i use brave on my iPhone because of the adblock, but i'm not loyal by any means.

i definitely felt the sleaze due to the fact that they sell ad space on new tabs. (_we_ can run ads). any recommendations for alternative ad-blocking mobile (iOS) browsers?

We can be non-absolute about this, providers like Brave and Carbon have shown that it can be done with reason. Of course it’s still something of an intrusion… but we haven’t modelled tech in better ways.

Either we help build new ways to do this, or we have to accept that some advertising has always driven media/knowing about the new blacksmith/the internet/whatever.

I’m gonna get downvoted to hell — and I use uBlock Origin almost all the time with strict filters —, but I’m getting old and thinking that idealism hasn’t been working, maybe if we’re all reasonable we might just get some stuff improved. Dunno.

Try Orion

NFC chips can store a fair amount of data (think QR code). Why bother with the database? Why is the standard not just saving one's email and phone number to the chip?

Because how else can they make someone depend on them after the sell?

I see this also with QR codes. I see tons in for, example, restaurants which contain a link to some private company which automatically redirects to the restaurant's own page. They can get it for free if they just put their own url in the qr code directly (if they knew it was possible, of course. They're nontechnical). But then the other company keeps charging you money just to serve pointless 301s

Won't this make running Starlink more expensive?

Lower orbits > Increased atmospheric drag > More fuel expended to maintain orbit > Heavier sats due to more fuel > Increased launch cost per unit

Or even: Lower orbits > Increased atmospheric drag > Quicker orbit decay > Shorter lifespan of sats > More frequent launches

Forgive my Kerbal-based space knowledge here.

Essentially, the atmosphere contracted due to the solar minimum and they want to make sure inoperative satellites decay within months rather than years. Ballistic decay is a safety mechanism in case their satellites break down. Also they will use less fuel for avoiding the crowded 550km band.

> "As solar mininum approaches, atmospheric density decreases, which means the ballistic decay time at any given altitude increases — lowering will mean a >80% reduction in ballistic decay time in solar minimum, or 4+ years reduced to a few months," Nicolls wrote in his X post. "Correspondingly, the number of debris objects and planned satellite constellations is significantly lower below 500 km, reducing the aggregate likelihood of collision."

Climate change seems to be a topic that's "OK" to be skeptical about because you can't see it right now, today, with your own eyes.

I wonder if folks who aren't so keen on the idea of climate change would be more open to the idea of population-level poisoning?

These two issues seem to get lumped in the same bucket but it does seem that population-level poisoning seems to be more of an acute threat. Lead, asbestos, microplastics, PFAs, pesticides... Who knows what these will do over generations, and there is certainly more chemical poisons we've introduced into our environment that we haven't even discovered.

In my experience, in the US, harmful chemicals in products are a lot more credible than climate change, to people who listen to the Right. An example that has been in the news: pregnant women taking Tylenol.

For whatever reason, a “natural” lifestyle is more compatible with American conservative politics than an environmentally responsible lifestyle. I think the two can easily overlap, but the former would have to emphasized for it to get any traction with that audience.

EDIT: Replace “for whatever reason” with “due to the influence of the fossil fuel industry”

I wonder if the manufacture and subsequent planet-wide spread of novel chemicals before their impact on life is fully understood is a great filter...

We've had plastics for, essentially, 100 years. PFAs for a bit less than that. We still don't understand their full impact on the body/life.

Unfortunately, this doesn't seem like it will speed up travel much at all.

Based on my understanding, travel times in the northeast are limited not by the top speed of the trains, but by the tracks, and the fact that freight is prioritized.

Legally, freight is supposed to yield to passengers nationwide. It's in the legislation that created Amtrak over fifty years ago. It has never been enforced, and trump isn't about to do it. The UP/NS merger will make it worse. On Amtrak-controlled trackage, there is hope. Northeast Corridor is their show.

Indeed. My understanding was that for most of the country it's de facto the opposite: Amtrak yields to freight.

For as much as Biden purported to be a pro-passenger train President, you'd think he would have done something about that.

The problem is that the freight companies run these incredibly long trains now, which no longer fit into the siding (a bit of track that splits off from and then reconnects to the main track to allow one train to pass the other). So even if a freight train wanted to, it couldn’t let another train pass unless the freight companies invested in longer sidings or shorter trains.

Honestly, if it's my own money I usually just take the older regional trains. Saving 30 minutes isn't generally worth a $100 or so to me.

Maybe remove the PFAS from the floss as well and you've got a great product.

Now you just have to figure out how to get people to floss :)

Plenty of flosses are available without pfas. The flat glide / smooth floss and potentially flavors (unknown - not required to disclose) are the ones with pfas. Wax coated unflavored floss does not use pfas.

Unfortunately, the article [0] states that "flat tape" floss was used as the delivery method. And this is the form of those smooth/glide pfas flosses. Likely the pfas was used as a functional group to bond the vaccine coated particles to the floss.

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-025-01451-3

Because it does not cost them to provide in-game items (skins, weapons, etc.)

On the other hand, certainly does cost companies to provide compute.

How does Starbucks avoid the same with their vouchers?

They hold 2 billion dollars worth of gift cards on the books.

That’s not how accounting works. There’s no such thing as a probabilistic liability.

Let me introduce you to actuarial science:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actuarial_science

I’m aware of actuarial science, but what does that have to do with accounting? (We've been talking about liabilities as an accounting and contractual term, not as a remedy for injuries.)

Yes there is. See provisions and contingent liabilities.

Neither of these show up either on a balance sheet or cash flow statement. If a contingent liability is probable, you have to record it as a liability per GAAP.

Oh. Then what's the effect of the growing pile of unredeemed non-expiring gift vouchers that companies issue? Is there a little asterisk next to liabilities saying "but don't worry, we're sure we'll never have to pay this"?

What? They have to run the servers all the same.

I had a Wink hub maybe 7 years ago, I bought it for somewhere around $150. Later, they decided to add a monthly subscription fee to the device. I cut my losses and quit using the thing.

I no longer do smart home anything. Switched outlets are great. Relevant Technology Connections: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DGqVbTHX-k

Whenever the topic of weight loss comes up, I always make the same recommendation: Lift weights. Lifting weights increases your muscle mass. Muscle burns calories, even at rest, which raises your TDEE. (A bodybuilder will burn more calories sitting on the couch than someone who doesn't lift weights). For most folks (myself included) cardio sucks. You _could_ jog for an hour every day and burn x-hundred calories due to the increased energy expended... Or you could go lift weights a few times a week, and after a couple months, naturally burn more at rest due to increased muscle mass.

I say this as not a nutritionist nor a doctor, but I don't believe I'm off base here. Feel free to correct me on this if I am.

I'm a fan of weightlifting, and agree that there are numerous health benefits to doing so, but I think the extra calorie burning is over-hyped. From what I've read you get 6-10 calories per pound of muscle per day, at rest. Not nothing, but for folks who aren't looking to body build I'm not sure it makes much of a difference. Or maybe over a long enough time span it does, I dunno.

It does matter over a long enough time span, but otherwise I agree - don't get into resistance training for the extra potential calorie burn/metabolism boost, it's a quick way to burn out. Get into it for the numerous health benefits that resistance training brings, the effects of which get especially important as you get older.

You can lose upwards of 3% of muscle pass per year at 60+, and this process can start as early as 30-35 years old. It gets harder and harder to build muscle as you age too, so the more you can build and maintain early on in your life, the better off you'll be in old age.

Other than aesthetic goals, that's most of what got me into weightlifting. I'd prefer not to be so frail when I'm older and want to maintain my independence as long as possible. Not to mention, being strong just makes general day-to-day tasks easier.

I think there are a couple of underlooked points for weightlifting's contribution to sustainable weight loss.

- the weight that you are gaining with a surplus diet turns into muscle instead of fat. You can take diet breaks and just gain muscle faster which will help when returning to a deficit.

- the increased 100-200 calories from lifting can make a 100 calorie deficit easier to adhere to as it's a smaller proportion of your total.

- weightlifting reduces stress which is a common cause for over eating.

Yeah it's not terrible, but having 10 extra pounds of muscle burning almost 100 calories a day extra, thats like a pound of fat every month and a bit.

And that is the same amount as having 10 extra pounds of fat burns.

1kg of muscle tissue burns pretty much identical amount of calories as 1kg of fat tissue. Heart, kidneys, brain etc. tissues burn more than muscles/fat, but you can't really grow those.

Xkg person's basic energy burn rate is the same, regardless of his fat percentage.

Therefore it is definitely a myth to promote weightlifting on the merits of muscles being some kind of great energy expenditure machine.

That's assuming the extra calorie burn doesn't make you feel hungrier and cause you to eat more, even if only a little. 100 calories is a very small amount of extra food.

I used to believe this (as did many people) but no longer do. The amount of extra calories burned with a higher muscle mass is just not significant enough to make this a relevant idea.

Of course, there are many, many other reasons to lift weights. Health and longevity aside, the reason most people want to lose weight is to look better - so what they should really aim for isn't to lose weight, it's to lose fat and increase muscle mass. For that, you need both a caloric deficit and weight lifting.

This is true, but I don't think the extra calorie burn via extra muscle mass is dramatic enough to move the needle that much. Studies are a bit weak here, but a quick search suggests that a pound of muscle mass burns between 4.5 and 7 calories per day. That's... not that much. A bodybuilder that's putting on competition-worthy levels of muscle mass is going to be spending several hours every single day at the gym lifting weights, and very few people are going to sign up for that just for the hope of losing some weight.

I've been doing some strength training (arms, legs, core) for the past year and a half. Nothing too heavy, but enough that I can see nice muscle-tone changes in my body, and I notice that day-to-day physical tasks are easier. At most, I've put on about 10lbs of muscle (and honestly it's probably more like half that). So I'm burning another 45 to 70 calories per day. That's like... 4 to 7 plain potato chips of calories.

So lift if you want to look good, be generally stronger (core strength is especially good for you!), or just feel healthier. And sure, the act of lifting those weights will burn calories that you weren't otherwise burning. But the muscle mass you gain isn't going to burn a useful amount of extra calories per day.

And yes, cardio does suck! Unfortunately, doing only strength training is leaving out really important parts of your body that need to be strong and healthy: your heart and lungs. I'm in decent physical shape, but if I stop working on cardio even for a month or so, walking up the four flights of stairs in my condo building leaves me a little winded, and I don't like that feeling.

I guess my point is: do cardio and strength training to increase your general level of health and fitness. But if you want to lose weight, change your diet. Change it sustainably and permanently. If you just change it until you get to your target weight, you're going to put those pounds right back on afterward.

The weight lifting also triggers stronger hormonal responses due to the additional mechanical loading. Mechanoreceptors in your body will stimulate a chain reaction by way of the hypothalamus (HPG axis) that ultimately causes a ramp in testosterone and other hormones. Your body effectively has a built-in steroid dispenser that you can control.

The scale is really dramatic in my experience. The more the lifting sucks, the more your body will compensate. This trend can be non-linear for a good period of time before you begin to plateau. The tricky bit is not pushing too far and injuring yourself early on.

One interesting hybrid is running or walking with a weighted vest on. This requires some extra precautions - the vest should be very, very snug on your body. You don't want it slinging around and imposing weird lateral loads.

Or do both! I primarily train Muay Thai these days, but I mix in two minimalist kettlebell strength sessions per week. 20 minutes of emom double kettlebell ABCs with some sets of pull-ups at the end keeps me in zone 3-4. So I'm getting some cardio conditioning while doing my strength training. Sure, it's hard to overload at a certain point with kettlebells, but making a goal to be able to OHP double 24kg bells will get most people pretty far.

There are other advantages beyond just burning calories. Lean muscle tissue acts as glucose sink. When you eat you'll have more reserve capacity to store that energy temporarily in your muscles rather than triggering growth of adipose tissue.

I think you'd still need to adjust your diet signifiantly. Most powerlifters don't look particularly in shape.

Most powerlifters intentionally maintain a signficant caloric surplus in order to bulk up. Some bulkers even chug straight-up olive oil to meet their daily caloric goals.