• @[email protected]
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    652 years ago

    The Tor Browser, it’s just a normal Browser with some functionality to improve privacy.

    • Brad
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      142 years ago

      Like many tools, it can also be used for nefarious things, but that’s not its only use.

      • @[email protected]
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        02 years ago

        The use case for TOR is illegal activity. Some illegal activity is not immoral, like organising a protest against a dictatorship. But Tor is not a useful tool for simply browsing websites. The inconvenience isn’t worth it when a regular browser fulfills your needs better.

        It’s like money laundering. It could be done recreationally, but that’s not the normal use case.

        • @[email protected]
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          12 years ago

          Tor isn’t explicitly developed to promote illegal activity. I’ts just another browser with some more layers, just like an Onion.

          • @[email protected]
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            -12 years ago

            Those layers get in the way of casual browsing. Like you could use a bucket to fill a full size swimming pool, but a hose is better suitrd for the job.

    • @[email protected]
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      112 years ago

      It’s more than just privacy. It allows you to visit .onion sites, which will not load in a traditional browser. As a harmless example, this is Duck Duck Go: https://duckduckgogg42xjoc72x3sjasowoarfbgcmvfimaftt6twagswzczad.onion/. Trying to click that in a normal browser doesn’t work because they don’t support the onion network. But using the Tor browser unlocks that as well as all sorts of nefarious sites that you can’t access through a “normal browser”

    • CaptainBlagbird
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      12 years ago

      I’ve encountered DNS poisoning (or similar?) multiple times. Wouldn’t call this completely harmless. I wouldn’t use it for online banking.

  • @[email protected]
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    -182 years ago

    The steam coming out of an Instant Pot. People have looked very worried when I put my hand into the steam blasting out.

      • @[email protected]
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        22 years ago

        There are a few kinds of steam!

        Wet (unsaturated) steam: this is probably what’s coming out of the instant pot. It’s gasified water mixed with tiny particles of liquid water. Industrial processes do not want wet steam in their systems. They have machinery to separate the liquid out. If that liquid water settles out inside a pipe and blocks it, it’ll go shooting down the pipe like a bullet and cause damage to whatever is at the end of the line. If the droplets get into turbomachinery, they’ll tear up the turbines. Adding additional heat will not increase the temperature, but will get consumed by the phase change to evaporate the remaining water and change the wet steam into…

        Dry (saturated) steam: this is precisely the point when all the water has been evaporated. If you remove heat, it will start to condense without changing temperature. If you add additional heat, it will increase the temperature of the steam, because there is no water left to evaporate. This is useful because changing phase between liquid and gas consumes/yields a ton of energy, and that happens at a constant temperature. So if you need to transfer heat from one place to another, then saturated steam is what you want. Adding heat to saturated steam gets you…

        Superheated steam: at this point you can conceptualize water as a gas. Intuitively, it works just like air or nitrogen or whatever. Pressure/temp relationships act like you’d expect from your everyday experience, because you’re far enough above the gas-liquid phase change temperature that you don’t have to worry about condensation getting into your equipment. If you want to use steam as a working fluid in turbomachinery or something, then you want superheated steam.

        All three can hurt you badly, but inadvertent contact with superheated steam will fuck you up or cause irreversible death.

    • Leyla :)
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      112 years ago

      Terrible idea. Steam will fuck your entire world up. I can put my hand onto a flat top, but steam is bullshit

    • @[email protected]
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      102 years ago

      I would look worried too, from what I’ve felt the steam from my Instant Pot is extremely hot!

    • @[email protected]
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      172 years ago

      It absolutely can burn you, especially if you’re taking about when doing a quick release. I’ve burnt my hand numerous occasions trying to cover the steam vent with a tea towel.

      • @[email protected]
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        62 years ago

        Yeah the second-worst burn I ever got was from steam when I was opening a pressure cooker.

        The first-worst was from accidentally touching a soldering iron.

  • @[email protected]
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    82 years ago

    I’m not sure I’d say it’s completely harmless, but isn’t pumping gas while the car is running generally not a huge risk?

      • @[email protected]
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        92 years ago

        Situations where you can’t really turn your engine off. Like I once had my car battery die and after a friend jumpstarted it, I was gonna go drive around for a bit to charge the battery but then I realized my gas tank was completely empty. So I had to fill it up while it was running.

        A rare situation for sure, but it’s at least one reason.

    • @[email protected]
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      22 years ago

      According to myth busters, smoking in and of itself is also not a problem when pumping gas. Cigarettes don’t burn hot enough to light gasoline. A lighter CAN light gasoline tho (obviously).

      • @[email protected]
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        42 years ago

        Having been at a festival, holding the generator while someone else with a cigarette in his mouth starts refilling, I can tell you: Knowing that does not help at all.

  • bhj 🦥
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    232 years ago

    ITT: people that don’t know what completely harmless means

  • @[email protected]
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    532 years ago

    Australia. Maybe not completely harmless, but far less dangerous than non-Australians make it out to be.

  • @[email protected]
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    272 years ago

    Wild strawberries. As far as I know there are no wild strawberries that are poisonous. There are two types, wild strawberries that resemble normal strawberries but smaller, which taste delicious, and mock strawberries, which taste like water but are also safe to eat. Mock strawberries can be recognized as growing upward and having protruding red seeds.

    • @[email protected]
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      52 years ago

      Didn’t know people thought this. Anyway they’re definitely missing out because wild strawberries are great, much better than other strawberries imo

    • @[email protected]
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      42 years ago

      The words “wild strawberries” never fail to bring to mind this Shel Silverstein poem:

    • ThenThreeMore
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      142 years ago

      Oh, that shit is dangerous.

      At high pressure it can cut through pretty much anything.

      Heated to vapor can cause severe burns. (Steam)

      A high percentage in the air when it’s not enough will cause your body’s cooling ability to fail. Killing you very quickly.

      And that’s just off the top of my head.

      • @[email protected]
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        22 years ago

        Not to mention it’s potency as a solvent.

        It also severely decreases function of you car brakes, which can lead to severe injuries or death.

  • Fafner
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    52 years ago

    Carbon-Fiber submersibles. There was only one, then it went pop.

  • @[email protected]
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    2 years ago

    Scuba Diving. Lots of people have heard that your lungs can pop or something similar and it makes them really afraid to try it. If you hold your breath, you may have issues with your lungs but your SCUBA apparatus is such an amazing design that even if you need to throw up underwater it’s designed to filter your vomit through the apparatus so you can continue breathing even after throwing up THROUGH it (which you should do if you feel nauseous down there). Just keep the apparatus in your mouth and don’t stop breathing and you’ll have a great time.

    Scuba Diving is one of my favorite things to do and I really think more people should try it!

    • @[email protected]
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      142 years ago

      I’m simultaneously amazed by being able to vomit while diving and just breathing normally - and disgusted when trying to imagine how that’ would look and feel like…

      But thanks for the info. Never thought they’re so Great

    • @[email protected]
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      2 years ago

      In the same vein, freediving is easy to learn up to a certain point and safe as long as you don’t hyperventilate and stay away from caves. Most people can learn to dive to 10-15m and look around a bit before they have to resurface. That’s far from breaking any records, but enough to have fun and see some cool stuff that you can’t see from the surface.

      Plus, you don’t need any special gear, besides snorkel, mask and fins.

      • @[email protected]
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        52 years ago

        I want to free dive so bad but I’m a heavier weighted dude so I float too easily and have to work to keep myself underwater. Working on losing weight so I can do that kind of stuff!

        • @[email protected]
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          32 years ago

          I’m also a bit heavy and I know the struggle. I use a lot of energy just do prevent popping back up like a cork. I’ve considered using a little bit of lead, but what I like about freediving is not having a bunch of belts and vests and other gear on me. So I’m currently also trying to lose weight.

    • @[email protected]
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      42 years ago

      Was this a technological change, or did gas stations just not want people loitering on their phones?

        • Rikudou_Sage
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          22 years ago

          I mean, I’ve personally seen a sign on a gas station that tells you to leave your phone in your car, so no.

            • Rikudou_Sage
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              02 years ago

              The rumour of cellphones not to be allowed at gas stations has proven to be false.

              I was replying to this. The comment doesn’t claim it’s not dangerous, it claims it’s not forbidden to use them on gas pumps.

          • @[email protected]
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            2 years ago

            We do have these signs (crossed cellphone) also at gas pumps where I live (Germany). As I stated above, I think these signs were introduced with the beginning popularity of cellphones and serve mostly as a precaution measurement because nobody knew 25 years ago if cellphones pose a harm to gas pumps when both are in use simultaneusly. In the same fashion that cellphones had to be shut off during the entire flight in an airplane. Gas pumps were there before cellphones. I personally witnessed people pumping gas and use cellphones at the same time and nobody cared. Depending on where you are from, your experience may differ.

            Edit: typo, spelling

        • @[email protected]
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          62 years ago

          People used to be paranoid about it. I was using my cell phone at a gas station once (15+ years ago) and the cashier remotely shut off the pump until I put my phone back in the car.

      • @[email protected]
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        152 years ago

        IIRC, the rate of explosions at gas stations started going up around the time that cell phones were becoming popular. The investigation teams would review camera footage and see people on their phones. So the government changed the mandatory warning stickers on the pumps to include a “do not use your phone while pumping” warning.

        Turns out it wasn’t because people were using their phones near the gas pump, but that they were getting back in their cars to play on their phone while the pump was running. They’d build up a static charge by getting in and out of the car, which would arc to the pump handle when they went to hang it up.

        It took a while before they realized what the actual problem was.

          • @[email protected]
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            42 years ago

            NPR interview with an NTSB guy I heard a few years back with a bit of googling around (again, years ago). Hence the “IIRC.” Snopes has details on why phones themselves aren’t dangerous around pumps.

            And it’s still a problem - it’s just that it’s not the phones themselves that cause it. You’ll notice that pumps now tell you to stay by the handle and not get back into your car.

            • @[email protected]
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              32 years ago

              In the UK you have to stand there and hold the pump. They don’t fit the catch that allows the pump to keep going while you don’t hold it. The pumps in the US are very convenient but petrol streaming out potentially while no-one is paying attention always feels like a bad idea.

              • @[email protected]
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                22 years ago

                I’ve had fuel pour out once - but not from the pump. We had someone replace the fuel pump and they forgot to put the gasket on.

                I agree it sounds like a crazy idea, but it works. The automatic cutoff on those fuel dispensers works really, really well. I’ve been driving for over 30 years and have never seen it fail.

              • @[email protected]
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                12 years ago

                I’m not sure exactly how it’s done (I’m guessing some sort of pressure or seal mechanism), but the pumps are also designed so that if the pump isn’t fit properly into the car’s gas tank, the catch will automatically drop and the fuel will stop streaming. So if you start to pull the handle out of the tank while it’s still pumping fuel, it’ll automatically turn off

    • @[email protected]
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      42 years ago

      And here I’m paying for gas using phone near distributor. Well it can be dangerous when someone try to stop you because they think you didn’t pay for gas.

  • Dudewitbow
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    472 years ago

    Sharks.

    More people die due to things like selfies, falling out of your bed, tipped vending machines and heck, even balloons, then to a shark.

    Just because something can kill you doesnt mean it will, more often than not, it actually wont.

    • @[email protected]
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      152 years ago

      A shark killed my brother a few years back. He was just standing there minding his own business and this shark came out of nowhere and toppled a vending machine on top of him. Poor bastard never knew what hit him.

    • @[email protected]
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      122 years ago

      That’s because people rarely are where sharks can kill them. If they were, sharks would quite often kill them. Much more often than vending machines, though I’d watch for those too.

    • @[email protected]
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      72 years ago

      Wolves are similar, but for more understandable reasons. They may leave us alone, but they really love our livestock.

    • Kafanzi Max. Praetor
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      2 years ago

      Here there might be a confusion between danger, and statistics.

      all those examples are about events or things that are far more frequent than be near a shark

      if the average person could be close to a shark as many time in life than leaving a bed, be close to something that can flip, or to people taking selfies, statistics might be very different

      • @[email protected]
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        22 years ago

        Most of the fear of sharks is due to media. Like the vast majority of sharks will not attack a human even when in close proximity. There are like 1 or 2 species of sharks that have any danger to humans: bull and tiger sharks if I remember correctly. And even those 2 will most likely not attack, it’s just that other species are no danger at all.

    • @[email protected]
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      52 years ago

      I’d be interested in the death numbers relative to exposure. What percentage of people who tip vending machines die compared to those who swim among sharks at the beach? How about compared to those who sleep in a bed?