Hello dear readers.
Yesterday I wrote a this week's post and planned to proof-read and post it this morning. But then I learned that the deadline for Net Neutrality comments is only a few days away. We all have until Sept 15 to make our voices heard on this issue. So, today's post is dedicated to Net Neutrality and what you can do about it.
First of all, what is this whole issue? Rather than try to explain it to you, I'll allow those who have already done it brilliantly to do it for me.
Vi Hart Explains Net Neutrality
Hank vs Hank arguing Net Neutrality
John Oliver on Last Week Tonight
Are you worried yet?
So, what can you do about it? Tell congress how you feel about it.
The "official" place to comment online is here, but after about 10 seconds you'll probably give up. You have to figure out which proceeding to comment on and they don't (as far as I can figure out) give you any more information than the title of that proceeding. Oh, here's a nice helpful hint from the site: "If the proceeding you are looking for is not listed, you can go to ECFS and enter the proceeding number." You have the proceeding number memorized right? Of course, they they have very little incentive to make the comment procedure user friendly. Don't fret though, I did some digging and figured it out for you. You want to comment on proceeding 14-28 "Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet."
If that's still too much for you to deal with or if you need a pre-written form letter to help out, a few savvy folks have made it easier for you. Here are two places you can go submit a comment and they will make sure it ends up in the right place:
Battle for the Internet
The EFF
And, here's the comment I wrote on the FCC page on proceeding 14-28. Feel free to steal some/all of it for your comments:
"Maintaining the open internet is important to me because an an entrepreneur I am concerned about my ability to compete with well established companies who are able to pay for the "fast lane" service. Additionally, ISPs provide a service that is very similar to other common carriers and they should not be able to act as gatekeepers, deciding what content is delivered promptly to their customers. ISPs should be classified as common carriers in order to prevent them from discriminating against users or content creators, and allow the open internet that we all built together to continue to thrive."
We have 4 days left. Go forth and comment. Even better, make actual phone calls too. Then post about it on ALL your social media sites to spread the word.
TDE Out!
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Friday, September 5, 2014
Cat Ownership = Solved
Today I'm going to tackle a post that the ITH has been bugging me to do for a while now. I think he's pretty proud of us and wants to help the rest of the world win at cat ownership.
So, today I present to you our solutions to cat ownership.
Problem: Cleaning the kitty litter.
There are a lot of potential solutions to this. The pet stores are full of scoops and fancy "no-mess" litters. But, not matter what tools you have or how fancy your litter is, you still can't get around the fact that you have to scoop out the litter box. You could also spend ridiculous amounts of money on "self-cleaning" boxes. I'm sure some of them work well, but I've heard that they break too easily and often leave behind the smaller clumps.
Our Solution:
The rolling litter box.
We can't even really take credit for this one. The ITH's brother gifted him with one of these a while back. This is what we have. You roll the whole box over onto it's lid and all the clumps end up in a little drawer that pulls out. It works really well, has no moving parts, and only costs about $30-35. And yes, it did eventually break; the tabs that hold the top and bottom together broke, causing it to leak litter all over when we rolled it. But it lasted for multiple years and the cost is low enough that replacing it every so often isn't a huge expense. After using this litter box, I'll never go back to any other way.
There are also multiple problems of cat ownership that are related to odors.
Problem: Litter odor.
Even if you clean out your litter box daily, or even multiple times per day, there is still the problem of what to do with the waste you remove from the box. You could immediately take it out to the trash/dumpster, but that often isn't feasible. Inevitably you end up "storing" dirty litter until a time when it is convenient to take it out with the rest of the trash. We researched all sorts of options for how to store this. Some folks suggested using diaper bins that seal off each diaper (or litter dump) in plastic. These are expensive, large, and use lots of plastic. We looked for trash cans with a seal around the top that would contain the odor, but couldn't find anything that would truly seal it in. Eventually, we found the solution in the kitchen department.
Our solution: Oxo container.
So, today I present to you our solutions to cat ownership.
Problem: Cleaning the kitty litter.
There are a lot of potential solutions to this. The pet stores are full of scoops and fancy "no-mess" litters. But, not matter what tools you have or how fancy your litter is, you still can't get around the fact that you have to scoop out the litter box. You could also spend ridiculous amounts of money on "self-cleaning" boxes. I'm sure some of them work well, but I've heard that they break too easily and often leave behind the smaller clumps.
Our Solution:
The rolling litter box.
We can't even really take credit for this one. The ITH's brother gifted him with one of these a while back. This is what we have. You roll the whole box over onto it's lid and all the clumps end up in a little drawer that pulls out. It works really well, has no moving parts, and only costs about $30-35. And yes, it did eventually break; the tabs that hold the top and bottom together broke, causing it to leak litter all over when we rolled it. But it lasted for multiple years and the cost is low enough that replacing it every so often isn't a huge expense. After using this litter box, I'll never go back to any other way.
There are also multiple problems of cat ownership that are related to odors.
Problem: Litter odor.
Even if you clean out your litter box daily, or even multiple times per day, there is still the problem of what to do with the waste you remove from the box. You could immediately take it out to the trash/dumpster, but that often isn't feasible. Inevitably you end up "storing" dirty litter until a time when it is convenient to take it out with the rest of the trash. We researched all sorts of options for how to store this. Some folks suggested using diaper bins that seal off each diaper (or litter dump) in plastic. These are expensive, large, and use lots of plastic. We looked for trash cans with a seal around the top that would contain the odor, but couldn't find anything that would truly seal it in. Eventually, we found the solution in the kitchen department.
Our solution: Oxo container.
I'm pretty sure we have this one. It costs about $20 and has lasted 3 years so far and it's going strong. It would be nice if it were a little bigger and may not be big enough for anyone with more than one cat. However, it works great of us. It tends to fill up every few days which, conveniently, is also about how often the trash has to be taken to the dumpster. So, when it's full, it gets dumped into the trash can and taken out to the dumpster.
Problem: Cat food can odor in the recycling bin.
When I first met the ITH, I quickly encountered an anomaly. He was fairly strict about recycling (one of the reasons I liked him so much) but he threw cat food cans into the trash can. When I asked about this, he explained that he he tried recycling them, but they messed up and stunk up the recycling bin. So, for a while we continued to trash them and continued to feel a little guilty about it. Recently, we solved this problem by reusing another cat-maintenance waste product.
The empty kitty litter tub seals well enough that we don't smell anything (well, except when we open it up to add new empty cans.) The sign was for when we had friends cat-sitting while we were gone, but I kinda like it, so we left it there.
So there you have it. 3 simple and affordable solutions to some of the most frustrating cat ownership problems. If you have a cat ownership win to share, post it in the comments!
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