91–100 of 109 posts
I wanted to do the same with but with a large agricultural tractor. I think we are nearing the point where a camera can monitor my body movements and mimic it fairly accurately in a robot. Combine that with gloves for hand tracking, VR goggles, audio headsets and maybe haptic feedback and we can effectively have remote experiences. Once that’s the case, you put a robot in a tractor seat; add a bunch of cameras (for V…
I love the idea of this because I hate lawn maintenance. But the idea of letting software I wrote run around with whirling blades of death underneath of it would keep me from doing it.
Cool project, but why mow it all in the first place? Do yourself and absolutely nature a favor and let it grow. We need every patch of natural land we can get, as biodiversity and insect populations are continually decreasing. Mow some patches for the humans (because standing in a buggy tall field is just no bueno), but leave the rest for nature. Rent or borrow some goats or sheep if you really want it kept lower; at…
>but why mow it all in the first place? Because providing convenient habitat for grass dwelling rodents adjacent to your home will result in some fraction of them trying to move in.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In most cases a consumer lawnmower should probably have a deadman switch. It's under the seat. With nobody in the seat, that had to be modified for this mower.
They've got them on push mowers too. You gotta keep a handle gripped for the mower to run. Let go and it stops
Me, I just don't have grass anymore. Fuck grass. It's a bunch of bougie bullshit from a line of the French Aristocracy who ultimately wound up with their heads in baskets. Maybe we shouldn't be copying them.
Cool project, but why mow it all in the first place? Do yourself and absolutely nature a favor and let it grow. We need every patch of natural land we can get, as biodiversity and insect populations are continually decreasing. Mow some patches for the humans (because standing in a buggy tall field is just no bueno), but leave the rest for nature. Rent or borrow some goats or sheep if you really want it kept lower; at…
I completely agree with your point - pretty much everyone is now properly aware of the climate crisis but for a bunch of reasons biodiversity crisis doesn't ring a lot of bells let alone people are willing to do anything about it. However: depending on where you live not mowing at all turns your meadow into a rough wilderness with only a couple of plant species (think nettles+blackberries) in no time, and later on in…
If unmanaged nature does run wild with one or a few species, at some point they overstay their welcome and get rebalanced.
Of course the final equalizer is fire. And that's something that we as humans really dislike, because it burns our work (and homes and sometimes even us) down. So we prevent it. But completely left to itself, nature does tend to stabilize after some period.
As for western Europe, I live in Netherlands. The nitrogen problem is entirely manmade (animal farming waste). Were we to stop ranching at such high densities and producing unnatural levels of animal waste, the nitrogen levels would not be nearly so high.
I have also lived in plant farmland areas in the south of Holland, and we have plagues of burning weed that grows. But it turns out, that plant grows in places with excess nitrogen. It feeds on it and eventually draws it out of the soil. After a few years, that "weed" stops growing and the soil nitrogen levels are more normal.
At this moment I am in central Portugal trying to grow some trees. The thorny vines (blackberry brambles I believe, but I just don't keep up with the names) are a huge problem. However, they provide benefits in dry soil because they grow very well, provide shade, provide food for foraging animals, and help prevent soil erosion when the rains finally come.
Nature doesn't seem to be concerned with human comfort. I f*cking hate the vines, but I do see their purpose.
After some years of study of permaculture and actual experiments, plus a decent amount of reading, I think our best hope as humans is to develop high efficiency vertical farms and to keep our actual earth footprint low... and to start devoping subterranian habitation.
On the last point, it's really a wonder to have a home which stays around 68F all year. Heat it up just a little and it is cosy. It is fire-proof, ultra efficient, and it can still be light with skylights and a south/west facing opening.
Honestly, for a fraction of the mental energy we spend on designing scalable software systems, we could make livable earth-friendly human food ad habitation systems. This is not rocket science; after all, primative civilizations already figured out some of these things.
Cool project, but why mow it all in the first place? Do yourself and absolutely nature a favor and let it grow. We need every patch of natural land we can get, as biodiversity and insect populations are continually decreasing. Mow some patches for the humans (because standing in a buggy tall field is just no bueno), but leave the rest for nature. Rent or borrow some goats or sheep if you really want it kept lower; at…
>but why mow it all in the first place? Because providing convenient habitat for grass dwelling rodents adjacent to your home will result in some fraction of them trying to move in.
I'm not suggesting you wade through waist high weeds as you walk out your front door. But if you looked at the photo of the original post, you would see the plot being mowed appeared to be just a pasture well beyond habitation.
Cool project, but why mow it all in the first place? Do yourself and absolutely nature a favor and let it grow. We need every patch of natural land we can get, as biodiversity and insect populations are continually decreasing. Mow some patches for the humans (because standing in a buggy tall field is just no bueno), but leave the rest for nature. Rent or borrow some goats or sheep if you really want it kept lower; at…
I completely agree with your point - pretty much everyone is now properly aware of the climate crisis but for a bunch of reasons biodiversity crisis doesn't ring a lot of bells let alone people are willing to do anything about it. However: depending on where you live not mowing at all turns your meadow into a rough wilderness with only a couple of plant species (think nettles+blackberries) in no time, and later on in…
In commercial farmlands, even in "progressive" countries like the Netherlands, the insect friendly unmowed zones are present but very minimal compared to the commercial farmlands.
By my estimation, the unmowed insect strips are 1/50th or less than the crop areas.
It is good to see that roadside zones are being allowed to grow a bit taller. As drivers, it's actually a negative because it makes seeing around curves more difficult, but it absolutely results in more wild flowers and insects. It's quite beautiful too.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is really pedantic. The rule is any system that risks serious harm to a person in the course of normal operation should be fail-safe, not fail-dangerous. Examples include stuff with blades, hammers, or swinging arms moving at high speed or with great force.
Yep there's a reason why all lawn mowers have a dead-man switch.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Asking isn't enough, but proper fences should both make it impossible to get in without significant effort and also do a good job at containing the machine should it try to run away. It's up to you to run the numbers whether the cost of securing the area is less than what you spend (in terms of time/inconvenience/etc) manually mowing the lawn.
Coming from the UK I'm always amazed that many (suburban) Americans don't have 6-8 ft fences surrounding their back yard.