Yahweh and mind games. What an asshole. 😂

It’s not the sugar, but the acid that our teeth can’t handle.

The fact that healthy foods can’t be consumed without a risk of harm is not an intelligent design.

I mean, even apples (i.e. “Garden of Eden”) can promote the growth of plaque!

They just didn’t evolve to consume so much sugar.

Bro, eating oranges puts our tooth enamel in a weakened state. If we were designed, it was by an idiot.

“Prefer”… when you’re young, you’ve got time to burn online without distractions.

Then you get married, have kids, work a demanding job, and you don’t get time for uninterrupted online play.

Eventually, correspondence chess is the only gaming you have time for! /s

Those are mostly operating costs, offset by revenue, but are they actually losing 1.5 billion dollars a year? I mean, I hope so, but are they really?

Source? Where is that money going?

You’d need to explore the topic in further detail, as I’m sure the answer is there.

It may be dose dependent, but it may also be that a “splash” of milk might not impair absorption by much, but would anyone use just a splash of milk?

It’s one study of many showing this effect. I believe they suggest that the protein in milk is the culprit. The same effect applies to tea… Adding dairy to tea reduces its health benefits.

Considering that coffee is probably the highest source of antioxidants in a person’s diet, there will be some health benefits. Just dont add dairy milk to it, or it will blunt absorption. Soy milk is fine.

But if you’re an overweight, overworked, stress filled couch potato who doesn’t exercise and eats poorly, then you’re health is screwed regardless of how much coffee you drink 😂

If there’s a life-or-death situation that I absolutely cannot miss, I’ll set two alarms 15 minutes apart.

But in all honestly, you should be able to wake up fresh without even having an alarm. It requires that you practice good sleep habits, including a consistent sleep schedule.

I’ve only been forced to watch YouTube with ads a few times this past year… Alcohol and gambling ads were very, very common. It’s unethical to show them, and I don’t feel bad about blocking them.

I appreciate the math! But yes, for a crime this significant, and one that affects 1 billion (!!!) people, the equivalent of $467 to the average American is peanuts.

But I’d also argue that a $467 fine to the average American hurts more than the equivalent to a company that amasses so much wealth. There are so many hundreds of billions of dollars in excess profit being funnelled into Meta. For a fine to sting, it would need to be at least $100 billion or more, but even that could be made up very quickly…

We’re just talking wishful thinking at this point. None of these mega corporations were ever “hurt” by a fine, so they factor it into their business costs when they plan to commit these crimes.

He shouldn’t have referred to it as “blocking ads.”

Instead, say that you’ll be explaining how to “preserve privacy” or “uncluttered the viewing experience”, and it would be totally up to interpretation and assumption that he’s actually talking about blocking ads.

I really agree! Every time my municipality asks for public feedback on new parks or parks they plan to update, I always make it a point to make sure that all age groups (including teens) are covered.

But even in areas where teens are expected to be using the space (bike parks, skateboard ramps, basketball courts, etc.), they need to stop vandalizing those spots, or else they will simply not be built anymore. We’ve had basketball courts, soccer nets, and baseball diamonds destroyed by “bored kids”, and there’s no incentive to pay tens of thousands to fix the damage, just so they can do it again.

We had a new waterfront park built just a year ago, and within days three teens caused over $50,000 damage to it. Like, WTF??

The park in my parent’s neighborhood got rid of all the benches

This might not be some nefarious government plan, though.

Just this past weekend, I came across a fairly popular bench on a local bike path that was completely destroyed by someone who had to break it in half.

A few weeks back, another bench was burned up.

And at another local resting area, their (plastic?) picnic table was also defaced and unusable.

A park I grew up near was completely torched one day (all wooden structures), and it took years for metal equipment to go up in its place.

People who vandalize and misuse these fixtures are the reason why they end up being removed 99% of the time. And it’s unfair to everyone else.

Hell, we’ve had entire sheltered bus stops have their glass destroyed, and they just take the whole thing down and don’t replace it. As a taxpayer, I can understand not wanting to flip the bill for another thing for someone to destroy, but it still frustrates me that people can’t behave.

Perhaps we’re misunderstanding something.

It’s a fact that plenty of devices have assistant software running 24/7, with an open mic. We can agree that the key phrase is detected locally via some low-power chip or something similar.

I’m saying that these virtual assistants are capturing and saving recordings, even when they aren’t explicit commands. Those recordings can then be used to further profile a user.

Mozilla even says that Amazon claims that they can delete recordings, but will continue to use data collected by the user from those recordings, despite that. This is a problem, IMO, and it can certainly explain many of these coincidences that people are witnessing.

There has been zero proof about illegal recording, even though it would be easy to find.

Except that Amazon has had to pay out $25 million for keeping kid’s recordings.

And the State of Texas has sued Google for illegally collecting voice-data.

California has also certified several class-action lawsuits against google for illegally recording and using conversations without consent.

Or that Apple was caught secretly recording voice conversations, even when the user opted-out.. Apple claimed this was a “bug”. LOL

There are so many cases like this, that we know of. I can’t imagine how many of these privacy nightmare we haven’t been made aware of.

The phones have highly optimized functions to listen to keywords. That’s the reason why you can’t change “OK Google” to “OK Jarvis” or whatever you want.

Well, I’d argue that you can’t change “OK Google” because that’s a great form of advertising. I’ve even seen movies where they use “Hey Siri” or “Alexa” as a product placement.

Your phone needs to do this locally without wasting battery.

For sure.

That doesn’t mean they don’t “accidentally” record completely irrelevant conversations.

And that also doesn’t mean that what it does record isn’t being aggregated so you can be marketed to.

Mate, your Alexa is plugged in, it’s not a phone.

Battery-powered bluetooth speaker.

You agree to your Alexa constantly listening when you buy it. It’s a feature, not a bug.

For sure, I’m just pointing out that these devices are always listening, and someone can agree to the assistant features, that shouldn’t include recording entire conversations that have nothing to do with Alexa.

Yes, it’s listening for those keywords, but only for them.

If you use those services, I would ask that you do a data takeout and actually HEAR what recordings they have.

We used an Alexa-enabled speaker, and it recorded many, many conversations that were not direct Alexa commands. Perhaps it was an “oops” type of eavesdropping, but Amazon still felt that the recordings needed to be saved on their server.

No, your phone isn’t listening to you, plenty of tests have been done.

Nah, that doesn’t apply to today’s devices.

There are millions upon millions of people using “Alexa”, “OK Google”, “Bixby” and “Hey Siri”, and those services require the mic to be always listening.

That’s how they work. And when they hear something, that data gets recorded to the company server to do what they like with it, including targeted ads and content.

And I would find it hard to believe that these corporations, with so many privacy-related lawsuits, aren’t using these always-on voice assistants to further market to their users.