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Friday Random Stuff…

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Battle Royal
Who ya got? Poll up in the right sidebar. Polls not working correctly.
Intel wants PCs to be more than just ‘personal computers’
vs
Eric wants PCs to be just ‘personal computers’

Wise Disk Cleaner Updated
Version 9.7.5.692 brings “improvements” and “fixes”.
Download ( I use the portable version. )

openSUSE 15
Forgot to mention this. Leap 15 was released last week. It use kernel 4.12 released last July. Current LTS in 4.14+. Current Stable is 4.16+.
I don’t get it. Fail.

Off Topic

Make Air Monarchs Great Again
Source: Barstoolsports
Adam Jones of the Baltimore Orioles is making it his mission to MakeMonarchsGreatAgain. Oft maligned as “dad shoes” these may be the single best athletic shoes ever.
(BTW – If you judge someone by the shoes they wear you have serious mental/emotional issues. Grow up.)
Air Monarchs are my all-time favorite footwear. I have weird feet. One foot is 1 inch longer than the other making my shoe size roughly 10 extra wide and 11 regular. Air Monarch 10.5s fit as well as any pair of shoes can. I destroyed my ankles playing football and the Air Monarchs also have wide soles which adds ankle support. Here is a shot of my current pair used at the gym. They are Grey/Volt color and were allegedly made for Seahawks coach Pete Carroll.

“We live for the One, we die for the One”
Wikipedia | IMDB
Babylon 5 is one of my all time favorite Sci-Fi series. It is finally available for streaming. (I’ve got the DVD set)
Babylon 5 on Amazon Prime
Babylon 5 DVD Babylon 5: The Complete Collection Series
This poster is on my wall.

Stuff I Bookmarked:

A newspaper columnist’s rant against cheeseburgers gives hamburger loyalists the hero they deserve
Heroes don’t always wear capes.

Facebook, Amazon, and hundreds of companies post targeted job ads that screen out older workers
IMHO this practice is widespread and along with being illegal is short-sighted and disgusting.

Countries With the Widest Gaps Between Rich and Poor
The U.S. is #9 and that is sad.

Scientists race to find who is pumping an incredibly dangerous gas into the atmosphere
China. There, I solved it for you.

AI better than dermatologists at detecting skin cancer, study finds
“At first look, dermatologists correctly detected an average of 87 percent of melanomas, and accurately identified an average of 73 percent of lesions that were not malignant. Conversely, the CNN correctly detected 95 percent of melanomas.”
Interesting but isn’t that why they send it out for a biopsy?

Question Club: Where should Star Wars go after Solo’s box office disappointment?
Disappointment to who? Its opening weekend was a holiday weekend and most sane people hate the movie theater. PPV and DVD by this fall at a fraction of the price to take your family to the theater.

Wednesday Random Stuff…

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FYI
I am slowly working on updating the Win10 Tweak Guide. I’m reviewing it page by page. It’s is surprising how little of significance has changed given the chaos the last few major updates have caused. Win10 is just… Well, it’s no fun.

Rufus Version 3.0 (2018.05.29)
“Rufus is a utility that helps format and create bootable USB flash drives, such as USB keys/pendrives, memory sticks, etc.”
Changes: UI redesign, drop XP & Vista support, downloads are SSL, other fixes.
I use Rufus to create install media.
Download & Info

About That Free VPN
Some of them are selling your data.
I use TorGuard. Use coupon code TweakHound for 50% Off for Life.

Off Topic

Stuff I’ve bookmarked recently:
Tesla hits parked California police vehicle; driver blames ‘Autopilot’
If one of us hit a cop car we’d still be in jail.

Glasses wearers really are more intelligent – it’s in the genes
That explains a lot. My dumb a** was born with 20/20 vision.

How spies can use your cellphone to find you – and eavesdrop on your calls and texts too
I can’t imagine how bad a spy must have screwed up to be assigned to monitor to my boring phone conversations.

Daniel Craig Refused To Play James Bond For 25th Installment, Then Money Happened
Let’s assign him to monitor my calls and texts!

Child’s Lemonade Stand Shut Down For Lack Of Permit
You hear about stuff like this every year of two. Everyone involved in shutting these kids down is an a**. I don’t even wanna here “I’m just doing my job” or “The laws is the law.”

Most vitamins are useless, but here are the ones you should take
IMHO this is old news. Can’t remember how long ago I heard that “all vitamins create is expensive urine”.

Monday Random Stuff…

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Reboot Your Router
The FBI kindly suggest you reboot your router.
“Foreign cyber actors (Russians) have compromised hundreds of thousands of home and office routers and other networked devices worldwide.”
At least half a million devices have been affected.
According to ARSTechnica here is a list affected routers:

Linksys E1200
Linksys E2500
Linksys WRVS4400N
Mikrotik RouterOS for Cloud Core Routers: Versions 1016, 1036, and 1072
Netgear DGN2200
Netgear R6400
Netgear R7000
Netgear R8000
Netgear WNR1000
Netgear WNR2000
QNAP TS251
QNAP TS439 Pro
Other QNAP NAS devices running QTS software
TP-Link R600VPN

Mp3tag 2.88
Pretty big update.
Download | Changelog | Release Announcment

Do You Know Science?
Each year the government asks 10 simple questions to test the public’s knowledge of science. Can you correctly answer them all?
Basic stuff here. Disappointed with the results.

CCleaner…

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This past 24 hours has seen a wave of fake news and hysteria over CCleaner supposed snooping.
As far as I can tell there is no new data collection. They have introduced a new privacy options section.

From a forum post:
Your privacy is very important to us and we commit to ensuring the continued confidentiality and security of all data we collect and process. We also require that any and all parties which have access to our data adhere to strict security standards and best industry practices. This protects your privacy, whether you are an EU resident or not.
As part of this commitment, we’ve updated our Privacy Policy and added a new ‘Privacy’ tab into our software. If you’re a CCleaner user, in this tab you can adjust your privacy settings. Privacy settings are unavailable for Free users as we do not collect any personal identifiable information, so Free users are essentially anonymous.

Tuesday Random Stuff…

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Unreal Gold Free
If you want it better grab it quick.
https://www.gog.com/game/unreal_gold 48 Hours only
https://store.steampowered.com/app/13250/Unreal_Gold/ “limited time”
Unreal (1998 video game) at Wikipedia

Tired Of This
Another Spectre-like vulnerability. More patches coming with more performance hits.
INTEL-SA-00115 – Q2 2018 Speculative Execution Side Channel Update

Wireshark Updated
Version 2.6.1 brings a bunch of bugfixes.
Download | Release Notes

Off Topic

Amazon urged not to sell facial recognition tool to police
“People should be free to walk down the street without being watched by the government,” the groups wrote in a letter to Amazon on Tuesday. “Facial recognition in American communities threatens this freedom.”

This is America’s favorite burger brand
“Five Guys is America’s favorite burger chain, according to Harris Poll’s 30th annual EquiTrend study.
Harris surveyed a total of 77,031 people to determine the “brand equity” of 17 different burger chains — Jack in the Box, Hardee’s, White Castle, Carl’s Jr., Checkers/Rally’s, DQ Grill & Chill, Burger King, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, SONIC America’s Drive-In, Five Guys, In-N-Out Burger, Culver’s, Steak ‘n Shake, Whataburger, Shake Shack, Smashburger.”
NO. No to every single one of them. Agreed, some of these burgers will do in the absence of a non-chain alternative and almost any burger is better than a salad.
#1 burger. Grilled. Grilled on the back deck. Grilled over the fire at the campsite. Bonus points for bacon.

Tuesday Morning Random Stuff…

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The Future Of Cortana?
Microsoft bought an AI company. The only bright side to this is maybe in the future we can get our robot overlords to BSOD.

Speccy 1.32
Hardware info tool. Freeware.
Detection
Improved SSD detection for newer SSD devices
Improved SSD detection for laptops
Settings & Preferences
Added new Privacy menu
Download (I use the portable version)

VMware Workstation Player Updated
VMware Workstation 14 Player Version 14.1.2 is a free upgrade for all VMware Workstation 14 Player users.
Windows 10 2018 Spring Creators Update (Version 1803) as host and guest
Ubuntu 18.04 support as host and guest
VMware Workstation 14 Player Version 14.1.2 also contains bug fixes, security updates and performance improvements.
Download

Off Topic

Banned From Amazon: The Shoppers Who Make Too Many Returns

Tuesday Morning News

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AMD Chipset Drivers
Version 18.10.0418 is out.
Download

Win10 Updates
Will 1803/RS4/SCU/Next/April/Whatever update be released today?
Dunno, but 1709 has got an update:
KB4093105 – April 23, 2018—KB4093105 (OS Build 16299.402)

CCleaner
Couple of IE/Edge fixes and… wait… the release announcement says, “Where appropriate, CCleaner Free may recommend improvements to your system’s antivirus protection“.
Hmmm… Pure speculation on my part but, is this gonna be ads for Avast? Has anyone seen one?
Download

Wednesday Morning Random Stuff…

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Google Chrome
Updated to version 66
– 62 security fixes.
– Automatically disable video auto-play
Download | Release Info
Related: Microsoft now has Windows Defender Browser Protection extension for Chrome. Reckon they needed another way to see where you were surfing since nobody is using Edge and IE.

Clonezilla Updated
Version 2.5.5-38 released.
“Clonezilla is a partition and disk imaging/cloning program similar to True Image® or Norton Ghost®. It helps you to do system deployment, bare metal backup and recovery.”
Download | Release Notes
(I use the “Alternative Stable” version.)

Off Topic

RIP Barbara Bush
Wonderful woman.
Dana Perino: For Barbara Bush, loyalty — and love — went both ways
Barbara Bush, a First Lady Without Apologies

Tuesday Random Stuff…

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Macrium Reflect Updated
Version 7.1.3147 of my preferred backup software has been release.
Download | Release Notes | Home Page

Russian Hackers Targeting Routers
“In a joint announcement Monday from the US Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the UK’s National Cyber Security Center, officials warned that Russian spies have been looking for vulnerabilities on millions of routers as a tool for future attacks.
The targets include routers in homes and offices, as well as firewalls and switches from internet service providers, critical infrastructure and major private companies”
US, UK warn of Russian hackers targeting millions of routers

Off Topic

Great Beer
Last week I had Uncle Jacob’s Stout from Avery Brewing for the first time. If you like barrel-aged beers like Founders KBS or New Holland Dragon’s Milk then you’ll love this. Highly recommended.