My understanding is that a modern, default onedrive setup will push all your onedrive folder contents to the cloud, but will not do the same in reverse -- it's totally possible to have files in your cloud onedrive, visible in your onedrive folder, but that do not exist locally. If you want to access such a file, it typically gets downloaded from onedrive for you to use.

If that's the case, what is Backblaze or another provider to do? Constantly download your onedrive files (that might have been modified on another device) and upload them to backblaze? Or just sync files that actually exist locally? That latter option certainly would not please a consumer, who would expect the files they can 'see' just get magically backed up.

It's a tricky situation and I'm not saying Backblaze handled it well here, but the whole transparent cloud storage situation thing is a bit of a mess for lots of people. If Dropbox works the same way (no guaranteed local file for something you can see), that's the same ugly situation.

I think that breaks the style a little of 'humans bad for aliens' enough, right?

Either way I enjoyed Arrival (and the short story).

It was updated a few times, I wonder if the equivalent exists for PQ?

Edit/Update: Found the PQ one @ [2], definitely check it out!

Maybe I'm mis-remembering, but perhaps the most controversial element was the regular recommendation of AES-GCM. It certainly has excellent security properties, but also a certain brittleness re: nonces.

[1] https://www.latacora.com/blog/2018/04/03/cryptographic-right... [2] https://www.latacora.com/blog/2024/07/29/crypto-right-answer...

That's the paradoxical part: the number of potential pairings for a very small number of people is much higher than one might think, and so for 365 options (in the birthday example) you can get even chances with far fewer than 365, and even far fewer than ½x365 people..

When Microsoft allows local accounts via more complicated loopholes, or activation via massgrave, or the removal of bloat/ad components via scripts or cmdline processes -- they lose little. But what they can gain by having an account for all the 'regular' users is a share of that giant ad revenue pie mostly dominated by google (and more recently a few other companies) in the last 20 years. And if you bypass those processes anyway? Probably worth being filtered out to Microsoft: you likely install an ad blocker later, change your search engine, browser, et al.

Knowing what their users do, being their search gateway, their default AI system (eventually..) and generally having an eye on their whole user experience gives Microsoft a formidable profit line in the future. And maybe the present too, I don't know.

It is a distasteful feeling to have installed windows 95 (or win7 or whatever your favourite flavour) and then try and install windows 11. But for the majority of their customer base (corporate and residential) this isn't relevant.

N=1, but this week my family member asked for advice on a new laptop and their only specification was that it could not have windows on it. They don't have any Apple products but are happy to shift, or use Linux.

Guitarists love other ppl learning or playing guitar!

There was an interesting series of points made about American culture, and their sense of need for an affirmation / self-deception -- but I don't find his actual critique of the poem's words particularly enlightening.

So if you are interested in American cultural thought, involving over-rationalisation of choices, the lecture might have value. If you are particularly interested in the poem itself outside of that context, I don't recommend viewing.

For example, I will now look up the UFO Sweden show to see if I might like to watch it -- because I discovered it through here.

I have tried subscribing to a few different regular streaming services, but none seemed to work even if I pointed them in the right direction. I'm really not particular about which country of origin the production has, so long as it's "the best" or "very popular" in recent times from that place, it's worth me checking the genre and style to see if it piques my interest.

Any advice on this? [ nb. I have a similar issue with podcasts! ]

Where the phone collects notifications silently for an hour, then if there are any meeting the "alert" bar, it just buzzes or tones on the hour. Or whatever interval I choose.

I think a few times a day is plenty for my notifications, except for a couple of close friends and family -- but they're all in the same bucket. An app I installed yesterday who's messages I need but are not urgent, and a lifelong friend? Same value to the phone OS.

I'm thankful for the star contacts on Android working through dnd, but would love an aggregate/timed system for bulk stuff.

[ To those who post opinion pieces: Is it against the site rules to have the author listed after the actual title? It would help me in this case and others ]

Might be worth considering an AU plug as an option (we run off 240v).

  sh: line 1: Application: command not found

  Application name must start with a letter and have only lowercase letters, numbers and underscore

  downloading https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir/releases/download/v1.17.3/elixir-otp-27.zip
  fedora is not supported

If anyone has suggestions for podcast collation sites that are for non American content that would be fantastic.

Unfortunately for me, the operating system for many TVs is region specific! Once the product appeared on Hisense's Australian page it did mention having VIDAA instead of GoogleTV, but this was after I had purchased it. I can confirm that VIDAA is quite bad, demanding agreement to several fairly ad-driven user agreements before you can use any smart features. "Enhanced Viewership Program" or something, which in the text says that VIDAA will monitor what you are watching on the screen, then use that information to display relevant ads. Yuck.

Fortunately it does switch to HDMI when you turn it on, but I've got to decide what system I get to drive that HDMI port. I wanted not to have to bother with an additional device, but that's how it is I guess.

As a bonus comment, VIDAA's kid-mode- content includes a very large number of purported TV programs - but they are actually Youtube playthroughs of video games, cut into "episodes" and presented as a "season".

But I can say with certainty that I've turned up to situations like you have described, and while it's not a pleasant thing, much worse is turning up because someone has died by suicide. And in that situation it might be someone like me calling his family rather than you. Everyone in that situation wishes they had said, or done something, or seen something, or had the opportunity...

So, though I am entirely uninvolved, thank you.

Looks great, love the dial/switch big button combo, and the opportunity to buy something attractive that's a "hackable screen with buttons" is very high for me.

Another likely use is to be a controller for audiobooks or music in our rumpus if I ever get a hold of one. Again, drivable by kids and oldies who visit is a huge plus.

The interesting thing is that it is in a human when they are born, grows until puberty, then gets smaller and smaller until it can be quite small and difficult to detect in a grown adult.

I can imagine medical explorers cutting open dead 40 year olds in the year 1900, probably not finding any obvious organ there -- while perhaps cutting open dead children may have been a lot less common (and perhaps distasteful). If you did find something there, you would not assume an important organ present in a child and essential for their immune system would shrink and almost go away.

It would be more likely to be labelled nothing, an abnormal growth, or even a cause for death or illness (pressure on the heart/lungs!).

He would get things juuuust right, with the colour and the production process, with each copy made, then score/scratch the original so further prints could not be made to a different fashion/standard.

For him to be alive and see bright and garish "Great wave" socks, jumpers, room rugs, key rings and the like would probably cause him such a great conniption he'd drop right back dead again.

But such is the life of popular art work -- it survives its creator and lives by new rules over time.