You're right that there are a ton of trails, parks, etc. in Connecticut. Which is why I find dashboard lacking (and I admit I have not been on a CT trail, um, ever, even though I spent 20-ish years living there).
Someone else mentioned how fab it is that the state has done this. But it's unclear to me if the state did this or the University of Connecticut did this. Yes, UConn is the state, but UConn does not manage the open data portal for the state (ct.gov). As someone who worked on open data (and i use "worked on" VERY loosely) in the District of Columbia, I would expect the state (ct.gov) to manage the data and the front end. This is not the case.
Finally, while I want to push back about the portrayal of northeastern CT, I cannot. It was a great place to grow up, close and far.
Farewell notes offer an interesting peak into the world of another and are so much more engaging, honest, and grounded than the paid obits which commonly mention how the deceased was beloved by everyone.
I got a sense of Jonathan while reading his farewell note. And the note challenges me to do and be better. RIP Jonathan.
Not specific to tylenol and autism, but I think important: RFK Jr. will be issuing findings using "gold-standard science" and hold up the findings as definitive (as proof, etc.) at the same time that he completely minimizes and bemoans current scientific processes. While we may be able to tell the difference between RFK's BS science and real science, what does this mean for everyone else? Especially because RFK Jr. does not trust science?
Evaluate risks and benefits as best you can, informed by whatever science seems to show. Life's complicated and nobody can provide simple correct instructions on the right way to do everything, or even anything. Public health messages are an attempt to do that but they're unreliable and sometimes intentionally misleading or wrong because their purpose is to influence people's behavior, not to be correct.
It might not be consistent with slavery, but children as chattel was a thing.
It wasn't until 1874 that child abuse was documented with Mary Ellen Wilson and then later that rights and protections were accorded children. Now it's true that foster care and congregate care existed before 1874. But it was Wilson who started the ball rolling.
Well, they would be talking about maintaining control. Control requires constant vigilance to reinforce compliance coupled with making sure there is no disobedience. The latter speaks to "needing control."
> Washington’s long-standing de minimis policy had allowed parcels packed with cheap items to flow into the US from around the world with little interruption or oversight, fueled by consumer demand for bargains and immediacy. Trump’s White House claims it’s a loophole used to evade tariffs and funnel illegal drugs.
> Now, postal services, online sellers, consumers and shipping companies are attempting to sort through the costly and complicated process to comply with US rules with little guidance from federal agencies.
I wonder what consideration individuals are giving this. . . The article says very little about consumer behavior save for the above two grafs. I very rarely buy directly from abroad and that is by design, with nothing to do re: de minimis. What bargains are people buying?! Especially in this economy.
I mostly research and analyze retro hardware as a hobby, most of which was made in Japan. All of my research acquisitions at least doubled in price this month, and quite a few sellers have decided to stop shipping to me entirely until the tarrif situation gets sorted.
These are 40+ year old consoles and accessories that are no longer being produced anywhere, certainly not in the United States. There will not be a factory built for these items, they're not in high demand. They just got way more expensive.
You’re confusing why we have tariffs. They aren’t doing this to bring back manufacturing to the US, they are doing this to shift tax burden to the lower classes.
There’s a reason why even folks that were pro tariff for the purposes of bringing back jobs to the US were completely dumbfounded on the sweeping, untargeted tariffs that look like they were drawn up by a drunk monkey with a sharpie and a map of the world.
And a large segment of the lower classes will happily suffer if they're told it's good for America, and bad for whichever marginalized community is being demonized right now.
If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.
I personally buy things from abroad relatively regularly. Few times a year. Just bought a keyboard from Taiwan and stocked up on Japanese tea in preparation for this. Plenty of things come from abroad though even if you’re not searching it out. Of course there’s SHEIN, temu, and Alibaba but even Amazon has a good percentage of things that come from abroad. It’s kinda hidden but it’s seamless so until now it was hard to tell.
> I very rarely buy directly from abroad and that is by design
A lot of bigger Canadian sellers identify with a US location as they use a shipping service that trucks things over the border it's "received" by USPS in 1-2 business days. So they get away with it as long as they don't over-promise handling/delivery times.
For a book series that I’m a fan of, the biggest merch seller (eg. embroidered hoodies, shirts) is based in Canada and ships directly. With these changes, she’s just having to shut the store down entirely because she’d have to have prices triple or quadruple.
I buy wool sweaters from Europe. I don’t know of US equivalents to what I buy, and I doubt they’d be as cheap if I did find them, even with (expensive) shipping from Britain and Nordic countries.
I bought a linen sheet from Lithuania this year. I couldn’t find any in the US that weren’t just similar probably-imported-from-Lithuania-or-Italy foreign ones marked way up, or that didn’t set off my “this is low-quality bullshit sold at a premium” alarms.
I don’t know of a US equivalents to Dent’s Gloves. Not at the same price/quality combo, in those styles.
Raber Garbage Mitts from Canada. Dunno of US equivalents.
Last time I ordered Meermin shoes they shipped from Spain. They have or had some presence in NY too, but Spain’s where they shipped from.
If you want equestrian leather shoes, I dunno of anywhere but places that ship from Spain and Portugal that won’t empty your bank account for them.
Western riding shoes (“cowboy boots”), best bang for your buck by a long shot will probably come straight from Mexico. Or maybe Argentina.
Best bargains in decent hats I know come straight from Canada, the EU/Britain, Mexico, or Australia.
[edit] OK, so then what do I buy that’s made in America? Red Wing boots, Darn Tough socks, Rancourt and Company for loafers and mocs and such, Pendleton wool blankets and shirts (the cloth’s made in the US, anyway, though the sewing’s usually elsewhere) and a bunch of other MIUSA (and some Canadian and Italian) clothes but I only buy them used because I don’t make FAANG or finance tier wages (stuff like Sid Mashburn, made in NYC) so I’m not actually giving those companies money.
IDK I have one large Pendleton blanket, a robe, and about ten of their shirts, plus an old ex-army blanket that I suspect they made, and they’re pretty great. All but one of those items (one shirt) is long-fiber wool, so it’s the itchy kind, but 1) it gets a ton less-itchy with time & use (and I don’t mind anymore, regardless), and 2) I wear them as outdoor and work shirts so if they were fine wool or short fiber merino stuff, that’d be no good.
Yeah it’s not Italian super 150 or whatever, but I’m not wearing it in fine clothes, I hike and chop wood and shit wearing this stuff.
>> "Selection: The woolen process begins with the selection of the highest quality imported and domestic fleeces. Each bail is sampled and checked for quality, providing the base of making the finest woolen products."
Most items on Amazon were until recently cheaper on Aliexpress (usually by 20-40%, but sometimes by 80%). The only exceptions were high volume non-Chinese-manufactured consumer goods, and food. This is where regular Americans might be affected, if they were buying clothes on Temu or whatever.
For me, most items on McMaster-Carr have Chinese equivalents available for 1/10th the price. This goes for many other things which are very "B2B" in the US but commonly sold to the public in other markets (PCBs, solar panels, power supplies, etc.). The quality might not be as good but a lot weekend projects were made viable by cutting out the middle man and/or cheap access to a larger market. (You can find some of this stuff eBay as well, at a moderate premium. Until recently most of it was shipped from China but there are plenty of importers with US warehouses on there as well.)
err, things like Etsy and other crafter-sized companies, including antiques and other things. Don't know whether used books will be affected as I've not bought any recently. E-stores like Amazon or LL Bean or others at scale might/will have difficulty servicing customers. And all the gifts coming from non-US residents at this point will be emails.
Not American nor stuck in America, but I recently bought a simple kit for building your own clock from a ton of basic chips and resistors (that crappy one Big Clive showed off), for about a dollar.
The thing that surprised me most was how on point the shipping emails have been. The kit itself is worth about a dollar and was great for my 8 year old to practice soldering. Though if I skim the Temu site, it’s like 98% absolute trash.
And I would imagine that with the EO making English the language of the US, that even more people will struggle with government services as we get deeper into the term of 47.
There are trails in state parks (think Kent Falls and Sleeping Giant, for instance). And there are also a lot of maps, interactive whatevers, such as https://ctwoodlands.org/explore-trails/interactive-map/ and Rails to Trail https://www.depdata.ct.gov/maps/ctrailtrail/index.html.
Someone else mentioned how fab it is that the state has done this. But it's unclear to me if the state did this or the University of Connecticut did this. Yes, UConn is the state, but UConn does not manage the open data portal for the state (ct.gov). As someone who worked on open data (and i use "worked on" VERY loosely) in the District of Columbia, I would expect the state (ct.gov) to manage the data and the front end. This is not the case.
Finally, while I want to push back about the portrayal of northeastern CT, I cannot. It was a great place to grow up, close and far.
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