IrishAyes
IrishAyes's JournalEngineer Types - What Say You About This?
Sounds too good to be true but I want to be wrong. Not about to consider buying one even when they are(?) available in US until I see independent verification.
Meanwhile maybe some of you folks could tell me what you think so far at this stage of development.
http://samuel-warde.com/2015/11/60-minutes-on-this-bicycle-can-power-your-home-for-24-hours-video/
Chemistry Question
Okay, at first glance this might appear to be in the wrong forum because it started with a DIY topic on another website. But those other groups don't necessarily have any SCIENTISTS, much less chemists, and I want the very best answer to my dilemma.
It all started when apartmenttherapydotcom said don't use vinegar for a softener in dishwashers and washing machines anymore because it's hell on the fittings and hoses. Since I have heard about water softener systems screwing up the plumbing in houses, that brought me to a screeching halt.
So I started looking up DIY liquid fabric softeners and except for one, ALL have vinegar in the formula. The one that doesn't says use epsom salts instead.
Question: Is the alkaline epsom salts just as bad for rubber hoses and fittings or less so? than vinegar on rubber hoses and fittings? If it is, can a real chemist tell me a better way to do this?
Special ? about Windows 10 Nobody Else Will Answer
I have great friends on another website (as well as here). Some are very tech savvy, and they honestly mean to answer my question but they still don't although I've rephrased it twice. I hope someone here can do it.
Here's what I posted elsewhere:
.....................................................................................................
"Tech question! With Windows 10 now available for free download, I've learned some things but still haven't found the answer to a major question.
Okay - if you download and install the program, you have something like 9 months or so to switch back to your previous OS. Fine. You also have up to a year (?) to download and install.
What I still feel unsure about is exactly what happens when you do download. Does the program demand to be immediately installed, thereby wiping out your files etc., or does it download and just sit there quietly until you're ready to install later? I have plenty of room for 10 but also tons of files that I don't have time to move out of potential harm's way just yet."
....................................................................................
All sorts of great advice follows, such as wait the full year allowed to download a free version so the bugs will already be addressed, etc. But no answer to the question I asked! Maybe they assume it no longer matters since they're telling me to wait. But I still want to know!
Part of the trouble is that I don't 100% trust MS to give us that year-long period for a free download. And I do have a massive hard drive with tons of memory so if the download will sit in the corner quietly and NOT auto-install on download, I could easily go through the patch process after downloading.
Oh, and I'm running a 64-bit Windows 8.1 btw.
Thanks for any help you can offer.
Looking for McGyver (cross post)
No, really.... I have a pressing personal problem for which there might or might not be a viable solution. Since I'm only 5' tall, my bike's wheels are 24" - otherwise I can't touch the ground with my feet on both sides at once. You don't want to know how many times I wrecked a 26" bike. Well, if you do want to know, I'm not telling. Can't count that high. And I don't trust cable brakes so mine are coaster.
Also with the passage of time, I'm less able to deal with the hills around here, I need some kind of AFFORDABLE pedal assist. I've spent hours hunting a suitable rig online and have finally decided to admit defeat.
So any bike enthusiasts and/or engineer types out there who can help me solve this, I'd appreciate the help.
Looking for McGyver (Cross Post)
No, really.... I have a pressing personal problem for which there might or might not be a viable solution. Since I'm only 5' tall, my bike's wheels are 24" - otherwise I can't touch the ground with my feet on both sides at once. You don't want to know how many times I wrecked a 26" bike. Well, if you do want to know, I'm not telling. Can't count that high. And I don't trust cable brakes so mine are coaster.
Also with the passage of time, I'm less able to deal with the hills around here, I need some kind of AFFORDABLE pedal assist. I've spent hours hunting a suitable rig online and have finally decided to admit defeat.
So any bike enthusiasts and/or engineer types out there who can help me solve this, I'd appreciate the help. I'd prefer something electrical or at least solar or battery for the noise issue. I know systems can be found on eBay for instance, but I never know for sure which would work with MY bike and they're pricey anyhow. There's one beautiful rig that turns any bike into assisted and all you have to do is just pop it on - But if I can pop it on, somebody else can easily pop it off too when I blink. Plus it costs close to 6 times what I paid for the bike. At that price I'd have to walk.
Looking for McGyver
No, really.... I have a pressing personal problem for which there might or might not be a viable solution. Since I'm only 5' tall, my bike's wheels are 24" - otherwise I can't touch the ground with my feet on both sides at once. You don't want to know how many times I wrecked a 26" bike. Well, if you do want to know, I'm not telling. Can't count that high. And I don't trust cable brakes so mine are coaster.
Also with the passage of time, I'm less able to deal with the hills around here, I need some kind of AFFORDABLE pedal assist. I've spent hours hunting a suitable rig online and have finally decided to admit defeat.
So any bike enthusiasts and/or engineer types out there who can help me solve this, I'd appreciate the help.
Just wanted to say hi to everybody for a moment.
The increasing carpal tunnel symptoms will force surgery someday; meanwhile I try to get by with much more reading and far less writing. So I don't post anywhere very much.
A gratifying thing happened on my FB page, however. I use it mostly as a political news feed from the usual suspects but of course I do interact now and then with people. One of the most interesting I've met is a young man studying for the Catholic priesthood at a diocesan university in a third world country. He loves Pope Francis very much and may eventually become a Jesuit although he's torn between them and the Franciscans because he has such a heart for nature and the poor. Meanwhile he studies philosophy and psychology as well - so he has some interesting points to make. Good grounding in history too, even though he's still an undergraduate. Liberal for his time and location, so we get along fine.
Point being, he's smart and wise beyond his years. Very dedicated. I hope he sticks with his current goals because Mother Church needs all the help we can offer. I'm someone outside his regular circle of acquaintances and so can offer new avenues for him to explore, such as American authors he might not yet be familiar with. Since their country's really poor and books are expensive and hard to come by, I've offered to refer him to my favorite free e-book websites. He would never ask and doesn't know this yet, but I'm thinking of sending him my older android e-reader for everyone there to share.
He's an orphan taken in by the church; since in his culture older women are more respected than some places I could name, he just calls me 'Ma'. It seems likely that someday there will be a racial minority pontiff; and although I'd never tell him this, I rather enjoy imagining what if I'm offering some encouragement at least to a future pope? It could happen! Since it's also likely that he'll be alive and probably ordained when I die, he's promised to say Mass for me and even bless my grave if he's assigned anywhere near it, and if that proves impossible by that time he should be able to send a friend from closer by to do the job.
And the few but rotten nasty people at our local mission who make it completely impossible for me to attend Mass there will just have to live with the fact that I can lead as Catholic a life as possible despite their interference. Well, actually they won't ever know in this life because I won't tell them, and when I'm gone it will be too late. Just between this DU group and me, I like to wonder if by the time this young man earns his spurs so to speak, the church might even allow confession by Skype under extraordinary conditions. What do you think?
Who Says Small Town Life Has to Be Dull?
Slightly interesting (?) matter here.
There's a man in town who for at least the last couple years has been writing hateful letters to the editor of the local weekly about one person and another by name. A lot of people in town are starting to consider him downright unbalanced, as do I. He responded to one of my political letters that had nothing to do with him by a jolly little piece he titled "SCREAMING HYENAS OF SOCIALISM!" Plus a lot of other incredibly ugly things, down to and including describing me as "little". Well, I am but not the way he meant it.
He hurt so many people's feelings that I finally sent a letter advising others to follow my example of checking signatures before reading letters in order to know which ones to avoid - the ones from the (unnamed) 'town bully' who falsely imagines himself a satirist. After all, I said, there's no sharper stick you can poke in his eye.
Well, it's a miracle nobody's sued him or the paper or come to blows, it's been that bad. I don't get my feelings hurt as they do because I don't give a tinker's damn what he says about me. One guy, however, wrote in complaining that his wife had dissolved in tears. So it's not a question of if but when the lid blows somewhere.
Today I accidentally broke my promise, though, by not checking before I read what looked like an ad framed as a Western Union telegram. By the time I guessed who must've written it, I'd already gone too far to stop. Not that I'll let anyone here know I read it, especially not him.
So here for your amusement is the short text involved. No, he doesn't dare use my name anymore but he saves his special 'socialist hyena' tag just for me so everyone knows who he means. I guess after years of vomiting bile he didn't appreciate being referred to sideways as a town bully who should be ignored!
The text of his faux-telegram:
"PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT - URGENT - SITED (sic) IN (name of town) VICINITY - BULLIED, JACKASS KICKED, SKUNKBIT SOCIALIST HYENA! SERIOUSLY PISSED; POSSIBLE CAUSE - RECENT ELECTION RESULTS! BE ON THE LOOKOUT - DANGEROUS AND MEAN. CAN BE OBSERVED CONTINUOUSLY SPITTING INTO THE WIND! IF SPOTTED, APPROACH WITH CAUTION! SIGNED, PUBLIC SERVANT / HIS NAME." (paid advertisement)
So I guess the editor/publisher of the paper finally refused to print a letter, and he's infamous for printing ANYTHING. Not that he should've taken the ad either, but that's beside the point. Nothing good will ever come of letting that nut run roughshod over half the town. If I had Irish relatives anywhere around, Mr. Bully Nut would've been taken behind the woodshed long ago. The editor/publisher has already said he's been threatened with arson.
I think I'll resist writing any more letters for a few weeks to let this play itself out absent my participation. At worst in a month or so I might write a little piece about teabagger mentality, backing it up with quotes from scientific journals, and noting that one of their most notable characteristics is poor spelling, such as using 'sited' (a non-word btw) instead of 'sighted'. If I ended with the expression "Morans!" they wouldn't catch the full meaning. But they would know to whom I referred, and so would he.
When you have a slow leak under the sink
And there's no plumber in sight and you're out of plumbers putty, AND even worse you have to keep a heater going so a frozen pipe won't burst:
Slide a metal pie pan filled with kitty litter under the drip. This will buy you extra time. If you're using heat you can't line the pan with newspapers - and I don't think they're as absorbent anyway.
While I doubt the idea's unique, it only occurred to me just this evening. Old and slow, y'know.
Saw a beautiful magnetic-cover scene of Refrigerator Art for only $110 recently.
Since my kitchen is rustic themed, I thought maybe a bucolic scene of cattle grazing in meadows might be nice. But not at that price!
Looks like I'll have to go with my previous DIY choice: tape an old piece of lace fabric, taking care to overlap the edges onto the appliance's sides - you're only going to decorate the front - and then spray paint quickly and lightly over the lace on the front and then remove it immediately. And carefully. The lace won't have time to stick but you'll be left with a lovely pattern on the door.
Or you could even use butcher paper or some alternative to cut out your own design, specific or free form. It's certainly cheap and easy, and could be lovely.
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Gender: FemaleHome country: US
Current location: retired to MidWest
Member since: Mon Feb 18, 2013, 10:15 PM
Number of posts: 6,151
