Ok, but have you used Linux?

idk, I feel like the phone and the mobile service operator could qualify as two different layers of scam.

Since it seems like most of the comments are along the lines of “haha stupid maga idiot 😂😂😂”, I’d like to make it clear that 404 Media is actually a pretty left-leaning publication which appears to be reporting on trump mobile from the standpoint of “wow, let’s see how bad this actually is”. Their reporting is mostly tech-focused, so this is in their wheelhouse.

That said, if it were coming from any other source I’d be laughing my ass off.

i prefer to do mine in the czech republic, personally

My claim is that alternatives with minimal drawbacks are going to be required in industrialized societies, yes, because plastic is very deeply ingrained in our industry, and has been critical to many of the advances that we’ve had in the last few decades (especially medicine and healthcare).

If we’re talking about just the food supply chains, that’s a little bit different because people are more willing to suffer inconvenience if the perceived health risk is large enough (because health depends on our diets). The problem is that the perceived risk, for the vast majority of people, is fairly small. Plastic ingestion poses chronic issues, not acute ones (mostly). This means that we’ve already addressed most of the more acute toxicity concerns, and the chronic concerns are going to require more conclusive data to persuade people to care now and not dismiss it by saying “I’ll worry about that later, we have more important problems now”.

That said, I never said we were “doomed”. In fact I think that we’re going to develop better and safer technologies, and plastic and how it reacts with living organisms will be better understood. But, I think that’s going to take some time. In the mean time, I think we’re going to start to go back to older materials (particularly in the food supply chains) where the additional cost is manageable. Plastic isn’t going to go away completely though. Not now, not ever. The best we can do is make it safer, and mandate other materials where it’s most important.

Laziness doesn’t exist. Everyone has their own struggles and it’s pretty fucked up to judge someone because they don’t choose to put their limited energy toward overcoming the obstacles that you take you’ve taken for granted having the ability to overcome. We should be encouraging curiosity and exploration, not demonizing people who got left behind and are too scared to try new things.

Being able to upload to Google Play Music was such a great feature. Honestly though, maybe it’s best that they killed it when they did. That way it can live on in memory as the example of what a music streaming service should be like… instead of becoming an enshittified zombie like spotify is today.

I did not at any point advocate for the status quo or claim that there isn’t mounting evidence that microplastics are toxic. Please don’t mischaracterize my statement.

I don’t think anyone is saying that we can’t get rid of it, but it’s not realistic to think that industrialized societies are going to give it up without alternatives that have little/no drawback, and that’s going to take a lot of time and effort to develop. I’m not sure I see that sort of thing being properly incentivized unless we have conclusive data on plastic toxicity.

While I’m not going to say I’m “glad” she lost, which would thereby mean that I’m glad that there’s so much more fear and suffering in the country, I think there’s some merit to the idea that electing Kamala would have just resulted in more of the status quo that people were clearly becoming disenchanted with and, perhaps, in the long run, Trump being elected sooner is going to ultimately result in less harm as people are incentivized to push back sooner and harder because they’re less worn down than they otherwise would be.

Really, idk though, I don’t have a window into the alternate universe where that happened. This is all just kinda shit. @DancingBear really should be making that point if that’s what they believe instead of being rude about it.

Hertz is the worst rental company I’ve had to deal with. Enterprise is the only one I’ll use if I have a choice.

I completely agree, but your point is irrelevant to mine.

Median household income is around 80k, which means that the vast majority of the population makes a lot less than 100k. I have little pity for the financial concerns of people who are having a hard time getting by with six figures, when so many people have to be content with far less.

I will absolutely still stand in solidarity with them against the ruling class who make things far more difficult for all of us than it needs to be. That’s not the point.

Asking me to have pity for the financial concerns of someone who makes more than double what I do (assuming similar circumstances) is like asking the average migrant laborer to have pity for mine.

I’m not necessarily against anyone, but forgive me for not having much pity for the financial struggles of a class of people that can’t manage to be happy with incomes that more than double what I’ve had to make myself content with my entire life.

Are we going to be saying that the struggles of billionaires actually matter next?

“Different” meaning “need to make payments on cars and properties that a poor person can only dream of having”? Look, I get that rich and poor all struggle… but can we not pretend that the struggles are equal?

Other comments seem to have covered the advice around checking insulation and system charge, so I’ll say that if you need to get a window unit make sure it’s an inverter unit; they’re typically advertised as ultra-quiet. The reason you want an inverter air conditioner is purely the efficient gains you get over a traditional on/off compressor; they use around half the electricity in some cases for the same cooling.

All of the U-shaped units from various brands use inverter tech, but they might be hard to find because a lot of them are rebranded Mideas. LG’s ThinQ “dual-inverter” units are also very good, I have one that’s served me well for a couple years and it’s very quiet. You can barely hear the compressor start up at all aside from a faint electrical whine for a few seconds and the sound of refrigerant moving through the system. The fan moving the air is the loudest part by far (and it’s not bad).

All of that said, consider replacing your central ducted unit with a multi-head mini-split system in the long run. For residential use they’re typically the most efficient you can get, and you have the bonus of being able to control room temperatures individually. A mini-split system uses inverter tech too just like the good window units. In fact, the U-shaped window units are just miniaturized mini-split systems in a rigid housing.

I drove for Schneider for about a year and the standard equipment inverter was more than enough for my computer at the time (i9-12900k, 2070 super). I could run the microwave at the same time too… it was probably at least 2kw.

But yeah, it kinda sucked not knowing if I was going to be docked for 30 minutes or 4 hours… it was always best to be able to get paid to play video games or take a nap.

I can’t speak for everyone but for me, I’m not going to sit down and play a game unless I can do it for at least an hour or two. Almost all of the games I have aren’t the type where I can just pick something up for 15-30 minutes and not leave completely unsatisfied because I couldn’t actually accomplish anything.

As far as actually having free 1-2 hour blocks? Ha. Yeah, right. I mean, maybe after work on the rare occasion that I can put off the things I need to do for a bit and the stress about them later, keeping me from playing anything for another 2 weeks… that’s the best-case scenario for working full-time and I don’t even have kids.

Human posting of AI-generated content is definitely a problem; but ultimately that’s a moderation problem that can be solved, which is quite different from AI-generated content being put forward by the platform itself. There wasn’t necessarily anything stopping people from doing the same thing pre-GPT, it’s just easier and more prevalent now.

Yeah if California secedes, fruits, nuts, and vegetables would get a whole lot more expensive for the rest of the country… something like half of our produce comes from California.

But didn’t you know that teeth are just luxury bones?