I’ve never seen an outright pull handle on a toilet door, it’s always a “normal” turn handle (usually the handle itself is used to lock the door), and i just cover my hand with a sleeve or i use my elbow to open it.

Fuck it, take maintenance into your own hand and snap the offending branches off. It takes 10 seconds so even if someone sees you do it and cares about it, they won’t have time to react before you bike away.

there’s something weirdly empowering about touching people’s cars. I’ve straight up slapped the rear end of cars that passed in front of me while i was using a pedestrian crossing, and it’s like getting to slap them in the face but without it being assault, or even hurting anything other than my hand.

People feel so utterly safe and isolated in cars that having someone on the outside affect you directly is incredibly jarring and punctures the sense of invulnerability

“hello bob. In front of you is a new employee who is going to operate dangerous machinery while following all protocols and keeping themselves safe. You have to get through the entire shift without telling him he’s a sissy for wearing ear protection, or you will be fired.”

but the bus driver is, you know, the person driving the bus; and thus the person who can think “hey there’s a person cycling on the road ahead, let’s slow down and get as far away from them as i can while passing, because i don’t want to make them shit themselves in fright”

I feel like the party becomes more “moderate” at the higher levels (as in they have no actual opinions, they just want power) whereas at the lower levels (i.e. municipal) people have a much broader range of opinions; with some being severely misguided, some just being terminally conservative (but not actual nazis), and a lot just literally being nazis who just barely manage to avoid reflexively heiling each other on the street.

I just want to note that you should make sure to verify that rice is actually cheap where you live, before going with it.
This post seems aimed quite specifically at american audiences (without actually stating such), but up here in the frozen wasteland of scandinavia rice is actually not that cheap at all, quite expensive even unless you go with literally the absolute cheapest brands available.

If you live in europe i’d wager potatoes are the actual ideal cheap carb, especially during harvest time when the market is flooded with such an absurd amount of potatoes that the price tanks and might even literally reach 0. Another option to look at is as you say, barley or other whole grains.

Frozen peas are also a nice alternative to beans (though obviously less appealing as the main protein), which can simply be tossed into the food while warm or a bowl of them can be put in a microwave oven at full blast for a minute to get fully thawed.

it should also be noted that you need fibre for healthy digestion, so you really should just power through the flatulence as much as you can. Avoiding fibre because it makes you gassy is like avoiding water because you don’t like getting wet lips.

Taco seasoning goes great in most things, just maybe a bit less of it so you don’t immediately associate it with tacos.

As someone who isn’t into chili spice, i can also recommend using extra stock and drizzling on some sort of acid (lemon juice is my fave) when you serve it

it entirely depends where you live, here in sweden freshly harvested potatoes are almost literally free in the summer (i think they were sold for 1 SEK per kg last year) whereas the cheapest rice costs as much as normal pasta.

I read on the news recently that some eastern european country had such an absurd potato harvest just now that the potatoes were literally worthless, to the point that farmers were basically weeping at the prospect of finding someone to take the potatoes from them.

depending on where you live you might even be able to find cold-pressed canola (or other kinds i suppose) oil for a remarkably low cost (you just have to buy like 2l at a time), which is very flavourful and healthy.
The brand i buy is ~4€ per l, which isn’t even that much more expensive than the cheapest oil available

i keep seeing this online but i have not once heard anyone complain about this IRL, all i’ve seen happen is that people went from “uhhh i need an apple charger, that’s a samsung charger” to “hey can i use your charger? sweet thanks”.

I’m sorry but it seems like a completely fucking made up problem

this is slander, everyone knows dogs have ADHD.
It’s cats that are autistic

Except using paper for single-use things is quite normal in many places, we’ve been doing it for years and it’s not like it magically rots in storage… It has to be moist to start degrading at any noticable speed.

Of course they can withstand storage and transport, biodegradable cups aren’t a new concept lmao, we just keep it wrapped in plastic until it’s needed.
And before anyone thinks they’re incredibly clever for pointing out “haha so you’re still using plastic”, obviously that’s a vastly smaller quantity of plastic than if you make the cups out of it.

Regardless of what happens to it afterward, it’s still a carbon sink in the sense that we’re not using more oil and that until it gets broken down it’s locking down carbon that came from the atmosphere.
So yes, it’s not going to save us, but it’s a nice little thing to help fuck the earth up a bit less.

When it comes to anything on rails it’s all VERY arbitrary and hard to define, but probably the single most useful and objective line you can draw is between systems that run on line-of-sight (like normal, cars/buses/bikes/walking) and systems that run on signals (99.999% of trains do this, the main exceptions being in places like depots and yards where the trains will go 40km/h max so they have time to stop if needed).

Other than that, “tram” almost always means it’s a smaller vehicle (primarily in width, but they’re also usually shorter as well) and it tends to at least partially run in/next to the street like buses do.

The main problem i have with any personal vehicle is that you have to bring it with you, which IMO is a pretty severe limitation in many cases.
Bike/scootershare systems are great for this reason, they let you combine the convenience of micromobility with the flexibility of not having a personal vehicle. For example if you live on a big hill you could take the bikeshare downhill, then going home when you’re all tired you can just hop on public transport home. Best of both worlds!

i maintain that in a sane world any even vaguely urban area would have transitioned to rideshares as the standard way of using a car 10 years ago.
It’s just objectively better in so many ways, even if you want to drive to work every day you can just get a smaller car for that and rent a larger one whenever you need it.