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A variety of maps, writings, and photos on a various topics that can’t easily be categorized into a county or place.

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Well shit, we are full of it!

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Although repulsive to consider, the truth is we’re constantly consuming food that’s laced with traces of feces, mostly from other humans. As soon as you accept that reality, you will realize that proper hygiene is the key to food safety.

~ From Butchering Poultry, Rabbit, Lamb, Goat and Pork by Adam Danforth

“If you can’t save your country, you can at least save yourself. “

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One of the worse truths about life that finally clicked around the time I was forty.

It was a part of my discussions with my psychotherapist, listening to the Mother Country Radicals podcast, watching what happened on January 6th, the state ethics rules around my employment and getting bit in the press for expressing my thoughts about a public housing development proposed in the Pine Bush.

It bothers me a lot to look around and see the whole world around me to go shit, while I know my hands are largely tied. But I realize there are so many problems much bigger then myself that I have so little control over. I can refrain from engaging in certain activities, especially in my personal-time, that I find morally repugnant like consumerism, but there is so much I can’t change.

Acceptance of the way things are in the world, is one of the toughest things to do. Some people do go out of their way to change things, some go as far as to give up their careers, their future, and even their lives. Many have died for their country. But I care too much about my life, and I know the amount of change I can make to the world is far smaller then the change I can make to my own life.

I’ve chosen to live simply and frugally. I pass up on a lot of things others embrace. I try to live my own values, without imposing them on others. I don’t read the newspapers, I don’t own television or following every breaking news story. I have become less political, less upset about things outside of my own control. I have saved and invested, and are working to build a secure future for myself, regardless of what may happen to the world around me.

Maybe it’s immoral to not fight injustice in this world or try to make things better for us all. But I just don’t have the desire at this point. I have too much to loose, and not enough to win. I am happy to stand on the sidelines, observe, and think for myself but I do not want to involve myself in all of the world’s problems today.

NYSDOT Rest Areas Across NY

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This helpful interactive map shows NYS DOT rest areas along the major interstates (excluding the New York Thruway) with bathrooms. A few of these rest areas are closed, but it will give you an idea which facilities are open. Tomorrow, I will do a map of Thruway Rest Stops. I was originally going to combine these into one map, but it turns out the DOT and Thruway Authority record information on their Rest Areas in a very different format.

Benford’s law – Wikipedia

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Benford’s law – Wikipedia

Benford's law, also called the Newcomb–Benford law, the law of anomalous numbers, or the first-digit law, is an observation about the frequency distribution of leading digits in many real-life sets of numerical data. The law states that in many naturally occurring collections of numbers, the leading digit is likely to be small.In sets that obey the law, the number 1 appears as the leading significant digit about 30% of the time, while 9 appears as the leading significant digit less than 5% of the time. If the digits were distributed uniformly, they would each occur about 11.1% of the time. Benford's law also makes predictions about the distribution of second digits, third digits, digit combinations, and so on.