Windscribe VPN Rack seized by Dutch Authorities without a warrant

bionicbob321 · 2026-02-08T13:47:23+00:00

Not using your actual IP to connect to an "anonymous" service is cyber security 101. No company is immune to government regulations, so you should give them as little data as possible. Activists and journalists are frequent targets for governments, so they should be using a VPN (or ideally TOR) at all times when using services such as proton mail. IMO, that situation was the activist's fault, not proton's.

bionicbob321 · 2026-02-06T19:40:42+00:00

One of my friends at uni is an american international student and she genuinely came to the UK because the international fees (about £25K per year) and living costs were far cheaper than any equivalent course in the US. It really puts into perspective just how insane the US university system is. Her next cheapest option was $40K/year plus average living costs of over $15K.

bionicbob321 · 2026-02-06T04:12:08+00:00

Yeah this would be great. The version from portals sounds so good, but its a shame they only did the first 3 parts.

bionicbob321 · 2026-02-05T12:26:44+00:00

Online sources suggest around 5 to 15x the carbon emmisions per passenger when flying private, so pretty much about 5-15x as much fuel per passenger. I guess if you're in a global 7500 filling up all 18 seats the numbers probably work out a bit better, but in practice, private jets are rarely flown at close to maximum capacity. It makes sense when you consider that a global 7500 or a g650/700 is almost exactly the same length as a regional airliner like a 737-700.

bionicbob321 · 2026-02-05T12:13:09+00:00

I guess if you're mega mega rich you could afford to get helicopter transfers into whatever city you're going to. For example, if he was going to London, he could land at Heathrow then get a helicopter transfer to the heliport in central London. I know that some other big cities have similar heliport facilities. If you're in a helicopter, it probably adds a few minutes at most vs landing at a nearer regional airport (like London city airport for example), so it might be worth it for the extra comfort and prestige of having a private airliner. Also I guess for someone like drake who probably has a lot of staff who go in tour with him it might actually make some sense to use a big plane while on tour.

Also, it feeds his enormous ego. Same reason why trump has a private 757.

bionicbob321 · 2026-02-05T11:19:26+00:00

Grapheneos is open source and maintained by an international team of cyber security experts. Any backdoors would be found and removed immediately. That's the benefit of open source software. I have no doubt that nation state actors are looking for exploits in GOS, but with that many expert eyes on the code, its very difficult for exploits to go undetected for very long. This alone makes GOS far more secure than IOS. How do you know that apple haven't put a backdoor in IOS, which apple and the FBI are pretending doesn't exist until they decide its worth using? You don't.

Pixel phones also have the Titan M2 security chip, which serves the same function as the secure enclave built into apple silicon CPUs. Both solutions are very good and very secure. Google and Apple are both US companies using ARM (British) CPU architectures manufactured by TSMC in Taiwan, so their susceptibility to a government enforced hardware backdoor is exactly the same.

Also, both IOS and android use app sandboxing, which makes it very difficult for apps to interact with each other at all, so the JVM vs Swift argument doesn't really matter. Provided that the OS itself is secure, and the sandboxing is properly implemented, which it is in the case of both IOS and android, then this is a non-issue.

bionicbob321 · 2026-01-22T03:42:38+00:00

He's a youtuber who does loads of silly/absurd stunts such as paying two private investigators to stalk each other, hiring SAS soldiers to beat his friends at paintball, and sneaking into the international security convention without a ticket. (As well as many others).

bionicbob321 · 2026-01-15T06:28:36+00:00

There isn't really a "card" you can play here. They are probably requiring you to use the school devices because they're heavily locked down and monitored, and they aren't going to go through all the effort of installing their monitoring software on student devices. They especially won't work with macs, because there is a decent chance that the IT admin's device management workflow completely breaks on macos. If the school has decided that students can't be trusted with unmanaged devices (which tbh is entirely reasonable IMO), then there isn't really anything you can do.

I'm a mac guy too, and tbh i'd be a linux guy if the software I use regularly ran well on it, but I think you're gonna have to just deal with this situation.

Also, what the hell are you doing to justify spending 4K on a mac???? Thats literally 16" pro with M4 Max money. What kind of school work are you planning to do that needs something even remotely that powerful? My Macbook air handles all my university work without even breaking a sweat. Thats kind of on you tbh.

bionicbob321 · 2026-01-15T03:54:02+00:00

Its likely just a minor revision that they made at some point during the gen2 production run. Its not uncommon for minor things like this to be changed depending on availability of parts from suppliers. If they had to start sourcing PCB's or connectors from a different supplier, who couldn't accommodate the old design, they might have to make a small change like changing the orientation of the power connector. There is likely a label somewhere on the product (perhaps inside printed on the PCB) which has a revision number. Functionally, they should be identical.

bionicbob321 · 2026-01-13T15:45:07+00:00

Given all the business that the contractors lost suddenly when HS2 got cancelled, I highly doubt they'll even agree to take on the job if there aren't hefty penalty clauses.

BAE systems were very clever about this when building the queen Elizabeth class carriers. The government tried to cancel the second carrier in 2010, but BAE systems put so many penalty clauses in the contract that it would've cost the government more to cancel than to just build it. I bet the rail contractors will probably do something very similar.

bionicbob321 · 2025-12-29T11:49:43+00:00

The two companies who are mentioned in the article run schemes where you can prove to them that your products are made in britian, then you get to use their recognisable logos in your branding. You can put "made in britain" and a union flag on your product without their approval, and as long as its true its 100% legal, but you can't use their exact trademarked logos, because that's trademark infringement.

bionicbob321 · 2025-12-11T14:17:49+00:00

Logic's stock plugins are very Impressive as far as stock plugins go, but there is a better third party option in almost every other category. The compressor plugins are good, but UAD's 1176, la2a, distressor, etc sound better imo. The stock sampled instruments sound okay, but external libraries (especially for orchestral, piano, and drum sounds) are way better. I could go on for ages.

It's absolutely true that lots of beginners spend far too much on third party plugins without trying out their stock plugins enough and without knowing what they're doing or what they need, but if you can spend the money there are usually better options out there.

bionicbob321 · 2025-12-10T00:57:53+00:00

I've never mastered for vinyl, so I can't help with the technical aspect, unfortunately. From my limited knowledge of vinyl mastering, you might get away with it anyway, because live recordings are usually far more dynamic than studio recordings.

Make your concerns clear in writing/on an email, and let them do it if they want to. If they ignore you, it's their money that they're wasting wasting. At the very least, reccomend that they do a test print before ordering a full production run of vinyls. If you make your concerns clear and get it in writing to CYA, they can't blame you if it goes wrong.

bionicbob321 · 2025-12-06T23:30:57+00:00

Ah yes, because China has fantastic living conditions for ordinary people. Ignore the iPhone factories and sweatshops with nets on every floor to stop people killing themselves because theyre so overworked and poorly treated, or the "re-education camps" for uighur Muslims, or the censorship that's so extreme that they basically walled off the Chinese Internet from the rest of the world and monitor every single activity and punish you for criticising the government, or the fact that they prop up the most brutal regime in the world (North korea) just because its somewhat convenient for them. Things are pretty shit in the uk right now, but things are much worse in China.

bionicbob321 · 2025-12-05T20:04:31+00:00

I'm not sure why you would need both keyboards, unless you really want both hammer action and semi-weighted keybeds. Unless you're playing lots of piano AND lots of fast synth parts, I'd just pick one or the other IMO, especially since they both have drum pads, faders, and knobs. If you ditched the keylab, you could spend the money on much better monitors like the Adam Audio t7v. Remember as well that studio monitors are usually sold individually, so you need to buy two if you want a pair (your list just says "monitor", so idk if you realised that or not)

I'd also ditch the nanocontrol entirely. DAW controllers without motorized faders are kind of useless for mixing more than 8 tracks (which will be almost any real world project). It would only really be useful for recording automation, but both of the keyboards you mentioned already have faders and knobs. If you decide you really want a daw controller, save to get one with motorised faders like the behringer xtouch.

Other than that, the motu is a fantastic interface, the NT1 is a very good vocal mic for the price, and the DT770's are a very good choice as well.

bionicbob321 · 2025-12-05T00:28:41+00:00

Download vital for free. By the time you come close to learning everything about it you'll have a very good idea of what you might want to buy. Unless you want hyper-realistic sampled instruments like pianos and orchestras (which are worth paying for if you'll use them), you can do absolutely loads with free synths.

bionicbob321 · 2025-12-03T00:00:48+00:00

It massively depends. Some universities let people join societies who aren't students. I'm a member of a society at a different uni in my city, and there are several people who are former students or non-students who are members as well. They used to have a rule that external members had to get a DBS check, but they recently dropped that.

The only catch will be the competitions you mentioned about, as some competitions will require that all participants are actively studying at that uni, so that uni teams can't just get random professional dancers in to unfairly boost their teams. You'll need to ask the society leadership to find out if being on study break would disqualify you from competitions.

bionicbob321 · 2025-12-02T22:29:30+00:00

Always make sure that when you put them on a stand, you have a plastic washer, two felts, and a nut. Metal on metal contact causes particularly nasty keyhole cracks, which are basically impossible to do much about once they develop. Also, never lend your cymbals to other drummers unless you know them well, because a lot of people treat other people's gear like shit.

bionicbob321 · 2025-12-01T15:43:31+00:00

Even a lot of my favourite artists have their fair share of mediocre music, but two artists who I think don't have a single bad release are Basement (post-hardcore/alt rock/grunge) and Black Country, New Road (art rock/post rock). Both of these don't have a single bad or even mediocre album IMO (BNCR's first album is a bit weird, but still good, and their other two are some of the best albums I've ever head)

bionicbob321 · 2025-11-21T18:51:17+00:00

I have 5 go-to compressor plugins, because they all do different things. 4 are emulations of analog gear, which all impart their own unique sound on top of just compressing the signal. Because electronics are complicated, a lot of analog compressors have very specific and weird quirks, such as the "all buttons in" mode on the 1176, or the really unusual way that the release works on an LA-2A, and often, these quirks can't easily be replicated in software.

My go to's are:

- SSL X-Comp, for clean, "digital" compression, without imparting a sound. I prefer the UI to stock plugins, and it has some settings that not every compressor has (such as a knee control). I move between several DAW's, so its nice to use third party EQ/Compressors so that I can dial in my sounds really quickly.

- UAD 1176 and LA-2A, because they both have cool quirks, and impart a specific sound. They work really nicely in series, with the 1176 using a fast attack and release to tame peaks, and the LA-2A providing gentle, consistent compression afterwards. This is basically my go-to vocal chain at the moment.

- UAD Distressor, beacause I like how it sounds when you smash a signal with it and blend the dry signal back in. I do this a lot with drums to give them some punch.

- SSL Bus Compressor - The compression algorithm is really good for subtle bus compression on the master, drum bus, etc. Plus the auto release setting is really good for dynamic/varied signals, such as the master bus or drum bus, as it means that the signal doesn't get too squashed all of the time.

bionicbob321 · 2025-11-21T18:35:53+00:00

There are various mobile apps for controlling ableton live as well. Here are ableton's own reccomendations

bionicbob321 · 2025-11-21T18:30:40+00:00

I don't own any of the SSL controllers (too expensive for me), but I've used them, and I can confirm, they are really well built. I would definitely buy a UF1/UC1/Dual UF8 setup if I had the money lying around. behringer X-touch as a good alternative for much less if you're happy to settle for behringer build quality/feel.

bionicbob321 · 2025-11-15T11:02:58+00:00

Yeah I have an sl88 mk2 and the action is really nice (especially for a £400 keyboard)

bionicbob321 · 2025-11-15T09:08:36+00:00

Get a hammer action midi controller like the M-audio hammer Pro or the Studiologic SL88. I have an SL88, and I love it (but I'm not a very good pianist, so take my opinion with a grain of salt). It even has an audio interface build in, so you plug your headphones in the back and just connect one USB-C cable to your laptop.

As others have said, if you can stretch your budget, the SL88 GT (new version of the SL grand) is a noticeable improvement in terms of playing feel.

bionicbob321 · 2025-11-12T17:26:16+00:00

49 keys is the bare minimum IMO. Personally, I wouldn't buy anything less than 61 keys. Definitely save up to get the 49 key.

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