Cory Doctorow on John Deere's Tractor Killswitch

https://doctorow.medium.com/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors-bc93f471b9c8

 

Most of us have heard about the Russian looters who stole a bunch of John Deere equipment from a Ukrainian dealer and hauled it to Chechnya, only to be foiled when the dealer remotely disabled all those implements. Heartwarming! But . . . This essay ties together several issues in a very neat, very disturbing bundle. The big surprise for me was

Friday Links: German Expression, Knife Sharpening, a Recipe, and Atlanta

I know that the principles of this knife sharpener are sound, I don't know if this version works well. At this price I'm tempted to try. A company called "Wasabi" has been selling the same thing at a multiple of this price.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002806278575.html?spm=a2g0o.detail.100009.1.6013e215hW2M1i&gps-id=pcDetailLeftTopSell&scm=1007.13482.271138.0&scm_id=1007.13482.271138.0&scm-url=1007.13482.271138.0&pvid=5946f051-089f-46be-8974-ac65ec5f40bc&_t=gps-id:pcDetailLeftTopSell,scm-url:1007.13482.271138.0,pvid:5946f051-089f-46be-8974-ac65ec5f40bc,tpp_buckets:668%232846%238108%231977&pdp_ext_f=%257B%2522sku_id%2522%253A%252212000025558963981%2522%252C%2522sceneId%2522%253A%25223482%2522%257D&pdp_pi=-1%253B30.8%253B-1%253B-1%2540salePrice%253BUSD%253Brecommend-recommend

A varenyky recipe. I think this is too much sour cream but I haven't tried it yet. Let me know if you do!

https://www.allthingsukrainian.com/Recipe/Varenyky/VarenykyRecipe.html

Did you know? One German near-equivalent to "painting the town red" is [literally] "letting the sow out."

https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/die_Sau_rauslassen

Here are some good local writers and reporters making their suggestions for improving Atlanta. I am in strong agreement with Andisheh's.

https://austinlouisray.com/#/how-id-fix-atlanta/

Friday Links: Diet for a Small Planet at 50, Scythe Resource, Farm Tractors in Forestry

 Diet for a Small Planet is being issued in a new 50th-anniversary edition: 

https://www.dietforasmallplanet.org/

I have unexpectedly become interested in working with a scythe. I own two, a heavy one for brush and a very light and slim one for grass. Turns out you can still buy all the parts and maintenance tools, and there are modern-day experts ready to train you. This seems to be one of the good sites for both:

https://www.baryonyxknife.com/scac.html

And here's an English translation of a Swedish government publication about using a small farm tractor in the woods. There are still forestry winches being made for tractors, so this is all of interest to me:

https://www.maine.gov/dacf/mfs/publications/general_publications/farm_tractor_in_the_forest.pdf

Friday Links: About Tabs, Citizen Science in ATL, MEI Packs, Wood-Fired Ovens

 First, a tab about tabs and tabbing:

https://dirt.substack.com/p/dirt-the-season-of-tabs?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxMzI5NzkwLCJwb3N0X2lkIjozOTUwMzAxOSwiXyI6ImxhdlFlIiwiaWF0IjoxNjI3OTA5ODYyLCJleHAiOjE2Mjc5MTM0NjIsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0yMzIxODciLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.64QlW_nl-AdQCVALWma1__jJDvrWBuQCExTjM9yjI00

(Some of our clutter is there because it's stuff that reminds us of who we want to be.)

An opportunity to do citizen science here in Atlanta:

https://urbanheatatl.org/

MEI makes the Voyageur, my favorite carry-on with backpack straps. I have ordered these as gifts several times and gotten excellent feedback each time:

https://www.meipacks.com/collections/carry-ons/products/deluxe-voyageur-new?variant=29110618751056

An old-school website on old-school woodfired ovens:

https://www.traditionaloven.com/

In the Time of Coronavirus

Today I'm completing my third week at home, semi-sheltering from the corona virus. Twice a week I go to work to care for the animals in our teaching collection. Other days I work on Fernbank's social media and website, here at home. I am also my household's self-appointed hammer when it comes to running errands like grocery shopping.

I have known all through this that

Homemade Timber Inventory Tools

This is a good collection of simple, homemade tools for do-it-yourself timber inventory.

http://cru.cahe.wsu.edu/CEPublications/EM038E/EM038E.pdf

I found it in the process of seeking a way to estimate basal area at 10 selected points on my land, partly for my ongoing project of keeping specific data on what's going on in my woods, and partly for a before & after study of what happens when we log the land, hopefully this year.

REVISION (2019/01/08)
Here are stocking tables and some more timber inventory information from the Wisconsin DNR. Very good stuff. I'll be printing this out and incorporating it into my personal file of data I've collected on my land. 
http://learningstore.uwex.edu/assets/pdfs/G3362.PDF

REVISION (2019/01/09)
More on the theory behind the tools: 
https://dnr.wi.gov/files/PDF/pubs/ss/SS0023.pdf

Atomic War Tips

This guy Yonatan Zunger has some stuff worth reading. The following showed up today and includes good reminders of things I read about as a child.  https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/island-tips-for-surviving-a-nuclear-attack-5708fc56fb5d

How Long is Your Doughnut Hole?

My "retirement package" can be accessed at 62, and I have some "emergency savings" to live on if I ever am out of work. If my emergency savings continue growing, and my age continues to approach 62, I should have an ever-decreasing "doughnut hole," the time between when my emergency savings would run out and when I reach age 62.

I am sure I'm not alone in thinking that once the doughnut hole is gone, continuing to work is optional rather than a life-or-death necessity. And so I like to keep an eye on the size of the doughnut hole. When things are going well, I only check once a year or so. When things are miserable, I check slightly more often. Twice a day maybe. It would be nice to develop a bit of software that would display the doughnut hole "countdown" style on my smartphone. Or not. After all, that leads to a mindset of wanting "this part" of my life to be over so I can be living in "that part." Which of course is illusory thinking; the only part of my life I can ever live is THIS HERE NOW.

Still. It's nice to have something pleasant to think about, so here's an online calculator that will tell you how long your emergency savings will hold out. Add that to your current age, subtract the sum from 62, and you know the length of your doughnut hole.

You're welcome.

Doughnut Hole Length Calculation Helper

Set Your Car to Nookie Mode

Worth reading. Based on the concept: what if human nature remains about the same as "driverless cars" become commonplace?

https://medium.com/hidden-in-plain-sight/concepts-in-autonomous-mobility-80732bc4a44d#.bjjnykj1a