Exactly right! there are a whole lot of after-market part suppliers for major appliances like dishwashers, laundry washing machines etc. Some of them have a parts list and assembly schematic hidden in the machine.
Many washing machines are produced by the Whirlpool group under different brands, so it's not surprising that they would have a lot of parts in common and thus also feed a large aftermarket. Import brands like Samsung and LG tend to be much worse on parts availability and service information (and according to some statistics, also reliability.)
NoScript is not about disabling JavaScript but allowing only white-listed domains to execute JavaScript. Generally, I trust the domains I visit frequently, and have them white-listed. I explicitly block domains of "analytics" and social networking services, since these do not offer me any value-added content.
However, if I follow a link to a domain I have never visited before, I will first see if the content is viewable without JavaScript. Most of the time, it actually is.
But sometimes the content does not render at all or the page layout is broken beyond recognition. Then I'll try "temporarily allowing" executing JS from the home domain of the site (I've noticed most sites these days bundle JS from 5+ domains, most of which are analytics and social networking services). For maybe 80% of those sites that do not work without JS, this fixes the issue and I am able to read the content. Takes maybe 2 secs to temporarily white-list and reload the page.
The rest are generally pages that make assumptions like that the analytics library is always present in the page JS scope and then crash when it is not, leaving the content unreadable because the JS layout code never runs. A quick peek at the JS console when the page is loading generally reveals what is the issue.
Sometimes I just ignore those pages, but if I really badly want to see the content, I can launch an one-off incognito window for the page and have the page execute with all the JS tracking and social network code allowed. This solves any issues for almost all remaining pages. If problems still persist, these are generally pages that are just simply broken – maybe the page only works with some specific browser, like Google Chrome (I use Firefox), to start with.
If you're using NoScript in the fine-grained manner you describe, and for privacy reasons (not just security), I wonder have you ever looked at uMatrix[0]. Same deal but a bit more performant, and also covers the whitelisting of other privacy-leaking aspects such as cookies, CSS, tracking pixels, iframes, etc.
I have use NoScript consistently for years and I disagree with you. Essentially the only thing NoScript does is make it so when you haven't visited a website before, it doesn't automatically trust it. For the most part every single website I go to needs to have JS enabled for anything to work beyond just reading content.
And even then, I would say 70% of the time, some critical piece of content on a website does not work with JS disabled, be it images or text or video or etc.
I disable JS on my phone, and I disagree with you: the vast majority of the text content web is perfectly readable without JS.
If you want to watch video, you're out of luck. If you want to use a web app, you're out of luck. But if you just want to consume text content, the majority of the web just works, and a lot faster too.
(I've never been able to get NoScript to work right, it's always given me problems. Perhaps part of the problem is NoScript?)
> For the most part every single website I go to needs to have JS enabled for anything to work beyond just reading content.
What percentage of websites is that though? Of course it depends on your browsing habits if it is feasible or not. I don't click social media stuff, I participate only if I really want to or if I am part of a community.
The majority of sites I visit are either regular revisits (rules are easily set up then) or random browsing where security & privacy by default is good.
I never used NoScript but am a bit uMatrix fan. There I can easily allow things. NoScript looked super complicated.
I've been using NoScript for years as well, and I have to disagree with you. Now that NoScript auto-permits the base domain (which you can switch off), I don't have to do much manual permissioning. There's the occasional bit, but really, 70% is a ridiculously high estimate.
Then there's the occasional 'funny photo' site which won't work until you enable 15 different sources - in which case, I just pop open Chrome if I really want to see that funny photo.
And then starts the crazy hunt for the one thing you need to turn on to make the page work.
I was trying many years ago to create a public DB/wiki telling us which things we need to turn on to get the page to work, but it got abandoned before I really started.
Since you need a DOCSIS modem box and a router, I would suggest people put a router box you fully control behind your ISP's DOCSIS brick, and just assume the latter is compromised continuously.
I use pfsense on a usb stick in a little box with 2 ethernets.
Which, frankly, isn't even a paradigm shift. It just means the transition from trusted to untrusted is in your living room instead of on the street corner outside in the cable box.
DOCSIS is the standard for IP networking over cable TV infrastructure. An open source modem can't be built because there's a huge certification / documentation fee from CableLabs and part of the requirements involve the cable carrier being able to control/update the modem at their whim.
Putting your router behind the DOCSIS modem lets you firewall the modem the same way you'd firewall the Internet at large - that is, an attacker who compromises the modem wins the ability to specifically monitor your traffic, but does not immediately gain free access to your local network.
Would it be possible to just fake the cert or generate your own, in the same way that some people self sign SSL certificates instead of paying Verisign?
Parent wasn't talking about SSL certificates - you need to certify both hardware and software and pay a fee and the ISPs generally don't let you run your own firmware on the cable modem - heck they don't let the OEM update it either.
The cable companies need to be able to push firmware and settings to maintain the network and avoid abuse. So they have certification standards and you need to pay to play.
For example, with DOCSIS 2 modems, you could spoof the MAC address and make some config changes and get anonymous internet access at the highest service tier.
It's a completely shared infrastructure from the demarc in your home to the local cable node. It's not very secure and pretty trivial to abuse. Remember this was an infrastructure originally implemented to distribute TV signal.
Because of that TV heritage and the way they grew (on a town by town franchise basis), cable networks were usually a patchwork of really shitty networks up until fairly recently. My (limited) understanding is that on relatively modern cable systems, there is fiber connectivity to the local nodes, and then coax from that device to the homes in the area.
DSL is a switched network of sorts, and provisioning happens on the switch in the CO. Ditto for fiber.
I was thinking the same thing. People who get hooked on the sport using a $100 board may eventually learn more about the details of the sport and purchase a $1000 board and develop a relationship with their local surf shop.
Fly fishing has similar cheap gear at box stores, yet still has a healthy eco-system of specialty shops.
Best advice ironically is to buy one of these $99 boards and try it out. Watch other people. Check out beginner videos on YouTube (I know do exercise routines for surfers from there).
Ah, and super important, is to find a beach that fits your level of expertise. Go online and look surf reports of beaches around you. For a board like the Wavestorm (that floats a lot and is easy to paddle in) in a beginner setting, you should look at waves around 1 to 3 ft for the first months. It will just be fun to fall (and don't be discouraged if you don't catch anything the first three or four days you try).
I go at least once a week now (sometimes three, but I have reduced that a bit since shark season started).
My dad taught me as soon as I could stand is how I learned. From there I spent every free moment in the water. No waves that day? Just paddle around. There is a joke in the cheesy North Shore movie where the character asks about working when the waves are good. The response was when the waves are good, no one works. No to sound all zen, but the ocean drives how many times/week you go.
I would definitely suggest taking a couple lessons to get started. There are some non-obvious things that someone explaining will help you not get frustrated. I promise you, the first time you ride of the face of a wave you will be hooked.
Lucid dreaming is exhausting. When I was younger I trained myself to maintain that thread of control as a fell asleep. It is an incredibly powerful experience to be able to command every aspect of reality. I didn't wake up rested though, it was the exact opposite. Managing both my own actions and decisions and the entire world I was interacting with wiped me out.
As a side note, it was much harder to learn to stop doing it, than to start.
I can't do it (or rather, it's happened maybe once or twice in my life) --- I don't have a strong enough grasp of reality! When I'm in a dream, I am playing the character in the dream, so any strange events will always come across as completely normal to me. Which means most of the standard lucid dreaming tricks won't work on me.
Interestingly, however, I do get another thing, which I haven't seen described anywhere, which I'll dub false memory syndrome: while in the hypnogogic state on the edge of sleep, sometimes my memory will change. I'll still be me, unlike with ordinary dreaming, but with a whole new backstory. Unfortunately I don't remember the new backstory afterwards, so all I retain are second-order memories; memories of thinking about the backstory.
e.g. once I was suddenly convinced I'd committed some sort of crime or other, and was wondering whether to try and run or resign myself to going to prison. No idea what the crime was now (I'd quite like to know what my subconscious was worried about).
This has happened to me so often I will occasionally think, hmm, this is odd, I wonder if it's false memory syndrome again? Which is a classic lucid memory trigger. Except I'm not really asleep, and I will always decide that it's not.
After waking up from the one described above, I was really relieved to find out that it really was false memory syndrome.
You should avoid lucid dreaming. It can fuck up your mind if it already is too flexible in how it handles memory or reality. False memory syndrome + strong, lucid experiences that mimick aspects of your real life (including relationships) seem quite risky. Neat as it is, one's sanity is a much more rewarding experience. :)
Used journals and reality checks like looking at mirrors to get started easily. Random stuff, flying, fu... plenty of fun for a while. Then, I got to experience what lucid nightmares were like and that kind of made me hesitant. Plus my mind incorporates new things into dreams quite like my thinking in genersl does. Example of how that sometimes went bad was seeing Inception and getting stuck into 5+ deep dreams I wasnt sure Id wake up from. Simpler example was doing a whole shift to wake up in reality for work feeling the whole shift (wth...). Just said screw it lol.
Trippy part is that dream "experts" seem surprised by much of this. They should study lucid dreaming more, esp under brain scans. Might learn stuff.
I agree. I got up to the point where prob about 50% of my remembered dreams were lucid and I was pretty good at fighting the urge to wake up and the uncontrollable nod back to unconsciousness. Many years after I quit actively lucid dreaming, I still had "semi-lucid" dreams very often and it often seemed like my dreaming-self was somehow less free and more attached to my waking-self because of it. ie; i was much more often myself and preoccupied with waking anxieties in my dream.
