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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: September 19th, 2023

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  • Northern Canadian here. Your worst enemy in the cold is wetness. As others have said, layers are key. Silk and wool are top of the list, but synthetics are okay, too. Silk and wool are expensive, synthetics are cheaper. Do NOT wear cotton. Cotton gets wet and stays wet. It truly sucks in cold weather.

    Sweating makes you wet. You have to match your layering to your activity. If you are going to be active, don’t overdress. You should feel chilly when you first start your activity. A common trick is to layer up, then take off your parka to do physical activity, then put it back on when you are done with the activity. Some jackets have pit zips that you can open to shed excess heat. If you are going to sweat, plan it so that you end up indoors somewhere you can dry out. Don’t sweat and then plan to stand around or sleep outside.

    If you are going to be mostly standing around, you need big, bad-ass Baffin-style boots, which are heavy. If you’ll be moving around, you can use insulated hiking boots and wool socks. Bring extra underwear and socks because they get wet.

    Mitts and a touque are mandatory. Bring two sets because they get wet. Gloves are much less warm than mittens. You can layer that, too. A very thin synthetic glove inside of a mitten works when you need to take off your mitts to work on stuff. It is also worthwhile to get a thin, synthetic balaclava to help prevent wind burn and frost bite. Fingers, toes, and cheeks are the most susceptible to frost bite.

    Grow out your beard if you are a dude.

    In terms of less intuitive tips, as someone else said, if you start getting cold, expelling urine and faeces really does help. Also, stay hydrated. You get cold when you get dehydrated. You may not even feel thirsty, but cold air is dry air and you will get dehydrated quicker than you think in the cold. Especially if you are shoveling snow.

    Shoveling snow sucks, so people tend to rush. The key is to go slow, especially if you are older. You will build up heat rapidly if you are shoveling. Avoid sweating too much, unless you have somewhere warm to dry off. Even if you aren’t shoveling, manhandling a snowblower will make you sweat heavily, too.



  • Couple of things:

    1. Revolution sounds good until it actually happens, and then it sucks. It unleashes all the crazies and the outcome is uncertain. And it tanks the economy.
    2. If you look at exit polls, people told you why they voted for Trump. Rightly or wrongly, they don’t believe he is a fascist, or at least that the US system won’t allow him to indulge his fascist tendencies. Again, I don’t know if they are correct, but that’s what most people believe.
    3. The majority believe that the wokism and identity politics of the left is a greater threat to democracy than Trump.

    So, the answer to your question is that you won’t find much support IRL because most people don’t actually think they are supporting fascism. Time will tell if Trump is an actual fascist or just a blowhard. I wish we didn’t have to wonder, but there you have it.





  • According to NOAA, the ocean was originally not very salty but became saltier over time as rivers eroded the land and delivered the dissolved minerals to the ocean. At the same time, salts crystallize out of the water and are deposited on the ocean floor. This input and output are now more or less balanced so the ocean is not getting saltier. Apparently, this salt cycle involves about 4 billion tons of new dissolved salts being added to the ocean each year and about the same amount being deposited from the water to the ocean bottom.

    So, why aren’t rivers salty? Apparently, it is because rivers carry only a small amount of salt and are kept fresh by constant rainfall, whereas the ocean has been accumulating salt for the last 4 billion years.

    Lakes that don’t drain to the ocean, like the Dead Sea, can get salty over time, just like the ocean.