It was solved for a brief time. Now people have these plastic coins you sometimes recieve as a promotional gift and since it is not a real coin, people stop putting the carts to the corral. You can witness this every time holidays are coming up and people are stocking their groceries. And the culprit is always middle-aged Karens who also don’t indicate when leaving the parking lot in their SUV.

Simplified:

Having a fridge running is nothing complicated compared to a computer. The compressor and the light inside are the only things that are being powered. Both components work mechanically: The compressor has an electric motor that is running when fed with electricity. Pistons inside the compressor are linked mechanically to the electric motor. The light inside the fridge is operated with a switch that is mecahanically connected to the door. The light is off when the door is closed. As long as electricity is fed to the fridge, it keeps running.

Computers however are more complicated, as they basically are running clocks that connect an event with a time stamp. They can get disturbed easily when several events happen. When a computer is running long enough it can happen that the memory overflows when a specific event is being executed for example. For this reason it is renommended that your smartphone is supposed to be restarted at least one a month, otherwise it couldn’t function properly.

If refrigerators were operated the same way as a computer, like your laptop or smartphone, I bet it has to be restarted every once in a while, otherwise a malfunction would occur. To my knowledge refrigerators are built the same like 40 years ago, albeit with more efficient compressors, better insulation and less harmful refrigerant.

It’s a snat. They are not easy to catch, because they are fast. Also, they never land on their shell.

It looks like a male specimen of Tegenaria domestica. Its habitat spreads over Europe, Asia and Northern America. They are harmless to humans.

It’s not that this lifestyle isn’t socially acceptable, but it comes with some disadvantages. As pointed out by others, if you have a partner that is living an opposite lifestyle (“normal” day time work - night time sleep) you both wouldn’t have that much time together being awake and active. Also, another disadvantage is that everyone else is active during your resting time, which is during the day. Loud neighbors, traffic, socializing, etc. Errands, like appointments, are often possible only during daytime.

Attending a nocturnal lifestyle over an extended period of time is also less healthy from the biological point of view.

If your biological preference is set to be nocturnal however, and you can compensate for the aforementioned disadvantages, go for it. Nobody will be judging you.

it’s generally super weird how everyone tries really hard to convince you that you are wrong about it

My theory is that (volontary) childless people are less predictable to others. If you only have to take care of yourself, you need less resources (read: money) for that. An employer that knows his employee has children to care for can be treated worse in terms of working conditions and salary/ wages, because the employer knows that this employee can’t afford to quit the job, because of the responsibility for the child(ren).

If an emloyee is known to have no children, it makes him unpredictable. He could get up after a good yelling at the workplace, say “fuck it” and leave. He only has to take care for himself. Also, that employee can accumulate more money since it has not to be spent on the needs of children. That means, the employee has a bigger and longer lasting financial cushion.

Something similar applies when credits/ loans have to be paid. Having debt is a considered a “good” thing, since people are less prone to quit their jobs. On a personal level, the goal should be to become debt free as soon as possible. Not only it will result in financial freedom, it will also enhance your “fuck-it-ablilty”.

Another theory for those convincing people is that they envy your lifestyle of tranquility and spontaneousness. These people have been bullied into having children by their peer groups, because “that is the thing to do”, and “you owe grandchildren”. There are so many parents out there who would be better off if they never had children, but their relatives had convinced them otherwise.

Really? My laptop doesn’t. Maybe it depends on if the battery is designed to be removed by customer or if it is hidden inside the laptop, making it accessible only with tools.

Since laptops are equipped with a battery anyway, they lack of a coin cell (mostly a CR2032 cell) to keep track of time. This means that your laptop will not be able to estimate the correct time and date when powered with energy outside of the original battery, and these settings have to be made manually each time your laptop will be used.

It will work fine without the correct time set, but you might have issues with files that are created “in the future” (from your laptops perspective).

I have an old laptop (still in use occasionally, because I have a scanner that is too old to be operated with current software) where I replaced its battery once. The sign the battery was dead was that the OS issued a warning the laptop was not able to tell the correct time.

Yes. I’d rather smash my femur at a pop up headlight while lounching over the engine hood than being dragged underneath an SUV street tank and being squashed.

The technology behind telecommunication.

Today everything happens inside your router, fast and silent. My father was a telecommunications engineer. When I was a amall boy (late 1980s) he once took me to his workplace (it was in the evening and he was supposed to troubleshoot). What today fits onto a few silicone chips inside a router took much more space back them.

I was in a room that was filled with several wardsobe-sized cabinets. Inside there were hundreds of electro-mechanical relays that were in motion, spinning and clicking, each time someone in the city dialed a number (back then rotary phones were quite common). It was quite loud. There also was a phone receptor inside one of the cabinets where one could tap into an established connection, listening into the conversation two strage people had (it was for checking if a connectiion works).

I still remeber the distinct “electrical” smell of that room (probably hazardous vapors from long forbidden cable insulation and other electrical components).

So when you dialed a number at one place with your rotary phone, you were able to move some electro-mechanical parts at another place that could be located somewhere else around the globe (hence long distance calls).

A 1991 Ford Sierra that I bought for 100,- from a friend because I needed a car quickly. This car was already promised to be shipped to Nigeria, where Europe dumps all the old cars. It still had 3 months until the next savety inspection, which the car certainly would have failed.

The engine was still OK, but the car had some electrical issues. When using the turn signal first, and then using the brake pedal, all lights and electrical load were going bonkers, resulting in flickering and failure. The car had to be stopped and the key had to be removed in order to switch it off. Then the car could be started again and one could resume driving.

In order to avoid this issues, it was crucial to use the break pedal first, and then the turning signal, right before turning. This way the electrical issues ware not that severe - the issues stopped, wenn dis-enganging the turn signal.

Also, the doors central locking system was not working properly. Only the passenger door was operational. When I wanted to get the trunk hatch to open, I had to unlock the passenger’s door, reach inside to open the driver’s door from the inside. Then I had to walk around to fully open the driver’s door in order to pull the lever for the trunk hatch that is located next to the driver’s seat.

I only had this car for two months. One day I put the car into neutral at a traffic light. After that, there was a strange noise. I put it into first gear and the clutch refused to connect to the power train. The clutch failed, the car couldn’t be moved by its own. It went to the scrap yard.

I would never mix private data with work related data. You should get a second phone for work related things. As pointed out by others, it may be technically possible to have both on the phone without interfering with each other (which also would be more convenient), but keeping things separated physically has another advantage: Data you are handling/ generating at work belongs to your employer. This means that he can demand (problbly backed up by law) to search your phone when things should go south in the future. You don’t want your employer to have a peek at your personal phone, do you? Also, your employer might want you to install tracking/ logging software to make sure you really do the work. By having a dedicated phone for work related stuff your private stuff is out of focus.

I can’t access the link in this post. I found a paper on the internet that describes the process and also has some pictures: A Complete Electron Microscopy Volume of the Brain of Adult Drosophila melanogaster

What kind of toilet paper are you using?

Not that I know of. I think they automatically use the mask that works “best” while these codes are generated. I have tried some (free) QR code generators and there is no hint that the mask can be choosed.

If you have Affinity Designer 2, you are able to generate QR codes within the software. No need to sign up for a free one. But when creating a QR code with Affinity, there is no option to choose the mask.

that is cool.

I feel the same. When I learned about them, I used them for easy access (although a third party app was necessary at the time) to certain websites: I have several house plants at home. I made little signs with the latin name of the plant and a QR code that leads me to a website where care instructions are shown (how many times the plant has to be watered, how much of sunlight these plants have to be exposed to, etc.). It came handy sometimes, especially when leafes were turning yellow. Care instructions could be looked up easily.

Also on business cards: On the back side of my business card there is a QR code that - when scanned - puts the contact information into the adress book. This came in handy a few times when you have to work with workers at a construction site.

I think the major breakthrough came with the Covid pandemic, where these codes were everywhere. Also, later phones do not require a third party app which lowers the entry bar to make use of these codes significantly.

What I don’t like is that restaurants start to use them exclusively, as a substitute for a printed menu.

I think that manufacturers of tech products test their products only with a few standard configurations - but in reality there are too many possible combinations of different configurations:

Take a bluetooth mouse for example. Generally, it connects to a computer and it works. Now imagine that you have a different configuration - a logicboard in your laptop that has not been tested by the manucacturer of the mouse or an obscure model of the bluetooth reciever, that also hasn’t been tested to work with that mouse. Your mouse works well in the beginning, but disconnects at random times. You can’t pinpoint the issue, and when you are looking for help online, nobody seems to have the same problems with that mouse.

In this case, said mouse sucks, because it doesn’t function reliably. A different person with a different configuration of their computer (different logicboard, different model of the bluetooth unit) might have no problems at all with the same mouse.

Wait, we actually have to do something? /s

Change has to come from both sides, from companies as well as from consumers. Yes, Your actions don’t really matter when you try to reduce waste, but the oil tanker spills millions of liters into the ocean, or when you use electricity from renewable sources while there is coal extracted and burned to fulfill the need of energy.

But as a consumer you can change the perspective about it by observing it from the personal economic side. This way, doing something in favour of reducing waste or doing something to lessen the effect of the climate catastrophe is merely a side effect of your actions:

• I don’t have children, because I don’t want to take responisbility for them. Also, I don’t like children. This saves me a lot of money, which I don’t have.
• I am relying on a car. But instead of driving a truck-like 5l-gas guzzler, I drive a small economic car. 90% of the time I drive alone anyway. A small car means less fuel consumption, less tax, cheaper repairs. Also, there are more parking spots availiable for me in the city, since the car is shorter than other vehicles (at least for parallel parking).
• When running errands, I combine them with using the car. For instance, I do my grocery shopping on the way back from work, and I can make use of my car’s storage capabilities. This saves me precious time, since I’m on the road anyway.
• When buying clothes, I don’t buy the cheapest clothes availiable. Mid-price ranged clothes are more durable, and they can be worn longer and are cheaper in the long run. Also, I don’t use fabric softener. Not only does it contribute to polluting the enviroment - fabric softener reduces the capability for towels to dry things (which defeats the purpose of a towel), because it hinders the fabrics’ capillar effect for storing water in the fibers. Additional to that, I don’t use an electric dryer. I hang my clothes to dry. This measurement extends your clothes lifetime, which is saving money.
• Although I am a meat eater, I am open-minded to vegan food - in the last decade it came a long way and there are good substitutes. Some of them are trial and error though (some taste like a stack of hay smells), but the alternatives are out there. It doesn’t have to taste exactly like meat. The worst thing that can happen is, that you expand the list of things you can eat.
• And the most important thing of all: DON’T BUY USELESS CRAP! Sure, the cloud-based app-operated thing is appealing, but what happens, when the company that produces it goes bankrupt? The cloud service gets shut down! You have a paper weight now. I don’t buy such things, because I don’t want my home cluttered with stuff I don’t need eventually. When I buy new stuff (mostly to replace broken stuff that I can’t repair) I do research first and evaluate what features of the desired thing really benefit my needs. I rather buy expensive stuff that is more durable an has a longer lifetime over all. In the long run it turns out to be less expensive.

In my opinion it makes more sense to analyse your actions with the affect of personal economic impact in mind than to view it in the sense of reducing the impact of the climate catastrophe. Because since your neighbor isn’t, you can easily feel helpless and de-motivated.

This happens with your returned packages (article is in German, half of it is translated below):

Amazon shreds its returns 08.06.2018June 8, 2018

The “Destroy” shipping method is bringing Amazon into disrepute - is the online retailer really destroying tons of functioning products? The German government is already talking about a “huge scandal” Germany, Pforzheim: Symbolic image of Amazon logistics center The “Destroy shipping method” can also be booked with the logistics service provider

Tons of returns and products in mint condition, including fridges, cell phones, mattresses and furniture, are said to have been destroyed by online retailer Amazon. This was reported by the ZDF magazine Frontal 21 and Wirtschaftswoche. Both media outlets refer to internal product lists, photos and statements from employees. According to these, goods of all kinds are disposed of “on a large scale” in the mail order company’s German logistics warehouses.

Amazon not only destroys unusable products, but also functional and sometimes new items, according to statements from employees. One employee reported that she destroyed goods worth tens of thousands of euros every day.

Clip from 2022, German. Signature quote: “It is not only an occasional [Euro]Palette of Items, it is whole truckloads - in all fulfilment centers, almost day by day.”