The first-gen Airpods fit my ears perfectly, and were secure. When I lost them and upgraded to the 2nd gen, I was initially upset - aside from the body being fatter (and so less comfortable in my ears) they were very insecure - I couldn't even walk around without them loosening and dislodging.

I was on the point of returning them when I saw the advice online to 'twist' them into a different position. I now use them with the stalks horizontal, and they're secure. Still a touch less comfortable than the v1s, but easily tolerable.

Sure, you can always come back that you can take anti-depressants, and try to use some sort of sun-mimicking light, but then we're really going to extremes to avoid the sun altogether.

So is exposure to the sun, at the right times, in moderation, with appropriate but not extreme protection okay?

Some constructive feedback:

* There is no need for the extruded aluminium frame - some cheap wood would have sufficed as a frame

* The CNC'd hanging brackets are totally unnecessary - a couple of holes, one either side, with a keyhole hanger over each would have sufficed

* The balancing and 3d-printed endcaps is unnecessary assuming you've got reasonably well-placed hangers

* The fancy ESP32 board could have been replaced by a commodity ESP8266. (You could get rid of the ESP altogther and just buy pre-wired LED strips, but then you lose the opportunity to program nice lighting effects.)

As a result, the bill of materials is multiples of what is could have been. I estimate that you could replicate this in a single weekend for ~80-85 EUR (15 EUR countertop, 10 EUR wooden frame, 5-10 EUR plexiglass, 40 EUR LEDs + PSU, 5 EUR ESP8266, 1 EUR for two keyhole hangers) assuming you have a few screws and some wood glue available, plus whatever the cost of the markerspace is. Everything could be sourced from your local DIY store, plus an order from Aliexpress for the electrical components.

It's good as long as you don't get sunburn or skin cancer...

> Do I need to wear sunscreen in front of my desk too now? Will the body cream include it?

That's the sort of thinking we need, champ - you just earned yourself a promotion to Chief Product Officer. :)

“Pair it with our full spectrum sun lamp and you can have all the benefits of playing outside from the comfort of your standing desk”.

e.g. https://github.com/raphire/win11debloat

There are other reasons that Windows sucks, even (or especially?) in a corporate environment, just not those.

Likewise, if you're able to upload your own custom MIDI (or other) files for your piano to play, then all you'd be doing is sharing a utility that creates mixed audio/MIDI MP3s, which may or may not be used to create files which can then be legitimately uploaded to a piano.

However, this is not the topic (I thought I) was responding to. I was disagreeing that America's issues in Iran "has exposed many limitations and weaknesses in America's defense capabilities" - because the Iran situation is somewhat of an edge case, as I detailed.

If the point you were originally making (I now infer) was something more like "some of the challenges that the US has faced in its war with Iran may also apply to a potential future war with China, should China invade Taiwan, such as..." then with respect that's what you should have written, rather than assuming your readers would just guess correctly.

(There are also major differences between the cases of Iran and China, which would warrant more detailed analysis.)

> You're treating an inability to strategize as a strategic blunder and not weakness. You should reconsider that.

No... you're conflating cause and effect. The strategic blunder was an outcome, the cause of which we can debate; an "inability to strategise" would be one potential cause.

Take the recent anti-Flock actions - it’s probably mostly not ‘internet people’ going for evening walks with their angle grinders. Everyone starts to care about privacy when it really becomes invasive.

Likewise, people might be fine getting their elderly parents a robot to help out with household tasks, until intimate stolen videos start appearing on realgrannies.com or similar.

I'm far from a fan of current US policy nor an apologist, but this is a flawed analysis.

The war with Iran has exposed the stupidity of entering into that particular conflict, where:

* the goal (if there was one?) was something like regime change at arm's length

* 'arm's length' means using expensive long distance precision weapons, as there was/is very little taste for an invasion

* the target (Iran) is situated next to US allies which also happen to be hugely important as oil producers/exporters

* the target can also threaten a hugely important global shipping channel - the Strait of Hormuz

* the target has prepared for this action for years if not decades, and has good-enough drone technology to hand to threaten its neighbours and the Strait of Hormuz

This is an almost unique case in the world, and as such, its lessons of "US weakness" of "US failure" simply can't be assumed to translate more broadly. Iran is/was far more a strategic blunder which could/should have been foreseen, than a sign of America's weakness.

Yes, America currently has low stocks of long-range precision munitions and Patriots, but it still has the most powerful conventional military by far, and a globally-unrivalled ability to project that power around the world, if it chooses to.

---

"But what about Ukraine? What about drone warfare? America is far behind there." This may have changed the game. The heavy usage of drones in Ukraine evolved, noting Russia didn't initially invade with swarms of drones. If the US had had a strong reason to support Ukraine (imagine Russia had instead invaded Florida) they could likely have used conventional means (air superiority, tanks, men) and ended the war within a few weeks. Admittedly, now it's far less certain how those tanks and men would fare in current drone battlefield.

> and it's a fraction of the threat China is

It depends entirely on the nature of the war envisaged (see the points about Iran being a unique situation.). In particular, China does not have anything like the US Navy to project power in the way that the US still can.

For my project, I believe 19mm is plenty for carcasses - just about every mass-produced kitchen uses 18/19mm chipboard frames, and they can last for decades, outside of abnormal abuse. The main reason for using the same size is easy compatibility with standard doors/fronts together with standard fitment hinges/runners, all of which I'll be purchasing. The tops will be either granite or concrete.

So no, people don’t vote for such things - they vote for parties who turn out to do such things at some point.

(I say some countries as IME there’s a huge difference in existing competition between countries. For example, I found that the kitchen options in Germany were hugely restricted vs. what I was used to in the UK.)

I say this because I’m currently working on a project to build a full kitchen’s worth of cabinet carcasses using good quality 19mm plywood, and I’m aiming for it to be cost neutral with Ikea’s kitchen cabinets, having sourced the plywood from a local DIY store. (Obviously ignoring the cost of my existing tools.)

Which is to say, if you could source plywood in volume (therefore cheaper per square meter) and amortise the cost of the CNC machine and other tools over time, I think it would be feasible to be close to cost competitive with IKEA‘s kitchens.