I do yoga multiple times a week, use a rowing machine twice a week, and walk/hike my dogs.

Yoga is the best especially if you are sitting all day. And it’s a nice “third space” where you see the same people every class and make weak links with them that aren’t at home or at work.

Where are the DOGE bros for this government waste?

I’ve had to rent out rooms and the basement of my home as a “landlord” and I lowered the rent on people in stead of raising it because they were giving me enough to cover part of my mortgage. It still felt shitty and exploitative to do. Especially if something broke and they had to wait to say, use the toilet.

I’d never want to do that again if possible. Also my “tenants” were not people or friends I knew beforehand. I just tried not to be a piece of shit about it.

When I see “real estate experts” gouging people to buy more real estate and bragging on social media about it - I do think they are, in fact, fucking parasites on people that do actually contribute to society. It doesn’t have to be this way. Housing should not be a commodity.

Doesn’t seem like even existing executives in agencies have any fucking backbone. The AFGE union that represents EPA employees is urging members to personally email the EPA Administrator, Michael Regan, to extend the union contract of career service employees to 2030. This would protect some worker rights under a collective bargaining agreement instead of allowing it to open back up for the Trump admin to gut. Career service employees are the ones doing inspections, developing cases, providing assistance to the public, doing research… The stuff that most people expect the EPA to do, even if they aren’t democrats. Despite what the hyperbolic mainstream and social media spaces report, even Republicans want clean air, water, and soil.

Regan has thus far refused even though he has absolutely nothing to lose since he is out by January anyway to be replaced with Lee Zeldin…I guess he thinks not doing anything to help agency employees at EPA will help his career and that’s his priority. Not actually helping the EPA succeed.

I feel like smartphones + internet peaked about 10 years ago and has now steadily become enshittified. I have never used “google assistant” because it takes less time to just type something in to my phone or tap the setup for my alarm.

So yes, definitely feel that way. Consumer tech had less bullshit masking as improvements ten years ago.

It’s pretty easy - show the effects and the cause and not a visualization of something that you can’t see. Like in the movie Dark Waters where they showed cows dying and birth defects, then the plant that produced PFAS nearby to tie it together.

That water pollution is neon green goo, air pollution is thick black smoke, or radioactive waste is only in drums.

Most of it is invisible and you don’t know about it until it’s too late.

Removed by mod

I work as an environmental engineer that does inspections of industrial, government, and military facilities. Every inspection I get to tour a different place and learn how it works and how things are made. I’ve gotten to see some amazing places like

-NASA rocket testing sites -shuttered nuclear weapons production processes, -the factory that makes all the flavoring for Dr pepper/potpourri/cherry/fake almond (it’s made starting with paint thinner, yikes) -refineries -military bases

It’s fascinating to both see how the world actually works, and how stuff is made, the benefits to society/vs costs to society and environment, and every place has its own site-specific culture. I find so many people take for granted how our whole society is so dependent on a few resources, industries, and expert people working together.

I get to use soft skills to interview people and figure out if they are being honest or hiding something, use my engineering and scientific skills to assess sites, and have a mix of inside/outside work.

My work also does some good - helping develop cases to bring to enforcement. My cases have resulted in changes that improve living conditions for people near these sites, the workers at them, or the environment.

Environmental engineering doesn’t pay as much as other disciplines like a senior software engineer or something. But it’s a good income and the work isn’t as subject to boom/bust cycles as other sectors because it’s driven by regulations more than profits.