HerbGrower

I sometimes have to support old harsware still used in live systems and sometimes it feels like digital archaeology trying to find. I feel a massive wave of relief if I see them running an old enough version of our software that I can tell them lol nope unsupported.

Oldest thing I have had to support this month is a card reader from the late 90s. Essentially a scanner which scans printed templates and identifies where someone filled in the form on it. The customer was putting the cards in upside down.

You can make a crude firearm/hand held pipe bomb with a pipe and lighter. A lot less effort than 3d printing one.

Are they going to go after builders merchants now?

To be fair excess fats are bad for the normal drain too. Temperature is a good point, my initial idea was that the channels would be along the grass paths so if a bit of grass dies by the opening it isn’t really a massive concern. By the time it soaks in any real distance it should be cooled by the surrounding soil.

Bath/shower usually is the cleanest source to go for first, the pipes are next to each other for me. Either way I would set it up so that they can be easily removed when I don’t need the water going onto the garden.

Do need to check how flat the area is, exit point from my house is pretty close to the ground so a slight elevation change could be a problem.

Reed beds are an interesting idea, I had initially thought of having it poured directly into an earth channel or two along my garden so it soaks in almost immediately and avoids having any standing water as I had heard storing greywater can rapidly get unpleasant. I suppose as long as it is filtering more than it goes stagnant then it should be alright.

Collecting it should be ok, got 2 pipes going out the house, one from the bathroom and other kitchen and they are next to each other. I think bathroom (not toilet, that is separate) is probably cleaner and contains less soap. Realistically it would only be necessary during times of drought anyway, now we are going into autumn there is already enough water from rain. Which should also help flush out anything that could build up from the greywater.

Food calories are an interesting one, I generally go with grow expensive buy cheap products. So grow the rosemary and sage for my salt mix, buy the potatoes. Plus with growing my own herbs its fresher. Even with the dried herbs.

Not a universal rule, that will vary by region.

Then on the individual scale you can also transition near completely if you want to. I already have.

Even starting to grow some of my own food, land rental is pretty cheap for the amount I should be able to produce. Obviously focusing on somewhat higher value crops, herbs, rhubarb, kale, spring onions. Rather than potatoes. Also everything I am planning on growing long term is perennial. Just using annuals to fill gaps while propagating more of everything else.

Boomers can get fucked. So glad HOAs don’t exist where I live. Although we have other problems instead I suppose.

What is the point of that, does the US need to keep consumer cards in the hands of random citizens for some reason? UK here and I could just buy one and not have that restriction surely.

Tbh even my fairly small garden could make use of this much water in the UK. I focused on keep stuff alive rather than optimal growing conditions.

Problem I find is that collecting rainwater is difficult to justify on the price of it. I looked at tanks out of curiosity, but water is so cheap that it could never realistically pay for its self.

Space is also difficult as my garden is fairly small. Looked at underground tanks but the prices there are even more crazy. I think the most cost effective option for me would be to just dump greywater on the garden instead. That just costs a pipe. Maybe something to put over the pipe where it crosses the path to avoid a trip hazard.

I am not collecting the water, it just happens to have flooded that part of my garden. “Land of the free” and you can’t even leave an open container outside if its raining?

Isn’t that normally for water that has landed on the ground rather than on your own roof? What if you just dug some trenches to collect the rainwater in the land it just happens to collect in a natural pond

Heard a few people complaining about energy price increases today at work. I have corrected them that is only really gas prices that are changing by much. Electricity is changing by less than inflation and it dropped a bit last time too.

In England you are never more than an hour away from a big city

It sounds sorta like some parts of Cornwall then, but that is now getting filled with holiday homes and airBNBs so generally you have deprived locals and rich people from London pushing up the housing prices to way beyond what anyone who is actually from the area can afford.

Hard to say. I think England is pretty different in that sense, rural areas are usually more expensive than deprived towns. At least from everything I have seen. I wouldn’t mind a remote area, but they cost more, especially in the county and region I live in.

Scotland and maybe parts of Wales have a few options. But we are talking like a derelict barn with a roof that doesn’t hold out water and no road access, it still costs more than any decent flat here does, but its a little cheaper than most houses.

If its land which you can’t legally live on, same area of land would be like 1/10th the price.

Some of us can’t afford to move somewhere nicer. Recently found out I live in the most deprived town in the entire county, yay!

I agree, but at this point have given up and reluctantly put up with Wh.

If the house was on fire I would just step out through a window frame after smashing the window with the nearest solid object I can find.

But I use regular keys and my front door can be locked/unlocked without a key from the inside.

So the same as a battery running out?

Pass through charging is also a thing, so the 10Ah battery can charge when mains is up and then continue during a power cut.

In my experience some may need to be reset to start charging. Depends on what you have though. Either way give it a test first.

Forget android. Linux phones can now run Factorio!

I suspect it depends on what kind of monitor you can afford. Its likely to fill more of your field of view.

But you could also just get a larger monitor so that it does fill your field of view. At some point its annoying to turn your head to see the whole screen so there is also a point it gets too big.

Its a virtual monitor though, so you can adjust it easily. I can certainly see the use in that, but on the cost side of things I would still go with a regular monitor.

How good is the detail on it for that, would it look like a somewhat lowres virtual monitor/projector? But I could see a use for that still, and if pixel densities can continue to improve it will only get better.

So physically something small like a lattepanda or raspberry pi would happily fit in there. You could also fit a decent battery inside.

The problems you would need to solve are connecting the touchpad, keyboard and screen to it. Even more fun as that is going to be an old screen.

Depends on how much of the shell you want to keep. Some Bluetooth keyboards would probably fit in the same footprint if you are happy to just cut out the current keyboard and most likely make some kind of border to fit around where the dimensions differ. If you are OK with that then you can probably do similar with the screen.

Although a new screen alone will cost more than this is worth.

I would be pretty interested to know how much of a difference it ends up making after a long time in total energy usage. Could make a nice thick shell.

Yeah there is that too, would need a lot of freezer tubs. I also don’t have space for a microwave to reheat them. Some stuff could go in the air fryer, or a saucepan.

My partner really doesn’t like eating stuff that has been frozen though. I think she gets it from her parents, they are really funny about it for some reason. They appear to think “best before” means “toxic after”.

I have a sudden desire to turn my 21L steel stockpot into an extremely large insulated slow cooker.

Previously thought of using a straw box or similar where you heat it and then stick it in the box and seal it up and just leave it.

Now I just need to find enough people to eat up to 21L of stew or curry.

You can buy cars too.

Get stuff second hand and it isn’t even that expensive. Performance per £ is still better than it was a decade ago for the overall system.

Depends if you want something you can build yourself or if you want to buy premade electrical things. Both options are probably worth considering tbh.

You can charge an EV on a regular socket. Unless you are driving a lot that would be enough.

The majority of car journeys are less than the distance I cycle to work. You don’t need fast charging for that. When you need it is on the rare occasion you do make a long distance trip. So 100+ kW at motorway service stations and perhaps a few others scattered around is really all you need.

Other places a lot of people park like work and shops could have a few moderate speed ones too, but even where we have them here most people with EVs don’t really use them much. Still, having a few would be pretty helpful for those without home charging options. An hour to charge kind of speed would be fine if it is while shopping, multiple hours if its at work.

Isn’t the copper largely an easy one to recycle though? Just offer some drug addicts their next hit and they will provide you with recycled copper.

Isn’t “DIWhy” used to suggest its a pointless or stupid end result? This thing is awesome.