Stupid question. With a bag clip bag bag clip, obviously.

Y’know, I bought a bag of bag clips from Ikea years ago and I’m only now realising that they’re less suited to the job than a clothes peg. Smart.

A twelve year old computer in 2013 would have been utterly useless. Doesn’t matter how good is was in 2001 it would die under even a modest 2013 workload. But a decent computer from 2013 is still useful today. Not for triple-A gaming, VR, or 8K video editing, but still a decent productivity and media machine. I just bought my first handheld gaming PC and I made sure it had eGPU support since that’s the likely bottleneck in the future (i7 and 32GB RAM, so that should be good for a long while) and I fully intend to get a decade out of it. There’s no real appetite to upgrade your machine regularly any more, and the manufacturers hate that.

A bridge rectifier circuit for each battery slot would solve the issue and, at the low currents of things like remote controls, would be pretty tiny and introduce inconsequential power overhead bbbuuuuuuuuu-uuuuuu-uuuuutttt it would cost money, precious pennies per device. And it would be tricky to market it, educate users, and so on. Such things are too good for this world.

Can I ask where everyone is from? I’m in the UK, which uses 230v, and even cheap-ass LED bulbs last forever. But a lot of the bulbs are rated for both 230v and 115v so I’m wondering if those same bulbs are being sold in the US. If that’s the case, they’ll need to pull double the current to manage the same output which is far more stressful on the electronics than higher voltage with lower current.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen packaging as described in the UK. Normally they’re packaged in individual blisters that can be pushed through the foil covering in a single step. I’m not sure about this ‘peeling’ action that’s described.

Also, for what’s it’s worth, medication in the UK is publicly known by it’s International Nonproprietary Name rather than brands, so for the most part people will ask for ‘paracetamol’ rather than Deludomex™ or whatever. ‘Acetaminophen’ is a new one to me, though.

Capitalists compete to make the most money by convincing customers to pay as much as possible for a product that’s as cheap as possible to make. The competition argument works in areas that are white-hot with innovation but can anyone honestly say the office chair of 2025 shows thirty years of innovation over the ones from 1995?

If this is a regular issue for you I’d recommend a decanter or at least a large carafe. It solves your problem, helps the wine to ‘breathe’ and looks fancypants as balls.

The gravity-assisted bag roll is a staple for me. Cereal, bread, veggies, anything too big for a bag clip.

I can’t find the photo I took, which is annoying, but I was working in schools a couple of years back and in the IT room there was a huge display on the wall with the title “Amazing Things We Can Do With Computers” and the list was, literally, this:

• YouTube
• Facebook
• TikTok
• Amazon
• Spotify
• WhatsApp
• FaceTime

FWIW, Chromebooks can be used as more than just web browser devices. The real problem is who is setting - and teaching - the curriculum. Some other schools had amazing curriculums but they usually had one, single, solitary, clued-up teacher.

I kind of miss Ceefax, the BBC’s Teletext service. The immediacy meant that headlines were often broken first on Ceefax before TV or radio, but the limitations meant there was little room for overly-verbose fluff. I remember using it in the early nineties for realtime flight arrivals at our local airport, so we knew when to set off to collect my grandparents.

I remember reading about a system used somewhere else in Europe where you would call a phone line and use your phone’s dialpad to navigate the Teletext on your TV - that sounds very clever.