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S-trap / P-trap (Eg in sinks and toilets)
And zip ties 👍
Pretty much anything with an interplay of water and air pressure fascinates me. Someone else mentioned siphons. I’ll mention diving bells and bongs.
Perculator coffee!
The moka pot
+1 Moka pot
My not-vented s traps are not impressive
Wheels are pretty cool
Lathes. You spin a thing and cut it, which sounds unimpressive, but from there you can bootstrap to pretty much all modern technology.
Or, alternatively, you can bootstrap into a fine red mist as you get stuck to it and violently flung about
Lathes rule
Yes, when bootstrapping, tuck in your bootstraps.
To add a bit of detail, it comes down to circles being nice, simple geometric objects, and an assembly of metal with contact points being capable of way more accuracy than you’d first expect.
Bootstrapping the first lathe is harder; most likely some historical elite master craftsman was able to make one freehand, and future ones derived from it. We still have the one Vaucanson made that way, although it sounds like it was a one-off. David Gingery wrote a book on the topic, but he still assumes you have a power drill and a ready-made threaded rod.
Sharpening stones.
you need an edge so many times in your life. When you’re using scissors, slicing veggies, pruning trees, harvesting mushrooms, posting online, mowing grass, carving wood, cutting roots, trimming nails, scraping stoves/ovens, shaving, digging, trimming, pealing whatever.
There are so many dumb fancy arse awful tools that butcher edges and work in one specific case. No! For millenia people have been grinding edges, it is not difficult to learn it just takes practice.
Modern manufacturing means we can enjoy extremely consistent stones in well characterised grades. Go use some, and enjoy how much less effort life requires when everything that cuts, cuts easily.
So what should I look for when buying a sharpening stone? I was planning to buy one to sharpen the knives we have at home, but not sure what I should get and where to get one for a decent price.
you usually work up grits. In general for edges that should end shaving sharp (e.g. kitchen, whirling) below 1k is rough work, profiling work, 1k or so is basic small chip repair etc, 3k is standard sharpen, and higher is polishing wank. You get what you pay for in general: cheap stones need soaking, the wear out fast (needing truing). Shapton makes some great splash and go stones.
However, there is one cheap 2 sided diamond stone that is actually quality. The sharpal one. Be aware diamond cuts extremely fast (good and bad), it doesn’t need truing or soaking. I recommend if you’re getting one stone get that. Learn proper bur minimisation technique and that’ll cover chip repair and get your knives sharp enough to cut seethrough sheets of tomato.
If you feel fancy add 1 micron stropping compound and a sheet of balsa wood to strop on.
On that topic, if you are in a squeeze and don’t have a sharpening stone in the kitchen, you can use the bottom rim of a ceramic mug to sharpen a kitchen knife
String/rope. With a couple of knots, loops and tension you can make a lot of things with it.
A fountain pen is just a controlled leak
I use a Kaweco Sport as my daily driver.
Bonus: Nobody ever “borrows” it at work because it confuses and terrifies them.
Rock.
Manual can openers are better than electric can openers
Especially the kind that uncrimps the can instead of cuts it.
I like to get all up in my snuggie. Get a little weird.
Partially buried housing (ground cooling effect)
On this same note, insulation in general. We can only make something so strong, conductive, heat-resistant, light or hard, so we’ve internalised the expectation that there’s always practical limits. But insulative? There just isn’t one. That means that with an arbitrarily small source of energy - body heat is not only possible but typical - you can overcome unlimited external coldness. We’ve being doing this since before we were human, by many definitions.
Do you have any good resource for beginner to learn about this?
YT Our Self Reliant Life.
Scissors. Their value is noticed most when you cannot find them.
You can always use a knife instead.
But not as precise.
Yeah, but in most cases it’s far, far harder.
Siphons
Do vinyl records count? I really like that they make beautiful noise from a simple electromechanical process.
There are some records which are “threaded” backwards, in that you start at the center and work out rather than start at the edge and work in. This is not standard, automatic turntables might not be able to handle this, but the reason they do this is because of the effect above. You can get greater dynamic range near the outside of the disc, and you probably want greater dynamic range near the end of the recording as the music reaches a climax. Consider Ravel’s Bolero, which is one long crescendo.
INDOOR PLUMBING
I live in an apartment complex. The thought of having to share an outhouse (more than 1 if lucky) with hundreds of strangers TERRIFIES ME. And/or use chamberpots. FUCK NO
A BLESSED ETERNAL AFTERLIFE OF BLISS FOR ALL HUMANS WHO CONTRIBUTED TO INDOOR PLUMBING SCIENCE 😩
See, in the past we solved that by just not having cities the same way, and no buildings taller than maybe 6 floors. And the smallish cities there were were so disease ridden the population self-limited.
This toaster:
Might as well link the Technology Connections video already.
Yes, it’s an 18 minutes video on a 1950s toaster, you can thank me later.
It’s Technology Connections.
It’s always worth it. Because
✨ E N G I N E E R I N G
W I T H S A S S ✨
His video on the wok induction heater had so much sass
“What was once an impossibility is now a reality”
I’m not even that interested in kitchenware (mostly) and I still enjoyed that video! Just goes to show how great he is. Hehe.
I bought one of these toasters because of this video
I love mine, it’s so gentle and civilized.
I wish they made a modern version with the adjustable slice width thing, it’d be perfect.
Same person made me appreciate my can opener
The popping sound is a feature, not a bug. How else can you tell if your toast is ready when you’re doing something else when getting ready in the morning?
