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You can disable transcoding in the server settings or at the user level. Your client device would have to support the file being directly played of course.

I thank you for the information! However, I want to play devil's advocate with your sentiment.

Is his current content a scam? No. Did he rehabilitate? Maybe. Should former blackhats be banned from whitehat efforts? If that's the only instance of his ethical wrongs, I think I'll give him a pass. There was a lot of that crap software at the time. I never bought into any of it. A lot of people were scammed to a certain extent. I hope he learned his lesson. His sharing of knowledge is still valuable to him and posterity. Maybe we can get him to do a video on his softwareonline.com shenanigans!


There is more. For example his Start menu story turned out to be bogus too:

https://adamdemasi.com/2024/07/24/windows-nt-4-start-menu-wa...


>Distillation of spirits is a necessary requirement for life on the Aramco compound in Saudi Arabia.

How so? For medical reasons? For the facilitation of the Saudi Aramco oil production which funds the life and habitation of humans in Dhahran?

I suspect something was lost in translation.


Saudi Arabia is a famously dry country in all meanings of the word, there's not much fun to be had as an expat unless you make your own.

Why do you need to distill your spirits? If you really need alcohol, can't you drink undistilled beverages to have 'fun'?

Why would you drink an undistllled beverage, do you mean alcohol free ?

I remember being in college a lot of Muslim kids coming to our parties drinking alcohol because we didn’t care and asking us not to tell anyone…Sake is wonderful.


> Why would you drink an undistllled beverage, do you mean alcohol free ?

Many people enjoy drinking beer and wine. These are undistilled.

Vodka and whiskey are examples of distilled beverages.


Absolutely not

>North Americans probably have some cultural hangover from Prohibition about the dangers of small-scale distillation.

I find it interesting that you have this notion. I was born in 1984. The history books in school were still implying that home distillation was dangerous. "Rot gut whiskey" "bath tub gin" are phrases that continue to come to mind when I think of the prohibition days.

No one I have ever met in all of the different levels of society here have had any strong disdain or distrust of home brewing or distillation. By the time of my upbringing, at least, the general population in the US was content with the alcohol laws. They are not aware of how easy home brewing, wine-making, and distilling are. They are not aware of the post prohibition three tier system. They are consumers of alcohol not producers. That is what prohibition in the US did. "House wine" in the US is the wine a restaurant picks for cheap profits. "House wine" in the old days or in europe is wine you make at home. We, in general, lost that piece of culture with prohibition. It never disappeared in some parts of the country though. Appalachia moonshiners kept the tradition going in mind and spirit for the whole country.

If your statement was about other drugs, you would be spot on. Prohibition regarding alcohol was not accepted by almost every demographic strata. Prohibition of other drugs is a different story for cultural reasons.


> how easy home brewing, wine-making, and distilling are

They're not technically complex, but you need space and time for them, and producing a beer you would actually want to drink and bottling it isn't trivial.

I know one guy who moonshines for family-and-friends consumption, not sale, and I'll pass. It's not that much cheaper than just buying it (note: my state alcohol taxes are not that high) and it's a lot more work. I might make a batch of wine -> brandy from fruits that grew on a tree in my back yard if I had plums, just to say I did, but I'm not interested in making a big batch of corn liquor.


>Prohibition regarding alcohol was not accepted by almost every demographic strata.

It's very difficult to ban something when even the police do it. I'm guessing that the number of cops who like a drink is somewhere around "most".


The article is devoid of any meaningful legal language. It is important to note that this ruling applies only to the states of Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi as the fifth circuit is the court that decided this. That said, when parties bring cases to other federal circuit courts, they may cite this case. Frequently, circuit decisions can impact other district courts decisions.

The court invalidated IRC Sections 5601(a)(6) and 5178(a)(1)(B), finding they go beyond Congress’s taxation powers. The court’s reasoning was that these provisions amount to an “anti revenue provision” that prevents distilled spirits from coming into existence, since under 26 U.S.C. § 5001(b) taxation begins as soon as the spirit exists, so banning production eliminates the taxable event entirely.

Here are the official docs for the case

McNutt v. US Department of Justice

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca5.220...


I like the analysis of "necessary" and "proper" sections of this opinion. Hopefully, this ruling gets expanded to other circuits and eventually leads to the US Supreme Court ignoring stare decisis with regard to wickard v filburn and let it be thrown in the dust bin of history.

Sounds similar to the 'tax' power making it impossible to buy a tax stamp for a post 86 machine gun.

The Fifth Circuit tells us how the Supremes will vote.

Imagine there’s a bank heist committed in Fargo, North Dakota. Cops pull a grainy photo of the suspect off a surveillance camera. They run that photo through AI facial recognition software, and it matches with an innocent grandmother down in Tennessee (who has never even been to North Dakota). Imagine they just run with that AI match and issue an arrest warrant, without performing an actual investigation into whether the AI is correct… Angela Lipps was arrested at her home in Tennessee, jailed and extradited to Fargo, North Dakota. She sat in jail for months, with nobody even bothering to check and see if she was the actual suspect they’re looking for (she wasn’t).


In Kentucky there are approved vendors of these devices by the government. I do not know for certain, but I assume if they had outrageous pricing, they would no longer be approved.


Why not? The minimum court fines and fees and programs are often outrageously priced themselves. A 3 hour "Dont drive impaired" program with 30 people on it can be up to $1000 per person. What other service can justify a $10,000 an hour price tag?


It's $30-$40 a person for me for one hour. I have to do 10 of the classes.


It is $80-90/month in Kentucky, with a $40 starting fee paid to the Kentucky's DUV. So you assume incorrectly; their "approved" vendors are the same as most other states.

I'm legitimately quite confused about this reply in general, why did you assume I wouldn't be talking about a state like Kentucky? Did you consider that most states/courts mandate approved vendors?


I have a friend who would like to do it voluntarily, however, just having one on the vehicle increases your insurance cost.


I am an Intoxalock user right now. My device was due for calibration three days after the onset of this breach. I called the mechanic that does the calibration and they said they could not access the Intoxalock system. My device said I was overdue. I still drove it for 2 days. Intoxalock did a partial fix and the service center was able to extend the period for my calibration for another 10 days, but still couldn't calibrate it. I need to schedule that calibration now. It was a minor inconvenience for me.


There is a difference between someone like my grandmother who I've had on Ubuntu for years, and this user and people like me who are trying to do more advanced operations. My grandmother doesn't need to research for hours to open her internet browser.


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