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- AI imaging on Meta
- Opt-out of AI imaging
- Turn Off AI image
- Meta Muse
- Rufus
- VenToy
- BalenaEtcher
- Updating Linux Mint
- Check cheap USB
- How2Geek GDID article
- Tom’s Hardware
- Privacy is Sexy
- EFF Surveillance Self-Defense
- bbtl.ink/stats for more links

Breakmaster Cylinder composed and performs our theme music.
Make Work
This week on Battle Born Tech A laptop that only pretends to work, a Mint install that works better plugged in, and the Windows ID that tracks you for real.
Bette wants to make a pretend laptop for a laptop. We resist suggesting a Chromebook as a pretend laptop candidate but go a more crafty way. Lee wants his USB to turn his tired Windows laptop into mighty Mint marvel, and Brian discover Microsoft is surfing with us all on the Internet and sharing postcards of our travels using the GDID stamp.
We are in the studio Saturdays 9 am to 11 am Pacific. Call direct to studio then or anytime at 775-241-3571 and set up a time to battle your tech!
“Making pretend laptops for grandkids with too much screen time.”
“Calling in to make things NOT work.”
“It works better when you plug it in”
“Yeah skip all that.”
“Turn it 3 times to see which of the 2 ways it fits.”
“Now that should be a felony.”
“GDID are light up sneakers as you run around the Internet”
“Don’t recommend any of that.”
“Now that is the kind of surveillance we support”
All em-dashes — were made by the common number of human fingers on the keypad—ALT+0151—no A.I. was involved in their creation.

Carson City Linux User Group – Meeting third Saturdays at ComputerCorps in Carson City – carsoncitylinux.org
One on One Tech Help at the Carson City Library Wednesdays 3-4 pm Techbusters
BATTLE PLANS
with help from Claude.ai
Co-pilot
Microsoft’s built-in AI assistant, a chat helper woven into Windows, Edge, and Office that answers questions and drafts text. If your keyboard has a new key you didn’t ask for, it’s probably this.
Muse Image
Meta’s new AI picture generator, released July 7 inside the Meta AI app, Instagram, and WhatsApp. On Instagram, open Profile > Menu > Sharing and reuse. Under “Allow people to reuse your content on Instagram and with AI features at Meta,” turn off the Posts and Reels toggles. The feature has been withdrawn, but the general permissions live on and enabled. Consider setting your account private!
CMOS Coin Battery
A small, watch-style battery on your computer’s main circuit board that keeps the clock and startup settings alive while the machine is unplugged. When it dies, your PC forgets what year it is.
Firefox Account
the free sign-in that syncs your Firefox bookmarks, passwords, and open tabs across your devices. Mozilla officially renamed it a “Mozilla account” in 2023, so both names refer to the same thing.
Caveat emptor
Latin for “let the buyer beware,” the old legal shorthand meaning the burden of checking out a deal falls on the person buying, not the person selling.
GDID
(Global Device Identifier) a hidden serial number Windows assigns to your computer that can identify the machine across resets and reinstalls. It surfaced publicly through a federal criminal complaint, which is how investigators, and advertisers, can tie activity back to one specific PC.
Tuesdays 8 PM Pacific 95.1 FM Carson City, Nevada
Streaming LIVE on at KNVC.ORG
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