Having battery storage is the most expensive part of any off-grid system. Without it, you obviously dont need batteries, but you can also get rid of all the battery management stuff, charge controlling, inverters, etc.
Direct attic fan sounds great because you need it the most when it’s the most sunny.
It would be cool to do a direct solar powered hydroponics or pond project, where you just pump all the water to a reservoir when you have sun, and let it drain back 24 hours a day.
Wow, my experience was the opposite. Years ago, I wanted a slightly larger bag, so I stopped using my jansport that had lasted forever and got an expensive swissgear, and all the zippers broke in a couple years, so I went back to the jansport.
They don’t look too far off from some species of araucaria
Cinnabar chanterelles, despite being plentiful by me, dont really taste like much.
Presumably, it gets mowed? If not, I’d say to find a local wildflower mix and sow it in late fall/winter. Lots of plants tolerate this well cause it’s how they naturally reproduce. You dont have to worry about water as much that way because they sprout and start putting down roots way before the weather gets hot and dry.
Another thing to consider is salt. If that area gets exposed to a lot of road salt, it might cut down your options a bit.
The running industry really really wants it to be a social activity, because then it’s an avenue to sell more stuff.
They are investing heavily in run clubs and influencers to try to make it a more social activity. If you run with people, you’ll probably do it more often, which is good, but you’ll also spend more on races, burn through more shoes, and probably spend more money on peripheral gear.
I assume just tax money like the books in the library. They dont solicit for donations (for money or tools), and the tools are all pretty much the type you would expect for rentals (more durable than you or I would buy for something we might only need once). For example, they have all Park Tool brand bike tools. There might be liability reasons not to take tool donations.
They also have art, seeds, kids toys, puzzles, and musical instruments.
They take donations of seeds (which I contribute to) and puzzles.
It’s a library system with maybe like 8 locations, and they spread the non-book collections across the different branches, so one has the tools, another has art, etc.
I actually just found some neat stats on my local system, and the expenditure for the system’s whole collection (including books, digital media, and everything) is only 1/10th of the total expenditure. The way they lresent the numbers means i have to calculate things a little weirdly. On average, they spend $0.75 per use of an item. This is going to fluctuate year to year since I only see yearly expenditure and usage, and obviously, items last more than a year.
I dont have usage rates of the tools specifically, but something like a bike tools kit that costs $280 would need to be used 210 times to be hit the same cost per use of an item. I think that’s definitely doable because the rental periods are only 1 week, and you often need to place a hold to be able to get something.
Total expenditure of my library on collections is $8 per capita per year. I would gladly 10x that with my tax money. Obviously storage/administration isnt free, but still, it’s absolutely affordable, and I think it would be even for a small system.
Yeah, I’m not even thinking about renting, though that does have its place. I basically just really like that my local library lends out all the tools that I only need once in a blue moon.
There’s times that I want to buy stuff and just give it to my library so I dont have to store it for the 99% of the time that I’m not using it. Don’t think it actually works that way, though.
All changes will be in the federal register, so if there is anything missing from the page, you could find it in the register without much trouble.
They list all 36 things, but the majority of them are basically clerical updates, like removing the requirement for forms to be submitted in triplicate because copy machines (and scanners) exist.
Also, making bootleg vape cartridges get treated the same way as bootleg cigarettes.
Most of the changes (and I read through all of them) are mostly neutral updates that are more about clarifying policies and updating stuff thats outdated. There is some negative stuff, like adhering to the “gender ideology” executive order on forms.
Despite what republicans claim, Trump isnt really a gun rights guy. In fact, one of the rules being scrapped is his rule against bump stocks from his first term, because it was ruled against by the courts.
Balcony solar that is grid tied is probably not something you want to DIY. The amount of power you can generate probably wouldnt be worth the hoops you’d need to jump through. That’s not including using the smart inverters that plug in (cause that’s not really “diy”).
Off grid balcony solar isnt super hard. If you have an all-in-one charge controller/battery/inverter (jackery, goal zero, and a million others), you just plug the panels right into it, and you can pull power out the other side with no trouble. That’s also debatably “diy”. Getting a little more advanced than that still isnt too hard.
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2023/12/how-to-build-a-small-solar-power-system/
Personally, I have a goalzero power station and 300W of panels. I wish I had done a little more research before buying the goalzero, cause I probably would have gone a different route (LFP battery, not NMC) because I care way more about charge cycles than energy density.
100%. You need a lot less raw material when you design things to be durable, repairable, interchangeable, and recyclable.
Couple that with combating the “everyone needs to personally own everything they want to use” notion that leads to overconsumption. Loads of things can just work through formal or informal libraries, e.g., no one needs to personally own a carpet cleaner; better to share a really nice one than have dozens of crappy ones in circulation.
If you read the proposed change, basically it comes down to the fact that the ATF took the definition of “mentally defective” from other government sources, specifically, Veterans Affairs.
That definition includes people, for example, who are incapable of managing their own finances, but have no other indications of being a danger to themselves or others.
scrapping more than three dozen firearms regulations
I can’t stand how journalists will write something like that and then not include an itemized list.
Yes, they give some examples, but I want the whole list without having to dig through the federal register myself.
It matters because some of it is bad, while some is neutral, and some is good.
I actually looked it up myself on the ATF’s website, which is actually really well set up.
https://www.atf.gov/rules-and-regulations/atf-launches-new-era-reform
There are only 4 rules that are being “scrapped”, and they aren’t even actually full rules being removed, just altered. 3 of them are to conform with court cases. The only 1 they are removing on their own is a rule that was meant to be temporary to inform people of a rule change back in the 90’s (making pistols only 21+). Since that change is 30 years old, now, it isnt new, so there’s no need to pretend it is.
I used to be meticulous about trying to dial things in with software, and I got really good at it. Then somehow my database got corrupted or overwritten with blank entries (I think I installed a later version of the software and that messed things up). I tried to get back to where I had been, but it was disheartening, so I just went feral.
You can get really, really in depth. Everything from recipe development and inventory to the actual processes.
For example, you might design a beer with three different grains, and it would calculate resulting gravity after your mash, and the color of the wort. Then it would know the boil-off rate based on the power of your heating element and dimensions of your boiling vessel, so it would give you the post boil gravity.
There’s a million things to use it for. Consistency is really a big one.
I think the missing link that you two are talking past each other about is that there’s a venn diagram with a lot of overlap between “cottagecore” and whatever the whole “tradwife” thing is called.
They are both a fantasy, not a utopia.
You need the factories, and you also need logging and mining.
Lots of people who want to support the environment are reflexively anti mining and logging, even when it’s done responsibly. I think it’s often nimbyism that they don’t admit to themselves.
Bezos, though I dont think it’s a bunker compound.
20.6011343, -156.4220373
Right amount of light, combined with watering by dunking the pot in water long enough to actually saturate the soil (like an hour for me). Especially when you see a bud start to emerge, you need to dunk it. Otherwise the leaf will start to emerge, but stop growing, and you end up with tiny leaves.
Terra cotta spikes also help.