For the uninitiated, a nootropic refers to any sort of substance that can be considered to increase mental ability. 
Your mind might jump to coffee as an example, and sure enough, caffeine is a nootropic. 
And, following definition, since nootropics are banned either by law or by a more silent customs/import seizure, it's actually pretty hard to even buy caffeine pills in the Philippines.

My intro to the world of nootropics was typical, just shitloads of coffee. Then eventually I started buying caffeine pills and decaf coffee to mix together, since decaf was cheaper and I could buy 100x 200mg caffeine pills (100mg is like a normal cup of coffee) for less than ten bucks (7$ for the Americans) and when taken in pill form, your body metabolizes it all at once, so you feel helluva lot more 'rush' than you do when drinking coffee.

Now, problem with this is that caffeine, as most people know, can have some pretty negative effects both mentally and physically, at the cost of alertness. I'd get some pretty nasty jitters and increased heart rate which just wasn't pleasant, and another one of my friends who also took caffeine pills would get really bad anxiety.

Then, that friend discovered a little something called L-Theanine. It's a chemical that's found naturally in Green Tea and you can buy as a supplement in most health-food stores, something like 20$ a bottle for 60x 200mg. A little on the expensive side, but allegedly taking it in a 1:1 ratio with caffeine (basically 1 pill of each) would get rid of all the negative effects of caffeine.

And to this day, I swear by it. It's probably the easiest way to make the most of caffeine without feeling terrible if you ever experience negative effects. I could take em in the morning with my decaf, go about my daily activities, and just sit down and focus without getting jittery or feeling like I'm running on empty but still have that rush of energy from increased heart rate. Just normal wakefulness, even if I only got 4hrs of sleep as students typically do.

If you try this, you won't go back, it really does work wonders. I don't buy into health-food stuff often unless I can actually experience some pretty remarkable results, and this is only one of five things or so that I will shill until I die.

• Caffeine (+ L-Theanine)
  
• Adrafinil
  
• Amphetamine Sulphate (Adderall, Vyvanse)
  
• Microdosing LSD + Psilocybin
  
• L-Tyrosine
  
• Creatine
  
• Energy Drink Blends

Formula 1 Austria: Races on July 5th and 12th almost fixed

Even more concrete information about Formula 1 in Austria: Red Bulls Motorsport consultant Dr. Helmut Marko sees two GPs in July as fixed, all requirements can be met.

At And in Austria, the series The Mandalorian is currently starting in Disney Plus.

I like it very much, I was a 12-year-old in 1977 in the cinema at Star Wars with huge big eyes, then came 1980 The Empire Strikes Back and 1983 Return of the Jedi, so I was always enthusiastic and especially about this one Time everything INCREDIBLE

My wife has a very good Nikon D500, but I always take photos with my smartphone and that is still bad as you can see :-(

What is better for you?

You can turn to a number of companies if you buy one of the best smartphones, regardless of what you buy. However, one of the two popular mobile operating systems is guaranteed to run: iOS (if you choose an iPhone) or Android (if you choose something else).

Both platforms are pretty mature at this point and have been around for over a decade. This means that both have gathered extensive functions and there is very little that the other cannot. Still, each has its advantages, and there are reasons why you should choose one.
What do you choose?


or in German   :

Was ist besser für dich?

Sie können sich zwar an eine Reihe von Unternehmen wenden, wenn Sie eines der besten Smartphones kaufen, unabhängig davon, was Sie kaufen. Es wird jedoch garantiert eines der beiden bekannten mobilen Betriebssysteme ausgeführt: iOS (wenn Sie sich für ein iPhone entscheiden) oder Android (wenn Sie sich für etwas anderes entscheiden).

Beide Plattformen sind zu diesem Zeitpunkt ziemlich ausgereift und existieren seit mehr als einem Jahrzehnt. Das bedeutet, dass beide umfassende Funktionen gesammelt haben und es nur sehr wenig gibt, was der andere nicht kann. Dennoch hat jedes seine Vorteile, und es gibt Gründe, warum Sie sich für eines entscheiden sollten.
Für was entscheidet ihr euch?

So far the largest ozone hole over the Arctic closes

This is the positive effect of coronvirus, fewer planes and ships
 Cars on the move, largest ozone hole so far over the Arctic is closing

The largest hole ever observed in the ozone layer over the Arctic has closed. This was announced by the "Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service", the service of the European center for the medium-term weather forecast.

this is my home village Weikendorf, near 20 km from Vienna

I've never understood this. Is it ads? Is it bitcoin mining? 

I frequently open pages and am shocked at how much CPU they require. It freezes my whole computer. I suppose they are designed for computers that aren't 10 years old, but goodness, why is that necessary? 

Anyone else run into this, or is this just some sort of Chrome issue? I have adblock installed, but I have it paused for almost all websites just because I feel bad using it.

We host on Ramnode. They are what's known as a low end box VPS provider, meaning that they cater to the budget end of the market. That being said, they are one of the best Low End Box providers in existence. They reliability is very good. Their prices aren't the cheapest that you'll find, but you get what you pay for, and Ramnode provides a lot of value for the money. 

However, a quick look at their plans and you'll realize that there are plans that give you 4 cores for $10/month. How? 

Even better, their premium VPS line (much faster CPUs) offers 4 cores for $48/month. This is actually a fantastic price. You won't find something this cheap at many VPS providers. Some deeper digging leads to a few questions, however. 

Ramnode's premium VPS line uses blazing fast 3.7ghz CPUs (and that's the base clock!) However, they achieved this primarily with Intel E3's (and occasionally generic E-series) CPUs. E3's are strictly single socket CPUs with a maximum of 4 cores and 8 threads. This 4-core VPS is, quite literally, being hosted on a server that only has four cores for ALL VPSs available. They are, in theory, lending you the entire server's CPU for $48 dollars, or are they really? 

Not quite. Firstly, for all we know, they could be using the E-series generics that have 6 cores and 12 threads (not unlikely). But the real kicker here is that these "cores" they are giving you are, in actuality, just threads. You are getting about 50% of the threads on the server, but not 100% of the cores, per se. 

Even this is a little complicated. You're sharing these threads with multiple other servers on the hardware. They put a number of them on there. These aren't dedicated cores. If your neighboring nodes aren't behaving, your performance will suffer. Some VPS providers are much worse about this than others. Ramnode hasn't given us many problems.  

Additionally, hyperthreading usually results in about a 15-30% increase in performance. In a gross simplification, if your VPS is the only VPS using significant CPU, you will get 100% of that core. When another VPS gets put on the other thread of an individual CPU, hyperthreading kicks in and your VPS only gets about 55-65% of its ordinary level of performance from that core (since it's being split between two VPSs). 

In other words, "4" cores means anywhere between four full cores, and merely approximately ~2 cores of performance if the server is busy. 

So then, what is their business model?

Their Acceptable Use Policy offers some clues.  

Quote:As in all virtual server environments, CPU cores and disk I/O are shared among multiple VPSs. If your VPS is consistently maxing out one full core or more and impacting the performance of other client servers sharing the same host node, we may ask you to reduce your usage. Load may be generated by CPU usage and/or I/O. Disruptive load may result in a reboot, shutdown, and/or suspension of the VPS regardless of the time lapse involved.

Congratulations to @tc4me for being named the May 2020 Member of the Month!