Jeff Bridges will always be The Dude.

So they basically re-invented trees?

I started learning the language in school (5th to 10th grade). I had a teacher who insisted very much on grammar which sucked while being a student, but in hindsight it turned out to be a good foundation.

With upcoming internet English became more and more a part of every day life, as there is more content in English availiabe than in my native language. In order to build up a proper vocabulary and to understand figures of speech and play on words I started to watch cartoons in English - first easy-to-understand-ones, like The Simpsons, because I knew the plot of the episodes already since they were aired dubbed on television. In the beginning I found South Park very hard to understand because they speak rather fast, but meanwhile I understand everything now.

Today I am able to speak fluenty.

Related (absolutely worth a read):

How 3M Executives Convinced a Scientist the Forever Chemicals She Found in Human Blood Were Safe

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.

If I had to guess I would say that the majority of micro plastic in humans comes from food packaging and food containers.

When it comes to convenience food (like microwave dinners) everything is packed with plastic. If you poke holes into the seal in order to microwave it, plastic particles find their way into the food, and thus into your body. Plastics are everywhere: the inner lining of a tin can, for example, is made of plastic to avoid that the beverage or the food takes on the taste of the tin can. I assume that if you turn the cap on a soda bottle in order to open it, plastic particles float around in the air nearby the opening and get into the body when you directly drink from the bottle just after you opened it. Every pit of food that is wrapped in plastic will be contaminated with micro- or nano plastic particles, either by mechanical impact (caused by opening the packing) or because chemical components.from the plastic will dissolve into the food over time (hence why bottled water has an expiration date).

Another role into the accumulation of micro plastics into the human body ist that we simply breath it in. micro- or nanoscopic plastic particles from our clothes, from car-and bycicle tires (the most severe micro-plastic pollutant by the way), shoes and things made from plastics in general that are exposed to wear and tear and also to sun light (UV light will disintegrate any sort of plastic).

There is no escape.

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.

There is another way to the internet/account bypass during Windows 11 installs.

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

Like 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.

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.