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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: August 19th, 2023

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  • No, they can still refuse to provide a device as my original comment states. Since my employer refused to do so, they came up with an alternative without any additional input from me. They completely side stepped the app requirement by using a little key chain once they reached out to Cisco. Your employer has options. They have to find out what works best to make sure you can do the job they have hired you to do.


  • It doesn’t matter if it’s apps that use data or apps that don’t use data. If your employer requires you to install an app on your personal phone, you can refuse. It is your legal right. If you choose to exercise your legal rights, your employer must provide you with an alternative method that doesn’t involve your personal phone. Whatever they choose.

    If you agree to installing a work related app on your personal phone, you must be compensated. If they refuse to compensate, you’re back to square one. They must provide you alternatives.

    If your employer refuses to supply you with the tools to complete your job and/or refuse to compensate personal phone use for work related reasons, they are breaking the law. If they fire you for exercising your rights, it’s unlawful termination.


    Here’s an example: My employer started requiring 2FA for the computer logins. They wanted me to install an app by Cisco. I said no. You can provide a locked down phone that can be used for the sole purpose of 2FA. They declined as that isn’t in their budget and “unnecessary”. They later came back with a little keychain that’s bound to my account. I press a button on the keychain and get the 2FA code. I can do my job and they did their job and gave me the tools to do so.



  • No matter what app it is, if employers require one to be used on a smartphone, they are legally obligated to provide you with a work phone. If they refuse, they are legally obligated to provide reimbursement for your personal mobile plan. This can be as simple as $5 or $10 added monthly to a paycheck, or as detailed as actual usage down to the kilobyte.

    Even if it’s as simple as clocking in and out. If they won’t provide a phone or reimburse, they must have some other method to complete the task. Whether it be a computer or paper. Failing that, they are not upholding the law of providing you tools necessary to complete your job. Which means if they terminate you for any of the above under “not able to do your job”, it is retaliation for you requiring them to do their job. You could potentially win a suit against them.


  • From their own privacy policy they outline what they do:

    For research and development purposes, we may use datasets such as those that contain images, voices or other data that could be associated with an identifiable person.

    To provide location-based services on Apple products, Apple and our partners and licensees, such as maps data providers, may collect, use, and share precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device.

    Apple’s websites, online services, interactive applications, email messages, and advertisements may use “cookies” and other technologies such as pixel tags and web beacons.

    We also use personal information to help us create, develop, operate, deliver, and improve our products, services, content and advertising

    At times Apple may provide third parties with certain personal information to provide or improve our products and services, including to deliver products at your request, or to help Apple market to consumers.

    Apple may collect location, IP Address, network information, Bluetooth information, connected devices, accessories, personal demographics, browsing history, browser fingerprint, device fingerprint, search history, app data, usage data, performance, diagnostics, product interaction, transaction information, payment information, purchasing records, contacts, social graph, watch history, listening interests, reading list, call metadata, device information, messaging metadata, email addresses, salary, income, assets, health data, ad interaction, in-app purchases, in-app subscriptions, app downloads, music downloads, movie downloads, TV show downloads, Apple ID, IDFA, Random Unique ID, UUID, IMEI, Hardware serial number, SIM serial number, phone number, telemetry, cookies, Nearby WiFi MAC, Siri request history, Web sign-in, songs played, play and pause times, playlists, engagement and library.

    Literally all of this is what Google does. The only thing Apple does differently is hinder 3rd party apps to a greater degree, whereas Google is more permissive. But to be fair, Google has been improving the Privacy features of Android with each version.

    https://tosdr.org/en/service/158




  • Arch is not meant to be a daily driver if you’re expecting “shit just works” stability long term when you just blindly run updates. You have to understand what you’re updating and sometimes why.

    It is targeted at the proficient GNU/Linux user, or anyone with a do-it-yourself attitude who is willing to read the documentation, and solve their own problems.

    If you want to use Arch, you need to invest in snapshots using rsync or dd. Given how it’s a rolling release, you should do this weekly. If something fucks up, grab all your logs and put them somewhere safe. Roll back and look at your logs to see what broke. Then apply updates as needed. You can ignore packages for quite a while. If you’re not smart enough to understand it now, you may in the future. It takes time and practice.

    Debian based is only “out of date” feature wise because they do a package freeze. They ensure stability before release. Updates are largely security related.


  • Skin is an elastic organ. If you start putting on fat, your skin stretches. The foreskin can be stretched with regular motion. Retracting it on a daily basis would encourage it to stretch. Infections occur only when the foreskin isn’t cleaned well. I don’t know your circumstances personally. Teaching you how to keep clean and retracting the skin is a viable method. I’m not discrediting your parents. Just sharing the logic behind why circumcision is not absolutely necessary or should be the first choice. If this was the informed decision they made for you, I’m glad it was successful with no complications. That’s the best possible outcome.


  • When a baby is born, the doctor may ask if you’d like to have your baby circumcised. If this is the case, it happens before they leave the hospital. This is where that time frame comes in. Otherwise, circumcision is “recommended” within the first two weeks after birth.

    Here is a medical reason at birth: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/hypospadias.html

    Any medical condition after birth that requires a circumcision, needs to be performed by a doctor who knows exactly what they’re doing. Not every doctor does. So you end up with not-so-great stories shared around.

    Edit: You describe the tight foreskin you experienced which is in the second link I provided. It is a medical condition that doesn’t require circumcision. In fact, you could still have your foreskin right now. The condition usually goes away over time. Believe it or not. Circumcision is an easy way out. But one that may cost. And in the case of that individual, it did.


  • Oh boy. You’re about to learn a lot.

    A circumcision isn’t necessary when there’s nothing medically wrong with you. It’s literally mutilation when it’s done for religious or appearance reasons. Spoiler! These are the two most common reasons why this procedure takes place. You didn’t consent.

    When you’re born, the foreskin is fused to the glans (penis head). A foreskin’s purpose is protecting the glans and keeping it moist. A circumcised penis is scientifically proven to have reduced sensitivity because the glans are exposed all the time.

    This procedure usually happens when the baby is 24 to 48 hours old. There are over ~100 deaths a year from circumcision. If an infection occurs, this can easily get out of hand and cause the loss of all or parts of the penis… on a new born baby mind you. Complications later in life may include, but not limited to: pain or discomfort with an erection, erectile dysfunction, or abnormal shape or size of an erection.

    Because a new born penis is incredibly small, the slightest mistake can lead to disaster. In some cases, can mentally fuck someone up. Unfortunately, I am personally affected by a botched procedure. Too much skin was taken off and the urethral opening was torn.

    It’s an unnecessary procedure that can fuck up your otherwise healthy at birth child for the rest of their life. All for some religious reason or because parents “don’t like it” - every male is born with it. It’s there for a reason.



  • It’s not odd at all. It’s well known this is actually the truth. Ask any video editor in the professional field. You can search the Internet yourself. Better yet, do a test run with ffmpeg, the software that does encoding and decoding. It’s available to download by anyone as it’s open source.

    Hardware accelerated processing is faster because it takes shortcuts. It’s handled by the dedicated hardware found in GPUs. By default, there are parameters out of your control that you cannot change allowing hardware accelerated video to be faster. These are defined at the firmware level of the GPU. This comes at the cost of quality and file size (larger) for faster processing and less power consumption. If quality is your concern, you never use a GPU. No matter which one you use (AMD AMF, Intel QSV or Nvidia NVENC/DEC/CUDA), you’re going to end up with a video that appears more blocky or grainy at the same bitrate. These are called “artifacts” and make videos look bad.

    Software processing uses the CPU entirely. You have granular control over the entire process. There are preset parameters programmed if you don’t define them, but every single one of them can be overridden. Because it’s inherently limited by the power of your CPU, it’s slower and consumes more power.

    I can go a lot more in depth but I’m choosing to stop here because this can comment can get absurdly long.


  • Reddit has already clarified, your account is deleted, but any comments or posts made are left behind unless you remove them manually. The username is removed on each comment and post. The database doesn’t know who it belongs to if you delete your account before doing this. That being said, reddit only tracks the last 1,000 comments you have made. You have to go back and find any additional comments beyond that. Same goes for all other content such as your posts, saved posts from others, comments you upvoted, etc. The internal limit is 1,000. Additionally, the database keeps one revision. So even if you delete it, an admin can restore it if they so desire. The username will be missing of course. The delete counts as a revision state. You first edit your comment with something random, wait 24 hours, and then delete it. If an admin attempts to restore your comment, it will simply be whatever gibberish you put in.

    As a result of all this, Reddit is not 100% GDPR compliant.





  • Think outside the box. Get a previous generation. Pixel 8 was about to be released. To move inventory, Google discounted the 7 series by like 30-40%. I got the 256GB 7 Pro for $600. Without the sale, $600 is the same price as the 128GB 7. I got a top of the range flagship phone for the cost of a midrange. My mom did something similar with a Samsung phone. She got an S20 when the S22 released. Huge discount when Verizon offered it for $449.