Yeah they are sneaky. You are forced to download everything.

Do a “manual search” on the Nvidia driver page.

Once the “Game Ready” drivers are downloaded. Uninstall the nvidia app (if it’s installed already.)

Now to install.

Basically for any windows software, always choose “Custom (Advanced)” installation, instead of “Express (Recommended)”.

For nvidia, the next page will show you 3-4 options. Untick everything accept “Graphics driver”.

Definitely ignore “HD audio”. It tends to mess up your sound (at least that’s my experience.)

and “PhysX System Software” unless this out of date or missing. Then you can tick this.

Then just your graphics drivers will be installed.

Obviously you will miss out on the various additional features the nvidia app provides, like auto tweaking game settings. But it’s always a tradeoff.

As I said above. Always do “Custom” installs on ANY software. 75% of the time you end up automatically opting into to various forms of telemetry, and at worst find your browers have new plugins, your search engine changed, and antivirus installed. It can be time-consuming to uninstall.

Hope that helps. Let me know if you have more questions. I tried to add screenshots but the Lemmy app wasn’t having it.

I use this - https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil

But obviously get opinions from other sources first.

It claims to disable most Windows telemetry. Some Adobe. But I haven’t actually done any testing to prove it’s the case. It’s a pretty useful tool. Just use the restore point option first.

Last time I tried this method of disabling Adobe telemetry, photoshop stopped opening after a few days.

For nvidia/amd, just install the drivers, not their tool suite.

As the other posters mention, try to find alternatives.

Other than that, you can try and block at a firewall level. But few companies make it obvious like: http://nerferoustelemetry.pleasedontblockthis.adobe.com/

I literally got recommended this AI band as well. Normally I can search: “X band AI” and I get results whether or not they are real.

All I had were 50 pages about the original band leaving Spotify.

I blocked this suspicious sounding band in-case it was AI. Looks like I was right.

Just as a note: earlier this year I stated I’d keep subscribing to Spotify because the recommendations were worth the cost. I was wrong, and I’m slowly starting my transition away.

True. All I can think of is that before it gets to Halloween shops have sold off most of their stock and are in the process of getting all the Xmas stuff out. I’ve been places where they have a Halloween and Xmas mix of songs.

I’m not ruling out that a few hundred thousand completely random people around the world all decide to listen to Xmas music around the same time. I just think it’s more likely businesses switching to seasonal music as early as possible, and streaming Mariah Carey 20 times a day, causing the big sudden spike.

Is it just a load of stores/shops immediately switching to generic xmas playlists after Halloween? To me that’s the only reason I could see there to being a sudden spike. This song is bound to be in most of them. But we’d also need to track other popular xmas tracks.

(I know there used to be significant music licensing issues about what music could be played in a store, to the public. Don’t know if there is some special Spotify business account now?)

As a person who’s not into the table top games, but loves the lore.

I watch/listen to a few channels:

WesHammer - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSDj6ttwzj2sr464jDdg_pA

He does a short introduction (on camera), then the rest is audio with relevant artwork and some video from the games.

Aside from the usual deep-dives into the various factions and popular characters, I enjoy his Grim Dark Story Hour vids. These focus on creepy (horror) short stories from random Warhammer books, where Wes does some voice acting as well.

The Sleepy Hollow - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC86zNGwCUt5gBnizRSWSLuA

Warhammer lore (and game lore). It’s meant to be for helping people get to sleep. But I listen to it during the day. If you do use it for sleep, watch out for the super loud Youtube ads that play in the middle, if you don’t have Premium or use Peertube.

There are a lot of other Youtubers that do good content as well, like Arbitor Ian etc.

The top two are my recommendations.

I thought my external drive had failed after about 1.5k hours of use. It would stop working sporadically, until it basically wasn’tbeing detected. Tried different cables and various other things. Turned out it was the daughter board that was failing. Swapped that with an old donor external DVD drive, and it’s happily working again.

Obligatory link - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_finger

Don’t let a Seal bite you.

“Seal finger was first described scientifically in 1907. It can cause cellulitis, joint inflammation, and swelling of the bone marrow; untreated, the course of “seal finger” is slow and often results in a thickened, contracted joint. Historically, seal finger was treated by amputation of the affected digits once they became unusable…”

1 - 100% chance of a metallic taste, that lingers after use. 3 as well probably.

4 is the only practical option, just need to use it with your left hand.

In case a few haven’t seen it, the link to the great video -

“I’m scared of rollercoasters. Can I get over my fear?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BdZPFzH2JY

I did return to my old flac and mp3 collection. Got Foobar working again, found a nice skin and I’m rediscovering music that I that skipped over. I buy second-hand CDs when I find them. I’ve managed to get a digital copy of all my favourite albums and tracks.

I will keep Spotify though. A long time ago, I got friends to share their Discovery and Release Radar playlists. With my own, I have a nice spread of recommendations.

I need regular new music. Call it a search for unexpected dopamine. Spotify still picks new tracks that I really like. I also like Spotify Connect and the easily shared collaborative playlists.

The UK has less alternatives for music discovery. I don’t like Radio, way too much talking and ads.

I’ve got rid of Netflix, Prime. I’m getting Disney+ for free at the moment. Back to physical for film and TV.

For now, Spotify recommendations is worth the cost of entry.

It’s not something I’d normally watch. Enough depressing things going on in the real world, without mixing in fiction.

However, I did binge it all in one session. Great acting. But the whole thing was a brutal experience.

Aside from the main story line, reminded me of how horrible school can be. I sometimes wake up in the mornings and think: “Yes, I get to go to work, and not school!”

So if you really enjoy a good misery drama (and that’s not me being judgemental, I just can’t think of a better way of classifying it.) Then I’d recommended it.

It’s Jamiroquai.

This video is for: “Virtual Insanity”.

The video to : “Automaton” is also worth a watch in my opinion.

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