There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

Marruk

@[email protected]

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

Online vape seller has ‘no intention of stopping’ shipments to Australia, despite nationwide ban — ‘We have no intention of stopping just because of one twat in Canberra.’ (www.vice.com)

Online vape seller has ‘no intention of stopping’ shipments to Australia, despite nationwide ban — ‘We have no intention of stopping just because of one twat in Canberra.’::The New Zealand-based seller issued a notice to its Australian customers that shipments will continue regardless of the government’s vape reform.

Marruk ,

It is premature to declare vaping safer than smoking, as there is relatively little comprehensive research on the long term effect of vaping. The whole “vaping is safer” spiel is not that different than when doctors were paid to tout the health benefits of cigarettes: propaganda not based in conclusive science.

Marruk ,

The number of ingredients is irrelevant, especially since the idea that there are “at most” 6 ingredients is simply wrong: hub.jhu.edu/2021/10/07/vaping-unknown-chemicals/

A major area of concern for vaping is the fact that vaping generates much higher concentrations of nano-particles compared to regular cigarettes, and therefore may penetrate much further into the lung material (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6312322/ and journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/jour…). There are also concerns about contaminants, variations in delivery devices (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6312322/), and other confounding factors that require a lot more research to ascertain the long term impact.

As for whether I have a study or information contradicting the conclusion that vaping is safer than smoking, it depends on whether you selectively ignore the parts of the studies that say “more research is needed” (because apparently that’s an “ignorant take”), but searching for “peer reviewed articles electronic cigarettes safer than tobacco” returns these top results (I did not cherry pick in any way, and instead took the top results sequentially):

  • journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/…/2042098614524430: “In conclusion, toxicological studies have shown significantly lower adverse effects of EC vapor compared with cigarette smoke. Characteristically, the studies performed by using the liquids in their original liquid form have found less favorable results; however, no comparison with tobacco smoke was performed in any of these studies, and they cannot be considered relevant to EC use since the samples were not tested in the form consumed by vapers. More research is needed, including studies on different cell lines such as lung epithelial cells. In addition, it is probably necessary to evaluate a huge number of liquids with different flavors since a minority of them, in an unpredictable manner, appear to raise some concerns when tested in the aerosol form produced by using an EC device.” Granted, it does go on to say that existing evidence shows that vaping is safer than tobacco, but clarifies that there still needs to be more research on some of the unquantified risks of vaping.
  • www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5469426/ This is an older study using a very small sample size. It focuses on e-cigs as a tool for smoking cessation, but also concludes “Similar to cancer risk, there are no published data describing the long-term lung function or cardiovascular effects of e-cigarettes; ongoing surveillance, especially once e-cigarettes are regulated and standardized, will be necessary.”
  • journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/jour… This study was primarily measuring how likely e-cigs were to get people to stop using tobacco, rather than comparative safety (despite the title). The conclusion makes clear that it is not known (at the time; this was 9 years ago) if e-cigarettes could be considered “safe”: “Adding e-cigarettes to tobacco smoking did not facilitate smoking cessation or reduction. If e-cigarette safety will be confirmed, however, the use of e-cigarettes alone may facilitate quitters remaining so.”

I’m not sure what your Google search was, but its probably best not to cherry pick a single source to support your claim.

Marruk ,

My argument wasn’t “vaping isn’t healthy” or “vaping is more harmful than cigarettes”. It was “more research is needed”, which each of those studies I linked support. Thank you, though, for proving my point in your attempt to build a lovely strawman to argue against.

Marruk ,

Any time I see someone whining about seeing posts on a topic that they, personally, don’t like, I upvote the post to add visibility, then block the whiner. Thank you for your contribution!

Marruk ,

l

Marruk , (edited )

twitter is where most people are

Twitter is gone. There is only X.

According to Musk, there are 556m monthly active “users”. A year ago Musk commissioned a study that found at least 11% of active users on Twitter were bot accounts. There’s plenty of reason to believe that that percentage has only gone up, especially in light of the fact that there’s been a significant exodus of users due to Musk’s handling of the platform, and that at the time of the study there were about 368m users. So either 200m people who were previously uninterested in Twitter were so impressed by how Musk systematically made X less functional and more expensive, or bot accounts became massively more prevalant.

Regardless, with a global adult population of 8+ billion, in no world is 556m “most people”, even ignoring the bots. Facebook has 3b monthly active users. Tiktok 1b. Instagram 2b.

As for the rest of the argument, the idea that the only way for extremist voices can be held in check is to politely engage them in rational discussion is sadly nonsense. They’re extremists. They aren’t interested in rational discussion. The only way to hold them in check is to deplatform them, whether literally or just by the old fashioned method of social ostracism.

Marruk ,

Hats off to the downvoter who read this and apparently thought to themselves “hell no! 556 million is a lot more than 3 billion, and definitely more than half of 8 billion!!!”

Marruk ,

Manuel Vonau

From his bio on that site (www.androidpolice.com/author/manuel-vonau/):

Manuel studied Media and Culture studies in Düsseldorf, finishing his university career with a master’s thesis titled “The Aesthetics of Tech YouTube Channels: Production of Proximity and Authenticity.” His background gives him a unique perspective on the ever-evolving world of technology and its implications on society. He isn’t shy to dig into technical backgrounds and the nitty-gritty developer details, either.

So he’s a marketing guy with possibly zero tech background beyond watching YouTube videos, who isn’t afraid to discuss “nitty-gritty developer details” despite apparently not actually understanding them.

Marruk ,

I actually am a developer who works for a hospital. I wouldn’t write articles or otherwise create materials discussing the “nitty gritty medical details”.

Marruk ,

At this point, I think most people who qualify as merely conservative are Democrats. The Republican party in general has moved far right of “conservative” and well into “fanatical”.

Marruk ,

Lemmy: “All of the ways Elon mismanaged Tesla brought the quality of the cars down to the point where the brand’s reputation is sunk. That hurt sales more than people not commuting to work.”

You: “Look at all you on Lemmy saying how you don’t need to own a car any more because you’re using your car half as much!”

Marruk ,

altered carbon was a disaster

Personally, I loved it. I just wish they’d make a second season.

Marruk ,

I was being a bit sarcastic, because season 1 was fantastic, but season 2 was (IMHO) absolutely terrible. I couldn’t finish it.

Marruk ,

Someone complains about one specific thing not being free. You:

I don’t know why people expect to get **everything **for free

Since you’ve started down the road of what people are and are not allowed to do: you are not allowed to participate in discussions if you can’t avoid making shitty logical fallacies in your very first response.

Marruk ,

That’s correct. The indicator light was pretty obvious.

I always found it fascinating how upset people get about the idea of a novel device recording them without permission, but it is a complete non-issue that a familiar device (the common smart phone) could also record them without permission with less of a chance of them noticing.

Marruk ,

Posting ragebait articles about a platform because you know users will engage.

Lol irony.

They Gossiped At Brunch. Now There’s a Mob After Them | People are sharing other people's gossip on TikTok, and experts say that it could have IRL effects (www.rollingstone.com)

They Gossiped At Brunch. Now There’s a Mob After Them | People are sharing other people’s gossip on TikTok, and experts say that it could have IRL effects::The growing trend of gossip TikTok is putting people’s personal lives on blast — and it risks setting up a self-imposed surveillance state.

Marruk ,

“Freedom of speech” doesn’t mean “I should be able to say what I want without any consequences”.

Marruk ,

I’m just arguing that, for certain very large monopolistic corporations, maybe it should apply as well.

Instead of treating huge corporations that actively suppress competition like they’re a de facto form of government, we should instead… prevent them from getting to the point where their size and market share grants them power over the lives of citizens comparable to that of the government.

Marruk ,

a “platform” like mail which has been determined to be a right.

When was mail determined to be a right, and by whom?

Marruk ,

We advocate for freedom of speech, and not just the limited one currently granted by the 1st amendment of the constitution of the USA.

“People should be able to say whatever they want without having to fear consequences” is a garbage take on “freedom of speech”. Even if you clarify it as “people be able to say whatever they want without having to fear consequences from large organizations”, it is still a garbage take.

Marruk ,

I’m confident that the amount of things you cannot imagine is quite substantial; certainly far more than that of an average person.

Marruk ,

Ironic, considering I’m still waiting to hear who determined mail to be right.

How Much Does It Cost to Charge an Electric Vehicle? (A comparison at home and on the road, with gasoline) (www.caranddriver.com)

How Much Does It Cost to Charge an Electric Vehicle? (A comparison at home and on the road, with gasoline)::Few people know what a kilowatt-hour costs them, so they don’t realize how cheap EV home charging is versus gasoline. On the road, it’s more complicated.

Marruk ,

Do you understand how much effort you’re putting into being “right” rather than having an actual discussion?

For context, you started with “EV is bad because it uses coal”, implying that it is worse than ICE vehicles (somehow).

Then you had to change it to “EV is bad because it uses non-renewable energy.”

Then you had to change it to “EV is bad because it uses non-renewable energy and renewable energy, but not really much renewable energy.”

Then you had to change it to “EV is bad because outside of California, which doesn’t count (for some reason), it uses non-renewable energy and renewable energy, but not really much renewable energy.”

Now that someone is pointing out that other places besides California use significant amounts of renewable energy, your argument has become “I only will accept arguments that provide citations, even though my own various, shifting arguments, have provided none.”

This is in no way a good look for you.

Marruk ,

OG Travian was the shit. I made a lot of friends there that persisted long after I left the game.

Twitter Sues Hate-Speech Research Group Over Claims That Hateful, Racist Content Has Proliferated Under Musk’s Ownership (variety.com)

Twitter filed a lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate. “Despite our continued progress, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) and its backers have been actively working to assert false and misleading claims encouraging advertisers to pause investment on the platform. X is a free public service funded...

Marruk ,

The real problem here is that Twitter/X user’s data can be easily revealed by organizations.

The publicly posted data being easily revealed by organizations is a problem?

Marruk ,

That’s how defense of this stuff always works. They subtly change the meaning of commonly accepted words and terms. “Service available to the public” becomes “public service” and “Nazis are good” becomes “an opinion” instead of hate speech.

My dog and I got jumped by raccoons this morning. Now I have to pay at least $1500 to make sure I don't get rabies

My dog is fine, though, which is the most important thing to me. The raccoons scratched my arm kinda bad and my legs are covered in scratches. My doctor can’t be sure if the raccoons had saliva on their claws, and wants me to get rabies shots just in case. She sent me to an ER because she can’t get the shots in our area....

Marruk ,

Nah, wombats just lure you into sticking your head in the hole they’re hiding in, and then crush your skull with their muscly ass. theoatmeal.com/comics/wombats

Marruk ,

I love that I got to experience the computer revolution from (nearly) the start to its current state, but damn, I really do resent some of the bad habits I’ve picked up due to technical limitations that existed when I got started. I think ortho looks just so much better and more comfortable, but the typewriter layout is firmly engrained in my muscle memory…

Marruk ,

The ergonomic keyboards I’ve seen still had offset keyboard rows, rather than the ortholinear setup shown in the tweet linked above. It’s the uniform spacing and grid layout that I’ve never seen before (not to say that means its new; just new to me!).

Marruk ,

So do you just assume everyone lives within convenient travel distance of a wide variety of shops that would supply everything that they could possibly want, or are you claiming moral superiority because you shop at Walmart instead of online at Amazon?

Marruk ,

So did you just skip the first half of my comment, or did you not understand the words?

Newsflash: not everyone in America lives in a major urban area where a wide variety of shops are available, let alone small independent shops. I live 30 minutes from the nearest city, which is a small city. There’s a huge amount of products that are not available in either my immediate area or even in the closes city. I don’t mind paying extra to avoid major chains, and I typically look elsewhere before resorting to Amazon, but paying extra and spending 2+ hours in a car to avoid Amazon is not a viable alternative.

If you’re going to talk about the “natural state of things”, then I assume you simply go out into the nearest forest, cut down a tree, and build whatever you need using the assortment of stone tools you’ve hand crafted?

Marruk ,

No, your comment was clear: anyone who doesn’t make whatever level of effort it takes to never shop at Amazon infuriates you. Furthermore, you assume that there are always other choices besides Amazon and Walmart. What you obviously still aren’t getting is that those other choices besides Amazon and Walmart may not be practical for everyone.

Amazon is bad. No one is disagreeing. But if I need a left-handed monkey wrench and my choices are either buy from Amazon or drive 2 hours to the closest major city, go to a big box store that let’s be honest, isn’t really much better than Amazon in terms of economic impact, and then drive 2 hours back, you being infuriated by my choosing to not waste half a day to choose the slightly-lesser-of-two-evils is a lovely demonstration of privilege.

Marruk ,

Yeah, I’ve been making a real effort to look for alternatives to Amazon whenever possible. It’s hard, though, depending on what you want. Sure, there’s a ton of stuff on Amazon that I can get local if I’m willing to put up with some inconvenience. I don’t buy books off of Amazon anymore, for example, because I’d rather call the small independent book shop that’s about 35 minutes drive from my house, have them order the book for me, and then drive out and pick it up.

But the sheer volume of things Amazon sells means there’s going to be LOTS of things that they have that just aren’t available around me. A new fan for my specific model of laptop? A replacement knob for my specific washing machine (for less than a dollar)? Amazon it is.

Marruk ,

Really? I had no idea! /s

Seriously, though… just because there are other vendors that sell online does mean that each and every thing someone may want/need is available from other vendors online. Amazon has spent decades forcing competitors either out of business or to work through Amazon. They also leverage volume and loss leaders to drastically undercut prices of competitors they can’t eliminate.

Even if you can find someone else that has what you’re looking for and are willing to pay more (and for the record, I absolutely pay extra to avoid Amazon whenever possible), there are a lot of small businesses that provide even shittier service (or are outright scams) than Amazon. You may or may not actually get what you ordered, and if something is wrong with it, good luck getting a replacement or refund short of a formal dispute with your bank. Many require credit cards for online transactions, and you have no idea how they’re handling that data. Plenty exist that store CC info on local servers with nonexistent security precautions.

“Just shop online elsewhere” is just as lazy and undeservedly self-righteous as assuming everyone can just walk to a physical store to buy whatever they want.

Marruk ,

And why do you think you have no other choice than Amazon and Walmart in America?

That’s what you said, which is somewhat ambiguous phrasing. It could mean “why do you believe that there are no other choices, because there are?” or it could mean “yes, you have no other choices than those two, but how do you think that happened?”

Given that you started off by arguing that it was infuriating that anyone would ever shop at Amazon, and have been pretty consistent in your other comments that the solution is to just go to “an actual shop”, the first interpretation is much more appropriate to the context.

If you really meant “yes, you have no other choices than those two”, then sure, I’ll accept the back pedaling. It doesn’t change that you are infuriated that anyone would shop at Amazon, and accuse those that do of personally destroying the climate because we are lazy. The fact that you are aware that many people simply don’t have a better option, and yet you still judge them so harshly, only makes you look worse.

Marruk ,

Okay, that all I can agree with. And I feel like there’s a huge difference between buying items on Amazon, and buying groceries on Amazon. I find it really hard to justify the later, but I can still imagine some circumstances where it would be justified (e.g. someone with a disability who can’t travel/carry groceries, and no other local store has viable delivery options).

It’s a shame. I used to love Amazon. Back when they just sold books they were one of the sites that really highlighted just what the Internet could be. More than a place for entertainment, but a place to obtain things that were otherwise unavailable. Their transition from ‘we sell books’ to ‘we sell everything and we’ll actively destroy anything that might compete with us if we can’ was terrible.

They managed to even screw up the cost of gas for me. I live in a small town that happened to be chosen by Amazon to be one of their major distribution centers. Our area is filled with their delivery trucks, and as a result the cost of gas is a full $0.20 USD more here than if I drive to the next town over.

Fuck Amazon. But I refuse to judge people who shop there as harshly. Judging them requires too many assumptions about their personal circumstances.

Marruk , (edited )

Not to mention that it’s questionable whether the average Republican gives more than the average Democrat, or if it is just a case of a small population of extremely wealthy individuals donating large amounts for reasons of tax benefits (in addition to the political motivations you mentioned).

Then there’s also this from one of the authors of the study: ‘It also wasn’t obvious “whether donors were being purely generous or whether they would also benefit from their donation. This relationship is called consumption philanthropy, in which people give to a religious organization or a school from which they will derive a benefit in the form of, say, a better religious education program or a new gymnasium.” Giving to a food bank or a homeless shelter has a very different outcome than does giving to a private school.’ (nonprofitquarterly.org/republicans-give-more-to-c…)

“Without context” is one of the favorite argument methods of conservatives. It’s not that they disagree about the context. They don’t understand the concept of context nor its relevance.

Marruk ,

I was especially freaked out when I realized it works offline.

Bluetooth autoconnecting to car when earbuds are already connected

Title. Pisses me off mildly. I’ve got my earbud in for a reason (quick drive) and Bluetooth decides to connect to the car when it starts. The cars’ head unit takes forever to start and have to manually switch over to Bluetooth mode (while the audio is already playing) and the volume is way down....

Marruk ,

I’ve got a slightly different version of this problem. I work from home, and if my wife drives my car out of or into the driveway while I’m on a call, even if I’m in my office in the basement, my phone will disconnect my earbuds and route my audio to my car.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • random
  • lifeLocal
  • goranko
  • All magazines
    •