Me too!
I hate working with other people’s spreadsheets.
Or my old spreadsheets.
The worst is “can you just add a small feature” to a huge, sprawling, mission-critical, often reused spreadsheet.
But I love how quick and powerful it is to spin up a new spreadsheet to analyze something or clean up messy data!
They’re also used as cleaning tips for small/targeted applications, especially when you don’t want lint from a Kleenex or paper towel lingering. Makeup application/removal and electronics cleaning, for example.
I think (not a doctor) the ear thing is because if you go too deep you can cause some serious damage, and they can make wax buildup worse by compacting it. If you stay close to the ear opening, and do circular motions to swipe wax away, and clean your ears often enough that you don’t get dense wax build up, and don’t “double dip” to introduce potential pathogens, then I think they’re pretty safe to use? But that’s too many caveats for lots of people, so I think ENTs often deal with people damaging themselves with them.
Hall effect joysticks would be great. The rest I don’t really count; obviously, better performance/bigger screen would be an incremental improvement, but I don’t need it. The OLED screen is plenty big enough.
I (personally) would never use detachable controllers and wouldn’t want more moving parts that could break. Haptics and adaptive triggers I don’t care about improving. For sound, I prefer headphones for when I want “good” sound, too, so that wouldn’t make a difference for me.
Even hall effect joysticks are only going to matter to me if my current joysticks break or develop play.
I really do think the current OLED is amazing.
This one I’m excited for. A Steam Machine would be great, and my biggest gripe with controller play on my desktop is the missing trackpads mean Steam Input didn’t work. There are games that I choose to stream to/play on my Deck over using my 1440p 32" screen on my gaming rig because I don’t have Steam Input on my desktop.
I’m not really sure what’s not perfect with the OLED already, lol. Maybe a second USB-C port would be nice, so we could charge it while using a non-hub device, or use a cheap hub to add even more controllers? That’s a minor, incremental improvement, though.
It could always be smaller/thinner/quieter, I guess, but I can’t think of anything I’d really want to change with my Deck. I have lots of minor pain points with other tech, but I literally can’t think of anything with the Deck, so I’m curious if you have any specifics, or if you’re just trusting that Valve has put some real thought and research into this and will surprise us with design changes for the better that aren’t obvious.
Realistically, everyone should probably be updating their BIOS when building a new computer. Often, early updates have the biggest fixes, right?
We all should probably be updating our mobo BIOS periodically, at least for the first years or two when there are still significant potential updates/fixes, but I don’t blame anyone who doesn’t; it’s not as straightforward as Windows Update doing everything for people.
My (major Canadian) Bank app (TD) has always just worked, no matter the state of my bootloader or root, and I’ve never bothered with Magisk Hide or anything like that to try to dodge root checks.
Even if the score is kept off, there’s the angle of the Sun and cloud cover. There’s just less sunlight to be had, even if the panels are kept clear of snow.
Hell, Vancouver Island gets practically no snow at all in many areas, and solar does much worse in its cloudy/rainy season (winter).
Liquid fluoride thorium reactors are designed to be meltdown proof. A fusible plug at the bottom of the reactor melts in the event of a power failure or if temperatures exceed a set limit, draining the fuel into an underground tank for safe storage.
Nuclear waste is way overblown as a concern. The total volume of waste is miniscule, relative to the power generated. Nuclear also uses almost no land for the reactor, compared with solar, and is essentially 100% dependable 24/7/365.
Solar is great, and costs are diminishing incredibly rapidly. And if the news of sodium-based batteries at ~9% the cost of lithium batteries plays out, then storing solar becomes cheap. Still not dependable for Canadian winters, of course. Solar also uses lots of land, and lots of mass of semiconductors (which of course has its own climate impacts to produce, ship, and recycle/dispose of).
I’m not super looped in to the technology specifics, but I understand that some modern nuclear designs are meltdown proof, too, so there isn’t really any rational NIMBY case to be made against them.
Having read the whole article, they don’t have any specifics that justify their concerns. They quote the price of nuclear facility construction, but don’t contrast those costs against any competing technologies, so the numbers are effectively meaningless. They complain about nuclear waste, but their only evidence is quoting NIMBYs who don’t want a facility put in close to them.
I’m open to being convinced that nuclear isn’t in Canada’s interests, but this article did not make a compelling case.
My children are both, and I’m one of those.
There’s no moral panic in my concerns about cell phones, just evidence about their detrimental effects on mental health.
Could you please be more clear? As a concerned father and educator, I strongly agree with Haidt’s broad argument and I am very worried for Gen Alpha coming of age with addiction machines on them 24/7. I’d like to hear more about what possible “sinister true motivations” might be aligning with my concern for youth mental health.
Non-algorithmic websites aren’t a problem in the same way and can be accessed from a home computer or tablet. Chat rooms and web forums are generally really wholesome spaces, at least if they’re moderated. There are lots of amazing spaces for 2SLGBTQ+ and neurospicy youth to connect outside of for-profit, maximize-engagement, addiction services.
Part of the reason to ban smart phones is notification anxiety, btw. The constant barrage of notifications scoring youth on their value as a person (“likes”) is addictive and incredibly toxic. Removing constant distraction from notifications in their pockets at all times alone is a huge benefit, and there is strong research supporting that. (Like the study that showed even having a switched off phone in the room impacts the ability to focus, with increasing effects of the phone is in their pocket but off, increasing again if it’s on but silent).
I strongly, vehemently reject that limiting smart phone access will hurt 2SLGBTQ+ and neurospicy kiddos from finding connection as there are many better ways of accessing safer online spaces than what phone apps. (My favourite example is the “autism” Minecraft server moderated by dads of autistic kiddos—what an amazing, wholesome project!)
You’re also right, of course, but children (with a developing prefrontal cortex) are particularly vulnerable, and that’s borne out by magnified mental health effects from social media use. Restricting social media would have big, positive effects.
The reason for age 16 being proposed is that this gives a couple of years for parents to help support youth with managing access to social media, for example by having supportive conversations about how to manage toxic content and people.
Snapchat in particular (but TikTok and Instagram, too) is absolutely toxic for children and should be illegal, imho. This legislation is a step in the right direction, but we’ll need to educate parents to move the needle even further if we want to see major mental health gains.
If you’re a parent reading this, please consider getting your child a dumb phone instead of a smartphone! A tablet at home is fine—not having notifications 24/7, and being in a semi-monitored space (with no social media apps installed) will make a big difference.
FYI: My understanding is that smart phones make school shootings more deadly, as they start misinformation, panic, and help shooters find targeted individuals. But school shootings aren’t a major concern where I used to teach (not the US), so I never looked into whether this is sorted by research, it was just the explanation we were given as teachers for our lockdown procedures.
So glad to hear that more districts are following the evidence on the toxicity of cell phones on youth mental health. As a former secondary teacher, I’ve been following this very closely, and it’s good to see politicians actually doing the right thing in increasing numbers globally, finally. If only we could get more parents on board with banning social media access for their children (until age ~16) in the first place!!
To be clear, there’s very little evidence that having dumb phones are a problem. Phone calls are great, and simple SMS/MMS texting is largely used by students effectively for communication and to build connections. And, obviously, are more than sufficient for parents to keep in contact with their children.
The problem is smart phones, especially “social media” apps, but, more generally, with addictive and deceptive dark patterns in most popular apps and, increasingly, websites.
For example, within minutes with a fresh account on TikTok, Instagram, or SnapChat shorts, teenage girls will be shown content promoting self harm/suicide and encouraging disordered eating. Teenage boys will be shown misogynistic “manosphere” and racist content just as quickly. It’s incredibly toxic.
I’ve already written too much for an Internet comment, but if you want to learn more, Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation” is a great, recent popular press book that explains this in detail. The only big criticism I’ve heard is that he does the Malcolm Gladwell thing where he jumps a bit farther than the evidence supports, but the book is otherwise very sound, well explained, and well researched. And, even if his conclusions aren’t the ideal solution (as sorted by evidence), it’s still grounded in reality and much better than the status quo, so I think this criticism is overstated.
Right, but if the beans they roast come through the US, then locally roasted beans will still have American tariffs applied, and it’s often not worth applying to get a refund. The goods were not for final sale in the US, the tariffs don’t apply, but the paperwork is more onerous than the refund, for smaller businesses. That’s the point.
Sure, fair enough. But the OLED Steam Deck will also still be a great system in 10 years, especially for anyone who has a gaming desktop. With local game streaming, even with aging hardware the Deck will still be able to play the latest AAA games, and it will still be able to play hundreds of thousands of older games natively.
As a patient gamer, it’s a no brainer.
I mean using the Track Pads, often for things like radial menus. A lot of PC games need more inputs than exist on a controller.