Agreed with your post – except on the “Kids pajamas” – they should probably be reclassified under the “Anything which goes in or on my body” list you made.
Whether it’s undisclosed flame retardants, toxic dyes, or other harmful substances, kids bodies are generally more susceptible to harm via environmental pollutants. Such harms may not be at all obvious in the short term, but could still be very harmful over the long-term.
I wish I knew of a vastly superior option (ie, safer option) for buying kids or baby clothes. (Anyone have suggestions on this?)
That said, I believe Amazon is probably at the riskier end of this spectrum vs.traditional stores because of their distributor-centric structure.
Basically, if a harmful product were to receive any negative press, it would more easily be equated with a single company/seller from another country, and probably one with an odd-sounding name.
With a more traditional brick and mortar store, the product may be sourced from the exact same producer, but the reputation hit will be greater to the brick and mortar store, because the customer tends to equate the product more closely with the the store itself. Often, they present themselves to the public as the “seller” of the product whereas Amazon will more give the presentation of “distributor” on behalf of “(_insert_generic_inscrutably-named_foreign_corporation_name)”. Fly-by-night seems an apt description for these companies most the time.
This seemingly reduced level of accountability is the biggest problem I have with trusting them but it’s not the only one; it’s just compounded by the often fraudulent reviews, their practice of taking down authentic but critical reviews, and of selling counterfeits – even occasionally when one orders via a “Prime” option, or fulfilled by Amazon, or seemingly buys an item directly via the manufacturer’s Amazon ‘store’.
Of course there are many other issues as well but these are a few that have created headaches for me in the past to the point that I now avoid them for most purchases.
Can you name any specific instance where people were harmed by toxins in clothing? The skin tends to be a pretty good barrier. Creams and cosmetics are often designed to penetrate it, but clothing fits within my risk profile. I come in contact, skin-ways, with all sorts of nastier things day-to-day, even when working on my house.
My concerns around clothing have more to do with durability, comfort, and quality. For example, bad pyjamas can be not very breathable or collect sweat.
That's pretty easy to tell, though.
So that's shady clothing fits in my risk profile.
As a footnote: I'm not implying it should fit into your risk profile; I'd avoid based on hypothetical risks like lead contamination, PFAS, and other hypotheticals if I earned perhaps 50% more than I do today. I'm asking since if there are specific instances (not of contamination but of harm), I might change my risk profile.
Your “plastic band” argument- indeed, most of your arguments on this- fails to acknowledge the pleasant reality of the ipad pro’s.
My 2020 ipad pro 11” does not have that unsightly plastic band, nor the iphone 15 pro.
As far as aesthetic elements, these enclosures appear essentially as metal and glass, an appearance not markedly different than existing macbook appearances.
Even the iphone mini 13 manages to fit effective cellular arrays in its compact form sans the big plastic bands on those ipads you mention. And despite its diminutive size, the mini 13 can still manage a reliable call over cellular for hours at a time.
With the greater real estate offered by the macBook form factor, there are broader options for effective antenna arrays and also their power supply versus phones and tablets.
My experience with them is mixed. I’ve had a couple of theirs and they’ve been markedly inaccurate in some categories. For example, reporting I was not in bed when I actually was, or vice verse on other nights. As a result, the sleep hours were off. I still love it for the temperature control (set to manual, not their ‘auto’ algorithms), but if it can’t reliably report something as simple as whether I’m in or out of bed, then accurately judging sleep stages should be even less likely.
My oura ring has been far more helpful in identifying patterns leading to less quality sleep. For example , by highlighting elevated resting heart rates and asking me if I ate later that night, consumed spicy foods or alcohol, etc. That said, it’s not terribly durable. After a couple years it refused to accept firmware updates. Then a few weeks ago (after maybe 3 years of use) it stopped connecting to the app altogether and support tickets are going unanswered. This is greatly disappointing but I may spring for a replacement anyway because of how helpful it’s been in correlating lifestyle choices to sleep parameters (& quite consistently so).
Agreed on preferring my oura vs my eight bed for sleep tracking. Just found out that their web interface gives you a lot more analytic tools than the app, check that out if you have not already.
You are right about one thing - you have the luxury of popping a pill every day that treats your condition. And from that platform, you can look down on the others and tell them to just be patient and resilient.
Your injunction to “build psychological resilience” is exceptionally tone-deaf for those suffering from cognitive problems. If your prefrontal cortex was receiving insufficient perfusion and excessive inflammation, you would begin to see the futility of such a suggestion. Try telling that to someone who’s drowning.
The suggestion that people with LC can, through the measures you suggest, get back to “an acceptable level of life quality” demonstrates how little you understand of their situation. Many people suffering from LC were formerly top-performers in their respective fields and are now suffering considerably every single day- have been for many months or years - and are understandably desperate. Unfortunately, many have chosen to end their lives because after trying the approaches you suggest (and being gaslit in a similar fashion) they concluded that life was not worth living.
Finally, your saying this girl has no fucking idea what she is doing implies you are an expert in the subject matter that she writes in. Is that the case? I find that doubtful. And I sure hope not because the illogical way you reason here would be a huge disservice to the life-sciences field.
While anecdotal, her sleep improved significantly within 1 or 2 days of starting this new diet.
I believe she also cites improvements across cognitive symptoms - both her own symptoms and also more broadly, why it would help generally for others. Unfortunately my own LC brain fog is inhibiting my recall of the specifics.
I’m glad to hear she has found relief and hopefully others will, too. I’ll give it a try if I muster sufficient motivation and if this approach is acclaimed by some more positive anectdotes (especially those people who report an abrupt improvement in symptoms). I looked up her treatment regimen and it does sound like quite a hassle. But the risks sound manageable especially in light of the potential benefits.
Those 5 advantages are very important, but you haven’t mentioned its disadvantages which render the advantages less dramatic.
A significant disadvantage is the lower energy density of the sodium battery chemistry. Implications include faster discharge/lower range if the physical dimensions are the same as a lithium battery, or if optimized for more range/power, then it would be a larger and heavier pack vs lithium with the costs that entails.
This lower energy density is one of the main reasons it has been considered more suited to stationary application because the extra space and weight is less problematic than in a mobile applicaiton
Betteridge’s law would say “no” to the title question.
Click-baity title aside, it’s cool to see a simple combination of hardware & novel software attacking problems that are so basic - perhaps even boring - and yet so globally important.
fyi the aljazeera screenshot doesn’t show the dji article - just a cookie disclosure. Was the ‘ridiculous’ part in the article? Or their saying that the cookie gives “voice to the voiceless”. (Which is funny)
You can barely see the title behind the cookie popup and the "live" section, which is one of the worst examples I've seen for these annoying practices.
Thankfully Firefox on Android has the "reader mode" available right next to the url.
it's ridiculous that the propaganda arm of a totalitarian illiberal petrostate claims to "give a voice to the voiceless" or "promote truth and transparency". i also really dislike them because their "aj+" brand puts out heavily left biased faux-intellectual junk similar to vox or buzzfeed which makes me want to punch through a wall regardless of who puts it out.
GDPR does not mandate huge banners for every use of cookies. Those banners are mandated because the website in question wants to share information gathered on you with, in the case of most news websites, hundreds of third parties in order to make a little bit more money from advertisers.
So pretty much the same as every other news site on the planet? I guess I'm not fully understanding why the OP is specifically calling out Al Jazeera here.
