Sorry to say, both have failed me. On fax.plus I cannot register because the “Register” button is faded and unclickable. I cannot work out what causes that and what it expects.

Onlinefax.io lets you upload a file without using Google Drive, but then you must login to a Google account to go further. So I’m still looking for options.

We are talking about Manning’s history. It is proper to use the name of the time of the events. People don’t create new identities for the hell of it. New identities are generally created for a new life going forward, to be disconnected from a past life.

Europe recognises the right to be forgotten which is enshrined in GDPR art.17. Guatamala respects people’s wishes to establish a new identity to the extent of allowing name changes with no public record in a closed-door session with a judge.

Tying someone’s new name to their prior history is disrespectful. Some may want their legacy to follow them despite a name change and we might guess Manning is proud of their accomplishment, but it’s not for you to decide what people with new identities carry forward from their past.

Please respect people’s privacy. I know Manning’s privacy is toast anyway, but it’s still off to be part of the intrusion and then to ask others to also drag new identities through their prior history.

You also advocate historic inaccuracy. Exxon (a dead name) discovered climate change. Not ExxonMobil. You cause confusion by insisting on refencing new identities in past events. If you say ExxonMobil discovered climate change in the 1960s, you falsely imply that ExxonMobil existed at that time. But in fact the merger (and thus new identity) came after that.

What are you trying to imply? That because Bradly Manning used wget, that makes wget a threat? Manning probably also used Firefox. So let’s flag Firefox as a hacker tool too.

If any of those CDs require internet to install, they must have been later releases during the dying era of CD game installs. I have original CD copies of all AOE games and they dont need any internet at all.

I’ll have to get back to you on exactly which one I have and how it reacted offline. I just discovered that AoE is still making new releases every year. You must be spending a fortune if you have every single AoE game ever released. Or if you have dodgy versions, then those could be internet-independent due to crackers.

Using dd is important as you can flat dump every single bit out of the CD, including the hidden license information.

The fact that dd has no smarts about the media is exactly why it’s a problem. The copy protections are designed to ensure that bit-by-bit copies fail to work. They insert some kind of optical ”defects” which force drives to do some kind of error correction. A copy (image or physical CD-R) has a copy of the bits but not the defects, so there is no error dection/correction activity, and that’s how the game knows it’s not a factory disc.

Going by mentions of Windows Live in the list of DRM-free games from Steam over at Fandom/Wikia (link), you should be able to do a partial installation of the dependencies.

That link is a shit show… tor hostility, then if I visit the archive.org version the page is too fancy for my browser… all the useful info hidden. Thanks for the idea though. Perhaps I will do the dancing to get the info later.

(update) after going back to the archive.org tab, the lists are loaded… it was just very slow to load b/c the list is LOOONNG. I would like to get that dataset in JSON.

And regarding using the disc drive, you can dump the discs as ISOs or BIN/CUE files, and mount them with WinCDEmu.

That only works on unprotected discs. Warcraft 3, for example, uses SecuROM or something to deliberately put defects on the disc that do not get copied with normal tools like dd or whatever. Then the game specifically looks for the defects to verify authenticity. Hence why I mentioned Alcohol 120, which understands securom but strangely did not work in my recent attempt.

“Load” is vague. To be clear, the CD player is artificially needed to execute games that are already installed. Of course a CD player is needed for the initial installation step but that’s not what I was bitching about.

Notable as well: there is sometimes a space saving argument to be made here (from the era of these games creations), and sometimes not. Often all the contents of the CD are copied to the hard drive anyway, for performance. The forced presence of a CD in those cases is just an anti-piracy tactic. In cases where the CD spins during game play, it could be either way… a redundant check to bake-in the anti-piracy throughout the code, or to genuinely load more game content.

Indeed. I’ve hit this kind of page like 4 times now in the past few days, so it’s an emerging new piece of hit-and-run garbage that wastes my time. Perhaps it just replaces Cloudflare’s broken CAPTCHA pages, in which case it may not be not adding to the time waste that CF already does.

I heard a Canadian org is going after the ESG falsifications stemming from greenwashing. Might have been this radio show where it came up:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct6s80

The only Google anything I use is my email for ‘official’

Why is that? Most public services use Microsoft for email, I find.

FWIW, I boycott both; which means I am mostly using postal mail.

Indeed. And as well, even if growth were needed, Google is advocating for US growth at Europe’s expense.

Did you try eating the peppers after the tincture is made? I wonder how effective the alcohol-based extraction is… if there is any residual capsaicin left in the peppers.

Walker argues that the market moves faster than legislation and warns that regulatory friction will only leave European consumers and businesses behind in what he calls “the most competitive technological transition we have ever seen.” … Kent Walker suggested that this initiative would stifle innovation and deny people access to the “best digital tools.”

The irony. Is the EU going to fall for this? Or does the EU realise that copyright is in fact the “regulatory friction” that “stifles innovation”?

According to Google, the idea of replacing current tools with open-source programs would not contribute to economic growth.

Does Europe need growth?

And either way, how does making public service more costly by way of licensing fees increase growth in Europe? The license costs could instead be spent funding more European public workers. That’s growth, no?

Google is advocating for US growth at Europe’s expense.

Walker suggested that American companies could collaborate with European firms to implement measures ensuring data protection.

Closed-source software processes data non-transparently, thus compromising GDPR art.5. It’s also a shitty loophole around the GDPR, because when you run a closed-source app, you are technically the one processing the data.

It’s a hole in the GDPR that FOSS fixes.

Graphic of some of JP Morgan’s wrongdoing:

I bought some cola flavored candy and cola popsicles recently. Both had a hint of mint or eucaliptus or something fresh and penetrating like that… I wondered if that was part of the cola ingredient or if it was added.

I think a surveillance advertiser known as “Microsoft Corporation” acquired OpenAI. If chatgpt works for an advertiser, then it’s working to manipulate people into buying shit they don’t need, which is obviously not good for the environment.

Green chili beer is a thing in New Mexico. I tried some a long time ago, back in the days when decent beer was still non-existent in the states. And it was quite nice. So if you ever pass through NM then it’d be worthwhile to see if any breweries would share their knowledge.

(edit) I also tried red chili beer from the same brewery. The green chili was much better, which is also what I find with chili in food.

Looks like a couple good finds there. The 2nd one put me off at 1st w/an apparent dependency on Google drive, but after clicking forward it’s clear that we can skip Google and do a direct upload.

Thanks for the links!

It last worked in 2024. Throughout 2025 it presents the forms, accepts the document, then gives an instant permission denied when sending. Tried creating a new acct and same problem.

It’s something boycotters of Microsoft use to communicate to MS-hosted agencies to avoid supplying recipients with an email address. It gives us control over what MS is allowed to see.

It also channels money better. The recipient who needs to respond is forced to support the postal service instead of Microsoft.