Way to go Permies--Having such quick responses helps make us amazing

Hello all,

I just wanted to drop a quick note here to say how pleased I am to be a part of the Permies community.  Specifically, in this instance I am thinking about how quickly I get a response when I ask a question.  Starting with my very first post, my experience is that I can usually get a response to a random, sometimes highly specific and technical question very quickly.  Typically my response time is minutes, with an hour being about the longest I have ever waited.  I chalk this up to there being a very large, active group of Permies users, and to the general friendliness and helpfulness that pervades the Permies community.  

Just recently I had to post a question on another site on which I am a member (definitely not my main site--Permies is my home), and it took several hours to get a response to a rather simple question, and I saw that others had questions that had gone days unanswered.  I can hardly imagine Permies being so dismissive, especially to a new user.

Thanks to everyone!  If I could, I would give everyone a thumbs up!

Eric

Not only do we have a large group of active people, we are very inclusive, so all sorts of people with all sorts of experiences and skill sets, tend to hang out here. I think that also helps with the speedy responses! Permies members actually do real shit, or have done real shit, or have watched other people do real shit - so we have ideas and suggestions based on real life experiences, and I think that also gives us confidence in helping others.

Way to go permies - keep up the great lives you live and share!

Eric Hanson wrote: Just recently I had to post a question on another site on which I am a member (definitely not my main site--Permies is my home), and it took several hours to get a response to a rather simple question, and I saw that others had questions that had gone days unanswered.  I can hardly imagine Permies being so dismissive, especially to a new user.

I definitely made note of something similar early this week. I realized I had gone out of my way to try to help people elsewhere and often get backlash for my attempt at a good deed. But on top of that, the rare times that I have my own questions and go out of my way to be specific and do research, I tend to get sandbagged or misunderstood. All too often people who are professionals in a field I am not seemed to never noticed a certain quirk or be aware of ongoings in that area, and things are just grandfathered in with no attention paid. There are dozens of times I have done a search for something and the singular search result is my post about it.

Jay Angler wrote: Permies members actually do real shit, or have done real shit, or have watched other people do real shit

That's a giant part of it. Many places don't curate good and helpful communities without a bunch of toxic attitudes mixed in. People busy doing their thing don't have time for that.

I've spent a lot of time going bonkers not being able to get up to work, so I've invested a great deal of energy towards learning a bunch of new things and trying to share. So that's the main reason for my uptick in trying to contribute here. Having several life altering events in close succession made it hard to do all the projects I wanted to do and share them. Fortunately things seem to be shaping up for that. I got important stages to many big projects accomplished, but I just haven't gotten everything together to the point I can share beyond what I type.

The big positive change I picked up from here and apply elsewhere has been to try really hard to not get dragged into being angry about bad guys. The more I stop people from dragging me into that stuff the happier I get. I already have way more things I'd like to do than days left in my life, and other events have burned away days I'll never get back. I simply don't have time or brain space to be burning many more days of my life being angry at far off strangers with no positive goals. For me this means effectively being a hermit because I don't know a single person around me who can stop themselves for more than a few minutes. And being around me is like breakfast with Spider Man since I usually have my head buried in ideas looking for new solutions. I want myself and others to achieve goals and make things better, and senseless frustration about things you can't change stands in the way of that.

Way to go Permies indeed! Seeing questions, answers, and goals being achieved is genuinely inspiring.

I bet you could come up with a totally random, semi-crazy question that makes no sense to consider and you'd still get a good response here on permies.  Like:

Could you save apple and pear seeds, grind them up, mash them in to a flat sheet, dry them in the sun and get a plywood-like material to build a tiny home in for this winter?

Anywhere else you'd be laughed at or mocked but I bet here you'd get some honest helpful interaction.

Mike Haasl wrote:Could you save apple and pear seeds, grind them up, mash them in to a flat sheet, dry them in the sun and get a plywood-like material to build a tiny home in for this winter?

You'd need a whole orchard of them, but I'm sure we'd come up with some way!!! It might be easier to feed the apples and pears to a cow and use the shit to build with! (just to prove your point - I'm just fine with crazy...)

Fascinating idea.   Anyone that processes cider or juice would have excess seed matter.   You might even be able to pick it up in bulk seasonally,  right now is good timing for that in New England.   You might need a binder of some sort.   You'd also need to examine palatability of the finished product to rodent and insect pest pressure...    

For kicks and giggles I did a google search for "apple seed building material" and while that didn't turn up,   SNEAKERS made from apple seed byproduct did.

"“The apple core, pips and skins are dried and milled to a fine apple powder. Then it’s applied to a tear-resistant woven roll with cotton fabric. These rolls are heated and given an added protective layer to produce a weather-resistant durable fabric."    

Hee hee, see, Permies is awesome!

Ok, sorry for the digression, feel free to return to talking about how awesome the members of this community are

One more chunk of digression

Mike Haasl wrote:
Could you save apple and pear seeds, grind them up, mash them in to a flat sheet, dry them in the sun and get a plywood-like material to build a tiny home in for this winter?

2 thoughts:
1. You'd have to dry it REALLY FAST to get a tiny home by winter, depending on your climate. Plywood type stuff dried that fast tends to not hold up long, unless you are using lots of some seriously nasty glue, which would cost a lot.  

2. If you started ALL THOSE seeds and sold the baby trees, you could afford a house you might like better next year. Long term thinking!  

:D  

I love how most questions do get a flurry of answers and quickly.

Here is a question that has not gotten an answer though it had a reply from someone hoping for an answer too:

https://permies.com/t/192645/kitchen/good-Cornbread-Salad-recipe

The problem may be that this is a regional food from the South.

Or maybe it is not a common household dish.  I have never made it or know anyone to my knowledge that has made it.

Eric, one feature here on Permies that I like to play with is "Zero Replies". The mere fact that it exists is wonderful. Rather than let questions fall through the cracks and fade away, there's a way to recall them!

Here is one that I have been looking forward to the replies.

The only reply has been by the OP:

https://permies.com/t/192718/Rocket-Mass-Heater-tent-Gerrrr

Coydon said, "When prepping the site, will it make any difference if I simply do a zero cut/fill to level it off, versus digging out all of the soil and working on top of the sand, versus bringing in some lava rock to create a thermal barrier under the pallets with that?

Kenneth, I like the "Zero Reply" feature, too.