VantonDrawgon

Now take this logic and apply it to things like ADHD, autism, clinical depression, and other less visible/divergent disabilities. You cannot think your way out of feeling.

They have a Global Device Identifier (GDID) Tracker that functions as a fingerprint for your PC that can surpass VPNs, proxy servers and countries. Although it can't survive a clean reinstall of Windows (it can survive updates), because Microsoft forces you to go to the internet and log in into a Microsoft account, they will be able to get to you.

Microsoft kept it secret and it was only found out when the FBI tracked a hacker thanks to the information Microsoft gave them.

You should be paying attention to this, and possibly consider moving away from Windows. If a government, especially the US government, doesn't like you for some reason, this could be seriously concerning.

This article specifically notes:

For journalism, activism, or domestic abuse situations, skip Windows and use Linux routed through Tor instead of a commercial VPN. A GDID doesn’t care which VPN you use, only that it’s still the same Windows installation.

Other important quotes:

What has researchers uneasy is everything else the case reveals. Costin Raiu, a well-known malware researcher, asked on the Three Buddy Problem podcast how much of this exists on other platforms, and whether it is linked more permanently to hardware. Matthew Hickey, another security researcher, called Windows “surveillance software”.

Two things back that up:

There’s no consent screen. A GDID gets assigned when you sign into a Microsoft Account. Apple’s advertising identifier needs an App Tracking Transparency prompt and a visible reset; Android’s works the same way. GDID has neither, and a Windows reinstall only gets you a new number Microsoft can still get back to the same account.

Then there’s activation. Massgrave, the group behind Microsoft Activation Scripts, notes that Windows setup sends hardware info to Microsoft and gets identifiers back, the same tokens later used for Store access and licensing: “It’s impossible to prevent Windows from getting a GDID without breaking activation and UWP app[s].” Anyone who lost a license after swapping a motherboard has already met a smaller version of this.

Here's the complaint filed to the court, the primary source for the case mentioned in the article. You can find mentions of GDID on page 30 of the document or 34 of the PDF.

I also made a PDF version!!

For comprehensive deets, tomshardware explains

To support yourself financially as a science communicator, you must produce consistently and frequently, and traditional economic wisdom encourages you to attract as broad an audience as possible, which pushes you toward being a generalist rather than focusing on your area of expertise. As such, even if you enter into the career with entirely pure intentions, the incentive structure naturally favors fast and broad production, which encourages things like AI tool usage and talking on subjects that you do not have the requisite expertise to opine on

ai boosters are always talking about "saving time" and "getting more done" with ai, and all i can think is, even putting aside the low quality of the output, what are you spending that saved time on? more scrolling? more typing to a chatbot? are you really taking back time from the capitalist machinery or are you just finding new ways to feed it back in?? the use of ai even for leisure suggests the latter.

human beings at seemingly every level of income are measured in their ability to Get Work Done, to Produce, to Churn. slowing down to smell the roses is scorned as being indicative of poor work ethic. hustling and grinding is the name of the game. and for people without much/any savings or class mobility, then the grind becomes their only choice. of course a society like that would glamorize, if not insist upon the necessity of, nonstop consultation of the bullshit-collage machine! your only worth is in how much work you do, not even whether it's pleasurable or high-quality or enriches anyone's life. in fact, making people unhappy is better for many businesses, because a satisfied and fulfilled person doesn't need to spend more money.

i do think the ai "industry" as we know it is doomed, but i also don't think the public execution of ai ceos and the total dissolution of their companies would solve anything societally in the long term. if it wasn't ai it would be something else, like a miracle drug that physiologically replaces a full night's sleep, or a one-ounce ration bar that contains the entire day's nutrient intake, or an instant shower pod that shaves your bedtime/morning routine down to 1 minute so you can stay at the office longer.

and that's not even touching on the deep sense of shame instilled in people for the perfectly natural inability to be completely self sufficient. no man is an island; we all rely on everybody else for something... yet it is seen as a failing to admit you don't know something, or to ask for help with any plans or processes, or to otherwise cooperate with other humans as members of a social mammal species. using the word machine is private and saves you from the intolerable indignity of saying, "i can't do this by myself." you don't need to have friends or make connections or maintain any relationships to get headpats and fluff from the word machine. where the hell did we go wrong if using that word machine sounds more appealing to so many people than real socializing with real humans???

.also, scale reference! just the wheel is 70 feet in diameter