Thanks for sharing your elegant and versatile setup.
A thought for the discs and safety deposit boxes,
I live in a rural area and have an account with a credit union that service several labor unions. They’re rooted in the community, profitable, and I don’t see them changing anytime soon. 3”x10” boxes are $20/yr.
To expound on safety deposit boxes since GP was asking for critiques. From what I’ve read they can be prone to accidents, theft, damage and are a big reasons to have them is for showing off. My understanding, which entirely comes from this NYT article, is that banks hate them.
This risk is a bit overhyped. Things can happen, yes, but it's pretty rare, and if you're doing regular weekly offsite backups to your safe deposit box, you're not going to suddenly discover that it's gone.
The earth and everything in and on it is part of an electrical system, as solar emissions wash across the landscape they’ll stimulate the flow of electrons in everything especially metal and circuit based items. Since circuits in many items are delicate things, designed for very specific currents, it will be a near guarantee that electrical components will be damaged.
This is incorrect. A solar flare is not like an EMP. It's low frequency so only wires that are miles long would be energized. It could possibly destroy electronics that aren't protected by a power strip. But no, it's not going to destroy your cellphone or the electronics in your car.
I had a similar thought, if high energy particles damage/affect DNA could these events contribute in some way to a period of more pronounced speciation?
The greatest map I can remember seeing was from my childhood, a National Geographic map of the Mongol Empire. I was mesmerized by that single image telling a story involving the lives of millions told over hundreds of years.
Here's a 2 second google examples of: I like this map, I hate this map. Now, maps have different purposes, and so it can be unfair to sometimes pick two different maps and critique them in comparison, but, we're going to do that anyway. Two maps of North Carolina.
The first has a crisp, clean design. Is elegant and imparts the information is is trying to relay. It's simple, but has high accuracy. It's easy to read, and the colors are well chosen.
The second is just... ugh... First of all, looking at it for just a few seconds I noticed they spelled at least one city incorrectly. It's just ugly. why is NC at an angle? There is little design intent. Now, to be fair, it does convey information (but I already know some of it is wrong), and so from that standpoint you can argue that it's a fine map. But we're talking about the art of cartography, and at the end of the day, I'd argue it's is an art form, and design is a key component. And in this map's case, it is just a horrid map that I don't want to even look at.
As a tip I learned in school: don't ever put a north arrow on a map, unless it absolutely needs it.
National Geographic almost always has great maps. They have some amazing cartographers working for them. I love their stuff.
My home in the wet tropics is solar powered. A small array of eight 325w panels supports 3 people, a regular AC refrigerator, electric kettle, electric hotplate, washer/dryer, and continuously running ceilings fans for moisture. In periods of cloud cover we still generate some power, we just switch to propane cooking and being frugal with our power budget. Solar is a no brainer in the tropics.
I think the real story here is that the project was successfully sold to the people of Wyoming, who now appear to be shouldering the responsibility of decarbonization.
I am in Wyoming. I think it makes sense to the people here. The state is going green and the mines are shutting down. A suitable replacement needs to be created first before all the mines are decommissioned. Some of the people will be employed by the nuclear plant and some will have to move or retire. The person I know at the mine is retiring soon. As this state provides a lot of power to the US power grid currently with coal [1] I think it makes sense to transition as much of it as possible to nuclear and renewables. The state is not limiting itself to one source, all options are on the table and more options are being added soon. We do not show up as a big number for wind and solar power because it is only augmenting some power for some of the small towns and not the US grid yet [2].
"Tallen said he’s not ideologically opposed to nuclear power. He said he rubbed elbows with that crowd years ago, but it’s not where he stands today.
“The distrust of nuclear power is one of the major ideological tenets of left-wing, anti-establishment politics,” Tallen said. “I had to say to them, I can’t agree with you on many of your basic assumptions. I’m just saying that this particular [Natrium] technology pursued the way it is right now – I don’t think it’s a good idea.” "
The EMDR technique specifically has helped me here where as years of talk therapy helped me self awareness but didn’t help change the my initial reaction to triggering events.
A thought for the discs and safety deposit boxes,
I live in a rural area and have an account with a credit union that service several labor unions. They’re rooted in the community, profitable, and I don’t see them changing anytime soon. 3”x10” boxes are $20/yr.