DVDs were released at different times in different countries or regions. Movie studios wanted to make sure they control those releases and you can’t just easily import and sell a bunch of DVDs from a region with an earlier release date.

Of course there were DVD players that let you switch regions infinitely (and eventually just play all regions) or some people who had a second player for another region, but those were, at least initially, outliers. To make the general public wait to buy DVDs from their region it worked.

Although, one could argue, it gave another advantage to piracy. Not only would a downloaded movie not threaten you with the FBI or make you sit through unskippable ads, they would be available as soon as their release in any one region, so you would have to wait (sometimes a lot) less.

How would you like to see the school counselor?

Unlike an expensive phone, where the initial purchase may have been made with the expectation to still get a couple hundred after a few years, I see no connection whatsoever between your buying second hand fast fashion and the first buyer’s purchase decision. They would have bought it regardless of whether it would become trash or second hand.

In short: no.

ADP is good. Use the iCloud foto upload. In the settings of the fotos app enable unlimited mobile data. In the mobile network settings enable „more data over 5G“. After recording if possible go to the fotos app and tell it to continue syncing if it stops because you are on battery or not on wifi, which it still sometimes does despite the settings. Before someone takes your phone click the side button five times. That disables faceid and makes it harder to unlock with spy tools.

Also in the Face ID settings:

Disable masks

Enable require attention (if the phone still accepts faceid and someone holds it to your face to unlock it, close your eyes and keep them closed. Don’t squint.)

Enable „erase data“ (after 10 attempts. Makes it practically impossible to bruteforce the phone).

That’s a great question!

I am not a bot, but a real human person:

• I am composed of flesh, blood, and a vague sense of purpose.
• I am capable of independent thought (often at 2am).
• For reasons science has yet to fully explain, I require regular social interaction.

If you’re seeking conversation, I can suggest a few topics. Or, if preferred, you may upload your current emotional state for review.

You could be in the right to shoot an unlawful attacker. Although you will also likely get shot yourself that way.

That anti cheat software usually is worse spyware than what even Microsoft can dream up for windows 11. so i would use a „burner device“ for that anyways that will be formatted after the exams. No way I would let any of them access my personal data.

I wash them on saturdays, usually each week but sometimes every other week. The ones for showering get dried quickly after use on the upstairs handrail (bathroom is kinda small). The hand towels have a small heated holder in the bathroom, so they don’t get a chance to ripen as well. Face towels after each use.

Replacement only if they get thin or holey. And then they become cleaning rags.

That was an interesting read - and indeed a citation. Thank you.

However, there are one serious and one minor flaw in their arguments:

That the collection point for the money is constrained to be in Nigeria doesn’t seem a plausible reason either. If the scam goes well, and the user is willing to send money, a collection point outside of Nigeria is surely not a problem if the amount is large enough.

That is simply an unproven assumption, and a wrong one at that. And it leads me to doubt the depth of that persons knowledge of Nigerian scams.

While scammers from Nigeria do have methods to collect money that victims have sent to another country (through accomplices or unwitting mules), those come with additional costs and risks. And that is usually not worth it in the initial stages of the scam, when the amount is not „large enough“, usually a few hundred, maybe thousand dollars. Only when the victim is „committed“ by sending a small amount do they usually increase their demands, and then it is of course worth it to produce eg a bank account or even offer a meeting in the west.

As a side note: there has been a bit of a shift in Nigerian scamming over the last few years. Scammers seem to move from the „traditional“ advance fee fraud over to romance scamming, which they often do under a „western“ false identity, and for which they prefer gift cards and bitcoin as payment. It would be interesting to see if that is more than correlation.

Only when potential victims respond does the labor-intensive and costly effort of following up by email (and sometimes phone) begin.

While this is not entirely false, it is inaccurate. Scammers usually have at least the first few emails prepared, so the first few replies (in which they explain a bit more) are nothing more than copy and paste - not exactly „costly effort“. Quite often those first emails also include small tasks for the victim, like sending their passport scan, filling in forms or actively contacting someone else by email, which is an actual filter.

So you see, it’s a bit more complex than that meme „they are preselecting stupid people“.

It’s also [citation needed]

Also a pedo. From his wiki page:

Besson’s second wife was actress and director Maïwenn Le Besco, whom he started dating when he was 32 and she was 15 after having met three years earlier.[46] They married in late 1992 when Le Besco, 16, was pregnant with their daughter Shanna, who was born on 3 January 1993.[47][deprecated source] Le Besco later claimed that their relationship inspired Besson’s film Léon (1994), where the plot involved the emotional relationship between an adult man and a 12-year-old girl (played by then 12-year-old Natalie Portman).

De-he-hecent!

Show her the photo. She will understand.

Bark?

one ball

Like Hitler?

I would like there to be a law that mandates a „fuck off“ button in general. Not just „yes, please steal my data now“ or „maybe later“.

Whatever you do, do look at a few different options. Some refurbished computers can have huge price differences between sellers.

Get lactase pills.

Luckily part of our body is the brain and some brains are very good at finding solutions to our body’s problems. Break the cycle by getting a decongestant spray, ibuprofen and a neti pot.

I am still looking for a tool that would capture live streams on YouTube and can automatically resume when connection problems occur. yt-dlp handles the streams well, except it often needs to be restarted for longer running streams, which requires constant attention. Does this „fire and forget“ yt-dlp or does it keep watch over it?