Random Thoughts

[Angrboda]

Nafta survives (with a new name)

After a weekend of frantic talks, the U.S. and Canada reached a last-minute agreement on Sunday to avert the collapse of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The pact — which will be renamed the “United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement” — builds upon a deal Washington reached with Mexico in August. The inclusion of Canada came as a relief to many, including industry groups in the U.S.

(NY Times)

[Sal]

I constrict my movements. My muscles ache from all the throwing of stuff into the waste container. It's full with shit hoarded for at least 3 decades. And we're probably gonna need another container to get the stuff from the back of the house.

Wow.  Who was/is the hoarder?  It ran in my husband's family. It's something that never really completely goes away.   And I'm pretty sure it can be contagious.  There really needs to be a 12-step program for it.  I feel for you.

My dad. He's a carpenter, and the stuff he hoarded was from various construction sites. He basically stored old, broken tools, mismatched construction materials, and even bent rusty nails.

Glad I wasn't alone in sorting through the stuff, because we were told after we had thrown everything in one waste container that we had to sort burnables in one container and metal in another. Took us 4 hours to sort through all the junk separating metal from burnables. And then there's stuff like old discarded tires from cars we don't own anymore, stuff like insulation and paint that has to be sorted into a separate container apart from metal and the burnables. 2 containers, so far, but we need to get stuff from the back of the house, and it's pretty inaccessible now because of overgrown vegetation and dirt filled up. Not looking forward to get all the stuff from back of the house, because it's mostly big plates used for making concrete walls, or what it's called in English. Most of it is pretty rotten and decayed anyways.

I'm beat after today. Tomorrow I'll drive stuff like the old broken tools and other electronics along with the paint and other buckets to the recycling facility myself. They have collected a full container with burnable material with mostly planks, wood plates and plastic stuff, to the recycling/waste disposal facility where it'll be burned.

[Ravenshire]

Why's it called "Orange" is the new Black when they don't even wear orange?

Because people associate orange with prison jumpers?

"Wentworth" is a better show anyway.

[Silver]

"Wentworth" is a better show anyway.

I do tend to enjoy British shows more than American shows. Might check it out.

[Ravenshire]

"Wentworth" is a better show anyway.

I do tend to enjoy British shows more than American shows. Might check it out.

Well, it's Aussie...

[Silver]

The boyfriend loves watching HGTV.

Sometimes, I'll glance at his television to take a look at the couple. I'll think, Yeah, that man is getting dick on the side.

[Silver]

Feeling tired, going to take a nap.

[Angrboda]

At least 90 politicians in South Africa have been assassinated since 2016, imperiling long-sought efforts for stability and a unified democracy. But unlike earlier periods of political violence, it’s now the lawmakers themselves who are ordering the killings: using professional hit men in an “all-or-nothing fight” to gain money, turf and power.

(New York Times)

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Britain’s decision to leave the European Union has cost the government 500 million pounds a week since the 2016 referendum, according to the results of a new study — making the country’s economy about 2.5 percent smaller than it would have been if voters had chosen to remain in the bloc.

(Reuters)

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Technology is always trying to give us back the garden without the snake. So you like coffee and not caffeine? Well, then, we will take out the caffeine and leave you your pleasure, intact.

Decaffeinated coffee is indeed without venom. It contains, at most, one fortieth of the amount of caffeine in untreated beans. Nor should the removal of caffeine alter the taste of coffee. Isolated, caffeine is a crystalline substance lacking aroma and possessing only the slightest bitter taste. Its flavor is lost in the heady perfumes of fresh coffee. So if you hear people say, “Coffee doesn’t taste like coffee without the caffeine,” they are wrong. The only real problem is how to take out the caffeine without ruining the rest of what does influence coffee flavor. But technology has triumphed, more or less. The best decaffeinated coffee, freshly roasted and ground and carefully brewed, can taste so nearly the equal of a similar untreated coffee that only a tasting involving direct comparison reveals the difference.

Unfortunately, fine decaffeinated coffees are the exception rather than the norm. Decaffeinated beans are notoriously difficult to roast, so even the best decaffeinated beans may produce a thin-bodied, half-burned cup once they are roasted. Still, for the coffee devotee even listless decaffeinated coffee is better than mint tea, and you can always compromise and spruce up a caffeine-free coffee by adding a little full-bodied caffeinated coffee before grinding it, or by creating your own low-caffeine blend.

(Coffee Review)

[Silver]

Sleep eluded me.

[Angrboda]

“There is a basic distinction between life expectancy and life span,” says Stanford University historian Walter Scheidel, a leading scholar of ancient Roman demography. “The life span of humans – opposed to life expectancy, which is a statistical construct – hasn’t really changed much at all, as far as I can tell.”

Life expectancy is an average. If you have two children, and one dies before their first birthday but the other lives to the age of 70, their average life expectancy is 35.

That’s mathematically correct – and it certainly tells us something about the circumstances in which the children were raised. But it doesn’t give us the full picture. It also becomes especially problematic when looking at eras, or in regions, where there are high levels of infant mortality. Most of human history has been blighted by poor survival rates among children, and that continues in various countries today.

This averaging-out, however, is why it’s commonly said that ancient Greeks and Romans, for example, lived to just 30 or 35. But was that really the case for people who survived the fragile period of childhood, and did it mean that a 35-year-old was truly considered ‘old’?

(BBC News)