That sounds awesome. There seems to be a bit of a gulf in investment between getting a few panels to charge a backup battery or run some devices while camping, and actually doing a proper home integration. I’m in the midst of that gulf where I can generate more than I can easily store and use later, so I’d like to find some worthwhile uses for direct use of solar energy.

Don’t know if you’ve seen it before, but here’s an interesting article about direct solar.

https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2023/08/direct-solar-power-off-grid-without-batteries/

Password manager. For things that I forsee I will end up needing to type often, I might choose a passphrase made of actual words. Some password managers can do this, or create passwords made of syllables you can pronounce. It’s way easier to type correctly.

When I’m without a manager, I just look around for random objects, especially things with numbers and special characters.

Did you manually switch it on once your battery storage was full?

What kind of heating element did you use for the water? What type of control system to send power to it?

Crossbow bolts and modern arrows are not something you could produce more of in an apocalyptic scenario. A trad bow can use wooden arrows, but producing arrows capable of taking down large game is quite a challenge, and not something you can just go out and do in a pinch with a pocket knife and some sticks.

Arrows are reusable, but as someone who bow hunts, 100 bullets would probably last longer for me than a dozen arrows. If you miss your target, you can easily lose an arrow, or break it on a rock, break it on bone, break it by hitting your own arrow. Damaged arrows are really dangerous to try to use.

I see where you are coming from, but I think there are better ways to handle those issues than blanket tariffs. For example, you can get clothes from Bangladesh for cheaper than Norway because Bangladesh pays workers much less, (probably) has much lower environmental regulations, and the focus is on price over quality.

Adding a tariff to goods from Bangladesh would not improve the goods, it would just squeeze the business to cut even more corners to remain competitive, and likely put a lot of poor people out of work. Additionally a tariff on goods from a country is likely to be retaliated.

If the end goal is reducing production of garbage products at great impact to the environment and the workers, laws can focus specifically on those factors. We already place antidumping and counterveiling duties on goods that we deem are priced with unfair business practices, why not do more of the same for unfair labor practices, or environmental practices?

If someone can pay Ethiopian farmers a fair wage to produce landrace coffee (where it grows natively), and the environmental costs of shipping it to the US are accounted for, I don’t think it should be arbitrarily upcharged relative to monocrop coffee grown in a narrow band of expensive former rainforest in Hawaii.

I hear you on the streaming sticks. 10 years ago, you could throw a Chromecast in your suitcase, plug it into a hotel TV, and cast anything you wanted from your phone. Now, if you try to do that, you have to set the Chromecast up through the Google home app, tell it what “room” it’s in, but then you can’t cause you arent at your “home”, so you have to set up a new “home”, and then that doesn’t usually work, so you just quit and read a book instead.

As a non Australian, I didn’t know wittenoom, but I’m pretty sure I know of it from the old videos of asbestos shoveling competitions that went around a few years back.

I think the smallest Australian town I know is oodnadatta, but I don’t know why I know it. I also had to look up if “nullarbor” was a city, or just a place name, so idk if that counts.

Oregon trail, yes, Oregon city, no. I remember learning that it went from independence Missouri to the Willamette Valley. If I had to guess where I thought it ended, I would have said Portland.

It depends on the freezer. Some are “garage rated”, so they are designed to operate in a greater temperature range, while normally, they should only be used at room temp (plus and minus reasonable swings). Check your manual to see if it gives an operating range. I suspect that the more important factor is when it’s too hot outside for the level of insulation and compressor to keep up with, but too cold could be a problem

Do you use one that is actual chain, or braided wire? I’ve used the braided wire saws, and I like how tiny/light they are, but I’ve never used one of the chain style saws to see if the weight/volume increase is worth it.

I think there’s only 2 ways to actually kill a cast iron pan. Dropping from a height that causes the brittle metal to break, or putting lead in it. Obviously no one puts lead in their cooking vessels, but small pots are/were used to melt lead to pour in bullet molds, so if you find an old used pot, it’s good to check for lead.

Also, ceramic linings can get chipped.

You can mistreat bare cast iron horribly, never seasoning it, washing it in the dishwasher, or whatever, and it won’t get irredeemably damaged.

It’s a real baader-meinhoff phenomenon: once you notice them, you notice that every gym has them.

They keep coming out with fancier models, but the 5200 still reigns supreme. Who needs programs on a blender?

Weather is global, so agencies like the NOAA collect data from satellites, weather balloons, weather stations, buoys, etc. all over the world. NOAA’s data is a bit like GPS: paid for by US taxpayers, but used for the common good across the globe. Shutting them down wouldn’t just hurt weather prediction in the US, it would hurt everyone. Other developed countries can absolutely predict their own weather, but if they can’t include the volume of data generated by the US, their accuracy will suffer (and obviously likewise if the US couldn’t use EU data or whatever).

On the weather front (lol) one of project 2025s goals is to break up the NOAA. They want to do it specifically to hamper the ability for anyone to show the ongoing effects of climate change. If anyone thinks this is a conspiracy theory, it’s an actual conspiracy, and here is the direct quote from project 2025.

Together, these form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity. This industry’s mission emphasis on prediction and management seems designed around the fatal conceit of planning for the unplannable. That is not to say NOAA is useless, but its current organization corrupts its useful func- tions. It should be broken up and downsized.

Do yourself a favor and find a local small farmer to buy eggs directly from. They are much better than supermarket eggs. It’s not necessarily a matter of keeping eggs from going bad, it’s more about preserving them at that peak flavor/texture. I have no clue where this picture is from, so I don’t know if the data are sound, but you get the idea. https://digitaleggtester.com/wordpress/wp-content/themes/nabel/files/images/egg/img_yi02.png

When I buy supermarket eggs, I refrigerate them because they are washed (in the US). When I get unwashed eggs (from a farm or a friend), I still refrigerate them and just wash them prior to use. I don’t have to refrigerate them since they have the cuticle intact, but refrigerating them still makes them stay fresher longer, so if I have the space for them, why would I not?

That said, the eggs already come in a carton, so I’m not going to transfer them into a separate container in my fridge for no reason.

Eggs survive in the wild at ambient temp because when they are laid, a coating basically seals off the egg. Unfortunately, chickens have one hole, and they are messy animals, so there’s often some poop, too. In many countries, this coating is left intact, and technically, you should wash eggs before using them so nothing from the shell ends up inside when you crack it. As Americans, we have bigger houses and bigger fridges, and we love convenience, so we wash our eggs prior to packaging. This means they have to be refrigerated.

Either approach works, but the important thing is not to leave washed eggs unrefrigerated.

For anyone who’s confused as to how this sorcery could work, it’s due to the chemistry/physics of the battery. As batteries discharge, there is more crystal growth of the electrolyte. Crystals can store mechanical energy like a spring, while the electrolyte in solution absorbs energy. It’s like dropping a water balloon vs dropping a solid rubber ball.