smalltalk is probably great if you've got your shit together but if you are a total fuckup of a person then seemingly innocuous questions end up forcing you to reveal information about yourself that you would have preferred people didn't know about you. i wish there was a socially acceptable way to decline a question about yourself that didn't require you to justify it somehow
i dont agree with outdoor cats but i gotta admit the fact me and my roommate can fondly talk about local cats like theyre our beloved neighbours is pretty cool. do i know any of the humans who live in my neighborhood? not particularly. do i know the little tuxedo cat with the pink collar who recognises the ice cream truck music and comes out to get pets from all the kids? of course they're a local celebrity to me.
When I got my first debit account (I was 19 and this occurred during COVID, if that adds any additional context), I had no clue what ‘cash back’ meant, I thought it was ‘cash back’ in the loyalty rewards way, I was curious about the ‘DO YOU WANT CASH BACK?’ screen with all the pre-programmed money amounts. Instead of looking it up, I clicked the $20 option at Food Lion one day and I was completely astounded when the cashier pulled a $20 out of the cash register and went to hand it to me. This is the opposite of the natural order of things. The cashier was the same age as me and visibly baked so for a fraction of a second, I was wondering if our wires got crossed somehow. I just stood there for a moment staring at him in confusion while he stared at me in confusion. Then, I took the $20 and gathered up my groceries and left. Luckily, $20 didn’t put me into overdraft. No harm done, just a very embarrassing moment. Anyway, if someone comes into your retail job behaving like it is their first day on earth, it is probably because they feel like it is their first day on earth. We’re all just trying to figure this bullshit out. Amen.
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.
buzz aldrin and neil armstrong liked to do a thing where they’d tell unfunny jokes at parties about being on the moon and when people were confused they’d go “guess you had to have been there”
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