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Next Generation Wood Stove Design Challenge - Page 3 — Parallax Forums

Next Generation Wood Stove Design Challenge

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  • ErlendErlend Posts: 612
    edited 2013-03-20 13:38
    6502, BCPL
    timber saw, not chain saw
    stove once carried over miles of marshland
    west coast mountain cabin at lake of trouts
    early morning coffee with grains to spit out, and swear

    You wanna pissing contest?
    :smile:
  • Tracy AllenTracy Allen Posts: 6,664
    edited 2013-03-20 13:47
    Haha, Is it better to visit the Norwegian tribe in winter for the ice fishing, or summer for mosquitos pouring forth from the marsh? You do use a warming hut it would seem and carry your stove in! Oh my, a hardy tribe, as the contest gets underway.

    I lived in Colorado and Michigan and shoveled snow, and backpacked in Alaska in the midnight sun. But now I live in California, and I married a Southern Italian, so no more prolonged chasing the ice for me.
  • User NameUser Name Posts: 1,451
    edited 2013-03-20 14:24
    Gadgetman wrote: »
    Splinters of pine wood is good.

    That's my favorite way to start a fire. I think the lower thermal conductivity of ponderosa pine allows the surface to reach volatilization temperatures more readily. Oak and locust are just the opposite. They are so dense that a stick won't start burning until its hot all the way through - and that can take a long time and a lot of heat.

    But I've got to take issue with Loopy's comment about old fashioned stoves vs modern stoves. I thought the same way until I bought a modern stove. Now I would never go back!!! Even if the EPA disappeared in a puff of green smoke, I'd still buy modern stoves that reburn the smoke with heated secondary air. I love to watch the secondary combustion process, I love the extra heat out of a unit of wood, and I love to see nothing but heat waves exiting my flue. :)
  • kwinnkwinn Posts: 8,697
    edited 2013-03-20 17:04
    Well, I am still fond of 'off-the-grid' cabins.
    Obviously, if you have gas, oil, or whatever... you have to connect to the outside world.

    I'd just like to build a log cabin on a 160 acres surrounded by national forest, take water from a spring, catch trout from a stream, and grow a few vegetables. But I do admit that I'd get very little done without a chain saw. And I might have to shoot a deer occasionally. So a rifle and ammunition would be needed. Or at least a bow and arrows. Maybe I would need to live some place that has a coal seam poking out of the ground.

    You can go back to before technology, but people just didn't live as long.

    We like to sit around a wood stove, brew a cup of coffee, and vicariously dream of older days. At least we don't want to go back to before Prometheus stole fire from the Gods.

    With careful planning and the technology available today you could have a cabin in the woods and off the grid with some of the comforts we take for granted. Wind, water, and solar can provide electricity for led lighting and a microcontroller to run the heating system. There are also ways to turn what is now waste into energy. While it would still be a lot of work, it would be less than it was in the "good old days", and far more comfortable.
  • kwinnkwinn Posts: 8,697
    edited 2013-03-20 17:06
    Gadgetman wrote: »
    You know the 'agricultural revolution' that happened in France(more specific, Normandie) during the viking age?

    That was the vikings returning and taking over.
    They killed off the competition(bandits) and tarted taxing the locals.
    The locals got protection and could work larger fields, further from their home. They could even work more efficiently since they could group up for difficult tasks.
    Never say that a barbarian horde never did anyone any good...

    Anyway, everyone know it was 'Fingers Mazda' who stole fire from the gods.

    Yep, and look where that got us. We're all paying taxes and paying for it now.
  • kwinnkwinn Posts: 8,697
    edited 2013-03-20 17:07
    Erlend wrote: »
    With the accellerating climate change these days, a melting glacier should not be hard to find...

    Maybe not hard to find but at the rate they are melting they may be hard to keep up with.
  • kwinnkwinn Posts: 8,697
    edited 2013-03-20 17:11
    Erlend wrote: »
    Although Gadgetman has the same blood in his vein, I am not sure we should grant him unlimited cred. Why do I have this incurable urge to go on an expedition to Mars? Why did Amundsen eat dogs just to get first to the South Pole? Why did our ancestors decide to follow the ice? These are existential questions that can never be answered.

    I think you should give him the benefit of the doubt. There are many ways to be adventurous.
  • kwinnkwinn Posts: 8,697
    edited 2013-03-20 17:15
    Yes indeed, why does anybody in their right mind follow ice? Most Alaskans dream of retiring to Hawaii. I happen to be about 1 degree north of Hawaii and quite a bit to the west. The only ice here is in Taiwanese bubble iced tea.

    I'm with you on that. I tried to snag the perfect job - March 15 to December 15 - and had dreams of a beach in Jamaica for the remaining three months.
  • kwinnkwinn Posts: 8,697
    edited 2013-03-20 17:30
    Gadgetman wrote: »
    Not unlimited cred?
    ...........
    I go fishing on the world's most beautiful road...
    (Atlantic Ocean Road. Just mentioning it to cause a bit of envy)........

    And you succeeded in causing a bit of envy. After seeing the pictures and a video I plan to rent a car in Oslo and drive to Harstad so I can see that stretch of road and stop to fish for a while. Next visit that is.
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2013-03-20 23:34
    Gadgetman wrote: »
    Not unlimited cred?
    But... I've been around since this community was a mailing list...
    I programmed BS2p with the DOS-based editor running on a IBM PC XT emulator running on my StrongARM based PDA...

    I've split and stacked unmentionable amounts of wood...
    I installed my woodstove by myself, and to code!
    I go fishing on the world's most beautiful road...
    (Atlantic Ocean Road. Just mentioning it to cause a bit of envy)

    Bubble tea?
    No, peach-flavoured iced tea!

    Alas, alack... peach-flavoured iced tea was scandalized due to the peach flavoring coming from an artificial flavoring. I really liked the stuff.

    I bet most people don't realize that the USA actually extends farther south than Taiwan. It's a wacky world.
  • GadgetmanGadgetman Posts: 2,436
    edited 2013-03-21 00:58
    kwinn wrote: »
    And you succeeded in causing a bit of envy. After seeing the pictures and a video I plan to rent a car in Oslo and drive to Harstad so I can see that stretch of road and stop to fish for a while. Next visit that is.

    Drop me a note beforehand. I may have a spare fishing rod or three...
    Late summer, when the mackerel bites is very nice.
    (And mackerel rolled in flour/salt/pepper and fried in lots of butter, then served with sour cream and a salad... is almost sinfully good!)

    Ice fishing...
    No one I know uses heated huts for that. Mostly because everyone else would quickly 'jam the door' with yellow ice...
    It's almost easter now, we got snow in the mountains... Probably time to dig out my skies.
    (whitepainted, wooden mil-surplus skies from around the 50s, complete with Kandahar-style bindings and aluminium poles. The bindings are important because they fit my M77 military boots. None of that modern Smile for me)
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2013-03-21 02:34
    "jamb the door with yellow ice"... That's an interesting local behavior. I suppose that one could have an electrified door to prevent such. Personally, I stopped molesting fish about 25 years ago. I just buy sashimi and let someone else do so.



    What I am hearing in this thread is that person's with a passion for high-technology, also enjoy more primative recreations in their purest forms.



    But I am beginning to sense that those that followed the melting glaciers were a misanthropic bunch. That would help explain the yellow ice problems.
  • GadgetmanGadgetman Posts: 2,436
    edited 2013-03-21 02:57
    I have only heard about it happening once...
    (And the owner may have deserved it for other reasons, too)

    Personally, after a long day at work wrestling with misbehaving servers, networks that don't and users...
    It feels GOOD to swich off the phone, grab the backpack and head for the hills.
    And if I happen to return with a few lbs of berries, or freshly caught dinner... I may even be in a good mood the next workday.

    OSHA Says: Climbing mountains(while wearing appropriate safety gear, of course) is likely to reduce the danger of climbing bell towers...
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2013-03-21 12:38
    Well, while I thought I was relocating to a sub-tropical delight similar to Hawaii, Kaohsiung is the heart of Taiwan's steel and petro-chemical industries. I live in a concrete jungle of 1.5 million people. Even the wild regions of Taiwan are pretty well populated... except the high mountains and such. And those are mostly populated by mosquitoes and poisonous snakes and such. And the geology of the mountains is quite unstable as well... a lot of rotten rock.

    So life in an air-conditioned tea house seems more acceptable than being a rugged individualist. But in my younger years, I greatly enjoyed the Pacific Northwest.
  • kwinnkwinn Posts: 8,697
    edited 2013-03-21 16:13
    Gadgetman wrote: »
    Drop me a note beforehand. I may have a spare fishing rod or three...
    Late summer, when the mackerel bites is very nice.
    (And mackerel rolled in flour/salt/pepper and fried in lots of butter, then served with sour cream and a salad... is almost sinfully good!)

    Ice fishing...
    No one I know uses heated huts for that. Mostly because everyone else would quickly 'jam the door' with yellow ice...
    It's almost easter now, we got snow in the mountains... Probably time to dig out my skies.
    (whitepainted, wooden mil-surplus skies from around the 50s, complete with Kandahar-style bindings and aluminium poles. The bindings are important because they fit my M77 military boots. None of that modern Smile for me)

    I may just take you up on that, and it would definitely be summer, but not this coming one. It would be towards the end of June or early July. Definitely any fish fried like that is fantastic. Also great if done with lemon or garlic butter.

    Those skis sound a bit like the ones I got when I was about four years old. White, wood, string bindings with toe and heel caps for the boots (regular, not ski boots). And of course a bit too long for my size.
  • kwinnkwinn Posts: 8,697
    edited 2013-03-21 16:22
    Gadgetman wrote: »
    .........
    Personally, after a long day at work wrestling with misbehaving servers, networks that don't and users...
    It feels GOOD to swich off the phone, grab the backpack and head for the hills.
    And if I happen to return with a few lbs of berries, or freshly caught dinner... I may even be in a good mood the next workday.
    ......

    Amen to that. I like to get away for the peace and quiet, not the "rugged individualist roughing it in the wilderness" thing so I prefer a certain amount of comfort. You know, minor things like a warm dry cabin, central heating, running water, and light to read by. Nothing fancy.
  • ErlendErlend Posts: 612
    edited 2013-03-22 09:40
    Reading through this thread makes me optimistic. Come that day when an asteroid hits us - or some hothead dictator pushes the button - we are a considerable lot who master the art of firewood, stoves, fishing, trekking - and who can (re)build electronic gear, I bet from scratch, to give us back TCP/IP and other good stuff. We will be the masters of the world.

    Erlend
    (off to find the pushbutton-)
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