dubyakay

It's different in Europe. When they say "rural", they mean any small town not adjacent to a city or other conurbation.

The density of small towns that have hundreds of years of history but are only 5-10km apart from the next 3-4 towns surrounding it are in a stark contrast to the 20-50km distances between North American towns. And rural farms are relatively rare. Farmers generally still live in the small town and then drive their tractor out to the fields.

To partake in society you have to accept societal contracts. One such contract is to not be a dick to others. If you don't vaccinate yourself against certain things, you are liable for spreading the disease. And thus you are being a dick. And thus you break the contract.

If you excuse yourself from society going forward though, I see no problem with your stance.

Is composting with human bodies Eco-friendly? Asking for a friend.

You sure it's not the Mennonites?

Except for the first day it hits in the fall I don't even wanna get out of bed. But then the first day it's that warm again in the spring, it's shorts and hoodie time again.

The right side of history.

It really is. Nürnberg, München and Starnberger See are lovely though. Possibly other places too. But there's simply too much old money trying to cling to the status quo and not let go.

Thing looks like a hybrid of a typewriter and a cash register.

As someone that has been living in Montreal for the past four years, which locale this article brings up numerous times, and biking about 350/365 days a year, I have to highlight a couple things to readers not from Montreal, or maybe even from the other side of the pond:

• Canada doesn't know what yield signs are. Stop signs are on every corner, which are mostly handled as if they were yield signs, but maybe not even that. And this applies to all traffic, not just cyclists.
• Canada also doesn't know what "right has the right of way" is. In some European countries if you come to an intersection without a light, a yield or stop sign, you simply give way to the vehicle approaching from the right.
• The individual boroughs have a lot of disconnect between each other on how traffic is handled. While they are trying to have a unified approach, there's a lot of Balkanization.
• Much of the infra is dated. A remainder of design from the 60s and 70s that had patchwork applied to make it more livable. Things like green wave, automated traffic control or elevated pedestrian crossings and bicycle lanes at intersections are unheard of. Most lights are just set to a fixed cycle and have been operating like the same way for years.
• Intersections, especially with new developments, will have very sharp corners with narrow sidewalk, with greatly reduced visibility.

So that said, I rarely ever see the NYC courier style red-light skips between columns of cars by cyclists. Whenever I see that happen, it's trashy people that seem to have little regard for anything, even their own lives.
I do see cyclists regularly doing Idaho stops at full stop intersections, but it's the same as cars. I think this is a traffic design issue and not an issue with driving culture or cyclists in general. Stop signs are simply a bad design, and this has been elaborated on many times.

I also see a lot of people ride on the e-bike bixi fleet recklessly. They provide far too much speed assist with minimal effort. The same goes with the electric motor bikes with a throttle that somehow pass as e-bike just because they also have the option for pedal assist. However this is not a problem with the vehicles themselves, but rather the lack of education and handling. In most western European nations children are taught how to bike in traffic and adhere to traffic rules at an early age. I can attest to this as I have grown up in Germany, and in grade 4 elementary we had to get our Fahrrad Führerschein, which was basically an attestation of having a course completed, for children.

Nice. Might try the freezing part. I've just been using a moka pot, nothing fancy.

Mixing sodium bicarbonate into water, even with just a teaspoon of acid like vinegar or lemon juice added, is still a good antacid.

It's not dumb in the sense that water that is not alkaline is not the same as water that is alkaline with some added acid.

In Eastern Europe the soft drink created by mixing sodium bicarbonate into water and then adding a tea spoon of lemon juice or vinegar to it was an oft used refreshment before the 80s.