I’m sure if bigger batteries sold better there would be more (any) options. The issue is not enough people care.

This in my opinion is only true to some degree. The real world doesn’t reflect the idealistic demand->supply concept, and instead there are many other factors that play a role. There’s the reverse supply->demand effect aswell, where companies especially through marketing steer consumer demand into the direction that suits them.

The issue is not enough people care.

Here the big issue is that not all qualities are equally easy to experience.

When you go into a store you can immediately see and feel the effect a larger, brighter screen or a thinner device has, the difference in real world battery life for your own specific use case is impossible to quantify. Even more so when asked to extrapolate it into the future and factor in degrading capacities. You can’t even directly translate a concrete number like the mAh size of the battery into it, since hardware/software efficiency and useage patterns can distort it substantially.

That was my initial thought aswell, but after thinking about it I changed my opinion to preferring the simple majority.

Imo one of the deciding factors is how you think about it. Do you see it as a choice between two conscious actions (acceptance or active rejection), or is only the “yes” vote an active choice and “no” something of a “natural” state?

Also if you set hurdles for change to high, then you are potentially hindering progress and systematically favoring conservatism. Which isn’t always bad, but the status quo and how things were done in the past aren’t always sustainable and worth the advantage.

Thanks for the link. That is certainly a frustrating development, since they had to sell it for a much steeper discount before as the article mentions.

There might be public displeasure about it, but I think behind the scenes India buying Russia oil is expected and at least to some degree accepted (or possibly even wanted).

The bigger thing is Russia not generating profits from those sales, which I am speculating is not the case at the prices India is buying at. The upside of Russian oil still being available to the world market is keeping the prices lower, something Europe is very much interested in.

I’ve read somewhere that horse mats made out of rubber are pretty good flooring for home gyms and cheaper than something marketed towards gym use.

If it can take the full weight of a horse standing on it with its small hoofs, then it should have no issues with any weight you might drop on them during lifting.

I am also from Germany and get payed for donating thrombocytes at my university hospital. The compensation is actually quite substantial imo at (up to) 75€ per session, which can be done every two weeks. The money is however mean to offset the time required, not the thrombocytes donated. So it is correlated to how long it takes.

You get 15€ (?) for up to 15min (if they have to abort very early for some reason or at your first visit where they just draw blood to test), 50€ for up to 1h (which equals to 1 instead of 2 pack of thrombocytes, usually done at your first real donation or if you maybe dont have enough for 2 on this particular day), and 75€ for anything over 1h (which is the norm).

Timewise the hospital is on the outskirts of the city, so most will have to travel a bit, then you have to fill out forms, have a quick talk with the doctor, and finally depending on your parameters it takes anywhere from ~55-70min to extract, during which you are tethered to a machine (which takes out some blood, then seperates out the thrombocytes with a centrifuge, pumps back the rest, and repeat).

One could get philosophical about the topic, but from a practical perspective the money makes a lot of sense imo:

• It costs them a lot of money to investigate new prospects, so you want reliable repeat donors

• Each donation already has other costs associated with it. Like for example the kit used during extraction, the staff handling everything and so on. So even those 75€ are just one more expense among many, and from donation to usage probably vanish in the overall costs.

• For the donor it is quite a substantial time commitment, especially when done regularly every two weeks. Unlike for example full blood donations you’d maybe do twice a year. And you should be reliable and not randomly cancel at the last second, so ideally it also has priority over some other things in your life.

• the small amount of blood that remains inside the machine is sometimes used for other research (if you agree to it, which i do)

From my own experience i can say that i might still do it without, but certainly not at the same frequency. And considering the time and effort required i don’t think anyone could be blamed for doing it less frequently without the incentive. So at least in this case it imo is a fair trade and net positive. Although it does also help that this is a university hospital that directly uses it themselves, rather than a for profit company.

This is their best chance to escape their coming economic trap. They control so few actual resources beyond labor.

Is that actually the case? I am not sure how many resources china has in their own country (I assume there are a few with it being this vast), but I think they are tackling the resource problem more so with their investments in Africa and other poor countries. And because of the war Russia also has fewer countries to sell to besides China.

I think the true longterm problem is actually with the cheap labour force you mention. As the standard of living rises, so do wages. And more importantly they’ll experience the same demographic shift other developed countries are currently experiencing with an aging population. With the difference that it’ll be worse for them due to the one child polic.

Agreed. I remember when lightbulbs got banned here in the EU starting from 2009 to 2012 in steps. Here in Germany plenty of people were mad and hoarding them.

Nowadays with the larger focus on energy prices, especially in light of the russia-ukraine war, it seems insane that not even that long ago to light a room one or multiple lightbulbs using 65-100 watts were used. That’s like the equivalent of an office PC running just for some light.

The chart also doesn’t specify what hardware the calculation is based on. If it’s “1 year to crack for your average desktop PC”, then a server farm will do so in minutes.

Right, totally forgot about that step.

Haven’t used it myself, but similar to casa os there is also cosmos os, which looking here seems to offer some build in storage management options. Maybe this could be worth looking into?

openmediavault is ok for raid, but the containers aren’t one click wonder like in other NAS OSes

Since OMV also uses docker compose with a build in GUI to manage them, I don’t assume this would be what OP is looking for either? Unless trueNAS also comes with some repository of preconfigured compose files.

I am currently using Openmediavault for my NAS and can confirm that with an official plugin so far I havent had any issue with my ZFS pool (that I migrated from trueNAS scale since I didn’t like their kubernetes use and truecharts, but as someone mentions they seem to switch to docker).

Otherwise I am happy as well, but I am far from a poweruser.

Well i aswell hope that this isn’t just my bias speaking :)

Unlike France or GB, which recently had elections substantially changing majorities, here in Germany it’s still the exact same people in charge since the start of this war. With the only major change being the defense minister, and that was for the better. So the people deciding here are the same that (based on this article) doubled this years support budget. And as far as i am aware there really hasn’t been any major event that would have shifted the sentiment in foreign politics from what we’ve experienced until now.

On the side of internal politics as mentioned it is basically a self-inflicted struggle to balance the budget and limit new debt. Because for some reason we chose to write that into our constitution, restraining our options. So everyone is fighting for their share and by the looks the winners are the usual: more money to secure pensions for old people and the automotive industry. While not only the budget for Ukraine is on the chopping block, but also other stuff like a reform of welfare for children or infrastructure projects for railroads.

Might sound bad, but it’s nothing really new and so far lack of funds hasn’t been an issue delaying German support. So i don’t expect it to be going forward either. We’ll just keep moving in lockstep with what others provide, slowly build out capacity and react to new developments. Which would be no change to how we’ve seem to have handled it so far, and not like “the slashing the budget by half” would imply.

And as mentioned above i am sure there are plenty of additional ways to support Ukraine that don’t hinge on the budget. Like telling Ukraine to direcly purchase through the manufacturers and giving security assurances for loans. Might be a worse deal on paper for Ukraine, but in the short/medium term wouldn’t make a practical difference. And things can get sorted later.

But regardless of how this plays out we won’t have any type of deadlock like the one delaying US aid until recently. And the largest party in the opposition is also in favor of supporting Ukraine, despite taking any opportunity to take shots at whatever the governing parties decide.

Personally as a German. while disappointing at facevalue, i wouldn’t read too much into it in respect to any shifts in the commitment to supporting Ukraine (but i might also be wrong here).

To me this very much is an internal self-inflicted struggle about balancing budgets and we’ll only be able to tell whether it actually affected things in retrospect (if it’s even possible).

In the end maybe more purchases will be directed through EU funds (of which Germany pays a substantial share) or instead of direct aid things are financed through low interest rate loans (that later might even get forgiven). Or you have some other kind of schemes where aid indirectly goes towards Ukraine.

And who knows how the conflict will change, promting adjustments in deliveries. Like the recent airstrikes probably leading towards more air defense systems being delivered than originally anticipated (with a single Patriot system being worth as much as 1 billion if i understand it correctly)

Downside might be that this requires a good internet connection, which depending on where OP travels might not always be available.

This seems a bit impractical. 2 phones to keep charged and manage.

Depending in your use case can’t you just get some external USB storage?

And the swap from physical buttons, which you can use by feel and that never change their location, to touch controls made this less of an issue?

Yeah, i’d have also loved if we moved to an “opt-out” system or one where you are asked to choose at some point.

If we had more than enough organs for everyone we might be able to afford the “luxury” to not adress the issue, but we don’t. And compared to the very real consequences this deficit has, it really isn’t a burden to reverse the burden through opt-out or at least force people to choose. Not making a choice has just as much consequences, if not more (since it leaves it ambiguous for others that might later have to make the choice for you).

And as you said the majority probably has no problem being a donor, but the default state is a form of apathy/lazyness/ignorance. So like with many other issues a top down approach would be way more effective, compared to putting the burden on every single individual to be proactive.

I am not registered, but I have a organ donor card (where I approve organ donations).

Background:

Germany just recently (18th of March this year) launched an online database where you can register your preference. Until then there was only a small organ donor card that you could fill out and carry with you.

Reason I haven’t registered there yet is that I first need to unlock the online function on my passport (nowadays always enabled, but I still have one from when it was optional). So I’ll eventually get around to doing both.

As for my reasoning behind being a donor:

• I would like to receive them in an emergency (or for someone I care about to do so).

• And in case I become a donor I am not there anymore to care about what people do with my organs.