Plaidboy

@Plaidboy@sh.itjust.works

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I watched several videos on a Combine Harvester's inner workings and I still don't understand how this thing works.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Cover cropping does not constitute monoculture when done ideally. In my personal experience with cover crops I have used multiple types of cover crop concurrently in one space.

  Here is a great source on cover cropping: https://growingformarket.com/articles/cover-cropping-notill-systems

  Except from my source: “Rarely in nature do we see a field covered in just a couple of plant species; the natural soil care principle of maximizing diversity inspires us to do better. At Frith, we aim for at least three species in each mix, but some mixes may contain six or more.”

  And I don’t think we’ll be able to keep feeding the world with our current style of agriculture, which is generally depleting soil health and setting us up for future failure. We need more people to be active or semi active in agriculture on smaller scale farms and to eat more local food.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I watched several videos on a Combine Harvester's inner workings and I still don't understand how this thing works.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Crop rotation is a great thing but still falls within monoculture. Planting a field with only one type of thing is the definition of monoculture.

  I seriously believe that cover cropping, intercropping, and examples like MonkderViete posted are the way forward - they result in higher crop yield per square foot and are more resilient in the face of climate change and pest pressure.

  You should learn about the benefits of no till market gardens - they are real and they work.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I watched several videos on a Combine Harvester's inner workings and I still don't understand how this thing works.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  From my perspective this “pinnacle of human ingenuity” is actually a farse, because it relies on a monoculture and is therefore unsustainable in the long term.

  Don’t get me wrong, the engineering is cool and I understand how important the mass production of food has been up to this point in human history, but there is another side of the story. The advent of machinery like this is part of why modern farmers use so many pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers - a monoculture depletes the soil of its nutrients and decreases natural pest control, necessitating the use of chemicals. The use of those chemicals has in turn driven huge ecosystem changes that we are only just beginning to understand the impact of (such as mass pollinator die-offs, changes to soil microbiology, pollution of fresh water sources, pollution of cropland soil, and more) as well as impacting humans in ways we don’t understand since some of those chemicals make their way into our bodies.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨pHun⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  If the buffer says 7.5 and it makes up 6 when mixed, either far too little of the buffer was used/there was already something else buffering the solution or the buffer was prepared incorrectly.

  By selecting the correct buffer and the correct ratio of salt to acid (such as acetic acid and sodium acetate) an exact pH within a certain range can be reached.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Corporations are saving the planet!⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  IIRC the reason most caps used to be unrecyclable (many still are) is that they had a liner in them made of a different material. Because such caps were composite materials (using different types of plastic for the liner and the cap), they would make an impure product if recycled. The same problem applies if the cap and bottle are different types of plastic, which used to be more common.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bees don't have lungs.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The bees were on a different lower down roof from the main roof (which is the one that burned). The article notes that bee wax melts at 70C and they didn’t see any of that under the hives, so they know temperatures stayed below that. So the bees were likely only exposed to some smoke and maybe some slightly elevated temperatures.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨im soooo normal⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  My gf told me that people are suspicious of me because I don’t use regular social media :(

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon's date has a third degree burn⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I used to think that it was beneficial to prevent anaerobic bacteria from infecting the wound, since exposure to oxygen would limit their growth. My understanding of this is evolving, but it seems that some of the time it is true that a wound needs to “breathe” but that doesn’t mean it should be uncovered.

  This article makes it clear that sometimes an “occlusive” bandage (one that completely prevents air/water transfer) is not right, in this case focusing on wounds with impaired circulation.

  This article from a bandage manufacturer makes it clear that most of the time occlusive bandages are better, but there are different extents of occlusivity, and the bandage should be matched to the application.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon interviews for a job⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Part of my last job actually was taste testing water. A very small part lol takes about 20 seconds all told from grabbing the cup to filling it and then tasting it a few times to make sure it’s good and then recycling the cup.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon faces his greatest challenge⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  When they say it doesn’t “really” snow, what do they mean? My experience has been that we are getting less snow than before, but still at least a few feet per season. If you look back at historical records, the difference in snowfall hasn’t been so dramatic.