I've been craving a lot of popcorn recently after discovering hulless varieties that don't get super stuck in your teeth. Historically, my preferred method was the microwave because of simplicity, but our current microwave simply fails to pop popcorn. I've switched to stove-top with a standard pot and a lid wrapped in a dishcloth to limit moisture. Combined with butter-flavored coconut oil and Gold Medal Flavacol, I've been making some excellent popcorn.

Come to today, I've ordered an air popper (Presto PopLite) because I want the quickest and easiest method with the least clean-up, but I'm not sure how to evenly distribute liquid toppings nor how to make kettlecorn with popped popcorn. I'd be interested in a whirlypop if they were dishwasher safe. Tramontina's new Gold Pop looks reasonable, but I couldn't find any thorough reviews since it's fairly new.

Anyhow, what's your history with popcorn? How do you make it? What toppings do you like?

Recently learned from this Kurzgesagt video that rogue AI agents can act independently, covertly, and effectively in a harmful way-- and it's already done this repeatedly as of the past few months, and it's capable of self-improving quickly. I also watched this Emergent Garden video which included a demonstration of how rogue AI agents can escape sandboxes, hack systems, and do self-preservation and replication.

(Edit: Kurzgesagt's video was more "doomsday" and Emergent Garden's was more balanced. The latter demonstrated that it's not too difficult to push publicly available AI agents to misbehave, and not too difficult to create a simple self-replicating self-iterating AI worm, and concluded that although current guardrails are reasonably effective, major cybersecurity incidents are likely to occur within the next couple years due to rogue AI swarms.
I'm not concerned that AI is becoming "sentient" or that we're getting AGI soon. AI doesn't need to be smart to do a lot of damage.)

I don't trust that the big corporations that own and control a lot of this AI tech care about data privacy and public welfare, but even if they did, they don't seem capable of actually controlling their own AI agents and preventing these rogue incidents.

So much of modern society's infrastructure is dependent on the internet and digital tech in general. It all seems so vulnerable. "AI psychosis" seems to be rampant in a lot of CEO's / high-level decisionmakers, leading to a lot of access and data being given to AI agents. For example, Proton's CEO seems to be pushing for reckless AI use in what's supposed to be a privacy-first, security-first platform.

I'm averse to any sort of "doomsday" predictions/fearmongering, but I do feel concerned about this and I'm not sure if I'm overreacting. The idea that AI poses a viable existential threat to humanity feels like such an extreme belief, though I'm not sure how to refute it other than "other doomsday-type ideas have been proven to be overhyped" and "AI companies are exaggerating it to create hype that makes their AI tech look very powerful". How alarmed should I actually be about this, if at all? Is it realistic to think that a "cyber pandemic/lockdown" might happen in the near future (some scenario wherein global internet becomes generally unsafe/inaccessible and we'll be restricted to small local networks)?

How are you updating your personal cybersecurity in 2026?

I'm considering leaving Protonpass but also not sure if the alternatives (1Password, Bitwarden) are better. I'm hoping to find a password manager that's secure, not AI vibe coded, reasonably priced, and run by reasonably morally ok people. Is that possible? I'm also genuinely considering just going back to having some sort of personal cipher / password hint system + writing it down on paper so it's completely offline.

How concerned should I be about digital banking? I'm considering at least having printed out records of bank balances, in case of a scenario wherein digital banks' records are affected.

How are you balancing cybersecurity measures with practicality / ease-of-use?

I'm not an advanced techie myself, and I'd also like to get non-techie family members onboard with better cybersecurity measures, so for example if I encourage them to use a password manager it would need to have friendly UI too.

I don't think I'll be able to 100% remove my dependency on big tech companies like Google, Meta, and Apple.

The amount of time and energy I devote to improving my personal cybersecurity will be limited, since it's of course competing with everything else in my life requiring attention and care.

So I'm just trying to collect info and tips, and see what I can implement from there.

one thing clear from my previous post is that I didnt write it clearly enough given many responses misunderstood what I was asking for:

I have these earphones, I bought from Amazon, and for the most part, they serve my needs. I have 2 and use one of them for my work computer on video calls and I use the other ones with my grapheneOS phone when I am out and about.

I have always had earphones that I use on the go break after 2-3 years cause of wear and tear, which, fair enough. I expect the ones I use with my grapheneOS to break.

But the pair that that I literally use only for videocalls at my desk...they still are starting to fray.

and I am currently traveling with them and noticing they have noticeable static...and I noticed a weird issue where, if I turned the phone over on my lap, the YouTube video I was listening to would stop????

I luckily got warranty with them so buying new ones won't really set me back much, but it has made me wonder if there a decent pair of earphones that wont cost me hundreds and actually last a good while without breaking down?

I am looking for USB-c earphones and hoping I can find options with or without mics.

Whenever I look on amazon, I always only see weird brands I dont recognize so I get worried about spending too much on a purchase that seems experimental.

I am not looking for headphones, ONLY earphones