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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 19th, 2023

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  • A Chinese flagged ship disabled it’s transponders (so that people wouldn’t know where it was), slowed it’s speed, then dropped anchor and dragged it 100 miles across multiple underwater cables. This is almost certainly intentional sabotage, although it’s not yet clear what governments are responsible. The ship was loaded with Russian fertilizer, which is the main link to Russia.

    Also:

    The Yi Peng 3 joins a growing list of incidents fueling Western suspicions of Russia’s covert operations. Last year, the Newnew Polar Bear, another Chinese vessel, allegedly severed a Finnish gas pipeline and cable while carrying Russian sailors.

    Source





  • The slower the better for battery health.

    Usually slow charging is just the standard USB 2.0 output, which is 5v 0.5A (so 2.5 watts). That was all the USB standard officially supported for a long time, but many devices and chargers actually supported up to 5v 1A (5 watt) or 5v 2A (10 watt) charging. Those would usually be considered normal charging.

    Fast charging has a couple different specs and voltages, but can go up much higher. My steam deck supports 45w charging, and some laptops support 65w or higher.


  • Slow charging is actually better for battery longevity than fast charging. For example, my phone will limit it’s charging speed at night when I have an alarm set, because it assumes I won’t need it until my alarm goes off, and the slower it charges the less damage is done to a battery.

    In general, lithium batteries are damaged by heat. Rapid charging creates extra heat, so it’s worse for the battery. Manufacturers work hard to minimize the damage of quick charging, but it’s still somewhat better to slow charge when you have the time.



  • Fossil fuels is kinda a prisoner’s dilemma issue. Everyone cooperating to save the planet is obviously ideal, but realistically there are always going to be companies/countries that won’t. And as long as it’s cheaper to not be environmentally friendly, there’s always going to be someone taking that option.

    For example, lets say country A passes new regulations on manufacturing to be more environmentally friendly. The new regulations take the country’s manufacturing from low pollution to very low pollution. However the increase in cost causes many companies to stop manufacturing locally, and instead outsource their manufacturing to country B with low regulation and moderate pollution during manufacturing. The end result is more money leaving the local economy of country A, and increased global pollution.

    It’s a similar prisoner’s dilemma for the individual companies involved. If your competitor is able to make their product for cheaper because their process is less environmentally friendly, then they can undercut you and put you out of business.








  • Many new PCs (generally the cheaper priced ones) come in S mode now, where you can only install Microsoft store apps. You can turn this off to allow regular PC programs too, but they require you to set up the Microsoft store before you can disable it.

    If you’re trying to set up a new PC without a Microsoft account (which is getting increasingly hard), you can’t disable S mode. There was a workaround that involved booting into recovery mode and running some commands/registry edits, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft has blocked that too by now.

    This is also the biggest reason Valve supports Linux and ChromeOS. Microsoft really wants full control over what software people can use on Windows, and Valve is worried about getting pushed off the platform.