Malwarebytes Windows Firewall Control may annoy me sometimes, but this is exactly why I run it.

It shouldn't! Fort just flashes the tray icon if there's a new connection request and you can click it whenever you want, instead of a popup in your face in the middle of something.

Yep, Ableton is why I have a Mac Mini on my KVM.

I liked House of Leaves in high school

The only thing I could think to build on blockchain is electric utility metering / settlements data, but I fear I'd be laughed out of the room at this point

You have nothing to hide given the current, reasonable definition of crime.

What if that changes?

Yeah, but I mean... pizza and beer...

Don’t…tempt me Frodo. I would use the pizza and beer for good…

The other difference, of course, is that the mechanic can just RTFM

Public buses existed before cellphones

So did newspapers, which served the same social purpose on the buses before cellphones.

You can certainly test the theory pretty easily with Wireshark

I was lazy that day. But today! I just used procmon, filtered to include "systemsettings.exe", turned off all the other guff and just saw network packet meta data (no content).

And yes, as you browse around system settings there are TCP connections to MS servers. I don't know that they are "blocking" though and have run out of care factor.

To expatiate with perspicuity:

The Apple ecosystem is a walled garden.