This month I can finally leave my extortionate Verizon contract, I'm getting a new SIM card to get service with another ISP, now how can I ensure to keep my previous old phone number that Verizon assigned me 7 years ago?

I've read a lot of people talk about doing this, and I kinda follow, but also: almost any time I've tried it ends up becoming background noise and I follow almost none of it. Are those of you that do this doing simpler tasks as you listen?

I suck at spelling and would like to know a word I have typed is wrong or not. Ideally with a red underline.

I really struggle looking at text I have written and seeing the mistakes. I have tried Samsung, openboard, gboard. None seem to fix the issue.

I'm willing to download anything as long as it's not a privacy concern. Is there any way to get what I want.

I also asked here. https://lemm.ee/post/30123483

... and the only place to emergency park was in a touristy area where all the parking lots require a fee, would that accident-car have to pay for parking there while he's in a crisis?

Humans need approx 1tsp (or less) of sodium daily as an essential nutrient. I was low on sodium this morning* then spent the day at the beach in the salty ocean air, then within about 30 minutes I wasn't dizzy and nauseous anymore. Did the ocean air provide me sodium somehow?

*(dizzy & nauseous, I know the symptoms well since I often have no sodium in my diet and I've learned this through experience the last 5 years and I have to consciously remember to add sodium to my diet, and if I forget then I have dizziness and nausea)

Reddit wouldn't let me post this for some reason, Maybe because that subreddit r/askadoctor is dead, there have been no posts there for 3 years, so instead of abandoning my attempt at a post, I screenshat it and posting it here on Lemmy.

The slices in the middle are big, and the slices on the end are so small. Why can't they make it a rectangle with equally-sized square slices?

https://moon.nasa.gov/resources/429/the-moons-orbit-and-rotation/

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/7147508

case 1 (buying a cheap gadget from outside Europe):

I ordered a rare gadget from the US which could not be obtained locally. It was only $10. It was inspected by customs (which IIUC is a random selection process). Customs deemed it worthless, likely because the low value was not worth the paperwork. But then Belgian post demanded a flat “clearance fee” of €10. The rationale is that #bPost wants extra compensation for their effort in managing customs on behalf of the recipient. If I were to refuse payment, bPost would have a right to keep the gadget or destroy it, and had no obligation to return it.

IIUC, I also had the option to fetch the package from the customs office myself and pay nothing. This was an undisclosed option - I only later learned about it via rumor. In hind sight, it would not have made a difference anyway because the customs warehouse is quite far from Brussels. So I paid the €10.

case 2 (a customs mess and lost gift):

In part because of case 1, I tell family outside of Europe to never send me gifts. I generally tell everyone not to send me gifts anyway because of my general objection consumerism. But mom would not hear it; sent me a gift anyway. She wanted it to be a surprise but of course that doesn’t fly with customs. So she did everything right as far as she knows - declared a value and listed the contents.

Normally I would expect to receive a pick-up slip from bPost. But this time customs sent a form asking me for a copy of the invoice and to list the contents and value. I replied saying it’s a gift, thus I have no invoice. I said for the same reason I don’t know the contents or value but that I was told that info was already disclosed on the package by the shipper. I supplied a phone number so they could reach me quicker.

Customs apparently simply ignored my response. I received no further correspondence and no pickup slip. Mom never received the package back either. It just disappeared. I told my mom she should at least demand a refund from USPS on the shipping costs, but she could not be bothered. I’m not sure if customs tried to call me (it was years ago). It’s quite possible that they called and did not speak English which would have effectively been a dead-end because I was not fluent in local languages.

case 3 (future gift):

Another family member really wants to send me a gift for some exceptional reason. I have no idea what it is but I plan to stand my ground and insist that it will be a disaster.

I’m posting this to ask if my facts are correct, or whether things have changed. So specifically:

1. Is shipping into Europe still a random game of chance, whereby some packages simply get a pass and avoid both VAT and clearance fees?
2. Is it possible for a sender to pay the VAT at the same time as paying for shipping and ensure there is no further VAT fees or clearance fees? (I heard that’s possible although I don’t think this was ever offered to people shipping things)
3. Is the clearance fee from bPost still a flat €10?
4. Is the clearance fee from UPS and/or FedEx still €13 plus a percentage of the value?
5. Is it legal for customs to ignore correspondence? I would expect a developed system would require customs to respond one way or another to state what demands are unmet, and to give some kind of notice before or after taking some adverse action. If a response to them is lost, I would also expect customs to send a reminder saying they received no reply (in a civilized region).
6. (amend) I heard a rumor that often if a VAT charge is levied, then the courier will often waive their clearance fee but if customs opts not to charge VAT then couriers are encouraged to impose their clearance fee to ensure that recipients have to pay something. Is this generally true? If yes, is it actually written policy?

I heard an argument that the night sky should be filled with starlight, but since it is not, we know the universe is continuing to expand. More than that, we can measure the movement of stars year over year to deduce speeds and distances to confirm an expanding universe, and we think it is at an accelerating rate, BUT: wouldn't the sky still be dark even if the universe was static or even contracting?

I mean, I go into the basement with a flashlight and it doesn't matter how long I have the flashlight on, the room never gets brighter. Yes, it might seem brighter if I shrunk the size of the room, but that has more to do with refraction than intensity. Do we suppose that when starlight hits the edge of the universe it bounces back rather than, say, continuing on or getting absorbed or some such? I suppose we know something about redshift of stars, and I imagine that if space itself was contracting, the existing light be compressed into itself, becoming brighter, but I don't know enough of the field to work it out. Given how much empty space there is compared to a relatively sparse smattering of stars, would nights really be brighter, would it be noticeable, and how would we know that it wasn't exactly like what we see?

There’s a widespread nuisance of shared e-scooters (which do not need to be locked) taking up bicycle stalls that cyclists need to lock their bikes. Are e-scooter platforms instructing users to use bicycle racks? Or are people doing that against policy?

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/4664992

(the audio associated to the link will air on BBC World Service again in a couple hours from now [20:00 GMT today], if anyone is on a strained internet uplink)

A panel of climate experts answered questions related to #COP28. Someone asked about the viability of an agenda to get people off animal products. IIRC, the answers basically boiled down to:

• An elected politician telling people not to eat meat would be political suicide
• Nutrition would be a problem

IMO both answers are accurate. But isn’t there an oversight in terms of subsidies? The US gives huge subsidies to farmers and that includes livestock subsidies (not sure about other countries). A politician would not get away with intervening in people’s diets but canceling livestock subsidies would not be an intervention - it would actually be non-intervention. Would that still necessarily be political suicide?

W.r.t nutrition, someone who works 2 jobs and struggles for a survivable income would not have time/resources to study avoiding malnutrition on a strictly plant-based diet. So if animal products were priced out of the market for poor people, it would cause real problems, no?

Would it make sense to cut the subsidies, let animal product prices skyrocket, but then put the subsidies on the consumer side so overworked underpaid workers could maintain their diets? Apart from that, it seems a bit shitty that vegan taxpayers still finance animal exploitation by simply paying their tax.

Are there any states/countries known to not subsidize animal exploitation, where vegans can be vegan in the most absolute sense?

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/6076984

Belgian municipalities have started forcing people to use web browsers to interact with public services. That’s right. It’s no longer possible to reach a variety of public services in an analog way in some Belgian regions. And for people willing to wrestle with the information systems being imposed, it also means cash payment is now impossible when a service requires a fee. The government is steam-rolling over elderly people who struggle with how to use technology along with those who only embrace inclusive privacy-respecting technology. These groups are apparently small enough to be marginalized without government reps worrying about lost votes.

Hypothetically, what would happen if some Amish villages existed in Belgium? I ask because what’s being imposed would strongly go against their religion. Would the right to practice religion carry enough weight to compel the government to maintain an offline option even if it’s a small group of Amish? If yes, would that option likely be extended to everyone, or exclusive to the Amish?

Gov-issued banknotes used to be based on gold, so IIUC that theoretically meant you could always trade your cash for gold. And IIUC, that was also a control on inflation.

Then at some point the currency (guess I’m assuming USD but perhaps it applies to all currencies?) was no longer based on gold. People just simply trust the currency just because there are anti-counterfeit features, and perhaps because everyone else trusts it. Is that it? Is there nothing else to establish confidence in the value?

I ask because I saw a clever anti-cryptocurrency post saying something like:

1 coin of crypto = ½ unicorn horn = 1 faun hoof = ¼ vial of potion from an oni = 50 grams of fairie dust = ⅛ dragon egg = 1 Klingon tooth

Funny, but okay, he hopes to convince people that #cryptocurrency not being based on anything means it’s worthless. Couldn’t we just as well add USD to that equation, since US dollars are also not based on anything now that gold is out of the picture?

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/5730013

Before sharing a link I would like to determine whether the website excludes people from access, and who is excluded. I can test for myself whether the Tor community is excluded, but what about:

• VPNs
• i2p
• public libraries
• #cgNAT issued IP addresses
• various regions
• particular browsers (e.g. lynx, w3m)

for example? I cannot check all those means of access. If a website is implementing some form of digital exclusion, I would like to ensure that I am not helping the exclusive website gain visitors.

#askFedi #netneutrality

For example, there is a cable from my monitor to my desktop that when plugged in straight is able to be disturbed or dislodged from my dog walking past it and the hairs on the top of his tail touch it with micronewtons of force. Yet if I coil it just 3 turns over 3 feet length it can withstand 10000 times as much force before becoming loose.

Another thing I'm reminded of is the coils in phone cords back when everything was wired with handsets. This must be a well known principal but I don't ever remember learning it.