I started The Witcher 3 for the second time. I tried it a year ago and I kept getting absolutely wrecked by the ghost thing in thr very first crypt so I gave up but this time I killed it straight away so who knows what I was doing wrong last time! Also, probably a bit controversial but I refuse to learn how to play Gwent, I don’t have the time or patients to learn a card game inside an already massive game

I also started and finished American Arcadia this weekend and I absolutely loved it. I’m trying to play shorter games that I wouldn’t usually play in between The Witcher 3 since its long. AA is probably one of the best games I’ve played. The story is fantastic and the gameplay is pretty basic, which suits me. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and has some fun twists at the end.

I’ve also been playing Supraland, its a pretty fun, chill game. The areas aren’t very difficult and the upgrade system is fun. I love the funny dialogues from the NPCs and again its a fun game that doesn’t take itself seriously and I find myself smiling while playing it

Over and over and over and over the gaming community has been screwed over by Publishers so I’ll stop grave dancing when Corpos stop being so horrible

• Requiring a third party account to play a game months after it was released and after selling it to customers who can’t legitimately make an account because you don’t feel like their country can make you enough profit. Helldivers 2

• Attempting to take away peoples digital “purchases” of media because you can’t be bothered to pay licencing. Sony

• Changing the definition of “purchase” an established word in English and not defining your new definition until page 22 of a EULA that you know nobody is going to read. Sony, and everyone else

• Shutting down a server and rendering a game with a whole single player aspect completely useless and not telling consumers this at the time of purchase. The Crew (https://www.stopkillinggames.com/)

• Selling a terribly incomplete game filled with glitches for the price of a full game. Cyberpunk 2077 and so many others.

• Selling Pre-Purchases to let people play the game early but really its just another way to get people to pay to be Guinea pigs in your buggy game. That new Star Wars game and so many others.

• Adding so many stupid “micro transactions” to games to milk players as much as possible for useless skins and camos etc. Diablo 4 and so many more.

• Adding a “Season Pass”??? I don’t even understand what this is??? Buy a full priced game and then buy a subscription to that game??? But still not have access to all of the content and then be shown a magic glove that costs €500, why is this not part of the subscription or is it??? I hope it is. New COD and probably others

• “Making” a game and selling it to people but really its just a scam where they got “volunteers” to work on the game for free. Then shutting the game down instantly. That zombie game with Will Smith.

• Something, something Overwatch 2 is a totally brand new game.

• Shutting down third party mods for an unsupported and dangerous game just after the sale for that game is over. Fine, they didn’t own all of the assets used but they did fix the issue where people could infect your system with malware. COD

• Increasing the prices of all of your subscriptions and making those subscriptions worse by offering less while your parent company is posting ~$20 Billion profits in the most recent quarter, yes quarter, thats like 3 months…

Btw all of these examples have happened within the last 4 years. Its pretty sad that I can list these off the top of my head. I only play single player games and I only got back into gaming a couple of years ago after ~10 years of not really playing anything

If your phone has a password on it then its data is going to be encrypted until you unlock the phone.

You can temporarily boot a twrp recovery image. It will let you put in your password and decrypt your storage.

You should be able to transfer the files to your PC with a cable then

Even if your coutry reaches 100% and you haven’t signed, please still do incase some signatures are invalid

TIP – It is better to collect more signatures than required. Sometimes the national authorities might not be able to validate all the statements of support you provide.

https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/how-it-works_en

For me the issue here is, why put so much time and energy into basically rebranding an LLM. I’ve seen LLMs running on RPi and android phones. Why not write a blog post showing how to run LLMs locally with existing tools for the best privacy instead and put more focus on their existing services. It just seems like they’re jumping on the AI bandwagon and charging a premium for an already freely available LLM.

I see some benefits of AI like quality tts when using OSM and stt when transcribing/translating audio but other things like Googles AI answers and Microsofts Copilot leave me scratching my head wondering why consumer would want this

Am I out of touch?

a writing assistant was one of the most requested features in our recent survey

Apparently, I am. People actually want this

For Proton Mail, 59% of respondents want an easier way to send end-to-end encrypted emails to non-Proton users, while 29% want a writing assistant for proofreading, grammar, and composing emails.

Nothing I hate more than not giving a link to the repo

Scribe relies on open source code and models, and is itself open source and therefore available for independent security and privacy audits

Not on their support page specifically for it either

Had to got to Reddit and look at their comments to find out they’re using Mistral

https://reddit.com/comments/1e68sof/comment/ldsbs24

We built Scribe in r/ProtonMail using the open-source model Mistral AI to empower anyone in need of email productivity to use a privacy-respecting alternative to r/ChatGPT or r/GeminiAI that:
 ❌ doesn’t log or save prompts
 ⛔️ doesn’t use your data for training
 🔎 open-source code that anyone can inspect
 🖥️ can be run locally, so your data never leaves your device
 
See the official announcement here: https://proton.me/blog/proton-scribe-writing-assistant

https://huggingface.co/mistralai/Mistral-7B-v0.1/discussions/8

Hello, thanks for your interest and kind words! Unfortunately we’re unable to share details about the training and the datasets (extracted from the open Web) due to the highly competitive nature of the field. We appreciate your understanding!

You could chance it, but they probably have logs of your IP/location data or they bought your data somewhere and so they could check, if they cared enough, but if you’re not an EU citizen and you live in an EU country then GDPR applies to you

Every few months I like to clear out my password manager of any accounts I don’t need anymore, usually just throwaway emails aliases.

I’ll usually attempt to log into any services that I know I’ve deleted/requested to delete to make sure they’re not accessible anymore and so far I haven’t been able to log in to any of them so I can only assume my requests are working.

I suppose if a service had a data breach, after my information was meant to be deleted, and I found my information there then I’d make a complaint to my regulator about not deleting my data. I would have proof of my request and their acknowledgement of the request so it’d be pretty silly of them not to delete it after saying they did

I rarely use anything but email aliases and fake information anyway and I never let online retailers save my card information. And if my address in on my account I change it to P. Sherman 42 Wallabyway Sydney before I delete/request to delete my account.

I spend too much time reading emails so I try to keep mine short, especially when they’re going to a generic email like support or privacy.

https://gdpr.eu/right-to-be-forgotten/

The GDPR does not specify what a valid request to erasure entails. An individual can make a request for erasure verbally or in writing. This request can also be made to any member of your organization, not just to a designated contact. As long as a request meets the conditions above, it is valid, even if it does not refer to “Request for Erasure” the “Right to be Forgotten,” Article 17, or the GDPR.

There’s no template to follow for a request. Once GDPR is mentioned, they usually just email back saying that they’re doing it or its done.

I haven’t come across any difficult companies but I’ve heard some make it as hard as possible and follow the Erasure Request form template in the link above and ask for proof of I.D etc

I usually just write

Hi,

Please delete my account and all data associated with this email in accordance with Article 17 of GDPR, I’m an EU citizen

Thanks x

I just assume if they haven’t made it easy to delete your account by now then they never will but these are really good points that will hopefully make companies change their policies, especially since its all things that benefit them

The “media network” is https://kinectivemedia.com/ and they have a link for US customers to opt out that leads to here https://uniteddigital.iad1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_88OQmAbr20oeHn8 but of course you’re going to want to also read Qualtrics privacy policy before using their services https://www.qualtrics.com/privacy-statement/

Clicking https://kinectivemedia.com/ privacy policy links to https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/customer-data-privacy-policy.html

They collect the usual stuff you use for travel like name, address, payment details, biometrics, I.D etc and also

Information collected in your use of our mobile application(s) includes, but is not limited to:

• With your consent, your pinpointed physical location information from technologies like GPS, Wi-Fi, or cell tower proximity (geo-location tracking)

• With your consent, while at or near certain airports in the U.S., your pinpointed physical location will be tracked continuously to provide you location-based offers, services and other information. For more information, see the Location Services FAQ located on the side menu of the United App;

• Your domain name;

• Device ID or alternative ID where required by the platform provider;

• Electronic data concerning operating systems and computing devices/browser, including types;

• Features you use and links you click;

• Amount of time spent in the application;

• Installs and uninstalls;

• Transaction details and history.

We may combine this information with information that we already have collected about you.

We collect information about you from third parties. If you make a reservation through a travel agent, we will obtain your travel information from that agent. We may also obtain information about you from our marketing partners, advertisers and other third parties.

We primarily use your information, including personal information, to provide our services to you and to fulfill your requests. In certain circumstances, such as for advertising purposes, we combine your information with other information that we have about you, that is publicly available and/or that we have obtained from third parties (either individually or in the aggregate)

We also use your information for the following purposes:

For marketing and advertising. United uses your information, consistent with applicable law, individually, in the aggregate, and/or combined with demographic information that we maintain or collect from third parties, for marketing and advertising purposes (via email, direct mail, telephone, web or other electronic advertising) and to send you news and newsletters. Specifically, information that we collect about you may be used to send you email, direct mail, or telephone communications about offers from United, its partners or other third parties, that might be of interest to you (please see the section on Disclosing your information below and the section on Changing your marketing preferences below). We also use your information to determine appropriate advertising channels and venues and to place ads on such channels and venues, including placing advertising on social networking sites.

I’m sure the money they make from this will subsidies flight costs that will be passed on to the end user for cheaper flight!

You should be able to kind of do both through android settings

Settings -> Apps -> YourApp -> Mobile data usage -> Allow Network access and Mobile Data

For VPN you’ll need to add a VPN and then Settings -> Network and Internet -> VPN -> YourVPN -> Always on VPN and Block Connections without VPN. This blocks all apps. There is 2 issues with this though, Blocking connections will block split tunneling connections set up through VPNs and also potentially this depending on the apps you’re using https://mullvad.net/en/blog/dns-traffic-can-leak-outside-the-vpn-tunnel-on-android

I’ve used https://github.com/Softcatala/whisper-ctranslate2 before for transcribing English and translating non English audio into srt files and its been pretty good for TV shows for me. Its not perfect but it usually gets me about 95% of the way there

Oh nice, I haven’t heard of Vanguard! I love how creative some fan games are, especially compared to the main games that have gotten a bit stale. I’m definitely adding it to my list now, thanks!

I’m the type of player that needs the bright yellow markings, that people seem to hate, to be able to get around! So I constantly have to read the signs in Control and even then I still second guess myself.

I did the part where you have to answer the phone at the end of the hallway thingy. The amount of times I just walked off the edge because I didn’t understand I had to pull the chord is embarrassing. And then trying to get back from the motel thing I genuinely thought my game was bugged, I was so comfused lol

Ah damn, I know how you feel! Alan Wake remaster kept going black screen every few seconds for me and the only way to fix it was to pause it for a few seconds every time so I had to give up.

Maybe updated drivers or something could have fixed the bugs since then, I definitely recommend checking it out again for a fun linear single player game that doesn’t take weeks to finish

Yes! I feel like there really aren’t enough games like it! Just a fun little linear shooter with some cool time travel/ superpower elements.

I heard there were references to each other, that’s why I wanted to start with Alan Wake before playing Quantum Break but tbh I’m so bad with names and stuff I probably wouldn’t even notice them anyway lol

I didn’t know Remedy didn’t own the rights to it, that’s unfortunate because its such a good concept but at least we got Control after it, hopefully they continue with more games like them

I finished Quantum Break, I loved it! I’ve never really played a game with superpowers, especially like these. I also love games that give unlimited ammo in the starting pistol since I have the worst aim ever, I constantly find myself having no choice but to melee enemies in other games. And the slow motion after doing the dash was so nice!

The final fight was so bad, I could not understand why I was dying even when I was doing exactly what someone on YouTube was doing but other than that it was so fun! And I actually liked the story, usually I’m not a big story person, I just like running around causing chaos, it also probably helped that I finished the game in 3 days, so I didn’t forget what was happening.

I had to give up on Alan Wake Remaster, the visual bugs were just too much so I moved onto Control. I was expecting a more linear style, similar to Quantum Break so I ended up running around in circles being so confused, especially the elevator at the start, I spent way too long looking for that lol but having the force like a Jedi is super fun

I also started GoW Chains of Olympus and I kinda regret playing the series in chronological order instead of release order because going from Ascension to this is not so great, since it was Originally designed for the PSP but hopefully the original series will look better when I get there

Quantum Break got me to put down BG3 for now since I’m looking for shorter games that I don’t accidentally spend 10 hours on a Saturday playing

Its also convinced me to get back into RE4 remaster. I started it in November and got to the part where I’m in the little boat on the lake but I got a bit bored of it. I think my expectations were too high, I loved 0,1,2 and 3 especially 2 and 3. And since everyone always says 4 is the best, I just expected more. I still want to finish it and continue the series because they are fun games tbf

Yeah, carrier unlock and OEM unlock are completely separate and have nothing to do with each other. People will say ‘unlocked’ and mean carrier unlocked because most people don’t know what OEM unlocking is so it can get really confusing when trying to buy second hand and explaining the difference. Its a really common misconception that has been an issue for over a decade that’s why I always try to explain they have nothing to do with each other

I don’t know any other carriers that do this but I wouldn’t be surprised if more did. I never recommend buying from a carrier since most just carrier lock their phones anyway so its just more hassle if you decide to switch carriers.

I find buying from the manufacturer works out cheaper than from any carrier where I am. Its also better for privacy since I don’t have to deal with bill pay and can just pay cash for PAYG without giving any personal information and can switch to whoever has the best deal without faffing about, just get a new Sim card and I’m ready to go

OEM unlocking is not the same as carrier unlocking

Carrier unlocking is to allow you to use your phone with a different network e.g switching from Verizon to T-Mobile and putting a T-Mobile Sim in the Verizon phone. This can be done with both Android and iOS

OEM unlocking is an Android setting that enables the end user to modify the firmware of the device e.g unlocking the boot loader, installing custom boot images, ROMs and gaining root access.

AFAIK both T-Mobile and Verizon have custom Android settings that completely grey out the OEM unlock option in Android settings. There is no way around this as an end user, even if you had got customer support to carrier unlock your phone it would have made no difference, OEM unlocking would still be disabled.

AFAIK There is no way around this and the only solution is to never buy from either carrier.

I bought a refurbished Pixel a few years ago from the Netherlands and it ended up being originally from Verizon, I found a Verizon system app still preinstalled in settings and it was impossible it enable OEM unlocking.

Either buy directly from Google or buy second hand on the condition that you can check to make sure OEM unlocking is possible before purchase