Pecos Rich

Devon, it's not too obvious in the pictures, but both Glory Holes are in a sectioned off chunk of lake right next to the dam. The line of dark shapes floating on the water in the background of the first pic and the line of orange floats at the top edge of the 2nd pic are both roped together barriers preventing anybody from ending up in that part of the lake on accident.

Bumping an old topic here as I'm also interested in the idea of a way to automagically feed a rocket. It seems there was a lot of concern about the slide idea creating a chimney that would allow the smoke and/or fire to run back up the feeding slide. It occurs to me that if the feed slide were set at a much shallower angle, it would be much less likely to create a chimney. Of course, a really shallow slide wouldn't slide at all; the friction of the wood on the slide would stop it from moving. My thought is to replace the slide with rollers. Rollers create very low friction, so little that even a tiny slope is enough to cause anything resting on them to roll straight to the bottom. Companies like UPS & FedEx use them in their terminals and even their truck trailers to move freight easily from place to place:



Rollers would allow a very shallow angle gravity feed to work, thus making the chimney effect very unlikely. I drew it up real quick; now that I look at it again I drew it wrong as well. In practice, things would be oriented such that the wood would end up resting on the bottom of the firebox, not suspended in mid-air. But you get the idea.

nancy sutton wrote:I had given up on being able to buy a playable version of the natural pool dvd, until Paul's lastest great podcast. I've emailed Permaculture Mag's store twice, asking if there will ever be an NTSC version available, with no response. (So, Maddy? if you're listening.... how about it? This latest podcast is a great advertisement! ;)

But, now I have to ask here a third time... is there an NTSC format version of Butler's Natural Swimming Pool dvd, that Paul and Anne just watched and reviewed, available for sale? The site Paul linked to in a previous post is Permaculture Magazine's store, which offers only a PAL version, not playable outside Europe.

So what was Paul watching? A one-off PAL version commercially converted to NTSC? Or, did he use a fancy multi-format player? Or, was it magic? Or,.... is it really available from some source somewhere? (Other than the 'new' one offered at Amazon for $149!)

I hope I'm missing something that's right in front of my lo-tech face....thanks for any enlightnment ;)

Most computers with a DVD drive can play a PAL DVD. You might need to download some player software if it doesn't "just work". VLC Media Player is a great free option that comes to mind. http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html

Devon Olsen wrote:ok, thanks, so if one doesnt want to or doesnt have a stream beneath the pond period, it would be acceptable to have a monk that doesnt move?
or is it for some reason a requirement ot have it move around for some reason?

I can't see a reason. We've got the biggest monk you've ever seen in a lake nearby, and it's totally immobile.





The top one is at Whiskeytown Lake, the one on the bottom is (I think) Lake Berryessa. The folks who built these lakes don't refer to this type of spillway as a monk, they call it a "Glory Hole". More info & pics, including the bottom end (its BIG!) can be found here: http://daviswiki.org/Morning_Glory_Spillway




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