So I’ve always been in the habit of letting my electronics run down to near empty on the battery before recharging because that’s how I hear you preserve battery life. But then I was thinking, I’m trying to keep the battery life long, but that means I start many days with my electronics only partially charged — i.e., I never get the benefit of the long battery life. Not sure it’s a great trade off.

And then I looked it up and the whole having to let the battery go to empty before recharging is actually an urban legend in regards to modern lithium ion batteries (the memory problem only applied to nickel cadmium and nickel–metal hydride batteries). There are only so many charges a battery has before it loses battery life, but charging from 80% to 100% five times counts the same as charging from 0% to 100% once. In fact, for Apple devices, all Apple recommends you do is let the battery go from 100% to 0% and fully recharge once a month to keep the battery life indicator accurate.

Anyway, just thought I’d share if anyone was torturing themselves with partially charged iPads and iPhones for no reason.

So it seems like Republicans and Democrats are nearing a compromise on the shut down and debt ceiling. Here’s what I’m hearing are possibly part of that compromise.

POSSIBLE PARTS OF A COMPROMISE ON THE SHUTDOWN AND DEBT CEILING

* The government will only be shut down on weekends and holidays.

* Obama can no longer interrupt prime time network TV for his useless speeches and instead they will be broadcast on the Cartoon Network.

* Everyone who works hard and pays taxes so everyone else gets free stuff will now get a thank you note (email, not print).

* Obamacare will continue to be implemented, but it will continue to be inept so as to help Republicans get more gains in 2014.

* Republicans will be required to roll their eyes whenever “Ted Cruz” is mentioned to show they aren’t extremists, and occasionally mutter “That guy…”

* While raising the debt ceiling, the debt floor will also be lowered case anyone wants to consider less debt. Maybe. Just an idea.

* Democrats will continue to spend the government into collapse, but Republicans get to keep their guns so they’ll easily be able to take over when the inevitable happens.

* The individual mandate will be delayed for five minutes.

* Some spending cuts will be made in exchange for Republicans publicly admitting they didn’t really have and end game planned for all this.

Shutdown has hurt the economy.

Oh, wait. That was Obama. Shutdown has actually not really done anything bad. Obama and the Democrats have used Shutdown to do bad things — you know, make things unnecessarily hard for families and veterans and such — but that’s because they’re low-life bastards. Shutdown in and of itself? It’s fine.

But, it has caused problems for Michelle’s Garden. Squirrels are eating up all the tomatoes, according to reports.

Squirrels are vicious, nasty creatures with with nasty, big, pointy teeth.

No, wait. That’s not right. They’re little furry creatures that will stop eating your tomatoes if you approach them. You don’t have to do anything else. Just walk toward a squirrel and it’ll stop, jerk it’s head in your direction, and, when it realizes you are approaching — squirrels are stupid and it may take two or three seconds for this — will scurry away, down the grass or up a tree or anywhere you aren’t.

Which means that Shutdown has stopped people from walking toward squirrels.

That’s the people that the stupid 52% of Americans voted for: People that can be defeated by squirrels.

Maybe the GOP should run a squirrel in 2016. I’d vote for one over any of the Democrats I’ve seen.