• spittingimage@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Essential oils. Homeopathy. Chiropractic. Reiki. Juice cleanses. Perineum sunning. Internet accelerator software. Iridology. Faith healing. Organic food. Oil pulling. Gold plated digital audio cables.

    • thepreciousboar@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      Everything marketed audiophiles, not only gold plated cables, but also anything that uses vacuum tubes because “they sound better”

      • sour@feddit.de
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        2 months ago

        I was buying a toslink cable recently and I shit you not, there was a gold plated optical cable…

        • Tehdastehdas@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Fucking Toslink: one round optical fiber in the middle, but it plugs in in only one position out of four, and you can’t feel which way the female connector is. EU should fine the assholes responsible.

  • aleph@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    Hi-resolution audio, especially for streaming. The general idea is that listening to digital audio files that have a greater bit depth and sample rate than CD (24-bit/192Khz vs 16-bit/44.1 KHz) translates to better-sounding audio, but in practice that isn’t the case.

    For a detailed breakdown as to why, there’s a great explanation here. But in summary, the format for CDs was so chosen because it covers enough depth and range to cover the full spectrum of human hearing.

    So while “hi-res” audio does contain a lot more information (which, incidentally, means it uses up significantly more data/storage space and costs more money), our ears aren’t capable of hearing it in the first place. Certain people may try to argue otherwise based on their own subjective experience, but to that I say “the placebo effect is a helluva drug.”

  • molave@reddthat.com
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    2 months ago

    Majority of the “AI inside” software and solutions. It’s in a bubble and everyone is throwing crap to a wall hoping it sticks.

    • mesamune@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      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.

    • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      “AI” is the new “blockchain”. It’s a solution looking for a solid problem to tackle, with some niche applications

      • Irelephant@lemm.eeOP
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        2 months ago

        I mean, at least Ai has SOME useful applications, the blockchain was just wasting energy for some numbers.

        • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 months ago

          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.

    • smackjack@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      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.

      • Hugin@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        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.

        • smackjack@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          It’s from the Adobe Acrobat app. Basically you can ask it to give you a summary of whatever document you’re reading.

    • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      Any [emphasis added] weight loss pill

      Nope. There’s one that actually works really well. It’s called 2,4-dinitrophenol. It works by fucking up the way that your body makes/uses ATP; instead of being available for cellular respiration, it gets wasted as heat. It’s like constantly doing cardio; you’re burning tons of calories without doing anything. Users have reported losing up to seven pounds of fat–not water–in a week. The downside is that this heat can lead to hyperthermia if you take too much, and since the half-life is quite long, by the time you start seeing the negative side effects from OD’ing–about a week after you OD–it’s way to late, and your brain cooks. Oh, and you’re gonna sweat like a watermelon at a Baptist barbecue the whole time.

      It was thought that it also caused cataracts, but that seems to have been incorrect.

      It’s been banned since the 40s, I think, as a diet pill, because people had a tendency to take too much and die. If you know where to look, you can still find it. I wouldn’t recommend it for the overwhelming majority of people though.

    • Altima NEO@lemmy.zip
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      2 months ago

      I tried one if those weight loss food systems once. I’ll say it’s not really a scam, but if you knew what you were doing, you could do better.

      They basically controlled what you could eat so that you ultimately consumed less calories so you could lose weight without having to count calories, or manage macronutrients. But it was also expensive and the food was terrible, and as you said, as soon as you get off of it, you go back to the way you were. ****

      However, I do have to thank it for opening my eyes and helping me understand calories and macros a whole lot better. Not to mention proving to me that I could in fact lose weight, back when I thought it was just the way I’d be forever. Because then I started looking into why it worked and what I needed to do to stop buying that crap and eat real food again.

  • tleb@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    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.

      • sobanto@feddit.de
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        2 months ago

        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.