Likewise, having voted for a corporation that takes away freedoms does not make your opinion relevant: you are still not the one in control, and neither is anyone else who bought in.

Apple depriving you of that choice may not inconvenience you, but you are still being deprived of that freedom in the first place. I suspect 100% of iPhone users are in the same boat.

All that to say: I too wonder what makes this one so special.

Otherwise... Eh. I don't care enough. Yet.

In other words, if these people are anti-fluoride because it's supposedly bad for children's IQ, they should also oppose bad food for the same reason. If they don't, the supposed (unproven) health effects are not the reason. That's the point that is made, at least.

It's a decades old word that used to mean trying to one up someone with tough talk, exaggerating, topping someone. That talk would be so high above the others, it would be the cap on top.

Now to have a good story, to have that cap, people could be... flexible with the truth, so eventually, over the years, to cap started to mean that you were telling a tall tale, a lie.

I think Frank Herbert would have a field day with our modern era of algorithms.

I went by train to Germany during the autumn of last year and oh man, what a pleasure it was. I got there about 5 minutes before the train, got in, dumped my suitcase and had room to spare.

During the trip I sauntered between carriages, bought some (mediocre) food to scoff down in the restaurant carriage, which I opted to do at my seat rather than right there because I felt like some quiet time rather than the buzz.

Later I traveled by plane to Spain in the spring and as nice as Barcelona was, I couldn't say the same about the plane trip, which was a necessity rather than a pleasure.

Taking what I said about a commercially sensical strategy about selling a - what was the word I did use? Proxy - through which you can experience the world, and then spinning some paranoid yarn about not experiencing the world at all... Now that is kind of strange.

My hypothesis is that these companies want to make money by "taking" your senses. They want your attention to be with them at all times, by being in your ear so you'll hear them, by being on your wrist so you'll feel them, by being on your eyes so you'll see them.

I'm thinking these companies are building up technological ecosystems - Apple's specialty! - that they hope will eventually form a proxy for you to experience reality. Because if they can convince you to experience life through them, they'll have your wallet too.

Maybe it's just a silly thought of mine, but it kind of fits.

I can only assume, but considering the Dutch "vaarwel" is so close to English, I'm going to guess it means "Go well" - or more poetically when speaking of one's path in life: may fate treat you well.