Dran

Remote assistance is not rdp, it’s Microsoft’s support hook over the Internet, which requires telemetry to function. It is distinctly separate from, and not a prerequisite for RDP.

The rest of that I’ll have to look into, but disabling remote assistance seems sane in that context.

I wonder if other parts of the shutdown dialog or hover context menu have phone home functions that can only be disabled in roundabout ways; it wouldn’t be the first time. It would not surprise me to learn that the “which apps are preventing shutdown” dialog would be something that triggers a call to phone that data home.

I must be really old then!

Was backtrack before or after whoppix?

I’d say that the ctt winutil does a pretty good job. I’ve been running installs cleaned by it for a good year now without major issues

“simple majority” is a technical term in this context, it refers to any number >50%. In the context of the Senate, that’d be a 51/49 split, or a 50/50 split broken by the VP.

There are some procedural measures that explicitly only require this simple majority to pass; most bills require a 60/40 in practice because that’s the threshold required to bypass a procedural filibuster. They at the very least require a simple majority + 0 members of a body opting to invoke filibuster.

Say what you will about the people we’ve currently elected; I just stand by it being a sound procedural practice.

I try to keep my commentary as apolitical as possible, so what I’ll say is:

If you believe that the current ticket is the Cthulhu/Lucifer ticket, imagine what they could accomplish if every bill only required a simple majority.

There are a lot of moderates that are hesitant about AOC. She’s expressed ideas like getting rid of the filibuster, which would be great while “your” party is in charge, but is one of the very few checks available for a minority party to halt truly controversial legislation. The extra steps are kind of dumb, but the foundational idea that legislation should at least require a 60/40 majority most of the time enforces an idea of compromise and representation in almost every bill.

I would shudder to think what a bad president could put through if unchecked by the opposition party in an essentially 50/50 politically divided populace.