Horse riders should have to clean up after their horses on trails.

I’m a big believer in leave no trace in the outdoors. To the best of your ability, everything should be as you found it when you leave the woods.

Wild horses have been extinct in north America for many thousands of years, in my local area as far as fossil and archeological records can show any native horses that might have existed here were long gone before the first native Americans set foot here. They are not a part of the ecosystem.

I don’t care if it’s biodegradable, I wouldn’t leave apple cores and banana peels behind either.

The environment in my local parks isn’t so delicate that a few entitled rich assholes leaving behind horse shit probably isn’t going to make a significant impact, but there are other places where it absolutely could, throwing off the chemical composition of the soil, contaminating ground water, causing algal blooms, introducing non-native parasites, bacteria, and pathogens, etc. and you should be following best practices across the board. Treat every inch of the outdoors as if it were potentially vulnerable and don’t try to bend the rules just because you think you can get away with it.

And it’s just an eyesore and detracts from the natural beauty.

The horse people fire back about how they can’t carry a shovel with them, or how they may not be able to safely get on or off the horse. This is the shit horses were bred for- to carry people and stuff, I can find you an avalanche shovel and a small folding step stools that will break down plenty small and light enough to fit in a backpack or lash to the saddle with some rope to pull the stool up after you get on, and it’s all gonna weigh a lot less than. If you can afford to go horseback riding you can afford the hundred bucks or so for a shovel and a step stool. If that’s not enough for you to get on and off your horse safely on the trail, maybe you should take that as a sign that you shouldn’t be riding a horse there, stick to a dude ranch where some big strong cowboy will help you get on and off of the horsey.

That does absolutely sound more realistic to me, I was a bit skeptical of the numbers I quoted, but I saw them come up in a few places after a quick google search and I was open that I didn’t fact-check those numbers.

It seems like OP is probably pushing a bit of an agenda here (maybe a good one, maybe a bad one depending on where you land on the whole Israel situation, I’m not gonna go into that right now) but in case you’re just out of the loop

There’s recently been some incidents in Lebanon where pagers and radios have been exploding. Not just defective Samsung Note battery bursting-into-flames exploding, but packed full of actual explosives, detonating, and killing people exploding

Long story short, Israel intercepted a shipment of these devices going to Hezbollah, and planted remote triggered bombs in them.

And some people are concerned about this, and probably rightly so, first of all these pagers have caused some collateral damages, killing and hurting bystanders. Secondly, we don’t exactly know how widespread this has been- are there other people out in Lebanon or other parts of the world walking around with literal bombs in their pocket? What if those devices get lost, stolen, sold/traded in? What if the target had been onboard a plane or something when the pager detonated? What if the bomb doesn’t go off as intended- is it gonna go off in a trash truck, recycling facility, or incinerator when they decide to get rid of it?

Little back of the envelope math based on some quick google numbers that I didn’t fact check, and making some assumptions that I probably shouldn’t make.

Cargo ships emit around 10-40 grams of co2 per kilometer

It’s something like 11000km from the port of Shanghai to the port of Los Angeles (I don’t know the exact shipping routes, or which ports they’d actually be using, but those are the largest ports in China and the US west coast.

It takes about 14-40 days to sail, and another 1-3 days to load/unload the ship. So let’s call that around a month round trip and 22000km, so up to about 12 trips a year max.

The biggest car carrier ships can carry up to about 8500 cars, I’m having a harder time finding what a more average load of cars is, but I saw an article about a Canadian record in 2005 being 5214 cars in a single shipment so let’s say 5000 to keep the math easy

Typical passenger cars emit around 4.6 metric tons of CO2 per year

Gonna round some of the numbers up to be pessimistic, make the math easy, and account for some of the other emissions besides CO2, emissions from manufacturing, etc. so let’s say 50g/km for ships, 25000km round trip, and that cars emit 5 metric tons/year

So at 12 trips a year, 25000km round trip, emitting 50g of co2 per km, a ship emits 15,000,000g or 15 metric tons of CO2, as much as 3 passenger cars do a year.

Assuming that all of those cars are EVs and sold to replace ICE cars, that those old cars are then taken off the road and not resold, and that the new cars are being charged with green energy from renewable sources or nuclear that aren’t emitting carbon

5000 new cars per shipment × 12 shipments per year × 5 tons of CO2 per old car - 15 tons of co2 emitted by the ships = potentially 299,985 metric tons less emissions per year

Now that’s probably an insanely high estimate, I’m sure there are about 2000 other things I didn’t even try to account for on top of what I mentioned, and some of my rounding probably wasn’t entirely appropriate.

But even if all of my assumptions are way off and the actual emissions savings are only 1% of that, that’s still almost 3000 metric tons of CO2 saved per year. I think it’s definitely within the realm of possibility that shipping EVs from China could reduce carbon emissions.

I consider myself to be a fairly tech literate person. Not a professional, but better than average. The guy my family comes to to troubleshoot computer problems, basic working understanding of programming and networking but not nearly enough to do it professionally.

I think you’re shooting too high on some of these.

Basic hardware is good, but don’t spend too much time on it or go into too much detail, just kind of basic overviews. Boot chain is probably pushing it, but basic overview of operating systems is good.

I probably wouldn’t go so far as having them install their own Linux distro, that feels like you want to take a week of your class time to troubleshoot all the potential issues that come up, if you do it on school computers you’re probably looking at a nightmare getting that cleared by your IT department, and if it’s their personal devices you’re probably going to catch an earful from some parents for messing up their/their kids computer.

I do think it’s a good idea to have some computers running Linux for them to use so they can see what it’s like, and probably some macs too, I’m not an apple guy but there’s a lot of them out there and people should be at least a little familiar with both.

I don’t know what the current state of things in schools is, but you can certainly hand out some flash drives, but there’s a decent chance they already have some. I know over a decade ago when I was in high school pretty much all of us were already carrying around flash drives.

Programming is good to introduce them to, python is a solid choice, but unless these are kids who are pretty sure they want to go into computer science I wouldn’t go too deep. It’s not a particularly useful language for actual usage but I think that BASIC still has a useful role as a way to teach the fundamentals of programming to people in an accessible way to see if they may want to pursue it further. I know programmers hate it, but visual basic is also kind of satisfying because it makes it pretty easy to crank out something that looks like an actual finished product.

I’d keep networking pretty straightforward. Network stack and OSI are probably a little too high level to go into, but basics about WiFi, Bluetooth, Ethernet, routers, switches, firewalls, etc. are good to know.

Basic typing and general computer use are probably something a lot of kids could use some work on. A lot of kids these days have a lot less experience with keyboard and mouse computer use thanks to smartphones and tablets. Don’t shun the touchscreen devices though, they’re more powerful than a lot of people give them credit for, and since that’s the way technology is trending figure out how to push the borders on what you can do with them.

I’m also bald, but even before I started shaving my head and had long hair I wore a lot of hats. Still helped keep the sun off me and I tend to run kind of hot so it helped keep sweaty hair out of my face.

I have a couple hats similar to those kicking around, they mostly get used when I’m camping, hiking, etc.

My main every day summer hats are a panama straw fedora, a linen flat cap, and very occasionally a trucker cap that I mostly use as my fishing hat.

I also have a straw cowboy hat that I only bust out occasionally, when I’m both feeling a little silly and I’m gonna be out in direct sun for a long time, like out in the middle of a lake on my kayak. It looks a little goofy, I’m certainly no cowboy, but it’s practically like walking around with a shade umbrella on my head.

I tend to run pretty hot and sweaty, so when the sun isn’t a concern, I often wear a bandana to keep sweat out of my face.

My wife has a very big, floppy hat she wears at the beach sometimes, looks like straw but is actually some sort of recycled plastic.

My mom would not be able to wear a hat during the summer obviously heat would stay in and she would get too hot.

I think you’re starting from a faulty assumption here.

In general, it’s often wise to wear a hat in the summer and can help you feel cooler providing a little bit of portable shade, and helps keep the sun out of your eyes and off your face/neck/ears/shoulders.

It’s just about finding the right hat, something lightweight, breathable, and preferably lighter in color (to reflect the sun’s rays instead of absorbing them) and maybe with a wider brim.

Straw hats are a fairly traditional option, something like a panama hat (actually made from palms, also made in Ecuador and not panama BTW) is a classic option, but this is 2024 so there’s lots of moisture wicking synthetic material options out there as well. For other natural materials, linen is also a good choice, certain types and weaves of cotton can be pretty light and breathable, and honestly even some lighter weight wool hats aren’t too bad.

Take a look at people who work or spend a lot of time outdoors in warmer climates, you’ll see a lot of people wearing hats or cultures where people traditionally wore a lot of hats even if they’ve fallen out of style. Baseball caps, visors, cowboy hats, fedoras, pith helmets, beater hats, various types of headscarves, big floppy sun hats, bucket hats, asian conical hats, sombreros, etc.

I wear hats pretty much year-round. The hats I like in the summer are different from my winter hats, but it’s pretty rare that I go out without some kind of hat, and when I forget to grab one on my way out the door, I feel less comfortable for it.

I haven’t, but I live in PA, so we have scrapple which sounds pretty similar.

I’m just curious what your interpretation of yellow laces is. I’m not a punk but am vaguely aware of lace codes, and every list I see online has yellow as anti-racist, but I know it varied a bit from place to place.

I once drove through Ohio, don’t remember my exact route, but came up north from Kentucky to Cincinnati, then east into Pennsylvania

There may be more boring drives out there, but I haven’t made them.

Cincinnati seemed like a nice enough city though. Can’t think of any particular reason I’d ever want to go back, but I didn’t hate it, so that was pretty much the high point of my time in Ohio

I don’t know. I’m pretty sure every high school had at least one student who would shit in a litter box just because and then brag about it

I remember maybe a year or so ago, overhearing some of my coworkers who seemed to genuinely believe that schools were installing litter boxes for alleged students that identify as cats.

These idiots will believe absolutely anything, and it doesn’t need to be even remotely anchored to reality.

I take part in a lot of outdoorsy activities, there’s kind of a split. Lots of conservation-minded folks like myself, and lots of assholes who don’t seem to realize or care that they won’t be able to go hunting, fishing, etc. if they develop over all the woodlands, poison the waterways, etc. and just want an excuse to shoot something or justify their much-larger-than-needed, lifted, coal-rolling truck.

Also a fair amount of people who don’t feel particularly strongly either way.

Sales of hunting/fishing licenses and such do end up funding a lot of conservation efforts, though arguably in a lot of cases the money doesn’t necessarily go where it’s most needed.

The more conservation-minded folks tend to be quieter about their interests and don’t make it their whole personality, they’re usually not the ones posing with a deer or fish in their profile pic.

6% weight increase doesn’t necessarily mean a 6% efficiency loss, it’s not a simple linear relationship like that. Depending on the power of the motor and a few other factors that 6% weight increase could mean a huge hit to efficiency.

A roof only needs to be a thin piece of sheet metal, weighing somewhere in the neighborhood of 1-2lbs per square foot

Most solar panels are going to weigh somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-4lbs per square foot. So is likely the panel would weigh 2-4 times as much as just a plain metal roof, plus possibly a metal roof under it and/or additional framing to attach the panels to, so power to weight does absolutely come into play.

This chucklefuck:

“babies born with any deformities or disabilities should be shot in the forehead.”

What trump was trying to scaremonger about and claimed democrats support in the debate:

He also says execution after birth, it’s execution, no longer abortion, because the baby is born, is okay

Seems he’s once again confused

Has there ever been a repeat mass shooter?

I don’t have hard data, but probably not. Most probably don’t get the chance. If they don’t kill themselves and aren’t killed by police, most of them are probably facing decades if not life in prison or even execution.

At least if we’re talking about the sort of “classic” mass shooting scenario where a lone wolf type walks into a soft target like a school and opens fire indiscriminately.

If you open up the definition a bit, you might find some examples, though I don’t really like doing that because they really seem like different kinds of scenarios to me.

You could probably find a couple gang or mafia types who have taken part in more than one incident where multiple people were shot. Same for certain terrorist/guerilla groups and such.

The beltway sniper attacks took place over about 6 months, though most of their attacks individually wouldn’t count as mass shootings

After the Boston Marathon bombing the bombers shot an MIT police officer and then later had a shootout with police. Not mass shootings, and you could probably argue that everything that followed the bombing was just an extension of the original incident.

The shootings in Maine last year might count, since they took place at 2 different locations, but again you could probably argue that it was all part of the same incident.

That’s what I can think of off the top of my head. Nothing that I’d personally feel comfortable labeling as “repeat mass shooter” but they are incidents that kind of lean in that direction that show that they may not be just one-off events and that the perpetrators may try to continue if not stopped immediately.

I feel like I’ve also seen a few cases where it was discovered that the shooters had plans to commit other attacks. We’ll probably never be able to say conclusively if they actually would have followed through with those plans if given the opportunity.

Houses also have thermostats

Also, on Earth we already have situations near the equator where there’s not really a significant change in the weather from one season to the next, or near the poles where for parts of the year days are considerably longer/shorter than elsewhere on the planet, we also have people living in scorching deserts and frozen tundras, at high altitudes with thinner atmosphere, etc. and despite all that variation we don’t really see major differences in how quickly children mature.

The differences could be even more profound on other planets of course.

There have also been studies where people have lived in caves or bunkers without natural light, clocks, or other cues about the time or day/night cycle, and it’s been found that we stay pretty close to a 24 hour circadian rhythm (usually slightly longer actually, but within a few hours of that target,) so it seems like that’s something that might be hard-coded into us. Of course those studies have been done on adults who have had decades to acclimate to a 24 hour cycle, so it’s plausible that kids raised in a different environment would naturally adapt to a different cycle, but since we’re probably not going to be sending unaccompanied minors to the stars, those same kids would probably be raised by adults who are used to a 24 hour schedule and would raise those children in the same schedule.

You might see some divergence from that over the years and multiple generations, but if there’s a 24 hour clock present, and people decide to stick to that, I suspect that would work just fine. It would probably come down to whether it’s more beneficial for people to be in sync with the rest of humanity, or to be on the local cycle. My money’s on the former, since we probably aren’t going to need to worry about hunting for sustenance or avoiding predators, or other such things that our circadian rhythms evolved for.

Something we can’t really account for though is if different gravity would affect how quickly children mature. It will almost certainly have an effect on how they mature with differences in height and muscle/bone density, but I don’t think we can really say if it will change how quickly their brains develop, when they begin puberty, etc.

There’s other factors that could play a part as well of course, the composition of the atmosphere, the intensity of radiation from the star you’re orbiting, diet, exercise, different mutations that could arise over the generations.

I started reading the road a few years back. I was really enjoying it, or at least appreciating it, it is a damn bleak book and “enjoying” feels like the wrong word to describe the experience.

Unfortunately for me, I started reading it immediately before covid lockdowns started hitting. That wasn’t an intentional choice, I’d had the book sitting around for a while and that just happened to be when it came up in my queue.

That was entirely too much. All of that bleak, post- apocalyptic resource scarcity in the novel was hitting way too close to home when I was struggling to find toilet paper and my local grocery stores were suddenly low on stock of nearly everything.

I’m normally not one to be hit too hard emotionally by a book, but this one got to me, so I really can’t recommend it enough even if I have yet to pick it back up to finish it.