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I willingly pay $5/month for Kagi. I'd willingly pay $5/month for Firefox.

hispanicon Roll-Invert-Unroll: An easier way to replace a duvet cover

Here's a video that demonstrates it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fzNuhgY_9A

hispanicon Ask HN: Could you share your personal blog here?

I've been blogging since 2008 (but very inconsistently) about sustainability, software development, diet & exercise, entrepreneurship, travel, finance, and other stuff.

hispanicon My bank will open my closed account to make it overdrawn

I suppose. But, I would think the charge/debit would just be declined.

hispanicon I'm retiring from the engineering profession

> So, less suburbs and more what? Sprawling, automobile-centric development enforced by exclusionary zoning has been the prevailing land-use model in the US and Canada for so long (starting soon after the close of WWII) that few people alive today know anything different.

Streetcar suburbs (even with the streetcars now long gone) are a model of development that Strong Towns endorses.

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

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/8/27/in-praise-of-s...

hispanicon Speeding up Prettier locally and on your CI with dprint

For a recent personal project, I wanted to format the generated HTML. My first stab at it used Prettier. But, I was very underwhelmed with the processing speed. I then gave js-beautify[1] a try, which I found to be much, much faster.

[1] https://github.com/beautify-web/js-beautify

hispanicon Ask HN: What Happened to Evernote?

I recently migrated from Evernote to Joplin. This was a concern for me, as well. However, I got past it. This isn't a case of "lock in". Even if Joplin loses mindshare and stops being actively maintained, I know that I'll always have a version available (even if only locally on my desktop, seeing as how I install it manually) that I can use to export to plain, raw Markdown files. And, with them, I can migrate to Obsidian or whatever comes into vogue.

hispanicon Lawmakers Drink Raw Milk to Celebrate Legality, Become Immediately Sick (2016)

I've been drinking raw milk for a little more than a year now. Before then, I had never had a lick of it. In fact, I hadn't drank any milk before that point for years. I haven't experienced any issues. I feel very fortunate that I'm close enough to the Pennsylvania (USA) state line to buy it. I use a lot of it to make fermented milk kefir, which I then add to store-bought heavy cream to make crème fraîche.

Prior to introducing raw milk (and the downstream products) into my diet, I was eating a lot of avocados. But, I wanted to move toward eating more seasonal, local, and ancestral foods. My ancestry is Polish/German. I think this may partly explain why it works well for my system.

When I told a buddy of mine about this change, he asked me why all milk isn't raw. I said "Well, according to the CDC, drinking it will kill you."

hispanicon Justice Department Issues Web Accessibility Guidance Under the ADA

In my 20+ years of professional web-based software development, mostly in the commercial space, accessibility was never made a requirement. This spanned more than a half dozen clients/companies and more than a dozen projects/teams. Fast forward to last year when I re-platformed my personal blog [1]. During that effort, I decided to make it accessible. It was my first time every really delving into the a11y space.

Despite the time warranted, I found that effort to be interesting, challenging, and worthwhile. And I think it was/is the right thing to do. This despite my blog getting a low amount of traffic and nobody ever requesting that I make it accessible.

As an online creator, I have the ability and privilege to make my (small) online corner of the world a better place. For me to simply ignore the needs of those who are less able seems wrong.

[1] - https://michaelscepaniak.com/

hispanicon Heart-disease risk soars after Covid, even with a mild case

While the study appears to be based on VA data, I don't see anything about it being based on 60-year-olds.

hispanicon High beef prices and the destruction of independent cattle ranching

If you are interested in taking action, consider donating to the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund - https://www.farmtoconsumer.org/

Buying directly from farmers is also good. But, those farmers are constantly being unfairly harassed by regulators.

hispanicon The gift of it's your problem now

> Paying for gifts... does not work. When the context is friends/family exchanging gifts, I agree. But, given the context of the author's argument (open-source software), I disagree. When I pay for (sponsor) open-source software, I'm doing so because I want to encourage the relevant author(s) to continue applying their talents for the betterment of both myself and the world at large. I'm not paying for something I requested of them, nor am I telling them what to build going forward. If I knew a person who spent some of their free time helping relieve homelessness in some way, I'd be inclined to sponsor them in the same fashion.

hispanicon Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

Grains make up 10–13 percent of the diet for cattle, globally. The rest is composed of grass, leaves, and "crop residue" such as cornstalks.

Source: Sacred Cow by Rodgers

hispanicon ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world

I subscribe to a community solar installation in lieu of installing panels on my shaded roof. The local (to Maryland) company I use is Neighborhood Sun - https://neighborhoodsun.solar/

I've been very pleased.

hispanicon Beyond Meat signs global supply deals with McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut

Not every farmer feeds their cows corn/grains. Find a local farmer that raises their cattle on pasture and reward them for their efforts.

hispanicon Review broken products instead of new ones

There are precedents for this. One that comes to mind are updated editions/versions of board/tabletop games, which https://boardgamegeek.com/ tries to handle.

hispanicon Fasting improves chemotherapy results and protects from side effects: study

The resource I've heard recommended most often is "The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting" by Fung and Moore. I just checked-out a copy from my library and will be reading it soon.

hispanicon If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs

Google 100% removes viable entries from their index. I have a blog and I can see via the Google Search Console [1] that several of my posts are marked as "Crawled - currently not indexed". Meaning, Google was led to the page via my sitemap.xml or some other source, crawled it, and then chose not to include it in their search index. It's very discouraging, particularly when it happens to posts that, personally, I'm quite fond of [2]. If it matters, Google has recorded 1,085 clicks from their search results to my blog, in general, over the course of the past 3 months.

[1] https://search.google.com/u/2/search-console/

[2] https://blog.michaelscepaniak.com/how-to-find-choose-and-boo... https://blog.michaelscepaniak.com/i-am-retired-kinda

hispanicon What happens to a mail-order mattress after you return it

> I was also initially interested on trying to train myself to sleep on a flat floor...

I've been sleeping on the floor for over two years now. At this point, I prefer it to sleeping in a bed. I started out by creating a "mattress" made of several layers of blankets. Now, though, I just put a sheet on my low-pile carpet and that's all I sleep on. I also use a relatively flat/thin pillow.

hispanicon Ask HN: What niche blogs are worthwhile to follow?

https://www.marksdailyapple.com/ - Ancestral health and lifestyle

https://earlyretirementextreme.com/ - Financial independence. No longer adding new posts.

https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/ - Travel "hacking" and the miles and points "game".

https://jamesclear.com/newsletter - Habits and human potential. Email newsletter - not a blog, per se.

https://blog.asmartbear.com/ - Startups and marketing

https://recraigslist.com/ - Appliance repair and entrepreneurship. No longer adding new posts.

hispanicon Effects of Vitamin D and Omega-3 Fatty Acid on Biomarkers of Inflammation

Mark Sisson posted an article about inflammation just this past week. It concludes with a list of causes. Invert each of them to create a list of counter-measures. https://www.marksdailyapple.com/definitive-guide-to-inflamma...

hispanicon I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

> Quit using it as a way to lower the daily cost so that you show up on more searches. When looking through search results, my eyes always go straight to the total cost, which factors in the cleaning and service fees (but not the occupancy taxes and fees).

hispanicon I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

> The main downside for me concerning AirBnb is it takes a long time to analyze the listings to find quality accommodations.

Completely agree. If you don't want to put in the time or effort required to analyze for “assumed”, “missing” , and “bonus” amenities, scrutinize each listing’s description, photos, and guest reviews, and sniff out the nature of each Airbnb and the host’s motivations, I say stay away from Airbnb. More thoughts here - https://blog.michaelscepaniak.com/how-to-find-choose-and-boo...

The more negative comments I read here, the more I think that most people shouldn't use Airbnb. With that being said, I've been happy with Airbnb, warts and all.

hispanicon I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

> How do you corroborate the information on those properties? There is no way to corroborate. For most listings, Airbnb is the only source. However, I've never found this to be an issue. I don't believe I've ever been "scammed" by an Airbnb host in 40+ bookings.

hispanicon I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

This used to be an issue with Airbnb, but I believe they fixed/changed that a year or two ago. The one line item they leave out of the total price on the search results is "Occupancy taxes and fees", which I can understand.

hispanicon I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

> Another approach is to sent a question to the property manager. That's a great idea. Thanks.

I find it telling that you use the phrase "property manager" instead of "host".

hispanicon I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

I completely disagree. I never start an Airbnb search assuming that the hosts are hospitality professionals. I don't expect hotel-level standards. In fact, my spidey-sense goes into yellow-alert when I come across a listing that appears to be for a hotel.

hispanicon I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

I suggest reading "whole home" to mean "whole space". In fact, that's basically what I see on Airbnb now - "Entire place". Personally, I have no issue when that turns out to be a separate apartment in a larger house, as long as I'm not sharing the entrance/exit and living space with others.

hispanicon I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

There's a number of reasons why we choose to stay at Airbnbs instead of hotels. We save money. We break out of the cookie-cutter hotel bubble. We direct our dollars toward individuals and small businesses rather than faceless corporations. We gain access to amenities such as bicycles, beach chairs, etc.

hispanicon I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

At this point, I've probably booked four dozen Airbnb stays over the past 7 years or so. Given that, I'd say two of the simplest steps you can take to limit your chances of booking really bad Airbnbs are to 1.) limit your bookings to those places where the host only has one listing and 2.) limit your bookings to owner-occupied places. It seems like the worst elements of Airbnb are largely eliminated when staying with the host, rather than insisting on having the entire place to yourself.

I've written-up other advice regarding Airbnb bookings here - https://blog.michaelscepaniak.com/how-to-find-choose-and-boo...

With that being said, scams happen and there's no simple, full-proof way of completely insulating yourself from them.