solbear

Regulatory capture

I have the same, a little over 8 years now. Always happy. Reminds me I should oil the handle soon.

I've been using a Merkur Progress for ten years now. The adjustability of the action makes it more versatile, which makes it easier to adjust to different types of blades. I use Astra Superior blades, but also have a stack of Shark blades that I at some point liked, and some Feather blades that are insanely sharp and unforgiving.

Make sure you learn how to lather properly. A good lather makes all the difference, and it also a major factor in making it a lot more enjoyable than the canned Gillette-stuff. I use Proraso for my run-of-the-mill shaves, and have over the years bought a variety of hard soaps as well. My favorite is Marlborough from D.R. Harris.

EDIT: I had one of those starter razors from Mühle in the beginning (Rytmo?). It snapped in two at the neck after I dropped it by accident, after 6 months use. I still have the synthetic hair brush that came with it. Some people go really into brushes, but I've been happy with mine.

Thanks for the suggestion. I think it would be difficult to maintain water in both, and I don't have too much leeway in terms of height differences either.

The end outside of the container can have any number of means to attach a hose or pipe; like a barb, flange, thread, etc. For your application you will want a barbed bulkhead so you can just put a hose on there and don’t need to worry about the additional cost and work involved with rigid pipe.

Ah, I've seen those kinds before, and that seems fairly simple. Thanks!

As for the stain issue. The type of container you described leads me to believe it is a typical plastic storage box, almost all of those have a taper to the sides.

Of course, now I understand what you meant! Yes, the boxes are slightly tapered, so that would be an issue.

Tube and barbs also have the benefit of being easier to connect across a short distance and ensure a watertight connection. I would recommend putting the tube on both sides first, then installing the bulkheads in the containers to make life easier and avoid damage when trying to press the tube on the barbs after the bulkheads are installed.

Great tips, noted! Now I'll have to figure out where I can buy these locally.

Thanks again for great help!

Thanks for a great description!

A couple of questions:

A bulkhead fitting should have a rubber gasket that will seal properly without additional sealant

Since bulkhead fittings were suggested, I've been looking them up. The installation seems easy enough, but in all the videos I see I am stuck with a hole with threads on the outside, no one shows what comes next. What are the parts I would need for this? Do I need a join to connect the threads on the outside of each container?

The sides of the container won’t be parallel to the ground, so a straight pipe will put strain on the container that will lead to a failure. You will probably want to use flexible hose to connect the two containers, but two 45 degree elbows at each end of ridgid pipe(so 4 total) can take the strain out once you play with the orientations.

I didn't really understand this. Do you mean there will be strain due to the downward force exerted by the weight of the pipe and water? I'm hoping to have the distance between the tanks as short as possible, and the diameter should also not be too big.

Cheers, I'll look into those! :)

Good idea, didn't think about that!

Melting sounds like a good idea. What would you typically use to do it? A soldering iron perhaps?

When you say compatibility, do you mean in terms of adhesion, or are there other things I should be concerned about?

A bit silly comparing hourly wage to yearly wage. The barista just needs to work 22500 hours a year to earn the same... that's not even three times the amount of hours in a year.

Awesome! If you’d like any suggestions for story ideas, let me know what other stories and general themes you like and I’d be happy to see if anything pops to mind.

Cheers! For now, what listed above is what I am most interested in reading up on :)

Also: can I give you a piece of writing advice related to your post above?

Sure, go ahead!

The main geopolitical change is that oil is not going to be anymore a king-maker. I would expect a second Arab Spring (though the Arab world is more than just the Arabian peninsula) with more success. I would expect a lower influence of Russia as well.

Yes, the decline in power of the petrostates would need to be handled well, and would definitely be important in figuring out how the overall landscape looks.

There are two possible flavors of future and really, both are credible, it depends on the stories you want to tell: more integration in supra-national entities or more independent states.

I think perhaps both could work at the same time (which I upon rereading see that you mentioned further down!)? More autonomy to regional entities within countries, but more collaboration on larger issues inside unions such as EU and AU (it would be difficult to avoid centralized power being forced down on local communities though). Maybe instead of seeing the EU moving towards a federal state, maybe we see the US moving towards something like the EU? There are several nations in Europe that would only be mid-sized states in the US, so I always found comparing single European countries to the US makes less sense than comparing the US and EU directly.

Also, do not forget the UN. It could consolidate in a form of government. It already has a de facto minister of trade (WTO), of labor (ILO), of health (WHO), of education (UNESCO). It is a slow process but solving the climate crisis could have given it the political credit it is currently lacking.

Interesting, I never thought of these bodies in that light before. I think the source of the lack of political credit is largely due to the ineffectiveness of the Security Council and the veto vote. I think a big change to this would be paramount for UN to work as some kind of "world government". And there is a fine line between such an organization being a force for good or a force for evil.