Septimaeus

Forgive me for not explaining better. Here are the terms potentially needing explanation.

• Provisioning in this case is initial system setup, the kind of stuff you would do manually after a fresh install, but usually implies a regimented and repeatable process.
• Docker lets you run software inside “containers” to isolate them from the rest of the environment, exposing only what they need to run, and Compose is a related tool for defining one or more of these containers, the resources they need, how they interact, etc. To my knowledge the only equivalent for Windows to date is Wine and its successors like Proton.
• Virtual Machine (VM) snapshots are like a save state in a game, and are often used to reset a virtual machine to a particular known-working condition.
• Preboot Execution Environment (PXE, aka ‘network boot’) is a network adapter feature that lets you boot a physical machine from a hosted network image rather than the usual installation on locally attached storage. It’s probably tucked away in your BIOS settings, but many computers have the feature since it’s a common requirement in commercial deployments. As with the VM snapshot described above, a PXE image is typically a known-working state that resets on each boot.
• Non-virtualized means not using hardware virtualization, and I meant specifically not running inside a virtual machine.
• Local-only means without a network or just not booting from a network-hosted image.
• Telemetry refers to the data harvesting apparatus. Most software has it. Windows has a lot. Telemetry isn’t necessarily bad but it is easily abused by data-hungry corporations like MS, so disabling it is a precaution.
• MS = Microsoft
• OSS = Open Source Software
• Group policies are administrative settings in Windows that control standards (for stuff like security, power management, licensing, software and file system access, etc.) for user groups on a machine or network. Most users stick with the defaults but you can edit these yourself for a greater degree of control.

Many of these concepts are IT-related, as are the use-cases I had in mind, but the software is simple to use if you pick one of the premade playbooks. (The AtlasOS playbook is popular among gamers, for example.)

Edit: added docker

Just a tip: if you must use consumer editions of Windows regularly, consider adding an automatic provisioning tool like AME to your workflow.

The example above uses customizable “playbooks” to provision a system the way docker compose would a container image, so it can fill the role of a VM snapshot or PXE in non-virtualized local-only scenarios.

The most popular playbooks strip out AI components and services (there are many more than just Recall) but also disable all telemetry and cloud-based features, replace MS bloatware with preferred OSS, curtail a truckload of annoying Windows behaviors, setup more sensible group policies than the defaults, and so forth.

I have a few custom playbooks for recurring use cases so that, when one presents, I can spin up an instance quickly without the usual hassle and risk.

even old data retroactively

My impression is that retroactive opt-out data grifting represents the lion’s share of user data sales today, and that it’s a popular strategy because it works.

The formula: appraise the data and find your buyers in advance. THEN update the privacy policies to include the data you want to sell. That way, the moment new policies go into effect, all you have to do is hit the transfer button.

After that, it’s done. Users that find and flick your new opt-out toggle only stop you from selling their data to additional buyers, and that’s nbd since data brokers only pay top-dollar for exclusive access to stuff that’s not already on the market.

It’s why I consider the introduction of any opt-out privacy policy an explicit admission of data theft.

Ah! Yeah it’s been a while but I seem to recall seeing alkaline batteries in a some freezers or refrigerators sometimes when I was a kid, along with other curiosities like rolls of film. No one ever explained why.

IIRC freezing accelerates the chemical degradation of lithium ion (especially if you attempt to charge the battery at the same time) and tends to lower both the voltage and amperage of most battery chemistries, but it seems plausible that this might

1. temporarily defeat a cell protection circuit, allowing a charging procedure to initialize, or
2. delay a thermal failsafe cut-off of a damaged cell long enough to boot or charge a device

Regardless, for those tuning in at home, best to keep your batteries out of the freezer, especially lithium types, unless spicy pillows are what you’re after.

Hmm, you’re right. At a guess, this field might represent the maximal combined interest of both scientific and pedestrian readership within technology research, since on the one hand energy density and storage logistics is the key limitation for a ton of desirable applications, and on the other most consumers’ experience with batteries establish them as a major convenience factor in their day-to-day.

Edit: you’re*

How are energy and power "loose terms"? Energy might be difficult to fully explain rigorously, but it's one of the fundamental elements of our universe. And power is just energy over time

Well, you yourself just provided the example, since your definition of energy and power are the inverse of the definitions used in the video.

It’s the fact that people use them differently or interchangeably that makes them “loose” IMHO.

He’s making a point about instantaneous versus overall energy use, which it sounds like you already understand. “Power” and “energy” are kind of loose terms IMO, which could confuse that conversation a bit.

But for anyone still scratching their head:

The typical energy consumer need only consider watts (w, kw) when accounting for circuit capacity. For example, if your hair dryer pulls 1600 watts, don’t use it on a 1500 watt outlet, or you will likely trip the circuit breaker.

Otherwise “watt-hours” (wh, kwh) is likely the metric you’re looking for when considering energy use. This is a certain amount of power drawn over a period of time, where 1 watt over 1000 hours and 1000 watts over 1 hour are both equal to 1 kilowatt-hour (kwh), which is the standard unit you likely see in your electric bill.

It’s why low but constant power draw can significantly impact energy use. For example, a typical laptop pulls fewer than 100 watts, lower than many appliances in your house, but if it draws that much power all the time, it might significantly impact your electric bill. Conversely, an electric kettle / coffee maker might pull as much as 1300 watts while in use, more than most appliances in your house, yet it probably represents a minuscule portion of your electric bill, since it only runs long enough to boil a small amount of water with each use.

Edit: include tea drinkers, add more concrete examples

you could at least

Note: here “it would be nice if” is more polite, since the least one could have done is always