What do you mean? Early apps was all stuff like this that nobody used. Nowadays apps are useful fintech services and photo filter apps that cost less than a coffee per month and fun free games that everyone can play, isn’t that much better?
/s
I’ve bought myself exactly one “nice” flashlight and it was a big shock seeing how good the tech has gotten since phones took that over in my life. Some Acebeam model with a ridiculous bulb and a convenient rechargeable AAA battery with a USB C port. It’s tiny and super neat.
While I haven’t bought multiple, I did buy more of the same model for family members to carry around. For what it’s worth I don’t really keep it on me, but if you carry a purse or whatever, a powerful finger-sized flashlight could definitely come in handy without being bulky.
I’ve actually written a bit about my gripes with the EDC subculture online, which is how I learned about the flashlight in the first place. TLDR is that there is a weird disconnect that can’t be ignored between a rational interest in preparedness and the phenomenon of online communities of users goading each other into buying more and more widgets, sometimes with financial incentives to make others buy things.
It’s not just flashlights, it’s a whole bunch of things. EDC is a rabbit hole of rabbit holes and while I do appreciate having a lot of options and reviews for said options I genuinely think it’s a consumerist disappointment if you zoom back out.
The Flintstones was originally an adult-oriented cartoon, and became seen as family friendly as time went on and more things became available on TV.
Its role was closer to the Simpsons when that was new, which also became more acceptable for younger people to watch over time.
Just off the top of my head:
Steven Wilson, one of the most influential artists in my creative life. Turns out even some of the songs were even recorded there. I don’t even think he has a familial claim to benefit from Zionism, I think he’s just gotten roped in. At least I tell myself that.
Sacha Baron Cohen, IMO one of the most brilliant comedians. I don’t think he’s necessarily an extremist to the extent that Natenyahu is, knowing his politics, but that is the logical conclusion of Zionism and just being on that path is all the red flags in the world.
Quentin Tarantino, bro why
I actually can’t think of many. I’m from Lebanon and if it’s even a small part of someone’s public life we just avoid them, it’s been that way for very long. So there’s an extent to which these people are filtered out.
I also don’t use traditional social media at all so something like the Sarah Silverman meltdown you mention would be completely off my radar.
Would love to know the context of this
I mean, it’s being federated to Lemmy and most of us just see the Lemmy software as the open Reddit alternative. I’m still not quite sure what Piefed is like, I’ve pretty much never had to look past Lemmy and Mastodon.
I still prefer paper, although not having to store moisture-sensitive fragile things is nice. So is the fact that I can read books that are out of print or hard to find (or banned, yay Middle East), even if fumbling with PDFs isn’t wonderful on the device.
And of course, the obvious: downloading them for free. Which is always ethical when Routledge wants to charge you 85$ for a scholarly work of which the author doesn’t see a dollar.
I got a Kobo and just use the networking to sync Pocket articles. Stock system.
I don’t even think an account is available in my country. Just been syncing over Calibre. It’s not perfect (it uses a community plugin) but once you get the quirks of the Calibre-to-Kobo transfer it’s easy enough.
Now the hard part. Actually reading.
My country is being invaded illegally right now with zero consequences, I know what you are saying. But there should be zero way to profit from war, from an ethical standpoint these industries would ideally be nationalized and kept far far away from profiteers.
I know exactly what “peace” with the apartheid Nazis taking a fresh bite out of my homeland means, I’m not oblivious to that flavor of “pacifism” that gets promoted by the slimiest characters. You’re pushing back against a point I never made. I empathize with a lot of the sentiment supporting Ukraine specifically because I feel like that country’s relationship with Russia is in some ways analogous to our relationship with Hafez and Bashar’s Syria.
Arguably we need the weapons more. The countries controlling the world’s economic and social levers are more than willing to punish Russia, great, but then bend over backwards, and even spit in the face of their commitments to the ICJ, because we’re just in the way of a modern colonial project. I’ll take the guns in a heartbeat. I just believe it’s an unethical thing to privatize, monetize, and eventually promote to keep the numbers going up.
I think it’s sick that people downvote this in the name of civility. I understand people not wanting to make a super solid link between wealthy magic bean salesmen and societal issues and seeing it as a slippery slope, but the weapons industry? Fucking come on.
If you profit from the most literal form of human suffering, you are a statistical outlier even among outliers. I can’t think of many less ethical things to enrich yourself from than making the world a deadlier place.
This is exactly why I’d want a GPU in a home server.
That and transcoding. Wonder what the best option would be without breaking the bank/wasting too much idle power. All the GPU talk online seems to be for gaming.
How does OSM deal with Arabian Gulf / Persian Gulf? I’ve only ever seen it referred to by the latter name by western sources but only the former name in Arabic over here.
I’m well aware that the name “declaration” of Arabian Gulf was a political move in the 20th century, but I’ve never seen the name Persian Gulf in Arabic. Never.
Just curious.
Sending soyjacks to your father is a choice.
Not necessarily a bad choice just not one I’d make.
Always interesting to see the American boomer perspective from the front lines.
This photo makes my skin crawl.
Unexpected Babbdi
Why do they publish about boring shit like sports and war and not cool things that celebrate human achievements like business and AI?
/s ^just ^^in ^^^case
I guess sports doesn’t occur in a lab or recording studio so her achievements don’t matter? Le sportsball bad amirite fellow rediters?!1
Focusing on individuals helps turn statistics into digestible information. There’s nothing wrong with that. If they decide to start bombing deep into the country again and I get hit, wouldn’t it be worse if I was just a number that makes someone think “huh that sucks” instead of being remembered for who I am?
It feels mostly regional to me. The vibe I get is that Americans especially don’t really care for fragrances while here in the Middle East it’s a goddamn stereotype of us Lebanese men that we wear too much cologne.
(Or as I have grown up to understand it, just about enough cologne)
10K is a home solar investment. Where I live, people tend to live in multi-family buildings about 3-6 floors high, often split between siblings and their families. Depending on how many are in the country year-round, that might even be enough for the whole building with careful management. Obviously wouldn’t be the same if the neighbors are strangers. (I appreciate that the familial emphasis might seem a bit random in your culture). Ideally 10K might just be enough for one or two households.
The much more interesting prompt is 10B, imo.
10B? Oh man. I’m in Lebanon. We’ve effortlessly squandered more generous fortunes than a measly 10B grant, but here’s how I’d do it:
1B: buses, trams and parking garages to decongest some of the nicer (and underperforming, touristy) old town areas. Should give them a sorely needed boost 3B: modern seaside train running from north to south, with a small number of branches into the interior. Mostly freight. 3B: start phase of a Beirut metro. It’s not enough for a full metro system especially with our geological conditions, but the core city isn’t too big and one line should be feasible? 2B: functional army so we still have civilian infrastructure next time our noisy neighbor gets a hissy fit (infrastructure is worthless if it’s destroyed) 1B: modern fossil fuel power plant. Yeah it’s not green, but we generate a fraction of our needed power, meaning most people have to pay off a local generator mob for electricity. They use diesel and relatively inefficient smaller generators. Our existing ancient power plants use dogshit-tier diesel. I insist that some kind of LNG plant maybe would actually make the situation more green. As it stands the convenience of combustible fuel is more pertinent than the environmental cost
I just looked up my orders, it’s the H16. Looking more closely at the receipts it seems like there’s different models with different max brightness but whatever ,they’re all blindingly bright, for me at least, a non flashlight person.
They’re also nominally waterproof, they’ve got a strong magnet at the base so you can stick it places while you work, and comes with a headband attachment and a belt clip.
The bulb is angled which was weird to me at first. I also had to learn the controls over time since there’s one button but several brightness settings.
I hate how promotion-heavy the internet has gotten because it feels like even writing out any endorsement feels like shilling. But it’s a cool little thing. I’m sure there’s more models out there that might appeal to you by other manufacturers but I’m happy with this one.