andrewwhartion's comments

I was living in Finland at the time we had our first child, we received one of these. I can tell you from first hand experience that what you've written was precisely the case for my wife and I.

However, there's still plenty of companies there that want to guilt you into buying their stuff at a time when you're especially susceptible to it...

Isn't that what a release candidate is for?

"It's not trial and error, it's trial and correction".

“The 9/80 work week… occurs over a 2-week period as follows: employees work seven 9-hour days in a 2-week period, one 8-hour day and then receive one “free” day off every other week.”

https://workfamily.sas.upenn.edu/glossary/n/nineeighty-work-...

Google is your friend.

> most buildings are built by people that don't use them

Having rented for the past 6 years in 4 different houses, I've become convinced that this is one of the most significant factors for why so many house aren't enjoyable to live in.

Even if the overall design and layout of the house is good (I'm talking about the Christopher Alexander sense of good design), there are always small and not-so-small features that would never have been built that way had the person designing or building the house been intending to occupy it. Or had they moved in, said problems would be remedied in short order.

Relative to the rest of the mission/rocket lifecycle, how risky is filling it with fuel generally considered?

well, long time lurker, only recently bothered to create an account. And yes, reference to that. :)

I've heard recently that suits are making a comeback... :)

Once they deploy these to the places in the world they want to, I wonder how long it's going to take for one to be shot down.

[edit] I suppose though they fly high enough to be out of range of most inexpensive weapons systems.

I'd guess that you could use similar models to those used to predict a country's Olympic medal performance [1] for predicting outcomes at these events. Namely, it's a function of the country's "economic and human resources and the development of these resources".

[1] http://freakonomics.com/2014/02/11/predicting-the-winter-oly...

At around $20, something like an STC-1000 digital thermostat I'd consider pretty affordable for this type of application.

Abstract:

"This article describes a household refrigerator that requires about 0.1 kWh per day to operate. The refrigerator offers excellent food-preserving performance, because temperature fluctuations in its interior are naturally minimized during everyday use. This fridge is 10 to 20 times more energy efficient than typical household fridges on the market today. It seems that the biggest obstacles in increasing the energy efficiency and food- preserving performance of household refrigerators are strange human habits and lack of understanding of Nature, not technology or cost."

That's good to hear you've been having success with sand.

I'd love to hear how it's going after 12 months, because sand is certainly easier to work with than course gravel, which can be difficult to plant seedlings into, based on my own experience.

If this type of thing piques you interest, there is a vibrant aquaponics community with many forums eg. [1] and designs using all sorts of off-the-shelf parts.

IBCs and blue plastic drums are generally the "go to' solution [2] as they're made from HDPE, although some are made from plastics that are not considered food safe as they use mould release agents during the manufacturing process which are toxic (no reference for this at the moment, sorry).

Just be aware that generally you need A LOT more grow bed area than you would think to be able to efficiently use the fish tank volume. You can pack a lot of happy fish into a given volume of water.

Also, the general consensus is to use course gravel (20mm) rather than sand, as sand can quickly become blocked with organic material.

[1] http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/

[2] http://ibcofaquaponics.com/

[EDIT] Also, you'll want to keep the sunlight off the fish tank, because once the nitrogen level starts to rise [3], the algae will go nuts in there. I learned this the hard way.

[3] http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/information/the-nitrogen-c...

Similar to this -> http://makezine.com/2012/04/12/the-most-beautiful-homemade-d...

Arriving at the same solution independently probably just adds to its merit. It's a good solution IMHO.

Well done guys on staying solvent longer than the market could stay irrational!

Watching those videos is how I always imagined what being on LSD would be like.

> My preferred voting mechanism would be a hybrid

This is the system advocated by Bruce Schneier[1], I wish it would get more traction. If it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me...

[1] https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2004/07/voting_secu...