Is it the additional data you give them to enter the giveaway?

Basically. You’re telling TP-Link that you’re a business that’s interested in selling their products. In return, their Sales team now has your information and can pester you tell you all about the latest TP-Link products.

Additionally, they’re putting their products directly in the hands of customers who could become even bigger customers. If you, as a company, decide you like the product, then you’re probably going to buy more of said product.

Finally, TP-Link is being selective about who gets the freebie—they’re not just handing them out willy-nilly. From the fine print:

Offer valid only for SolutionX partners. One Insight S445 (2.8mm) camera per qualified SolutionX partner. Approval is required, and TP-Link reserves the right to verify applications

So there’s probably some sort of “legitimacy threshold” you have to clear in order to get the goodies.

Europeans seem to be happier, healthier, and to have a generally better standard of living than Americans. Small towns in Europe have much more personality than US suburbs, which largely consist of strip mall after strip mall. Food in Europe is focused on quality, whereas in the US the focus is on quantity.

I wanted to list Florida, but that state has disappointed me too many times in the past.

It’s a pretty good list, honestly. Having abortion rights on the ballot could help Harris in Arizona, Nevada, and Nebraska’s 1st District. It might also be enough to save Jon Tester’s hide in Montana.

Alternatively, check out Consent-O-Matic, which applies the most privacy-preserving features by default, and lets you choose more specific preferences. It’s also open-source.

I run Opnsense on a Proxmox VM (I followed this guide). I’m quite pleased with it. Opnsense is probably going to be more secure than any consumer router firmware, but you’re going to have to make a bigger upfront investment in hardware. I had never used Opnsense prior to using this system, and the fact that I’m running it on Proxmox is a huge benefit. If I’m ever about to do anything I’m unsure of, I can snapshot the VM in Proxmox. If my router config breaks as a result of my tinkering, I can easily restore from the snapshot.

I’m assuming you have a lot of flush-mount ceiling fixtures (aka boob lights)? My experience with them is that they’re very effective LED bulb killers.

The only two that have lasted are in my range hood for light above my stove. Those experience extreme heat and yet they are fine.

They only experience heat when you’re cooking, and are able to vent that heat to a large volume of air (assuming they’re not enclosed, or only enclosed by a thin sheet of plastic). The rest of the time they’re probably powered off and at ambient temperatures. Compare that to enclosed flush-mount fixtures, in which bulbs stay on for large portions of the day, trapping lots of heat in a small space for long periods of time. That’s a perfect recipe for killing LED bulbs.

If your house was built prior to LED bulbs being so widespread, it might be worthwhile to consider new fixtures that were actually designed with LED bulbs in mind.

Also, don’t buy no-name bulbs off Amazon. Chinese factories crank out shitty bulbs that are designed and built as cheaply as possible, and they will fail quickly.

The pfsense devs has acted like jackasses towards the opnsense gang.

And toward their users. Ask the wrong question on the pfSense subreddit or forum and expect to get lit up. The Opnsense community is much more helpful and inviting in my experience.

Pretty killer specs on paper. In my experience, these AliExpress boards have a bunch of minor annoyances that add up. Examples of those annoyances from my experience include:

• a complete lack of support after the sale (you’ll never get a BIOS update, or if you do, you have to get it from some dodgy Chinese Dropbox-equivalent),
• a lack of 4-pin chassis fan headers,
• outdated SATA controllers that don’t let your computer reach higher C-states, and
• non-standard CPU coolers that you’ll never be able to replace if they fail.

Too real.

You’re right. See my edit.

Report it to the FTC.

Edit: I named the wrong F agency. It looks like the FCC might be a better option: https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/articles/115002234203-Unwanted-Calls-Texts-Phone

If you do any business with Japanese or Korean people, then yes, definitely.

Is the 80-character width of early terminals related to the 80-byte capacity of punch cards?

You have to assume he’s talking about non-citizen protesters, but then again, authoritarians don’t let the rules stop them from doing what they want.

Lol, 6’3”. Only if he’s wearing lifts, which he does.

Shitty people raised by shitty or uncaring parents. Couple that with an unprecedented pervasiveness of misinformation—especially related to the medical industry—and you get people like these.

Sorry you have to deal with these a-holes.

<nitpick class="ux">

Why is this setting a text link on a page full of toggles?

</nitpick>

You might be able to find an aftershave that matches your fragrance. Alternatively, there are heaps of unscented aftershave options out there.

Yep, that’s a great point.

Add to that the fact that mainstream social media companies wouldn’t touch DDoS and CSAM attacks with a 100-foot pole, even if they contracted with a third party. Both of these attacks are highly illegal and would surely ruin a publicly traded company (or one that’s trying to go public, like Reddit).

And don’t forget Russia in your list of state actors who are threatened by the unrestricted flow of information. They definitely don’t want their citizenry to be informed of how disastrously their invasion of Ukraine is going, or what a murderous scumbag Putin is.