You Should Know

My girl was looking for a dress for Halloween. Yesterday she found one on Amazon for € 35 and put it in the cart, but did not buy it. Today she looked it up again and it was € 50 so she asked me to look it up with my phone with my Amazon account - it turned out to be € 23 for me, less than half of what it’s for her!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/31187638

Earlier today I came across a Reddit comment with a link to an Instagram post. The link had ?igsh= at the end.

When I clicked on the link, I got this popup. It had a name and profile photo that was different from that of the post being shared.

Join Firstname Lastname on Instagram

See photos, videos, and more from Firstname Lastname.

[ Open Instagram ]

not now

I avoid link trackers. However, I did not realize it was this bad.

To my knowledge, TikTok does the same thing and lists the name of the person that shared the link. Assuming this increases engagement, any website could enable such a feature, even on old links that you shared in the past.

You should manually remove any trackers before sharing, or use an app for it.

Google is weakening ad blockers as part of their MV3 extension standard and this will trickle down into all Chromium browsers. Built in ad blockers lack features compared to uBlock Origin as well.

There are 1.65 trillion barrels of proven oil reserves in the world as of 2016.

The world has proven reserves equivalent to 46.6 times its annual consumption levels. This means it has about 47 years of oil left (at current consumption levels and excluding unproven reserves).

This means that the oil is going to run out in our lifetime

Source/more reading: https://www.worldometers.info/oil/

Update: It is infact not true (or just partially true), because it only considers already known oil reserves that can be pumped out with current technology.

There is more oil that can potentially be used as technology and infrastructure advances, so the estimate of 50 years is wrong.

For the correction thanks to Cephalotrocity@biglemmowski.win (their original comment)

Amendments to the PayPal Privacy Statement Effective November 27, 2024:

We are updating our Privacy Statement to explain how, starting early Summer 2025, we will share information to help improve your shopping experience and make it more personalized for you. The key update to the Privacy Statement explains how we will share information with merchants to personalize your shopping experience and recommend our services to you. Personal information we disclose includes, for example, products, preferences, sizes, and styles we think you’ll like. Information gathered about you after the effective date of our updated Privacy Statement, November 27, 2024, will be shared with participating stores where you shop, unless you live in California, North Dakota, or Vermont. For PayPal customers in California, North Dakota, or Vermont, we’ll only share your information with those merchants if you tell us to do so. No matter where you live, you’ll always be able to exercise your right to opt out of this data sharing by updating your preference settings in your account under “Data and Privacy.”

edit: update title to reflect this is for PayPal USA users

Dishwashers won't clean these gaskets if they're washed while installed. Oh, and those silicone straws can come out of the dishwasher nasty too.

If you plug a USB drive into Microsoft Windows, in many cases it will try to do things "for you" with the drive. Not a great idea. There could be malware lurking on that USB drive.

There are a couple of things you can do to help mitigate the issue. These tips assume Windows 11.

Turn off Autoplay

• Open Settings. Press Windows + I to open the Settings app.
• Go to Bluetooth & devices. In the left sidebar, click on "Bluetooth & devices."
• Select Autoplay. Scroll down and click on "Autoplay."
• Turn Off Autoplay. You'll see a toggle switch labeled "Use Autoplay for all media and devices." Turn this off.

This will turn it off completely. You can, if you want, make individual settings for different types of devices.

Deny Execute Access (Pro or Enterprise versions of Windows 11)

• Open Group Policy Editor. Press Windows + R, type gpedit.msc, and press Enter.
• Navigate to the Removable Storage Access Policies. Go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Removable Storage Access.
• Modify Policies. You can enable the policy "Removable Disks: Deny execute access" to prevent execution from removable drives.
• Apply and Reboot.

Note, there are some cases where you may want to execute scripts or programs from a removable drive. If that's the case, you may not want to do this, or make a note of it so you can re-enable if needed.

Why you should know? Money.

Both courses and certification selections are offered for free and paid options.

https://www.classcentral.com/subjects

https://www.classcentral.com/subjects?topic=certifications

Autumn is upon us in the northern hemisphere, and parts of the southern ought to still be pretty chilly. If you start getting cold, try tucking in your shirt. If you're wearing long pants and long socks, you can even tuck your pants into your socks, and this one's a big help too.

Why YSK: this one tip can save you a ton of money over your lifetime by lowering the threshold for when you need to put the heat on in your house, and it can make you feel more comfortable in the colder seasons. Wearing thicker clothes and layering helps, but there's only so many layers you can comfortably wear and clothes can only be so thick before you probably don't feel comfortable wearing them inside. If you're out and about, it might not be realistic or convenient to throw on another layer. This has become my first line of defense when I start getting cold. You should feel noticeably warmer within minutes.

Additional tip: if you have two shirts on, you can tuck the overshirt into your pants and the undershirt into your underpants to create a pocket of warm air that's way more insulating than if you tucked them into the same layer.

Edit: I know this is "common sense", but you'd be shocked at how many people either don't know about this or forget to use it.

This is not an anti-Kindle rant. I have purchased (rented?) several Kindle titles myself.

However, YSK that you are only licensing access to the book from Amazon, you don't own it like a physical book.

There have been cases where Amazon deletes a title from all devices. (Ironically, one version of "1984" was one such title).

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html

There have also been cases where a customer violated Amazon's terms of service and lost access to all of their Kindle e-books. Amazon has all the power in this relationship. They can and do change the rules on us lowly peasants from time to time.

Here are the terms of use:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201014950

Note, there are indeed ways to download your books and import them into something like Calibre (and remove the DRM from the books). If you do some web searches (and/or search YouTube) you can probably figure it out.

"Michael Straight, a former jockey paralyzed from the waist down, was left unable to walk for two months after the company behind his $100,000 exoskeleton refused to fix a battery issue. "

“I called [the company] thinking it was no big deal, yet I was told they stopped working on any machine that was 5 years or older,”

Some of the medications include:

• Antidepressants
• Antihistamines
• Stimulants
• Beta blockers
• Diuretics
• ACE inhibitors
• Thyroid medication
• Antipsychotics

Be sure to pay extra attention to any symptoms of heat exhaustion, stay hydrated, and in a cool area indoors when possible during heat waves.

Eating the proper amount is hard. Eating when you have low time, money, mental energy, or education on cooking is even harder.

This book assumes nothing. Do you know how to turn on your stove? You are properly prepared to use this cookbook.

Just want to share it with more folks!

I used sink plungers in toilets pretty much my whole life until i scrolled across a similar diagram one day and discovered the truth.

Why you should know:

Arsenic is a carcinogen and has various other negative health effects; enough to warrant exposure limits in various jurisdictions. A five minute boil-and-discard step before cooking is a simple way to reduce your exposure, especially if you eat a lot of rice.

Details are in the study, linked in the title of this post. Here's a diagram from the abstract:

Already getting sick of seeing 'AI' results at the top of a search when all you want is a link to a site?

I just discovered this article showing a way to not see it (although it doesn't disable it altogether).

TLDR:

• In Chrome open settings menu, choose Search engine on left menu and scroll down to site search
• Click Add button and choose a name (eg Old Google, Google Web or whatever)
• Add a shortcut word (eg web, og, or whatever)
• Add this URL string: https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14
• Save that, and now if you search for something and use the shortcut word you set you'll just get proper results, no 'AI' shown
• Or, if you don't want to have to add a shortcut word, you just make that search your default (use the 3 dot menu next to the name you set) and all searches will show that way, no shortcut word needed.

EDIT - meant to add that there are detailed instructions for Edge, Firefox and Safari in the article if you don't use Chrome

Hope that helps someone - I really don't like all that extra nonsense when I just want a link to a site that I know exists!

[Obligatory - "or don't use Chrome/Google...", I know - but people do, so this might be useful]

Why YSK: many countries have issues with weight, such as mine with 74% of US adults being overweight or obese. The global weight loss industry is over $200 billion yearly, with many influencers, pills, and surgeries promising quick results with little effort. These often come with side effects, or don't work long term.

Studies suggest filling yourself with foods low in caloric density and high in fiber, like fruits and vegetables, can help reach and maintain a healthy weight. It's good to have these foods available in our living spaces to make the choice easy. Your taste buds will likely adapt to love them if you're not there yet.

Posting this here as there a few threads popping on the topic

• "Too much US election content on Lemmy?" https://sh.itjust.works/post/23465918
• "This place needs filters" https://lemmy.ml/post/18974148

On the app side, the following allow to filter keywords:

• Voyager
• Connect
• Sync
• Summit
• Mlem
• Boost
• Eternity
• Thunder
• Arctic

On the web interfaces side:

• Tesseract
• Voyager

Feel free to comment with more apps, I'll edit this post later.

For all the links: https://www.lemmyapps.com/

Why YSK: Locking your credit with the main 3 places is not enough.

https://innovis.com/ have grown enough to require locking as providers are using them as a single check source.

There's also https://www.chexsystems.com/ which many banks use for opening checking accounts. They're unique because they handle accounts that don't show up in a credit report.

I’ve seen several people claim that their state’s vote for the US presidential election doesn’t matter because their district is gerrymandered, which does not matter for most states.

Most states use the state’s popular vote to determine who the entire state’s electoral college votes go to. No matter how gerrymandered your district is*, every individual vote matters for assigning the electoral vote. [ETA: Nearly] Every single district in a state could go red but the state goes blue for president because of the popular vote.

*Maine and Nebraska are the notable differences who allot individual electors based on the popular vote within their congressional districts and the overall popular vote. ~~It’s possible there are other exceptions and I’m sure commenters will happily point them out.~~

Edit: added strikethrough to my last statement because now I have confirmed it.

Of the 50 states, all but two award all of their presidential electors to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote in the state (Maine and Nebraska each award two of their electors to the candidate who wins a plurality of the statewide vote; the remaining electors are allocated to the winners of the plurality vote in the states' congressional districts). (source)

Link: https://www.vote.org/am-i-registered-to-vote/

Warning: you will get texted so use your disposal number.

With all the news about citizens discovering their voter status has been lapsed, and new rules for being a voter, everyone should check.

But also, sometimes you forget. I have new neighbors who finished moving a month ago, and when I asked if they changed their mailing address and checked their voting status, we discovered they weren't.

Owncast is a free and open source live video and web chat server for use with existing popular broadcasting software.

Basically it's Twitch, or any streaming platform such as YouTube Gaming or whatever it's called now, that you can run on your own hardware. Control your platform and your content where you make the rules as to what you can/can't do.

There's a growing community and you can find folks streaming all kinds of things in the directory:

https://directory.owncast.online/

I know some folks think it's not possible to run something like that as it'd require tons of PC resources, but I've run an Owncast Stream with 70+ active open connections to the server on a $8/month VPS.

The install can be as simple as a VPS that will spin up an Owncast instance for you, or as "difficult" as pulling the Owncast script and running it and it just automatically sets everything up. It's probably the easiest software installation I've done in a long time and I've been in IT for 15 years.

I also run the !owncast@lemmy.world community so if anyone has any questions please don't hesitate to poke me there or Matrix or come check out a stream, I'm usually hanging out on someone's stream somewhere. :-D Or don't hesitate to ping me on any one of the platforms in my bio.