OLD CS1

Tree-killing basterds.

I shall call him "Spaceballs." The satellite and cable companies would sometimes set up shop near the entrances of places like Walmart and Sam's Club. I was happy to talk to them because these youngsters could not process my situation. "Hi! What TV service do you have?" "I don't have a TV." (I actually had a TV, but I watched, when I watched, OTA.) "What? How do you not have a TV?" "Well, I mean, I have a TV, but I only watch DVDs or Internet. I was a beta-tester for Hulu and only watch that, now" "What's Hulu?" Bruh... I was cuttin' the cord before cuttin' the cord was cool! On a side note, I am deeply saddened by what they did to Hulu. Did you know Hulu was profitable even on its free model? It even had original content (I highly recommend "The Booth at the End.") I did not mind watching shows with commercials, like on TV, as it gave me opportunities for breaks without pausing. Sometimes, it would offer a two- or three-minute commercial at the beginning, after which you would watch your show commercial-free. For a time, Hulu promised it would never charge for its service. Then the major investors came. Maybe they thought the advertisement gravy train would not last long. Maybe they just wanted to squeeze more money out of customers. I stayed on the free plan, which meant new show episodes were delayed a week. No problem. Then new episodes went behind the paywall. Then recent seasons, then all seasons, then everything good went behind the pay wall. In the midst of this, companies like ABC took their content away to start their own platforms. I was pissed, as the new "V" (Visitors) was taken from Hulu for the second season to ABC's new service. A friend signed up for a Hulu Plus subscription, and his account got him even more commercials than my free account! I had had enough. Free Hulu was turning into a D-movie and obscure boring TV show wasteland. Hulu Plus was $10 or $15 a month and gave you even more commercials. So I canceled my account. Very sad. I took my role as a beta-tester seriously, and offered quite a bit of feedback and new ideas. Ah, well. https://archive.nytimes.com/bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/why-hulu-succeeded-as-other-video-sites-failed/

Neat game from a neat genre of games. Was one of the first type-ins I ever did. 🍿

Almost every antivirus vendor has a method of reporting suspected false-positives, either via the program GUI or a website. I recommend people like us familiarize ourselves with the process as this is going to get worse before it gets better, especially for unsigned software.

For fun, in similar positions I look sternly at the salesdroid, and with a face of stone I tell them that I am court-ordered not to possess anything which can access the Internet. Or, whatever bullshit they try to push on me. "By court order, I cannot have a keyboard with a numeric keypad," or some such nonsense. It shuts them up, either because now they know I am an annoying git or because they are just not sure about what is happening. Mentioning it flippantly when they start their spiel also works, like, "Oh, yeah, that's nice, but I'm on probation so I can't do that. *chuckle*" PS: I just remembered once when I was looking for a small tablet for a customer, like an eight-inch screen back when they were easier to find. They guy wanted to show me an 10-inch model which was like $120 more, and I told him that anything larger than around nine inches triggers my vertigo. I left with four $50 eight-inch tablets.

BTW, if you ever subscribe to HP's Instant Ink program, reports are that the printer firmware is irrevocably modified and you can never unsubscribe the printer. As well, if you have any of the subbed ink in reserve and cancel your subscription, all of that unused ink becomes invalid. Never let your printer have access to the Internet, unless your really neeeeeed that functionality. I have my printers on a VLAN, and they are blocked at the firewall.

To relive the 80s, yeah?

@Tursi In-app purchases is the way to go, man.

If your adbocker or security settings trigger the paywall https://archive.is/eZzU2 Interestingly, to me, anyway, is that I will be in Columbia, MO, in June.

Without taking this too far off-track, I would be amused to see how they would calculate value for VAT. I suppose they would want you to show receipts. But more so, the "wtf is that?" looks. Back around 1990, I had to make a few trips up north. I was 15/16 at the time and had gotten hold of a Commodore SX-64. Of course, I took it with me, and airport security had some questions

Oh, man... I want to see the episode of "Border Control Europe" for this visit!

On a serious note, I wish I had something more for which to advocate. The ability to SAVE to a website address via HTTP POST is all I needed, and I have yet to really put that to good use.

Pfft. Amateurs. I run my Windows in seven VMs. Back-trace that!

I specifically addressed text files.

Which is unreasonable. PDF has a simple text rendering mode which makes converted text files much smaller. But, far too many programs make an image of the printed text, then embed that into the PDF. Depending upon the image type, it can be stupid large.