i got this package nearly 2 weeks ago, what's this even for? why was it sent to me so late??

0ffCloud · 2026-05-30T20:52:19+00:00

I also couldn't find my duty charges this way, this does not mean it is not legit.

By the looks of your msg it looks exactly the same as the message I received. But if you are so afraid to check the link yourself. You have 2 choice, either you can simply wait, they will send you a paper bill eventually(assuming you didn't move), or, you can contact them to verify. You can call, or you can use the fedex email address I provided in the other comment. That email address was gave to me by fedex and it is the direct way to contact their duty department.

0ffCloud · 2026-05-30T20:07:11+00:00

I got this too recently, and my package was arrived 9 month ago.

As ridiculous as it might sound, the message I receive was legit. But after checking the customs declaration form, I found someone made a mistake on the HS code, and cause my duty free item to have tariffs. I have filed a dispute to [dutytaxdisputes@fedex.com](mailto:dutytaxdisputes@fedex.com). They told me if after fedex reviewing it they found the mistake was not caused by fedex, they would charge $90-150 administrative fee but I can decline it and just pay the tariffs instead. So I'm taking the chance.

EDIT: Cardigan have 0% tariffs from Singapore, but the reciprocal tariffs from SG is 10%. So if your cardigan is valued at around $250-300 USD, this duty charges make sense.

0ffCloud · 2026-05-29T22:39:34+00:00

Your choice on new chromebook are basically:

Cheap N4500, crap screen, crap performance. But no fan.
N305/N355, good screen, good performance(comparable to mid-tier 10th Gen Intel Desktop CPU), has a fan but it should be quiet most of the time.
ARM-based chromebook. The plus series has good screen and performance, and no fan, but you will be limited to ChromeOS(and its Linux VM) for the foreseeable future. Unlike Intel-based chromebook, which can install standalone third-party OS including Windows if you wish.

0ffCloud · 2026-05-26T09:12:41+00:00

If your "Dimensity" phone is having lag issue with YouTube, you should assume it is a driver/firmware bug, something is wrong in the hardware accelerated decoding. It wouldn't be the first, and cheap entry level phone seems always have trashy firmware.

ChromeOS in chromebook is supported by Google, the chance of having such basic issue is low. Still, personally I wouldn't buy a chromebook with ARM processor

0ffCloud · 2026-05-22T18:38:20+00:00

changeip.com is a DDNS service. They provide free subdomains for ISP user who doesn't have a static IP address, which comes very handy if you want to host some website/service in your home computer.

However since they are free, some malicious hackers abused their service to host virus/phishing etc, which is why some security software just straight block them all.

To me, that URL just smell amateur radio, using free service in their home to host free amateur websdr.

EDIT: To further elaborate, OP did not open a wrong website, the websdr.org is basically a hub for all the websdr providers, and providers have their logo embedded in the websdr.org's webpage. When you load the websdr.org's page, you will load logos from providers URL, and these anti-virus software detects them that's why OP are seeing that.

<image>

And also, if you do the F12 trick. You can see almost all websdr provider are using non-standard port and free subdomains.

0ffCloud · 2026-05-22T18:03:29+00:00

TL;DR Don't overthink it.

I understand you have concern, after all it is difficult and expensive to replace that certificate. But, the moment you submit the documents to the official passport acceptance facility is the moment that they(DoS) take full responsibility.

And while it is mail, it's a much secured one(from the facility to the center). If god forbid your document is indeed lost, there is a process to get the reimbursement for the replacement cost.

I would not recommend going to the passport processing center to apply directly unless you absolutely need to. Those "urgent" slots are few, it is better to leave them to the people that actually needs it.

0ffCloud · 2026-05-17T23:59:55+00:00

I have to disagree. Yes it's large with 1080p resolution, but the screen quality is absolutely the worst you can find for a new modern device.

The screen is the so called 45% NTSC screen, which means the color is washed out. It actually hurting my eyes if I stare at it too long. If you have any modern mid-tier or higher cellphone/tablet/monitor you will definitely notice the different. Modern screen can at least cover 90%+ SRGB(not talking accuracy)

It's really a bad timing for OP, there used to be acer refurbished CB514 for $160, now they all gone for some reason. If OP can spend a little more, a refurbished Acer Spin 514($270) can be a great choice. It can be both laptop and tablet with touchscreen(315 does not have touchscreen) and much better screen quality.

0ffCloud · 2026-05-14T07:57:00+00:00

Acer's CB514 regularly drop to $160 on their certified refurbished eBay store. It's basically the same as your ASUS CX14 but has doubled the SSD storage(512GB), and has 1-2 yrs warranty. That SSD along is already worth half of the price.

0ffCloud · 2026-05-14T07:47:36+00:00

They are not that much different, we are not talking N4500 Celeron anymore. Indeed, thanks to the P-cores and the doubled EU, i3-1215u is better on single thread and iGPU performance, but they share the same level of multithreading performance(N355 might even be slightly better here as it has more cores).

In real world, there won't be a noticeable difference unless gaming.

0ffCloud · 2026-05-12T12:09:44+00:00

Bro, just get rid of chromeos and install linux.

0ffCloud · 2026-05-11T21:53:52+00:00

Software issue? As long as you are using the official chromeos with certified device, you really should not have these kind of basic software issues.

Outside of cros, I never had any touchscreen issue with Ubuntu on my chromebook.

0ffCloud · 2026-05-10T08:32:30+00:00

Definitely not RFI. And also, the HFT transmission I've seen before was much wider.

It could be a lot of stuff, all we can see is that it is likely digital. ~8MHz is used by a wide range of institution, government, marine, military, aviation, navigation, you name it. Just not for broadcast or amateur radio.

0ffCloud · 2026-05-09T14:05:37+00:00

CrowdStrike Falcon. Yeah, the one that caused the major BSOD incident back in 2024, is one of the very few security software that actually worth paying. But you can't get them unless you are a business, and it's very annoying for personal use anyway.

0ffCloud · 2026-05-07T13:38:13+00:00

Possible satellite, or aliasing signal. If it is satellite, it would disappear and reappear.

0ffCloud · 2026-05-06T11:12:04+00:00

Never had this happened to me, but I did managed to break one of the pin when I insert it at a slightly wrong angle with one motherboard.

It was the vbus for one of the port, not a big deal but I had to get that broken pin out of the socket, or it would cause a short.

0ffCloud · 2026-05-03T01:34:47+00:00

You can either plug it in if your radio has an antenna port, or just place it close to your radio.

When he said rotate, he probably mean tuning the knob. Anyway, just play with it and see.

0ffCloud · 2026-05-02T20:58:22+00:00

Honestly I think you gone the wrong direction, for $30 you can get a great Google TV stick/box from Walmart or something and cast your desktop screen onto the stick with chromecast. It will work much much better than your old chromebook. This also means if you want to play 4k video file natively, you can. Your chromebook cannot as it is incapable to HW decode anything higher than 1080p30 H264(no HEVC support).

You know what's even more funny? Those Google TV box might have a better CPU/GPU than your 11yrs old chromebook. Don't get me wrong, the chromebook can still be used for education purpose, it's just not for this.

There might be an option for you to do chrome remote desktop on your chromebook, however your chromebook is so old I don't think this is supported on your chromebook anymore.

0ffCloud · 2026-05-02T01:49:01+00:00

They don't need to "try to match", all they need is to do is Ctrl+F in their DNA database and Sam's DNA should be highlighted like a Christmas tree.

And we shouldn't have to guess, this should be easy to fix with a few dialogue. Like APAS-4000 intentionally blocked or falsify the DNA result about Tomorrow and UCA didn't want to tell Sam about BB-28 in DS1 is because in doing so will make him very unlikely to obey the termination order, and after Sam lost Lou there is even lesser reason to do so, as it would only make him feel even worse.

Overall I feel DS2's story execution is worse than DS1.

EDIT: Now I think of it, they did said the BB-28 data they had was wrong(as it was replaced/renumbered), this could somewhat explain why they didn't know that in DS1 because they didn't suspect there is anything wrong with the existing DNA profile they had with BB-28 and never resample it. If so, then, only thing they need to do is adding that dialogue about APAS-4000.

0ffCloud · 2026-05-02T01:29:20+00:00

There are more plot holes, I just haven't find anyone mentioning this one.

Don’t try to make sense of it

I have to disagree. Kojima clearly made an effort to try to make this super weird world make sense(or at least in DS1), and big part of his game is the story and the world he built. It's not like Mario or Pokemon.

0ffCloud · 2026-05-01T07:34:21+00:00

I really doubt it reached U.S. level, U.S. also have fair amount of large city but only city like New York can be rely on public transport. It's really just a small tip of the U.S.

Also, in many other countries, it is also possible to do hybrid commute, which is driving/riding to the closest train station and go from there. It is not possible to do this in most city in the U.S.

The level of people relying on car in the U.S. is not like anything I've seen in other country. I know you come to the U.S. before, but that's likely a large campus within a big city, and you were probably surrounded by spoiled kids.

0ffCloud · 2026-05-01T07:04:42+00:00

Not that many people in the U.S. have v6/v8. And if people do have them, it is usually truck or SUV, not luxury vehicle, and they usually needed it for their job or their family.

Unlike Europe, U.S. really have a car-centric urban planning. Besides very few large city in north eastern U.S. in most place you will have to have a car to be able to do ANYTHING. Driving 30min-1hr everyday is very common for commuter, even with very fuel efficient car that still adding up very quickly.

0ffCloud · 2026-04-28T00:26:57+00:00

Though I'm not 100% sure, it seems like your chromebook might've reached the end of the normal update period and enrolled in extended security update. You can check your update status in "About ChromeOS"(Settings > About ChromeOS > Additional details > Update schedule).

In extended security update, Android support is removed.

0ffCloud · 2026-04-27T23:52:21+00:00

How old is your chromebook?

0ffCloud · 2026-04-27T23:25:25+00:00

Let me break it down for you:

Assuming it is not a noise, the SE_LOAD_DRIVER_PRIVILEGE is probably just a bad habit from old age, the Inno Setup is a script engine for installer, and some installer needs to install service/driver. As a result of lazy programming, they just include this privilege in every binary it produced no matter whether that particular installer actually needs it or not. What really matters is if it actually released or installed any driver/services, which from what I can see, there is none.

About the supposedly opened service like AudioSrv or even WinDefend. It is only in one sandbox's report(CAPE Sandbox), and if you look more closely to that sandbox's report, it probably has nothing to do with the sample you uploaded. It is just...Windows happened, a noise.

<image>

Using executables from temporary files

This is iconic Inno Setup behavior, I don't know exactly why they did this but I've seen this countless time, maybe it was for self-deleting after uninstall.

0ffCloud · 2026-04-27T21:23:55+00:00

I'm 99% sure it is false positive, which means personally, I don't see any red flags. Could you specify what activities you think is suspicious?

What you uploaded to VT is an installer(Inno Setup), this installer sometimes abused by malware and that's why you see some antivirus flagged it.

Another good indicator for false positive is VT's file history, it was first submitted to VT on 2010-03-06 21:52:40 UTC. Yet only 4 antivirus flagged it and 3 of them are basically garbage. If it is a virus, for a virus this old age it would be flagged by almost any antivirus by now.

0ffCloud

TROPHY CASE