Start by defining your available power. How many watt-hours can you generate? A small 100W solar panel can provide an average of 400Wh of energy per day in the winter. That’s more than enough to run a 10-inch tablet 24/7 and LED lighting at night. I’ve seen 360W solar panels for under $100 on the used market. That’s a couple of KWh a day. Even a 100W bicycle generator and a 30 minute workout would power a tablet for 8 hours.

If power consumption is that big of a factor, perhaps separate devices for video, music, and reading would be beneficial. A dedicated music player can consume less than a watt. An e-paper reader requires fractions of a watt.

I have a folding 100W panel, a 30Ah 12V LiFePO4 battery, and a charge controller that I use while car camping. It keeps all the electronics running for a group of 4 without relying on a noisy generator. The battery is big enough to compensate for a couple of rainy days.

My backpacking setup is a 15W panel and a 30Wh battery. That kept my phone and flashlight charged for 2 weeks on the Pacific Crest Trail.

You’ve got more than three. There’s the A-hole, P-hole, V-hole, M-hole, two N-holes, and two E-holes. Then there are the manufactured holes: two H-holes when you make a fist, a TT-hole if you squeeze them together, a BB-hole if you’re on the heavy side, and two T-holes for those with foot fetishes. There are up to 3 bonus holes if you have one or more of the various medical stoma, and two extra bonus holes if you’re blind and have prosthetic eyes.

But you can get by with only one if you tie those sausages together end-to-end.

I also find their “discoveries” more interesting than a treasure that I find improbable. If they actually find solid evidence that the Money Pit is a human construction, it begs the question of why pre-industrial people would spend the resources to create it.

By the earliest accounts, McGinness (and the original “kids”) gave up after digging 30 feet. It wasn’t until the Onslow group that they excavated down to 90 feet.

I would accept that the original pit was a natural sinkhole except for the coconut fiber evidence. As we all know, palm trees don’t grow in that region. Coconut fiber, called coir, was a common trade item because it was used like hemp. Common applications were rope, mattress stuffing, and matting. It can also be mixed with pitch to make a substitute for oakum - a common material used to waterproof ships hulls.

Damn. That would be me!

My GF worked for a thrift shop, and when I picked her up after work she was admiring a 2 foot statue of Venus that had just been donated. So I bought it for her. That evening she was cleaning it up and noticed the wooden box at the foot of the figurine was hinged, but locked. I opened it with a bent paper clip and inside was a bag containing - a butt plug and anal beads. Then we figured out that if you twisted the head, it pulled a dildo out of the body.

There’s no doubt that US sizes have become more generous. Size measurements have increased over the years by about 2 inches. A size 10 from the 50’s fits like a size 8 today. A medium shirt is closer to a large from 70 years ago.

We won’t have a clear winner. No matter which candidate “wins”, there will be widespread allegations of voter fraud. There will be protests. Biden will declare a national emergency. What happens after that? I don’t know. But I am prepared for major social unrest.

A large number of people from both major parties are absolutely unwilling to accept a win by the opposing candidate. I’ve never seen the country so divided.

There are plenty of companies that will sell your name, email addresses, phone numbers, street addresses, marital status, and relative’s names. They obtain the information from publicly sold databases. I had access to one that had all that, plus the registration info for the car I drive, my estimated income, my military record, my driving record, my political party preference, and pictures of my home that had been on the realtor’s website.

The scary one was when a phone center employee in the Philippines stole my wife’s debit card number and then did two big Western Union MoneyGram transfers to a couple of Filipino men. That means bad actors have access to the credit companies’ databases from which Western Union draws their proof of identity questions, like who holds your mortgage, where you lived when you were 10, and the make/model of your first vehicle.

If you’re well-off enough to be a financial fraud target, paying a company for identity theft protection is probably well worth it. Put fraud alerts in with all the major credit bureaus too. That usually stops identity thieves from accessing your credit. If you use 2FA with your phone, make sure your telecom provider will not transfer your number to a new device without in-person authorization and authentication.

Absentee ballot. Always worked for me in the Navy.

When you shop for a place to live, do you buy/rent nothing because nothing is “perfect”? Or do you weigh the benefits and detriments of each available option and choose the best one?

There’s a clear choice, and if you need to see what voter apathy gets you, look at Venezuela. We got a second chance because the Jan 6 attempt failed. If you don’t vote, the usurper might win.

Totally agree. Iran can see incoming aircraft and missiles on their radar. There would have been widespread social media reports of the missile flying over the city. These things did not happen. Where’s the missile debris? That would have been the lead story on local TV news. Iranian leadership would love to tie the attack back to a missile provided by the US. That would have been their first claim if it really was due to a missile. This story sounds more like Iran belatedly trying to change the narrative.

How do earth-sheltered homes comply? I’ve seen a few, and they have no windows in most of the rooms, including bedrooms. And there’s a few who’ve taken to living in caves, old mines, and decommissioned missile silos. There must be an exception to this code.

Not recommended for lycra or spandex suits, or any suit that has elastic closures, particularly during the summer months. They will rapidly degrade in the heat of the car. My wife left hers in the car after a vacation (never used it). It was tucked in the trunk. Found it a month later and it disintegrated in the wash.

Every time I do a search, the bot usually provides enough info. The problem is that I don’t trust the bot because it’s been wrong before. So I still need to continue the search to find an authoritative answer.

That’s the problem with bots. If you trust their answers and they’re wrong, it can be a real problem. There was a story a while ago about an Air Canada customer service bot that was giving out bad info about bereavement travel. When a customer tried to get the promised refund, the airline admitted the advice was wrong, but claimed the bot was a separate legal entity, therefore they were not responsible for the advice it gave.

No gold. It’s what they charge us privileged Californians.

It’s $210 a month plus $30 in taxes and fees for 400 mbit internet with a 1.2 TB usage cap and a mid-tier programming package renting one cable box (required) and one cablecard for the Tivo box. Some months I exceed my internet cap and have to pay $10 for every 50 GB over the limit. Welcome to California living.

You mean like the way sweeping swiping figures out the words? And what do you do when trying to type out a password? Does it revert to a normal keyboard or function like T9 keyboard with multiple presses to select the right character?

Remember when TV used to be free, except that you had to watch commercials? I pay $2800 a year to this company for Internet and TV - and I still have to watch commercials. What’s wrong with this picture?

They are trying. AB 2200 aims at laying the groundwork for universal healthcare. Minimum wage just went up to $16 for everyone and $20 for fast food workers. There are experiments going on in several cities with guaranteed income. But everything comes with a cost, and the state is having budget problems. There have been job losses associated with the wage increases. Employers have begun to get very picky about who they hire for even minimum wage jobs. Hours have been cut.

Even Democrats realize one state can’t offer free stuff without attracting every freeloader in the country. Someone has to pay for the benefits, and if they tax those folks too heavily, they’ll find another place to live. There’s a real limit to how many social programs can be offered before they break the piggy bank.