The really fun bit: in order to smell anything, you necessarily have to snort in molecules of that substance. It’s a happy little thought whenever passing a sewage treatment plant.

Edit: I meant to say, “There was a phase and I missed my one chance to be cool?!”

Phase? I grew up poor AF, so it was either jars or beat-up, cast-off Tupperware cups, and I always hated the feel of putting plastic to my mouth. Now that I’m grown (definitely not grown-up, though) and actually able to afford excellent glassware, jars are just a great way to reduce and reuse. I’m all about multiuse items, and jars are one of my favorites.

Lots of things come in straight-sided jars which maximize volume stored with volume consumed. The jar comes with a sealing lid. They tend to be durable since they have to survive shipping. I can make a big cocktail or some great food to give to a friend without worrying if my container comes back. Yeah, I’m Team Jar all the way.

My BS, unprovable hypothesis: The Golden Age of Piracy was actually a successful Socialist movement, with Nassau being a disruptively successful enclave of Socialism in action. The pirates deeply threatened the budding power structures in the US (not conjecture) and the entrenched powers in Europe. While some powers, most notably royalty, were willing to use pirates as mercenaries (privateers), there was an excess of democracy and human concern (somewhat my conjecture) among the Nassau pirates. The Nassau pirates had pensions, a form of worker’s comp, disability, democratic command structures at sea, and healthcare (such as it was given the era). According to the historical texts on the Nassau pirates, there were almost no written records, which strikes me as especially odd since they had so many long-running financial and governing processes.

Came looking for this comment. It’s absolutely critical to know thyself, and understanding one’s attachment style is one of the easier bits of self-knowledge.

One of the most accessible books on the topic is “Attached” by Levine and Heller. For me, that book was such an eye-opener. I read it as my second marriage was imploding, and I was grabbing at everything to try to save it. The example conversations for my and my ex’s attachment styles were uncanny. I kept getting the feeling of “were y’all in the room with us for that argument?”

I am also a bicyclist with three different bikes. One watch replaces three bicycle computers. I can track performance metrics, longevity of components, and service intervals… for all of my bicycles.

My watch also has functions for sailing performance metrics, kayaking, hiking, running, and lots more sports.

That’s ignoring the other watch functions: timers, find my phone (great for when the phone slips between cushions and I didn’t notice), compass, barometric trends, notification filtering…

My partner has the same watch. The longitudinal health stats from her watch was one of the key factors in getting her health complaints taken seriously. One medical facility completely, repeatedly dismissed her concerns as “nothing serious.” Turns out she had Stage-IVb cancer (now recovered).

“Nonviolent Communication” by Marshall Rosenberg.

The lessons for communication and non-reactivity will pay dividends in every aspect of your interpersonal relations. Work, friendships, romantic relationships, even dealing with customer disservice.

I misspoke, and you raise a good point. I meant gift economies, and that error is on me. And those are pretty well-documented. I’ll stick to my firsthand experiences:

• Waianae, Oahu in Hawaii. The weekly take-what-you-need-bring-what-you-can food exchanges there are a huge stopgap for food insecurity and also spur community bonding
• Burning Man - TTITD, regionals, and much of the hippie festival circuit have a robust gifting culture

As a very young kid, I thought there was a very hungry monster that lived inside vacuum cleaners. The switch was just a lever to open a flap and expose the monster’s sucking hunger.

You are confidently incorrect on this. Currency == money. Money is, for we hoi polloi, a barely consentual conversion and exchange system for our labor, hypothetically allowing us to convert our labor into readily fungible exchange units. Money, at the Capital Class level, is debt, and therefore control, i.e. power. Money is just how they keep score.

There are plenty of barter gifting and Communist (“from those of ability to those of need”) economies, just on scales that fly below the radar of most economists. Your sweeping assertion leads me to believe that you may simply be ignorant of those non-monetary exchanges. Would you be willing to add more context to your assertion?

Edit: I misspoke; crashfrog raises a valid point, and I meant gift economies.

Wampum was used by Eastern Costal tribes as a storytelling aid.

In the Salish Tribes, dentalium shell necklaces were used as a status symbol/indication of social rank. Some tribes used the necklaces as a type of currency, but I’ve only heard the “some tribes did this” part; never anything about which specific tribes used dentalium as currency.

Obviously, anything that holds perceived value can be traded.

Source: went to junior high in a school that taught two full years of Haudenosaunee (also called Iroquois) history.

Salish source: I’ve been a volunteer naturalist in the Puget Sound for eight years with an annual training requirement, with entire days allocated to history of the original Salish tribe for the area where we’re working.

The Salish Tribes existed in the PacNW for over 13,000 years without money.

I see a lot of specific examples, but here is a good engineering guideline: do not skimp on physical interfaces. **Anywhere energy is changing form or if it touches your body, don’t skimp on those. **

For example

• tires
• bicycle saddle
• heaters/furnaces
• electrical inverters
• keyboard
• mouse
• engines
• shoes
• eyewear
• clothes (buy used if necessary, but always buy quality clothing)

Quality usually means more money, but sometimes one is able to find a high quality and low-cost version. In my experience though, trying to find the cheap version that works well means trying so many permutations; it would have been more economical to just get the more costly version in the first place.

I have long pondered a comedy set in the Star Wars universe. Maybe some beer-swilling, rowdy Jedi. And fortunately Auralnauts fulfilled my dream: https://youtu.be/WSCm8yAxBr8?si=QC1SNiLAMAu1rE0T

Some of the later entries in the series are a bit weak, but there are always worthwhile punchlines.

:( indeed. This got me right in the feels.

We hoi polloi think in money numbers and what we can afford to purchase. For the Capital Class, it’s all about power. Money is just how they keep score.

Ever see a toucan in person? I had an employee with a toucan he would sometimes bring into work. It could throw things, especially round fruit, with uncanny accuracy. Like it could easily play catch from at least 2m away.

Glaucous-winged gulls also seem to have uncanny accuracy with defecation, but that’s not quite throwing.

Kind of an oversimplification here: Moiré is a form of interference pattern, in this case the “grid” of OP’s image has a different pitch from the grid on your phone or computer display. By continuously changing the zoom (in contrast to discontinuously), the interference pattern shifts to create “peaks and valleys.” Here’s some more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moiré_pattern

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nn1MqCMa1M

Did anyone else click and zoom for fun moiré effect?

I use a bar soda siphon.

According to Consumer Reports, Topo Chico consistently tested the highest for PFAS among carbonated waters. But they also said almost all store-bought carbonated waters tested positive for PFAS.