iwanttocomment

Yes. The Apple Silicon Macbook Airs. That is it.

I'm not an Apple fanboy, but I am a fan of silent/efficient computing (and personally own Apple, AMD and Intel computing hardware that qualifies in that category) and it is shocking and weird that Apple is the only real silent/efficient/HiDPI player in the laptop space.

It's really bizarre, the American animus towards Asian EVs.

We can all complain about Trump's chest-pounding on tariffs, but Biden's largely unexplained 2024 100% (!) tariffs on Chinese EVs were even more restrictive and barely covered in the media. I'm genuinely curious about the quality and price of these BYDs and am concerned that we're functionally restricted from buying a normal consumer good from another country.

Meanwhile, Kei-car enthusiasts looking for a practical and safe pickup unencumbered by the massive bloat of modern US trucks are limited to 25-year-old imports.

(I personally own cars manufactured from primarily American parts both in Canada and Mexico, as well as an EV primarily from Belgium. I'm largely agnostic on global manufacturing, and I just legitimately don't get what is going on with US car tariffs and import policies, which seem restrictive and arbitrary regardless of left or right-wing US politics.)

Edit: Man, you people hate this comment and honestly I think it's straightforward and accurate.

Edit 2: This main post, which I didn't make, has been flagged despite being a reasonable post from a typical news outlet about manufacturing, technology and consumer products. Huh. What is up?

You are absolutely correct that I was reacting to the text you quoted.

This was because I was reacting to... the text that you quoted.

The small amount of text you quoted from the linked article was largely in opposition to majority of the article you linked to, which supported my position.

This is like a movie review that's like:

"The director had risen to the task - magnificent!"

When the review stated:

"If the director had made substantial changes, and the actors had risen to the task, perhaps one could say that it could have been magnificent!"

I've been around for many rotations around our sun, have greatly enjoyed dining out with credit cards for several decades, and I review my receipts and bills each month. I have never, ever - and we're talking thousands of transactions at this point - caught a restaurant billing me incorrectly after the tip is applied.

Not to mention, across Toast and InKind and several other modern POS vendors these days, I'm increasingly not signing a paper receipt, instead tapping my card and inputting a tip at a terminal the server has brought to the table or just using my phone. (The receipt gets emailed).

Maybe you're not in the US? (Although my experiences abroad has been that other countries were actually ahead of the curve in terms of tableside electronic POS, and/or that tipping was not a thing.) Is this a problem you personally have been facing?

If you're looking at tracking work expenses, all of a sudden you're up against Expensify, who have receipt scanning apps not at all unlike what you've proposed... and integrations with a whole lot of corporate billing packages.

To answer your question, as a reasonably frequent diner both personally and in business, nobody's done this because personally it's a very uncommon problem that already has some safeguards in place for many, and in most cases could be rectified by a chargeback, or in business, solutions are widely available.

First, the credit card company I use for dining will notify me via email if they think there has been an exorbitant tip outside of 45% or so.

Second, this would involve me taking a photograph of the receipt at the table, which doesn't seem like a lot as a solo diner, but let's just say that it's a weird gesture at the end of a romantic dinner or a gathering of friends, which are the situations where I'm going out to eat. It's especially weird so long as it's clear via either my credit card issuer's notifications or via a scan of my charges at the end of the month that something is up.

At the end of the day, I would expect to lose time and recoup zero dollars via this app.

It's possible to come up with excuses for any terrible policy. The presence of excuses doesn't mean in any way that those excuses are good or reasonable.

Why do schools allow phones into classrooms? I don't get it. It's as if schools in the 80s allowed Walkmen into classrooms where we could listen to music in class. That wasn't a thing.

Yes, our parents needed to call to the office to have us summoned (via the phones or intercoms in every room) if there was something especially problematic that we truly needed to be summoned for, and... why would that still not be a thing?

It's totally nuts that students would be distracted by their personal phones, and all of the absurd low-stakes notifications that occur no matter how hard you try, in a classroom.

They're generally considered to be safe unattended for 3-6 hours for a low-heat (ie, 200-250F) cook if they're clean, well-maintained and away from other flammable things, in the same way that a Crock Pot or low-temp oven cook might also be left alone for extended periods. For a high-heat "grill" (375-550F), I would absolutely remain present to prevent burning or a grease fire. They can be used both ways.

A high quality BBQ joint may have trained staff feeding their BBQs post-oak and checking in throughout the day for top-notch BBQ - and you'll pay for that attention. But can you get an A-/B+ brisket out of a pellet smoker in your back yard? Absolutely.

The computer-controlled pellet loading mechanism provides great smokey, BBQ flavor without the need to continually monitor temperature in person. This allows for long cooks - say, 14 hours with a brisket - without the need to continually check in or be present at the grill. It also provides wifi notifications when the grill is up to temp and when the meat is up to temp. Delicious results with substantially less work than conventional grills.

We've reached a saturation of totally cromulent phones and phone services, TVs, consumer computing hardware and even cars that make it difficult to look at any reviews as furthering any sort of story of technical development as opposed to some sort of lifestyle trend versus a technological sea change. The only substantive news is in the political realm.

Honestly, the most important new practical technological development of the past 5 years has been my damn pellet grill.

Relevant: https://www.hbo.com/how-to-with-john-wilson/season-1/2-how-t...

Encyclopedia Brown and the Case He Created for Himself Based on His Own Misguided Skepticism Where Everyone Turned Out to Be Honest and Accurate and There Was No Actual Mystery at All

Austin already had Cruise until Cruise operations shut down in late 2023.

I have such mixed feelings about the TI-99/4A.

It was our family computer. We rented games for it, and that was fun. I learned BASIC. I tried to create things with it, as advertised, and sort of only semi-succeeded repeatedly.

My parents saw that I was running into the limits of the system, and got me both the Extended Basic and Terminal Emulator II cartridges. I dug into Extended Basic, and was able to write "games" with actual sprites that could be manipulated! There they were, flying around, those sprites. That being said, these games always ended up being quite bad, and there wasn't a clear path for them to being much better. We were part of a users group, and the Extended Basic games others were making were perhaps more refined but also honestly not much better.

At the same time, Atarisoft were releasing epic cartridges for the TI. A strangely OK Donkey Kong and Ms. Pac Man, as good or better than on the other home computers. It was clear there was no path at all from whatever was going on with the Extended Basic cartridge to whatever magic voodoo allowed for the TI ports of these arcade games. (To be honest, I still don't really understand it, other than something to do with... GROM? Assembly?)

On the other hand, Terminal Emulator II, which my parents bought me so I could fool around with the TI's speech synthesizer, taught me about the need to connect to online services via a modem. I asked my parents about getting a modem, and they were like... "no".

My pre-teen brain was like "I need to buy myself a modem as soon as I can!"

I bought a 1200 baud modem out of Computer Shopper for mere dollars when I was 16. It changed my life. I got on boards, and then the Internet, before most - and probably you. I learned networking and architecture. No regrets.

But I still have no idea whatsoever how those TI programmers bridged the gap between my horrifically bad Extended Basic programs, where I felt I had maxed out the capabilities of the computer, and the magnificent games and arcade ports available via cartridge. It sort of haunts me. What even?

I know what Keto is. Your point was that carbs cause hunger due to glucose spikes. I've followed low-carb diets, both Keto and high-protein low-carb (the linked article is technically about TCR and not "proper" Keto) for years and years.

My issue isn't about glucose spikes (I'm not diabetic, and I'm still hungry without carbs regardless of fat/protein percentages). It's not about "doing it right" (I assure you I've done it right). The GLP-1 drugs reduce hunger in a way that I have never, ever experienced when merely controlling macros.

If you have a diet that works for you, fantastic. But there is an idea that one merely needs to modify their diet to achieve satiety. What I'm saying here is, for some of us, no. The diet isn't the issue. I know the macros, and I know how to measure and control them. I've been around for a few rotations and have successfully lost weight in the past and kept the weight off. There's something larger here regarding hunger, not a strictly dietary intervention.

I've done keto, and generally follow a high-protein low-carb diet even on GLPs. I wish things were that easy. Taking carbs out of the equation even over extended periods does not help.

You know what the GLPs do that a ketogenic diet doesn't? Make me less hungry.

If you can eat a healthy diet and not feel horrifically hungry, yes, by all means, do that first.

Estate tax is when someone dies and another receives an inheritance. The situation the article describes is where adult children are being subsidized by gifts from their parents, which is not in any way illegal, and is subject to gift tax, not estate tax.

The annual gift tax exclusion in the US, tax-free, is currently $19,000.

The lifetime gift tax exclusion, tax-free, is ~14 million dollars. So if a parent bought a $13M NYC condo for their child, it may functionally be tax-free.

There is no law in the US which parents cannot purchase property for their children but retain ownership in that property (until their death, in which case it could be transferred to the children).

As someone who has successfully purchased properties in major metro areas as a couple without the assistance of any relatives or non-conventional loans, it's a tough one. I do agree that parental gifts need to be taxed harder.

I've experienced the opposite of what's described here, where people truly can't believe that we've purchased our homes without the use of gifts from relatives or some other windfall. When we closed on our first house, I turned to my wife and literally said "how do normal people actually do this?"

The messages from PayPal usually do include that sort of "message from seller". The phishers word these to deliberately exploit the issue.

The last time I received a message like this it included this message: "Note from [Fraudulent Seller]: Fraud Alert: Didn't make this order? Call at [Fraudulent 800 number]"

And also the message: "Don't recognize this request? Before paying, make sure you recognize this person. Don't engage with this request if you're unsure about it. PayPal won't contact you through a money request."

But, it did come legitimately from service@paypal.com, and was almost certainly the type of issue OP is describing. I'm not sure PayPal can do anything here but rephrase money requests or invoices as "potential" if they don't come from a contact known to the account. (It'd be cool if they did that.)

Anyone can send a money request or invoice to anyone else via PayPal, which will come from PayPal's servers and valid PayPal email addresses.

I'm not defending PayPal here, but people can also arbitrarily send a fraudulent invoice to you in email, or via the physical mail, or call you on the phone as well. Fraud of this sort is by no means an issue exclusive to PayPal.

You can't assume that all communications you receive from PayPal are legitimate requests, in the same way you can't assume that all letters or phone calls or text messages you receive are legitimate requests.

This seems to be an real and important problem with capacitive touch screens. My elderly mother is often unable to make a touch register on recent Apple devices when a touch appears to have clearly happened and with reasonable force. She blames it on her fingers being "numb" but there genuinely seems to be a problem unrelated to her actions. (I've used the devices in question, and they appear to be fine. This is not an issue where she is not touching the device with her skin or a situation where the device is dirty.)

You need to sober up my dude.

As someone who has successfully tracked calories in the past with great effort, the trick is to be strict about measuring calorie-dense foods, but to be liberal with "lighter" foods where the calories are functionally de minimis. An ounce of olive oil has 250 kilocalories. An ounce of lean protein generally has 30-50 kilocalories. An ounce of green vegetables contains virtually no kilocalories.

As such, things like oils and miso can be heavily caloric, and need to be measured strictly. This is also true of most proteins and carbs.

Seeds and tomato sauce can have some caloric density, and should also be measured, but it is less of a priority.

Mustard, lemon juice, most spices (that don't contain sugar), onions, cucumbers (regardless of density) and parsley do not have any substantial caloric density and can be considered "free" unless used in great quantities. Nobody ever gained weight from mustard, lemons, onions, cucumbers and parsley.

As already mentioned, micronutrients like vitamins are not functionally possible to be measured in a home kitchen. If you're concerned about any decrease in micronutrients, simply use vitamin and mineral supplements. Macros like proteins, carbs and fats, on the other hand, can generally be measured using typical cups, spoons and scales, even with leftovers.

When making a meal shared with others if you are looking to strictly track calories, it is easier to break things into macronutrients and mix them on individual plates or bowls rather than cook as a total pot. It's much easier to measure a protein (say, 4oz chicken), a carb (say, a potato), a sauce and a fat individually portioned on a plate than an arbitrary stew. (As above, low-calorie vegetables likely do not need to be measured separately unless there are added macronutrients.)

Booze, cigarettes, gas (and car ownership costs) and all-night diners used to be affordable across the US.

These days, what's cheap? Internet access, social media, music/podcast/video services, certain games, fast fashion hauls.

An actual night out with friends these days? Not cheap at all. It's a rational economic decision.

1. I have, through the course of my existence, been extremely hungry.

2. This has been true as long as I can remember, since a young child.

3. Ozempic/Wegovy did not help with this.

4. I do not have a thyroid disorder or any other easily detectable medical issue.

5. Phentermine helps, for 1-2 months. Zepbound helps, indefinitely, but it is rather expensive.

6. I do not have diabetes, which makes Mounjaro/Zepbound difficult to afford. My insurance does not cover it.

7. This is not "behavioral". I am actually hungry. It is not purely mental. On Phentermine (for the first two months) or Zepbound I can eat normal amounts and be satisfied.

8. I have no other chronic health issues.

9. I have tried many, many other "diets" and food plans.

10. I have been wrestling with my weight for years and years and you would not notice me as being especially obese but it is because I have made a concerted and deliberate (and difficult) effort.

Something is up. It shouldn't be like this. I'm not a glutton, I don't eat for the sake of eating or some sort of emotional distress. Something is wrong.

No. There are certain scenarios that Sonos still handles well, despite the app issues of the past year.

If I drop the needle on my Technics 1200 turntable, my Sonos Fives spring into action. I don't need to load the app, I don't need to touch anything. It just happens.

If I turn on my TV, those same Sonos Fives revert into surround speakers into a 5.1 system with the Sonos Beam - again, without touching the Sonos app or any device.

If I want to create a playlist that crosses between my personal music library on a local server, and also songs via Apple Music and Youtube Music, no problem.

If I want to set things up for things to play on one speaker, specific speakers, or my whole house, it's got it, and allows me to easily adjust volumes between the various areas.

We got burned by the Sonos app updates this year. They really screwed things up. Most things, at this point, are largely fixed, although it feels like the foundation is shaky.

If there's another product that provides this level of flexibility... let me know.

Huh? Sonos has done lots wrong lately, but the Sonos One does natively support Airplay 2, was in stores for over 7 years, and still works with the current Sonos software as well as, uh, anything does these days. Perhaps you're thinking of something else?

Oh, so THAT'S why I have to verify I'm a human so often. Sheesh.

This is a rather misleading headline. New Fuji Instax square-format analog cameras (and it's hard to say that Fujifilm isn't a major film brand) have been released in the past decade, and smaller companies like Lomography have been releasing new analog cameras. They never really went away.

1. Know how to shoot a film within a budget

2. Limit the building of sets

3. Shoot in Hungary and get loads of tax credits

4. Also shoot outside the US to get around union requirements

5. Don't pay a salary to many members of the crew, including the director

6. ???

7. The Brutalist!