Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2020 February 4

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February 4

Cable TV ads how do they work?

Are the broadcast to all the subscribers on at least a fairly large segment of the cable? Or can they be targeted to individual viewers? This is about Comcast in an apartment complex. My mom was recently treated for a medical issue, and suddenly we're seeing lots of cable ads about drugs and stuff related to that very issue. So much for HIPAA if these events are related. Thanks. 73.93.155.110 (talk) 00:38, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

The commercials are either nation-wide or local to your area. They are not individually tailored. RudolfRed (talk) 03:25, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Most likely the medical incident caused you to notice references to the same condition that previously would have passed by your attention. See priming (psychology). --142.112.159.101 (talk) 07:20, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

If you are referring to cable television service, you receive the exact same signal as everyone around you. It isn't customized for you. If you are watching programs on an on-demand service (like Hulu or YouTube), the ads can be customed just for you. They probably aren't, but they can be. 135.84.167.41 (talk) 15:35, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Force Quit doesn't show all open applications

iMac11,3, Intel Core i5, 2.8 GHz, macOS 10.13.6

When I go to Force Quit it shows some open applications but by no means all. As examples, I have MagicPrefs and uTorrent open right now, both of which are not (and are never) shown in Force Quit. Why is this? Is there a remedy? My Google search on the issue was not helpful. Thanks--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:49, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Mac OS hides system tasks and things that it thinks are background tasks from the Force Quit dialog. However it is it determines what are 'background tasks' (I've never seen it documented), it sometimes has false positives/negatives. You can still force quit them from the Activity Monitor app, or from a Terminal with kill or killall. 100.2.177.74 (talk) 00:19, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I explored Activity Monitor – very useful.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:31, 5 February 2020 (UTC)