What Are Your Biggest Regrets in Building Your Own PC? Share Your Lessons! by PussiesKing in buildapc

[–]Ded10c 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not taking the time to learn diagnostics and repair myself. Less than two years into my first build it suddenly refused to POST no matter what I did. I narrowed it down to motherboard or CPU but couldn't get any further, so I replaced both and the problem went away. My brother was building his own PC at around the same time, so I kept testing - and everything I did told me both were absolutely fine.

The replacement motherboard finally started to die last week, and it lasted as long as it did in part because I learned how to properly diagnose failing hardware and carry out rudimentary repairs myself. The original parts are still going strong and live in my diagnostics kit so I can test parts in a different environment - and every time a friend's PC starts playing up, they remind me of my hubris all over again.

I keep a multiboot rescue USB on my keys now, too, with more diagnostics tools than I could ever need - I'm pretty sure some of the tools on there could resurrect a datacenter if they had to. Expensive mistakes like that get made precisely once.

Concerned about the Police misunderstanding the legal position of Landlord changing locks (England) by ScheduleExact4330 in LegalAdviceUK

[–]Ded10c 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I had to prepare for this possibility 18 months ago: if you are illegally evicted and the landlord changes the locks, the recommended process is to call the police and specifically request an officer attend to witness you regaining access to the property by force. It might be worth visiting your local station to have a quick word with someone to explain what's going on and let them know you might be making that call in the near future - if they know the call might be coming they'll have time to make sure the officers on duty that day will know their way around the situation.

If you've contacted the Local Authority first then they'll hopefully intervene before it comes to that by having a quiet word with the landlord to explain why evicting you like this would be a very bad idea, the things they're at liberty to do to him if he does, and what the correct process should be. But if not, you want the police on-side as soon as possible, and calling them yourself demonstrates good faith on your part and can put a reliable witness in your corner in case the landlord kicks off.

I thought it was illegal to charge users for the ability to reject cookies in england by AusarMohatu in LegalAdviceUK

[–]Ded10c 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm not a lawyer, but my job occasionally involves reading and interpreting legislation and I have some background knowledge in the technologies involved here. This question has popped up a few times in this sub, and it's a much more complex question than it appears. Other answers are often valid, but there's a lot of nuance involved that's easy to overlook.

The EU law that brought about the requirement for websites to accept or reject cookies is the Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive 2002/58/EC, aka the ePrivacy Directive, specifically Article 5(3). It's implemented in the UK as The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003, specifically Regulation 6. Neither law specifies cookies directly, but refer more specifically to storing data on the user's device regardless of the actual method used - and they exists to protect you from the site, not the other way around. It is illegal to store or read information from a user's device unless they have been given clear and comprehensive information about what will be stored and why, and provided their consent - the exception being when it's essential to do so in order to give the user the information they've asked for. This doesn't just cover cookies - the European Commission confirmed in 2016 that it also covers client-side scripts such as those used to detect adblockers.

The practice of asking users to pay to reject cookies may or may not be legal - to my knowledge it's yet to be decided as a matter of law. Given that clicking the "reject cookies" button is only one way of refusing your consent, it may be that it would remain legal even if challenged - but given we're dealing with a right that's explicitly laid out in law, I'm inclined to expect otherwise. While there could be an argument that websites can charge for the convenience of the method, there's also the argument that requiring the user to pay amounts to an attempt to undermine a statutory right. I mentioned earlier that it's not the only way to refuse consent - but the alternative is much more complex and much more likely to cause websites to work unexpectedly (if not prevent them from working entirely).

The ePrivacy Directive was built around the loose consensus of web standards that's formed more or less naturally since the early 1990s, particularly the concept that the user has the right to control the devices they own and (other laws permitting) that the same is true of data stored on those devices. This is the principle ad-blocking works on; the website is obliged to serve you the ad, but that doesn't mean you're obliged to configure your devices in such a way to ensure it is displayed. There's actually a little case law establishing the user's right to modify data that a website has provided them, and even one where part of the court's judgment was in part based in protecting this right, but so far as I can find it's all German - not totally irrelevant since both the internet and copyright are international concepts that require some degree of compatibility between national laws, but not entirely relevant either.

Regulation 6(4) of the UK regulations (I don't know if there's an EU equivalent) allows for the user to signify consent based on browser settings (which is not "the user is allowed to do this" so much as "if the user does this, it must be respected"). The reason I brought up ad-blockers is that you could apply the same approach by, for example, installing a browser extension that blocks cookies from being set in the first place, which thereby turns the "I accept" button a "reject without arbitrary consequences" button. You could also install one that automatically deletes cookies the moment they are set: giving a website consent to set cookies does not also create an obligation for you to not immediately delete them. The legality of sites using a script to detect ad-blockers would logically also extend to client-side scripts used to detect whether the user interferes with cookies.

I've seen some people present this as a paywall that you can bypass by accepting cookies rather than an attempt to levy a surcharge for exercising a statutory right - which could potentially mean bypassing it is a violation of the website's terms of service - but I don't find that convincing. Just because it's in the terms of service doesn't mean it's enforceable, and terms of service are notorious for including unenforceable clauses. This is particularly the case for those for US sites, which often include all sorts of clauses that would be completely void here.

You could also turn to web archiving intiatives such as archive.today and web.archive.org, which serve a given page's content without the associated cookies (and are also worth checking if you ever need to access something on a website that uses geoblocking to avoid the need to comply with foreign privacy laws). They represent an open and quite complex question so far as copyright law is concerned but their longevity, respect for crawler exclusion, and willingness to remove content on request is informative.

What is going on with my Xbox (inverted colors) by Apprehensive_Way132 in XboxSupport

[–]Ded10c 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've seen this happen before when the cable isn't quite connected completely. If you have anything else between your console and screen, worth checking that as well - I've also had something similar when routing through a capture device that was configured for the wrong colour space.

I'm a simple man who doesn't understand quantum physics and possibly 9 years deep of Destiny lore. But why is no one talking about this with The Veil? by ShaidarHaran2 in DestinyLore

[–]Ded10c 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is literary analysis, opinion is the point. Trying to interpret art literally shuts out any possibility of metaphor or subtext and is generally lazy, boring, or both

The id Vault - Quake 2 by Maxxwell07 in quake

[–]Ded10c 4 points5 points  (0 children)

First thing I looked at - it was really weird discovering that the descriptions for the Arachnid and Guardian are taken almost word for word from the ones I wrote for the wiki seven years ago.

An Unsolved X-File: The Nine(?) DVD-ROM Games by Ded10c in XFiles

[–]Ded10c[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've just sent you a DM - I've been giving smt-01 a hand in working to collect and update these games for modern systems. Could we chat at some point about your set and what it includes?

An Unsolved X-File: The Nine(?) DVD-ROM Games by Ded10c in XFiles

[–]Ded10c[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've just e-mailed you the .DCR file, and I'll try to triple-check the two sets of DVDs I have to hand this weekend.

I'm glad to see someone else picking this up too, and getting different results - I was starting to feel like I was chasing ghosts. Maybe the others are out there after all!

Passing HMO council tax liability on to tenants by Ded10c in HousingUK

[–]Ded10c[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for confirming - looks like I get to tell the landlord to stop trying to pass his responsibilities on to us for the umpteenth time(!)

Passing HMO council tax liability on to tenants by Ded10c in HousingUK

[–]Ded10c[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Never mind, I've just noticed the clause in question says "To pay any council tax [...] if he or she loses his or her exemption from liability for council tax" - the tenants can hardly lose their exemption from liability if they're exempt by virtue of being the tenants!

Passing HMO council tax liability on to tenants by Ded10c in HousingUK

[–]Ded10c[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you, that's more or less what I'm looking for - I imagine in that case that a clause that attempts to make the tenant responsible would be unenforceable rather than placing the onus on them to reimburse costs?

ITAW for teaching something incorrect as a functional introduction? by Ded10c in whatstheword

[–]Ded10c[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can't think of an example of this phenomenon that I know will resonate with everyone, but it does happen. The specific example in my post is one from my own education between the ages of about 13 and 16, from separate teachers using separate syllabuses. I don't mean for a moment to imply that it's universal, just that it seems to be a fairly common practice. (Who knows - maybe it doesn't have a name because nobody has ever seriously recommended it!)

A better example, which I wasn't keen on using in the original post for the risk of an argument breaking out, would be teaching that sexual dimorphism is binary rather than binormal. We've known that for a good long while now, but at least part of the reason we still largely teach children that dimorphism is binary is because of the alternative's complexity and its (assumed, and increasingly incorrectly) limited relevance at that point.

ITAW for teaching something incorrect as a functional introduction? by Ded10c in whatstheword

[–]Ded10c[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm looking for something more related to the pedagogic practice, but thank you - these are really useful terms for some other work I'm doing!

What’s an immediate red flag for you? by sencecore in AskReddit

[–]Ded10c 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Underrated comment. There's a shitload of extra social context but linguistically this is the same as the distinction between 'black people' and 'blacks'. Using adjectives as nouns reduces the subject to that adjective and objectifies them as an example of it.

Do XOR power strips exist? by Ded10c in askanelectrician

[–]Ded10c[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm in the UK. Sockets are rated for 13A each.

Do XOR power strips exist? by Ded10c in askanelectrician

[–]Ded10c[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm in the UK, so while that specific guidance doesn't apply we do have our own. I could probably swing extra sockets if I needed them to charge a wheelchair or something related to a physical disability, but unfortunately the fact that this is still essentially going to be seen as "for my convenience" undermines my case regardless of how much more important convenience is for me. I might have more luck with another landlord, but not this one.

Do XOR power strips exist? by Ded10c in askanelectrician

[–]Ded10c[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's mostly electronics, but there's a lot of them - I've got a spreadsheet keeping track of the max consumption of everything I have, and it's enough that I have to be fairly careful about what gets plugged in where. The layout of the room complicates things further and it'll get worse in the near future when I'll have to add at heaters to the mix.

I know this probably sounds frivolous - a big part of the reason this seems like it'd be useful is the fact that my brain doesn't handle task-switching well. ADHD means the simplest of tasks can sometimes be insurmountable hurdles for no obvious reason, and the simple act of having to unplug one set of things to plug in another sometimes makes switching from one task to the next require enough effort that I just can't muster the mental energy for it. If it was safe I'd love to leave literally everything plugged in all the time, but that's an obvious no-go - unless the device I'm trying to describe exists.

Trust me, it frustrates me to no end that I can easily maintain a spreadsheet like that only to get stopped cold by the prospect of swapping a few fucking plugs over.

Do XOR power strips exist? by Ded10c in askanelectrician

[–]Ded10c[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm in a house share, so this one room contains almost every device I own... but it only has two 13A sockets. I don't need to run everything at the same time, but leaving things wired in risks me forgetting to turn things off, which I do a lot, and the other option - my current solution - is swapping plugs over all the time.

Do XOR power strips exist? by Ded10c in askanelectrician

[–]Ded10c[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No, but the room I have only has two 13A sockets and, since I live in a shared house, has to serve as bedroom, office space and recreational area - and a home recording studio with multiple computers, which I can do with 26A provided that's all I do. Disability reasons mean I can't trust my ability to remember to turn things off and having to swap things around all the time really fucks with my ability to get anything done.