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Anything sold by Gwyneth Paltrow in her online shop, which I will not name here so as not to promote it. In the best case, goods sold there will be harmless and entirely useless. In the worst case, they will cause serious harm.
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So if I understand you correctly, Graphene OS does everything it says it does but overhypes its differences with other forks. That doesn’t sound like snakeoil, only effective marketing.
Why shouldn’t I use it over the other forks then, particularly because useful features like hardened_malloc are only avalible on Graphene despite being widely ported to linux distros?
They also do not shill for Big Tech or Google/Apple.
What’s the story behind this? I’m genuinely curious.
I will say I strongly dislike how the developer has handled criticism, but that seems to be more a failing of the dev then a problem with the OS.
The core slikt of anti aging creams and other hydration products.
I can get like, one. But god damned, my wife has so many different products They can’t all possibly be needed
Credit card insurance. If stolen you’re only liable for the first 50 bucks
Chiropractic.
Everything in Holland and Barrett.
As a medical device engineer working in spine - absolutely chiropractors.
What about osteopaths?
DO are real doctors. Rarer than MDs because there are less schools but totally real docs. My Mom with 30 years nursing experience says their training is basically identical, but DOs are generally nicer.
Osteopaths (who have a Doctorate of Osteopathy and are often referred to as DOs) go to medical school and receive training that’s almost exactly the same as an MD.
the difference (so i’m told) is that DOs are trained to take a more holistic, full-body approach to diagnostics and treatment rather than only focusing on one set of symptoms/treatment. They also do their residencies and internships alongside MDs.
Yes, I’ve heard some people say that they trust DOs more because they’re more deliberately trained to look at a larger picture of a person’s health. I don’t have my own opinion since I’ve never met with a DO.
My PCP is a DO. It works for me as my body is still relatively young. (late 30’s) I also don’t have many issues that would require more intensive/specialized treatment that I don’t already have a specialist for.
I was not familiar with this term and had to look it up. From my brief search, it also seems like snake oil, and I don’t know why someone would not go to a real physical therapist instead.
Not saying anything about the source, but https://www.webmd.com/pain-management/osteopathic-medicine
I absolutely had a PT after a car accident that used spinal manipulation and it seemed to help. She also had me using elastic bands for stretching and hydrotherapy, so there’s that
Fair, I do have a number of MD DO consultants. The initial look I had was not within the DO licensing.
It depends on the country. Everywhere but the US, I believe, osteopaths are witch doctors on the same level as chiropractors. In the US, they were originally like that, but their professional organization basically pushed it into being a real medical degree.
Now they go to the same length schooling as MD’s, and take the same exams as far as I know.
The core of the whole discipline, osteopathy, is a pseudoscience, though. While they are usually competent doctors they still have that core of pseudoscience. They like to market themselves as more “holistic”, but that’s usually a good dogwhistle term to let you know information not supported by science is going to follow. They bring up that they are the same as MDs, but with additional training in osteopathy, but that can’t be true because the schooling is the same length, so to fit in the pseudoscience, they get less science.
The real reason why we have DO’s is that we don’t have capacity in our country to educate enough MDs, so we have this weird parallel system.
A chiropractor 💯 fixed my throwing arm that I had been dealing with for over 10 years. Made me an absolute believer. That said, I’ve been to two different chiropractors and they were wildly different in everything they did. Dr Lopeig in Great Falls, Virginia is an absolute wizard.
Holland and Barrett sell supplements. Some people do need to take a vitamin d tablet a day. I do but I’ve got a prescription for a vitamin d and calcium tablet because I’ve been low for years.
I work 3rd shift, so I take Vitamin D because the sun is my nemesis.
Be careful with vitamin D though. That is one of the very very few vitamins that you can actually take too much of because it’s fat soluble, not water soluble, so excessive vitamin D will build up in your fat cells rather than just getting peed out. It’s called vitamin D toxicity (VDT) and it can have some unpleasant neurological effects among other things.
So it’s probably a good idea to get your levels checked anyways just to make sure you’re taking the right amount if you need it.
I take vitamin D about 5 months out of the year. Stupid fall back daylight saving time is part of it. Makes me furious my already battered mental health has to get worse from changing the clocks.
I used to see a lot of threads on reddit about people who got injuries from cheap chiropractors.
Problem is, people go to chiropractor when they don’t have access to real doctor, problem either the money or/and most doctors in your city/state can’t/refuse do anything about your problem, desperation is one hell of a stimulus
I can somewhat understand this. I have IBS, and most people with a bowel issue will tell you that IBS is basically your doctor saying ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Instead of getting help from your doctor, you go online and you hear about people finding relief through taking weird supplements, or eating only rice, or taking pre and probiotics of varying types. None of it has any proof, but it’s better to try something than to struggle - and sometimes you’re lucky or you find some short-lived relief.
The difference is that there often isn’t evidence for these things working, whereas there is plenty of evidence out there that says that chiropractors are doing legitimately dangerous practices to your body. The difference is that someone is trying to make a profit from this lack of knowledge.
I’ve had loads of advice like that for IBS, but no amount of FODMAP or probiotics actually makes a difference, because my IBS is stress-triggered. My doctor helped by advising me to avoid stressful situations, which is hard when you move to another country.
most doctors in your city/state can’t/refuse do anything about your problem
There’s almost nothing a chiropractor can do if doctors aren’t treating you. Except lie and steal your money.
The thing is, placebos can actually be pretty effective. Hell, they’re effective even if you know they’re a placebo. And the more elaborate and similar to what you think would be involved in curing you, the more effective. So people going to chiropractors might actually be getting real results even if the things they’re doing are junk.
I sometimes come across influencers pushing chrio “treatments” on pets or newborns, saying it makes them “breathe better” or be “more energetic”
It’s infuriating
I’ve told this story before, but newborn chiropractors are a thing, and many new parents will take their BABIES to get their neck and back snapped around. It’s frankly fucking disgusting.
its a bit more than infuriating, thats straight up dangerous.
Shampoo and conditioner with vitamins in it.
Your hair is dead. It can’t metabolize anything.
I don’t know anything about how it works, but I assumed it was absorbed by the skin on your head not the actual hair.
I still doubt that putting vitamin whatever on your head everyday will actually make a difference
This is correct. It’s about a healthy scalp. Like lotion for your head.
Vitamins yeah that’s no good.
Things like fruit, honey, or flowers must be good though right?
I mean, my wife’s honey pomegranate and hybiscus body scrub must be amazing with all that fruity yummy stuff.
PH numbers in any hair washing/conditioning product that gets rinsed out.
You end up with the PH of the water, people.
I didn’t know that. I am definitely going to keep this in mind now.
Yeah but you gotta remember “vitamins” is just a dumbed down term to refer to fats and compounds. It’s not actually like food or anything nourishing for the hair. Like a lot of haircare stuff has vitamin e in it, which is supposed to help protect hair from hot blow drying damage and also make it shiny. A lot of the stuff is also moisturizers for your scalp.
I always thought the point was for the vitamins to be absorbed by your skin. Human skin absorbs all kinds of stuff so as long as the vitamins make contact it sort of makes sense?
Though I suppose for most people it won’t have much of an impact unless you have a severe vitamin deficiency.
Vitamin and mineral supplements. You only need supplementation if you have a specific deficiency, and deficiencies are not extremely common. Most people who take supplements do not need them and are just peeing out all the extra vitamins they’re putting in their bodies.
If you think you have a deficiency, explain why to a doctor. A blood test to know for sure is simple. A doctor will know what kind of supplementation would best serve you, and there may be an underlying reason that can be treated to fix it. Also eat some god damn vegetables you fat little piggy
The new age environment comes to mind, with everything from colonic washes to crystals.
What’s wrong babe? 😥 You haven’t done your bi-weekly coffee enema yet
I have a couple from the hip actually, because America has grifting baked into it’s soul. In no particular order:
- MMS (Drinkin’ bleach)
- Crystal healing (most sellers)
- WitchTok kits (TikTok influencers selling expensive spices)
- Brain pills
- Any product peddled by a megachurch (see the Baker bucket for a great example)
As more of these come to me, I’ll try to expand the list.
I would say that a lot of stuff being peddled through tiktok and Instagram are scams. Those anti-5g dongles come to mind.
Anti-5g dongles? That’s new for me, but I consume a lot of these grifts secondhand through a few podcasts I listen to. I might be behind.
Sounds like the bones of a good scam are there though, assuming the anti-5G conspiracy still gets traction and clicks.
Edit: Do you know if someone like bigclive got one? He takes those sorts of devices apart a lot to explain them and I’d love to see what’s inside. I just don’t want to pay the money for one to fund the grift.
There is a good few videos on them, it has died down significantly since the whole 5g panic went away. Some of them were just some clear USB keys, some were just stickers. Mr. Whosetheboss did a video on them.
Tin foil hats are much better anti5g solution.
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Any product peddled by a megachurch (see the Baker bucket for a great example)
Some megachurches have sold freeze-dried prepper food. It’s not a grift per se, because it’s perfectly edible freeze dried food, but it’s overpriced for what you’re getting.
You’re right, but I was thinking of the buckets that are basically terrible quality slop that’s borderline inedible.
I might still call it a grift because they’re asking for payment as “donations” to skirt paying taxes on them. That, and like you said, it’s not a great value for what you get. Maybe not pure snake oil, but there’s definitely still enough dishonesty involved imo that I’d be comfortable calling it a grift.
baked into its* soul
Baker Bucket is a good name for a gravity bong setup.
Idk about prevagen but my opthomologist definitely said any generic of preservation is very good, and artificial tears with flax seed oil will definitely relieve dry, itchy “sandy eye” feel. Idk if he really believes that or not but I thought I’d give some drops a try. Last time I tried artificial tears, it burned like soap so I hope it’s not a waste of money.
Oh I looked it up, there may (study funded by the industry) be a basis for that. Medical News Today
Homeopathics, though sometimes even a placebo can have beneficial effects.
Definitely this one, the products are sometimes placed right next to legitimate ones and worse:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/marketplace-homeopathic-products-1.6254025
Hidden camera reveals some pharmacists recommend homeopathic products to treat kids’ cold and flu
Not really “modern day” snake oil when it was invented in the 1700’s lol.
The thing is, placebos can work even if the patient knows it’s a placebo. Which I think is crazy and amazing.
But it doesn’t look good for homeopathic grifters.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
The problem is thinking anything cures the cold or flu. Once you have it, you have it until it runs its course. The only way to cire either would be to completely eliminate them or how they function in the body with medicine that doesn’t currently exist.
There are a number of antiviral medicines, some of which work against influenza A and B. I’m pretty sure these are prescription medications in Canada.
This is a common misconception of the placebo effect. The placebo effect is a measurement issue, not an actual benefit.
Tests are corrupted by using the reposnes and judgement of humans. People will say they had some sort of benefit because of expectations, poor recollection and politeness. It doesn’t mean a benefit was gained. A placebo group allows researchers to quantify how much the placebo effect has on the data they gathered, they can then see if the experiment they did had any effect. Placebo is literally our definition of zero effect.
Anyone telling you placebo is a good thing is wrong, misinformed or deliberately misleading you. In many countries it is illegal for doctors to prescribe ‘placebo treatments’. They will still recommend such things to their patients - not because they work but because they get the patient out the door and less likely to come bother them again.
Standing desks - stationary standing is just as bad as stationary sitting.
Blue light filter stuff - it’s my understanding that there’s no evidence that blue light causes eye strain.
Blue light filters may not help with eye strain, but I’ve definitely benefited from them for circadian rhythm reasons.
I always thought the point of standing desks was, that you could periodically switch between standing and sitting. That should be at least somewhat beneficial right?
It really isn’t that much better, instead we should be periodically stretching or exercising
No, the main point of standing desk is that whoever has one talks about them all day, every day. At least, that was my experience 10-15 years ago, which was the last time I spent in an office.
The blue light filters are hilarious because most devices already support night mode
Night mode kind of differs. I think there was one piece of software that did it way before operating systems got night mode, and with the help of some measuring device they found out that most competitors turned the screen red but did not actually lower the amount of blue light much, negating the whole point (as the theory behind this stuff is that blue light messes with your sleep schedule). Your screen turning reddish yellow does very little if the effect is achieved by turning on more red and green pixels.
The software you’re probably thinking of is f.lux
Sounds impossible. The way they turn the screen red is by reducing the blue light transmitted through the LCD panel. You cant turn the screen red and keep the blue light at the same time.
Unless its an oled screen. Then it is a stupid implementation. You could just reduce the blue light then.
I remember a long blog post about it on f.lux comparing it a bunch of competitors with actual measurements rather than pure RGB values.
Of course LCD doesn’t turn on any pixels, it just stops blocking the white light from behind the panel, but the result isn’t any different.
Unfortunately I can’t find the link right now, I must’ve read it a decade ago. Perhaps it’s been lost to time.
The end conclusion was that a bunch of free apps/cheap software thought they could get in on the blue light fad and turned the screen redder without significantly reducing the amount of blue light transmitted. At the time, there were one of two kits of software that actually showed a significant drop in blue light because their colour mixing algorithm/colour profile adjustments were done correctly whereas the competition just implemented it wrong.
They are not the same thing
Blue light doesn’t damage the eyes unless there is a burning amount of it (or a burning amount of UV), but people with bad eye focus may find it more straining to read things in blue due to the greater light scatter of the color. The solution is wear your reading glasses, I guess.
What really strains the eyes is focusing on close up objects for hours on end. American eye doctors everywhere have the 30/30/30 rule (every 30 minutes, look at something 30ft away for 30 seconds) as a “let your eye muscles relax for a bit” exercise for those of you always working on something up close.
That said, night filters are good just to help with your circadian rhythm, since the brain looks for a persistent abundance of a particular chunk of blue wavelength to determine “daytime”.
You can at least move a bit more when standing at the desk. Also, my past boss was recommended one due to back issues by his doctor at one point
I’ve definitely noticed reduced eye strain with using blue light filters.
I called my standing desk a dancing desk. Didn’t just stand there. I don’t have one now we are back in the office though, some people do but they are all short - I’m taller and it seems too odd to be looking into everyone’s workspace.
But how else can you easily assert dominance over the peasants?
Yeah if your desk is stuck just in one position that’s obviously going to be bad. Most ‘standing’ desks are actually height adjustable. You can spend some time standing some time sitting. But maybe even more important, you can adjust the desk to the right height rather than just adjusting your chair.
Standing alternating with sitting doing desk work does alleviate some tension and probably thrombosis. I won’t say a lot, but it does help.
Blue light filters can still be nice at night right? As the blue light can keep you awake.
I find it easier on my eyes when its 3am and i am still scrolling.
Same. I’ve the twilight app on my phone because my phones filter is shite. Same thing with f.lux on pc and my Lenovo tablet which only came out last year doesn’t even have a filter. It just dims or turns things black and white which is fucking useless if I’m looking to read a comic or something.
“Sun crystals”. They’re made of glass, which is NOT long range ordered
Basically all of them.
Majority of the “AI inside” software and solutions. It’s in a bubble and everyone is throwing crap to a wall hoping it sticks.
I just got a notification on my phone telling me that I can chat with my PDF documents. Why the fuck would I want to do that? Do these companies realize that literally no one is asking for this shit? I also saw an ad for a computer mouse that had AI inside it. Whatever that means.
Don’t knock it too quickly. I thought like you but one evening I was a little tipsy and started chatting with a PDF document. Let’s just say things got a heated and not we’re engaged.
I just got a notification on my phone telling me that I can chat with my PDF documents
I belive you got that notification but I honestly have no idea what it even means.
It’s from the Adobe Acrobat app. Basically you can ask it to give you a summary of whatever document you’re reading.
Oddly enough, that’s one of the few functions I’ve found the LLMs useful for. Looking through big pdfs for specific information, lots of times “ctrl+f” doesn’t do the trick because the exact term I’m looking for doesn’t appear. Worse sometimes it’s a phrase that could be in there under many synonyms. Using the LLM to find the actual info is pretty nice, it just isn’t “AI”.
“AI” is the new “blockchain”. It’s a solution looking for a solid problem to tackle, with some niche applications
I just wish people had long enough memories to see the cycle for terms like these. Some new word catches vogue, companies fall over themselves trying to find ways to implement them for shareholders and consumers who have no idea what they actually represent. As that fades, a new term arises… it’s sad.
And virtual reality gets a free revival every other technology, while we’re at it.
I’m predicting VR coming back into the limelight, try again, shortly after everyone loses interest in AI.
Also, I’m still pissed that flying cars aren’t in the limelight more. I was promised daily updates, and I’m not seeing them. That’s the biggest proof that the media is completely disconnected.
We have flying cars. They’re called helicopters, and they suck for most activities
Good point.
I’m willing to accept a reality where the science magazines are constantly excited about every development in helicopter technology.
I mean, at least Ai has SOME useful applications, the blockchain was just wasting energy for some numbers.
Blockchain also has some useful applications. Most (but not all) of them are also possible with technology and such that existed when bitcoin was first created, at far lower cost for a minor tradeoff in accuracy. On top of that, almost none of them are related to speculative markets.
It’s a way to do distributed transaction logs in a non-refutable and independantly verifiable way. That’s useful and important, but it was a solution in search of a problem. Even for the highest security, most at risk transactions, the existing international fincancial systems are “good enough” to ensure reliability of transaction logs.
In the end, blockchain and now AI are just falling victim to con men trying to milk as much money as they can from things before people build a working understanding of them. They’ll just keep moving onto the next big thing as it comes.
Blockchain also has problems its solving I recon the whole not bullshit was a psyop by thr us government cos finances that they couldn’t have absolute control over would allow the people to bs free. I recon monero is the best as of present especially since its actually anonymous payments.
I can’t wait to get a Smart AI refrigerator that tells me I have a bunch of food that isn’t really in there even when I didn’t ask it to.
It’s even better than that. A lot of companies are taking NVIDIA’s pre-built workflows, running their data through them and selling the results as their own AI. “We build proprietary RAG AI!”
I am so over hearing about AI. It’s getting to the point that I can assume anyone dropping the term at work is an idiot that hasn’t actually used or utilised it.
It’s this LLM phase. It’s super cool and a big jump in AI, but it’s honestly not that good. It’s a handy tool and one you need to heavily scrutinise beyond basic tasks. Businesses that jumped on it are now seeing the negative effects of thinking it was magic from the future that does everything. The truth is, it’s stupid and people need to learn about it, understand it, and be trained in how to use it before it can be effective. It is a tool, not a solution—at least for now anyways.
The truth is, it’s stupid and people need to learn about it, understand it, and be trained in how to use it before it can be effective.
So, like a hammer. A very expensive, environment-destroying hammer.
Genuinely curious, how does it destroy the environment?
Massive energy consumption. Huge datacenters and not enough green energy. Now they want to build small nuclear plants. Without talking about the waste problem.
Their waste is less destructive than coal plant though. Perhaps this could be a silver lining to finally get nuclear back in action and get closer to dropping coal once and for all.
So AI uses energy, and it’s how we are choosing to provide that energy is destructive to the environment? So AI isn’t itself destructive.
Ah yeah, just choose a different energy souce. Simples.
Have you seen the growth in % of renewable (incl, nuc biofuel and waste) electricity generation over the past 30 years. (36% i in 1990 , dropped to about 33% in late 2000s up to 38% recently) this is global, IEA figures.
There have been two years since 1990 when renewable electricity output has grown faster than total electricity demand. 2008/9 recession and 2020 covid. The only way renewables will come close to meeting current electricity consumption is actually to start reducing those demands.
If we start transerffing gas( domestic heating), and petrol( low-capacity road transportation) onto the electricitry grid then the scale and speed of renewables needs to ramp up inconcievably quickly - it has grown fast over the past decade, but it hasn’t been cheap nor has it been fast enough to keep up with current demands.
TBH I don’t know where AI lines up next to EVs in scale of potential extra demand, probably lower but still an added demand (unless it can substitute for other stuff and improve efficiency somehow).
Electricity source is not really a choice, it is resource and tech constrained many sources are needed; the cheapest fuels will continue to be in the mix used so long as demand keeps increasing so fast.
Maybe, If you ran all AI in peooles houses in cold countries in winter, it’d substitute for heating - that’d be one way it could reduce its impact. Or maybe it can get its act together and spark widespread, frequent, deep, long lasting recessions in economic activity.
Maybe renewables is not the solution to our energy needs if it can’t scale up like we thought it could. Conservation of energy is not the answer. We as a society must find new, cleaner, sources of energy. Maybe AI can help us do it.
That’s actually a pretty good analogy.
I think more like discovering making fire or something. 90% of all the energy burnt is people worshipping it as it blazes away, never actually fulfilling any practical use except being marvelous to be around.
But once the forest is all chopped down, people are forced to understand fire and realise a couple small logs in a contained place was all they needed to have it be incredibly effective.
Oh, but that’s too hard. It’s magic right now. All hail the AI bonfire!
I equate an AI to an intern. It’s useful for some stuff but if I’m going to attach my name to it I’m going to review it and probably change a lot about it.
There’s one good use case for me: produce a bigload of trialcontent in no time for load testing new stuff. “Make 2000 yada yada with column x and z …”. Keeps testing fun and varied while lots of testdata and that it’s all nonsense doesn’t matter.
I’ve found that testing code or formulas with LLM is a 50/50 now. Very often replying “use function blabla() and such snd so” very detailed instructions while this suggested function just doesn’t exist at all in certain language asked for… it’s still something I’ld try if I’m very stuck tho, never know.
Watched a bit of a video of a guy that went to Computex and asked any vendor with AI plastered somewhere what they were doing with it. Most spouted some meaningless word salad and a few literally shrugged.
notice how all of those crypto features were quietly removed from platforms after people realised they were paying millions for some numbers, i think that will happen with Ai
My research was literally on AI back in college. Most AI solutions are just basic algorithms and don’t use real AI solutions. There’s a huge difference.
VPNs like NordVPN for almost everyone.
Considering Nord (and most VPNs, especially the ones that advertise themselves) are all owned by one company, who has a huge conflict of interest (they’re an ad company) with VPNs to begin with.
But if you don’t use a VPN with military grade encryption hackers can steal your money from the banking website that only uses military grade encryption!
So your saying I should keep an eye on the War Thunder forums?
“Almost everyone” seems a bit broad. Lots of people watch porn and illegally download stuff that they don’t want their ISP to know about, especially in countries like the USA where ISPs are allowed to sell browsing statistics of their customers for marketing purposes.
I take offence to the “protect against hackers” bullshit those ads keep repeating, but for their intended purpose, VPNs are a good solution.
A VPN sure. I’m not sure about Nord.
Who do you trust more? Your isp, or a random vpn Company that not only own one vpn-service, but surprisingly many. (Nord security owns NordVPN and Surfshark, Kape owns ExpressVPN and Cyberghost). And wouldn’t it be need if you, as NSA, would have a direct connection to the data people concerned with there privacy? It’s not like their “no log” policy really exists if the have to write logs by law.
That’s the point of VPNs, isn’t it? Do you trust the companies that sell your location information to shady people like bounty hunters or some foreign VPN company?
Personally, I trust Mullvad more than I trust many ISPs. It all depends on how good your ISP is and your country’s laws are. ISPs here in the Netherlands used to collect the IP addresses and other metadata of all websites you visit, as well as location information, for six months or more, because the law forced them to, in case the police ever needed that information. The law got overturned (though that doesn’t mean ISPs can’t track you anymore, they’re just not forced to) but this definitely feels like a reason for an always-on VPN to me. The government also pushed for IPv6 not because it’s not 1980 anymore, but because they foolishly thought that it would give every device a unique IP address so they could track people better.
Not that I want to evade the police, but when crazy religious people get in power, I don’t want to get convicted for contacting porn sites at some point. VPN providers that you don’t trust not to log anything are still better for privacy than that.
Some VPN providers lie and say they will never log anything (only for lawsuits to prove otherwise). You can’t trust those. I consider every VPN that pays for YouTube ads to be untrustworthy. Mullvad, and some of its competitors, however, seem to be relatively trustworthy.
With VPNs, you move your point of tracking to another company or country. Whether that benefits you depends on who you are, where you live, and what your priorities are.
Your ISP selling your browsing data is the hacker.
The American “food” industry, the American “health care” industry, American politics, the prison industrial complex, the military industrial complex, entertainment, right off the top of my head.
The American Dream… because you have to be asleep to believe it.
Absolutely. ETA: good to see you again. A happy surprise.
