Dave.

I just would like to see the results of a recommendation algorithm that gives you something that it thinks you definitely won’t like, say, 20 percent of the time.

Because a lot of times in my endless scrolling I just end up with the same old drivel. Throw me something challenging occasionally, jeeeez.

Pretty much.

Capable employees don’t raise a huge stink.

They quietly put the word out to a few people they know and play along until something interesting appears on the horizon.

Then when they’re good and ready they just “suddenly” fuck off to somewhere nicer for them.

Eh…Windows 3.1, 95, 98SE, XP, and 7 were all pretty great.

From a user interface perspective, they were okay, perhaps because by the time people got to XP they’d had a decade of a consistent interface and were just used to its quirks.

From a security context they were not ok. Not ok at all.

Assumption:

Someone crams a 300 watt solar panel onto the roof of their EV and manages to integrate it into the charging system so that it’s pretty efficient to use that power.

Numbers:

One hour of good sunshine on the 300 watt panel = 300 watt-hours (Wh).

Average EV energy usage : 200Wh per kilometre these days. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less, depends on how and where you’re driving.

Result:

One hour of perfect sunshine hitting the roof of your car equals 1.5 kilometres of extra range, or you can drive your car in a steady-state fashion at a 3-5 kilometres per hour because an EV is more efficient than the average usage at lower speeds.

Conclusion:

Probably better off increasing the storage capacity of the battery as a full day’s sunshine will get you about 10 kilometres of range.

You need silicon.

The earth’s crust is about 25 percent silicon. Sand made out of quartz like desert sand is about 50 percent silicon. Beach sand is usually mainly calcium carbonate from shells and it doesn’t contain much silicon at all. Volcanic beach sand is more likely the same as the earth’s crust so 25-50 percent.

So as long as you refine your sand/gravel/rocks/lava so that you’re left with pretty much pure silicon, you’re good to go.

i like how the answers are the exact same generic unhelpful drivel you hear 20k times a month if you’re…

Searching for a solution to any problem on the internet.

There are a million ad- laden sites that, in answer to a technical question about your PC, suggest that you run antivirus, system file checker, oh and then just format and reinstall your operating system. That is also 90 percent of the answers coming from “Microsoft volunteer support engineers” on Microsoft’s own support forums as well, just please like and upvote their answer if it helps you.

There are a million Instagram and tiktok videos showing obvious trivial, shitty, solutions to everyday problems as if they are revealing the secrets of the universe while they’re glueing bottle tops and scraps of car tires together to make a television remote holder.

There are a trillion posts on Reddit from trolls and shitheads just doing it for teh lulz and Google is happily slurping this entire torrent of shit down and trying to regurgitate it as advice with no human oversight.

I reckon their search business has about two years left at this rate before the general public regards them as a joke.

Edit: and the shittification of the internet has all been Google’s doing. The need for sites to get higher up in Google’s PageRank™ or be forever invisible has absolutely ruined it. The torrent of garbage now needed to ensure that various algorithms favour your content has fucked it for everyone. Good job, Google.

I work in OT. The number of “best practice” IT mantras that companies mindlessly pick up and then slavishly follow to the detriment of their mainly-OT business is alarming.

Make your own damn best practice that suits your business best, don’t copy and paste something from a megacorp. Sure, include elements from megacorp’s best practice if they are applicable, but don’t be a slave to the entirety of it.

As an Australian, I’ve found the Fediverse to be nicer and much less repetitive when posts containing these words are blocked.

Of course, that’s my choice. Funny how meta doesn’t provide a generalised keyword post blocker… it’s almost like they’re worried you’d accidentally block too much or something.

And I do like the phrasing. “Here’s how to get control back!” Yes, yes, get back your control of an endless algorithmic feed designed to maximise engagement and profit, of course, it’s simple!

I don’t know about you, but I just swiped my way through the first sentence off this reply with Google’s keyboard and all I had to do was select swiped instead of the suggested settled.

They do remember common words that you use, so if you have accidentally “approved” a few misspellings they’ll be suggested/given to you more often so a drastic solution to that is to clear your personalised data from the keyboard.

I can’t speak for the popularity of TurboVPN, or the probable ease in which companies can manipulate download numbers, but note the “+” on the end of each number.

NordVPN could have 99,999,995 downloads, TurboVPN can have 100,000,002 downloads, but one would be 50M+ and the other would be 100M+.

Win10 with Classic Shell is good enough for me… Until I have to dig into the control panel and dick around with any network settings harder than “hurrr durrr SSID and password goes here”. Luckily Simple IP Config does all the heavy lifting for me on that front.

But hey, having to use third party utilities to make my OS usable is just The Microsoft Way at this point.

But but but it’s Designed In California™ , that makes it All American 🇺🇲🇺🇲🫡🫡

Every slightly unusual Windows issue that I research ends up at some Microsoft forum where this kind of post happens. Without fail.

"Hello I’m dgriffith, a community support member here at (official support forum) and I’m here to help.

Have you tried formatting your hard drive and completely reinstalling your OS? That often helps when your icons are misaligned on the desktop.

If this post helps, please mark it as useful, thanks!"

I can read and skim documents for salient details at 500 - 800 words per minute.

And then someone links me to a twelve minute video on YouTube where 800 words are spoken in total , 300 of those words are “um,so”, and all we’re looking at is either the narrator , or possibly a static slide with a few paragraphs on it… and also an inset of the narrator, narrating.

But I guess that’s different.

Yes, because they’re talking about the mains supply cable which carries hazardous voltages, not the charging cable.

Nobody gives a crap if 5 volts is exposed. Many more craps are given once you get above a hundred volts.

Make laws that give consumers mandatory, irrevocable warranties that include fit-for-purpose clauses, and has phrasing such as “reasonable expected lifetime” for the goods. Make those laws apply to whoever sells you the goods, not the manufacturer.

Laws like that weed out a lot of crap. Shops won’t buy crap in because they have to deal with the warranty on said crap. Manufacturers won’t make (as much) crap because they have to deal with returns.

You won’t be able to buy a $4 air fryer any more, but the one you do buy will last a lot longer.

Edit: I’m Australian, and we have consumer rights over and above warranties offered by manufacturers. Those rights would be a good start.

They start about half way down this page:

https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/buying-products-and-services/consumer-rights-and-guarantees

This appears to be more the angle of the person being fed an endless stream of hate on social media and thus becoming radicalised.

What causes them to be fed an endless stream of hate? Algorithms. Who provides those algorithms? Social media companies. Why do they do this? To maintain engagement with their sites so they can make money via advertising.

And so here we are, with sites that see you viewed 65 percent of a stream showing an angry mob, therefore you would like to see more angry mobs in your feed. Is it any wonder that shit like this happens?

It’s a similar data point to those people who accidentally got a single 10x or 100x dose. We know from those people that very large doses don’t seem to have any major negative effects, we now also know that a long term “continuous” dose doesn’t have much of a negative effect.

Similar things have worked in countries that aren’t so under the thrall of the mighty corporation. I recall some guy in … Russia? who struck out and reworded a bunch of penalty clauses for a credit card offer he got and mailed it back to the bank, which accepted it and issued the card. Cue much hilarity as he racked up a bunch of charges and then got it thrown out in court. (Actually, here’s a link.. They eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.)

Anyway, I live in Australia so my response to all these kinds of attempts at removal of my consumer rights is a drawn out “yeah, nahhhh”