest in the world. Private ownership of firearms is generally prohibited. You'll get better returns on matching China's homicide rates by matching their firearms laws than you will by catching up with them on surveillance.
Are you wiling to do that? I somehow doubt it. And to be a safe as china, you could do both -- give up your guns AND submit to a police surveillance state. What could go wrong?
China has done other things too - absolutely massive government investments in infrastructure and construction, creating jobs and reducing poverty in the process, uplifting people who would otherwise be more desperate and more likely to turn to crime etc.
And speaking of Crime, China is pretty busy with state executions too. And is quite adept at artificially making those numbers look smaller, frequently recording the execution of multiple people as a single execution. That may play a part in the lower homicide rate too.
Secondly, you imply the tradeoff is simple prudishness - we give up peoples lives for the ability to "go to a strip club secretly".
That's not that half of it, and you should know that. It's also the ability to go, for example, to a political party meeting secretly.
Do you really trust your government so much that you'd give them that power over you? That some fuckwit won't get into power and leverage this against the people? The best protection the civilian population has from government abuse is to resist giving them the tools to abuse you in the first place. The government doesn't need to know where every person is at all times, this will inevitably be used against you. The supposed 'safety' gains are not worth living in a police surveillance state.
>"They SUCK in my area...mediocre prices and every store is a horror show of damaged shitty merchandise thrown all over the place, flicking lights, and poorly maintained everything."
My nearest Walmart, which I frequent, has on-part or lower prices on most goods than anywhere else, and it really not dirty or overly disorganized. And no problems with lighting. My problems are:
1) They are *ALWAYS* out of SOMETHING I need. Often it is several items on my list. And often it is something basic like eggs, distilled water, or cat litter. It is infuriating, and I try to counter it by buying much more of what I need when available (although I can't do that with things like eggs, due to shelf life).
2) Most of the carts are dirty, broken, noisy, or can't go straight.
3) They never have enough checkout lanes open, so are always INCREDIBLY slow. The self-checkouts are wonderful (best anywhere), except they limit to only 15 items now, which is stupid, and often half of them are out of service.
4) No tap to pay with credit cards, further slowing down checkouts.
>"They won't go NEAR a major city because they try to avoid labor laws at all cost...so because I live in the city, the nearest WalMart is 30 min away, but I have 10 Targets in the same range with one just a few blocks down the road."
That is just your area. I live in a large city and Walmarts are plentiful. In fact, there is one 2 minutes from my house... and a Target 3 minutes. One other Walmart is 10 min away. And a third is 15 min away. The Targets are cleaner, have tap to pay, and are rarely out of anything. But they also have less selection and considerably higher prices.
>"After years of refusing to adopt tap-to-pay technology in its stores, retail giant Walmart announced today that it is finally accepting payments via both Apple Pay and Google Pay. "
The definition of "tap to pay" is not Google Pay and Apple Pay (or Samsung Pay or whatever). It is touching the reader with ANY device, including a physical credit card, and have it contactlessly and quickly completing the transaction.
All the Walmarts around here don't allow you to "tap to pay" with anything; INCLUDING real physical credit cards. You have to insert the card and stand there, waiting, and waiting, and waiting. And in my case, 25% of the time, it fails and I have to try again. Every other merchant I can think of uses tap to pay with cards, except Walmart. And I don't believe that ability would cost more than inserting the same exact card into a reader.
https://www.savingadvice.com/a...
The consensus seems to be that Walmart just wants to make using credit cards as inconvenient as realistically possible, in the hopes customers will just use their app or whatever.
Different all twisty a of in maze are you, passages little.
