Ex-European here. It is very common to overdraft your bank account in Europe. The overdraft interest fees are very similar to the credit cards here in the US. It is basically the same service but with a different execution.

Also let us not forget the rootkit malware Sony BMG distributed on their audio CDs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...

If you hadn't brought that up, I would have.

Sony should not be let off the hook for its offensive (essentially criminal) behavior.

I won't even review Sony's decades-long efforts to undermine industry standards...

Why not disconnect your smart TV from the internet and use [insert favorite streaming box]?

I use Apple TVs on all my smart TVs and none of them have ever been connected to the internet. No ads with consistent interface across TV brands.

Standard Notes is in the same position as Simplenote was 10 years ago. Automattic acquired Simplenote but never really did anything with it. Standard Notes was acquired by Proton last year and development has slowed to bug fixes only. I would be wary to migrate to Standard Notes.

The clients are open source but the server is not.

Do you have MacOS by any chance?

MacOS does not support S.M.A.R.T over USB.

Nope. I use Linux and I also have a great number of external HDDs, both from Seagate and from WD.

On all of them, except on the Seagate Expansion model, SMART works fine over USB.

Seagate Expansion is made as an external drive by Seagate, so it is not some custom enclosure that could have been incompatible with the drive.

I got 28 online right now according to my Eero. 3 people, with smartphones and laptops. Several game consoles, a few Apple TVs and music streaming devices, Ring camera, Zwave Hub, printer, washing machine, garage opener, Ring doorbell and an assortment of Echo dots.

You can turn them off.

I used to live in NJ and they sent these types of alerts all the time. AMBER alerts in the middle of the night, "Flash Flood" alerts after two drops of rain. It made no sense and I turned them all of off.

I live in IL now and I turned them back on because tornados are actually a thing here but also I haven't received any other irrelevant alert.

The whole point of the text was that you should not misuse public trust or else people will do that. It was only like two paragraphs...

How do you mean? Here in Illinois they are free. It was also free in New Jersey.

Well, they're not free (in dollars) in CA or MA.

They're never free in terms of your time, either.

(But note that I agree with the sibling comments by cool_dude85 & undersuit, in this case. But they are a regressive tax.)

I had a robin nest in my backyard close to my French doors. Every day one of them would pass by the doors, see their reflection and then attack it. Apparently they like to keep out competitors when they're nesting. They would at it for hours until I obscured the lower half with some potted plants.