Not a replicant

Ah yes, that’s a concern - but I have a job in Task Scheduler that re-writes my registry tweaks - mostly changing various tasks back to “disabled”. You can trigger it hourly, or on an event. As soon as a selected event - such as a telemetry switch-on - hits the event log, the “disable” script runs.

There’s other ways, like taking ownership of the executables and changing permissions to lock out the “SYSTEM” account.

And pihole blocks DNS resolution of the telemetry harvesters as well. Windows update won’t touch that. It’s not 100% effective, but I couldn’t be bothered to take it further.

That’s why you build a ringworld instead.

Or the slightly more achievable version - Ringworld.

Conchiglie - kon-kill-ee-a (last letter rhymes with ‘hay’)

Little shells, each one a cup for sauce.

Colossus (The Forbin Project)

Wasn’t Klein the manager defending George Harrison against the plagiarism claim against “My Sweet Lord” (vs. “He’s so fine”), then Klein switched sides and was the plaintiff on behalf of the “He’s so fine” writers?

Or something like that.

Cabbage, potato, and onion bake. Slice the ingredients, parboil the potatoes, then put alternating layers of onion, potato, and cabbage in a baking dish. Season each layer with salt & pepper. Pour cream over the layers (or chicken stock), then some shredded cheese over the top. Cover with alfoil and bake for about 30 minutes at 180C/350F. Take the foil off for the last 10 minutes to brown the top of the cheese.

You can get away without parboiling the potatoes but you’ll need extra liquid and about 15-20 minutes longer in the oven.

Audio playback is such a low-demand process, surely a player (e.g.VLC) can spare a thread to line up playback of track 2, a few seconds before track 1 ends? It knows the exact length of the track, why can’t track 2 be initiated when the audio level in track 1 drops to zero (or minus infinity dB) in the last frame?

iddqd

If you choose “expert install” it asks you if you want automated updates or not.

Aussie Dollar? 😜

I tried co-pilot. Once.

I asked it “why does Windows Defender peg my HDD* at 100%”

The reply was “I don’t know, but here are some google searches that might help”

Microsoft’s own co-pilot doesn’t seem to have access to microsoft products, so now I uninstall/deactivate it every opportunity I can.

*yes, a HDD. Not ideal for performance these days, but it’s the last laptop I have with a HDD, and I use it for experiments.

A sequel to Ex Machina - Ava’s experiences in the real world. Caleb has managed to escape, and he’s tracking her.

Ringworld and its sequels The Ringworld Engineers, Ringworld’s Children, and the Ringworld Throne, with some less-dated attitudes. I mean I’m not totally opposed to rishathra as a concept, but just a few tweaks here and there to catch up with modern attitudes.

If money really wasn’t an issue, the entire “Known Space” series. A chance for some really good CGI with Pierson’s Puppeteers, Kzin, and all the specialised post-human races living on the Ringworld. And Thrint, Slavers, Outsiders, and so on.

Then there’s the first-contact “The Mote in God’s Eye” and its sequel “The Mote in Murchison’s Eye” AKA “The Gripping Hand”. Another opportunity for some interesting three-armed CGI aliens.

Oh, and “Footfall” - an alien invasion story. These aliens look somewhat like baby elephants 😲

Bookmarked - I’ll try this next weekend. I was considering a beef+guinness pie, but now…

Some of your data flows through Syncthing servers (but I agree that’s a great product, I use it myself) LibreOffice works for entry-level users, but it does not have the same functionality as MSOffice. And the UI sucks as much as MSOffice.

It’s not difficult to block the mining and telemetry. Pihole, a few registry tweaks, a few scheduled tasks disabled and life goes on.

Folk see nothing wrong with spending hours tuning a Linux distro, but they object to doing the same with Windows?

FWIW I use vanilla Debian for everything other than what I’m required to use Windows for.

One doesn’t need to pay for MS Office. Not home users, anyway.

Can someone get Lord Sugar drunk and have him express a similar view about the US?

“err, hic the unites, uniting, united states should separism, seapar, separate the head of state role from the, ,uhh, head of government. They can have gonger, er, congress appoint a cereminimum, er ceremonial head of state with reserve powers to dissolve congress… burp”

That’s far too subtle to even register on Trump’s feeble brain cell.