I agree to a degree - it feels manipulative on the part of the writer, trying to exaggerate any sympathy a reader might feel.
That said, I also feel that the level of negativity the lady suffered was a little out of proportion to her 'crime' - essentially amounting to bullying.
This must be a personal preference based on ear anatomy.
The first-gen Airpods fit my ears perfectly, and were secure. When I lost them and upgraded to the 2nd gen, I was initially upset - aside from the body being fatter (and so less comfortable in my ears) they were very insecure - I couldn't even walk around without them loosening and dislodging.
I was on the point of returning them when I saw the advice online to 'twist' them into a different position. I now use them with the stalks horizontal, and they're secure. Still a touch less comfortable than the v1s, but easily tolerable.
Nice write-up and a nice outcome, but speaking as a reasonably successful home/amateur woodworker, this is very over-thought and over-engineered. I say this not to criticise the creator as I appreciate that they are new to this, but to help others considering such pursuits.
Some constructive feedback:
* There is no need for the extruded aluminium frame - some cheap wood would have sufficed as a frame
* The CNC'd hanging brackets are totally unnecessary - a couple of holes, one either side, with a keyhole hanger over each would have sufficed
* The balancing and 3d-printed endcaps is unnecessary assuming you've got reasonably well-placed hangers
* The fancy ESP32 board could have been replaced by a commodity ESP8266. (You could get rid of the ESP altogther and just buy pre-wired LED strips, but then you lose the opportunity to program nice lighting effects.)
As a result, the bill of materials is multiples of what is could have been. I estimate that you could replicate this in a single weekend for ~80-85 EUR (15 EUR countertop, 10 EUR wooden frame, 5-10 EUR plexiglass, 40 EUR LEDs + PSU, 5 EUR ESP8266, 1 EUR for two keyhole hangers) assuming you have a few screws and some wood glue available, plus whatever the cost of the markerspace is. Everything could be sourced from your local DIY store, plus an order from Aliexpress for the electrical components.
Yeah, I was really impressed with the style of the project but got a little triggered by the extruded aluminum. "I don't want to pay a lot" -- proceeds to use engineered metals. And while it is convenient, it is softer and more likely to bend out of shape than just regular wood.
A better result at lower cost would come by making the entire piece from wood. You would need a few handtools and nothing else. Plenty strong and totally gap free.
Plus the huge bonus of acquiring some woodworking skills if you don’t have them.
Skin cancer may be less deadly than other types of cancer, but it is still far more deadly than not having cancer. Rattlesnake bites in the US have a lower mortality rate than skin cancer, are you gonna go trying to handle rattlesnakes without protection or safety measures?
One could also add positive mental health effects, and benefits of morning sunlight for maintaining a healthy circadian rhythm.
Sure, you can always come back that you can take anti-depressants, and try to use some sort of sun-mimicking light, but then we're really going to extremes to avoid the sun altogether.
So is exposure to the sun, at the right times, in moderation, with appropriate but not extreme protection okay?
> So is exposure to the sun, at the right times, in moderation, with appropriate but not extreme protection okay?
Depends on your personal risk tolerance. For majority of people, probably yes: the benefits (especially the mental ones) would outweight the small risks.
I do see the same kind of ads (and many many other issues) on corporate computers at the Hospitals I work in. And to think we pay immensely for all this...
Is that true? No stock tickers, no ads, no ai nags? No "news"? No weird notifications that ask for my attention? I guess no regular weird update windows would be the case, but the rest?
Yes, your MDM lets you do almost everything you want to Windows. You can really tell that it is a commercial first offering, or at least used to be. And given that as a company you are also paying them I guess they don't care that much that there are fewer ads.
On any Windows release, you can switch all of those off, and GPE out the update channels for non-system-critical changes. Windows Enterprise doesn't even get the so-called 'fun stuff'.
I only have this one windows PC and I hate it, so correct me if I am wrong but I can't simply turn these off. First I either need to understand the registry or trust some third party software, and second windows just turns it on again in the next updates where I have to go back and trust random third party software again.
Every other onboard tool or software wastes space to advertise for some AI or office subscription. I wasn't able to disable that at all.
And for notifications there is seems barely any control at all. All software is able to constantly nag me with weird notifications.
You make it sounds like I could just turn it off, but I googled a lot and turned out I can't. But maybe it's just me?
Yes; as a home user you have to use some 3rd party script or software to achieve the same outcome, but there are examples that are well-regarded and open-source.
IANAL but... isn't this somewhat analogous to side-loading apps on iOS or Android? As in, Google/Apple make it awkward for you to provide your own files to run on your phone, but ultimately it's not impossible nor illegal.
Likewise, if you're able to upload your own custom MIDI (or other) files for your piano to play, then all you'd be doing is sharing a utility that creates mixed audio/MIDI MP3s, which may or may not be used to create files which can then be legitimately uploaded to a piano.
I think you’re partly right: normal ‘non-internet’ folk care less about such things… until a reason to care is demonstrated.
Take the recent anti-Flock actions - it’s probably mostly not ‘internet people’ going for evening walks with their angle grinders. Everyone starts to care about privacy when it really becomes invasive.
Likewise, people might be fine getting their elderly parents a robot to help out with household tasks, until intimate stolen videos start appearing on realgrannies.com or similar.
> Iran has exposed many limitations and weaknesses in America's defense capabilities
I'm far from a fan of current US policy nor an apologist, but this is a flawed analysis.
The war with Iran has exposed the stupidity of entering into that particular conflict, where:
* the goal (if there was one?) was something like regime change at arm's length
* 'arm's length' means using expensive long distance precision weapons, as there was/is very little taste for an invasion
* the target (Iran) is situated next to US allies which also happen to be hugely important as oil producers/exporters
* the target can also threaten a hugely important global shipping channel - the Strait of Hormuz
* the target has prepared for this action for years if not decades, and has good-enough drone technology to hand to threaten its neighbours and the Strait of Hormuz
This is an almost unique case in the world, and as such, its lessons of "US weakness" of "US failure" simply can't be assumed to translate more broadly. Iran is/was far more a strategic blunder which could/should have been foreseen, than a sign of America's weakness.
Yes, America currently has low stocks of long-range precision munitions and Patriots, but it still has the most powerful conventional military by far, and a globally-unrivalled ability to project that power around the world, if it chooses to.
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"But what about Ukraine? What about drone warfare? America is far behind there." This may have changed the game. The heavy usage of drones in Ukraine evolved, noting Russia didn't initially invade with swarms of drones. If the US had had a strong reason to support Ukraine (imagine Russia had instead invaded Florida) they could likely have used conventional means (air superiority, tanks, men) and ended the war within a few weeks. Admittedly, now it's far less certain how those tanks and men would fare in current drone battlefield.
> and it's a fraction of the threat China is
It depends entirely on the nature of the war envisaged (see the points about Iran being a unique situation.). In particular, China does not have anything like the US Navy to project power in the way that the US still can.
> * 'arm's length' means using expensive long distance precision weapons, as there was/is very little taste for an invasion
Do you think Americans have a taste for invading China?
> * the target (Iran) is situated next to US allies which also happen to be hugely important as oil producers/exporters
China itself is the factory of the world, the world's second largest economy and America's third largest trading partner. It doesn't even have to strike surrounding countries to take aim at the US economy. Yes, that would hurt China too, but China has been preparing for this and the COVID supply chain shock in the US was just a small taste of what life could be like for Americans who are used to being able to buy everything under the sun for cheap at Walmart or on Amazon.
> * the target can also threaten a hugely important global shipping channel - the Strait of Hormuz
About a fifth of maritime trade goes through the Taiwan Strait. It's also one of the world's most important global shipping channels.
> * the target has prepared for this action for years if not decades, and has good-enough drone technology to hand to threaten its neighbours and the Strait of Hormuz
China has been preparing for a Taiwan contingency in earnest for well over two decades, with a particular focus on the A2/AD capabilities needed to keep the US from establishing superiority in a relatively small area.
The US on the other hand, spent 20 years chasing goat herders and insurgents and is now trying to reorient itself back to preparation for major power conflict. Which is a huge challenge when China is, for example, has an estimated shipbuilding capacity that's 100+ times greater than America's.
Don't get me wrong. The US still obvious has a very powerful military, but it has been trying to be be all things for all conflicts in all places. China has been laser-focused on a military that can accomplish just a few things.
> Iran is/was far more a strategic blunder which could/should have been foreseen, than a sign of America's weakness.
You're treating an inability to strategize as a strategic blunder and not weakness. You should reconsider that. Because it's the very thing that has caused the US to fail at achieving its long-term strategic aims in basically all but one of the significant conflicts it has been involved in since the end of WW2.
> In particular, China does not have anything like the US Navy to project power in the way that the US still can.
In a Taiwan contingency, China doesn't have to. China is just ~100-150 miles away from its target. Again, it has spent more than 2 decades investing in A2/AD capabilities for that specific contingency.
However, this is not the topic (I thought I) was responding to. I was disagreeing that America's issues in Iran "has exposed many limitations and weaknesses in America's defense capabilities" - because the Iran situation is somewhat of an edge case, as I detailed.
If the point you were originally making (I now infer) was something more like "some of the challenges that the US has faced in its war with Iran may also apply to a potential future war with China, should China invade Taiwan, such as..." then with respect that's what you should have written, rather than assuming your readers would just guess correctly.
(There are also major differences between the cases of Iran and China, which would warrant more detailed analysis.)
> You're treating an inability to strategize as a strategic blunder and not weakness. You should reconsider that.
No... you're conflating cause and effect. The strategic blunder was an outcome, the cause of which we can debate; an "inability to strategise" would be one potential cause.
So if I understand you correctly, Gemini has direct free access to the Google Maps API in a manner that others (people, LLMs) would need to sign up for API access and pay for?
That’s the weakness of most modern “democracies”: people vote once every few years for one or other party who then do largely whatever they want, outside of some immutable manifesto commitments (which are often flexible anyway).
So no, people don’t vote for such things - they vote for parties who turn out to do such things at some point.
That said, I also feel that the level of negativity the lady suffered was a little out of proportion to her 'crime' - essentially amounting to bullying.
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