by gg3 » Sun 24 Oct 2004, 07:46:00
Aaron, you'll be proud of me, I didn't puke all over my keyboard when I read that item you posted about your doctor's recommendation about (content omitted to prevent others puking on *their* keyboards):-).
Monte, of course I didn't take the "ad hominem" too seriously, in fact I think I even put a smiley somewhere in that paragraph. Though, re my "obsession" with cleanliness, in point of fact my house is messy as hell (though not unsanitary), it looks like the geek-cave that it is. The point of my "obsession" with infectious agents is not so much a matter of individual health as it is public health: break the transmission paths wherever possible.
Frank: organic deodorants are probably OK, by the way I don't use either, I just shower every morning, wash thoroughly when doing so, and no one has yet said that I stink. Or maybe they're too scared:-). Re. stinky Amish, I suppose they don't notice it on each other.
A while back someone did a thorough study of race & cultural attitudes, asking some very probing questions after building trust with the volunteers. Turns out that there is at least a strong and consistent plurality of opinion among black folks that white folks smell like (are you ready?) dogs that have just come in from the rain! Well, us white folks don't smell dog on each other, and people who work outdoors together don't smell sweat on each other, so I suppose the Amish don't smell "whatever it is" on each other either. And this is a very good thing, because if we all stink, we won't notice it.
This in turn suggests a new verse to the old Tom Lehrer song "We'll All Go Together When We Go":
Oh we'll all stink together when we stink!
If you notice it, then have another drink!
There's no fuel for water-heating, sanitation takes a beating,
and we'll all stink together when we stink!
Duff, microwaves consume a small fraction of the power used by conventional cooking appliances. I use mine all the time, and the food tastes fine to me (and I don't smell either:-), but seriously, how else do you propose to cook food with a limited energy budget? Re. cellphones, you would be amazed at the pressure I get from *everyone* around me to get one. I don't want one. I call them "electronic dog-leashes" and I have to rationalize to my clients, "you don't want me being constantly interrupted when I'm on your site and the clock is ticking at $155 an hour." I might get a pager and trigger it from my voicemail system, to send me the mailbox number when I get messages. Probably will, probably soon, and then I can fight off the cellphone enthusiasts by waving my pager at them:-).
Jpatti, you're welcome to eat buried food, I'm not stopping you, but I'll put my faith in other methods. Re. plunger-laundry, are they doing blue jeans that way? When I tried it, socks, t-shirts, and underpants didn't cause too much trouble but the ever-present blue jeans were what screwed up the method. I'm thinking there has to be another style of decent work-pants around. I don't like "slacks," I do like sweats but not for client site visits obviously. I do like the black-on-black geek uniform, but not for flying on airplanes (might give TSA the wrong impression). Hmm. Berkeley has some decent clothing stores, I should go fish and see what I catch.
Boiling the laundry: Yes, I read about that when I looked up the relevant history; it's another part of the 19th century laundry procedure, though I wonder if it causes fabrics to break down prematurely? it would probably get the jeans clean though:-). At least the boiling procedure can be done with the benefit of solar-heated hot water.
Wood-fired hot tubs: no problem. A jacuzzi is a hot tub with motor-powered water jets that you can direct to various parts of the body. Presumably some people use this as part of their foreplay; or if they don't have a partner or any warm & fuzzy friends, as a substitute for massage by live human hands.
Regular bath tubs: yeah, a leisurely bath could be an acceptable luxury especially if you recycle the graywater to flush the toilet. Which is easy to do, only requires a pump (best if hand-powered) and an elevated storage tank above the toilet, with appropriate valves, etc. etc.
Interesting about how the ice box was used; now that makes sense, i.e. keeping things cold-ish for a short period of time. However I still don't think it's practical for the vast majority, whose food supply is most efficiently provided via occasional shopping trips rather than daily ones, whether to the grocery or to the farmer's market.
Good point about windup clocks. Hmm. Okay, quartz with rechargeable NiMH batteries. Or one electric clock in the house, to set all the windups from. OTOH our culture is too hooked on precise measurement of time, I think that attitude causes heart attacks.
Bart, your grandma can be forgiven for making the kids eat brains back in the days when no one knew what prions were. Today, anyone who eats brains is asking for a Darwin award. Mushrooms: requires serious knowledge of mycology, best to grow 'em in a controlled environment, from known-safe stock.
Zeiter, I've found I simply can't work on a CRT monitor, I've been using laptops since my first Apple Powerbook 165 ten years ago (which still works like new and is currently in use as an incoming fax server). Presently my main computers are an Apple iBook G4 running OSX 10.3.5 (which I use for almost everything), and an HP ze-4600 runnning WinXP (which I use for the PBX programming tools and other Windows-specific applications). No eye strain whatsoever. Whereas back in the days when I used CRTs (black & white back then), I would always notice that after a few hours at the screen, my eyes got weird, things would look fuzzy in middle distances, and I couldn't focus quite right.
Fridges will still be necessary, it only takes a few hours for food to grow enough bacteria to give you a whopping case of diarrhea. Dairy is still sustainable, as is meat in more limited quantities. Even if this means milk is delivered in the morning, kept in an insulated box for a couple of hours at most, and all used up at breakfast.
Desmond Morris is an anthropologist, not a public health specialist. In any case if our culture were so tweaky about keeping the private parts private, we wouldn't demand that employees display & operate said parts under the watchful gaze of their boss' surrogates in order to prove that they weren't smoking marijuana. Think about that one.
I had a close friend who, despite doing stenuous work when needed, showered once or twice a week and didn't smell bad (in fact he smelled like "healthy human" all the time). Most people can't get away with that. Personally I'll go for once every two days if necessary, but daily is better, and recycling the graywater to flush the toilet minimizes the water consumption.
Johnfrodo, where do you get that 220v results in an automatic conservation advantage? If you increase the voltage you decrease the current but the power consumed is the same. Or did someone change a few physical laws while I was asleep?:-). (By the way, a lot of honestly-mistaken claims about "free energy devices" arise just because the inventors didn't know about the tradeoff between voltage and current; a friend of mine has had to spend much time explaining this to various people including some of those inventors.)
Re. Dvanharn and Johnmarkos, see my next post...