I picked mine by referring to the Wikipedia articles for the "good" Thinkpad series (T, P series mainly). Here's the one for T series: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad_T_series

Under "Lenovo branded models" is a giant table of all the variants of each model (CPU, display, etc). It also tells you whether the RAM is socketed or soldered, and whether they have external batteries. To gauge performance I just look up the CPU for the model I considered on a CPU benchmark site. Take those with a grain of salt, but they are good for generalizing performance.

I ultimately settled for a Thinkpad T580 (instead of the smaller T480), since I like large 15" laptops, I liked the port layout, and I liked the hot swap dual battery system (also available on T480, T570, T470, and other earlier models). It also has socketed ram and USB C charging. Performance isn't great for most gaming, but it is very good for browsing and office work.

OK, this looks like it would work better than the bare fans but it still might not be adequate. Then again, the part cooling on my stock ender 3 isn't supposed to be great either, but I haven't experienced this issue when printing small details.

I opened Cura and took a look at the minimum layer time and minimum speed settings. I read the tooltips, and I was just as confused as you are until I read the comment from alkeemist. These settings might not be what you need. I'm afraid I don't know enough to suggest anything else since I haven't come across this issue myself.

I've never used any 3d printers other than my stock ender 3, but your cooling fans don't have any ducts to direct the air to the space right below the nozzle. They seem to be aimed mostly at the buildplate. Do you think the cooling fans are adequate in their current configuration? To me, it looks like there wouldn't be much airflow directly below the nozzle where cooling is most necessary for good detail. Maybe, when the printer is printing smaller layers, they stay in this dead zone for a long time and don't get adequate cooling?

If you want to try and address this, you can print fan ducts out of a heat resistant filament like PETG to better direct air right below the nozzle.

Sidenote on Cura - I was reluctant to switch slicers for a long time, but I regret not switching to prusaslicer from Cura sooner. Once I wrapped my brain around it, prusaslicer has much better profile management and more reasonable defaults than Cura does imo.

revanced.app is the correct place to get it iirc.

This will let you download the "revanced manager" app's .apk . Once installed, the revanced manager app lets you take the .apk of a specific version of the YouTube app and patch it to make the revanced .apk . This enables ad blocking and other features like sponsorblock.

It has to be done this way because hosting prepatched apks is a good way to get sued by Google for violating the DMCA.

Idk. I've been using my ender 3 v1 without an ABL probe of any kind just fine. The main problems occur when the shitty stock buildplate (the super thin buildtak one held on with binder clips) warps under high heat and you have to contend with high spots. Getting a probe could have solved the problem, but I just swapped over to a magnetic spring steel PEI buildplate, and after a bit of live leveling, I've printed things using the full buildplate once or twice so far with proper adhesion throughout. The only thing that I needed to do to use that was to stick a magnetic sticker on the stock aluminum bed. If OP needs a link, this is the kit I bought: https://www.amazon.com/Magnetic-Flexible-Heated-235x235mm-Ender/dp/B07XBM24HN

Would an ABL sensor be nice to have? Absolutely. But you can technically do without it if your buildplate isn't warped and you are very good at live leveling.

Oh, I also have the stiffer yellow springs installed, which helps the bed stay more level than the stock springs. That probably helps as well.

https://www.poptarts.com/en_US/products/all-flavors/pop-tarts-unfrosted-strawberry-product.html

Apparently, pop tarts without frosting are a thing... They are probably still really sugary even without the frosting.

Good to know. When it comes to mice, I'm more of a pulsar xlite fan anyway.

I like my full size keychron keyboard with hot swap sockets personally (edit: mine is the keychron V6). Haven't tried many other "good" keyboards firsthand. They have all sorts of different sizes of keyboard available if you want something more compact. They sell their keyboards both as pre built and "barebones" (ie no keycaps or switches) with the idea that you can select the ideal switches for you and a set of keycaps that are the profile/aesthetic you are looking for.

Try to get one of their keyboards with QMK/VIA support. It's an open source keyboard firmware that you can compile and modify yourself. And since it's open source firmware, the likelihood that there is a keylogger or something snooping on what you're typing is incredibly slim ;)

With hard drives specifically it would cause the arm inside to move and scratch the disk.

Really? I thought magnets placed near hard drives would just magnitize the platters in such a way that the data would be destroyed. In that case it would still work if reformatted I think.

Not really. I only hate it personally because I find it inflexible, opinionated, and oversimplified compared to KDE Plasma.

If it works well for you, use gnome! Linux is all about choice after all.

For what it's worth, lots of phones these days are pretty aggressive with automatic post processing of photos, so the photo could be real (ie not AI generated or edited intentionally with AI) assuming the phone has a lower quality camera sensor with bad detail.

Others already addressed battery cost, so I will address charging time:

For modern EVs, charging time is basically a non-issue outside of longer road trips. Most EV owners utilize a slower (level 1 or level 2) charging station at home, which allows them to charge the car while they are at home/sleeping. EV owners can also use charging stations near/at their destination to charge while they are doing other things anyway. And assuming your daily commute isn't like 100 miles/160 km, you really don't need to stop at charging stations at all besides the one at home, which is cheaper. Obviously this does not apply if you rent a house or live in an apartment, etc.

Even road trips aren't so bad assuming the car has an 800 volt battery pack instead of a 400 volt (higher voltage at same current = more power to charge and faster charge time). It also helps a lot if you only charge to 80 percent instead of 100 because that last 20 percent almost doubles your charge time and is harder on the battery. A lot of new EV owners don't understand this and get frustrated when they are sitting there for 40 minutes getting almost no additional range compared to waiting for 20 minutes.