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EmptyCoffeeCup commented on No place in children's hands: <16s in UK to be banned from buying energy drinks   theguardian.com/business/... · Posted by u/bhouston
hippo22 · 5 days ago
Is there actually any evidence that caffeine is bad for kids? From the article, it looks like the impetus for this change is concern from teachers, not from scientific research regarding the impact of high doses of caffeine on children under 16.
EmptyCoffeeCup · 4 days ago
I think just about every school in the land has one or two kids in each year who spend their lunch money on Monster/Red Bull (Caffeine is addictive - they cannot help it).

Sadly, there is often only enough money for caffeine or food: So you end up with children who are living off Sugar & Caffeine. They look as healthy as you'd expect.

This legislation is as much about preventing such scenarios as it is about the effects of the energy drinks themselves - (not that it'll work, but that's a another point entirely)

As for the tea/coffee points - I don't think any school allows access to a kettle - it is already a moot point.

EmptyCoffeeCup commented on AI is turning Apple into a "loser"   axios.com/2025/07/10/ai-a... · Posted by u/elsewhen
ulfw · 2 months ago
Apple worries me a bit lately and by lately I mean in the last five six years. It seems Covid did a thing and all innovation and development efforts halted since 2000 or so. The Apple Car project was a huge boondoggle. Meanwhile Xiami delivered and succeeded with the SU7 and now YU7. Apple will finally introduce a foldable phone in late 2026, with specs rumored to be worse than today's Android flagships such as Oppo Find N5, which I use or the new Samsung Fold 7 and Honor Magic V5 etc. And let's keep in mind we are in the 7th iteration of such devices already. Vision Pro might have been technically nice but there is no market for it, let alone for it's price point and hence barely any developers jumped on it.

The iPhone has stagnated so much I got the Oppo after having had every single iPhone since the original one in 2007. I legit cannot list a single notable thing that is new in the 16 Pro vs. the 15 Pro. The only thing that came to mind was the 48mp ultra wide sensor chip married to such a shitty lens that it legit has worse quality than my 15 Pro's old 12mp chip. I tested them back to back.

I've been a huge fanboy for decades but lately absolutely nothing from the company excites me anymore as they just can't deliver. The big new Apple Watch update that was rumored never came. Meanwhile we have so much better looking rounded OLED ones from competitors.

EmptyCoffeeCup · 2 months ago
Only matters for people who care; that is not even the majority of apple users.

It is well established that upgrading every year is a waste of funds; A lot of users buy a phone every 5-8 years (or after a destructive event) -

IOS is nice to use. That's all that matters to a huge proportion of the market.

Me? I'll keep my 13 Mini until it dies, or until a new "Mini" is released - phones don't need to be massive.

EmptyCoffeeCup commented on How the U.K. broke its own economy   theatlantic.com/ideas/arc... · Posted by u/speckx
Symbiote · 6 months ago
The EU parliament is elected with a much fairer system than the British one, half of which isn't even elected but nominated in return for bribes or being a bishop.
EmptyCoffeeCup · 6 months ago
Hardly, it's full of people that each individual member state had no say on whether they were there or not.

Why should someone elected by the Polish electorate, or the Romanian one, have any say over what the British or Germans do? Especially when it's British & German money funding the project?

The EU is clearly going in a direction the British people do not like, and therefore they did the only thing they could after concessions were refused -leave.

If the EU were only interested in co-operation and trade, this would not be a problem. As it is, apparently it _is_ a problem. Why would that be, except to punish the British for daring to say "this isn't working - we don't want tighter integration"

Meanwhile, the EU continue to fiddle whilst Rome burns. British politics may be boned, but the people now have the ability to sack the lot of them as they did last summer. That is worth far more than a few % of GDP (which the British govt. have no interest in, or they'd be pushing policies that help growth - lower taxes, higher speed-limits, cheaper trains, reduction in gas prices etcetc) : as it is, all the stories we read are about slower roads, more expensive trains and higher taxes.

EmptyCoffeeCup commented on Nvidia and its partners built a system to bypass U.S. export restrictions   twitter.com/kakashiii111/... · Posted by u/mgh2
nosianu · 10 months ago
> this is forgetting that the US exists.

I did not forget this. I think you overestimate what the US can and is willing to do there, and also what the incentives would be for people to escape to the US. This is not Vietnam in the 1970s, staying right there may very well be the preferred choice, even if China takes over. Especially if they make a very nice offer in advance. Should Trump win that may look even worse.

EmptyCoffeeCup · 10 months ago
You're thinking too literally. The USA do not need any co-operation with from the operators of TMSC to deny China the asset. They have enough bombs.

The Americans will want the experience of the operators. If those operators refuse to go to America, they'll be unalived with the plant itself.

EmptyCoffeeCup commented on Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon   reuters.com/world/middle-... · Posted by u/logicchains
4gotunameagain · a year ago
There is no way to control where the pagers will end up. No way to control who will be near them, even if they are owned by a target.

You do know that carpet bombing is a war crime by Geneva Conventions ?

EmptyCoffeeCup · a year ago
What do you mean? You fire out the "detonate" command on the frequency used by Hezbollah - only pagers connected to that network blow.

It's statistically probable you'll overwhelmingly damage terrorists. Sadly collateral damage is inevitable in war, and this is far more precise than even a laser guided bomb.

EmptyCoffeeCup commented on 77% of employees report AI has increased workloads and hampered productivity   forbes.com/sites/bryanrob... · Posted by u/layer8
delichon · a year ago
I write software for the publishing industry, particularly many business to business publications. The rise of AI is a huge transformative force here. Those who aren't injecting AI into their products are at a large disadvantage.

The people talking about the disadvantages of AI on this page are mostly right. But for the typical article in a B2B magazine, AI can already produce output better than many, or even most entry level writers. Editors are doing that themselves in lieu of hiring. We're just removing the copy and paste from a chatbot step. This is table stakes now, people are doing this not expecting to get ahead but just trying to keep up.

To push back is to be the milk man who refuses to trade in his old horse for a truck. That choice may be good for the horse, but not for long. As a programmer I identify more with the horse than the milk man. I too am trying not to get knackered.

EmptyCoffeeCup · a year ago
And half the time you can tell, because the article reads like it was put together by something that doesn't understand the complete picture.

IE, they've produced crap.

EmptyCoffeeCup commented on Apple pulls plug on Goldman credit-card partnership   wsj.com/finance/banking/a... · Posted by u/voisin
nottorp · 2 years ago
Back when POS terminals read magnetic stripes, most in Europe didn't even support the Amex stripe in hardware, because it was different :)

Even now with contactless and chips (Amex has discovered chips right?) the only places I see Amex logos are 4+ star hotels and very posh restaurants. So it will be kinda useless outside the US.

EmptyCoffeeCup · 2 years ago
Majority of large retailers in the UK take AMEX. Probably over 75% of my consumer spending goes through my AMEX card - Petrol, Food etc, never had an issue.

Can't speak for the rest of Europe.

u/EmptyCoffeeCup

KarmaCake day7November 29, 2023View Original