• 3 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • The behavior you’re describing does not sound like addiction. People with an addiction to a drug feel compelled to use the drug and become distressed if the drug is unavailable.

    This is also not binge drinking by any commonly-used definition. Two pints of beer a day is generally considered moderate drinking, and you’re not doing it every day, only when beer is on sale. Research does seem to be converging on drinking alcohol at all being bad for your health, however the effect size for occasional moderate drinking is small enough that it has been difficult to measure.

    What you are describing is impulsive behavior. When you see beer on sale, you can’t resist taking advantage of the offer. When you have beer, you drink it faster than you meant to. If you think about other areas of your life, can you find more examples where you struggle with impulse control?





  • You can’t. You can, however tell if a particular URL is believed to be dangerous by any of several organizations that track such things.

    Your browser probably has something built in; Firefox and Chrome do, for example. If you attempt to visit a known-bad URL, the browser will warn you and make you click through the warning before you do. Some other comments in this thread suggest third-party services that will also do this, and may even attempt to check the content found at the URL for known malware.





  • Quite. Unfortunately, most devices that use modern batteries have the battery sealed inside with an onboard charging system, such that when the battery wears out, the device becomes e-waste. There are many standard, or semistandard sizes of cylindrical lithium-ion cells, and devices could be designed for field-replaceable versions, but the only product category where it’s common is high-performance flashlights.

    Even in common consumer form factors, there have been improvements. Here’s a test of one of the best alkaline AAs. Note how the capacity drops as the load increases - by a factor of about six at 3 Amps. Contrast the Eneloop NiMH rechargeable, which has less capacity under light load, but barely loses any at 3 Amps and can handle 10 Amps while retaining most of its capacity.

    The best Li-ions in a form factor similar to AA, called 14500 have even better performance with over 5 Watt-hours of energy, but devices have to be designed for them since the voltage is much higher; putting one in most devices designed for AA will result in damage, if not fire.


  • We know reddit used bots at the beginning to generate activity to make the site look popular.

    That’s not quite it. The founders made a few of throwaway accounts and posted a bunch of links that exemplified what they wanted people to post. It was fake activity, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t automated. It was maybe 50 posts and I don’t think it was a bad thing to do.




  • Zak@lemmy.worldtoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlDo you believe in free will?
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    2 months ago

    Yes. I could talk about quantum indeterminacy as a scientific argument for it, but fundamentally, I believe in it because I want to[1]. I don’t like the idea of being a deterministic machine with a fate I can’t influence with active choices. It’s not provable either way with the current state of science, so I choose to believe my preferred option is the correct one.

    [1] Of course such a statement presumes free will. I think I want to, anyway.



  • It is not impolite to say something like “I’m married, and even if I wasn’t, you’re underage. We are not dating, and we are not going to date.”

    She’s being very inappropriate in this situation. That isn’t really meant to be a harsh judgment of her because she’s a kid and kids shouldn’t be expected to how to behave yet, especially when they’re very new to experiencing feelings of sexual or romantic attraction. Shutting her down firmly (but without any cruelty) will help her learn.