Gosh, if only there were RDA's and medical recommendations that have existed for decades, and it were obvious if you're consuming the same thing all day, every day...

I was saying this when UAC was a thing.

If you want me to do something to the OS, rather than to my user account, make me flick a switch to do it, which puts the computer in an entirely different mode.

Now the only virus that can infect my bootloader is one that I actively participate in installing.

Multi-user computer? The switch is a key.

This is why I bought a Framework laptop.

I'm pretty confident that, if it came to it, the BIOS would let me enter a "Linux" UEFI key of my choosing, not just be locked to the Microsoft ones.

As it is, it barely matters as the machine only runs Linux anyway, and I don't have a single Windows machine in my house as of Christmas.

I wonder if that had anything to do with Windows 11, Microsoft enshittification, etc. etc. etc. etc.?

Here's a tip:

Don't chew on lead or gunshot wounds.

Crack? That would come under the "highly addictive" thing and thus is incredibly stupid for that reason.

The day you wake up and realise that, despite being a slightly different technology, there's no reason that you couldn't operate them for your entire lifestyle. Except for the dumb reasons that you've clung to which are actually THE MOST DAMAGING things about ICE cars compared to EVs.

Hence why some Europeans countries are almost entirely EV sales already.

It's 2026. Pretending EVs are somehow inviable is ridiculous.

The only stopper on EVs is purchase cost.

The two things are not even vaguely comparable in impact on all kinds of things - humans, wildlife, the environment, etc.

Plastic's biggest danger is that it's largely inert so it persists in the environment if not managed correctly. Exhaust gases are just straight up killing things and giving people all kinds of conditions because it's airborne across a huge area.

Look at the trees next times you're on a highway. In the UK, it's common to have tree-lined motorways, because they absorb the sound and the pollution from the cars. They are almost always the unhealthiest looking trees you've ever seen in your life.

Try this:

Everything in moderation.

Coffee isn't going to hurt you, and can be beneficial. So long as you're not drinking it several times a day, every day, for the entirety of your adult life.

Same for alcohol. It does actually have some benefits. But in small doses. Not all day, every day, to excess.

Same for... almost literally anything. Salt. Sugar. Fat. All the stuff that's "bad" according to cheap headline-grabbing press. You need it all in some amount. Just not to excess.

Same, even, for things like vitamins. No vitamins = you're dead. Enough vitamins = you're fine. More vitamins = you're going to see no benefit and/or have problems (Vit D can be overdosed on, for example).

Everything in moderation. Eat red meat. It's fine. Just don't eat it every single day for every meal for decades on end.

And then you realise - that's why you get different answers from these studies, based on who's running them, who's reporting them, what they're testing, and who they are trying to target with the messaging.

Caffeine has benefits.
Drinking caffeine to excess outweighs those benefits with downsides.
The beneficial effect is rather small.
The counter-effect is rather large.
Your body consumes more than just caffeine alone.

Which explains ALL those results you gave, without having any untruths in there. Now replace "caffeine" with pretty much anything - all those things I listed above. Even drinking too much water will kill you (and it's not as much as you might think).

Everything in moderation, and then you won't have a problem.

Same for things like cigarettes, even. If you only have a few, it's not going to kill you. But if you're smoking 20 a day for decades on end? Well, hello lung cancer. It's why the most dangerous drugs are often the ADDICTIVE ones. Caffeine included. People have died from drinking too many caffeine-based energy drinks in too short a period of time.

Just give us a SODIMM slot already.

I was surprised to discover that you can purchase a 30TB hard drive for about half a grand.

That's 30,000 gigabytes, or about 30,000 hours of recorded video. How much of a person's life could be recorded on this?

There's about 8800 hours in a year, but you're asleep for 1/3 of that so call it 6000 hours. You can get 5 years of continuous video of your life on a device the size of a paperback book. If you can compress the video of your mundane activities, such as driving to/from work or waiting in line, only record single frames every second during these times, or do lower resolution during those times with key frames at higher resolution, you might get away with 4,000 hours of continuous video in a year. Probably less.

So this new disk could conceivable make a continuous record of 30 years of someones' life - all the interactions, all the people, all the information you see, all the places you've been.

(And probably more, probably more like 50 years. And if cloud storage is easily available everywhere, you wouldn't even need the appliance on you.)

This will inevitably lead to some interesting social changes.

For example, 50 Years of video using an AI assistant to search through and answer your questions (have I met that person before?) would be quite useful.

Also, the AI could train itself on your video and behaviour. The AI could then simulate you once you're gone.

Lots of possibilities here...

"Seized"

Hyperbole much?

Very similar for me.

I haven't even owned a TV for half my adult life. And when I do have one, I rarely use it. And when I do use it, it would almost never be for watching random broadcast TV.

Too many people allow TV to just "wash" over them, every night, night after night, for hours on end, for years at a time. It's literally damaging like that. Watching TV isn't damaging but THAT is. It's how adverts, jingles, reality TV, the latest "fad" etc. gets into your head.

For the last 10 years of so I've been living alone and it would be so easy to just stare at a box every night. But instead I record a very few programmes (a couple of hours a week at absolute best) that I know I'll enjoy, throw them onto a computer and watch them when I feel like it. I only record stuff I want to watch, that I almost always enjoy. No ads. No breaks. No news. No just letting it wash over me.

And movies? I gave up on movies. When I first lived alone again, I thought I'd try some to see if I could use that as entertainment and honestly... I've found almost everything I've watched really poor.

So I've taken to doing what I do with video games to do the same with movies and TV shows. I don't watch them. If, after a bunch of years / series / sequels, they are still regarded as "good", I might try them. By then, I've eliminated 90% of the junk that everyone hates, I know they are "complete", and I don't have to wait for the next episode.

But, honestly... things like broadcast TV washing are the cause of a lot of problems. You only notice when you disengage from it. Everyone in work: "Oh, did you watch X last night, what about what Y said?" I couldn't give a flying fuck. But EVERYONE is watching them. The highest state of trash. Everyone talking about the news stories that are front-page or newsflashes and IGNORING everything else that's happening. So many uninformed and/or misinformed people. When media is the ONLY way these people are informed, they don't have mental room for anything else to the contrary or to verify it. And no matter who they are, eventually it taints their opinions.

Honestly... I choose my media. Not "this is a news channel I believe more than the others" but actually "I want to watch a sci-fi movie now." "I'd like an episode of something I find funny to watch with dinner", etc. Then I go hunt that specific thing down. Watch it. And stop. And people seem incapable of that.

I have no streaming subscriptions. I have no TV subscription. I have a TV (technically) but it's never been used (it was a freebie and is a handy HDMI display but I've not needed to use it). My laptop has no media on it. I have a NAS with my media. Literally only the things I like. Even down to "I love this show, but not the later series" so I just... don't put those series on it. I watch it from my laptop. I don't even "background watch" it while I'm doing something else. I'm either watching something, full-screen, while paying attention... or I'm doing something else entirely. Yet again, the "let it wash over you" thing, people just on their phone, or having it as background noise, etc. I've stopped shows before now because I realised I've tuned out and I'm not actually watching. Just stop the media, go do something else.

The problem is that it's such a prevalent thing to just let media wash over you like that. Whether that's yet-another-sequel in the cinema or the local news. And even REWARD that by paying huge TV/cable bills that are way out of proportion to the actual value.

I don't know what we do about it. But stopping consuming it purely from habit / comfort has to be our first target, surely.

Rather than make it "fail-safe" like you describe.... just make a fucking handle.

It's needed to open the door and has ABSOLUTELY ZERO downsides to having a physical handle, even if that's just a recessed hole that you can grip and open the door.

There is absolutely no reason to have moving door handles. None whatsoever. Hell... we even moved away from "locks" on the inside of doors where you had to pull up the knob to open the door, but what we still did was keep the physical handle to unlock AND open the door so you can't get trapped.

You know why? The door needs a handle.

It's "designer" bullshit to remove things that an industry of actual design specialists (i.e. someone who has listed all the problems the products need to solve, and solved them) has honed and refined over decades, just for the sake of aesthetics. Rather than a "designer" (who makes things look pretty and fuck any semblance of retaining function, common sense, actual good design etc.).

Okay.

Time to start taxing it to oblivion then.

Because nobody will be hurt by that, right, they can just stop buying it and save themselves a ton of money?

Yeah, I'm not sure it's that analogous at all.

Until you start subsidising other food and taxing and regulating processed food out of the market, so that people can actually AFFORD to have a choice in what they eat, it's just scaremongering.

If it's really that dangerous, you'd legislate against it and make sure "better" food was cheaper and available to everyone.

I can safely say that, being a massive gamer, having used Linux (and frequented Slashdot) for probably 30-35 years, having spent half that time with a primary Linux desktop/laptop, having ported some games to the GP2X (a Korean, handheld Linux-based console), being a Steam Deck owner and developer, and recently having purchased a Framework laptop to use as my primary desktop including a LOT of gaming (having seen the work that Valve's done to make Proton work)...

I've never heard of a single one of those companies.

As I had to announce in a cybersecurity training session to all staff at my employer's recently:

Security. Convenience. Cost. Pick any two.

Honestly, there's a reason that almost every practical security measure is actually an inconvenience of some kind. For example, 2FA.