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After 3 attempts at an Apple Watch over the years, I finally had the experience that pushed me over the edge and I sold my Apple Watch 10 for a Coros APEX 4 - a device that has real battery life and a quality build, so no more worrying about my activity tracker dying during a half marathon, no more charging a device 2-3 times during an overnight backpacking trip and no more worrying about every bump and scrape. Apple has truly dropped the ball with their Watch line, with their only solution to the dismal battery life for *active* people being spend another $400 for a few extra hours of battery. No thanks.

I'm quite happy with my Coros upgrade. It's really shown me that Apple Watches are a general catch all with feature bloat that don't do anything super well for serious activity seekers, yet its main requirement is the user be tethered to a charger every damn day - sometimes multiple times. That being said though, once this Coros kicks the bucket, I will being giving a lot of thought into whether I will be purchasing another activity tracker. Even with this new device that lasts 2~ weeks on a charge, I find myself missing the simplicity of my Casio G-Shock - a device that simply works. My phone still functions as a great activity tracker for biking, running and brief hikes, but lacks the real battery life needed for backpacking - which is my only holdout.

I’ll pick up a AAA game every few years and only after it’s on steep sale. This method has been working well for me but I’ve also considered myself as having my foot out the door for being a “gaming enthusiast” for 5-8 years now. I got tired of AAA games being so much money and not being very fun. Most recently, finally bought GoW Ragnarok for like $26 USD, ended up really not liking it and putting it down after 8 or so hours. Hurts a lot less when on steep sale.

I play a lot less than I used to thanks to cost, game quality and time - and the PS5 will be my last Sony console, regardless of the newest happenings. It’ll be PC and maybe a Nintendo console here and there unless prices go up even higher next gen, at which point I’d be done with consoles entirely and just use Steam and probably play indie and older games only. The industry just isn’t what it used to be.

It's free speech against the government, so hard to imagine this SCOTUS ruling against her.

EDIT: Nvm, just saw the birthright citizenship vote. Some of SCOTUS can't read or are voting in bad faith.

they haven't missed in a couple of decades

Depends on your gaming tastes. I haven't really enjoyed any of the GTAs for longer than 2 hours, while RDR2 I also stopped playing after about 3 hours out of boredom - and similar to the GTA series, general frustrations involving the controls. Rockstar just doesn't fit my tastes, which is certainly a problem that rests with me

This water usage argument against data centers is so specious

Conditions for drought have been increasing across the US, including an increase in literal droughts. The ecosystem needs water to survive. We need to give a shit about our water supply. I live in a region that just had a public emergency declared due to drought and our area is upstream on the river that feeds many other states. If we have to watch our water consumption, those other states should be panicking. The power consumption is also a problem, but a lack of water is potentially worse, depending on the circumstances.

If being in the EU was so great then why don't Norway or Switzerland join?

I'm not an economist nor am I an European citizen, but both of those countries have very successful and wealthy economies. It doesn't seem necessary or advantageous for them to join the EU as, if anything, introducing a second currency and new laws that are tied to many other countries' prosperity would just risk destabilization. If the situation for either country changes in the future, it might make more sense for them to join at that point, but as of the moment they have no need or widespread desire to. Last I heard, Switzerland is even voting on whether to cap their population, which would prob not fly in the EU.

But on the other hand it also feels like a straightforward play for consumer sympathy

100% - just like Apple making such a grandiose show of "privacy". "Privacy" for Apple eventually led to Apple specific and Apple-only allowed ads in first party apps and now Siri connecting to Google servers.

I urge everyone reading to unsubscribe instantaneously from the NYTimes for their business practices.

If people stopped buying from unethical businesses it would be practically impossible to function in the modern day. Not only is it extremely difficult to know what businesses are “ethical”, but it’s becoming increasingly easy to assume no business is truly ethical. e.g. Environmentally friendly clothing brand Everlane just sold to SHEIN of all places.

It's frankly depressing how few places there are to have quality conversations

Yeah I used to learn so much across quite a few forums. Most of those communities are dead, dying, filled with bots or filled with people making shit up/just posting lousy jokes now. A lot of folks have jumped to Discord, which frankly, isn't for me, so feeling a bit lost on where to surf these days

Everything you said plus now these out-of-touch and incredibly rich CEOs are shoving it in our faces that they are determined to take away our income while pocketing even more riches.

You can actually mine the Venusian surface for metals

By "surface" do you mean the ground of Venus? The odds of a mining operation happening on the ground of Venus seems like science fiction at best, impossible at worst. Between the high winds, corrosive atmosphere, outlandish heat and extreme pressure any vehicle on the surface would be torn to shreds likely within a few hours (which has so far been the case for all landers that actually survived the landing) - and that's not even getting into the idea of getting things off the ground. Extraction from the atmosphere would likely be the only method unless something significant changes with the entire planet. Refining those materials would require a lot of machinery being in Venus's orbit that we'd have to get there, as well. Speaking of the conditions though...

It is also possible to terraform Venus

Everything is hypothetical at best regarding this and would require a level of time and resources no government nor company would want to invest for an outstanding "maybe".

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

I am convinced that their talk of UBI is just handwaving

Well, they are sociopaths so that checks out. What I find even more horrible is that they still somehow have an almost religious following, but it's also becoming clear they may be helping to flood the internet with bots that bolster their talking points against any push back. They especially have an audience here that defends them while they push an agenda to de-power and bury the working class.

I think you might be missing a subtle point about Costco

It's not a subtle point. Members buy a membership and if they shop there enough recoup the cost of the membership and more. It's their entire business model.

Yeah I never bothered to verify the claim of them being made in the same factory and only heard it from word of mouth from some folks.

Online communities are definitely dying. I guess I hope that maybe IRL communities have a resurgence in this wake.

Would be super fascinating to watch play out. I grew up before the internet so, historically, I know how to seek out external communities, but by early high school I was deeply entrenched in online life - so I'm very rusty with finding new IRL clubs, cliques, etc. Fortunately my life is full of many friends and I go out frequently, regardless. For those younger people that never had life without the internet, I wish them luck on their search but at the same time I'm very curious to witness their journey.

I won't engage any further with a strawman argument made in bad faith.

No hate on people who buy that stuff - I like more eccentric style/colors and a specific fit that I've never seen at a Costco (athletic/form fitting vs bulky). Something like pajamas pants I would consider, but otherwise I've never had luck with their clothing and their furniture usually doesn't fit the decor of my house. I did snag a great kitchen island there last year that's held up really well, but otherwise I really don't like their couches, chairs, lawn decor, etc

They used to be better but I stopped buying them after COVID related supply chain problems lowered the quality, at least a few years ago. Dunno if they rebounded. Supposedly they are made in the same factory as Smartwool

Sure but do you recall what LA looked like in the 80's? The gas is more expensive but the unseen cost of that level of pollution is very high. The gov can solve all future gas problems with EV subsidies and manufacturers can help solve this problem by making affordable EVs, but getting the current admin or manufacturers to do either seems like a cruel joke at this point. The fed is going as far as to deny Chinese car imports because the EVs are so cheap it would crash the US car industry.

Sounds great for people and the environment. Too bad its production is now in danger thanks to horrible, ignorant decisions by this administration.

Costco is a store... where coffee, usually gas and most food + home goods are reliable in quality and priced well comparatively. Comparing the price of salmon fillets at Costco to Whole Foods or elsewhere is eye-opening. Would I buy clothes or furniture from Costco? No - because both are bland. The end.

If the writer wants to make it anything more than that... They are a bit too obsessed with self-image vs wasting money and, dare I say, a loser for judging others over something as classist as personal finances. Feels like the write-up is just a statement piece meant to either rattle people for engagement or make the writer feel more hip than they actually are.

which seems to be a binary input for diagnosis.

Talk to a doctor about any diagnoses.

Apple is so intent on making the Apple Watch a catch-all that it doesn’t necessarily do any specific activity amazingly. After three Apple Watches over many years I finally sold my 10 last year and won’t be buying another. I bought a Coros and am pretty pleased with it, would consider a Garmin in the future. Coros and Garmin devices are built with activity in mind and not unneeded apps, like Uber. Garmin and Coros both have maps too.

a GPU which costs as much as a car must read its entire VRAM just to output a word sounds incredibly wasteful

Kind of how I feel about Bitcoin at this point. The coins take so incredibly long to mine if you aren't in a pool that it could cost hundreds of dollars in electricity to own a fraction of the coin months later.

Incessant nit picking, negativity and doubt casting is my issue.

That has unfortunately been very common internet culture since 2020. It was there before the pandemic, but post-pandemic internet never recovered its full whimsy and veered headfirst into a depressive state. Probably says something about everyone's general mood.

If I was struck by an autonomous vehicle while riding in the bike lane I would sue and sue like I was taking aim at a corporation rather than an individual driver. I -or my partner, assuming I died- would retire very early on that money.

Read into it. Large amounts of dark matter fall into the one of several theories presented by the professionals as what could be causing the phenomenon.

I forget the timeline of events but the school bombing was within a very short timeframe of the announcement - a short enough timeframe that no rip and replace could have happened yet.

Personal theory: Possibly the Great Attractor has something to do with a very large collection of dark matter - potentially dark matter galaxies. Hard to say though until we figure out how to see that section of space.

It was also indefensible. A few years back she campaigned on prosecuting pedophiles and, well, as AG she refused to do that. She went as far as protecting them.