Community canneries still exist, but they used to be way more popular. In rural communities where people grow a lot of their own food, people can their own food, but pressure canners take a lot of time for a single batch to come up to pressure, cook, and cool.

Community canneries have much bigger pressure canners where you could feasibly can everything in one batch. It’s also really enables people sharing surpluses, trading, etc.

Many hobbies are better shared, too. If you have 20 people sharing a super high quality “item”, they will have a better experience than if each of those people had to buy their own crappy versions.

Basically, a whole lot of things can be “libraried”.

Yeah, no one wants to buy a log splitter and store it for 360 days a year, but those few days you can use it, it’s really useful.

Yeah, reviewing is about making sure the methods are sound and the conclusions are supported by the data. Whether or not the data are correct is largely something that the reviewer cannot determine.

If a machine spits out a reading of 5.3, but the paper says 6.2, the reviewer can’t catch that. If numbers are too perfect, you might be suspicious of it, but it’s really not your job to go all forensic accountant on the data.

My local library system has tools, kitchen implements, a recording studio, musical instruments, stem kits for kids, video games, and art.

They need a better inventory system, though, cause all the non-book items are inventoried alongside the books. If you want to rent a shovel, you will see every book with “shovel” in the name before you see any actual shovels.

At least at my library, there’s basically just a separate form you have to sign to say that if you chop your hand off with a saw, you won’t hold them liable, and I think there are more strict limits on how long you can rent things, and what the penalties are for being late.

That is super cool! I should see if I can do that at mine

Hyperloops business model is to scoop up funds meant to develop technology to combat climate change. It’s Teslas business model, too. It definitely makes me skeptical right off the bat. It’s just a matter of if the airships are like electric vehicles (oversold climate harm reduction, but likely still a harm reduction), or if they are like hyperloops (complete scams that can be defeated with high school level math).

Or sometimes, they will reinvent trains and boats, but worse.

In English, there’s also “clockwise-lockwise”. It makes more sense than talking about left and right.

Lol, and Danes are definitely the most outgoing of the Nordics. I’ve found Danes to be pretty similar in terms of outgoing-ness to people from New England in the US; unlikely to start conversation with complete strangers, but certainly kind once you have that initial connection.

I’m not a medical doctor, nor am I in your exact situation, but I do know a little bit about sleep. There’s a broad category of things known as sleep hygiene that are basically supposed to be the “best practices” around sleep. Evidence is good for some things, and inconclusive for others, but in lieu of going to an actual sleep specialist, these sorts of things shouldn’t hurt to try.

Stuff like only being in bed to sleep (no watching TV from bed, etc.), avoiding alcohol and caffeine, and giving consideration to your circadian rythym (low blue light prior to sleep, coupled with increased blue light upon waking, it’s apparently the contrast that matters more than the actual amounts).

There’s also plenty of people who have undiagnosed issues affecting sleep. Obviously you said, for you, it’s depression, but that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be something else at play that could be addressed. If you have the means, something like a smartwatch or an oura ring (which is hsa/fsa eligible if you are in the US) could help tell you if you are moving around a lot in your sleep, or could have something like apnea. Again, not the same as going to an expert, but that’s not an option for everyone.

Yeah, that’s mostly true, but the front porch of a home is part of the home for 4th amendment purposes. Police obtaining warrant-less access to your front porch would violate this.

If someone is out on the street, it can still be illegal depending on the state. In new york, for example, the definition of illegal eavesdropping includes:

“Mechanical overhearing of a conversation” means the intentional overhearing or recording of a conversation or discussion, without the consent of at least one party thereto, by a person not present thereat, by means of any instrument, device or equipment.

There’s no no stipulation about location.

The doorbell cameras that everyone have all record audio, in blatant violation of law, and they hand it over to police. I’m surprised there hasn’t been a court case to really slap those companies on the wrist.

I have no clue, it’s just something I’ve read about a little. It’s definitely not my area of expertise, so take this with a grain of salt.

From what I understand, prostate cancer is usually very slow, and it’s possible to have a little spot of it for years that doesn’t affect you. For some people, the right answer to finding a prostate tumor is to just monitor it, but obviously, people freak out when they have cancer, and want treatment. Cancer treatments are all no joke, so it seems that you could sacrifice a lot to treat something that would have just chilled there not hurting you.

I have no clue about the blood tests. If it’s like a “yes or no” for prostate cancer, it might have that same disadvantage. If it tells the Dr something more like type of prostate cancer or growth, it’s a different story.

I would talk to your doctor about it for your case specifically rather than advocating broadly for prostate cancer screenings.

https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/document/RecommendationStatementFinal/prostate-cancer-screening

Medical authorities usually don’t advocate for getting imagery like that as a screening tool without any relevant risk factors or symptoms. Everyone has stuff that is unique and weird about their bodies but completely benign, and chances are, it turns up in an MRI or CT. This can end up leading to unnecessary invasive procedures to remove or biopsy something. The odds (in the literal sense) are that not-called for screening leads to either worse outcomes or the same outcomes as people who didn’t get the screenings.

I didn’t look up a source for MRI specifically, cause that’s pretty broad, but here’s a report that does a good job explaining it for prostate cancer screenings. The logic is the same.

https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/document/RecommendationStatementFinal/prostate-cancer-screening

I have friends with one of those valves on their shower, and it’s really easy to use. One thing I wonder about is how it effects things down the line. They have a septic tank, but I’m also thinking of greywater systems for watering plants or whatever.

Could the concentration of soap in the water interphere with things?

You are thinking of legionnaires disease

I think it ends up being the same amount of work for me. Rinse rice (optional), figure out correct amount of water for that type of rice, place on heat until done. Rice cookers can effectively detect that there’s no more liquid water, but that isn’t the same as “done” unless you used the right amount of water.

IMO, rice cookers are really handy if you are the type of person who eats rice as a staple food item that you buy in giant sacks and eat the same variety of every day. I have like 6 kinds of rice I rotate through, so I think it wouldn’t save me enough work to justify a separate gadget.

I’ve never used one of the really fancy pressure cooker rice cookers, though, so maybe my feelings would be different.

Yeah, I definitely understand that. I certainly have things that I don’t use as much as I hoped (I’m staring at a solar panel doing nothing leaned against my wall). For me, I really need the resulting “thing” to be something that I will use/be excited about.

That’s why, for me, fixing stuff that’s broken, upgrading stuff, or repurposing stuff you already own is good. Replacing a worn out jack is a relatively simple task that can turn an expensive brick back into a nice thing.

The tools you need are not a very long list. You can get a cheap, crappy soldering iron for $6, solder for $4, a crappy multimeter for $7, and one of those magnifying glass/alligator clip things for $6 from harbor freight. Despite being poor quality, a lot can be accomplished with just those tools.

I ended up buying a bench power supply for like $40, but you can just get DC power supplies from the bin of assorted cords at your nearest thrift store for basically free.