221–230 of 233 posts
To all the detractors here. I lived on a boat for many years which was 12v only and didn't have the mod cons. You adapt pretty quick then hardly think about it. So everyone saying how it's fantasy to expect peoples behaviour to change, just remember if you haven't tried it you are likely highly over estimating how much effort it is, and not aware of many of the unexpected advantages.
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I think the distinction is we have 50X more clothing to wash. And it's partly because washing is so easy. I have a family of four and spend a lot of time folding clean clothes.
I am not sure how this works. Even if you have a million pairs of pants, you only wear, and hence need to wash, one at a time. My grandma really spent a lot of time washing clothes, so i dont think this is a significant factor
Women typically would change a bit more often, and generally tried to have fresh panties every day (they would wash them separately from the main laundry). Men who considered themselves sophisticated would change _socks_ every day, but this was a minority. Nobody washed a shirt that they only wore once. Nobody washed pants until they had visible spots or smelled really bad.
And these were civilized XX century households, with access to hot and cold running water, gas, and electricity (but not always a bath or a shower, and rarely a washing machine).
Try wearing the same briefs and socks and shirt for a week, and you will show much you reduce your laundry load...
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Low Tech Magazine always writes like this. They always offer some idea which seems interesting on its surface but leaves gaps. They then end the article explaining away the gap with a moral polemic about how we need to change our ways and return to an older way of life. These days I just take the magazine for what it is; a medium containing interesting ideas but overall disingenuous and often impractical. (Though I d…
Not always using a clothes dryer is fine and good advice. But not using an electric kettle and replacing it with heating water on a gas stove is so beyond absurd I'm shocked how they even came to this conclusion since gas stoves are less efficient and much worse for the environment than a kettle. And a kettle is so low impact anyway. It uses a high amount of power for a very short time and spends almost all of its li…
Besides, why you need to boil water for tea or coffee? These days tap water is safe for drink, and if you want to add extra flavor, you can chew your tea leaves or coffee beans... ;-)
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I mean, the people who design this stuff don't do any user research, they sit in offices and think everyone else sits in offices. Reality is if you go out at all you've probably figured out that phones only come with 1/2 day of real battery life (because they do the damn factory tests with full bars of reception, not real world 1-bar reception), and you needed to charge a phone stuffed in one pocket with a battery in…
To me it seems that those use cases would require a massive and rugged connector like the computer mains plug. Realistically I suppose the solution is to have some sort of a bag. For me when hiking or biking I always charge my phone in the backpack/saddlebag/front bike pouch. For the laptop on knees it might be preferable to have a plug on the back (usb-c charging has the advantage that it can have multiple options,…
Also you could easily miniaturize an IEC power cable, it's the material and design that makes it good, not the size. Rubbery plastic and all forces transferred to housing not the PCB.
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It's frequently much more energy intensive too. Cars are a lot more efficient than horses and dishwashers are more efficient than hand washing.
Can you explain how dish washers are more efficient than hand washing? Is it about water use? What if you don’t run the water while you soap your dishes and only rinse them in a rinse tub?
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That is because that package internally steps down that voltage. Any LED that produces light in the visible range will have a bandgap in the 1 to 2 Volt range. Feeding it a higher voltage than that would lead to disastrous current run away. The package that contains the LED and the current limiter and whatever other electronics are in there might of course accept 24V DV, or 110V AC or 230V AC or 17.4V at 4kHz. But th…
LEDs are usually current-controlled, not voltage controlled. You might have several LEDs in series and they might very well have a voltage drop across all of them of 24V or even much higher when maintaining an operational amount of current.
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I grew up handwashing too but I disagree with your assertion. Firstly, you can't wash with cold water because soap doesn't activate with cold water, hot water also kills bacteria and helps cut through grease. Fats themselves are hydrophobic and without activated soap you wont get them off... enjoy your "filmy" dishes. Second, humans expend a lot more energy than you think. The act of standing and using our arms relea…
you can't wash with cold water because soap doesn't activate with cold water Bunch of pseudoscience. I've never noticed any difference between washing with cold or not. hot water also kills bacteria Ultimately doesn't matter because they're all being washed away by the soap molecules anyway. The act of standing and using our arms releases... Lol, are you seriously trying to reason that what little energy you burn is…
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I get unreasonably angry when Victorian cosplayers think they've found the solution to our wasteful modern life. Simply eschew modern conveniences and spend hours each week beating your clothes against a rock! Simple , instead of grocery shopping twice a month, ditch that wasteful freezer and walk to the farmers' market down the block before dinner each night. Was it cloudy yesterday? Simple! , take a whore-bath¹ at…
Getting unreasonably angry is usually a pretty good sign that you're trying to distract yourself from a good point that was made
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It should be possible to just heat the 1l of water in a kettle and in a pot using gas, and compare the electricity and gas consumed. Time-wise I'd think it's quite comparable, in my experience. This of course depends on sizes and quality of kettle/pot. Wide pot, with large surface area and a quality heatspreader on the bottom will get the water boiling more quickly. Also covering a pot is a must. Sometimes when I'm i…
Have you tried induction stove? It loses almost no heat to outside of pot and that makes palpable difference.
But somehow gas doesn't have to be accounted for and just comes for free.
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"Simply eschew modern conveniences and spend hours each week beating your clothes against a rock" My question is, if those people actually tried that by themself before suggesting it, or if they just picture the women doing it somewhere. I mean in this specific instance I can imagine they tried. And I did too, while off grid. It gives you a special connection to your clothes. But suggesting this as a general way of l…
I think if you read lowtechmag much it's fairly clear they are true believers and probably have done a fair amount of washing clothes the hard way. They aren't simply armchair philosophers. https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2019/10/mist-showers-susta...
But the person I was answering to, was speaking more broadly of people proposing "awesome simple solutions". Who in my experience seldom lived their solutions.