I recommend a japanese car (Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Toyota, Honda) with not too many miles (below 60000 miles) and not older than 10 years. These brands have a good longevity. Keep an eye out for engines with a timing chain instead of a timing belt, as the latter needs to be replaced regularly, adding to maintainence costs.

Solar Opposites

Each intro is narrated by one of the main characters and each time something different is said at the end.

Years ago I bought an angle grinder from Aldi, for about 20,-. After 30 min it started to smell and the enclosure started to melt. I brought ist back still warm and smelling burnt in order to recieve my refund. Although I knew it couldn’t be of good quality I expected it to last a little bit longer. If you buy cheap you buy twice.

You are right. From what I saw Linux-based OSs have come a long way. The issue with Linux is when it comes to professional environments, that are not IT-related: There are niche programs that are used in certain professions that were written to work on Windows computers exclusively. They are not availiable for other OSs, because they are not wide spread or popular with non-professionals. Also, Microsoft Office (especially Outlook and Excel) is very dominant within the professional field - up to a point that it can’t be changed easily. All this does not apply to users who use Linux computers outside a professional enviroment, as there are alternatives for popular programs and services already.

I can relate. It is like those tool bars that were installed automatically if you weren’t attentive while installing software when Windows XP still was around.

They like to suffer, I let them.

Me too. I always suggest to them to install UBlock origin (or any ad blocker compatible to their browser), along with add ons that get rid of cookie consent banners. If they follow my advice, I will invest my time into helping them to make their OS a little bit less annoying (e.g. switching off telemetry data and uninstalling Copilot). If they can’t be bothered with at least installing an ad blocker, I will not waste my time on them. They clearly want to suffer.

Edit: The screenshot displays a Windows Vista UI. These Toolbars must have been aorund also while Windows Vista was around. I didn’t know that, because Vista made me settle into the other walled garden.

Yes, all these email services want you to pay up for them. I think this is the price tag for privacy.

I have switched to Mailbox org a couple of years ago. I had a freemail provider before that. Unfortunately, this providers’ data got leaked, and therefore I got pwned, luckily only resulting into a tsunami of spam. The entry-tier with Mailbox is 1 € per month (= 12 € per year) which is compareably cheap in my opinion. Of course, it depends on what features you desire - more features cost more money. They also offer a free trial for 30 days (but it is wise to start the free trial at the begin of a month, as far as I recall).

The process of switching the email provider took me at least 6 months, where both the old and the new email adress have to exist simulatiously.

If you need to register quickly to an online service, i can recommend Temp-Mail org. Its free, but you need to have the tab opened for the registration process, as all data (including the free temporary email adress) will be deleted once the tab is closed. I used this service to register with my home instance, because back then I didn’t want to expose my real email adress.

You should look into this

This is and was the current workaround. On my old phone I had to install an app for that because they decided that there is an up and down which didn’t allow for a 180° rotation.

When held upside down the buttons on the side are misaligned to where the fingers and the thumb are placed. Thus, the volume up-and-down buttons are swapped, which is rather unintuitive.

Before a smartphone holder for my car was handed down to me (I never bothered to buy one for myself) I placed my phone inside the cup holder located at where the shifter is. When the phone needed to be charged, it was not possible to have the phone oriented in the “normal” direction, as the phone would have stood on the charging cable resulting in damaging of the cable. For that reason I made use of the app that allowed me to rotate the phone, so that the charging port would have been on the upper side.

A phone with the charging port on the upper side instead of the bottom. This makes using the phone easier when it is being charged. Also, recessed camera lenses. Why do they have to stick out? When placing the phone on a surface, the camera lens cover will get scratches over time. If the phone was just one milimeter thicker, the cameras on the back wouldn’t stick out and one wouldn’t need a phone case, that adds to thickness anyway. It also would be nice if phone manufacturors would still have smaller screen sizes (max. 6") in their portfolio, as it is inconvenient to carry a larger phone in a pocket.

As long as you have multiple backups of your data, you shouldn’t be concerned. HDDs as well as SDDs can potentially fail at any given time.

The key is to have more than one backup. You shouldn#t rely on only one backup alone.

Try cobalt.tools. It does what you want to do inside a browser tab (although I only used it on desktop so far), but it might work with an IPhone as well. You can convert YouTube links into either mp3, ogg, wave and opus files (with various bitrates), or mp4 or webm video files (with various resulutions). I use it constantly.

The “invite your boss for dinner to your home” thing that is often depicted in (US-based) sitcoms or cartoon series, where the protagonist introduces the family to the boss who is invited to have dinner at their home in anticipation to get a raise and/ or promotion. Is that a real thing over there? I never would think of invitng my boss into my home.

Oggy and the cockroaches

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1ghHlhem7676hJfsyoON5Q

Don’t get me wrong - I’m all in favor of the EU Directive that states that all such devices must have the same charging port from now on. I think that this should have been introduced way earlier.

I also realize that this law doesn’t apply to Apple exclusively, but you don’t find the Lightning port on any other non-Apple devices. If the Lightning port didn’t exist at all, Apple devices probably would have been equipped with USB C ports instead.

But one thing that affects all kind of devices is that they will be outdated at least software-wise mostly deliberately, no matter what charging port they are euqipped with. This even happens with Android-based phones, as there is a wide range of phones that can’t be fixed with alternative software (ie. Graphene, LinageOS and similar).

In my opinon it should be law that manufacturors should allow for end-of-service-devices to be opened up and upgraded with an alternative OS/ software, to extend liftime and to avoid being discarded. This affects mobile phones as well as smart lightbulbs, headphones, or vacuum robots and many more. This indeed has nothing to do with the EU Directive for charging ports, but it could have been another step towards keeping devices longer in the life cycle and thus avoiding landfill.

Too many devices are being bricked by manufacturers deliberatly, and there are barely any ways to repair such devices, because manufacturers do not let it happen.

I really hope so.

I wonder what happens to all those devices that are brand new, but can’t be sold any longer due to having the lightning port. My guess is that these devices will be shreddered and land up in a landfill - better for the environment than having to use a different cable (/s).

This EU Directive only applies to devices sold as brand new. Frome here on devices sold as new have to be equipped with a USB C charging port.

You still can buy a refurbished device equipped with a lightning charging port from a second hand market seller.

Nothing changes for most people. If you own a device that still has a lightning port, you probaly also have a lightning cable for it. The three most common types (USB C / Lightnin / Micro USB) will still be around for a couple of years.

From the enviromental point of view it would be best to keep any device until it is not usable any longer.

I’d rather would like to see that Apple is being forced into revealing the software code for end-of-life devices than having to switch to a new charging port. That would have a more severe impact, as devices often still work well hardware-wise, but are outdated software-wise. Even Apples glued-in batteries can be changed (albeit it is very complicated), in order to prolong a devices lifespan. If outdated Apple devices could be revived with a FOSS software solution to be still compatible for a longer time, it would be way better for the environment - given, protecting the environment was the goal all along.

I always thought that entering, hot-wiring and driving away with a car was a complete fabrication, as cars have a steering column lock that prevents movement of the steering wheel. This scenario is often depeicted in older movies.

At least I thought so. I recently learned that this doesn’t seem to be true, as there were cars around that do not have such locking mechanism. So this TV trope doesn’t seem to be far fetched. I think it is a safety requirement now to combat car theft. I assume that modern, recent cars are locked electronically rather than mechanically.

However, I don’t think that car manufacturers leave/left a conventient ammount of cable length underneath the steering column to be yanked out and to be hotwired in a comfortable and accessible way.

We are on good terms with our landlord, and repairs (mostly heating) are taken care of quickly. So far there are no problems at all. But we like to anticipate the worst. I too believe that spills on a wooden floor in a kitchen are normal wear and tear. I think it all depends on what else in the appartement is worn out (some things even due to real negligence), if we move out any time in the future eventually.

Our kitchen is integrated into the living room (open kitchen space) and the whole room has hardwood flooring. Due to the room layout it would be hard to establish a “border” where the flooring could change (e.g. tile floor in the kitchen area). It it easier to have one type of flooring across all the room.

We rent, and unfortunately we were the first ones after the hardwood flooring was put in, which means that every spill and every scratch is on us. We decided not to bother, as every spill leaves a mark (regardless how fast your clean-up effort is), and thus adds character to the floor. It’s a living room after all.

We know that a chunk of the security deposit will likely be gone if we move out. It would probably be as much money as to have the floor sanded down by ourselves.

Despite hardwood flooring has some disadvantages regarding spills and scratches, it makes the room much more cozy than any other type of flooring. The most durable type of flooring would be sealed screed flooring you expect in a warehouse. But that wouldn’t look cozy.

Yeah I get it. I too have some people inside my social circle who don’t seem to understand that certain things work very well for me (my outdated phone for example) and like to give unsoliced advice, because they mean well (in their own specific way). It is hard to combat these kind of people, as it would be ridiculous to cut ties over such bullshit argument. I guess thats the price for being a part of a social group.