Forums instead of social media, IRC/ICQ/AIM for chat, websites were much more static… unless using Flash, newgrounds full of Flash games.

FTP/IRC was source of media distribution until transitions to, bittorrent was new, and napster, limewire, kazaa were things. Newsgroups have existed for all time, but not really including them because less mainstream.

Windows would allow broadcast messages to just pop-up on your computer. Needed to implement your own firewall like Zonealarm, these things weren’t just default… computers kinds of just ‘directly’ connected to the internet without any appliance in the way at first.

Edit: Oh yeah, and Steam didn’t exist, so games were bought individually in boxes at stores, and valve games were like sharing your IP with friends, listing of servers… speaking of, early Counter Strike and stuff didn’t have any anti-cheat… if you added anti-cheat to your CS server when first coming out, people getting caught would be shocked, since they didnt know they could get caught, always in denial for ‘false positives’, and really find out who of your friends aren’t actually good and were just cheating all along.

I have no actual list outside my head.

atm, Wendy’s because of their plan for dynamic pricing based on how busy they are, and ‘my local KFC’, because in 2017 I had to wait 50 minutes for my order (for 2), and they gave away the last of something I ordered to someone who came in like half an hour later, and they weren’t going to be making more. (that and KFC is way over priced for their standard menu if you aren’t getting some kind of ‘deal’)

This only makes me favor copyright reform more. Should really cut that down to 25 years or less; anything from before the 21st century should be public domain by now.

All companies that plan to have dynamic pricing, please let me know.

I’ve already stopped going to Wendy’s; I’d love to add you to the list of places never to patron again.

Not surprised at all it is something the Trump administration was doing considering his rhetoric on the pandemic in general, and China. Awful all around.

I think this is a hyper/hypo chart in a way, two extremes of bad (over/under medicated).

Maybe thinking of it like the ‘Goldilocks zone’ for planets, in the right distance from their star for life, like on earth.

A measure of healthcare and mental health in your country. Somewhere between Norway and Finland is probably the right place to be (plus/minus a little); If you are not close to this zone, then there is something likely wrong/not being done right in your country.

Could be there is little to no healthcare, you could be under economic collapse, severe unemployment, under authoritarian rule, may be rampant drug use, may be doctors over prescribing medication (and/or prescribing instead of treating), or just no care about mental health (maybe a “get over it” macho attitude toward mental health).

Obviously always outliers, and every country is unique and cannot be conformed to this, but Norway and Finland generally rate pretty high on the happiness scale, so ~60-80 ppt (people per thousand) is a good range to shoot for.

Edit: To be clear, not a perfect indicator type of things; Denmark is scored as a very happy country and scores close, but out of that mentioned range (maybe the range should be a little higher or lower, or have a +/- 10 or something attached); Iceland also rated very happy, but scores way out of that range (though there may be clear geographic reasons for that), and could be a clear indicator of the above mentioned “every country is unique”, and thus that may actually be appropriate antidepressant ppt for a country so far north.

Also, a generalized chart of population for a whole country, should never be applied to an individual person.

Krita is great for drawing. It is made for it.

People really try to use Krita for photo editing?

Not if you add it to a non-dischargable debt the inmate has to repay, and attach any wages to repay it, including government assistance, such as welfare. ♻️♺

/s

The boiling method, and using ultrasonic devices so far sound promising:

https://projectboard.world/isef/project/eaev062t-harnessing-ultrasound-for-microplastic-filtration

Neither method is 100%, and sadly even if it were, there is no way to avoid ingesting microplastics. It’s basically in all food sources at this point. Any animal, or plant have them in them, and those sources are going to be exposed to them; even rain has microplastics in it now.

I suppose the best way to actually avoid microplastics in the food chain would be growing plants in a greenhouse type environment (with dug up deep pre-plastic dirt?) only using properly treated water? For meats, I guess lab grown meat would be the way to avoid it, using plastic free (or less) sources for material?

I’ve actually been throwing out old spices in recent years, but maybe I should be saving them. Maybe they are the last vestiges of plastic free spices, and will be worth a fortune to paranoid rich people that want flavor?

The unwelcoming post title aside (I assume in jest)…

A single takeaway of my personal opinion from this series of polls is that Gen Z is comfortable with themselves, don’t feel the need to hide, and the older generations are following suit and/or the long fought battle for social change from the older generations have finally yielded an environment that people can just be themselves.

I’m 100% straight millennial (and thus didn’t have to deal with this struggle personally), but I can for sure say the general culture today, I would feel comfortable being out in, but in 2012… I would not have been. Still dealing with people I thought were accepting people falling for the the Prop 8 BS from… what was that, 2008?

Proud for having a generally more accepting and welcoming culture/society.

You’re right, my ad blocker was making it look like an image. My bad. Basically a video of missiles being launched from land, air, and sea in mass.

Was hoping to see the video in the article, but just screen caps.

Was under the impression that Taiwan would likely use thousands of Ukraine style drone boats to sink the Chinese fleet.

Instead all I see is screenshots of missiles the size of cities raining down. I assume it’s a perspective issue, but those missiles are unrealistically large.

The linked batteries all appear to have energy densities of about 130 Wh/kg or less.

I wasn’t denying sodium batteries are not commercially available/viable, just pointing out that while currently available sodium batteries have lower energy density than lithium ion batteries, in the lab, sodium batteries have the ability to reach similar energy density to currently commercially available lithium ion batteries.

The linked batteries are plenty useful for many purposes. I would gladly use them for home energy storage, electronics, or recreation vehicle use. I’m generally wary of lithium battery safety in outdoor, or high heat environments, and look forward to safer options becoming more available/common.

Sodium based batteries have reached at least 247 Wh/kg in the lab at least. While lithium in the lab does have much higher instances, that isn’t far off from current commercially available Li-ion EV batteries.

While such sodium batteries are not commercially available, it at least shows their potential to reach close to current EV batteries (around ~270 Wh/kg).

Source: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/04/25/sodium-ion-battery-could-charge-in-several-seconds/

I keep hearing ‘sanctions arent working’.

And every now and then I see things about them working; it’s almost like sanctions are a long game that don’t immediately show all the results in want within 3 months, and you need to keep them up long term. That said, of course when some don’t comply with those sanctions, it will permanently alter the landscape as the sanctioned try to work around them. Russia’s movement toward the Yuan, and reliance on China and N. Korea are not going to be undone anytime soon, if ever.

Pre-Ukrainian invasion, 1 USD was ~78 Russian Rubles. Now, that 1 USD is valued at 92 Rubles. After the start of the war, the Ruble lost a lot of value immediately, but appears to had gained value for a few months, and has steadily decreased in value as the sanctions drag on, and seem to have semi-stablized at a much lower value than going into the war. As a generalization, it appears looking back to 2003 (max on the chart i’m looking at), as Putin’s leadership drags on, the Ruble has steadily decreased in value (in 2003, it only took about 30 Ruble to value 1 USD). Looking at other major economic powers in the world is like looking at an inverse chart, where their currencies have increased in value against the USD consistently.

Is that an economist url?.. yeah, no, not clicking that.

Typically the “financial type media”, are full of political opinion instead of focusing on finance. Very often bad takes, and over the years, I’ve learned they just aren’t worth a click, and my time.

A few years ago, wasn’t there a company (maybe it was uber?) that was being overwhelmed by arbitration fee’s for a large number of arbitration cases? I forget the outcome, but it may be due to their agreement stipulating they would cover arbitration fees. Either way, forced arbitration needs to go.

Russia actually does produce their own CPUs:

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/half-of-russian-made-chips-are-defective-baikal-struggles-to-meet-russias-demand

Edit: Likely Chinese fabs, but point was that they are producing them… just ~half are defective products

I’m curious how an oil refinery in Russia affects global oil prices in any significant way? I would imagine it would lower prices globally.

Don’t refineries turn oil into fuel, like gasoline? To the best of my knowledge countries don’t typically export gasoline, do they? I thought they exported crude.

Wouldn’t being unable to refine crude, mean they need to export more crude, since they can’t indefinitely store it, thus bring down oil prices? In the short-term, I wouldn’t be surprised at an increase in global price due to news media/speculation, but long term effect, I could only imagine global crude price going down.

On the other hand, I would of course think local gas/fuel prices would skyrocket in Russia due to not being able to refine it.

I’m sure I’m very much wrong in my logic; if someone on the internet wouldn’t mind correcting me with a proper explanation. Of course this is all based on refinery attacks, I didn’t read this specific article, but I am not aware of oil rigs/oil extraction sites being attacked (that would clearly be a separate situation if it is happening).