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It’s interesting to see a country’s internal rank of its own happiness against how I would rank them using my worldview.

Israel for example seems like a place that would be fairly unhappy right now given world events, but they rank quite highly.

Saudi Arabia also sticks out as unexpected. It seems in the media I hear about their government being quite oppressive (especially against women), so seeing them just above the US is surprising.


IMO, everyone on Earth has to reconcile with their current circumstances and make the choice to go about life with a positive or negative disposition in spite of those circumstances.


Another big surprise is Mexico. It seems like every day there's another gory story about a bunch of people disappearing or getting shot in a gang war. But they're the second-highest ranked in North America at #12, behind only Costa Rica.

Israel I think is similar to Costa Rica in that whatever problems Israelis have, they look around at their neighbors and realize how much worse it could be.


Maybe they're ranking themselves so high because they're not in the "bunch of people gorily disappeared."


It had a huge drop in positive emotions due to the war with Gaza in 2023. Actually, negative emotions were higher than positive which is sad and expected. But the index includes many metrics that don't change rapidly like GDP, life expactancy.. so any short conflict will not have outsized effect.


> But the index includes many metrics that don't change rapidly like GDP, life expactancy..

No it does not. It's one question without regard to GDP, life expectancy or anything else.


There might have been a huge drop due to the atrocities on October 7th which caused the Gaza war.


Perhaps all the Saudi men are very happy.


Do the Saudi Arabia numbers count all of the foreign workers who are brought in to do the dirty jobs for low wages and treated like dogs? Or are only citizens counted?


In Israel they use happiness as a rebellion. You try to kill them, you say what you want, but they don’t care, they stay happy. It fuels their enemy’s rage.


No they just call you an antisemite and ask America to bomb you.


Not really? The current conflict with Iran is entirely a joint venture where Israel is taking on a significant portion. In previous conflicts the US was marginally involved and even pushed Israel to stop fighting entirely. I don't think you have a good grasp on these events.


Yes, maybe. It's the old jewish way of dealing with being powerless in exile. You try to hit us, we smile and joke. It's not healthy.

I think it's now more about gaining power as a nation and not being at the mercy of those who seek to destroy us.


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Tell that to the 1200+ civilians murdered, raped, mutilated and burned alive on October 7th. Israel is not a weak country but it has definitely been tested in the amount of pain it suffered.


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It's pretty clear? Clear to who?

Search all the sources - there were only 14 confirm out of the 828 civilians + 367 soldiers.

There were many people being shot in their homes in the first hour, a long time before IDF managed to reach those areas by foot. As of air, there were not enough attack helicopters to cover all that area, and there were no clear commands of where and how much to attack, that pilots mostly did not attack at all.


> substantial number of them were killed by the Israeli military

Let me stop you right there, the Palestinian (hamas) raid on Israel was livestreamed for the psychological terror effect, and there is absolutely a mountain of videos showing how everything happened. There's an overwhelming number of witness accounts telling the horrors committed by Palestinians towards families in their homes, the music festival, etc. You can still visit the places they torched ny hand. Please don't spread disinformation on October 7th.


> Let me stop you right there, the Palestinian (hamas) raid on Israel was livestreamed for the psychological terror effect, and there is absolutely a mountain of videos showing how everything happened.

No, there aren't videos showing how "everything" happened. There are videos showing a part of what happened, and you are extrapolating how everything happened from the subset of those that you have seen, even though you acknowledge that they were created as a propaganda effort to create exactly the impression you have derived from them.


The videos, the security cameras footage, alongside numerous first hand accounts paint a very clear, minute by minute picture, which I'm not sure you bothered to look into.

Hamas raided numerous towns near Gaza where they murdered people and children in their homes. This is where most people died. This and the music festival where people literally came to dance peacefully.

Under no circumstances did IDF kill 1200 Israeli civilians on October 7th, or "a substantial" part. This is disinformation and Hamas propaganda, and any source even implying this is lying to your face.


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Too bad there's no one to shield Israel's neighbors from experiencing the consequence of theirs, eh?



lol at the parent comment being flagged.

Being factual is really problematic on this site, ain't it?


What happened between 2023 and 2024 to cause the usage dropoff?


I'd say it's less a usage dropoff and more a reversion to the mean after Covid


That's a possible hypothesis, but there was also a rising trend prior, it wasn't stable.


Return to office


My AirPods Max 1 left a headband dent in my skull from how poor the quality of the headband was after more than a year of daily use. They also are super heavy and don't travel well at all.

Apple deciding that, on their 2nd refresh of these (after usb-c), they still aren't going to fix those fundamental issues is very frustrating for what feels like a very disproportionately expensive product (even by Apple standards).

I'm now a very happy QC Ultra 2 user. Can't recommend enough.


>My AirPods Max 1 left a headband dent in my skull from how poor the quality of the headband was after more than a year of daily use.

You should get checked out. No adult should have a dent put in their skull by headphones.


I hope that commenter was being hyperbolic. I have heard of headphones making visible impressions or “dents” in the soft tissue and msucle after long periods of use (Google Tyler1 headphone dent if you don’t believe me), but such a dent would disappear within minutes or hours. An actual deformation of the skull due to headphone-wearing would definitely be strange.


That's not true. After an hour of wearing AirPods Max 1, my skull dipped temporarily in where the two bands are.

It's a horrendous headband design. All the pressure is on two thin bands. The middle fabric doesn't actually do anything.


at no point should your skull be deforming. Maybe the skin and fat layer ontop but the skull itself should not be deforming after an hour of hearing a device on a healthy individual.

Please see a doctor!!


Yea I ran into the exact same issue. My workaround was buying a silicone band that wrapped around the top of the set to help as a sort of "2nd layer."

It isn't perfect, but it makes them wearable.

Pretty incredible oversight by a company that focuses so much on "design."

The bands sell pretty well on Amazon from what I can see so this isn't an isolated issue.


Interesting. Echoes the failure of the original Vision Pro knit headband, Version 2 of which is much better — but it took 2 years to appear!


It took Apple realizing that putting fashion so far out ahead of function on Vision Pro was costing it usage to see the dual strap. The ergonomics of the first strap were dog shit, and everyone, certainly Apple, knew years before Vision Pro launched that a dual strap was the only way to make longer sessions viable. But a dual strap was also uglier, and Vision Pro already had acceptability problems.

Look at the marketing materials for Vision Pro using the single strap. Next, look at the marketing materials with the dual strap. Which one of those would sell better into an office context where at least half the population spends considerable time fixing their hair. Which one looks slightly futuristic and which looks like a CPAP headset.

"How it looks" led Apple to ship a deficient strap, one that made the device actually hurt to use. And how it looks is why Apple stuck with that garbage strap for 18 months despite knowing from extensive user research that the dual strap was superior ergonomically, and despite having already done the R&D for the dual strap.

It was only when Apple had mostly given up on Vision Pro, understanding that the user base wasn't going to hockey stick, that fashion was already a complete failure, that they began offering the sillier looking but infinitely more functional dual strap. After 18 months, all Apple had was its existing user base, selling only a few thousand devices a month, so it shifted from growth to sustaining and that's what the dual strap and M5 logic board swap was for, holding onto the few users it has until it could figure out how or if to proceed with the product line.

That's not the case with Apple's headphones. That strap could easily be a lot higher quality without being a lot less fashionable.


A literal dent in your skull?


Not the skull, but probably the scalp. Our scalp is made up of skin, fat, and muscle. When you press a rigid object against it for hours every day, that soft tissue temporarily compresses. It happens to my kid who wears headphones for gaming. It's the same mechanism that leaves red marks on your nose after wearing glasses, or grooves on your ankles after wearing tight socks. Wash your hair, give up on the headphones, and it'll return to normal.

The QC2 are about half the weight of the AirPods Max, and apparently the mesh in the AirPods Max band sags, and allows the metal bars to "dig in" to your scalp. Enough to cause irritation, but 400 or 500 grams resting on your head can't mess with an adult, developed skull.


It’s not in the skull, it’s in the soft tissue on top of it. I’ve had the same dent after wearing them for a while, it comes out after a while.


Phew, that's a relief. Guess that's a reasonable compromise for a $550 product for which there are no other quality competitors.


It literally gives me a headache after more than an hour of wearing it. This never happens with may AKG that has a very utilitarian and simple headband—a flat piece of plastic. It’s not pretty but I can wear AKG for a whole day and enjoy every minute of it while I’m phisically sick after an hour of AirPods Pro.


You're joking, right? There are many high quality competitors in that price range. I'm holding a pair (Sennheiser HDB 630). They are significantly lighter weight, better comfort and sound quality.


They are indeed being sarcastic/joking.


My hd660s2 leave an indent in my skull. I don’t find them uncomfortable though.


I thought this was parody at first- are you guys seriously ok with this?


We want evidence.


> it’s in the soft tissue on top of it

Can anyone with a medical background confirm if this is a thing, or folks are just noticing old undulations in their skulls?


You shouldn't need a medical background to know that having something press on a spot for a couple of hours will leave a depression in your skin.

You have probably fallen asleep on something patterned or folded and have it leave an impression on your skin before: This is no different.

Other places it happens: Watches that are slightly too tight or have ridden up an arm. Glasses arms pressing against your temple or behind the ear. Tight socks after a day wearing them.

It's not a medical problem. It's just general physics.


> shouldn't need a medical background to know that having something press on a spot for a couple of hours will leave a depression in your skin

I read “soft tissue on top of” the skull to mean more than a superficial skin depression.

We have layers of connective tissue between the skin and skull [1]. Their damage usually calls for medical attention.

[1] https://www.earthslab.com/anatomy/scalp/


What he's saying though is that the original poster is vastly overstating the effect the headphone had on his head. There was no dent in his skull, just skin deformation that happens with literally every headphone.


You sure that's not from something else?


Another poster here - I can confirm, have the same thing. I don’t worry too much about it though, I assume it will fade if I ever switch to other headphones.


"I found a GAMER DENT in my head..." https://www.youtube.com/shorts/rp7emJhjk5g


Yeah. My bone grew around the two plastic pieces of the band because the mesh in the middle lost all of its springiness.

One day I felt my head and decided that I was switching as soon as a competitor refreshed.


That... doesn't happen. More likely it's an indentation in your scalp.


Hey, OP might be an infant and their skull might still be growing!


I’m sorry but this might be the dumbest comment I have ever read on HN.


I wrapped my headband in some macrame yarn and it resolved all of the discomfort. I can’t say it’s exactly stylish, but I do get a lot of comments on it.

I only really wear them at home or when traveling though, so they’re not a fashion accessory for me.

Still wish they would have improved the headband, but if anyone else is struggling with discomfort, I’d recommend wrapping it in yarn XD


I thought that any headphones would leave a dent in your head? At least that's been my experience, and I don't think my headphones are nearly as heavy as these things.


Yeah, no joke. For bald people like myself these headphones are unusable once the mesh stretches enough that the metal bands touch your skull.

I could go 30 minutes before the discomfort made me have to take it off.

No such issue with the WH-1000XM6, I can wear it the entire day.


I'm also a Bose QC user and I can't speak highly enough about them. Best piece of tech that I ever bought. Going on three years now and they are still like new. I have three very loud, rambunctious kids and they are a life-saver.


How easy is it to switch between devices? That was always the main draw of airpods for me.


It allows two devices to connect at the same time. I usually have my phone and my macbook hooked up to it all the time. Once in a while one of them will act badly and usurp full control over the bluetooth connection and I'll have to disconnect it. Super rare. For the most part the experience is seamless.


I've traveled extensively with my AirPods Max. I just toss them in my backpack with whatever else is there and move on. They travel a lot better than my Bose ones did with the bulky case. I much prefer Apple's approach here.


They will replace worn out fabric on the v1s with AppleCare. Have to send them in but it works.


You are wearing it wrong?


It’s crazy to me how hard people work to effectively ruin a game for themselves… Imagine putting in this much effort to play Minecraft survival but on creative mode. It just doesn’t sound fun


They're getting some actual reward from having a big win/loss ratio. I don't know if that's monetary or just the feeling of being the best but I'd expect the latter group to realise this is all nonsense before spending money on hardware.


https://www.mrinanksharma.net/poetry

He’s published a book on poetry. So he does write it as well as study it.


Calling out the Apple Watch for lack of customization while using 3 different watches seems a bit ironic.


This feels like a classic example of the concept that simple ≠ easy


In that sense most things are simple. Though it's also simple to over simplify. Since often simplicity arises out of the accumulation of expert analysis rather than being obvious from the get go. Which I think is just as important as what you say:

  Simple != easy
  Simple != obvious
  Simple != intuitive
  Simple != easy to understand
I think if people remembered these things then things would be more simple. I'll add one more relationship

  Elegant == Simple
  Simple  != elegant


Simple means not complex, means not composed of even simpler parts. A twelve step plan is literally a list of simpler parts, making it not simple. Most things are complex, since there are so many ways to combine simples. It is an ironic title.


  > Simple means not complex
I disagree. Most things are complex, yet most things are also simple.

Don't forget that words are overloaded so they only mean things in context. Words are both simple and complex because of this.

As an example: the rules to the game of life are simple. The outcomes are complex. The rules cannot even be decomposed further, making them first principles of that universe.

  >  means not composed of even simpler parts
These would really be "first principles". Which is a form of simplicity. Being the simplest something can be, yet that sentence itself conveys that "simple" relies on context and in a continuum.

This relationship of "simple yet complex" is quite common. We could say the same thing about chaotic functions like the double pendulum. It is both simple and complex.


> Simple means not complex, means not composed of even simpler parts.

“Simple” is obviously subjective and context-dependent, but I don’t agree with that.

Getting a bowl of cereal is simple, yet still composed of several simple steps.


> Simple means not complex, means not composed of even simpler parts.

Is that formally defined and widely accepted? If not, I don’t think your argument holds because almost nothing is simple based on what you said.


Yeah kind of feels like "writing a hit novel is simple - you just need a plot that is engaging, well written prose, and a satisfying story arc".

I mean... yeah kind of obvs. Very "rest of the owl".


Well, that wouldn’t give you a “hit” novel. That would give you a good novel. Hit != Good


How well does it handle captchas?


There’s no magic here unfortunately. We’re working hard to make anti-detection as good as possible with proxies to avoid captchas in first place. When they get there - we can solve ~60% of providers right now (incl reCAPTCHA, Cloudflare, and main ones) and some others are still work in progress.


Does this have plans or support for Aseprite? The workflow of uploading an aseprite file, adding an animation, and getting it back would be incredible.


Working on an FPS aim trainer that has a heavy focus on tracking performance data over time.

I love how MonkeyType lets you see exactly how much you’ve improved over time at typing and it’s inspired me to take a similar approach to this hobby of mine as well


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