Thanks for all your work keeping this place going!

I’ve watched this specific one! The rifftrax actually made for a pretty great time - from what I remember the movie had some cool ideas (and the jokes kind of filled in for the rest).

GraphineOS seems to set the benchmark for secure de-googled android phones and has a very short list of supported devices. I think I’d suggest starting with one of those, and once support eventually drops, if you’re comfortable with a reduced security capability, looking to lineageOS or similar. I think if Graphine supports a phone, it’s pretty much guaranteed to have support on the more general OSs.

For a while I looked at ruggedized smartphones (some with removable batteries!) that were supported by lineageOS and others. I didn’t find one I was convinced would hold up as long as I wanted, and I had security concerns so I ended up getting a decent secondhand phone with guaranteed security support for a few years and putting it in a good case.

Sometimes I check in on various raspberry pi smartphone projects. I love the idea and think it’d probably be able to last the longest (or be turned into something else after an upgrade) but I don’t think any feel reliable enough to me yet.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6j8jMn2Kcgs

Nice! I’ll check that out!

Thanks, that makes sense on both topics, they’re definitely going on the list!

That’s a good list, thank you! I have a couple questions you might be able to answer:

Could you elaborate on the relays? I don’t know anything about them yet (in their intended use or alternatives). Though I am reading up on them.

I know there’s a some benefit in running 12v appliances (intended for campers) with solar panel setups because you don’t have to convert from DC to AC then back to DC at the appliance. Would that work for just using a car’s AC unit to cool a room, or are they built too specific to a car or not efficient enough to justify the work?

Thank you!!

That reminds me - inside the rubber squeegee part is a long thin strip of good quality spring steel. Lockpicking folks like it for making tools, diy gun folks sometimes use them to make the extractor. I honestly don’t know what to use the rest of the wiper for.

This is a great list with a bunch of stuff I wouldn’t have thought of - the transmission reuse is a cool idea!

I think some LED headlights are goood for growing plants. I remember some local news panic piece from years ago about how criminals were stealing headlights for their grow ops. A quick search online confirmed they work fine (probably not worth stealing though) and this post I think suggested a couple other car parts alternative uses I’ll have to go back and get later: https://www.rollitup.org/t/is-it-possible-to-convert-a-headlamp-into-a-grow-light.496815/

Thanks again!

That’s a great example, thank you!

Thank you so much!

Ha! Someone on discord pointed out that the deer/robot/gun combo probably qualifies as a technical.

Thank you!

I’m so glad! And I’m glad you took a look at Harbour!

I’m not sure how seriously I’m going about promoting my work, exactly. I’m not trying to make money or anything, but I do want it to reach any audience that seems like a good fit, and I’ve found Lemmy and Mastodon to be great and encouraging spaces so far! I use a mix of federated and corporate sites for sharing the stuff I make. I’ve found that I have good conversations on both, but the corporate sites are much more aggressive at getting my stuff to the top of the search engine results. Some of them seem to have much less community though.

When I was regularly working on my Postcards from a Solarpunk Future series, I was very much trying to hit as many solarpunk communities as I could, as well as influence the first impressions people from outside the movement get of the genre, if possible, so I posted all over the place, my wordpress site, reddit, imgur, artstation, deviantart, as well as Lemmy, mastodon, and pixelfed. Even discord, occasionally. When you search relevant keywords, the reddit, deviantart, and artstation posts pop right up.

For ol’ President Deer, I’m not as aggressive about trying to get it seen, it was more just a for-fun project. I post it weekly on my wordpress website, deviantart, Mastodon, and pixelfed, and occasionally to Lemmy and reddit when it seems like a good fit for a specific community, but that’s not too often. It seems to be finding it’s audience (some old pages recently got some interest from a bunch of folks on Mastodon) though it’s obvious still quite small.

I’m not sure if that helps, but I hope it does. I’d say from what I’ve seen, I feel like I get more real interactions with other people on federated spaces, and I appreciate that I don’t feel like I’m getting buried by the whims of the algorithm. Though on the small subreddits I still use (/r/solarpunk and /r/CoreCyberpunk) it still seems okay?

This is really cool! I think getting solar coolers into form factors compatible with how kitchens already operate could be a huge step towards adoption of the tech. It’s part of why I really like (this slightly simpler design)[https://solarcooking.fandom.com/wiki/Scheffler_Community_Kitchen]. I think the convenience factor in systems like this, where the cooks can operate basically as if it was a conventional oven, is great

Yeah I don’t think they’re talking about you

It depends on what you need to enjoy the space.

If you’re looking for a grass alternative and aren’t running around on it all the time, roman chamomile can be a good, low-growing, pet-safe plant. We used this on my neighbor’s postage stamp front lawn so he wouldn’t have to mow but it would still look nice and intentional. There are also a handful of other low-growing plants which require much less maintenance and are more drought-tolerant than grass, but they tend to be best for low-traffic areas, so if you’re out there playing catch or capture the flag with your kids most days they’re probably not as good as grass.

If you’re in a shady area, moss might be an option. It also prefers low traffic.

And the option abhored by HOAs and your fussiest neighbors: just don’t bother maintaining a perfect lawn. A lot of the work and environmental damage comes from keeping a perfect monocrop of a specific grass cultivar. Fertilizer to keep the soil good enough (which gets washed into local waterways and causes algae blooms) pesticides (which kill bees and a slew of other insects) and herbicides to kill any plants that try to compete with the grass (which remain in the soil as well). Traps for rodents that try to exist in the yard. Not to mention the energy and person-hours spent on trimming it frequently. Just accepting that grass isn’t really meant to form a thick lawn in most areas, and will look a bit patchy, multi-hued, and feature some other plants, will greatly reduce the effort and damage caused.

Or if you can’t stand the thought of doing that (or will get in trouble) consider downsizing it a little - section off the least-used sections of your lawn, plant some cool native trees or shrubs, throw down some mulch so it looks intentional.

And the last option (where applicable): no grass.

When I was a kid our house was in the woods, with no clearing to speak of, so we mostly just played on the forest floor, which was mostly leaves and pine needles. If you pick up the sticks and keep it somewhat open, it can look really beautiful.

Some kindle books I ‘owned’ recently got updates pushed to them, which in this case included a new cover or I probably wouldn’t have noticed. In 1984 they were fucking about with recalling books and issuing ‘corrected’ ones. But with online media, centralized in a company’s server, it’s comparatively easy to push changes.

Thank you! And thanks for the reminder to update the links, I’ll fix those shortly.

I actually haven’t heard of We3 but I’ll check it out, thanks for the recommendation!