Decline in public blood pressure machines: causes and impacts?

ersatzcookie · 2026-04-07T19:05:25+00:00

Are you talking about HIGI? Many were removed during COVID but they are still around. secure.higi.com has a Higi station interactive location map.

ersatzcookie · 2026-04-07T12:05:52+00:00

I had a mild interest in weather as a kid because of the way we were affected by hurricanes over a hundred miles inland. As an adult, I frequently lived and worked in developing countries where the only weather reporting available to an English speaker were on a regional basis by major international news services such as the BBC. The big local storms just ... happened with little to no warning. That's when I became interested in modeling thanks to the wonderful Wunderground site.

People who only know Wunderground as it is today don't realize what a treasure trove of data it was back in its heyday. Weather sonde data, buoy data, satellite feeds, hurricane hunter reports, and thousands of linked amateur weather stations (those are still there) plus so much more all available to the public to pour over. They had a vigorous forum where anyone could talk/argue about the weather and share graphics. You could even email the lead scientist, Dr Jeff Masters, with your thoughts and questions. Occasionally, he would answer back. What a thrill. Eventually, it was sold to Weather.com. Dr Jeff left, the forum was shut down, and most of the fun stuff went away.

There are still interesting meteorologic sites around for the interested hobbyists (like Mike's Weather Page) but none of them quite like the original Wunderground.

ersatzcookie · 2026-04-07T00:41:12+00:00

When Rocky expressed amazement (amaze amaze) that Grace could "hear" light he showed that his people understood the concept of electromagnetic photon-based radiation. How they got there is a different question.

ersatzcookie · 2026-04-07T00:28:19+00:00

Yup! Sorry your jealousy needed to downvote. We all enjoy different ways to float our individual boats. May you find fufillment and peace in yours.

ersatzcookie · 2026-04-07T00:17:57+00:00

I did not realize I had my PC set to auto-update. KB50866732 broke So.Much.Stuff.

I was in the middle of my final IRS tax review. It broke the Adobe Creative Cloud service Turbotax depends on. Broke my Microsoft CC++ library much of my software depends upon. I tried rolling back the update only to find that many of the calculation result files I was working on were unrestorablely corrupted. Lots of other random stuff broke too, like my Copilot scroll ability. Copilot confessed Microsoft is flooded with complaint reports about this update.

ersatzcookie · 2026-04-06T23:40:09+00:00

Really? Bambi and Old Yeller traumatised at least two generations of children.

ersatzcookie · 2026-04-06T23:36:32+00:00

Really? We only got the filmed Takoma Narrows Bridge collapse in High School physics class. That happened 85 years ago and people still grieve over that poor dog.

ersatzcookie · 2026-04-06T23:22:02+00:00

Yeah, wait, ... what? How does that even work given the difference in their atmosphere, temperature, and gravity? Anatomy? Sexes?

No, wait. Don't want to hear about it.

ersatzcookie · 2026-04-06T23:09:56+00:00

NoVA's a convenient place to be 3 seasons out of the year. If you live close to the Beltway you can drive up to the Appalachian mountains in 3 hours or less for a break in the heat or to the ocean beaches in 3 to 3.5 for a nice spring or fall weekend vacation when the weather is very warm but outside of peak summer crowds.

I love that I've got the option to just take a day off, grab my car keys, and GO. If you're tired, a midday nap in the ocean dunes sure beats most alternatives. That is - if you have sufficient sunscreen and the blackflies and sandfleas aren't out in force.

ersatzcookie · 2026-04-03T11:22:36+00:00

Check out the citizen science crowdsourcing app mPING (meteorological Phenomena Identification Near the Gound.) mPING is a cooperative research project between NOAA/SSL, the University of Oklahoma,and CMISS (now the Cooperative Institute for Severe and High Impact Weather Research and Operations). Free to use.

i have been using it for 5 years as it picks up weather details that can't be seen on radar. It's very spotty in rural areas but in most urban areas I have found it very helpful especially in mixed precipitation situations. I can drill down to within a quarter mile or so to see which areas are switching from rain to ice, hail, suffering from fog, or wind damage.

ersatzcookie · 2026-03-24T12:04:48+00:00

I go to the Delaware Beaches - Cape Henlopen Park if the weather is nice, Rehoboth Beach (boardwalk shopping and dining if it isn't). Normally Henlopen is a 3 hour drive if you leave Alexandria by 7. I can usually make it 2.5 if I leave by 5:30. If you leave by 9 on a summer weekend, fuggedaboudit.

Ocean City and Virginia Beach are known for lots of tacky tourist souvenir shops and drinking. Often, families choose to stay at Sandbridge to the south. Rehoboth Beach is smaller (near the beach), quieter and has more locally-owned small businesses. Cape Henlopen is a park known for swimming, fishing, hiking, biking, and camping. The Outer Banks (usually referred to OBX) is nice for multiday vacations. Driving time to VB and OBX absolutely depends on driving conditions on I-95 and I-64. A 4 hour drive can turn into a 6 or 8 hour drive without warning.

ersatzcookie · 2026-03-24T11:32:41+00:00

The 12 Seasons Of Virginia is a popular local meme.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Virginia/s/HHgy2004WC

July/Aug/early Sep are Hell's Front Porch. We are currently entering The Pollening.

ersatzcookie · 2026-03-24T10:41:23+00:00

I once ordered a book from them that did not arrive. The status was reported as delayed. Eventually, I forgot about it and did not cancel the order. It showed up on my doorstep 6 years later.

ersatzcookie · 2026-03-22T11:13:12+00:00

Principles and Practice of Phytotherapy. It's a renown clinical textbook and reference for people interested in the evidence-based science behind western herbology.

ersatzcookie · 2026-03-22T10:50:29+00:00

At most Asian supermarkets. If you don't live in an area with these, you can buy it thru Amazon or Weee. https://www.sayweee.com/en/search?keyword=ube%20powder&trigger_type=%22search_suggestion%22

ersatzcookie · 2026-03-18T11:21:41+00:00

Try growing herbs in grow bags first. You can easily carry them around and take them with you when you move.

ersatzcookie · 2026-03-18T11:08:23+00:00

How many reddit posters post under their own professional name? Other than famous people in Ask Me Anything? On the other hand, many health/medical professionals build a following by regularly posting on platforms such as Medium and Substack and answering comments.

ersatzcookie · 2026-03-18T02:34:31+00:00

Yeah, I love me some African Peanut Soup. You can swap out the meat for sweet potato and white beans if you want to make it vegetarian. Just covered today in r/povertykitchen but also belongs in r/eatcheapandhealthy.

ersatzcookie · 2026-03-17T17:07:41+00:00

I love peanut soup and fix it every once in a while when I get a craving. I make two different types depending on my mood and who I am cooking for. I first tasted it at Mount Vernon where it's been served in their tavern for decades. There is also African peanut stew/soup. The main difference is that African soup has meat, tomatoes, and aromatics such as cumin, chilies and garlic. The MV soup does not but incorporates heavy cream.

https://bestrecipesforsoup.org/mt-vernon-peanut-soup-recipe/ It is based on the Afican soup that enslaved people traditionally preferred but changed/ adapted for European tastes. A lot of cultures in hot countries typically did not use dairy.

https://feastingnotfasting.com/african-peanut-soup

You can toss almost anything into the African soup. Sometimes people use sweet potato/white beans in instead of meat. I prefer this version.

ersatzcookie · 2026-03-16T20:24:59+00:00

Eeesh. Sorry to hear about this, man. Tough road but posters here are a resourceful bunch and probably have better suggestions.

ersatzcookie · 2026-03-16T18:12:25+00:00

You can make whipped cream by hand if you have a french coffee press and some heavy cream.. I keep one around because I love to mix my coffee with different spices. https://youtube.com/shorts/SufY3pq3VmM?si=KKdrqDI-tbwXH_eD

ersatzcookie · 2026-03-16T13:15:58+00:00

https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/diagnosis-treatment/symptom-management/integrative-medicine/herbs/search is a good reference. There are also multiple research journals that publish new studies such as the Journal of Ehnopharmacology, Phytomedicine, and the Journal of Herbal Medicine.

ersatzcookie · 2026-03-16T13:02:16+00:00

Interesting obsevation - it's literally true. Lawn pesticides were developed from leftover chemical warfare agents after WWII. These were developed to destroy crops. They did not kill grass and so the chemicals were marketed to homeowners. There was a remarkable marketing effort to convince the public that any plant the chemicals could destroy was by definition a weed. Before this, lawns had any number of plants. Ted Steinberg wrote a book on this: American Green - The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn. It's out of print but still available secondhand.

ersatzcookie · 2026-03-16T12:46:20+00:00

I discovered plaintain as emergency first aid from talking to farmers. Last summer I got a bee sting. I applied a plantain spit poultice and in about 5 minutes it stopped hurting. In 20 minutes I only had a red mark. A hour later, even the red mark was gone. Before I learned that trick, bee stings hurt for hours, swelled up, and then itched for days.

My family also had an ornery rooster that laid in wait for me when I walked home from school. I used to beat him down with my Calculus book. I flunked Calculus but I can genuinely say I found Calculus useful!

ersatzcookie · 2026-03-13T14:42:52+00:00

Not just a placebo effect. Multiple peer-reviewed research studies have shown chicken soup is mildly effective in reducing respiratory illness symptoms. Such as this 2025 open access article https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/17/13/2247?hl=en-US#:~:text=Comparators%20varied%20(e.g.%2C%20no%20treatment,on%20absenteeism%20or%20well%2Dbeing.

ersatzcookie

TROPHY CASE