Peter E Johnson

rat gonzalez wrote:accelerationist

Hello Fren.

I don't know how hard it would be to implement, but a lot of forums have a "cool down period". Basically one post a day, until you have a decent reputation. If new people buy PIE that would be an indication that they don't need as much oversight. It shouldn't be too hard to do here since people can't post in the cider press without enough apples. Just extend that system to all the forums for new users.

I've never heard of one being manufactured. The problem is there are a lot of efficiency losses associated with the pressure volume(PV) work that goes into compressing a gas. The one exception I know of is ammonia refrigeration systems. Ammonia will absorb into water, and then you can compress the water as a liquid and boil the ammonium off with heat to efficiently get a high pressure gas. The problem with ammonia is that it's super unpleasant to smell, and it could suffocate people stuck in a car during an accident. As energy gets more expensive in the future I expect to see more ammonia systems put into service, because the reduction in PV work in compressing a liquid over a gas is substantial. Plus you can burn the ammonia after getting some work out of the decompression stage. I have no idea if that's what Toyota plans to do, but it is possible. https://www.enginelabs.com/engine-tech/engine/corrosion-of-conformity-toyota-takes-aim-at-evs-with-ammonia-engine/

I don't know if you have the option of canceling the order for your drill press, but I'd recommend a magnetic drill press. I still use my drill press once in a while, but the magnetic one is so much more versatile that I rarely use my conventional one anymore.

My chickens like to dig dirt away from my potatoes to eat worms. My dogs like to to pee on the asparagus. My cats like to chew on the leaves of berry bushes. None of that is particularly harmful.

Deer will eat all of my lettuce, and eat all of the leaves off of my plum, apple, and maple trees. If the 6 foot high fence that I'm building doesn't keep them out, may god have mercy on their souls.

I think the genetics of a plant change as they acclimate to your personal climate and soils. Plants that thrived in my area are more likely to have offspring that also like it here. In terms of what I'm prepping for, and why I'm trying to be more self reliant, I think we're probably at peak oil either because of geological limits or political restrictions on drilling. Either way the math doesn't work out how much debt the world is accumulating, and how much cheap energy is available for the future. When oil becomes prohibitively expensive I think food will have to become more local, because it'll become too expensive to fly and truck bananas into northern climates all winter. I planted 200 Chestnuts from Badgersett this spring, and I have three bee hives this year. When I try to explain the why to people they either make jokes about about how crazy I am while telling me that'll never happen, or they tell me they're coming to my house when the apocalypse arrives. I'm not preparing for a apocalypse, I'm preparing for a future with much more expensive energy. There's a lot of social pressure to not be a "prepper", but I know the current system isn't sustainable.  

I'm 35 years old, and I'm working on making a fairly self sufficient homestead in the Northern Colorado, Southern Wyoming area. I have a Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering, and I've never been married and I don't have any kids.

What tools do you already have, and what's your budget?

I've operated a few excavators, and they're nice for moving lots of dirt. I personally prefer backhoes, because they don't need to be trailered everywhere which makes them more versatile, and cheaper to operate. Doing backhoe things with my backhoe: https://permies.com/wiki/50/99575/pep-earthworks/Scoops-Excavator-PEP-BB-earthworks#2003033

My lathe is probably my favorite tool. I think I paid $1200 for my old South Bend lathe.

I've had a drill press for a long time, but my magnetic drill press is amazing, because it's so much easier to drill things that don't fit in the press. Plus it runs really slow so you can feel when the drill bit starts trying to pull through, which prevents a lot of drill bits from getting broken.

I already have a couple of welders, but I'd really like a plasma cutter.

I got a chuckle out of this story. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/01/240122140408.htm Apparently the potatoes that I plant and harvest by hand produce 5-6 times more carbon than the potatoes that get from hundreds of miles away. I know I breathe a little heavy when digging up the potatoes, but I never figured I made more CO2 per pound of potatoes than a tractor tilling, planting, spraying, and harvesting. Potatoes are my most reliable crop so that's what I'm using as an example.

Some MSM stories telling us all how evil gardening is:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/carbon-footprint-homegrown-food-five-200247599.html
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/urban-grown-food-s-carbon-footprint-6-times-larger-than-typical-produce/ar-BB1hBQF3
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1031596
https://phys.org/news/2024-01-food-urban-agriculture-carbon-footprint.html

Here's my translation from the new speak to common english:
We have paid for a scientific study that has proven, just as we paid for, that you having control of your own food supply is bad for the environment. Every time you plant a vegetable garden the polar bears die off, and many species go extinct. To solve this problem the mega corporations will take control of your food supply, and you can be a good boy or girl by eating the lab grown cancer cells and bugs.

Sorry if this is a repost of a similar thread, I haven't been on the forum much lately.

Tereza Okava wrote:People who pay more tend to respect their service providers more, in my experience.

This.

The most infuriating job I ever took on was for an old couple that were "trying" to sell their house. The basement had flooded when they were in Arizona for the winter. The story was they didn't have enough money to fix the house, and they'd pay me when the house sold. They would find the tinyest little defects in anything I did to the house, and expect me to come fix them. The drywall ended up being a little wonkey in one corner, and they wanted me to tear it out, fix it, and repaint it, because it wasn't perfect to look at. As long as it passes an inspection for the new buyer it shouldn't have been a big deal. They were mad that I put a seam between a hallway carpet and a bedroom carpet. Looking back it was clear that never intended to pay me, and they were looking for any excuse to refuse to pay me. It has been about a decade, I've never received a dime, and they still own the house. I have a lien against the house, but I won't get paid until they either sell it, or die.

My advice is to charge more for your time. You can spend more time doing better work for fewer people when you charge more. I also make everybody pay up front. I'm done playing the I'll pay you when he pays me, but somebody else never paid him game. Escrow accounts are easy enough to set up, and if people want to fight over things in court the money is safely at the bank for any bankruptcies or other tomfoolery. The 100% paid up front into an escrow account has completely eliminated my difficult clients. I think people are typically difficult, because they never intended to pay you in the first place.