curmudgeon22

A fun read. It's interesting to think about the trade limitations imposed on East Germany and how those impacted daily things we take for granted.

My understanding is that the shift towards natural gas is largely because it is a very cheap byproduct of fracking (for oil). It happens to be "greener" when burned so gets green-washed also.

I wonder what would happen if oil demand was significantly reduced, thus reducing fracking.

> The Pentagon said the withdrawal was expected to be completed over the next six to 12 months. Germany is home to around 35,000 active-duty U.S. military personnel, more than anywhere else in Europe.[1]

[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-troops-germany-withdraw-nat...

There are definitely still health insurance benefits (I'm Canadian). Yes, our doctor and hospital visits are covered, but many things are covered by employer paid insurance (or not at all):

- prescription medicine

- dental

- vision

- mental health

- things like physiotherapy

> The average 50-something is worth about $1.4 million, according to Empower. But that’s a mathematical average, and the super-rich drive the number way up.

> The “median” 50-something – imagine the middle number in a long list of numbers – is worth a more modest $192,964.

I agree with this. I quibble with the wording "enjoy" thinking. It's probably also true, but it's not always the enjoyment of it, but a general propensity to overthink or dig into the weeds more, with the resulting less actual doing.

And if you dig into the weeds enough, you can find alternatives and counterarguments which can lead to analysis paralysis.

Sometimes, whats meaningful to an individual becomes cloudy (maybe not everyone gets this, but some do). Or they feel like they are interpreting it wrong or something because it isn't mapping to the cultural expectations and what we "should" find meaningful.

He (RFK) didn't just critique the exclusion of children that died:

> The exclusion included all children who died before age two, those diagnosed early with respiratory conditions, and an astonishing 34,547 children — 2.8% of the study population — whose vaccination records showed the highest aluminum exposure levels.

> ... The authors, without explanation, deemed these high exposures “implausible,” even though those implausibly high exposures are routine for American children who follow the recommended immunization schedule.

I'm not arguing the study should be retracted, but asking why those high exposure children were excluded seems reasonable. Also, the children who died presumably died at some point after receiving vaccinations. Excluding them entirely seems like it could miss potential harm and seems relevant to the studies purpose of links to chronic disease.

I agree with you that vaccines are beneficial. It still makes sense to understand the tradeoffs and ask reasonable questions about potential harms.

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/flawed-science-bought-conclu...

There are devices called "holter monitors" that a person wears continuously and which measure your blood pressure frequently. I would call this continuous though it's more like every 15 minutes or whatever it's programmed for. It's all without your intervention. My ex bought one when they wanted more data about their high blood pressure.

I mean, it probably depends on the type of employee. I assume folks doing deliveries or working in warehouses aren't getting stock packages. I wonder if the admin or accounting folks do.

SSL, started computer science in 2010

Check out disc golf!

I think it depends on how much space there is for the tree to safely fall. If there isn’t enough space to accommodate the height of the tree, it needs to be done in controlled segments.

> "The ban was lifted when Roger Sharpe went in and did a Babe Ruth number where he called his shot, and then he launched his ball. This was after several attempts to prove to them that he could actually beat the machine,” Schiess explains. “But they weren’t buying it until he made that shot. As soon as he made it, they took a vote and the ban was lifted. It was a big deal.”

I've never heard that term before (native english speaker)

I tottaly agree with this sentiment. Still looking for the right balance, but half assing things for me doesn't result in feeling better.

Finding the unicorn job isn't the right thing to predicate your happiness on. One thing I like the idea of and am just starting to try is reminding myself why I'm doing the job. What are my bigger goals that it is contributing towards? I know we all know this at some level, but I think it can help to remind ourselves there is a purpose/meaning to why we do our jobs, even if we don't intrinsically get meaning from them.

I can't remember where I read this idea... but somewhere recently.

4-7-8 breathing or similar is a nice option (breath in 4 seconds, hold 7 seconds, out 8 seconds). I find 2 minutes helps you get into it more than 1.

Journaling for for 1-2 minutes is also pretty useful.

> On average, lead levels in children’s blood at the peak of the Roman empire could have risen 2.4 micrograms per decilitre, the researchers found, reducing their IQ by 2.5 to 3 points. When taking background lead into account, childhood blood levels may have reached about 3.5 micrograms per decilitre.

> A 2021 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US found blood levels in children aged one to five years fell from 15.2 to 0.83 micrograms per decilitre between the late 1970s and 2016 as leaded fuels were banned.

I don't think it was overwhelmingly popular - nor was it overwhelmingly unpopular. It was both in certain groups.

I agree a police response or similar was sensible for the situations you mentioned, but they didn't rise to the level of national emergency.

Doesn't sound so different from a lot of jobs...

Very much an id in Canada too.

I don't have a ratio, but certainly was an increasing problem pre pandemic.

> By 2019, there were an estimated 1,000 swatting incidents domestically each yeay

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fbi-formed-national-dat...

I've had a very similar experience. If i drink coffee daily, it bumps my anxiety significantly after a few days or a week. If i rarely have it, it's usually fine. But if I let myself have it, it's too easy to trend towards daily again.

I drank coffee for years and don't think it had an impact, but at some point, I noticed it and the impact was very real when not drinking it.

US tech wages almost always pay a significant premium over Canadian companies. However, most US companies have separate Canadian pay bands to match the lower Canadian salaries.

Education isn’t cheap, but it’s less crazy than the US. Also, you don’t have to pay to go to the doctor.

How much money you can save will depend largely on where you live. Toronto and Vancouver are pretty expensive, there are lots of cheaper options that would help you build wealth with a good paying remote job.

Interesting tidbit:

> In other words: Kagi is a heavily customized, anonymized front-end to Google.

>The implications of this are stunning. It means that Google's enshittified search-results are a choice. Those ad-strewn, sub-Altavista, spam-drowned search pages are a feature, not a bug. Google prefers those results to Kagi, because Google makes more money out of shit than they would out of delivering a good product:

These leaseholds are typically more difficult to get a mortgage on, restricting lenders and increasing price :/

Exactly where my thoughts went, much easier to not realize its a recording device.

I suppose there were no full-on defunding, but it does look like there was some reduction in funding, which (from the article) is a trend reversal [1]

> With public pressure on them, mayors and city councils responded. In 2020 budget votes, advocacy groups won over $840m in direct cuts from US police departments

> Portland, Oregon, cut $15m from its budget

> Austin, Texas, has made some of the most dramatic changes in the country, directly cutting roughly $20m from the police department

1 - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/07/us-cities-de...

I am seeing this much more frequently in services I use. Rarely, they have a small option that says "use password instead".

I agree that it's pretty frustrating, since I have strong passwords in my password manager. Like another poster, I assume its used because it provides better security for the majority.

This pulp mill in BC, Canada was purchased by a mix of employees and other investors in 2008. I'm not sure the initial mix, but the website says 25% employee owned currently:

- http://www.harmacpacific.com/employees.php

- https://forestryfriendly.ca/harmac-pacific-pulp-mill-local-s...