All posts tagged: hurting

Is your breakfast helping or hurting your health?

Is your breakfast helping or hurting your health?

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the Well Enough newsletter with Harry Bullmore for tips on living a healthier, happier and longer life Get the Well Enough email with Harry Bullmore Get the Well Enough email with Harry Bullmore Many of us have grown up with the mantra that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But whether it’s snatching an extra half hour of sleep, or focusing on getting the kids out of the house, there are various reasons why assembling a healthy breakfast might slip down your list of priorities – especially on a weekday. So, is it worse to eat unhealthy foods first thing, compared to later in the day? And what about skipping breakfast altogether? Poor diet can also affect our gut health, mental health and reproductive health (Getty Images) It’s not just about calories You probably know eating foods high in sugar, salt and saturated fats – especially when they’re highly processed – puts you at greater risk of a range of serious health conditions. These include diabetes, heart disease and some cancers. …

Cleaning your Windows registry with CCleaner probably isn’t helping — and might be hurting

Cleaning your Windows registry with CCleaner probably isn’t helping — and might be hurting

Published by skeptic

I’ve used CCleaner in the past, and I’ve never been particularly impressed by it. However, tools evolve, and I was curious to see how much this one had changed, so I gave it another try. It’s better than it used to be, but this time I paid close attention to its registry cleaning feature. After running the registry scan, I sat down and investigated every result category it flagged. If I were to go back to using CCleaner, I’d be skipping the registry cleanup. Related I didn’t realize this hidden folder was taking up 60GB of space The storage hog nobody checks. 254 entries, 0.00 megabytes What a dedicated registry scan on my PC actually turned up I ran CCleaner’s general cleanup first, and the results were satisfactory (better than I would’ve said a few years ago). So I took it a step further by unselecting junk and browser cleaning entries, allowing a complete registry scan to run. The results revealed 254 entries, but when I investigated to see how much space it reclaimed, I …

Why the rise of open source AI isn’t hurting Anthropic … yet

Why the rise of open source AI isn’t hurting Anthropic … yet

Published by skeptic

On Monday, Decagon CEO Jesse Zhang published a provocative new theory, posted under the title “Everyone is wrong about open source AI in the enterprise.” The post grapples with one of the most interesting contradictions of today’s AI economy: More mature AI deployments are switching to lighter models, he says, even at his own company. But the overall spend on expensive state-of-the-art models has barely budged. It’s a new way to think about the relationship between frontier and open source models. In Zhang’s telling, they aren’t competitors, and open source models’ success isn’t coming at the expense of frontier labs. Instead, they’re two phases of the same life cycle, with expensive frontier models being used to prove out use cases that can be passed along to cheaper open source alternatives as they mature. As more mature use cases switch to lighter models, new use cases keep arising — and the overall spend on frontier models barely goes down. Zhang doesn’t give much data to support the point, but the data isn’t hard to find. Vercel’s …

Small-Dollar Campaign Donors Are Hurting the Political System

Small-Dollar Campaign Donors Are Hurting the Political System

Published by Sam Flores

Colorado’s rural Fourth Congressional District is Republican territory. In the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump carried it by 18 percentage points. Yet Eileen Laubacher, a former Navy rear admiral running as a Democrat there, has managed to raise nearly $10 million. The reason? The incumbent is Lauren Boebert, a publicity-hungry Republican despised by Democrats nationwide. In a show of solidarity with Laubacher (or, more accurately, antipathy toward Boebert), donors chipping in less than $200 have provided the bulk of the challenger’s funding, totaling at least $7.4 million. Like the $55 million that small donors gave to Amy McGrath in 2020 for the privilege of seeing her badly lose to Mitch McConnell in a Senate race in Kentucky, or the $71 million they gave for Jaime Harrison’s quixotic run against Lindsey Graham in South Carolina, the millions now pouring into Laubacher’s campaign will probably look ill-considered in a year’s time. Even so, these costly interventions epitomize a political revolution. For years, most Americans on both sides of the spectrum have bemoaned the ostensibly corrupting influence of …

11 Sad Gen Z Beliefs That Are Seriously Hurting Their Lives

11 Sad Gen Z Beliefs That Are Seriously Hurting Their Lives

Published by Jenni Sidey

The world Gen Z has grown up in has so far included economic uncertainty, social media, rising housing costs, and a constant stream of intense, sometimes dubious information. These external forces have influenced the way many of them see themselves and their future, for better and for worse. Some of their beliefs can be empowering, encouraging greater openness and empathy, but others can quietly become limiting, making it harder to take risks or find satisfaction in any aspect of their lives. While these mindsets certainly don’t apply to every member of Gen Z, they have become increasingly common and may be holding many young adults back more than they realize. Gen Z just won’t let go of these sad beliefs that are quietly hurting their lives 1. Being perfect is more important than trying new things ThomasVogel from Getty Images Signature via Canva Gen Z can’t seem to let go of the belief that they have to be perfect. As tech-savvy as they are, being raised on a steady diet of social media has made it …

AI that agrees too much may be hurting human judgment

AI that agrees too much may be hurting human judgment

Published by Jenni Sidey

Artificial intelligence has become a quiet companion in daily life, offering advice on relationships, conflicts, and personal decisions. A new study from the American Association for the Advancement of Science suggests that this guidance may come with an unseen cost. Instead of helping people reflect, many AI systems tend to agree too easily, reinforcing beliefs that may not always be healthy. Researchers report that this pattern, known as “sycophancy,” appears across many leading AI models. The findings show that these systems affirm users far more often than humans do. In some cases, this agreement strengthens confidence in questionable actions and reduces willingness to repair relationships. The results raise concerns about how AI shapes judgment in emotional and social situations. They also highlight a growing need to rethink how these systems are designed and evaluated. The Rise Of AI As A Source Of Advice AI tools are no longer limited to facts and simple questions. Many people now turn to them for guidance on personal issues, including arguments with friends or family. Sycophancy in AI responses …

AI is hurting Apple in more ways than one: it may force iPhone price increases

AI is hurting Apple in more ways than one: it may force iPhone price increases

Published by skeptic

It’s been called RAMageddon: AI’s insatiable demand for hardware has caused a worldwide shortage of memory chips. Now outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook is warning its customers that your next Mac, iPhone, or iPad could be more expensive thanks to surging memory and storage chips costs. In a recent interview, Cook told the WSJ that price increases are “unavoidable,” in spite of efforts to absorb chip costs that have increased fourfold since last year. He described the situation as “unsustainable.” Cook didn’t name which products will be affected or when prices will rise, but he’s raised the alarm about the impacts of RAMageddon before. In April, after delivering record quarterly sales, he said that these higher costs could impact Apple’s next business results. Incoming CEO John Ternus also warned about the issue that same month. If Apple raises prices, the iPhone seems almost certain to be impacted, memory supply experts told the Financial Times. The company is expected to launch its next iPhone in September, which gives it the opportunity to announce increased prices. Of …

The surprising ways your lights may be hurting your health — and wasting money

The surprising ways your lights may be hurting your health — and wasting money

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the Well Enough newsletter with Harry Bullmore for tips on living a healthier, happier and longer life Get the Well Enough email with Harry Bullmore Get the Well Enough email with Harry Bullmore Lighting accounts for almost 8% of the world’s energy usage. It makes up around 10-20% of domestic energy bills, with an even higher proportion in commercial premises like offices. But it still has huge potential for improvement. Technological changes and management of consumer behaviour can greatly reduce energy consumption without sacrificing comfort – and even improve health and wellbeing along the way. LED lightbulbs marked a huge leap forward in energy efficiency. They can reduce energy consumption by 50-80% in comparison with older technology, but their impact goes beyond energy savings, as by emitting less heat than older bulbs, they also reduce the need to cool interiors. Type of light also plays a role in our bodies, affecting sleep, attention and metabolism. But its impact mainly depends on intensity. Bluer light – typically emitted by screens and “cold” LED bulbs – …

Pope Leo says culture of ‘profit and performance’ is hurting young people’s mental health

Pope Leo says culture of ‘profit and performance’ is hurting young people’s mental health

Published by Sam Flores

BARCELONA (RNS) — Pope Leo XIV urged healthcare systems Tuesday (June 9) to prioritize mental health as he reflected on how society often silences pain and vulnerability, which especially harms the psychological well-being of young people. The pope made the remarks while answering questions by Spanish youth during a prayer vigil at the Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium in Barcelona, where he also addressed the “dramatic reality” of violence against women. It marked the end of his first day in Barcelona, the second leg of his weeklong trip that has already led him to Madrid and will end in the Canary Islands. Mental health is often threatened in societies that are considered advanced, he said, calling this a “sign that there is something deeply wrong” in how people are subjected to “pressures, expectations and tensions” in the name of progress. “For this reason, we need a healthcare system that prioritizes this invisible and widespread malaise, which also affects young people,” the pope said. Leo answered a question by a young person who attempted suicide before finding …

How high-end credit card perks are hurting shoppers who pay in cash

How high-end credit card perks are hurting shoppers who pay in cash

Published by Sam Flores

The total credit and debit card fees paid by merchants to card processors, led by Visa and Mastercard, have increased 70% since 2019 to $198 billion in 2025, according to data from the Nilson Report. The rise has been fueled by an overall increase in consumer spending, a shrinking number of people using cash and an uptick in fees charged by credit card companies that largely go toward funding rewards programs. The National Retail Federation, an industry organization pushing for legislation to reduce swipe fees, estimates those fees add more than $1,200 a year in higher prices for the average household. The pain from those costs isn’t being felt equally. For customers paying with credit cards that offer rewards, those higher prices are offset by the perks they get from their card, like cash back, points that can be redeemed for flights or access to airline lounges. But for those paying with cash or a debit or a credit card that doesn’t come with any perks, there is no reprieve: They are bearing the brunt …