Tuesday, February 27, 2024
Designed for Marines, Used by Overlanders: The Story Behind Shower Pouch by Ashley Giordano
In 2012, Mike Houston’s father, a retired Navy officer stationed in Afghanistan, shared stories of his travels between forward operating bases with the Marines. Among the many anecdotes, one recurring theme was the pervasive stench they endured inside their transport vehicles. Hygiene was a top priority for soldiers, and baby wipes were the go-to solution for a quick clean-up when showers were scarce.
One day, Mike’s father called him at work, asking if he could create something better than a baby wipe. During his dad’s deployments, Mike worked for Johnson & Johnson as a packaging engineer manager for the Neutrogena personal care brand. “His biggest gripe with baby wipes was that he didn’t really feel clean after using them,” he says. “He hated how small they were and was frustrated by the amount of trash he would accumulate. Baby wipes were great if you wanted to spot clean, but if you wanted to clean your entire body, you’re left with using 50+ individual baby wipes.”
If you’ve attended an Overland Expo event, you’ve likely seen Mike posted up at the Shower Pouch booth with his Ram 3500 and Overland Explorer Vehicles Hudson Bay camper, demonstrating the multi-faceted nature of these full-body wipes. I’ve used the Shower Pouch product line (including the Adventure Sanitizer) for many years, while overlanding and on multi-day backpacking trips, but I was curious how the business began. I reached out to Mike, the co-owner of Shower Pouch, to learn more about how the brand was born and built, and if he had any unique hacks for using these wipes to the fullest (hot tip: you want to use them from top to bottom, not the reverse).
How did Shower Pouch begin?
Once my father shared his “problem statement,” I went straight to work. I pondered the idea for a few years until I met my business partner, Omar [Jimenez]. Years later, over beers in Salt Lake City, I told him about my father’s dilemma and how I would love to co-create the best body wipe on the market. I always knew Omar was a talented chemist, and he explained how he could create a formula that was vegan, hypoallergenic, pH-balanced, moisturizing, and extremely refreshing, like a real shower. This is how Shower Pouch was born.
We put our minds together and began engineering every aspect of the product to be a significant improvement to a baby wipe or any other body wipes on the market. For one, we wanted to use a package that wasn’t made from only plastic. We designed our packaging out of food-grade heavy gauge foil lamination film so you can heat it with radiated heat or hot water. Because we put sustainability at the forefront of our product design, we chose a reusable machine washer-safe cloth that can hold a significant amount of formula without dripping everywhere. This was intentional because we wanted the consumer to use only one body wipe that would stay moist from the top of their head to the soles of their feet.
Lastly, the size of the cloth was very important. We wanted to identify the smallest size needed to clean an entire human body. This is how we landed on a 2 x 1-foot cloth. The cloth folds into a pouch smaller than the back pocket of your favorite jeans. This package size was critical since we wanted the product to be easily transportable by the user, like a hiker or a soldier. Once we had everything figured out, and after beta testing with my offroad club for many months, we launched Shower Pouch in 2016. [We were featured in] an article written by Overland Journal a few months later. We’ve been fortunate that the vast majority of our growth has been through word of mouth within the overland community and through Overland Expos. It’s been an incredible journey, fueled by the support of adventurers seeking a better way to stay clean on the go.
How have these products changed the way you recreate outdoors?
With Shower Pouch in your hygiene arsenal, camping and exploring can become more about the adventure and less about hygiene worries. No more fretting over foot funk or crotch discomfort—Shower Pouch has revolutionized our camping experience.
Gone are the days of struggling with hygiene after just a few nights under the stars. Now, we can extend our adventures for weeks without sacrificing freshness.
And let’s talk [about] water conservation. For us overlanders and campers, every drop counts. With Shower Pouch, you can reserve your precious water for drinking and dishwashing.
What challenges have you faced along the way? What successes are you most proud of?
A few years back, we faced a pivotal moment in our journey as we grappled with scaling our operations to meet soaring consumer demand. It was decision time, so we opened a new warehouse and vetted a new contract manufacturer. These are the typical growing pains of any ambitious startup.
One of our proudest achievements came about a year ago when we earned the prestigious Amazon Choice badge. This badge isn’t just a badge; it’s a stamp of validation. It tells potential buyers we’re the real deal, making them more eager to give our product a shot. Moments like these reaffirm our commitment to pushing boundaries and setting new standards in the industry.
Shower Pouch products contain organic ingredients such as aloe, tea tree oil, witch hazel, and willow bark. What are the benefits of these ingredients, and why are they an essential part of your line?
In our quest for the perfect formula, we embarked on an adventurous journey inspired by the principles of Eastern medicine. We choose organic essential oils and aloe to lift the dirt and grime off the skin while using aloe to heal and moisturize sun-baked skin. We made sure our formula doesn’t leave you feeling sticky or weighed down. Instead, you emerge feeling utterly refreshed.
What are some unique ways to use Shower Pouch wipes?
One of the most exhilarating aspects of launching a product is discovering how consumers integrate it into their lives and adapting it to meet their unique needs. We’ve learned that its compact size allows it to fit snugly inside a Jetboil, making it a perfect companion for outdoor enthusiasts. Simply submerge it in water and ignite the Jetboil. Let the heat expand it like a popcorn bag in the microwave. Wiping down with a warm cloth on chilly days is a game-changer. It’s not just about physical cleanliness but the psychological boost you get from feeling refreshed, almost as if you’ve taken a real shower.
On scorching hot days, we’ve been thrilled to discover how some consumers store their Shower Pouches in their Dometic or ARB fridge, pulling them out for a cold, invigorating wipe-down whenever they need it. Our customers’ inventive uses and insights drive innovation and excitement for our product.
People may not know that Shower Pouch wipes are not biodegradable, but they are reusable. What is the best way to reuse them?
As an advocate and subject matter expert in sustainability, my mission is to steer consumers away from the linear economy model, a manufacturing supply chain where products are designed for single use, inevitably leading to waste. Instead, I’m championing the transition to a circular economy, where we empower consumers to reuse their products.
Consider your favorite coffee mug or that $200 Stanley water cup. After you’ve enjoyed your coffee or quenched your thirst, you don’t toss it aside; you wash it and give it a second life. The same principle applies to our Shower Pouch body wipes. They’re engineered to be machine washer safe, allowing you to extend their lifespan beyond a single use. Once clean, they can serve as shop rags and floor cleaners or be transformed into body wipes. It’s all about maximizing utility and minimizing waste.
Are there any exciting new products in the works you can tell us about?
At the heart of our mission lies the ambition to become the number one adventure hygiene brand worldwide. Our commitment to excellence starts with our cornerstone product, our body wipes. Once we’ve ensured our consumers are clean and invigorated, we focus on enhancing their skin health.
Currently, we’re in the process of developing a range of complementary products designed to elevate the consumer experience. This includes an after-sun care moisturizer, an organic insect repellent packaged in the same convenient format as our hand sanitizer, nourishing lip balm, and a revolutionary water-free dry shampoo. But that’s just the beginning—we’re continually exploring innovations to further revolutionize the adventure hygiene industry.
Our No Compromise Clause: We do not accept advertorial content or allow advertising to influence our coverage, and our contributors are guaranteed editorial independence. Overland International may earn a small commission from affiliate links included in this article. We appreciate your support.
Monday, February 26, 2024
The Heroic Julian Assange - LewRockwell
Thursday, February 22, 2024
FIELD RADIO KIT GALLERY: K4ZSR’S XIEGU X6100 FIELD KIT by THOMAS WITHERSPOON
Many thanks to Zach (K4ZSR) who shares the following article about his portable field radio kit which will be featured on our Field Kit Gallery page. If you would like to share your field kit with the QRPer community, read this post.
K4ZSR’s Xiegu X6100 Field Kit
by Zach (K4ZSR)
My primary portable radio station is based around the Xiegu X6100. This was the first HF transceiver I bought after getting my ticket, and I have taken it on well over 100 POTA and SOTA activations across ten countries. Over time, I have learned what does and does not work for me and my operating style, and my field kit now has exactly what I need.
I have used several different packs to hold my portable radio gear, but my current favorite is this Quechua NH Escape 500 from Decathlon (I bought mine in Romania, but you can order them online). While designed as a laptop bag, this pack has all the features I need to carry for radio gear: full-opening main compartment, padded laptop/tablet sleeve, waist belt, good internal organization, and extra room. My field kit always stays in this bag, unless I am going on a long hike or camping.
The heart of this field kit is a fully self-contained station in a semi-hard side case (meant for a portable projector). As long you have a tree or other antenna support, everything you need is in this case. I always have more equipment with me, but this is the bare minimum. Two modifications I made to make the kit smaller was replacing the stock mic coil cable with an ultra-slim CAT 6 cable, and making a 6-inch power cable.
Gear
[Note: All Amazon, CW Morse, ABR, Chelegance, eBay, and Radioddity links are affiliate links that support QRPer.com at no cost to you.]
- LTGEM Hard Case
- SP4 POTA/SOTA Paddles
- Xiegu X6100
- Panasonic Earbuds and Moleskine Cahier notebook
- K6ARK 20w EFRW Antenna (laser-cut winder, 26g PTFE wire)
- GPS/GLONASS Receiver and USB cables for digital modes
- Bioenno 3Ah Battery
- “QRP” sized Weaver 8oz bullet throw weight with braided fishing line
- 10ft RG-316 Feedline
- Bongo Tie
- Pencil
- Copy of US ham band plan
- EOOUT mesh zipper bags
Since I do no always have a tree handy, and you should never be without at least two antennas, I always have a mast and an antenna accessory pouch with me as well.
Gear
- DIY spike base, tent stakes, and guy lines for mast
- K4ZSR 20m EFHW “Credit Card” antenna
- SOTABeams Carbon-6 Mast
- Solognac medium organizer pouch – purchased in Europe
- Miscellaneous antenna gear (compass, wire ties, extra stake, bungee cord, carabiners, etc)
- 80m extension for 6-band EFHW
- K4ZSR 6-band EFHW (40-10m, with 30 & 17m links)
Adding my Microsoft Surface Go 2 tablet for logging and running WSTJ modes, and my field kit comes in at just over 9 lbs (ignore the scale, the tablet case was empty in this picture).
If I am going to be operating in an accessible and open area, I may bring my vertical whip antenna system. This is one of my newest additions, I assembled this antenna over Christmas 2023. I wanted a ground mount system for a 17 ft whip antenna, but I needed it to pack down relatively flat to be able to carry easily in a back pack. My solution was a modular base designed like a pedestal mount used for soccer flags. Even in somewhat soft ground, this base is incredibly stable despite the small size of the ground spike.
Gear
- Wolf River Coils 17’ SS whip
- 25ft RG-8X coax
- Tent Stakes
- Wolf River Coils Sporty 40 coil
- Faraday cloth
- K4ZSR ground spike vertical antenna mount
Assembled, the mount is inserted into the ground until the disk makes firm contact. The spike and the 3/8-24 mount are removable for packing, and the aluminum boss has 4mm holes for inserting banana plugs to ground the faraday cloth, or to attach ground radials.
Here is the antenna system assembled and in use at K-2949, Harpeth River State Park.
My true passion for amateur radio is portable operations, and as I add to my collection my field kits will grow and evolve. The most important lesson I have learned operating portable is to have simple, durable kit that you are very familiar with. That way when the situation is different than expected, or conditions change, you are prepared to adapt and overcome.
73, de K4ZSR
Migrant Crisis and the States Increasingly Defying the Feds - LewRockwell
Google Just Released Two Open AI Models That Can Run on Laptops By Jason Dorrier
Last year, Google united its AI units in Google DeepMind and said it planned to speed up product development in an effort to catch up to the likes of Microsoft and OpenAI. The stream of releases in the last few weeks follows through on that promise.
Two weeks ago, Google announced the release of its most powerful AI to date, Gemini Ultra, and reorganized its AI offerings, including its Bard chatbot, under the Gemini brand. A week later, they introduced Gemini Pro 1.5, an updated Pro model that largely matches Gemini Ultra’s performance and also includes an enormous context window—the amount of data you can prompt it with—for text, images, and audio.
Today, the company announced two new models. Going by the name Gemma, the models are much smaller than Gemini Ultra, weighing in at 2 and 7 billion parameters respectively. Google said the models are strictly text-based—as opposed to multimodal models that are trained on a variety of data, including text, images, and audio—outperform similarly sized models, and can be run on a laptop, desktop, or in the cloud. Before training, Google stripped datasets of sensitive data like personal information. They also fine-tuned and stress-tested the trained models pre-release to minimize unwanted behavior.
The models were built and trained with the same technology used in Gemini, Google said, but in contrast, they’re being released under an open license.
That doesn’t mean they’re open-source. Rather, the company is making the model weights available so developers can customize and fine-tune them. They’re also releasing developer tools to help keep applications safe and make them compatible with major AI frameworks and platforms. Google says the models can be employed for responsible commercial usage and distribution—as defined in the terms of use—for organizations of any size.
If Gemini is aimed at OpenAI and Microsoft, Gemma likely has Meta in mind. Meta is championing a more open model for AI releases, most notably for its Llama 2 large language model. Though sometimes confused for an open-source model, Meta has not released the dataset or code used to train Llama 2. Other more open models, like the Allen Institute for AI’s (AI2) recent OLMo models, do include training data and code. Google’s Gemma release is more akin to Llama 2 than OLMo.
“[Open models have] become pretty pervasive now in the industry,” Google’s Jeanine Banks said in a press briefing. “And it often refers to open weights models, where there is wide access for developers and researchers to customize and fine-tune models but, at the same time, the terms of use—things like redistribution, as well as ownership of those variants that are developed—vary based on the model’s own specific terms of use. And so we see some difference between what we would traditionally refer to as open source and we decided that it made the most sense to refer to our Gemma models as open models.”
Still, Llama 2 has been influential in the developer community, and open models from the likes of French startup, Mistral, and others are pushing performance toward state-of-the-art closed models, like OpenAI’s GPT-4. Open models may make more sense in enterprise contexts, where developers can better customize them. They’re also invaluable for AI researchers working on a budget. Google wants to support such research with Google Cloud credits. Researchers can apply for up to $500,000 in credits toward larger projects.
Just how open AI should be is still a matter of debate in the industry.
Proponents of a more open ecosystem believe the benefits outweigh the risks. An open community, they say, can not only innovate at scale, but also better understand, reveal, and solve problems as they emerge. OpenAI and others have argued for a more closed approach, contending the more powerful the model, the more dangerous it could be out in the wild. A middle road might allow an open AI ecosystem but more tightly regulate it.
What’s clear is both closed and open AI are moving at a quick pace. We can expect more innovation from big companies and open communities as the year progresses.
Image Credit: Google
The Case for Mutual Recognition by Dan Mitchell
Almost exactly six years ago, I shared a column with this video of a member of the European Parliament explaining the principle of mutual recognition.
But that column was mostly about the benefits of jurisdictional competition and I only mentioned mutual recognition as a side issue.
So let’s examine today why mutual recognition is a good principle for cross-border economic relations.
Let’s start with a definition. Mutual recognition happens when two of more jurisdictions agree to have open trade and to respect each other’s laws.
So that means (as noted in the video) that, for example, Brits can buy food and other products from Germany and Germans can buy food and other products from the United Kingdom – regardless of the laws that govern production in the two nations.
For my American readers, here are three very real examples of why mutual recognition is a good idea.
- As even AOC recognizes, it would allow Americans to buy superior sunscreens from Europe that our sluggish FDA bureaucrats have not approved.
- It would prevented the 2022 baby formula crisis because American families could have purchased safe and nutritious European varieties.
- As shown by Arizona, it would allow workers to easily move between states without having to deal with costly and inefficient licensing regulations.
Another reason to support mutual recognition is that it would make trade agreements much simpler. I wrote in 2019 that the ideal free trade agreement is one simple sentence prohibiting trade barriers.
But that’s only possible with a system of mutual recognition. Ryan Young and Kent Lassman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute recently wrote on this issue for National Review.
Here are some excerpts.
The core concept behind a simple FTA is mutual recognition of one another’s regulations. Under mutual recognition, if American regulators approve a product, then it is automatically approved in partner countries, and vice versa. With that sort of regulatory trade barrier lowered, consumers can quickly benefit from wider selection, more affordable prices, and faster access to new innovations.
Producers would benefit from faster approval times and lower regulatory costs for pharmaceuticals, appliances, agricultural products, electronics, and countless other industries, while gaining access to new markets and new customers. Regulators would benefit by avoiding redundant approvals in each partner country, saving agency resources. …Mutual recognition is appropriate for strong allies in developed countries… Our regulations may not be identical but will be similar enough for trade purposes. …A mutual-recognition agreement with Switzerland or another close ally could set a precedent that can lead to larger agreements that would boost economies around the world while strengthening alliances against Russia and China.
Amen.
Simple trade agreements with allied nations should be based on mutual recognition.
As you might expect, I also like this principle because it encourages jurisdictional competition.
I quoted Professor Michael Greve many years ago and he’s worth quoting again.
…the origin principle…is commonly called the principle of “mutual recognition.” …it is the only principle that is consistent with both a common economic market and political decentralization. Mutual recognition integrates member states without central intervention.
…Mutual recognition, then, liberates commerce by eliminating the cost of complying with different, conflicting, and often incomprehensible rules. Beyond that, mutual recognition institutionalizes jurisdictional competition. …The ability of individuals and firms to vote with their feet, modems, and pocketbooks will liberate markets and discipline politicians. …Trade unions, environmental interests, and any other interest group whose agenda rests on redistribution consistently oppose mutual recognition: they cannot rob Peter to pay Paul if Peter is allowed to escape to more hospitable climes.
By the way, the United Kingdom seems to have some very sensible people with regards to mutual recognition, as illustrated by this Alex Tabarrok article and this tweet.
And we have some sensible people in the United States.
P.S. The good news is that the European Union was founded in part on the principle of mutual recognition. The bad news is that politicians are increasingly replacing that sensible approach with the dirigiste model of harmonization. Bad globalism in action.