There's an open pit in the middle of our office plan that drops down into a bunch of very sharp spikes that kill you instantly. This is bad. People keep falling in there and dying. Someone put a sign up, the other day, all bright yellow so you can't miss it, that says "Beware!!! Spikes!!!"
The office immediately split into two factions over it. One says that if anyone falls in the spike pit it's their own fault for being so stupid and not watching where they're walking, so we should remove the sign. The other says that the sign is an insult, there shouldn't be a spike pit in our office at all, and having the sign up like that is just normalising the existence of the spike pit, so we should remove the sign.
We ended up removing the sign. Probably for the better. Still... for a while there it looked like it might have worked...
Nobody has ever been capable of writing a scathingly harsh and well formulated satire about the perils of modern capitalism, that doesn't just get immediately one-upped by some random food service worker talking about their actual week.
This movie is currently a huge meme in china. It came out of nowhere and inexplicably got a theatrical release, looks like ass, was animated completely by the director and his mother, and took several years to make. "Niu Lai" translates roughly to "The bull is coming" and apparently the film has several other allusions to stock market puns. The Chinese stock market coincidentally had an uptick the day of its release which added further fuel to the meme fire. After going viral Niu Lai began to actually turn profit at the box office, theatres unprepared for Niu Lai mania (the creators did not distribute any promotional material) had to improvise DIY posters:
Good news: Niu Lai was only pulled from cinemas its hometown, because "the film’s poor quality could harm the city’s image." The rest of China is still screening it.
apparently jimmy beast used real US currency for this set piece in his game show, not prop money. like it was delivered by armored truck & there were private security dudes standing around guarding it full time. absolutely insane production choice for like no benefit. it looks exactly like prop cash on screen + no viewer over 12 years old would ever assume that its real. who wants to rob him with me
spiderman just left the pizza box on the roof but then came back a minute later and clearly felt bad for littering so now hes swinging through downtown holding an empty pizza box
Hey. If people aren't aware, Microsoft admitted they know who you and where you are at all times and will give your info to the police.
They have a Global Device Identifier (GDID) Tracker that functions as a fingerprint for your PC that can surpass VPNs, proxy servers and countries. Although it can't survive a clean reinstall of Windows (it can survive updates), because Microsoft forces you to go to the internet and log in into a Microsoft account, they will be able to get to you.
Microsoft kept it secret and it was only found out when the FBI tracked a hacker thanks to the information Microsoft gave them.
You should be paying attention to this, and possibly consider moving away from Windows. If a government, especially the US government, doesn't like you for some reason, this could be seriously concerning.
This article specifically notes:
For journalism, activism, or domestic abuse situations, skip Windows and use Linux routed through Tor instead of a commercial VPN. A GDID doesn’t care which VPN you use, only that it’s still the same Windows installation.
GDID is the persistent Windows ID that helped FBI trace a Scattered Spider hacker despite VPNs. Here's how it works and how to limit it.
Other important quotes:
What has researchers uneasy is everything else the case reveals. Costin Raiu, a well-known malware researcher, asked on the Three Buddy Problem podcast how much of this exists on other platforms, and whether it is linked more permanently to hardware. Matthew Hickey, another security researcher, called Windows “surveillance software”.
Two things back that up:
There’s no consent screen. A GDID gets assigned when you sign into a Microsoft Account. Apple’s advertising identifier needs an App Tracking Transparency prompt and a visible reset; Android’s works the same way. GDID has neither, and a Windows reinstall only gets you a new number Microsoft can still get back to the same account.
Then there’s activation. Massgrave, the group behind Microsoft Activation Scripts, notes that Windows setup sends hardware info to Microsoft and gets identifiers back, the same tokens later used for Store access and licensing: “It’s impossible to prevent Windows from getting a GDID without breaking activation and UWP app[s].” Anyone who lost a license after swapping a motherboard has already met a smaller version of this.
Here's the complaint filed to the court, the primary source for the case mentioned in the article. You can find mentions of GDID on page 30 of the document or 34 of the PDF.
You can get and use windows 11 without logging in with a microsoft account, as of five days ago. I am a local user on my computer. Don't ask me how to do it, because my computer repair guy did it when he reinstalled windows, but there are tutorials out there. Refuse to connect to internet until you're set up and can use the computer freely.
Refusing to connect to the internet doesn't help. You have to open a Command Prompt (Shift+F10) and typing start ms-cxh:localonly (and pressing enter) during installation when you get to the sign in/create stupid ms account screen
For comprehensive deets, tomshardware explains
Maintain only a local account on your Windows 11 PC.
Unless there's really really specific reasons to subject yourself to windows, please consider installing linux mint instead.
tangentwithtanner
romaincrisis
germansingergirl
yousharknotpass
kianamaiart
gracieabrams
discoholicmusic
