It brings me immense joy and satisfaction to witness the increasing number of roadside parking areas that are now equipped with convenient porta-potties. In the past, such amenities were often scarce, leaving travelers like myself yearning for a suitable spot to answer nature’s call. However, as I have embraced a healthier eating regimen, I have noticed that the need to stop and use the restroom has become more frequent. That’s where the presence of these portable toilet facilities becomes absolutely essential.
Public toilets serve a fundamental human need by providing a clean and accessible space for individuals to relieve themselves comfortably. Although gas stations and fast food establishments have traditionally offered such facilities, expanding these conveniences to include more roadside parking areas truly enhances the travel experience. No longer do we have to hastily search for secluded spots or rely on the mercy of trees along the way for impromptu pit stops. Instead, we can now embark on our journeys with the peace of mind that adequate restroom facilities will be conveniently available.
The significance of these porta-potties cannot be overstated. They not only alleviate the discomfort and inconvenience associated with holding it in but also contribute to the overall delightfulness of traveling. By offering more opportunities for travelers to take a break and attend to nature’s call, these facilities promote safe driving practices and ensure that our physical well-being is upheld during our adventures.
So, next time you hit the road, keep an eye out for these indispensable rest stops. Embrace the gratefulness that washes over you as you no longer have to resort to searching for remote sections of road or rely on the sporadic availability of gas stations and fast food places. The inclusion of porta-potties in roadside parking areas not only facilitates your healthier eating habits but also enhances your overall journey, making it a more pleasant and memorable experience. Happy travels!
I was watching this fairly suburban-looking, I’d argue high consumption household, generating lots of paper and plastic trash, out in the country in rural Ohio where they are allowed to burn ordinary household trash. While it seems like they got backed up on trash burning chores, I was struck by how much trash this girl was tossing into the fire.
I don’t get upset with throwing a little bit of plastic into a fire or burning it with the trash, especially common throw-away plastics like Number 1, 2 and 5 resins. While there is inevitably some plasticizers, colors, and chemicals that are toxic, most modern trash isn’t the toxic soup it once was in the 1970s and 1980s both due to government regulation and voluntary changes by the paper and plastics industry. It’s not say you should stand downwind of a burning barrel and breathe in the smoke, but it’s also not nuclear waste that is typically part of household trash.
When you burn your household trash, you are in many ways dependent on weather conditions. It really can’t be pouring rain, your burn barrel can’t be full of snow, or things too bone dry. Without weekly trash pick up or regular trash burns, things can, as the video notes really get backed up. I know over the years when I don’t get to the transfer station or have fires up in the woods, I can end up with multiple bags to burn, even after compacting the trash down and separating out things like cans, and sometimes paper and plasitc for recycling.
That said, there is an alternative to burning or hauling off all this trash – it’s to make a lot less of it. Some packaging in our modern world is inevitable, but the frugal shopper buys in bulk, gets raw ingredients and natural products that only come with their skin for composting. Plastics and paper recycling is fine, but I’m not convinced that it’s much better at all for the environment then burning it on the rural homestead. It does make an excellent fire starter, especially if you keep paper separated out and dry, and compost the organics. That said, some heavier plastics like old extremely boots, if you can’t reuse them probably are best disposed of through the urban landfill system or maybe the farm dump if you have a lot of land.
Also I’m not convinced that burn barrel is the best way to incinerate and dispose of packaging on the homestead or farm. It’s not to say I’m against burning, indeed it’s a powerful tool for waste disposal on small scale. But burn barrels smolder and stink, they encourage people to mix in wet organics with wet paper, maximize hazardous byproducts of poor combustion. Almost any kind of homemade incinerator would be better then a burn barrel, especially with forced air and accelerant like lighter fluid and uesd motor oil to get it started. Or even a fire pit with lots of wood scraps to get a roaring fire, to quickly break down the chemicals in the paper and plastic. Trash fires need not stink when burning ordinary packaging if done right.
I’m all for burning as a waste disposal solution on rural homesteads. I don’t see it as a great evil. But I think it’s best done after minimizing and composting wastes, keeping paper dry and reusing whatever is possible and only burning as a last resort. Not using a stinking, smoldering burn barrel as part of an essentially suburban consumption pattern, which otherwise would be replaced by weekly garbage pickup to a distant landfill.
And disappointed when they don’t work. I know everybody starts at the basics, and builds up from there. But I like shinny objects much too much.
I’ve just been trying to figure out how to link and use big modern C++ libraries using cmake and visual studio. When the truth is I should be mastering C code and automake and VIM. That’s what the work computers have on them, and it’s simpler, probably faster and more reliable.
But at the same time I don’t want to reinvent the wheel and I want to do useful and interesting projects for myself and not another boring hello world project. R is great, but I want to program a real language, namely C. Yet, I find myself incredibly frustrated with broken build environments.
Pinto beans are one of the most inexpensive forms of beans you get in bulk at Walmart and other grocery stores. I usually get the 4-lb bag and split it into cookings ont he stove. While it does use electricity to simmer down the beans for a couple hours, pinto beans aren’t just incredibly delicious with some maple syrup or salt, cooked with eggs or fried with onions, they remarkably healthy source of protein and fiber.
Specifically, Google Gemani notes the following health benefits to a diet rich in pinto beans:
Rich in Protein and Fiber: Pinto beans provide a significant amount of plant-based protein
d dietary fiber, making them excellent for vegetarians and vegans, aiding in digestion, promoting a healthy gut, and supporting weight management.
Nutrient-Dense: They are a good source of essential nutrients, including folate, thiamin, magnesium, potassium, iron, and copper, all of which play crucial roles in energy production, immune function, and muscle and nerve health.
Antioxidants: Pinto beans contain beneficial phytonutrients, such as flavonoids and polyphenols, which act as antioxidants and can help protect the body’s cells from damage.
Supports Heart Health: The soluble fiber and potassium in pinto beans can help lower cholesterol levels and maintain healthy blood pressure, contributing to better cardiovascular health.
Helps Control Blood Sugar: The fiber content in pinto beans also helps to stabilize blood sugar levels, which is beneficial for managing diabetes.
Often when news reports are discounting conspiracy theories regarding elections, they note that no polling machines are connected to the internet. This on it’s face is true, in the sense that no jurisdiction currently uses vote tabulation machines that are permanently connected to internet — on Election Day and at Early Voting sites, the machines are air-gapped from the internet. For security reasons, this is unlikely to change anytime in the future, though it would be convenient if voting tabulators could submit their initial tabulations back to County Board of Elections over the Internet for reads of speed, though that opens up a security bucket of worms. Some jurisdictions might use a separate device to beam back initial results from an electronic results, which could protect the chain of custody of the vote tabulations.
However, what is not true, is that all election equipment is fully air-gapped from the internet. Electronic poll logs, that list who is eligible to vote by their very nature are connected to the internet. Typically, they use a secure SSL connection and a VPN to send and receive information on who is eligible to vote at a polling site. Between the SSL connection and VPN, it’s very unlikely that such machines would be subject to a man-in-the-middle attack, modifying the lists of who has voted and is eligible to vote. Probably the only realistic threat vector is electronic poll books could have their software or firmware hacked to add or remove voters outside of the normal secure data connection.
The thing about an electronic poll book hack is it’s unlikely to change the result in elections much, as such a hack could only allow a handful of people to vote multiple times by physically driving to multiple early voting and polling sites. Any wide-spread conspiracy to engauge in multiple voting would involve a lot of people, and when you have a lot of people, you have a lot of people who will talk and brag about their exploits. After all, that’s how most poachers get busted these days — bragging to their friends, especially on the Internet. Both Democrats and Republicans vigorously defend their candidates, and if even they had a hint that somebody was hacking electronic poll books, and then gangs of people were driving around to multiple polling places, then it would be a news story and authorities would investigate.
If for some reason, either the Democrats or the Republicans became a feeble party, without strong advocates, then it’s possible that such corruption could persist and be overlooked. But in such a case, you wouldn’t have any safeguards at any level of the process. Indeed, if the Democrats and Republicans got together to change the vote, then the Election Inspectors could stuff the machine themselves. Or even the County Boards of Election commissioners could stuff machines or change tabulations. But that would only happen if one side was totally absent from the process, and there was no outside party advocates for the Democrats and Republicans. But right now, that is far from the case, with both political parties at each other throats. Democrats aren’t going to let Republicans cheat, nor will Republicans let Democrats cheat. Both are watching the process carefully to make sure the other-side plays the way that is consistent with the law.
Most unfairness in elections isn’t unlawful. Indeed, most unfairness is baked into the laws and institutions that govern voting. Political parties are experts are tilting the system to benefit incumbents, as the thing politicians care about the most is re-election. There are hundreds of ways elections are rigged in law to benefit incumbents, some obvious like gerrymandering, but others much more subtle regarding the methods and times of voting, or how absentee ballots are counted or petitions reviewed. Rigging can only go so far, and mostly impacts close elections and promulgates exclusion of fringe candidates, as most Americans believe elections should be relatively fair, even if they do prefer their candidate to win.
I find it much too easy to spend endless hours flipping through social media and news articles like on NY TImes, when I should be reading. The quick dopamine hit is so appealing when I don’t have the time or desire to sit down and do a deep dive into topic, learning important new skills and ideas only taught in a book. Color, pictures, artwork, or even the political controversy of the day are so appealing as a distraction for a tired mind, when there is so much out there I should be learning about.
