Let’s say you want to talk to your friend. You have several protocols, Phone, Mail, Email, SMS, or maybe something stranger, like smoke signals or memes. Each protocol needs a different port.

Your friend doesn’t answer phone calls or check VMs. The ‘port’ for phone calls is blocked. Nothing gets in through here.

Your friend only accepts email from certain addresses, like protonmail. This port is filtered. Only known things get in through here.

Your friend accepts any texts if they begin with the secret pass phrase. This port is open and filtered. Few unknown things get in through here.

Your friend accepts all postage. This port is open. Anything can get in through here. HTTP or HTTPS, your browser.

The VPN is sort of like an opaque tunnel you run from your house alongside public roads to some place you feel safe exiting, And then the usual steps in communicating. All of the communication has to go through the exit point back to the house.

If this kind of thing interests you, have a basic book for free. https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/353

You’re right.

Though anti-theist is an umbrella term that includes opposition to religion, not just belief in god. Which includes believing religions are harmful. As it isn’t a regulated religious body, the term is rather loose and not stringently defined. I personally believe it’s better to distinguish the faithful from the non-worshipful.

As opposed to dytheism, which typically holds god may be, or is, malicious and should still be worshiped. Though dytheism is not exclusively faithful, the term connotes faith more often than simple agreement god is evil.

Philosophical, not logical. The actual axiom is still 'god exists."

Defining what god must be, rather than defining what would qualify as a god, assumes there is such a thing as god.

Example: The cat god is a being that is a better cat than any other imaginable cat.

Compared to: A god would be all-powerful. This being, x, is all-powerful. Therefore, x is a god.

Compared to: There exists a cat better than any other cat. This cat, being greater than all others must be the god of cats. (Does this qualify as an omnipotent ‘god’? No, but at least the cat is provable.

Defining what’s good is good.

Adam and Eve were canonically cast from heaven for being able to define good and evil.

Status screen. Yes. Also, mini-maps, appraisal skills, and chat history.

Knowledge is power.

Anti-theist.

No, not a professional anyhow. We’re all teachers of one kind or another.

I consider myself a hacker of the classical variety. Not a cracker, but someone who is driven to understand something until the puzzle pieces fall together elegantly. You can do all of this yourself, if you can make it through a decent chemistry book. Look for “A Molecular Approach”, Tro teaches the subject well.

Once you get to the point of understanding catalysis, you can make a detonation out of just about anything. After you can solve chemistry problems, all it really takes is a written reaction 2H + O = H₂O to give you an idea of how you might go about making said reactions. The composition of Semtex is public knowledge, just ask Wikipedia.

It was all in the name of fun… mostly. It was also one of the most memorable teaching experiences.

I thought I mentioned smoke bombs, but apparently not. They were a good litmus test to see if the boy could keep a secret. Following which were: Dry ice bombs. Thermite, Elephant Toothpaste. Napalm. Hydrogen gas explosions. (If you see a plastic bottle on your lawn filled with blue liquid, do NOT disturb. Call the non emergency police line.) Nitrogen explosions. (See 2020 Beirut explosion for visuals.) And a few other unmentionables that are much too easy to manufacture, one of which I saw in another’s answer.

RDX (Royal Demolition eXplosive) is the oomph behind the plastic explosive C-4. It is slightly more explosive than C-4, because it hasn’t been stabilized by anything.

All ended well and mostly good. Unfortunately I think I assisted the boy is believing breaking the law was fine so long as you don’t get caught. Now I can’t look at chemical formulae without my heart starting to pick up the pace. However, there were no injuries, no actual close calls except the spilled water when we started the dry ice. Following which the boy sat through several intensive lessons each on operations security, command structure and discipline, distractions, and safety. We learned safely, which is all that matters in the end.

Fire is chemistry.

I like this answer better than mine.

Ah, forgive me. I’m referring to the latest and most miserable versions. 10 will noticeably prevent results in the search area, if the machine doesn’t power off and is not updated for too long. Among other things. It takes around a week of ignoring an update.

It’s likely much the same with 11.

My great nephew as a teenager ran afoul of an old-school BBS archive website. He was certain it would be good fun to make a few incendiaries, Despite my attempts to dissuade him, he began to hide his enthusiasm, which had me worried he’d do it on his own. I figured it’d be wiser (and safer) to have someone with a bit of chemistry knowledge around when he tried doing dumb things.

We started small. I purchased some dry ice. Thermite was too boring. Elephant toothpaste was cool at first. Some petrol with polystyrene mixed in. Aluminium and acid cleaner. Then onto fertiliser tennis balls.

We eventually worked our way up to the Taj Mahal… Cyclonite. Hexogen. RDX. Unstable as the devil and more volatile than nitrated toluene, or TNT. The chemistry was very simple, but ridiculously foolish. I consider it advanced only due to the difficulty in ensuring we didn’t get to visit a hospital or get a visit from the bobbies.

Never again. It took several days because I multiplied the recipe, like a dunce. We should’ve just made TNT, it would’ve been safer, but he persisted and I indulged.

The night before the big day. At this point, we’d been faffing around a dangerous line for almost ten months, whenever he managed to wrangle some free time for more mischief. I’d managed to extract a promise, this was to be the last of it until after his national service. He agreed. Keeping it in the boot of the car had me especially anxious,and until we saw the detonation, I felt like a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. The detonations in a desolate field were gratifyingly lovely though. He got the final trigger on an over sized charge, and his grin was worth the heartache.

He’s a pharmacist now.

or blocked updates

This in particular. Windows intentionally destabilises itself if you prevent it from updating or powering off when it realises there is an update available.

This could be non-malicious, such as refusing to collect spyware reports from a potentially infected box, and the box needs to connect to MS to function properly, It could be a tool to force people to “reboot to solve your issues”. Hard to tell without running afoul of the Computer Misuse Act.

To rest your phone on your chest in bed.

Which is only likely to last one year anyways. After which, you can pay an exorbitant amount to replace the degrading glue. I’d just like my wired headphones back, the jack will last longer than a year at the very least.

I like ‘Glinux d’, the g is mostly silent, the d is not.

I have never been so ecstatic to be slow in commenting. Redox is awesome. But I’ll wait until it’s competitive with Debian’s stability to adopt.

Redox OS suffers from this, despite promising fewer BSODs.

Reverse Engineering Software.

It’s been on my bucket lists for ages, but I never found the time. I’ve stuck my thumb into numerous tech pies, but I’ve never finished a crack me. I’ve done binary patching to skip bunches of code to call other code, but that’s not quite the same.

Metal casting.

I have some steel and aluminum cans and a 3-D Printer. I’m good at blender, FreeCAD, and tweaking prints, but I haven’t setup a foundry to make some solid metal parts. Yet. But I’m pretty sure I want to.

I found a good opportunity elsewhere.

My friend asked me to apply for a position they say has better career prospects.

America is hiring remote workers at better salaries.

Something unchangeable at this company reminds me of my dead dog and it’s been killing me for years.

I’m sorry I caused you to feel that way.

From my perspective I had expectations I was speaking with someone who had intensely considered a governing system they were fond of and were intimate with its faults. Instead, I’m rather put out to be speaking with flashes of inspiration, as rapidly as they can form, to justify or mitigate any shortcomings.

While I might enjoy acting as a sounding board when expected, I’m feeling rather disappointed this wasn’t a debate.

Debating may be the purest form of sharing and refining ideas. My comment was not out of malice, but I apologise for the rude response and letting my emotions get the better of me.