Burra Maluca

Eric Hanson wrote:So right from its start, Carolina, and especially South Carolina was an agricultural exporter from inception.

History is generally a bit of a mystery to me, but I've been having a lot of problems with waking up in the night and not being able to fall back to sleep and tend to play audiobooks from The Great Courses one chapter at a time so that they either knock me back to sleep (I choose ones with male speakers, and ideally boring speech patterns and relatively boring subject matter - if it interests me too much I just perk up and listen too intently) or I can at least listen and learn something. I recently listened to a great long course on the History of the United States and, whilst trying hard to avoid politics, it struck me that while many individuals made the journey across the pond to escape past lives and build something new, the governments involved seemed to view the whole exercise as a way to exploit the new lands and profit from them, either by gold or agricultural products. So there was a huge emphasis, especially in what would later become the southern states near the Atlantic, on setting up huge, productive farms to support the aim of exporting to line their own pockets. So export was somewhat built in to the agenda, by whatever means they deemed necessary.  

The latest course I listened to was about Confucius, which I found less depressing.

I also found this in a book about American History, about rice in the Carolinas.

Rice and Slavery In the 1690s, Carolina’s colonists started exporting rice. They learned how to cultivate this crop from enslaved Africans, who had grown it in West
Africa. Growing rice required a large labor force. So planters imported more enslaved Africans to do the work.

I found this in an article about Sugar & the Rise of the Plantation System.

This is Brazil, not North America, so I'm not sure if it's what you had in mind for an 'American Colony'

Christopher Columbus (l. 1451-1506) had introduced sugar cane to the region on his second voyage of 1493. The Spanish were still much more interested in finding gold and silver, but they found the profit of sugar too enticing to pass up. They imported skilled sugar masters from the Canaries in 1515 and sent their first shipment of sugar to Europe soon after.

The Portuguese discovered Brazil in 1500, and it did not take them long to begin planting sugar cane there. The first sugar plantation was established in 1518, and by the late 1500s, Brazil had become the leading supplier of sugar to the European markets.

Scott Weinberg wrote:I would like to know what a Wiki page is exactly and how in the end, it will be different than a forum site such as this.

The main difference is that the first post is editable. Most readers in a thread tend to only read the first post, then post something at the end, missing out anything written in the middle. Making that first post a wikki that is kept updated means it's a different sort of reference. There are still comments following it, but they are mostly to influence edits.

if the end, the answer is,  it is a collection of things, then how is the collection different.  

Just in the organisation. All the really relevant stuff is in that first post.

is it connected to something different or is it a collective all it's own.  

It just shows up as a forum thread, like this one.

Do people contribute directly or to a few constructors of this " Wiki Page"

They can be set up with just one editor, named editors, named plus staff, or all members. Not sure how the best would be for the one we're thinking of...

Inquiring minds would like to know.   I presume this is a simple answer, as it is has been stated as a good solution for providing lots of answers.

Haha - is *anything* ever a simple answer...

Cristobal Cristo wrote:Well, that book would answer the questions of the thread creator and more ambitious builders.
If someone does not want to read a book, they can go through various websites, articles and extract the information they need. It's already available.
Regular masonry heater building books are structured this way and help to understand a lot of ideas and connect them. Simple building recipes are not so simple after all, because they leave a lot of questions not answered, they are based on vague assumptions and leave the reader sometimes even more confused.

Cristobal - could you compile a list of links to resources that you think would be good in a wiki page? If we can't make a book, let's at least make a top-notch page with resources.

If someone makes the basic wiki I can help edit links in and try to keep it tidy. And if the resource doesn't exist, maybe make a post or wiki-page to fill the need.

Leah Hamilton wrote:It seems to me like there is a big hole in available information - a consistently reliable, long lasting, building plan for a 'basic model' (batch box).  

This is the one I chose. I essentially handed my new partner the plans and let him learn about rocket mass heaters by building me one.

Here's a link to the page that sells the plans - Matt Walker Tiny Cookstove plans



I think that so far this is the closest thing available to what you are looking for.

Cristobal Cristo wrote:Good stove building book/e-book should have the following:...

I have the feeling that if such a book were written about rocket mass heaters, the readership would amount to about three in total.

What seems to be needed is much more of a 'how on earth do I actually build one of those things?' book to empower people to take that first step.

Here's one the kids will love - the Iberian Ribbed Newt, aka Wolverine newt.

They will secrete toxins, then break their ribs and poke the broken bits out of the poisoned bits of skin so that if you pick them up you get injected with poison by the snapped bits of rib bone.

I mean, if someone wrote that in a story would you even believe it?

And just to throw a spanner into the works, the most common sort we have here in Portugal are the fire salamanders, which are born live.



The old legends say they are born of fire, and their Portuguese name, salamandra, is also the word used for a wood stove.

Gotta love those dragons...

I think a good interim solution might be for a volunteer to create a wiki page here on permies, make it editable by other members, and start to compile a list to all the resources. J-tube and batchbox info, plans, videos, who's who, everything.

Then it can be updated easily, people can make suggestions as to what to put in it. When it's useful enough, a link can be put up on the top of the rmh forum page. Maybe there can be more wikis we can link to about individual topics which can also be kept updated, like" what is a batch box?" or "where can I source materials in Portugal?" or "links to builds of Matt Walker's designs"

I'd happily add links here and there but I no longer have the energy to do the whole thing. So who wants to get the ball rolling?

Leah - you want to create a wiki post with the basic outline of what would work for you so others can begin to fill it in?