The Geotrust queries might be OCSP checks which is somewhat legitimate. OCSP is a scheme for checking (via a server query) that a TLS certificate is still valid (hasn’t been revoked) before accepting it. It is or was somewhat mandatory for EV (extended validation) certificates that were fashionable for entities like banks for a while. Without OCSP (like if you disabled it in your browser preferences), EV certificates worked like ordinary certificates instead of showing the company name on a highlighted green background.

Today, people are mostly ignoring that stuff in favor of shorter and shorter expiration periods for certificates.

Maybe they can dogfight some Nazgûl on horses.

Sometimes they are on a remote server that I sshfs mount and play the same way. Multiple people could use the server at the same time if desired, though for me it hasn’t been an issue. It’s audio, I don’t need a visual UI for it. I still have a fair amount of physical media too including LP’s, though my record player is long gone.

Anyway, be happy that I didn’t mention FORTH :).

I just don’t get it, I’ve seen people struggle with itunes, that stuff is way too complicated and I don’t see any need for it. Maybe I’m missing something but if I want to play some music and it’s in a file, saying “play this file” seems about as direct as it gets.

https://biggaybunny.tumblr.com/post/166787080920/tech-enthusiasts-everything-in-my-house-is-wired

I just have a bunch of media files (.ogg, .mp3, etc.) in directories and play them with mplayer from the command line. Playlist = shell script that plays some group of files. I use old school track numbering (01-whatever, 02-whatsit, etc.) though, so most of the time “mplayer *” is how I play an album and the tracks play automatically in the right order. I don’t understand the purpose of anything fancier. Now get off my lawn.

I mostly have old Thinkpads with snap-in batteries. They’re nice. They do need replacement now and then. The one I have with an internal battery was still not too bad. Take out some screws, open computer, swap battery. No adhesives or soldering or anything like that. Conclusion: avoid Apple stuff and you’ll be ok

I think I’ve seen some things like that, but you can never stop them from taking a screen shot, with a camera if necessary.

99 Luftballons was the first one that came to mind.

This almost seems like a leopards ate my face situation. I remember Plex supplanted some other proprietary media server that went evil. I couldn’t understand why people burned by the first one switched en masse to another one like it. Once wasn’t enough? If you’re going to switch at all, go to something that is 100% libre.

You can certainly spin up a VPS with Windows Server on it and figure outhow to do your daily tasks on it. Buyvm.net will let you run an old version at no extra charge on cheap VPS. Other hosts have newer versions that you pay a bit extra for, but it is affordable.

xkcd.com/386

Get some sleep.

For Windows users it might be simplest to start with Debian MATE. There is an install image on debian.org. No idea about Mint.

What? No that would be an aspect of the programming language. Ok, maybe if you study compilers. I know there are also books about garbage collection so maybe there are courses about that too.

When I first saw the question I thought you meant bulk transfers, like in data communication or parallel programming. There is a topic called “the data center as a computer” that could be relevant. Like if you’re trying to split a problem across 1000 computers, a lot of the planning will be shovelling data around between them, in addition to the computation itself. You could look for Hadoop books and docs.

California ID just has a thumb print and has had it for decades. Renewing mostly gives them reiteration of info that they already have.

I thought airplane mode or power-off disables that, but maybe on some newer phones, that is left running because of “find me”. Hmm. BLE shouldn’t be able to reach any cell towers though.

It will help stop the phone from broadcasting your location, but the danger is the private stuff on your phone getting copied if your phone is seized. Better to use a burner phone with nothing private (such as contacts) on it. Used that way you don’t need multiple burners. Just keep it powered off til you reach the protest. I’d be hesitant to keep it powered (such as for mapping) on the way there, unless you don’t mind GPS track potentially being retained on the phone. OTOH they will probably track you anyway, through license plate and face recognition.

BTW the cheapest place I know of to get phones with minutes is below, especially the basic flip phones that are probably better for this anyway.

https://www.qvc.com/electronics/phones/tracfone/_/N-mlt0Z1z1393y/c.html

https://www.newsweek.com/nra-fund-russia-uvalde-school-shooting-1712397

Wyden released a letter from the NRA, dated Tuesday, in which the gun rights group reported receiving $2,512.85 in contributions and membership dues “from people associated with Russian addresses” or known Russian nationals living in the United States from 2015 to the present.

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/27/764879242/nra-was-foreign-asset-to-russia-ahead-of-2016-new-senate-report-reveals

Looks like NRA improperly funded some of its executives’ personal business travel to Russia where they were hoping to make $$$ deals.

I hadn’t heard about any of this before, but meh.

The domain name in the certificate has to match the one in the browser. Does it? You haven’t said.

It’s more traditional to just print the key fingerprint.

First time I ever heard of sigma males. I wonder if there are also pi males. (Math joke).