MassPikeMike

I see a lot of arguing over principles here in the comments, but few specifics. What kinds of items have actually disappeared from eBay since this went through? Baofengs? Meshtastic equipment? 10 meter "freeband" radios?

Everyone says this, but here's a sample of size 1: some years ago I was at a Sonoma winery during harvest season, reached my hand through a fence, grabbed a bunch of grapes and ate them. They were delicious.

Did I just get lucky? Anyone else do this?

I hate to be the one to throw stones at an outfit that is trying to do something good, protecting people's privacy.

But the claim in Obscura's FAQ that paying with Bitcoin or Monero offers more privacy than paying with a credit card is sadly misguided. No-KYC cryptocurrency is largely a thing of the past, and outfits like Chainanalysis can associate a Lightning or Monero address to a human with near-perfect accuracy. The fact that Obscura's FAQ doesn't acknowledge this makes me feel like its author was either pretending this is not the case, or is unaware of it. Either of those is pretty bad.

Mullvad lets customers sign up for an account and pay in cash, which is a good, privacy-preserving choice. In the US, payment by postal money order or by gift card, either of which can be purchased with cash, would also be good choices. Users, and Obscura, should not be fooled by some vague association of cryptocurrency and privacy. In the age of ubiquitous KYC that ship has sailed with the possible exception of ZCash. And I wouldn't bet my life on ZCash, either.

The article discussed "CYP2D6 inhibitors like Wellbutrin and DXM" and I can offer one data point. An officemate came in with a bad cough one day. I had over-the-counter cough medicine with DXM handy and he took some. He had never taken DXM before; it is apparently not common in his country of origin.

He felt "shaky" and generally terrible after taking the DXM, and almost went to the hospital. I had never encountered anyone having that reaction before.

That particular colleague was also, it turns out, on a pretty hefty dose of Wellbutrin. I never knew there was a possible connection between the two until now.

The claim that BuyVM is scammy contradicts my experience. I have had excellent customer service from them. Yes, like (say) airline tickets, the demand for their lowest-priced offerings exceeds the supply available at that price point, and if you're not willing to wait, you will pay more. But new supply seems to come online about twice a month when billing cycles expire, and there is a Discord channel ("BuyVMStock") that can alert you when this happens. Me, I'm hanging on to my underutilized server there just because it's so cheap to keep at the ready, and I suppose this is why they have so little availability. But if they were actually scammy there would be much more churn.

If you scroll down to "Prime Performers" on the page I linked, it lists a Massachusetts company and a USC lab that turns out to have a branch office in Massachusetts.

These days when people see consecutive pithy sentences with parallel structure, they immediately holler "AI generated."

For years I've wanted to improve my writing and reduce my tendency to string together long floppy clauses, and now I'm like, well good thing I never did that...!

Judging by ads for cell phone service, most people pay more than that per month to be monitored by the Feds.

Similarly, in 1790s America, farmers west of the Appalachians were growing plenty of corn, but because of bad roads the only feasible way to transport it to the much larger markets east of the mountains was as whiskey. When Alexander Hamilton imposed a tax on distilled spirits, the result was a "Whiskey Rebellion" in which George Washington himself rode out at the head of an army against other American citizens.

Ever since the invention of the printing press, every new communication technology has reduced the effort needed to widely disseminate information-- and misinformation! So you could say this is nothing new. On the other hand, this is remarkably little effort.

"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." -Blaise Pascal