No Stupid Questions

Wouldn't leasing or renting be more accurate depending on what's involved and the circumstances?

What are some words you feel sound more right in both the American and British English?

I use a mix of the two depending on the word.

For example, I stand by pronouncing words like “Amazon” with an “ehn” sound at the end ovet an “ohn” sound, prefer spelling colour and flavour with a u, and also like using double Ls for words like travelling. Also, it is “grey”. (British English)

However, I pronounce Z as “zee”and call them fries rather than chips.

There are also spellings where I sort of alternate between depending on my mood, such as “meter” vs “metre”and“airplane” vs “aeroplane”

Are there any words that you think sound better in British and American spellings/pronunciations?

My wife pronounces it three different ways, each of which she can support. I pronounce it one, but other than that it's the way I've heard it I can't support my pronunciation even after some searches. What's yours and why?

Military, Militia, whatever the word it is, any society need a force to defend against external threats. I'm not sure how co-ordiantion would work while not being authoritarian and thus inadvetently create a state.

^^^

This is the kind of bar of soap I am talking about. It's kind of a contoured oval.

I know there are copyrights on soap shapes. I've read several soap shape patents like Theodore G Brown's hollow bar of soap designed to contain slivers of old soap and Douglas Lee's helical soap.

I've tried to go through Conopco Inc's list of patents (the trademark holder for Dove) but I can't seem to find much. They also own a plethora of other companies though so it's been challenging to swift through.

On that note I also looked for subsidiaries of Unilever (they own Dove) to see if any of them make similarly shaped bars of soap but it doesn't seem like it. Brands of soap outside of Unilever such as Irish Spring (owned by Colgate-Palmolive) do sell contoured/"dog bone" soap but I don't recall seeing any that match Dove's design.

I did find a book called Chemical Product Design: Towards a Perspective through Case Studies from 2007 and chapter 9 is titled "Design of the Dove Beauty Bar" which sounded promising but it seems to be mostly about the chemical composition and reducing soap scum in bathtubs. This is also apparently one of the theories as to why they are branded as beauty bars instead of soap. The other theory being it was an advertising tactic by David Ogilvy to appeal to women.

Someone on Reddit claims their grandfather invented the shape of Dove soap and posted the original wooden models. They backed up their claims by getting into contact with Unilever. I couldn't find any useful information in the comments.

I could probably go to a grocery store and see if any other brands have similarly shaped soap and cross reference that with the release of that style of soap by Dove to see if the copyright has lapsed but that would probably mean looking for old advertisements.

For context I was in the shower thinking about different shapes of soap and it made me wonder if that specific design (contoured oval) was originally chosen primarily to either:

A) Minimize the amount of contact on surfaces after being used to limit residue build up and prevent it from becoming stuck to tubs, shower, sinks, and so on.

B) Work better with the human body by maximizing the area that comes into contact with skin and wearing more evenly.

I imagine these days Dove would say both but that feels a bit like saying the stay-on-tabs you find on canned drinks were designed with a hole to hold your straw in place or keep bees out of your drinks during the summer.

All of this made me wondering if there was a patent somewhere and I've now spent about two hours looking for it. I don't really know why I became so invested in this. I suspect there's going to be a simple answer.

My husband doesn’t belong to 50501 and he is skeptical of the news being censored, can anone help me show him otherwise.

cross-posted from: https://linux.community/post/2362831

I don't know how extended this is, but apparently there are car makers selling cars with no keys. Instead you download a proprietary app and use it to access your car.

I like being practical and talking to a car to turn the volume up or down, to open the door or to turn the temperature higher are things I don't need nor want. Give me mechanical levers, reachable stalks and no proprietary bloatware. I don't need a movie theater on wheels.

Imagine an early 2000s car running on an electric motor. That's what I want.

Each I is a finger, V is the thumb and index. X is crossing your index and middle finger.

Ok, so. Earlier today I was watching the Technology Connections video about how Power is energy over time. In the video he shows a picture of an Anker Solix powerbank to illustrate the concept of energy storage. I've never seen or heard of this product before.

An hour later I'm reading an article on Lemmy, and there is an ad for that same powerbank.

What explains this? Some explanations I can think of:

1. Random chance.
2. Google scans YouTube videos for information about what products appear in them, and knows that I watched the video, and that I'm the same person now reading the article. It then gives this information to everyone in the ad-selling marketplace, so the Anker ad company can bid high to show me an ad.
3. Google is observing what appears on my screen in order to sell this info to advertisers.

I think 2 is most likely given Occam's Razor, but I didn't think Google scanned yt videos like this.

Is there something I'm missing?

I was watching on an Android phone, on Tubular. My browser is IronFox. I'm surprised that Google can follow my activity from one app to the other... this is probably based on IP address, but I wonder what other device fingerprinting tubular and IronFox expose...

Kind of now seems they are on the verge of becoming full fledged Nazi's. So if I get lets say a million dollars and come out a black lesbian nurse, which I truly am, and gave all the money to the NAACP would that embarass them at all or are we to far gone to get cash grabs for immitation?

I mean, it could also stop impersonation...

I mean, its not like not having an account is gonna stop them from collecting data. I mean, if I just have one and post cat photos, and some non-controvertial stuff like "omg look at this cool phone that Apple/Samsung just released", there's really nothing they could use against me. I can still have secret Lemmy accounts.

These days, if you don't have a social media account, you get marked as "suspicious" for some reason. I mean... ahem USA ahem.

I don't wanna end up tortured in some CIA blacksite because I legitimately don't have a (mainstream) social media account lol.

Am I crazy to want to have a mainstream social media account?

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/9984050

A friend of mine got herself a new Xperia 10 and wants to encrypt the SD card. It seems this option is no longer available - previously there was a "Encrypt SD card" option in settings - but no more. Apparently it was also possible to use the SD card as "Adoptable storage" - but no more.

Is it at all possible to encrypt an SD card on Android (15) or is de-googling the only option?

What really made my stomach turn is that my Aunt had a smile on her face. At first I took it as maybe she's trying to stay positive about the situation or having some odd nervous reaction but it was a huge huge smile as if she won the lottery. My grandma was not well off by any means so I highly doubt she had much in her will and my uncle was clearly not smiling in the picture.

She was also extremely unempathetic when my dad passed away during my mid 20s, telling me I need to man up and do better in life. I was working, in a relationship and doing my best to help my mom out. Am I overreacting or does she come off as a full blown sociopath?

Wired is more efficient, you can pick it up and use it while charging, and the cable usually comes free with the phone. What is the point of wireless charging pads?

Hi guys , Recently I started this project of mine which concerns photography and editing. I’m new to this world but I’m hoping to find myself in it , as to why I would like to know if any of you had some sort of rabbit hole or some way of finding weird old footage or even pictures, such as the ones you can see in $b$ cover album and all.📷 Even if it isn’t the same style I just wanted to know how could one that isn’t too integrated in the ways of finding such beauty. Thank you for reading this ^^, have a great day you guys and girls

I keep up with most of the dumpster fire that is current US news but I'm sorta lost on this one. I contribute to my 401k every week and have a few thousand saved up, as well as stock in the company I work for. Is all of the bad news referring to the stock market crashing? Is this general across the board or more company-specific? I consider myself decently politically educated but not so much economically.

We often think lots of animals are cute. Do some animals think humans are cute?

As someone just starting their journey into privacy-focused, open-source software, I'd love to hear what apps the community recommends.

I'm particularly interested in:

• What messaging apps you use instead of WhatsApp/Messenger
• Alternatives to Google services (email, calendar, cloud storage)
• Social media alternatives that respect privacy
• Browsers
• Password managers worth using
• Any other productivity apps you’d recommend me to use

I'm using Apple devices (I know, I know), so apps that work well in this ecosystem would be ideal. Which ones have you found perform exceptionally well?

What was your experience transitioning away from corporate services? Any pitfalls to avoid or strategies that made the switch easier?

Since this wasn't apparent the last time I asked... no, I'm actually not a US citizen or green card holder (permanent resident). Just happened to be in this country for a long time due to career reasons.

I realise that Google places ads in the native Gmail environment. However, when using a third party front end to embed the Google services, how does the company make money off that? When I use Thunderbird to access Gmail or the Google Calendar or when I map my Google Drive to the file explorer, how can Google profit from this kind of use?

How do they come up with the most confusing naming schemes on the planet? You would think that making it easy to identify which product is which would boost sales, or someone at least has the sanity to make it easy to understand.

(i.e. CPUs, laptop processors, USB standard, most smartphones, monitors, anything made by Sony that’s not a Playstation…)

After working for many years in a "fast pace environment" I can't help but notice that I have increasing difficulties to do simple tasks.

In office, I always start multiple tasks at the same time. I noticed I often start but barely finish.

At home, it gets even worse. "Let's make tea" takes several back and forth to the kitchen, wondering what I am doing there. Then forgetting I boiled water.

I've tried to trick myself by ordering tasks, but ultimately I end up asking myself what was I doing until now.

I don't take medicines of any kind. "1st world problem" is granted, accepted, validated.

I'm sure I'm not the only one. Have you found a recipe that works for you ?

!

Of what work (comics, games, movies, etc. doesn't matter)?