Ok. I Hope there were industrial secrets or some weird espionage thing going on because the premise of foreign intelligence paying a guy to burn down a business sounds like peak Zapp Brannigan.

Looking forward to “yes I admit drinking one too many and getting naked at the Christmas party; Russia paid me to do it!”

Plus, you know that a human body is like 70% water? If you’re one of those billionaire vampires you are going to be just fine.

I do. Right now I’m listening to music on my phone through wired headphones. I have too many smart things already connected via bluetooth to my phone: 2 different wireless speakers, an electronic drumset, smart TV, car, fitness tracker (I’m sure I’m forgetting something) and I came to like the idea of physically plugging something in order for sound to be played through it, especially if both phone and external device are physically close to me during the whole interaction, like with a headset.

Have seen that too. The canned press release from all of them is something like “as part of our continued effort to make the org more efficient we have aggregated tram X with team Y and as a result a handful of roles were no longer needed. Our company remains focused and confident in our growth”. Has AI taken over the PR department too?

From what I can see, this is not even about individual performance. It looks like a continuous game of musical chair where an entire team here and there is suddenly decimated or completely removed with non-existent internal communication.

But it is exactly because they’re cheap, widely available and work well. Before AirTags, I’m not sure where you could acquire the technology you mention, but probably through some specialized channel requiring at least some tech knowledge. Also purchasing from that channel would presumably look at least a tiny bit suspect, because you were purchasing spying equipment, not something that is marketed as a way not to lose your luggage

And I get it, I have never tried AirTags but they do sound great for not losing your luggage. It’s just that the illicit way to use them is so evident that it’s like those “face massage” vibrators

it’s not just phones or devices that need updates, though. None of my refrigerators, washing machines, dishwashers have ever lasted more than 10 years; I think the average is about 5 years before they stop working, get all rusty or a very expensive piece breaks so they are not worth repairing. Meanwhile all of my granma’s old kitchen appliances are still working perfectly after 60+ years of service.

Sure, it might be just that over-optimizing their production so they are more performant while being cheaper to make is also making them less durable, but I don’t see a lot of motivation from companies to go out of their way to build durable things either. And it’s not that I think Corporate = Bad; as you say it’s a cost/benefit thing, it’s just that the “benefit” companies try to maximize is their shareholders’, not our planet’s. It’s on Politics to create a legal framework where some of the cost to our planet is shared with companies (so they have incentives to make things durable/repairable again) and on us consumer to choose wisely what to buy, when and from whom.

Thanks for the additional information. I wasn’t in line to buy an iPhone 15 just yet; when I said “if it turns out it’s more repairable” I mean if it stands the test of time I might consider an iPhone 17 or 18…

I was as surprised as you to see Apple mentioned as supporting the bill, in the article. Thanks for pointing me to Fairphone, seems amazing!

So far I’ve mostly seen iPhone 15 panned for lack of innovative features, but if it turns out that it’s actually easier to repair (as Apple is saying) it would be a killer feature for me

I would be surprised if Whatsapp tried to implement its own version of Telegram’s, Signal’s and every other messaging app’s protocol to “talk” to all of these other apps. I bet they will provide an API to interoperate with Whatsapp that these other clients may (or may not) choose to implement, in order to send their messages to Whatsapp users.

In that scenario it would up to Signal (if they implement this) to choose how to display to their users that they are sending a message to someone who’s using Whatsapp, or to create options for users who want to disable this completely.

I agree with you, and that’s what I choose to think when I feel like the “best” version of me.

But there are moments (or a part of me) that has a way more violent disposition and feels differently about people who do terrible thing.

I’m a very calm person and not at all violent so please don’t report me to the police on the base of these posts… That violent part of me is small and weak, but I just think it’s important to acknowledge it because it’s also the part that makes me recognize that a rapist or a murderer is a person like me and that it might be me, with the wrong set of circumstances, life choices and frame of mind.

He mentions rapists and murderers. I choose to think that they don’t deserve to be given a gruesome death (or a death sentence at all for that matter) but I’d be lying if I said I have never felt that way when reading about some f-ed up stuff on the news. Maybe I’m also higher on the Hitler scale than I thought I was.

Shit, I’m sorry, it was insensitive of me to make that joke (well, half-joke)

Well, they probably didn’t do it very scientifically but if they could think of it and the tools existed, someone in history is likely to have tried it as a method for killing people.

Impaled people, for instance, could allegedly take days to die. Being slowly eaten by ants or rats sounds pretty painful too

There’s one called “life” that is pretty cruel too. It might take anywhere from seconds to more than a hundred years for it to eventually kill you and some.people get to experience a lot of pain throughout the experience.

Well in terms of certainty of flying, RyanAir is not worse than other companies. If anything they are a bit better, as I don’t think they overbook flights like other companies do and (by generally flying to secondary airports) they tend to be less affected by delays/congestion. I wish you good luck with your flight!

RyanAir is (in)famous for this type of shit. E-tickets are used everywhere, but RyanAir forces you to have your ticket printed on paper or on their own mobile app. If you don’t, you’ll pay 20+ Euros for the employee at the check-in to print it for you. I think these ludicrous fees are meant more as “fines” than revenue.

Whether you like RyanAir or not (and I don’t like them much), they are good at keeping their prices low by cramming as many people as they can on each flight as quickly as possible. This means disincentivizing anything that can waste them a few seconds per passenger, be it additional baggage (the base ticket now has no baggage at all, except for a small bag or backpack that can be placed under the seat) or, I guess, checking someone’s identity at check-in.

Well after seeing Teams that would actually be a decent line of defense… “we aren’t competent enough to build something that works as intended”

No, you see, we didn’t intend to ask…

Zorr’ak notes, page 2:

Earthlings’ nutrition consists mainly of elongated pieces of synthetic rubber. These can’t be fully digested, so consuming the nutrients they contain is achieved by inserting them repeatedly in one or more of the mouths that Earthlings have in different parts of their anatomy.

Zorr’ak notes, page 3:

Several attempts to feed the Earthling specimen we collected have failed. We are releasing it to avoid it dying from starvation

NY Post, page 3 headline:

Texas man claims he was abducted by aliens and anal-probed

I’m assuming by “need my rating” you mean “need to be rated positively” (and not “need my honest feedback so they can improve their product”).

If so, I do that too, but I think the article has a point that a 5* review can now be more like a vote of “I wish more people bought this/supported this company” than “this product is really top notch”. This is much more useful to companies than it is to other buyers.