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gezinus · 8 months
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LIVE Formule 1 | Max Verstappen en Sergio Pérez hebben geen haast aan begin middagtraining
Alsof de dominantie van Max Verstappen nog niet groot genoeg is na zes opeenvolgende overwinningen, introduceert Red Bull Racing dit weekend ook nog de nodige updates om de auto nóg sneller te maken. Rijdt de wereldkampioen in deze tweede vrije training meer rondjes dan eerder op de dag? Vanaf 17.00 uur mis je hier geen moment! Bron: Tubantia:home https://www.tubantia.nl/sport/live-formule-1-max-verstappen-en-sergio-perez-hebben-geen-haast-aan-begin-middagtraining~ab4fe9db/
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gezinus · 9 months
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Navigating Shipping and Handling Burdens for US Sales Tax Compliance
As an active part of the supply chain, you're well aware of the importance of sales tax compliance. However, when it comes to shipping and handling fees, navigating the complex landscape of US sales tax requirements can be burdensome. Let’s explore the challenges associated with shipping and handling fees for US sales tax compliance in order to address them effectively.
Understanding Sales Tax on Shipping and Handling Fees:
One of the key considerations in sales tax compliance is the treatment of shipping and handling fees. Different states in the US have varying rules regarding the taxability of these charges. In some states, shipping and handling fees are considered part of the taxable sales price, while in others, they may be exempt from sales tax altogether. As a result, businesses operating in multiple states must carefully evaluate and apply the correct tax rules for each jurisdiction.
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The crucial step of determining the correct sales tax amount on shipping and handling fees requires accurately identifying the tax rates applicable to the destination of the shipment. With constantly changing rates and complex sourcing rules, manual calculations can be time-consuming and prone to errors. Exemptions for shipping and handling fees can vary from state to state. It's essential to keep track of the specific exemptions and apply them correctly during the sales tax calculation process. Failure to do so may result in overcharging customers or non-compliance with state tax laws.
Logistics teams need to manage a range of process-related fees, tasks, and rules. Common examples include:
Bron: Microsoft Dynamics News https://msdynamicsworld.com/story/navigating-shipping-and-handling-burdens-us-sales-tax-compliance
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gezinus · 9 months
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Onze Vrouw tript op paddo's: 'Ik strompel naar de eetzaal. Onderweg ... - Humo The Wild Site
Onze Vrouw tript op paddo's: 'Ik strompel naar de eetzaal. Onderweg ...  Humo The Wild Site Bron: "psyche en brein" - Google Nieuws https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMioAFodHRwczovL3d3dy5odW1vLmJlL25pZXV3cy9vbnplLXZyb3V3LXRyaXB0LW9wLXBhZGRvLXMtaWstc3Ryb21wZWwtbmFhci1kZS1lZXR6YWFsLW9uZGVyd2VnLXppZS1pay1kZS1rbGV1cnBhdHJvbmVuLXZhbi1kZS10ZWdlbHMtdWl0LWRlLW11dXItc3ByaW5nZW5-YjAxNmI0NTAv0gEA?oc=5
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gezinus · 10 months
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How Bitcoin Can Preserve The Life Savings Of Refugees
This is an opinion editorial by Josef Tětek, a Bitcoin analyst at Trezor.
Suppose you lead an ordinary family life in an undisclosed country. Suddenly, a crisis hits. This could be the rise of an autocratic regime, a democide or an armed conflict. Whatever the circumstances, you will most likely have two pressing problems on your mind. First and foremost, you need to get everyone to safety, preferably abroad. Second, you need to preserve as much of your savings as possible to set up your life elsewhere. Since a safe escape from a disaster-stricken country depends heavily on individual circumstances, this article will focus on a savings preservation strategy that is globally applicable.
Preserving Your Savings The Traditional Way
Protecting the value of one’s savings while fleeing a country has never been easy. Those fortunate enough to have had any wealth before a crisis strikes may find it difficult to save it when there is a sudden need to leave the country.
Real Estate
So, you own your house, and chances are that you have benefited greatly from the easy money policies of the past decade as it has grown a lot in value over the years. You may be moderately well off on paper, but how easy is it to actually turn your house into money in a short time frame? The market demand might be heavily impacted by the very crisis that is forcing you to flee — for example in a case of foreign invasion, the demand for houses in the affected region will come to a halt, while the number of homeowners looking to sell will skyrocket. So, unless you foresaw a crisis looming ahead and sold before others, chances are you won’t be able to extract much of your home’s value when you need it the most.
Savings In The Bank
But let’s say you had good foresight and sold your house in time. Now you have a lot of money in the bank. Again, if the crisis affects the entire country, chances are you won't be able to withdraw or move your money fast enough. There are many examples in history where a "bank holiday" was announced and depositors were denied their money when they needed it the most. One of the more recent examples comes from Lebanon, where banks simply shut their doors and ATMs to prevent clients from withdrawing their money in the midst of an ongoing economic crisis. If you think you can protect yourself against a national currency’s devaluation by owning a dollar account, you better think twice: In Lebanon, the dollar accounts were forcefully converted to a Lebanese pound that had lost 97% of its value against the dollar since 2019. In fact, bank accounts may not be safe anywhere, as banks around the world operate in fractional-reserve mode, making them vulnerable to runs and subsequent collapses. Recent collapses of a trio of U.S. banks — Silvergate Bank, Signature Bank and Silicon Valley Bank — have proven this vulnerability.
However, it's worth noting that there is usually a several days’ delay between an emerging crisis and a full-blown bank holiday. If you suspect that banks might prohibit you from accessing your money soon, you can use this window of opportunity to withdraw your money in the form of cash or quickly convert it into bitcoin while it's still possible.
Cash
Let’s say you withdrew all of your money and kept it in cash. Hopefully, it’s in dollars or euros, as otherwise it might be hard to find a use for your local currency abroad, especially if the crisis that forced you to leave impacts the exchange rate, as it often does — the Ukrainian hryvnia has devalued by 25% since the start of the Russian invasion.
Traveling with large amounts of dollars or euros also involves risks, though. The first of those is a risk of theft, either by common criminals or corrupt border patrols. The second risk is that, if you’re traveling with cash worth more than $10,000 or the equivalent in euros, you need to declare them when crossing the borders of many countries, including the U.S. Failure to declare can result in the confiscation of the full amount.
Did you know that the U.S. customs guards confiscate more than $200,000 from travelers on average every day? And if you do in fact declare that you’re traveling with large amounts of cash, you never know where that information might end up — sensitive data that is collected can also leak. For example, in 2020, there was a major leak of detailed personal data, including the property records of 200 million Americans. Criminals can use this data for targeted attacks.
Cash is also getting gradually useless in the western world. In the euro area, cash usage fell from accounting for 72% of all point-of-sale transactions in 2019 to 59% in 2022, and this trend is encouraged by governments that impose strict cash limits. So, even if you make it abroad with your savings in the form of cash, you’ll likely need to set up a bank account fast, which might not be a straightforward or easy task for a new migrant.
Gold
Gold used to be the most popular way to transfer value intact in the past, given that it has a worldwide demand and can be sold at relatively little discount (assuming investment-grade coins or bars are being used). Gold is also quite dense in value, as the price of 1 kilogram of gold is around $60,000 at the time of this writing. Otherwise, it faces the same risks as cash as it can be easily stolen along the way. Moreover, gold isn’t accepted as a means of payment and isn’t divisible, so you’d need to exchange your full coins or bars into the local currency after you arrive in your destination country.
Stocks And Bonds
Stocks and bonds are great fair-weather instruments, but they might become as useless as bank accounts when things get hairy. Local stocks and bonds will likely be worthless abroad and their value might be impacted by the given crisis. International financial instruments (e.g., U.S.-based exchange-traded funds) would fare better, though such instruments aren’t available in most parts of the world. And even if they are available to you, access to these instruments may be affected by newly-imposed sanctions.
Does Bitcoin Fix This?
You might have noticed that all of the usual instruments for wealth preservation have common traits in the form of limited transferability and/or value tied to a specific location or jurisdiction. Physical instruments such as cash and gold always carry a risk of loss or theft along the way, while intangible instruments such as real estate, bank accounts and stocks are, for the most part, valuable only locally.
Bitcoin indeed fixes this.
First, bitcoin is intangible and is therefore very easy to transfer. You can either send bitcoin to anyone globally within minutes, or you can remember the recovery seed and literally carry the bitcoin in your head (though that carries its specific risks as well, as we’ll cover below). Compared to other intangible assets, such as bank or brokerage accounts, there is no counterparty risk — you never need to worry about your money becoming inaccessible due to bank holidays, institutional failures or newly-imposed sanctions.
Second, bitcoin is a global asset, and as such, its value isn’t linked to any specific jurisdiction. A good example of this fact is the 2021 bitcoin mining ban in China, which seemed like a big deal at the time, since most bitcoin mining operations were located in China. Nevertheless, bitcoin miners simply moved elsewhere, and there was virtually no impact on the price (on the contrary, bitcoin reached new highs several months after the ban). Bitcoin is a global asset, but unlike gold, it can be bought or sold in all kinds of ways — on regulated exchanges, on decentralized exchanges, in ATMs, or from person to person; and the chances are, you will face a minimum spread on your exchanges.
Bitcoin’s intangibility, zero reliance on third parties and global liquidity makes it a perfect candidate for savings preservation in critical situations.
So, what are the specific methods for using bitcoin when fleeing a country?
Traveling With Bitcoin Safely
The main concern when traveling with bitcoin is to eliminate a single point of failure. If you just write down your recovery seed and put it in your back pocket, you undertake a great risk, as anyone who sees, takes or photographs your recovery seed has the ability to steal all your bitcoin. To travel safely with bitcoin, you need to minimize the possibility of loss or theft. Below are some tips on how to tackle this problem.
Bitcoin In Your Mind
To keep access to your bitcoin, the only thing you need to do is remember your recovery seed i.e., an ordered list of English words that is either 12- or 24-words long. Remembering 12 words is obviously easier than remembering 24 words, so it’s advisable to go for that option (e.g., by generating your seed on a Trezor Model T, which supports this format). Use a memory-enhancement technique such as the memory palace. If you’re traveling with your family, have all the family members remember the same recovery seed; that way, if someone forgets some of the words, you’ll still be able to reconstruct the full seed.
After you memorize your seed, try recovering your bitcoin in an offline wallet, preferably a hardware device (on Trezor devices, you can perform a dry run recovery that doesn’t wipe the device). Once you’re certain you have your recovery seed firmly embedded in your memory, wipe the wallet. If you want to carry your hardware wallet with you on your travels, make sure it is wiped, so that if you lose it or someone takes it away from you, there will be no possibility of its misuse.
On arrival, recover your bitcoin again in the wallet of your choice (make sure you type in your seed in an offline environment though!).
Don’t rely on your memory for longer periods. Traveling in an adversarial environment is the only situation when relying on your memory might be a good idea, but aim to minimize the time span in which you store your recovery seed in your head. For long-term storage, always write your seed down, or better yet, stamp or engrave it into steel (there are many products for this on the market; before you make a purchase, I recommend checking out Jameson Lopp’s stress tests).
Relying On Your Web Of Trust
Another way to transfer your wealth via bitcoin is to simply send it as a bitcoin transaction to someone you trust. The person doesn’t even have to be in the country you aim to travel to; the important thing is that they will be able to keep your bitcoin safe during your travels, and send it back to you when you’re able to set up your new wallet in a safe environment. The most important factor here is trust. This may be off-putting to some (after all, we all know the mantra of “don’t trust, verify”), but the fact is that for some people this may be the way to go if they don’t want to rely on their memory and are certain that the person on the other side would never betray them. The person you’re sending your bitcoin to needs to be proficient in bitcoin, and ideally should own a well backed-up hardware wallet — after all, you don’t want them to hold your life savings on their mobile phones, right?
If you want to increase the security of this process, you can do so via a multisig wallet. Let’s say you set up a two-out-of-three multisig wallet and transfer your bitcoin into such a wallet. Now you can send one of the keys to Person A, the second one to Person B and carry the third one with you. Person A and Person B shouldn’t know about each other, so that there is no way to steal the bitcoin that is stored in this way. And if you lose your key during your travels, you will still be able to recover your bitcoin using the keys of Person A and Person B. You can set up your multisig wallet using Electrum, Sparrow or Nunchuk. To distribute the keys, make sure to use a secure, encrypted communicator such as Signal messenger (do not use Telegram, as it isn’t encrypted by default!).
Alternatively, you can utilize a Shamir backup, a cryptographically-sound method for splitting your recovery seed into multiple shares (use time-tested wallets such as the Trezor Model T to do this safely). Let’s say you do a two-out-of-three Shamir backup — the next steps are the same as we described above with multisigs. It’s advisable to reinforce the security of your Shamir backup by setting up a passphrase on top of it.
Plausible Deniability
Ideally, there should be no indication that you are a Bitcoiner. That means carrying no hardware wallets, having no Bitcoin stickers on your laptop or phone, not carrying any Bitcoin books and deleting any Bitcoin/cryptocurrency apps from your phone. Do not talk about bitcoin with strangers or the border guards. If someone asks a seemingly-innocent question about bitcoin or cryptocurrencies, act ignorant or just say that you think it’s a scam. Simply said, you should look and act as a “normie.”
Do Not Rely On Exchanges
Some readers might be tempted to use their bitcoin exchange account — after all, you can log into it from anywhere in the world, right? I personally strongly advise against relying on exchanges with any portion of your savings. Aside from frequent exchange failures (just in the last twelve months, we saw the collapses of FTX, Celsius and BlockFi, and a freeze on Gemini Earn users), the exchange may block your funds, for example, because of sanctions or logging in from an IP address in a "wrong" country. In short, if you hold your bitcoin on an exchange, you don't really own it.
Not Just A Theory Anymore
Bitcoin is already used as a means of preserving one's savings in times of crisis. In recent years, we have seen success stories of this kind from countries as diverse as Afghanistan, Venezuela and Ukraine. Due to its global liquidity and direct controllability, bitcoin is proving to be a valuable tool in critical situations. The more knowledgeable you are about the safe transfer of bitcoin, the better prepared you'll be in the event of such a situation arising.
This is a guest post by Josef Tětek. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
Bron: Bitcoin Magazine - Bitcoin News, Articles and Expert Insights https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/how-bitcoin-can-preserve-refugees-savings
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gezinus · 11 months
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Review: Dreame L10S Ultra, nooit meer stofzuigen
Ooit was er maar één merk robotstofzuigers die je als serieuze gebruiker in huis wilde halen: iRobot Roomba. De markt leek grotendeels uitgespeeld. Maar als je kijkt hoe snel de ontwikkelingen bij de Chinese merken zijn gaan, dan is wel duidelijk dat iRobot de boot heeft gemist. Er zijn opeens heel veel merken robotstofzuigers die in rap tempo updates en nieuwe uitvoeringen krijgen en die met één apparaat kunnen stofzuigen en dweilen. De nieuwste modellen kunnen automatisch hun stofzak legen. Nadat we de afgelopen jaren verschillende modellen van de Roborock hadden getest, kwam nu de Dreame op ons pad. Dit merk heeft een sneeuwwitte stofzuiger die goedkoper is dan het topmodel Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra en er (wat ons betreft) beter uit ziet. Hij neemt vrijwel alle vloerschoonmaak uit handen: stofzuigen, dweilen, de stofbak legen, water bijvullen en de dweilen reinigen en drogen met hete lucht. De Dreame L10S Ultra is fors van formaat, waardoor je misschien nog twijfelt. In deze review vertellen we hoe de test is verlopen.
Tekst, review en foto’s: Gonny van der Zwaag (@gonny). De test is uitgevoerd in maart/april 2023 en beschrijft de situatie op dat moment. De stofzuiger is voor deze test beschikbaar gesteld door de fabrikant.
Dreame L10S Ultra in het kort
Slimme stofzuiger die ook kan dweilen
Te bedienen met Dreame- of Xiaomi/Mi Home-app
Geen HomeKit (dit kan ook niet, want stofzuigers zijn nog geen HomeKit-productcategorie)
Afmetingen stofzuiger: 350 x 350 x 97 mm
Gewicht: 3,7 kg voor de stofzuiger en 8,9 kg voor het basisstation
Afmetingen basisstation: 423 x 340 x 568 mm
Inhoud stoftank en stofzak: resp. 350 ml en 3 liter
Inhoud waterreservoir in stofzuiger: 80 ml
Inhoud schoon-watertank in basisstation: 2,5 liter
Inhoud vuil-watertank in basisstation: 2,4 liter
Batterijcapaciteit: 5.200 mAh
Gebruiksduur: 210 minuten (in Quiet Mode)
Geluidsvolume: maximaal 59 decibel in Standard Mode
Alleen verkrijgbaar in wit, met zilverkleurig frontje
Prijs: rond de 1000 euro bij Amazon, Otto en Bol.com
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Wat maakt de Dreame L10S Ultra bijzonder?
De stofzuiger is voorzien van een basisstation die bijna alle taken automatiseert. Het apparaat kan de stof automatisch legen in een stofzak, maar hij vult ook de watertank bij, wast de dweil na het schoonmaken en zorgt ervoor dat ze ook nog worden gedroogd. Een ergernis bij de Roborock-stofzuigers is dat de dweiltjes na verloop van tijd erg vuil worden. Inmiddels hebben we een stuk of 20 dweiltjes liggen, die alleen met veel moeite weer wat schoon te krijgen zijn. Bij de Dreame heb je daar geen omkijken meer naar, belooft de fabrikant.
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Er zijn wel meer robotstofzuigers die al het werk uit handen kunnen nemen, zoals de Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra en S8 Pro Ultra. Maar die hebben lelijke losse bakken bovenop, terwijl alles bij de Dreame mooi is weggewerkt achter een klep. Aan de binnenkant van die klep is een quickstart-guide gedrukt. Handig!
Wat de Dreame L10S verder nog uniek maakt zijn de twee ronde dweilen die relatief langharig zijn. Ze draaien met een snelheid van 180 rpm rond en worden daarbij omlaag geduwd, waardoor ze beter schoonmaken dan een stilstaande kortharige dweil die er alleen maar overheen glijdt. De stofzuiger tilt de dweil op als hij over een tapijt rijdt. En is hij klaar, dan kan hij de dweil met hete lucht drogen, met een maximaal instelbare tijd van 2 uur. Dit gebeurt zonder storende geluiden.
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Wat is Dreame?
De Dreame L10S Ultra is het nieuwe topmodel van het merk Dreame. Als het uiterlijk erg aan Xiaomi doet denken, dan is dat niet toevallig. Dreame is één van de fabrikanten die stofzuigers voor Xiaomi produceert, samen met Roborock, Viomi en anderen. Xiaomi maakt dan ook zelf geen robotstofzuigers, maar laat ze door partners maken. De verzuchting: “Het komt allemaal uit dezelfde fabriek” is in dit geval niet zo vergezocht want de Dreame L10S Ultra lijkt sterk op de Xiaomi Robot Vacuum X10+. Bij Chinese fabrikanten is het vrij gebruikelijk dat de relatie tussen de verschillende merken soms wat onduidelijk is. Feit is wel, dat Xiaomi vaak de centrale spin in het web is met meerdere dochterbedrijven en partners die met investeringsgeld van Xiaomi zijn opgezet. Het goede nieuws is, dat al die merken rondom Xiaomi vaak producten van goede kwaliteit leveren en dat is ook bij Dreame het geval. Het ziet er strak uit en het geeft een kwalitatief goede indruk. “Chinees” is niet meer synoniem met goedkoop aanvoelend plastic dat voor een habbekrats geproduceerd is en met een onleesbare handleiding wordt geleverd. Er wordt steeds meer aandacht besteed aan goed design en producten die gemakkelijk te bedienen zijn.
Realiseer je wel dat je met Chinese bedrijven te maken hebt, die weliswaar aan de Europese privacywetten moeten voldoen, maar waarbij sommige mensen toch twijfel zullen houden of de Chinese overheid meekijkt. Zeker bij een apparaat met camera kan dat gevoelig liggen.
Uiterlijk en design Dreame L10S Ultra
Op het moment dat de Dreame werd bezorgd (bij de buren notabene) was al duidelijk: dit is geen compacte stofzuiger. De verpakking is gigantisch en loodzwaar; we zagen er tegen op om ‘m naar de vierde verdieping te moeten dragen. Maar gelukkig is alles verdeeld over drie losse dozen, die heel wat handzamer zijn. Deze drie dozen bevatten het basisstation, de stofzuiger en een accessoirepakket, met onder andere een extra stofzak, schoonmaakmiddel, handleiding en meer. Gezien de prijs had ik graag ook nog wat reserveonderdelen erbij gezien, zoals extra dweilen en een extra borstel. Ik heb namelijk geen idee waar je die kunt kopen als ze versleten zijn. Vaak kun je wel op AliExpress of Amazon terecht, maar omdat de modellen elkaar snel opvolgen is het maar even afwachten hoe lang je onderdelen kunt blijven kopen.
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Dit is de eerste volledig witte robotstofzuiger die we in huis halen en aangezien wit niet echt slank afkleedt waren we bang dat hij erg zou opvallen in huis. Heb je een interieur met veel wit (bijvoorbeeld witte muren), dan valt het uiteindelijk wel mee. We konden de Dreame verstoppen achter een plantentafeltje, waardoor hij nauwelijks opvalt als je op de bank zit. De robotstofzuiger geeft de uitstraling dat dit een wat duurder product is. Je hoeft ‘m niet te verstoppen, maar ik zou ook niet zo snel een dergelijk stofzuigstation prominent in de woonkamer te zetten.
Het design sluit aan op andere robotstofzuigers: een ronde schijf met aan de voorkant een reeks camera’s, in dit geval een LiDAR-scanner en een RGB-camera. Aan de onderkant vind je een volledig rubberen borstel, een roterende zijborstel en twee grote roterende schijven die met zacht materiaal zijn bekleed. Als ze droog zijn worden ze gebruikt om vuil naar het midden te vegen en als ze nat zijn doen ze dienst als dweil. Ze zijn met magneten vastgemaakt en gemakkelijk te verwijderen.
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Het basisstation is wit met een geborsteld zilverkleurig frontje. Binnenin vind je de twee grote watertanks van elk ongeveer 2,5 liter, een tank met schoonmaakmiddel en een stofzak van 3 liter. Deze hoef je maar eens in de zoveel tijd bij te vullen of te legen. In de heldere tank doe je schoon water, terwijl in de donkergrijze tank het vuile water terechtkomt. Je moet elke week de watertanks legen en bijvullen, maar voor de rest hoef je maar een paar keer per jaar onderhoud aan je stofzuiger te plegen. Alles werkt automatisch. Wel zul je na verloop van tijd een nieuwe stofzak, schoonmaakmiddel en borstels moeten kopen; dit zijn bijkomende kosten waar je alvast rekening mee moet houden. Ik denk in zo’n geval altijd: een schoonmaker inhuren is duurder.
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Aansluiten en in gebruik nemen met Dreame-app
Omdat robotstofzuigers nog niet geschikt zijn voor HomeKit, zul je de app van de fabrikant moeten gebruiken om de stofzuiger te koppelen en in te stellen. Uiteraard kun je ook de knoppen op de robotstofzuiger zelf gebruiken om te starten en te stoppen, maar dan gebruik je maar een fractie van de mogelijkheden. Dreame laat je kiezen uit de Dreame-app of de Xiaomi Home-app. Wij kozen voor Xiaomi, omdat we dit prettiger vinden en omdat we daarin al bestaande automatiseringen hebben, die we gemakkelijker met elkaar konden koppelen. De Xiaomi-app bevat ook stofzuigers van Roborock, Viomi en andere Xiaomi-gerelateerde merken en biedt veel meer mogelijkheden dan de Dreame-app, die zeer beperkt is.
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Het toevoegen van de stofzuiger is heel gemakkelijk, maar je moet er wel even de tijd voor nemen. Je moet een reeks vragen beantwoorden, bijvoorbeeld of je een huisdier hebt en welke kamers je wilt toewijzen. Met Fast Mapping krijg je een snelle eerste kaart van je woning, waarmee je alvast de kamers kunt indelen. Bij latere schoonmaakbeurten wordt deze kaart steeds verder verfijnd.
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Je kunt ook meubels in een 3D-weergave van je huis plaatsen en aangeven op welke plekken de stofzuiger niet mag komen. Zo hebben wij ons hoogpolige vloerkleed geblokkeerd. Voor de entree en de keuken zou je extra grondig schoonmaken kunnen selecteren. De L10S Ultra kan ook zelf tapijten herkennen en trekt dan de dweilen omhoog. Dit werkt overigens alleen goed als het tapijt niet té hoogpolig is. Mocht je de stofzuiger niet goed hebben ingesteld, dan kun je later nog eens rustig door de app bladeren en alle mogelijkheden ontdekken. Het zijn er nogal wat. Zo kun je voorkomen dat de stofzuiger te hard tegen plinten en meubels botst, je kunt kiezen hoe nat de dweil moet zijn en uiteraard kun je ook de zuigkracht wijzigen. Voor de hal kun je bijvoorbeeld aangeven dat er tweemaal gezogen en gedweild moet worden met meer water, omdat er vaak viezigheid van schoenen aanwezig is.
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Dreame L10S Ultra in gebruik
Ben je klaar met instellen, dan kan het schoonmaken beginnen. Het starten van de stofzuiger kun je doen met Siri, Alexa of de Google Assistent, dus de Dreame is van alle markten thuis. De LiDAR-sensor zorgt ervoor dat de stofzuiger zich zelfs in het donker goed kan oriënteren. En met de RGB-camera met beeldherkenning kan de stofzuiger kleine obstakels herkennen (en ze vervolgens vermijden). Ook platte objecten worden daarbij herkend, zoals een deurmat. Hoe vaker je de stofzuiger gebruikt, hoe beter hij leert om bepaalde objecten te omzeilen. In onze eethoek hebben we stoelen met sledepoten (een metalen buizenframe). De Dreame liep niet vast op de poten zelf, maar kwam wel een paar terecht binnen het metalen frame en had vervolgens moeite om weer uit zijn benarde positie weg te komen. Dergelijke plekken waar de stofzuiger in kan vastlopen kun je daarom maar beter als no-go zone markeren.
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Komt de Dreame een tapijt of deurmat tegen, dan stopt hij automatisch met dweilen. Je hoeft daar in het programmering geen rekening mee te houden. Omdat de schijven ronddraaien maken ze beter schoon dan de gewone stilstaande dweilen. Na een paar dagen was de vuilwaterbak behoorlijk gevuld met troebel water. Deze moet je eenmaal per twee weken leeggooien, waarbij je de andere bak weer vult met schoon water. De Dreame dweilt de vloer met gewoon water en gebruikt de cartridge met schoonmaakmiddel om de dweilen na afloop te reinigen. Zo’n cartridge met schoonmaakmiddel gaat een paar weken mee. Zelf navullen met je eigen schoonmaakmiddel wordt niet aangeraden, maar is wel mogelijk als je wat kosten wil besparen.
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De ronde dweilen hoef je dus niet schoon te maken, omdat de Dreame dat zelf al doet. Toch kan het geen kwaad om af en toe de badstofachtige dweilen eens in de wasmachine te gooien. Wat de volgorde betreft: die kiest de Dreame zelf en houdt daarbij rekening met de tijd die nodig is om de vloer te laten opdrogen. Wil je liever een andere volgorde, dan kun je dat instellen, want de klant is koning. Via de ingebouwde camera kun je meekijken op vloerniveau, om bijvoorbeeld te kijken of je je tas thuis hebt laten liggen en of je huisdier nog wel happy is. Via de ingebouwde speaker kun je je huisdier gek maken door iets te roepen. Dit werkt alleen als de stofzuiger niet aan het schoonmaken is. Tijdens het schoonmaken gebruikt de stofzuiger de camera om obstakels te herkennen. Ligt er iets in de weg, dan maakt hij een foto van het object, zodat je volgende keer actie kunt ondernemen. Heb je aangegeven dat je huisdieren hebt, dan zal de stofzuiger extra opletten voor poep om te voorkomen dat het een smeerboel wordt.
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Al met al hebben we een positieve indruk gekregen van deze stofzuiger. Hij maakt goed schoon dankzij de hoge zuigkracht en de rubberen borstel is gemakkelijker schoon te maken dan de harige borstels die je in de meeste andere stofzuigers vindt. De roterende dweilen die omlaag worden gedrukt op de vloer en tussendoor worden gereinigd, zorgden voor een beter resultaat dan een stofzuiger die de hele week een vuile dweil gebruikt. Over de gebruiksduur zijn we ook tevreden: hij kan in stille modus tot 210 minuten stofzuigen en dat is meer dan genoeg voor onze woonverdieping van ongeveer 60m2. Bij dagelijks dweilen van een groot huis van 100m2 moet je de watertanks tweemaal per week leeggooien en vullen. In ons geval bleek eenmaal per week voldoende, omdat dagelijks stofzuigen en dweilen niet nodig is en het oppervlak kleiner is.
Dweilen op meer verdiepingen: een uitdaging
Omdat we twee verdiepingen hebben, zul je de stofzuiger nog wel handmatig naar de andere verdieping moeten tillen en na het schoonmaken weer terugbrengen naar het basisstation. Maar dat is een kleine moeite, gezien het feit dat hij voor de rest zelf alles doet. Dweilen is wel iets lastiger als je meerdere verdiepingen hebt. Omdat de Dreame tijdens het dweilen steeds terug wil naar het basisstation om de dweilen te reinigen en het 80 ml waterreservoir bij te vullen, kun je het basisstation het beste neerzetten op de verdieping waar het meest gedweild moet worden.
Op de andere verdieping is helaas een workaround nodig, zo ontdekte ik op Reddit. Je moet het dweilen dan in meerdere etappes doen. In de app kies je de andere verdieping, terwijl de stofzuiger nog op het basisstation staat. Zodra de stofzuiger wegrijdt om te gaan dweilen pauzeer je ‘m handmatig en draag je het apparaat naar de gewenste verdieping. Daar wordt een tijdlang gedweild, totdat de Dreame het tijd vindt om de dweilen te reinigen. Hij pauzeert dan vanzelf en je brengt de Dreame terug naar het basisstation. Helaas kan de Dreame op deze manier niet onthouden waar hij is gebleven, dus je zult steeds handmatig een volgende kamer moeten kiezen voor je dweilklus. Het klinkt wat omslachtig en eh… dat is het ook. Wil je toch volledig automatisch op twee verdiepingen dweilen, dan kun je beter de Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra of een soortgelijk model nemen, want die reinigt de dweilen niet tussendoor en vraagt ook niet steeds om het basisstation.
Voordelen +
Goede prijs/kwaliteitverhouding
Regelt bijna alles zelf
Trekt automatisch de dweilen op bij tapijt
Extreem veel instellingen via de app
Via de camera kun je rondkijken in je eigen huis om te zien of huisdieren nog OK zijn
Reinigt de dweilen meermaals tijdens een schoonmaakronde
Automatisch drogen van de dweilen is uniek en voorkomt schimmel en geurtjes
Nadelen -
Doorlopende kosten voor stofzakken en vervangende borstels
Geen reserveonderdelen meegeleverd
Een fors apparaat en alleen verkrijgbaar in wit
Komt soms in benarde positie terecht en kan dan niet meer ontsnappen
Dweilen is bij meerdere verdiepingen een uitdaging
Dreame app biedt minder functies dan de Mi Home-app (die je ook kunt gebruiken)
Conclusie Dreame L10S Ultra review
Robotstofzuigers zijn zo populair geworden dat Chinese techmerken zich er massaal op zijn gaan storten. Met de komst van afzuigstations konden ze nog meer werk uit handen nemen en nu het schoonmaken en drogen van de dweilen en het bijvullen van water ook automatisch gaat, hoef je je maar een paar keer per jaar druk te maken over het schoonmaken van de vloer en de rest regelt het apparaat voor je. De Dreame L10S Ultra is wat dat betreft erg goed bevallen. Technisch gezien doet hij alles goed en ook qua instellingsmogelijkheden hebben we niets te klagen. Dit is een van de meest complete robotstofzuigers die je kunt kopen, met twee draaiende dweilen die zichzelf kunnen reinigen, geavanceerde navigatie en omzeilen van obstakels. De Dreame is een aanrader als je veel harde vloeren hebt die gedweild moeten worden. Heb je vooral tapijt, dan is de aankoop wat minder logisch omdat je dan ook een simpeler model met afzuigstation zou kunnen nemen zoals de Dreame W10 of de Dreame Z10 Pro van rond de 500-700 euro.
Het vastlopen op vlakke tafelpoten en deurmatten gebeurt een stuk minder dan bij de iRobot en Roborock, die we in dezelfde ruimte hebben getest. Hieruit blijkt het nut van de AI-functies, waardoor de stofzuiger objecten kan herkennen. Wel kwam de Dreame soms eens in benarde posities, maar je krijgt een foto van het obstakel en kunt vervolgens aangeven dat deze plek vermeden moet worden.
De prijs is aan de hoge kant, maar als je kijkt naar de vele functies en het afwerkingsniveau dan krijg je toch een goede prijs/kwaliteitverhouding. Dit is de meest complete robotstofzuiger die momenteel op de markt is en met €1.000 is hij een paar honderd euro goedkoper dan zijn tegenhanger, de RoboRock S8 Pro Ultra met losse bakken van €1.500 die binnenkort verkrijgbaar is.
Dreame kopen
Deze stofzuiger is verkrijgbaar bij diverse winkels:
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gezinus · 1 year
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Finding Wholeness Through Our Broken Places (Excerpt): Tara Brach, Jack Kornfield, and Gabor Maté
You can watch all our videos at https://scienceandnonduality.com In this excerpt from a conversation from the “Talks on Trauma” series Gabor Maté investigates the paths of personal trauma woven into the Buddhist and personal psychology fields for which Jack Kornfeld and Tara Brach are so well known. Find out more about this series “Talks on Trauma” as part of the “All Access Pass” from the film The Wisdom of Trauma: https://thewisdomoftrauma.com/store/ _____________________________________________________ Tara Brach is an American psychologist, author, and proponent of Buddhist meditation. She is a guiding teacher and founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, D.C. (IMCW). Brach also teaches about Buddhist meditation at centers for meditation and yoga in the United States and Europe, including Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California; the Kripalu Center, and the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies. Brach is an Engaged Buddhist, specializing in the application of Buddhist teachings and mindfulness meditation to emotional healing. She has authored several books on these subjects, including Radical Acceptance, True Refuge, and Radical Compassion. https://www.tarabrach.com/ _____________________________________________________ Jack Kornfield trained as a Buddhist monk in the monasteries of Thailand, India and Burma. He has taught meditation internationally since 1974 and is one of the key teachers to introduce Buddhist mindfulness practice to the West. After graduating from Dartmouth College in Asian Studies in 1967 he joined the Peace Corps and worked on tropical medicine teams in the Mekong River valley. He met and studied as a monk under the Buddhist master Ven. Ajahn Chah, as well as the Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw of Burma. Returning to the United States, Jack co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, with fellow meditation teachers Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein and the Spirit Rock Center in Woodacre, California. Over the years, Jack has taught in centers and universities worldwide, led International Buddhist Teacher meetings, and worked with many of the great teachers of our time. He holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and is a father, husband and activist. His books have been translated into 20 languages and sold more than a million copies. They include, A Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology, A Path with Heart; After the Ecstasy, the Laundry; Teachings of the Buddha; Seeking the Heart of Wisdom; Living Dharma; A Still Forest Pool; Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart; Buddha’s Little Instruction Book; The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness and Peace, Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are, and his most recent book, No Time Like the Present: Finding Freedom, Love, and Joy Right Where You Are. https://jackkornfield.com/ _____________________________________________________ Gabor Maté Rather than offering quick-fix solutions to these complex issues, Dr. Maté weaves together scientific research, case histories, and his own insights and experience to present a broad perspective that enlightens and empowers people to promote their own healing and that of those around them. After 20 years of family practice and palliative care experience, Dr. Maté worked for over a decade in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side with patients challenged by drug addiction and mental illness. The bestselling author of four books published in over thirty languages, Gabor is an internationally renowned speaker highly sought after for his expertise on addiction, trauma, childhood development, and the relationship of stress and illness. His book on addiction received the Hubert Evans Prize for literary non-fiction. For his groundbreaking medical work and writing he has been awarded the Order of Canada, his country’s highest civilian distinction, and the Civic Merit Award from his hometown, Vancouver. His books include In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction; When the Body Says No; The Cost of Hidden Stress; Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder; and (with Dr. Gordon Neufeld) Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers. His next book, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness & Healing in a Toxic Culture is due out on September 13, 2022. His second next book, Hello Again: A Fresh Start for Parents and Their Adult Children is expected in 2023. Gabor is also co-developer of a therapeutic approach, Compassionate Inquiry, now studied by hundreds of therapists, physicians, counselors, and others internationally. More on his books and programs can be found here. _____________________________________________________ Science and Nonduality is a community inspired by timeless wisdom, informed by cutting-edge science, and grounded in direct experience. We come together in an open-hearted exploration while celebrating our humanity. Bron: Science and Nonduality https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz66rBFB0Yk
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gezinus · 1 year
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You can now live on a cruise ship for $30k per year
Editor’s Note: Sign up for Unlocking the World, CNN Travel’s weekly newsletter. Get news about destinations opening, inspiration for future adventures, plus the latest in aviation, food and drink, where to stay and other travel developments.
CNN  — 
Have you ever dreamed of giving it all up, leaving it all behind and hitting the road to escape all your responsibilities?
It sounds good, doesn’t it? But it also sounds expensive. Or at least, it did sound expensive until now – because now a cruise company is launching a three-year, 130,000-mile, escape-your-daily-life cruise for a relatively affordable $30,000 per person per year.
Life at Sea Cruises has opened bookings for its three-year voyage on the MV Gemini, which sets sail from Istanbul on November 1.
Yes, November 1, 2023 – so you have eight months to get your passport, vaccinations and remote working abilities in order.
The company is promising to tick off 375 ports around the world, visiting 135 countries and all seven continents. The ship will cover more than 130,000 miles over the three years, taking in iconic sights from Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer statue and India’s Taj Mahal, to Mexico’s Chichen Itza, the pyramids of Giza, Machu Picchu and the Great Wall of China. It even slots in trips to 103 “tropical islands.” Of those 375 ports, 208 will be overnight stops, giving you extra time in the destination.
The company is a spin-off of Miray Cruises, which currently has the MV Gemini cruising around Turkey and Greece. The company has a 30-year history in the cruise industry. The MV Gemini will be overhauled for the voyage.
It has 400 cabins, with room for up to 1,074 passengers.
And because of the nature of the voyage, as well as traditional cruise ship amenities, restaurants and entertainment, the Gemini will also be kitted out with remote working facilities. The company promises a full-scale business center complete with meeting rooms, 14 offices, a business library and a lounge, presumably for your mid-shift coffee breaks. Access is free.
There will also be a round-the-clock hospital with free medical visits. The company also floats the possibility of “additional tax benefits when working as an international resident aboard the ship.”
“Professionals need connectivity, the right amenities and the functionality to perform their jobs,” Mikael Petterson, Life at Sea Cruises’s managing director, said in a statement. “There is no other cruise that offers this sort of flexibility to their customers.”
Cabins run the gamut from 13 square feet “Virtual Inside” staterooms – which start at $29,999 per person per year, coming out at $179,994 for the three-year trip for two people – to Balcony Suites, which are double the size and go up to $109,999 per person. The cheapest outdoor cabin costs $36,999 per person.
Passengers must sign up for all three years, though the company is launching a matchmaking scheme, where passengers will be allowed to “share” a cabin with someone else, dipping in and out of the itinerary. For instance, two couples could buy one cabin for the entire trip, and then divide up the travel between them.
Single travelers get a discount of 15% on the double occupancy rate. A minimum down payment of $45,000 is required.
Beyond the business center, there’ll be plenty to keep you busy: a sundeck and swimming pool, wellness center, auditorium and “multiple dining options,” though the full details have yet to be revealed. Onboard instructors will be on hand to teach dance and music, and there will even be singles mixers for those traveling alone. Want to shape up first? There’ll be a gym and salon onboard too.
Highlights include Christmas in Brazil and New Year in Argentina. The ship will loop all the way around South America (hopping south to Antarctica), island-hop around the Caribbean and take in both coasts of Central America, then go up the west coast of North America, crossing over to Hawaii.
Stops in Asia include Japan (12 stops), South Korea (including Jeju island) and China. It also takes in most of the classic Southeast Asia destinations, from Bali, Da Nang in Vietnam and the Cambodian coast to Bangkok, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.
It’ll loop Australia, New Zealand and island-hop through the South Pacific; journey round India and Sri Lanka; then visit the Maldives and Seychelles before crossing west to Africa, hitting the continent at Zanzibar and then looping down to Cape Town and up the west coast of Africa – with quick dips west to islands including St. Helena, the Canaries and Madeira.
It also sails round the Mediterranean and Northern Europe.
Just one word of warning: You’d need not just a cruise ship but a time machine to visit some of the stops listed on its “13 wonders of the world” list, which includes places like the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus and the statue of Zeus at Olympia – all of which were destroyed in antiquity.
However, the cruise also includes free high-speed Wi-Fi, which should make up for any disappointment. Cruisers will also be able to have family and friends on board to visit, for free. The long list of what’s included in the trip also includes alcohol at dinner plus soft drinks, juice, tea and coffee all day, laundry, port fees and housekeeping. All meals are also included.
Bron: Hacker News https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/3-year-cruise-mv-gemini/index.html
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gezinus · 1 year
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Een campinglamp die muggen verjaagt
Een campinglamp die muggen verjaagt
De tijd dat de muggen ons gaan lastigvallen is gelukkig nog even ver weg. Maar komende zomer gaan we ongetwijfeld weer voor de bijl. Dan zwermen de muggen weer om ons heen. Die komen overigens niet op het licht af, maar op de kooldioxide die wij uitademen.
Het enige middeltje wat helpt, is een insectenspray met DEET. Alleen zijn de betere sprays best wel kostbaar en het is ook niet fijn om je steeds in te moeten smeren. De nieuwe combinatie van campinglamp en muggenverjager die Thermacell introduceert, is misschien wel dé oplossing voor kampeerders.
Muggenvrije zone van 20 meter
Er zijn twee plekken waar wij het meeste last van muggen hebben: in bed en aan tafel. In bed bieden horren en klamboe vaak een behoorlijk afdoende oplossing. Maar aan de campingtafel is het toch wat lastiger om muggen op afstand te houden. Daar kan de Thermacell EL55 uitkomst brengen. Deze weert muggen en brengt tegelijkertijd licht op tafel. Die EL 55 is de opvolger van de E55, een bekende en veelgeprezen elektrische muggenverjager. Die E55 had geen ingebouwde lamp maar dat heeft de EL55 dus wel. Die ongeveer 12 centimeter hoge lamp heeft een lichtopbrengst die je in kunt stellen van 50 tot 200 lumen, wat voldoende moet zijn om een maaltijd bij te nuttigen of gezellig een spelletje te doen. En om dat extra gezellig te houden, geeft de EL55 net als de E55 ook continu een muggenwerend middel af. Dit is niet merkbaar, er is dus geen rook, vervelende lucht of citronellageur. Met dit effectieve middel kun je rond de EL55 een ‘muggenvrije zone’ van maximaal 20 meter creëren.
Prijs en verkrijgbaarheid
Je kunt de lamp en verjager overigens apart inschakelen. De batterijduur is volgens Thermacell 9 uur, wat bijna dubbel zo lang is als die van de eerdere E55. Als je de verjager tegelijkertijd met het licht aan laat werken, daalt de batterijduur tot 5,5 uur. Dan hoef je niet meteen naar de winkel voor nieuwe batterijen want de EL55 is oplaadbaar via een USB-kabeltje. Het muggenwerende middel is verkrijgbaar in cartridges voor 36 uur. De EL55 kost ongeveer 50 à 55 euro, de cartridges met muggenwerend middel kosten ongeveer 20 euro per stuk. Thermacell levert bij de EL55 overigens een gratis ‘startcartridge’ voor 12 uur. De EL55 is nu al te bestellen bij Thermacell. Alleen levert dit bedrijf alleen naar klanten in de Verenigde Staten. Er is helaas geen Nederlandse distributeur dus het is nog even wachten tot de Duitse verdeler ook de EL55 op Amazon.de aanbiedt.
Bron: KampeerZaken.nl – Alles over kamperen: caravans, campers, vouwwagens, tenttrailers, tenten en kampeerartikelen – Nieuw & tweedehands https://www.kampeerzaken.nl/een-campinglamp-die-muggen-verjaagt/
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gezinus · 1 year
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Mastering the Art of Letting Go
By Leo Babauta
One of the keys to living a life of calm and purpose is the art of letting go.
If you’d like a more peaceful life, it’s powerful to look at what disturbs that peace, and practice letting go of whatever you’re holding onto that’s causing you anxiety and frustration.
If you’d like a life of purposeful focus, it’s powerful to examine what is standing in the way of that … and let go of whatever is blocking you.
Letting go can seem quite simple, but it isn’t necessarily easy. We have attachments that we cling to quite tightly, and letting go of them is often something we don’t want to do.
In this article, I’ll share the deeper part of the practice of letting go. Then I’ll talk about how you might practice.
The Heart of Letting Go
When we are clinging to something that’s causing us to resist purposeful action, or to have our calm disrupted … what’s causing that?
The cause is some kind of idea, concept, or narrative we have in our minds. Let’s look at some examples:
We often think it’s something outside of us — that person over there did something that upsets me, frustrates me, annoys me.  But the other person isn’t the real cause — they’re just doing something. The real cause is that we have idea that they shouldn’t be the way they are.
Sometimes we think we’re the problem — we shouldn’t be so lazy, or undisciplined, or something like that. We blame ourselves, feel bad about ourselves, then try not to think about it. But what if the cause of our feeling bad is that we think we shouldn’t be the way we are?
If we’re resisting doing something, we might think that the problem is with the task/activity we’re resisting … or with ourselves for not being strong enough. But what if the cause of resistance is that we think the activity should feel some other way than it does?
You can see in these examples that I’m pointing to an idea that things should be different than they are. People will resist this … because they want things to be different than they are. They want change. And that’s understandable, we want to change what we don’t like. But what if we accepted what things are like, and then created change from a different place — from wanting to create, to play, to love, to explore?
How to Let Go of Conceptions
All of this stems from having an idea of how things should be that’s different than how they are. To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with this idea — but it is just an idea. And to the extent that it’s causing difficulties, we can see how it would be helpful to let it go.
Imagine that you’re frustrated with or feeling bad about yourself, someone else, or a situation you’re facing.  Imagine that this frustration or feeling bad stems from an idea that things should be different than they are.
Now imagine letting go of that idea. You’re just left with the experience of this moment, just as it is.
Notice how freeing that can be. It’s not about letting someone “off the hook,” or letting go of accountability or commitment to change. It’s about freeing ourselves from the attachment to an idea that’s causing some kind of suffering (frustration, resistance, feeling bad).
We’re freeing ourselves, by letting go of the idea we’re holding onto.
The key realization is that the idea is just an idea. It’s not that it’s wrong or bad, but it’s a mental conception, rather than reality. We can use mental conceptions when they’re helpful, but let go of them if they’re not.
Our idea of other people, of ourselves, of any situation … is simply a mental conception. What if we could free ourselves in any moment by realizing that there’s a mental conception that we’ve created that we don’t need right now?
It can simply evaporate, if we let it. Our conception of how things should be can become cloudlike, looser, more open.
Try it right now: whatever you think you should be, whatever you think someone else is, is just a conception you’ve created. Can you let it go in this moment, and see what you’re left with?
How to Practice
OK, so how do we practice with all of this?
First, notice when there’s a difficulty: frustration, resistance, feeling bad about yourself, annoyance, anxiety. If you notice this, it gives you access to being able to practice with it.
Second, without needing to judge how you’re feeling, could you simply be with it? For example, if you’re feeling frustration, could you just let yourself feel the frustration as a physical experience in your body (as opposed to getting caught up in the narrative of frustration)? Give yourself compassion if you can. But there is nothing wrong with feeling what you’re feeling. Often it’s useful to simply let ourselves feel the emotion, rather than trying to fix it.
Third, if you’d like to free yourself, you can let go of the mental conception that’s causing the difficulty. It’s usually an idea of how you think things should be. What if you could just let it evaporate, and let yourself be free? Play around with it.
Fourth, you might just experience the moment free of conception. Just pure experience. Is there something in this moment you can be curious about? Be grateful for? Can you feel the wonder of this moment?
Fifth, once you’re free, you can take action if any is needed. For example, you can take on the task that you’re resisting, once you’re free of the idea that the task should feel different. Or you can have a conversation with someone, once you’ve let go of your frustration with them. Being free doesn’t mean we don’t take action — we just do so from a different place.
Would you like to take on this freeing practice?
The post Mastering the Art of Letting Go appeared first on zen habits.
Bron: zen habits https://zenhabits.net/mastering-letting-go/
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gezinus · 1 year
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Dynamics Business Central / NAV Development Developer Digest – Vol. 413
ArcherPoint’s Developer Digest focuses on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and Dynamics NAV development. In Developer Digest Volume 413, you’ll read about copying a production environment using PowerShell, creating an Approval Workflow to one defined user, and setting up emails in Business Central (five different options).
The Dynamics NAV and Business Central community, including the ArcherPoint technical staff, is made up of developers, project managers, and consultants who are constantly communicating, with the common goal of sharing helpful information with one another to help customers be more successful.
As they run into issues and questions, find the answers, and make new discoveries, they post them on blogs, forums, social media…for everyone’s benefit. We in Marketing watch these interactions and never cease to be amazed by the creativity, dedication, and brainpower we’re so fortunate to have in this community—so we thought, wouldn’t it be great to share the wealth of information with everyone who might not have the time to check out the multitude of resources out there?
Thus, the ArcherPoint Microsoft Dynamics NAV/BC Developer Digest was born. Each week, we present a collection of thoughts and findings from NAV/BC experts and devotees around the world. We hope these insights will benefit you, too.
Copying a Production Environment using PowerShell
Silviu Virlan of Business Central Musings offers a PowerShell script that copies a Business Central Production environment into a Sandbox and removes the sandbox that was created the day before. The post reveals the telemetry in the script, how to install the AD Azure PowerShell module, and setting up an authentication via service-to-service AAD Apps.  
How to Create an Approval Workflow from “One” of the Defined Approvers
The Dynamics Explorer’s Gavin Whittaker created a workflow that would send an approval to multiple users but only one of the approvers needed to approve the request for fulfillment. Whittaker reveals how he achieved the solution through the Workflow User Group and all the modifications needed in this configuration. In Step 5, Whitaker notes an unforeseen challenge in accomplishing this task. 
Five Ways to Send an Email in Business Central
Alberto Soben of Business Central Geek delivers a BC tutorial on five different ways to set up an email in Business Central, including email with attachments, a preview window, optimization, and more. Plus, Soben show how to check email status. Soben also reveals a new Business Central feature, called Email Scenario, and discusses Instream and Outstream for sending attachments.
Critical Security Update for Dynamics 365 Business Central Released
Mohana shares this critical update released by Microsoft for Business Central on premises. Get your customers updated!
Developer Tip of the Day: VSC and SQL
Kyle shares another interesting developer tip: “Too many acronyms, I know…
You can install the MSSQL Extension in Visual Studio Code and use VSC to write TSQL queries against a database. Then you don’t have to install SQL Server Management Studio.”
Interested in Dynamics NAV and/or Business Central development? Be sure to see our collection of NAV/BC Development Blogs.
Read “How To” blogs from ArcherPoint for practical advice on using Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Dynamics 365 Business Central.
The post Dynamics Business Central / NAV Development Developer Digest – Vol. 413 appeared first on ArcherPoint.
Bron: ArcherPoint https://archerpoint.com/dynamics-business-central-nav-development-developer-digest-vol-413/
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gezinus · 1 year
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5 Ways To Send An Email In Business Central
Sending emails is a basic functionality every company uses in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. In this article, you will learn 5 ways to send an email along with some improvements to open the sending possibilities. Also, you will learn how to check if emails were sent or not.
Source : Business Central Geek Read more…
Gerelateerde artikelen:
Dynamics 365 Business Central Email and Email Message Basics
Sending Email from Wave 2 2020
Business Central Send Email with Multi Attachments
Bron: Pardaan.com http://www.pardaan.com/2022/12/13/2-171/
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gezinus · 1 year
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The Mathematics of Consciousness: Donald Hoffman
You can watch all our videos at https://scienceandnonduality.com Donald Hoffman describes his mathematical theory that ties in with consciousness touching into neuroscience, computer science, perception, and how we construct reality. Donald David Hoffman (born December 29, 1955) is an American cognitive psychologist and popular science author. He is a professor in the Department of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine, with joint appointments in the Department of Philosophy, the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, and the School of Computer Science. Science and Nonduality is a community inspired by timeless wisdom, informed by cutting-edge science, and grounded in direct experience. We come together in an open-hearted exploration while celebrating our humanity. Bron: Science and Nonduality https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzNdQ-JKzUM
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gezinus · 1 year
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Veelzijdige Sportcaravan Cube 2 moet de “de transformer onder de minicaravans” worden
Veelzijdige Sportcaravan Cube 2 moet de “de transformer onder de minicaravans” worden
Liefhebbers van motorrijden zijn vaak op zoek naar manieren om hun motorfiets mee op vakantie te nemen. Wie met de camper op vakantie gaat, kan er een speciale aanhanger voor kopen. Maar achter de caravan kun je niet nog een aanhanger koppelen.
Daarom zijn er de zogenaamde ‘transportcaravans’, waarin je kunt kamperen en ook de motorfiets(en) mee kunt nemen. Het Duitse bedrijf Sportcaravan, met twee van dit soort transportcaravans een specialist op dit gebied, introduceert nu ook een veel kleiner model.
Veel kleiner
Sportcaravan, gevestigd tussen Mannheim en Karlsruhe, heeft al de Cube 4 en Cube 5 transportcaravans in het programma. Deze zijn met een opbouwlengte van ongeveer 4,5 en 5,5 meter vrij groot. De nieuwe Cube 2 is aanzienlijk kleiner. De opbouwlengte bedraagt slechts iets meer dan 2,5 meter. Met een maximaal toelaatbare massa van 750 kilo kun je hem met nagenoeg iedere auto trekken.
Transport of wonen
Qua ruimteaanbod is het natuurlijk wel even improviseren. Waar de Cube 4 en Cube 5 aparte ruimtes voor de motorfietsen en het wonen hebben, worden deze in de Cube 2 gecombineerd. Dat kan gezien de geringe afmetingen natuurlijk ook niet anders. Sterker nog, in de Cube 2 moet je kiezen: gebruik je hem om te kamperen, of gaat de motorfiets mee.
Als je twee motorfietsen (of scooters) meeneemt, is er nagenoeg geen ruimte meer voor meubilair. Dan resten alleen de vast gemonteerde bovenkastjes aan de voorzijde. Als je er slechts één meeneemt, kun je langs een van de zijden nog wel het nodige aan meubilair plaatsen. Dit meubilair is altijd modulair opgebouwd en kan zonder gereedschap worden verplaatst en ge(de)monteerd. Je kunt dus kiezen wat je wel en niet meeneemt.
Eventueel kun je ook al het meubilair demonteren. Op die manier kun je de Cube 2 in een handomdraai omtoveren van een vrijetijds- en kampeeraanhanger tot een transportaanhanger, met slechts enkele eenvoudige handelingen en zonder gereedschap. Zoals de leverancier zelf ook al zegt: “Its not a Wohnwagen” en omschrijft hem ook als “de transformer onder de minicaravans”.
Zitten, slapen en koken
De Cube 2 biedt plaats aan twee motoren en beschikt ook over alle nodige uitrusting om te koken en te slapen. Er is een compact keukenblokje met kookplaat en koelkast, evenals een verwarming. Je kunt in de Cube 2 met 4 personen zitten en met 2 personen slapen. Eventuele extra slaapplaatsen kun je realiseren door een daktent op de dakdrager te plaatsen. Met de nodige handigheid zou je naast de motorfiets ook het nodige meubilair in de Cube 2 kunnen plaatsen en dan in een daktent slapen. Uiteraard leent de Cube 2 zich ook uitstekend om in plaats van tweewielers kano’s of surfboards mee te nemen. Mochten ze vanwege de lengte niet in de Cube 2 passen, dan kun je ze ook gewoon op de dakdrager of de beugels aan de zijkant meenemen.
Op onderstaande video wordt het een en ander over de Cube 2 uitgelegd. Dit betreft nog een prototype, de kans bestaat dat de bouwer nog de nodige wijzigingen doorvoert. Uiteraard kunnen er ook de nodige zaken naar wens van de koper worden aangepast.
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Bron: KampeerZaken.nl – Alles over kamperen: caravans, campers, vouwwagens, tenttrailers, tenten en kampeerartikelen – Nieuw & tweedehands https://www.kampeerzaken.nl/veelzijdige-sportcaravan-cube-2-moet-de-de-transformer-onder-de-minicaravans-worden/
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gezinus · 1 year
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Timelapse of the Future: A Journey to the End of Time [video]
Comments Bron: Hacker News https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD4izuDMUQA
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gezinus · 1 year
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Tesla toont werkende mensachtige robot: 'Gaat minder dan 20.000 euro kosten'
De robot bewoog zich tijdens de presentatie in een langzaam tempo. Volgens Musk was het voor het eerst dat de Optimus-robot rondliep zonder dat hij aan een kabel zat. De versie die wel met een kabel verbonden is, is volgens Musk al verder doorontwikkeld. "Maar we wilden je de robot laten zien die eigenlijk heel dicht in de buurt komt van wat er in productie gaat", zei Musk. "Er is nog veel werk aan de winkel om Optimus te verfijnen."
Op een video liet Tesla zien hoe de robot een pakketje kan bezorgen, planten water kan geven en een metalen staaf kan oppakken. De nieuwe versie van de robot moet binnenkort zelfstandig kunnen lopen. De robot, die 73 kilo weegt, zou een hele dag kunnen doorwerken op één acculading.
Het doel is dat de humanoid repetitieve en tijdrovende taken van mensen kan overnemen, bijvoorbeeld in fabrieken. Wanneer de robot op de markt komt, is nog niet bekend.
Objecten vastpakken
“De robot gaat alles doen wat een menselijk brein doet, zoals het verwerken van wat hij ziet, het nemen van beslissingen in een fractie van een seconde op basis van sensoren en communicatie", vertelde Tesla-engineer Lizzie Miskovetz. De robot heeft vingers en een duim en moet zo veel objecten kunnen vastpakken op een vergelijkbare manier als mensen doen. "De vingers zijn geoptimaliseerd voor precisie, voor het grijpen van kleine, dunne en delicate voorwerpen", aldus Miskovetz.
"We beginnen met iets dat bruikbaar is, maar nog niet nuttig genoeg. Er ligt nog een lange weg voor ons,” zei Tesla-topman Milan Kovac. "Ik ben er vrij zeker van dat we dit binnen de komende maanden of jaren voor elkaar kunnen krijgen. Als we dit product werkelijkheid maken kunnen we de hele economie veranderen."
'Een toekomst zonder armoede'
Musk, die meermaals heeft gewezen op de gevaren van kunstmatige intelligentie, denkt dat de massale uitrol van dit soort robots de 'menselijke beschaving kan veranderen' en dat ze bijdragen aan 'een toekomst van overvloed, een toekomst zonder armoede'.
Hij zei het belangrijk te vinden dat de aandeelhouders van Tesla kritisch blijven over wat het bedrijf doet. Musk: "Als ik gek word, kun je me ontslaan. Dat is belangrijk."
Bron: RTL Nieuws https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/tech/artikel/5336820/tesla-toont-werkende-versie-mensachtige-robot
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gezinus · 2 years
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America’s most remarkable kid died in Newcastle, Utah
In the heart of flyover country, surrounded by dusty roads never driven by the power brokers of America, a small group of mourners sits on folding chairs in a town hall that has seen better days. 
They are here to remember a 14-year-old boy.  
The men wear jeans and white T-shirts — in solidarity with the boy whose own wardrobe included little more than that. Some of the women are in church dresses and others in jeans. There’s a smattering of cowboy hats and ball caps, boots and flip-flops. They recite The Lord’s Prayer in unison. They murmur soft assent when reminded of the boy their community has lost. They smile as a video shows highlights of his short life, accompanied by the strains of Bobby McFerrin — “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” 
Outside, the sky over Escalante Valley, Utah, is blinding blue and cloudless, promising no rain as it has for nearly a year. There are two Escalantes in southern Utah — the spectacular color country of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and this one in Iron County, equidistant from St. George and Cedar City. Here, dust blows across fields lying fallow. Single-wide trailers dot the landscape looking as if the trucks that towed them there ran out of gas before they found a final resting place for someone’s home. Surrounded by low hills and mountains in the distance, this Escalante — the other Escalante — sits on an aquifer that is draining, and farms that are running out of water. 
If anyone was going to save this world, it was Kevin Cooper.
But on a hot day last June, at nearby Newcastle Reservoir, Kevin drowned in a kayaking accident at a friend’s birthday party. At 14, he had just published his autobiography. He was making plans to expand his 350-acre farm to buy up surrounding farms to convert to regenerative agriculture. He was saving money to build a house for his parents and another for his autistic older brother. He was polishing a movie script and a series of children’s books teaching business literacy for kids. He was looking for a celebrity to endorse his line of luxury toiletries made from the milk of his goat herd. He was breeding heritage turkeys. He was writing guest essays for notable bloggers higher up the political food chain. And, in his spare time, he had the task of grading the road to his farm using the John Deere tractor he bought new for himself for his 11th birthday.
All of this is true. 
Also true is that Kevin was the only member of his small family who was not disabled. His parents, Billy, a disabled veteran, and Tina, who is partially blind, are just beginning to fathom what their future will be like without the boy who had that future in his hands. They never wanted to rely on him, but there is no getting around the fact that Kevin had big dreams for the whole family and for rural America, and a list of accomplishments behind him that most adults don’t pull off in a lifetime. 
Billy and Tina Cooper, parents of Kevin Cooper, hold hands at their home in Beryl, Utah, on July 15, 2022.
Before his death, Kevin encountered social media followers who were skeptical about his story. And his parents understand. “Honestly, if I hadn’t lived through it, I’d probably feel the same way,” says his father Billy.  
Kevin, who went by “Cole Summers” online, took on the doubters with a video on his Twitter account. He gazes into the camera with the desert landscape of his ranch behind him and speaks with the tone of someone who is inconvenienced by having to state the obvious: “I really am a 14-year-old home-schooler. I’ve been studying business since I was 6. … I am who I say I am.”
His Twitter account caught the attention of journalist and blogger Bari Weiss who had made headlines when she quit her job as opinion editor at The New York Times in 2020, saying the vaunted newspaper had drifted into a politically correct orthodoxy that ignored the real lives of real people. Weiss started a blog, “Common Sense,” that featured her own opinions and guest writers. In April, Weiss saw “Cole Summers’” Twitter video, “I am who I say I am,” and was “completely floored” by his online story. She asked him to write a column for “Common Sense.”
Kevin fired off the essay under the name Cole Summers, explaining his background, his passion for “unschooling,” his plans for regenerative agriculture and his faith in young people. “It isn’t that my generation isn’t capable,” he wrote. “We just need the freedom, encouragement and empowerment to show what we can do.”
The essay was in Weiss’ inbox when she got a private Twitter message from Billy. Cole Summers was really Kevin Cooper, and he had died. Weiss published “Cole’s” essay on June 21, 10 days after his death, and wrote of him, “In his short life, Cole managed to cultivate two qualities that are rare, even among most adults. He was at home in the real, physical world and he took great pleasure in it. And, he was completely unafraid to try.”
“His parents are just beginning to fathom what their future will be like without the boy who had that future in his hands.”
Another who discovered “Cole Summers” on Twitter was Hannah Frankman of the Foundation for Economic Education, a nonprofit foundation focusing on teaching young people principles of entrepreneurship and economics, and promoting home-schooling. Frankman, too, was working on a story about Kevin as an unschooling success story when he died. Frankman read Kevin’s memoir in one sitting and called it, “the most compelling story of home-schooling possibility I had ever read.” 
I went to Iron County to document this remarkable American story — a story that burned bright like the sunsets in Beryl, Utah, until suddenly it dipped beneath the horizon and slipped into a memory.
A tire swing hangs from a tree in the yard of Kevin Cooper’s family in Beryl, Utah, on July 15, 2022.
In the little community of Beryl, at the heart of the Escalante Valley, most folks didn’t know about Kevin Cooper until he died. He didn’t want fame or excess riches, only the means to help those around him. And he didn’t want attention drawn to himself or his reclusive family. He insisted that his family give up their smartphones when he learned how easy it was to track their data. 
Living under the radar is one of the things that draws people to towns like Beryl. Folks are expected to mind their own business. Which is not to say neighbors don’t help one another, but many don’t ask. The Coopers don’t talk about extended family. By Billy’s account, he was injured in a training accident when he first joined the Navy at age 18. He has undergone numerous surgeries and battled the Veterans Administration bureaucracy in the 30 years since then, but he doesn’t want to talk about that either. On good days he can navigate around his home with a walker. On bad days he is in a wheelchair that doesn’t fit through the doors of his home. 
Other than that, he figures the details of his life are nobody’s business. 
Billy is proud of never taking any money from his more successful son. Just a hint of embarrassment creeps in when he describes how the family was often so poor that Kevin was the one who provided all the Christmas gifts. Kevin loved doing that, often starting in the fall working on homemade gifts for everyone. 
Kevin was 4 and the family was living in the Salt Lake area when Billy and Tina launched a search for a new place to live. Their parameters were simple; it had to be the cheapest single-family home in Utah, preferably with some land. That led them to a bank foreclosure sale of a double-wide trailer off the beaten path in Beryl, with a rundown barn and five acres for a garden and animals. It was Kevin who would begin the transformation of that modest landing place into a model for the future of rural America.
When asked how they raised a boy like Kevin, Tina responds quickly, “We didn’t.” Both parents agree that at times Kevin raised them and his brother, and at times they were all growing up together. A friend once remarked, “You guys aren’t even raising him; you’re just kind of the audience watching him raise himself.”
A young Kevin Cooper is pictured in a family photo.
At 3 and still in diapers, Kevin was “helping” to change tires on the family truck. Billy had loosened the lug nuts and then handed the wrench to Kevin. As he pulled off each lug nut, he tossed it aside. Tina and Billy took a picture of the toddler at work and said nothing, letting the scattered lug nuts teach the lesson themselves. Kevin had to scramble to find them after they rolled in various directions. He never again changed a tire without meticulously stacking the lug nuts where they could easily be retrieved. In his autobiography entitled “Don’t Tell Me I Can’t,” (by “Cole Summers”) Kevin called this his first “me do it,” moment.  He was 4 the first time he helped take apart a truck engine and rebuild it. 
“You guys aren’t even raising him; you’re just kind of the audience watching him raise himself.”
When Billy had setbacks from multiple surgeries, it was Kevin who helped wait on him, acquiring a lifelong habit of bringing drinks to anyone who looked thirsty. Tina does that now for visitors in the summer heat, as she is reminded of the countless little things about Kevin that are gone. Billy explains, “Most people can’t wrap their heads around how much of our lives revolved around him. I do not diminish anyone’s experience with losing a kid, but there is no time that we don’t expect to see him somewhere. … We started letting him kind of take over running the family when he was 10.”  
As Kevin watched his parents struggle with their financial and physical challenges, he slipped easily into the role of caregiver. “He was completely and totally aware that he was the only one in the family who could live independently,” Billy said.
And as long as Kevin wasn’t doing things that endangered himself or risked the meager family finances, his parents figured they could follow his lead. “There was a limit to how far the consequences of poor choices could be, so we just started letting him make a lot of our day-to-day decisions,” Billy said. Eventually their standard became, “What do we do today to help support or assist you with what your goals are?” Billy was physically limited, but he became Kevin’s research assistant, often pre-reading a book for Kevin to determine if it was worth the boy’s valuable time.  
There was one paramount family rule: If Kevin asked, “Why?” his parents would never say, “Because I told you so.” They always tried to help him figure out the “why” of things, even when his mind outpaced theirs. Although Kevin hated the word, “prodigy,” his parents realized they had someone special on their hands. 
For Tina that happened early, “when I believed I was no longer smarter than him.” Billy adds, “When he was 10 years old and buying a house, you know you’re not raising the most average kid.” In a crowd of adults and children, Kevin would place himself where he could listen to older folks. “Kevin treasured trying to learn from men in their 90s,” says Billy. He thought learning from his own experience was nonsense. “It takes too long and you screw up too much,” Kevin would say. “I want to figure out what everybody else already learned and get a good head start.” After a Cub Scout trip to a senior care center, he came home and complained to Tina, “All we did is stand there and sing. I didn’t even get to interact with anybody.”
A young Kevin Cooper is pictured in a family photo.
Kevin was more than simply home-schooled. He was part of a movement called “unschooling,” in which the child is allowed to design the curriculum. In the beginning, the Coopers were happy to home-school using standard curriculum because Billy and Tina were both around to supervise. But the standard curriculum became irrelevant when 6-year-old Kevin discovered the instructional videos of billionaire investor Warren Buffett. As Kevin told the story in his memoir, he asked Billy, “Daddy, how do people get rich?” 
“I wouldn’t know,” Billy replied. “Go watch some videos on YouTube about Warren Buffett or something.” And so Kevin did, diving deep into the online world of Buffett and his No. 2 at Berkshire Hathaway, Charlie Munger. He watched their videos over and over again, trying to absorb their business philosophy. Munger was Kevin’s favorite, and Munger’s book, “Poor Charlie’s Almanack,” was his Bible. Billy and Tina broke the bank to buy it for their son as a birthday present. The doorstop of a book, at 548 pages, retails for $62. Many buyers made it a bestseller, but few took to it like Kevin, who re-read it every year. Later he followed the writings of Elon Musk and Bill Gates, but Munger and Buffett remained his heroes. 
At the age of 8, after a few years of packaged home-school curriculum, Kevin asked his parents if he could design his own lessons. Seeing no harm in the experiment, they agreed. His focus was always on business. He called it “entrepreneurial unschooling.”  When friends told him they were memorizing the state capitols or names of rocks, Kevin would try to interest them in corporate tax law and the principles of wealth building.  
His curriculum of choice was by no means well-rounded. Even in business, he saw no need for math as long as he had the internet to calculate for him. And, as for state capitals, “If I ever become a truck driver or run for president, I’ll make sure I learn the whole map,” he told his parents. “I’ll know where I’m at.” His spelling and grammar lagged behind grade level. He consistently misspelled the word “business,” and stumbled over the pronunciation of simple words. But, as long as his parents knew what he was talking about, he didn’t care. Later, when opportunities came to publish his thoughts, the written word became more important to him and he found mentors to help him polish his communication skills. 
With the lessons of Berkshire Hathaway ringing in his ears, Kevin launched his business empire at the age of 7 by selling rabbits for meat. His parents fronted him the first five rabbits and helped him remodel the old barn behind their house as a rabbitry. Soon, according to their account, Kevin was selling his rabbits to restaurants in California, using a traveling broker to deliver them. His parents still aren’t sure how he figured that out. By the time he turned 8, he had formed a limited liability company (LLC) that was bringing in about $1,000 a month.  
With his parents’ OK, he used funds from a loan, and an insurance settlement related to the rabbits, to buy 350 acres of fallow land near his home for $130 an acre when he was 9 years old. And thus was born his passion for regenerative agriculture.
“When he was 10 years old and buying a house, you know you’re not raising the most average kid.”
The Coopers’ neighbors in rural Beryl never knew it, but Kevin had been sizing up their farmland for years, assessing which families had children who would continue farming and which may be looking to sell. According to Billy, Kevin was particularly interested in land that had been lying fallow for years, not because of any government soil regeneration program but because the owners couldn’t make it work financially as the Escalante Valley aquifer was slowly depleted by persistent drought. Kevin had quickly figured out that without reliable rainfall, leaving land fallow was not a way to renew the soil. It was, however, the way to create a dust bowl, which was fast becoming the norm around Beryl.
Utah water law is complicated and controversial, but Kevin learned enough to know it was a deeply flawed system. Hay is a $490 million-a-year business in Utah, making it the state’s No. 1 cash crop. That amounts to only .2% of the state’s gross domestic product but it uses 68% of the state’s “diverted” water, according to a recent study by Gabriel Lozada, associate professor of economics at the University of Utah. Diverted water is that which is taken from natural sources such as rivers and aquifers, and not replenished in full after it is used.
Nearly one-third of Utah’s hay crop is sold overseas, the majority of that going to China. Those overseas sales stuck in Kevin’s craw. He knew that farmers around Beryl were under a state-mandated program to reduce their draw on the aquifer, and it didn’t make sense to him to continue with a business model that was doomed. He didn’t blame the farmers who were just trying to make a living. “He knew you couldn’t fix the problems if the farming stayed at the very bottom of the value chain,” says Billy. “I learned what a value chain was from him.”
Kevin focused on 7,000 acres of neighbors’ land, some fallow and some under cultivation but using far too much water by his standards, not to mention fossil fuels to power farm machinery. He figured he would need $12 million to buy the land and a total of $50 million to implement his scheme to regenerate the soil by planting 13 varieties of low-water plants suitable for grazing by wildlife and small meat-producing livestock such as turkeys. By his calculations, his plan would reduce groundwater use on those 7,000 acres by almost a billion gallons a year. That’s only 10% of the annual overdraw from the Escalante Valley Aquifer — the amount not recharged. But Kevin believed in the power of his example. 
Could a mere boy raise $50 million and spark a regenerative agriculture movement in his little corner of the American West? 
“Don’t ever take ‘can’t’ as the answer unless you’ve verified that it is against the law or against the powers of physics,” Kevin wrote in his memoir. People told him he couldn’t own land, couldn’t have a vehicle titled in his name, couldn’t have his own checking account, couldn’t contract with lawyers and accountants and realtors, and couldn’t flip a house. He made it his business to prove them all wrong. 
Kevin Cooper operates his John Deere tractor on his farm in Beryl, Utah.
At times Kevin’s life resembled the party game where someone starts with a paperclip and keeps trading up until they land a big-ticket item. The proceeds from a 7-year-old’s rabbit venture led to a 9-year-old’s purchase of a 350-acre ranch. Then Kevin discovered the wealth of information in county property and tax records, including the concept of “lawyers’ liens.” A lawyer who is owed money from a client can put a lien on the client’s property to get paid when the land is sold, just like a tax lien. And lawyers’ liens can be bought and sold. Kevin found one such lien languishing in the Iron County property records and bought it for half the value from the lawyer who had forgotten it was there. Kevin doubled his money when the property sold within a few weeks. 
His next purchase was 20 acres of land for $100 an acre from a woman who had no interest in paying the taxes on her late husband’s weekend camping spot in the sagebrush. He turned that $2,000 investment into a $20,000 trade with a well-driller. The man, who Kevin described as “a skinny cowboy with a big handlebar mustache,” wanted the land and Kevin needed a well on his farm so they traded. 
For his 10th birthday, Kevin gave himself a house.  He found a piece of property about seven miles from home and contacted the owner — an elderly woman who had turned down all offers because no one would promise to preserve the unlivable, 700-square-foot, two-bedroom shack on the land. Her father had built the house and she couldn’t bear to see it torn down. But she also couldn’t fix it, and didn’t want to keep paying property taxes. Kevin struck a deal; in trade for the deed to the land, he would pay her back property taxes and her expenses to come to Utah and clear out her father’s possessions from the house. And he promised that he, a 10-year-old boy, would personally restore the home. It took two years, countless YouTube tutorials and some mentoring by kindly contractors, but he did it for $10,000. When Billy put down his foot and refused to let Kevin do the electrical work himself, Kevin found an electrician to walk him through it. 
“Don’t ever take ‘can’t’ as the answer unless you’ve verified that it is against the law or against the powers of physics.”
While working on the house, Kevin financed a brand new shiny green John Deere tractor for $50,000. His parents say that as proud as he was of that tractor, it wasn’t his favorite possession. That honor went to the red 1976 Chevy pickup truck he acquired when he was 8. A neighbor came to Billy asking for help with a valve job on another truck. Billy had recently fallen and injured his back, but Kevin jumped in. He offered to fix the truck in trade for the Chevy. It didn’t run, and even if it had, Kevin didn’t have a license to drive it. It sat on blocks in the Coopers’ yard as parts were cannibalized for other family vehicles. Tina said Kevin would lean on it and dream about all he would do with it someday.
With all of his investments, Kevin socked away the loan payments, tax money and operating funds in the bank and never took out any money for himself or his family until he knew his financial obligations for the year were covered. And like any teenager, if he needed pocket money, he would do chores for the neighbors. His parents said his idea of fun was to hire himself out after spending a long day of digging post holes for five miles of fencing on his ranch or laying a half-mile water line from a solar well to his goat paddock.
Work was Kevin’s idea of fun. He never saw a movie in a theater or a ball game in a park. In the middle of the night, Billy might hear the sound of a soda can being popped open, and a desk chair rolling across the floor. For most teens, that would signal a video game in process, but in the Cooper home it meant Kevin was pulling an all-nighter writing a book. His idea of TV bingeing was to record episodes of CNBC’s “The Profit” and play them back, hitting the pause button to analyze the failing businesses and try to come up with solutions before the host could suggest them.
He couldn’t understand why his peers, and even adults, spent so much time scrolling their phones. Once when the Coopers were hosting company, Kevin and his parents noticed that the other family was scrolling instead of talking. Kevin leaned over to Billy and only half-jokingly whispered for him to unplug the Wi-Fi.
Kevin had finished his house flip and was in the process of saving money to drill a well for the house when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020. He had learned from his billionaire business heroes to pivot quickly and not look back, so he sold the house without the well, reducing its value by half but still doubling the $10,000 he had put into the flip. From that sale, he began investing in turkeys to raise for meat and graze on his regenerating ranch land.  
Kevin Cooper’s prized red truck, which has been cannibalized for parts to keep other family vehicles running, sits at his family home on July 15, 2022.
The Coopers survived 2020, and then 2021 dealt them a series of setbacks. Billy needed more surgery. Their water heater and air conditioning died. The fuel pump on the family’s Suburban, their only working vehicle besides the John Deere, went out. Billy and Tina refused Kevin’s offers of help until he told them his company would buy the Suburban and fix it. It was enough money for them to do the house repairs. They only agreed when he pointed out that the SUV was primarily used for Kevin’s businesses anyway. 
And then, after 14 months without rain, the well that supplied their house went dry. For nine months the Coopers hauled water by the barrel for their household needs. One day Kevin caught his brother using the washing machine for one shirt. He chided his brother and then ran around the house scooping up other laundry to add to the load. They finally saved up money to drill a new well and Tina remembered that day as one of Kevin’s happiest. He danced around slathering himself in the foam generated from flushing the new well. Tina took a picture, and the image from that day plays like a video in her head. Kevin wrote that the nine months of hauling water taught him to “keep getting back up no matter how many times life knocked me down.” 
Kevin was irrepressibly happy, as in the family video of him smiling over his shoulder into the camera and dancing to a mental playlist in his head as he shoveled gravel from a truck bed on a blistering summer afternoon. He was the kind of happy that Billy said could grate on the family when they just wanted to take a day to wallow in their misfortune. “Circumstances change, let’s change with it,” Kevin would say when the family fortunes hit a bump. 
Now, Billy says, “We’ve been telling ourselves that a lot.” 
Kevin was growing savvy with social media. In 2021 he launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise $100,000 to build an accessible home for his parents. He failed, raising only $920, but as with all of his setbacks, it was just another learning experience.  “If I can’t earn it, I’m going to build it,” Kevin said, and began gathering scrap lumber and studying building codes for adobe construction. The video that Kevin made for that fundraising campaign is a poignant window into his mind. 
In the video he carries on an imaginary conversation with Billy while trying to push Billy’s wheelchair through narrow doors in the double-wide trailer. “Want to go sit on the front porch, Dad?” (“Thunk” as Kevin bumps the chair against the door frame.) “Want to go get a drink of water, Dad?” (“Thunk.”)  
In a second video, heavy with irony and analysis beyond his years, Kevin exposes the labyrinthine VA bureaucracy that makes Billy ineligible for an accessible house. In short, he would need to lose the use of another limb, not just the one broken in his basic training accident, later made useless by necrosis.
Billy and Tina can’t bring themselves to say much about Kevin’s faith or where their son might be now in the pantheon of after-life theories. They considered themselves Christians and kept a Bible, a Book of Mormon and a Quran in the house. They do know Kevin would want them to pick themselves up and move on with optimism. 
That will be hard. They don’t have a running vehicle; Kevin had been working on that problem. A friend started a separate GoFundMe campaign to pay funeral expenses and help them get a fresh start.
Until his death, Kevin’s parents were unaware of the extent of his holdings or the business affairs they will have to settle and bills they will have to pay. They have avoided the heartache of turning on his computer and seeing him come alive again in his books in progress, his correspondence with experts, his meticulous bookkeeping and his outsized dreams. Their immediate need is to sell Kevin’s assets and then find another place to live where they can function without him, nearer to shopping and doctors and services for their 17-year-old autistic son, maybe someplace with a little land so they can keep a garden and some chickens, and a home Billy can navigate in his wheelchair. Billy and Tina hope to carry on Kevin’s work in some way. 
But for now, it’s hard for them to even open the door to his room. And harder still is it for them, when asked, to reflect on the last sentence in his memoir: “As wild as it is to have done enough unique things by age 14 to be able to write an autobiography, the truth is, I’m still just getting started.”
Kevin Cooper “brain mapping,” as his parents called his writing process.
Bron: Hacker News https://www.deseret.com/2022/8/22/23309244/cole-summers-died-newcastle-utah-warren-buffett-charlie-munger-bari-weiss-unschooled
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gezinus · 2 years
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Nog eentje dan - Eos Wetenschap
Nog eentje dan  Eos Wetenschap Bron: "psyche en brein" - Google Nieuws https://www.eoswetenschap.eu/psyche-brein/nog-eentje-dan
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