“Fun” fact. The US Air Force actually doesnt refer to it as the “Vietnam war”, they call it the “southeast Asia war”. You might think it’s their way of owning up to the other countries they bombed, but it’s more like a “they gave us no choice and we had to bomb the other countries because communism”-thing.

https://media.defense.gov/2023/Sep/19/2003304217/2000/2000/0/230913-F-IO108-038.JPG

If there’s not a car in the way, you can plow travel lanes. In big cities, snow is literally trucked away, so it’s not like you’d be moving the problem further up onto the sidewalk.

So basically, the reporter said she doesnt use it, but that was just a lie she got called out on?

On the one hand that sucks, on the other hand, sailors are habitually away from home for long stretches of time, and they are getting paid to do nothing right now.

I’d like to know what the exact circumstances of their detainment are, but we likely won’t find out. It’s possible the FBI gave them a deal like “if you stick around for the investigation, you’ll get immunity”.

And also not understanding of the average Rochester hills driver.

So you are getting a heat pump and a furnace, i.e., furnace supplements the heat pump when it gets cold enough?

The main pitfalls I’ve seen with heat pumps is that people want to go with the cheapest option that “works”, so they get a base model, and they often get talked into sizing up a size. Even if they dont size up, if all you have is a heat pump, it needs to provide enough heat in winter, which can make it oversized for summer. The downside there is that it doesnt run long enough to reduce humidity. I’ve lived in multiple places with that problem.

If you have supplemental heat (furnace or even heat strips that only become necessary a few days a year), sizing can be dependent on cooling needs only, which means humidity shouldn’t be a problem. Also, if you shell out the extra money for an inverter heat pump, that ceases to be a problem.

Another consideration is potential rebates. Energy efficiency rebates often require you to buy a more efficient model.

In terms of what brand, I have no clue, I’m not someone who actually works on these systems.

I dont have specific recs, but hopefully i can give you some stuff to look out for. I have an old dishwasher with electromechanical controls. It is dead simple to fix, but it has a lot of downsides.

• tub is plastic, not stainless (hasn’t actually been a problem, but apparently there is a decent chance for it to crack over time. I think keeping “heated dry” turned off helps prolong it’s life)
• water only comes from lower spray arm. It shoots water from the lower arm to the center of the upper arm, but that only works if you leave space in the rack for that jet of water. Half the time, my upper arm does nothing, and the dishes on the bottom are only cleaned by whatever is blasted up there by the bottom arm.
• no top nozzle. Gross stuff ends up on the bottoms of cups/bowls that could be simply rinsed off from above.
• it’s loud, so you really only want to run it if you aren’t going to be in the vicinity for a while.
• there are spots that get grease buildup, but i can’t use a harsh degreaser like i could if it where metal.
• initial rinse water is cold unless i run the hot water in my sink till it’s actually hot. In practice, this isnt a problem cause I handwash any pots/pans before running my dishwasher, anyway.

Upsides are:

• easy fixability
• no fine filter or grinder (it connects right to my sink drain which already has a grinder in it)

Things I’d look for in a new one include:

• adjustable height racks (might as well give yourself as much space as possible on the top rack.
• stainless tub -mechanical controls
• top sprayer arm and upper nozzle fed water directly

Things i would avoid:

• smart features. Some, like turbidity sensing seem nice, but if something burns out on a control board, you are screwed. Maybe I’d go for it if it wasn’t wifi or bluetooth.

The various regulatory bureaucracies of the US were, until the start of last year, considered some of the best places to work as a subject matter expert in very nuanced and advanced fields.

These jobs have traditionally been good jobs in terms of stability, benefits (compared to peers the US which is low compared to other countries), and a lot of the intangibles like “flexibility”. They usually are not highly paid (compared to peers in the US, who are paid highly compared to other countries).

I’m making this point because it’s important to note that most of these subject matter experts have not been working in their positions for decades because it’s lucrative, they are working there cause they’ve actually believed in the work they do. Think people working for the FDA, NIH, etc.

Like you said you don’t recover from that. These aren’t people who can give a two week notice and train someone new in that time. They make 5 year plans for training replacements like apprentices, or they switch to a part time position as a contractor to fade out as they teach the next generation. We are going to be completely rebuilding so many of our institutions for literally decades, and many people will die because of it.

Balancing a door in a frame is annoying, but you can actually buy prehung doors. You still have to get it level/square in the roughed out space, but it eliminates the worst part which is getting the door right within the frame.

A string of small magnets generally works pretty well. They stick to the nail/screw heads fixing the lath to the studs, and then you can draw a line.

If advocates are clever, this could be used against cars. One thing that I think prevents adoption of utility ebikes in areas they are most useful (relatively population dense areas) is that many people who might otherwise be interested in them do not have anywhere to park them.

Think of someone in an apartment or townhouse that relies on street parking. They might have a bike rack, or maybe they can carry a regular bicycle inside, but there often isnt space for something like a bakfiets that could absolutely replace a car.

If you decide to regulate them like cars, why shouldn’t people take up car parking spaces with them?

Yeah, that’s the main problem. They are obviously here, and people obviously want to use them, so they will. Pretending like they dont exist only makes things suck for everyone.

We need clear policy and enforcement.

It is interesting reading the new guidelines. It’s almost like you can read between the lines and see the statements from real scientists trying to walk back the “just load up on beef and dairy” statements dropped on top of everything.

Like it will say, “get lots of healthy fats from butter, tallow, and beef” on one line, but further down you’ll see a statement about the importance of decreasing saturated fats.

Bedrock mountain clogs are nice and wide and closed-toe, but not closed-heel.

I can also recommend Jim Green. I dont have their “barefoot” boots, but their regular boot design involves a pretty wide stitchdown construction, and they fit well for me.

For running shoes, altra’s “original footshape” last is the best I’ve found. Depending on running surface, stack height, etc, it’s different models, but just look for “original footshape”, and not “standard footshape” or “narrow”, obviously.

Most ALS is not genetic, and im not sure about parkinsons, but I suspect it’s similar. Lots of studies these days are finding links between viruses that dont actively cause much harm when you are infected, but and up being highly associated with autoimmune diseases. A prime example is Epstein-barr virus and MS. I have no clue what the mechanisms are, and im sure scientists are still learning, but basically an infection could cause an immune response that is too strong, and even after the infection is gone, the response remains.

That is a relatively new vaccine. In the US, that’s part of what you get as a kid now (not going to fact check the current guidance cause im afraid to look), but if you’re old enough to have actually gotten chickenpox, you likely havent gotten the vaccine unless you asked for it.

In my experience in the US, it seems like Dr’s dont really keep up with recommendations once you are over 18.

Oh yeah, I didn’t think you were conflating them. I actually really like the “among 100 women” wording cause it makes it really clear.

I basically just wanted to mention a common pitfall in this type of literature if anyone wanted to dig into it based on your comments.

Not nitpicking your numbers at all (mainly cause im too lazy to go hunting down the original sources), but a big problem that science media gets completely wrong is how they report risk percentages. They conflate changes in absolute risk with relative risk constantly, and it really hurts messaging.

For example, a few years back, the WHO released a report on consumption of processed meat and how it relates to colorectal cancer risk. Even their own press release, which should be perfect, says “each 50 g portion eaten daily increases the risk by 18%”. That is really misleading if you dont know they are talking about a relative risk. The average person will interpret this as new risk %= baseline risk % + 18%.

The absolute lifetime risk of colorectal cancer is ~4%, so daily consumption of processed meat should bump it to ~4.7% (well, technically lower since the 4% includes processed meat consumers). Giving the before/after percentages helps communicate the risks way better. Even better is a risk curve showing how the risk changes as consumption increases (obviously that relies on the data being available).

Its also better to be able to contextualize so you can make well informed decisions across your life, e.g., it’s dumb to deprive yourself a joy that increases lifetime cancer risk by 0.5% while ignoring other facets of your life that increase cancer by a much larger margin.

Idk about where you are, but basil plants sold in grocery stores by me are always way way too densely planted. They throw like 25 seeds in one small pot, which puts out a lot of foliage to look good for a very short window. If you harvest basil like you are “supposed to”, any regrowth becomes basically impossible, and the plants die. The better way is to just cut off whole stems until there’s only one or two. Or, if you want to keep a basil plant, just buy one from a gardening store, not a grocery store.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floater