Onomatopoeia

There are small filters that hang hoses over the side.

You'll spend more running the filter, treating the water (and testing it) than simply replacing it.

From my own pool experience the smaller the volume, the harder it is to keep balanced. Even a 12' pool can be a challenge.

Boy, so much to unpack.

Simply put, (and I mean this in a caring way), you're in a growing moment.

Of course you desire physical affection, it's part of human connection. Hell, it could be argued the physical stuff is our primary driver, just like for any other animal, and us humans struggle to reconcile that with our feelings and intellect.

Accept that whatever combo of desires you have (more physical/less personal, or the reverse, or any combo), that's how you feel. It's you, embrace it, and understand it.

As one dating coach put it - "attraction is not a choice". What we do about that attraction is the choice(s) we make.

Sounds like you intellectually get the guy you're currently hooking up with isn't good for you. Then stop seeing him. Seeing him is taking time and energy away from the opportunity to meet someone better for you. It's like spending your time practicing baseball when you want to be a long distance runner.

Two things I can rexommend: read "Your Erroneous Zones" By Wayne Dyer. He shows how to identify mis-thinking, or thinking that's simply not useful, and how to alter our perspective using Cognitive Behavioral Techniques, (without ever calling it that).

Also, check out Evan Marc Katz's dating blog. He's where that quote about attraction came from. You may not agree with some of what he says, but the foundational ideas - know yourself, don't waste your dwindling time with people who aren't good for you, etc, are excellent.

As someone who's (foolishly) also had a couple long-distance relationships - they don't work, because relationships are built through shared experience. You may have time apart once a relationship is well-established, but that's not the same thing as you don't get that day-to-day life sharing. So don't feel bad about it not working out, it would be surprising if it had.

I don't get it. Einstein's makes bagel sandwiches. This is what they do.

Is it not sliced like a bagel? Seems like you'd have to specifically request this.

Easier to link am article than write one myself.

I only glanced through this one, it may not be 100%,but it gets the salient points.

https://www.emsisoft.com/en/blog/18770/the-truth-about-windows-10-spying-on-almost-everything-you-do/

The problem mostly exists on Windows Home versions, since they're not managed by am orga izatkom. Plus during initial setup it makes it seem like a Microsoft account is required, which means MS collects a lot of activity data about you.

I only run Pro, and disable many of these unused services with tools like O&O Shutup and setting specific registry keys.

Haha, awesome.

Hell, you could pickup a used car battery and have power for a week!

You don't even need to vacuum seal it.

Just a silica pack would be more than enough.

Source: bought a few containers on sale a few years ago, all are fine.

Probably not.

Potential conflicts of interest, no "smoking gun" as headline implies... Yet again.

Do I trust Telegram? No.

But there's less evidence of wrongdoing at the moment by orders of magnitude than WhatsApp, etc.

I do appreciate the conversation, but holy hell the same connect-the-dots is never made about WhatsApp. Makes me wonder who's pushing these stories.

Good journalism would cover the issues with all the mainstream comm systems.

No, they don't.

Go talk to people, they have no idea what you're talking about.

Non-tech people barely know apps. They use email, or a given messenger. They have no idea the underlying technology - they only think in terms of functionality or use.

SMS/MMS just means "text messaging" to people. They don't know the difference between that and Apple Messages, because they see both as apps.

Hell,most people don't even know which SMS app they use on a daily basis - that's how little they understand the difference between protocol and app (and SMS isn't even really a protocol).

I've been explaining SMS to technical people since 1996, and they often struggled with it.

I've been in Enterprise IT since the 90's, and have friends in the SMB space. In both worlds the user's are clueless about underlying protocols, and only think in terms of the app itself.

Simply: XMPP is a protocol, and non-tech people don't know "protocols", they know "apps", at best.

Plus XMPP has challenges (and I've used it since about 2000, on my phone in 2009).

E2E is possible, but problematic (in that it's not simply just "on").

Even worse, none of the apps look polished...it's all clumsy, there's no one app on all OS's. And the names, FFS us geeks need to get a fucking clue.

And I use XMPP every day on my phone and laptop.

Just from a simple probability standpoint - what's more likely, that aliens so technically advanced they got here but can't hide from us, or... Man-made secret tech?

Oh, thanks for the link! I'd forgotten