Random Rants 94 I rant at the thread title and shake my fist menacingly.

[GenMarshall]

Ironic that I’m posting in a rants thread that I’m starting to get tired of being angry all the time.

 

[Samson]

More a rave, but relevant to what we were talking about here. Youtube's adblock blocking may be illegal.

Privacy advocate challenges YouTube's ad blocking detection scripts under EU law

Last week, privacy advocate (and very occasional Reg columnist) Alexander Hanff filed a complaint with the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) decrying YouTube's deployment of JavaScript code to detect the use of ad blocking extensions by website visitors.

On October 16, according to the Internet Archives' Wayback Machine, Google published a support page declaring that "When you block YouTube ads, you violate YouTube's Terms of Service."

In order to present that popup YouTube needs to run a script, changed at least twice a day, to detect blocking efforts. And that script, Hanff believes, violates the EU's ePrivacy Directive – because YouTube did not first ask for explicit consent to conduct such browser interrogation.

Such non-consensual technical interaction has been a concern of Hanff's for at least the past seven years.

"In early 2016 I wrote to the European Commission requesting a formal legal clarification over the application of Article 5(3) of the ePrivacy Directive (2002/58/EC) and whether or not consent would be required for all access to or storage of information on an end user's device which was not strictly necessary," Hanff told The Register.

"Specifically whether the deployment of scripts or other technologies to detect an ad blocker would require consent (as it is not strictly necessary for the provision of the requested service and is purely for the interests of the publisher). The European Commission sent me a formal written response agreeing with my position that such activities would require consent."

 

[dusters]

I found out that if you log out of youtube then adblocker works again. You can't post comments or use your own playlists though.

I have started using soundcloud with decent results.

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

The thing I don't get about allowing ads is, by paying for whatever website's subscription service (youtube, New York Times, whatever), you're essentially paying just to remove a pop-up. If you really want to put your stuff behind paywalls, then shouldn't you archive them as some sort of data file on an archive page? Like, why get ticked because someone found out how to circumnavigate this electronic blinder that you just put over people's eyes when they go to your site...?

 

[Samson]

The thing I don't get about allowing ads is, by paying for whatever website's subscription service (youtube, New York Times, whatever), you're essentially paying just to remove a pop-up. If you really want to put your stuff behind paywalls, then shouldn't you archive them as some sort of data file on an archive page? Like, why get ticked because someone found out how to circumnavigate your electronic blinder that you just put over people's eyes when they go to your site...?

They in this context is youtube/google? They think they will earn more money by blocking ads, that is the only why that matters. They do not care if it is legal, because the worse that happens is they get fined a milliseconds revenue after 13 years.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Does the browser make a difference? I usually use Opera, and the only ads I see on YT are the ones where the channel owner has a sponsorship deal (ie. Dr. Kat on Reading the Past is currently sponsored by History Hits, and Shadiversity is sponsored by Hello Fresh).

 

[Samson]

Does the browser make a difference? I usually use Opera, and the only ads I see on YT are the ones where the channel owner has a sponsorship deal (ie. Dr. Kat on Reading the Past is currently sponsored by History Hits, and Shadiversity is sponsored by Hello Fresh).

I am frequently shocked by how otherwise seemingly reasonable channels will hawk the most blatant of scams. Established titles and Masterworks are two that pop up everywhere.

 

[Takhisis]

I found out that if you log out of youtube then adblocker works again.

Oh! I never use YT or Google Search while logged in except in extremely specific circumstances.

 

[Arakhor]

I have my YouTube search history turned off and have done for months.

 

[bene_legionary]

Every time I sit down to study my eyes start to close, my mouth begins to yawn, and I suddenly become aware of how much my glasses are making the rims of my ears ache. How do people do it?

 

[Samson]

Every time I sit down to study my eyes start to close, my mouth begins to yawn, and I suddenly become aware of how much my glasses are making the rims of my ears ache. How do people do it?

I know what you mean. While I can only speak for myself, this is usually a combination of two things:

• Being tired
• Your brain deciding it does not want to do this.

The former is relatively simple. I really prioritise the importance of getting enough sleep when one is try to intensively learn, in particular studying for exams. Some people would stay up all night studying, but I would always prioritise getting plenty of sleep over spending longer working. I am sure it is one of these things people differ in, and you will have to find what works for you, but certainly for me missing sleep to do more work is a false economy.

The later is more of a problem. For me it manifests as a tiredness much as you describe as soon as I try to concentrate on some types of study, and also the fact that literally anything else becomes exciting when the alternative is this. One thing that can work is changing your study method. Are you primarily just reading documents? How about trying past exams, perhaps while allowing yourself access to documents? Are you trying to memorise stuff? Can you gamify it at all? Another option is segment your time, perhaps you can persuade your brain to do 30 mins of what it hates if after you will do 30 mins of something it likes.

These are the sort of things that help me.

 

[bene_legionary]

Mmm. I try to get at least 7 hours of sleep, of course 8 is better but I generally manage to wake up earlier than I'd like (6:30 – 7). I avoid sleeping later than 12am, but sometimes I get distracted enough that I'll be doing something on my computer until 11:30. I've never been able to stay up all night studying anyway, it amazes me that people try it and not run into my problem that quickly.

It feels like the second problem. I have lots of notes, and I've been trying to rewrite or condense them lately. However today was especially annoying because I thought I might do a practice essay for One Flew Over the Kuckoo's Nest, but when I started writing something I just couldn't stop yawning. I managed to start writing it just then and now I'm taking a short break as you say, it could help. But I need to abide by my own rules and I have never been good at doing that... It seems like I just decide it's more fun to continue doing something else when it comes time to study again, and suddenly it's 10:30pm and I need to think about going to sleep

Still, some effort is better than nothing, I'm happy to get a start. Thank you for your tips.

Edit: gahd damn year 11s in the dorm next to my room blaring music as if they haven't been told by our housemaster to shut up during exam times

 

[Tee Kay]

Some days things are really good but most days I pretend things are good and it's getting harder and harder to pretend.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Some days things are really good but most days I pretend things are good and it's getting harder and harder to pretend.

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

Edit: gahd damn year 11s in the dorm next to my room blaring music as if they haven't been told by our housemaster to shut up during exam times

This should seriously be reported to a higher authority.
I remember our university dorms having a strict quiet policy during exam weeks, although that might just have been finals week, I can't remember...

 

[Grendeldef]

Ironic that I’m posting in a rants thread that I’m starting to get tired of being angry all the time.

Assuming that makes you very angry I can foresee a catch-22 loop in the horizon.


Anyway, honesty sucks. Tuesday evening I bought my first lisence for any MS product (those included with a new comp etc do not count) and the result - my credit card was locked Wednesday morning. Apparently while being an official reseller of MS products in the US my bank didn't like the company so they locked the card for ~40€. As far as they told me no other charges or even attempts were made on the card but still, locked it was.
I got the card back to being valid with one call in few minutes so it was only a minor annoyance but had that been the only card I was carrying at the time I'd have been livid though it's nice to know that at least banks are pretending to do something about card thefts etc.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Assuming that makes you very angry I can foresee a catch-22 loop in the horizon.


Anyway, honesty sucks. Tuesday evening I bought my first lisence for any MS product (those included with a new comp etc do not count) and the result - my credit card was locked Wednesday morning. Apparently while being an official reseller of MS products in the US my bank didn't like the company so they locked the card for ~40€. As far as they told me no other charges or even attempts were made on the card but still, locked it was.
I got the card back to being valid with one call in few minutes so it was only a minor annoyance but had that been the only card I was carrying at the time I'd have been livid though it's nice to know that at least banks are pretending to do something about card thefts etc.

We have BoA CCs and if we make an atypical charge (according to their algorithm) we get a text that the charge was stopped until we say it is OK. then we have to "buy" it again. They are pretty good at catching bad stuff and hardly make a bad call. They have 40 years of data on us so they should be pretty good.

BTW, Do you know what is the keyboard combo for the Euro symbol on a US keyboard?

 

[Grendeldef]

Nope, but alt codes work the same so alt+0128.

Oh, I got a sms as well but it went to a phone a didn't have with me

and if it wasn't apparent from the previous text my original purchase was fine all along - I got the key I bought right away but sometime during the night the card got locked.

 

[Birdjaguar]

100€ Cool, thanks.

 

[Takhisis]

In many places it's just AltGr + E.

It turns out that there is a specific keyboard setting called ‘English-US with Euro on 5’ which actually makes AltGr+5 be the key for the Euro symbol.