Some detergents say “septic safe” on the container. My folks bought the cheapest option which did not say one way or another, so I had to call the supplier, who then said it was septic safe. It’s a shame that in the 2020s we still don’t have transparency on what we buy.
activistPnk
joined 1 year ago
I recall someone in #chemistry (on freenode) talking about measuring detergent. He could have been a nutter, but stressed the importance of measuring the right amount, saying get a scale and weigh it according to the manual.
The manual for one of my machines is shit.. says look at the program table for detergent amount - then it’s omitted from the table. But what was useful was the manual said what the numbers meant. The lines marked “15” and “25” are for 15cm³ and 25cm³. The brim is 40cm³ and the prewash cup is 5cm³. Those are volumes, not weight. So I calculated the weight I needed at one point and IIRC it turned out that 15g of powder came out to 15cm³ (lucky me!). I don’t recall how I figured out that I needed 15g.
Anyway, these are the variables that influence the amount of detergent to use:
- load size (some manuals make that a factor, but it’s unclear why because it’s always the same amount of water in the tub. The guy in #chemistry seemed to think it was important)
- water hardness
- program selected (I have ~6 or so programs plus a ½-load button, so effectively 12; some have a prewash cycle, some not)
- type of detergent
Some of the short programs imply that slow solving detergents (tablets) should be avoided.
I still have not figured out what the ½-load button really does. Manual just says press it if you have less than half a load to save on water and power. That’s it. WTF? So I asked the manufacturer and they repeated the same useless answer, but said fill only 1 rack. WTF.. which rack? I wanted to know what the ½-load button actually changed the program so I could use it wisely. How does the machine know which rack I chose? I think the “load only one rack” answer from the manufacturer is bullshit. I’ll probably sprawl out my partial loads. The manual should be telling people how much water is used with this setting. I have no idea how it saves on energy since the program choice dictates a fixed water temp. Maybe it just comes down to the fact that it has less water to heat. In any case, I should probably use less detergent on partial loads but the manual doesn’t give the calculation or even enough info to be able to calculate it.
Too much detergent → etching (and waste of detergent)
Too little detergent → repetition needed, which wastes water, energy, and detergent
If you don’t care about etching, then using too much is probably not a big deal.
In the past couple months Google has become quite hostile toward front-ends that previously made it possible for Tor users to reach their content. And I don’t have a good connection so I can’t do videos anyway.
But indeed, it’s hard to find proper detergent. I have to go to a big store of a big grocery chain to get it. But it’s worth it on the basis of price alone. Buying a couple kilos of powder gives the most loads for the money. IIRC the pods were twice the cost of powder when comparing a promotional sales price on pods.
(edit) Oh, but speaking of youtube, video rBO8neWw04 (which I have a saved a copy of) goes into pods. The guy makes an interesting point: pods discourage the use of detergent in the prewash. Though I think he over stresses that.
What disgusts me about this is the digital markets act names all the tech giants except Cloudflare as gatekeepers. The single most harmful bully on the block is Cloudflare. I can (and am) boycotting Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Amazon. It’s difficult for most civilians but possible.
But if you want to be free from Cloudflare, it’s impossible because Cloudflare has even MitMd public services. You cannot get public information from government sources operating on public money without Cloudflare. Because I choose to boycott Cloudflare, I have had to give up my voting rights. I cannot vote in elections because of Cloudflare. So indeed it’s disgusting that Cloudflare is not even on the radar when it should be at the top.
BTV can cause abortion, in animals? WTF? I guess they must mean miscarriages. AFAIK non-human animals don’t do abortions.
solar PV → heat pump → water heater; direct, no A/C or intermediate components. Practical? Feasible?
Shit.. sounds about right.
Although the /water is hot enough/ scenario could be addressed mechanically: bigger water tank, lower heating element raised and the heat pump heating the bottom exclusively where it could /always/ add heat because it would never be hot enough at the bottom.
(edit) after some thought, it would superficially make sense to get a factory water heater (tank) and not tamper with it at all. Just have a PV-powered heat pump heat water before it enters the stock water heater (in a tank or coil). Thus there could be 2 heat pumps (but for economy the stock tank would just be a simple non-heat pump type). I guess this is still a dead idea anyway if it’s true that a PV cannot simply directly connect to a compressor.
Would the materials have much more of a footprint than geothermal installations? Because that slight 7° difference between below ground temp and above ground temps apparently justifies the labor, materials, and power to the circulators for harvesting geothermal energy. So this seems to be the same but adding a cherry on top -- incorporating a heat pump to add to the energy of a geothermal system.
Because of Google’s DoS attack, those of us in the open free world cannot reach Youtube. So would someone please explain the concept in text?
Is this it? → https://utahforge.com/2022/12/30/did-you-know-that-scottish-clubbers-use-dance-beat-to-generate-heat/
Seems like a great idea. Like using the body heat to boost geothermals.
Someone plz tell Massive Attack about this. Massive Attack has gone gung-ho on eco-friendly festivals (in places inaccessible by car). They might want to throw some indoor events with this tech.
(edit) from the article:
“An experienced DJ could get up to 600 watts with the right song at the right time.”
So IIUC that’s like ~1½ solar panels getting a full dose of UV, correct? I guess that’s not much. But nonetheless not something to throw away either. So during the day solar panels on the roof could heat the ground pipes and during the night the clubbers keep the system powered.
Would be fun for that power output to be measured, and then that power measurement could be a performance index on each DJ. You pay the DJ according to the power output they can produce. Though I guess that would screw over the ambiant / trip-hop DJs.
Have they thought this through? To install batteries that are much heavier than what the bus trip requires makes the bus less efficient. Research in the UK found that a bus carrying 5 people is about as efficient as 5 cars each carrying 1 person. That’s because of the weight of the bus. So the goal should be to fill the bus with people, not excessive batteries and overhead that need not move back and forth from A to B which then requires more riders to maintain the same efficiency.
Sure they need to store energy for to smooth out peak grid consumption but probably smarter to do that with stationary batteries -- if they must use batteries. Another way to store energy: pump water to the top of a mountain and open a dam that turns a hydro turbine when they need the energy back.
from the article:
Pollution from buses and other vehicles contributes to chronic asthma among students, which leads to chronic absenteeism.
Seems like a stretch. Even if they can attribute chronic absenteeism to air pollution and keep a straight face, moving the pollution of a fleet of buses that makes 2 trips/day from the street to the power plant isn’t going to change the absenteeism by reducing asthma. This claim only signals a bit of desperation to get support.
Well that depends on how equipped you are. One cool thing about compressors is you can straight up connect a PV directly to a compressor with no voltage regulators or anything. So if you have a simple setup like that, I can see up front cost effectiveness in storing ice. But if you already have batteries, and thus voltage regulators and all the costly intermediate components to make that possible, then I would agree.. I might rather store it in lead acid batteries as that would be more versatile.
Sounds like they would do well in Arizona, where the air is dry. IIUC swamp coolers were very popular in Arizona until ~20 years ago when temps increased so much that swamp coolers could not make enough difference (this is largely because more and more land became concrete, which reduced the effect of evaporative cooling the land mass). So a/c became more popular in AZ IIUC. But the dry air would still be dry.
- The right to be unplugged includes the right to be free from banks as banks increasingly force customers online. There is also a #WarOnCash underway. So even if you make the ethically absent minded decision to pay for your food electronically, the least you can do is pay the tip in cash. (the war on cash is war on privacy)
- Electronic tips are also subject to siphoning off by banks. When you tip by card, you also tip Visa, Mastercard, or whatever scumbag credit network is in play because their fee is a percentage of the whole transaction. The electronic transaction may be free to you but it’s not free to the business. I don’t know if the restaurant pays the whole fee and transfers 100% of the tip to the server, or if the server shares the hit. But if this is not McDonalds but some small local business, it’s better to give the full amount to the business anyway.
- Data protection: when you tip electronically, that creates a record not just attached to you but to the server. If you respect /their/ privacy by way of data minimization, you tip in cash.
- Environmental protection: banks are lousy for the environment. (ref: Banking on Climate Chaos, bank blacklist and Wired article)
- Terminal tipping is a swindle (esp. in Europe). Tipping is not only optional in the most pure meaning of the word (not expected), but tipping amounts are lower in Europe meant purely to indicate service quality. Even a tip of €1 is a complement. But terminals suggest American proportions (e.g. 20%). It’s a scam. I think I’ve only seen this in tourist traps. The ownership is happy to make their staff happy by pushing a tip request in a way that deceives the public into thinking it’s out of their hands.. that the technology is asking for the tip. This fucked up scam is training restaurant patrons to overtip w.r.t. the culture (a culture that the locals don’t want to drift into Americanism). In the US it’s not exactly a swindle, but you have less control over the amount nonetheless. Sure most people like the math-free convenience but IMO that does not justify it. And certainly the ~15—25% amounts are excessive when there was no table service.
- Sometimes servers pool their tips to then tip a portion to the kitchen staff who did well enough to make the servers look good. Cash tips make that go smoothly. I was once in a rare situation where I needed to pay by card and I also wanted cash back. The server explained to me they do not give cash back because of that tip pooling that they do, saying that sometimes they do not get enough cash tips to properly treat the kitchen staff.
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I think liquids are heavier to transport than solids because solid detergent is more concentrated (no water). Liquid detergent (which comes in all viscocities) still has its place: for people with hard water. But apart from that I think solid detergent is the best for the environment.
There are those solid tablets which are like powder pressed together. Sometimes those are in a plastic wrapper that needs to be removed before use (yikes), and sometimes they are in a disolving gelatin like the liquid pods. But I guess the sacks of powder need not be as thick as the liquid ones.