Collected this little girl on the 23rd
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aren’t ewoks so cute!
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Where do i start, been shopping around for a PD powerbank and got the Cygnett 27,000mAh (27,000 mAh USB-C Laptop Power Bank | Cygnett)
A lifeproof slam case for my iPhone 8 (I hated the fre case for hiking/camping/snowboarding). Bulky, but will do for adventure trips and weekends. I have an issue with phone cases lol.
Oh and a new Xbox controller for player 2 
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After much research and shopping around and standing in front of banks of TV’s in showrooms, we’ve upgraded to a Sony KD65X8500 65" 4K TV. Not the cheapest, not the most expensive, but certainly a major upgrade for our lounge room. You can basically sit there all day just watching 4K stuff off Youtube (thank goodness for unlimited internet).
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Speaking of Sony products, I ordered a pair of these:
The flyover screensaver on Apple TV was a hit on Boxing Day while music was playing in the lounge. People were in awe of the quality in 4K HDR on a 65" screen. It was fascinating to watch them trying to identify places actually.
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New shoes. I practically live in boat shoes. I don’t sail all that much these days, unfortunately. The last time I went sailing was in 2012 or so in the Kujukushima in Japan, previously I had sailed Sydney Harbour in 2011 with Pacific Sailing School. I previously learned to sail as a midshipman in the US Navy. That was only about 13 years ago, but it feels like a lifetime.
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I’ve only been out of the Army for 8 months, but it’s scary how long ago that feels. Seeing as some of my most formative moments happened during my time in.
Been in the process of purging hardware which had been seriously compromised by the PRC’s PLA, ditching Lenovo Thinkpad hardware and Apple Airport Extreme Base Stations were quite painful… don’t expect details on how the Airport Extreme Base Stations were mucked with.
Had to settle with a lowly Acer i3 8130U 15"(1080p screen) notebook mostly for the onboard ethernet jack and a DVDRW drive–price wise $379 back in August was a reasonable deal on a tax-free weekend but if I had seen it for sale($349.99) during Prime Day I would have paid $8 less even with sales tax. Bumped the memory to 16GB for $100 during the holidays.
My dad had preferred a 14" Dell Inspiron, main reason is the ability to disable webcam, mic & speakers in the EFI/BIOS. Normally I don’t shop on Black Friday week as most PC deals from Dell Business are “meh”, $399 was “ok” enough for a touchscreen model. Ordered a Chromebook 11"(4GB RAM/32GB eMMC) mostly to see how Android support works with ChromeOS, performance wise Android based programs fall into “yuck/slow” so it’ll be mostly for developer duty. (my Haswell Celeron era Chromebook with a built-in modem+data plan is still my trusty travel notebook)
Buying a Samsung 1TB SSD for my Dell Latitude for $169 USD in Nov was a bit early, wasn’t expecting SSD prices to drop so much in Dec 
I have no idea what you are referring to here regarding AirPorts, but am keen to know?
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I don’t know what “had been seriously compromised by the PRC’s PLA” even means?
Edit: I don’t even understand what anything in that post means 
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Me neither. Whats it all about…
I’m guessing the Peoples Republic of China’s People’s Liberation Army Unit 61398, “that has been alleged to be a source of Chinese computer hacking attacks.” As in, hardware and products manufactured by companies with a base of operations in China potentially having a backdoor for access by the Chinese government.
At least that’s what it sounds like to me, I could be completely wrong.
There was a security hole in the firmware at the time period which allowed hackers to modify/replace the firmware, Apple like usual hates to respond to serious zero-day holes and waits until a major group like Cisco’s security response or the gov’t slaps them awake. The major problem is if the firmware was “modified” with a spoofed current firmware version you wouldn’t notice unless running network packet monitoring tools with the Airport Extreme in bridge mode.
Keep in mind you’d have to be targeted for that kind of attack to happen.
You’re on the right track, if anyone remembers when I nearly got banned on a certain forum for hinting about backdoors(hardware/software)… that scary knowledge I knew since 2011 was accurate.
Idiot family member refused to believe me about software backdoors on Android, PRC got into an ASUS tablet(Android) to not only monitor/scoop contact list but to get location(GPS was built-in the tablet) which lead to local monitoring. They managed to get the UUID/IMEI of my previous iPhone in an attempt to hijack my phone via remote management certificate pushing(PRC is known for using cell tower simulators in the USA, my phone had many cases of dropping off LTE to a non-secure 2G/3G and completely losing phone service).
For the most part I can confirm this news article:
…since this is drifting into off-topic, I’ll post something later but I sense AppleTalk might get the Australian version of a take down request if it gets too sensitive.
Been a while since I posted…
Got back from overseas trip in October, walked into a local shop and purchased a new Honda Grom. I haven’t had a motorcycle for about 9 years or so. Always wanted to get a Grom, but its not so good with my backside on it in a 100km/hr zone up hill. Really looking to grab a Yamaha MT03 which might be a bit better for 100km/hr speed zones and inclines… Don’t want something to big, just something more capable. I might commute a bit more on it if I do to office.
Will keep Honda Grom, as my wife passed her pre-learner training and may get her learner permit tomorrow fingers crossed if she passes computer test.
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Purchased a 23" Apple Alu display off eBay for $50 on Boxing Day so I can go dual screen… only bidder - yay holidays… except the seller hasn’t answered any of my emails… Grr. 
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Groms sell very well and they look great but… not the most practical motorbike outside of the suburbs
Yes, still super fun though (especially if you didn’t have any bike at all)
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Seller might not be happy or could be on holidays…