yabatopia

Why would China buy Russian gold? They don't really need to. I doubt the Chinese government wants to get evolved in such a risky endeavor,possibly facing sanctions or losing goodwill, just to get some gold at a discount.

> Russia is way richer

I was surprised to learn that the GDP of Russia is barely higher than the combined GDP of Luxembourg, Belgium an the Netherlands, three relatively small EU countries. Russia is a big country, has a large population, a populous army, but is relatively poor. War is expensive.

I prefer to call them MetHeads.

Firefox + uBlock Origin. Or any other browser with built-in ad blocking like Brave or Vivaldi, probably the best solution for non-techie friends or relatives.

> Whatever the case may be, I'm sure it's going to turn out to be something completely worthless to me.

You're probably right. Here's their vision of the future: https://www.future.1password.com/

It screams CORPORATE. Not a single mention of family or single user. It's all about business security, safely sharing data, protecting your company, etc.

In my case, the first clue came by accident. The MD asked my to hold my arms up and after a short time it became really painful and intolerable. Another one rest is taking your pulse by hand while holding up your the arm. If the pulse is pretty weak, hard to feel or completely disappears, that’s a strong indication for TOS.

An electromyography or EMG is also often used to determine neuromuscular problems or nerve damage.

A MRI scan can also reveal TOS problems, but the medical technicians must be familiar with it the tests and and execute them correctly. In my case the MRI scan was negative, probably because the test was only partially done (in hindsight).

For me, the real confirmation came after an extensive arterial duplex ultrasound examination at a university hospital. Various head rotations, arm and shoulder positions were examined. In some positions the arterial flow in my arm completely disappeared. The examining specialist physician, a professor of medicine and specialised in TOS, called it one of the most clear cut cases of TOS he has ever seen in his career.

Based on the MRI scan there were some serious doubts that TOS was the problem, bus the ultrasound tests made it perfectly clear. It’s shows that it is really important that you consult doctors or surgeons very familiar with Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. Search on the internet for recommendations or specialised medical departments.

Best of luck!

I would definitely recommend a sit-stand desk. Variation is key. Try to figure out if holding your shoulders up or down makes things worse and adjust your arm support accordingly. A good desk chair can help, with adjustable or removable arm support. You can try out different ergonomic keyboards or mice, but that can get pretty expensive, with no guaranteed results (and lots of frustration). Look on eBay for used ones or find a vendor with an extended return policy.

Take enough breaks, no matter what. Take a walk, no matter how short. Get the blood and nerve signals in your arms flowing.

Switch between desktop, laptop or tablet during the day. Use them for specific tasks (like reading mails on your tablet, development or content creation on your desktop and casual browsing on your laptop.

But I’m pretty sure you’re already familiar with most of my advice.

I had severe pain in my fingers, hands, arms, shoulders, neck and head. Back pain came only in a later stage.

For my pain in hands, arms and fingers, the root of the problem was thoracic outlet syndrome. Exercises and physical therapy didn’t help, so the only option left was a rib resection, the removal of the first rib on my left and right side. It’s better now, but unfortunately years of compression of the nerves an blood vains resulted in permanent nerve damage.

Unfortunately the second rib resection caused a severe brachial plexus injury, resulting in extreme pain, weakness and the inability to use my left arm for several months. I couldn’t hold a glass of water, grap a small object or lift a pen above my shoulder. It took about 18 to 24 months of intense physical therapy to partially (80-90%) recover from that.

For my neck pain the remedy was an anterior cervical discectomy and fusion, surgery to remove a degenerative disc in the neck. I still have headaches on a regular basis, occipital neuralgia to be precise, 3 or 4 times a month. Pain killers and laying down in a dim or dark room for 18 to 36 hours (in bad cases) helps.

And for my back pain I’m on a steady schedule of 5 to 6 Radiofrequency Facet Joint Denervations a year, supplemented with 2 or 3 epidural infiltrations to counter radiating pain in my right leg. After 4 or 5 months the positive effects of the denervation gradually decreases. In that case I can use a medical TENS unit to treat the pain.

And, of course, painkillers: the extended-release form of tramadol.

And it all started with some pain or inflammation in my right wrist, easily fixable with an ergonomic mouse, keyboard or better posture, right?

Did your doctors or therapists consider Thoracic Outlet Syndrome? I've struggled with severe pain in shoulders, arms, hands and fingers for several years. It was sort of discovered by accident. They removed both of my first ribs (rib resection) and in combination with a Kinesis keyboard and a Wacom pen and tablet as a mouse replacement it's much better now.

Unfortunately, the solution came a bit late. The strain on my nerves and blood vessels caused by the thoracic outlet syndrome has damaged my arm nerves. And after the second rib resection, the one on the left side, my plexus brachialis got severely damaged. It took nearly 2 years to partially recover. My left arm gets tired very fast in certain positions, my left thumb is partially numb and sleeping on my left shoulder can be painful.

I can't image how much worse it would be without my Kinesis Advantage keyboard and my Wacom Bamboo tablet. Using another computer or laptop with an normal keyboard, touchpad or mouse, is hell. An iPad Pro with a pencil (and a tablet stand to hold the tablet) is much better.

There's a link at the end of the article to a list of all the newspapers and their owners.

Just because it's back, you don't have to use it again.

It’s like watching a hostage over-analysing why the abductor forgot to lock the door. Just get out en enjoy your newfound, albeit temporary, freedom.

"Appears to be _mostly_ a mediagenic phenomenon: the driver shortage caused a few stations to run out".

I believe it's more serious than just a mediagenic phenomenon, with only a few stations affected. From The Guardian: "Ministers are considering a range of options after BP said a third of its petrol stations had run out of the main two grades of fuel, while the Petrol Retailers Association (PRA), which represents almost 5,500 independent outlets, said 50% to 90% of its members had reported running out. It predicted the rest would soon follow." (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/27/eu-lorry-dr...)

Weapons of grass destruction.

As a longtime user of Firefox for Mobile, the add-on massacre a few months go pushed me over the edge. Now I switch between Vivaldi (syncs with the the desktop, decent built-in add blocking, sadly no support for extensions) and Kiwi Browser (supports desktop Chrome extensions, including uBlock Origin).

Vivaldi on desktop. On Android switching between Vivaldi (sadly no support for extensions) and Kiwi Browser (supports extensions). The add-on massacre on Firefox for Mobile a few months ago pushed me over the edge.

But in this case, his parents broke the toy, not him.

It was received as a typical Stock, Aitken and Waterman product, very, very, very similar to Jason Donovan, Mel&Kim, Kylie Minogue and the likes. It was like a train of one hit wonders: one smash hit, a few less popular songs and then forgotten. By the end of the eighties, most people had enough of the Stock, Aitken and Waterman formula. And then for some reason, Rickrolling happened.

Since Rick Astley was a Stock, Aitken and Waterman product, not that much, I'm afraid. Stock, Aitkan and Waterman are the writers - and most likely have other credits related tot the song, so most of the money goes to them.

He has no problem naming and blaming (incorrectly) Google, but cites privacy reasons for not revealing the name of the carrier. What could be the privacy implications if he revealed the carrier?

It is unconscionable in 2021 that gender stereotypical examples to point out gender stereotypes can still exist. Did you know that just 2.3% of United States preschool and kindergarten teachers are men? Why is nobody talking about this gross inequality? Right from the start, when our little humans are the most vulnerable and influenceable, they are denied gender balanced care, examples and behaviours. How many young boys have been discouraged and had their dreams of helping their communities in this way denied?

Charge for it, like any other product. Opera used to do it, a long time ago. I think it was about $40 for a license.

Just imagine how boring the web would have been without Flash - at that time. Or did you prefer crashing Java applets? Yes, you had the annoying unskippable intros, but some jaw dropping websites were made with Flash, something you barely see these days. I still remember sites like heavy.com, music bands and movies mini-sites, ...

Take a look at The Web Design Museum, Gallery of Flash Websites: https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/flash-websites/ . Beautiful visuals, terrible SEO.

Agree. Mozilla should focus more on online services, nicely integrated in the browser. Online email, password management, vpn services, file storage and sharing, ... All privacy focused and with paid offerings, to make them more independent from Google.

I used Firefix on Android from the beginning, just like on desktop, but the recent changes pushed me over the edge. It's hard to find a suitable alternative, right now I'm switching between Vivaldi and Kiwi. The current state of Firefox on Android makes me feel really sad.

It's a challenge.

"My Parents really liked Fucking but all they got was this Fucking T-shirt".

Let's make it a bit darker...

"My Brother and Sister really liked Fucking but all they got was Me" T-Shirt.

I looked up the MSI Prestige and apparently there exist a limited edition of it that's completely pink, I mean really, really pink: https://www.msi.com/Business-Productivity/Prestige-14-A11X-P.... Not a big fan of the color, but it sure is interesting to see. I now wonder if the color would be a good deterrent for thieves.

With a profit of more than 10 billion per quarter, I find it hard to believe that Google can't hire more people to handle cases like this. It's not a manpower problem.

And 2) is a really interesting question. The most obvious answer is if you can't manage (curate) a platform, you shouldn't run one.

I'm not convinced that self driving cars are pandemic proof, on the contrary. Who's gonna desinfect the car seates and handles of an autonomous self driving car during a deadly pandemic? It's a lot safer to use your own car than a virus and bacteria ridden shared car used by God knows how many infected people. The customer isn't gonna clean it. So you need workers to clean and desinfect the car after every single ride. Even if you use robots, the cars must drive to the cleaning facility first, dramatically reducing their availability on the streets and profitability.

I'm a bit surprised how many hardware are supported: https://iostindex.com/?filter0Availability=Available,DIY . It's like a whole new world of names: estim machine, rabbit, bra vibrator, twerking butt deluxe, night howler, kinikat ... Even the Microsoft Xbox controller made the list.