Kaylee may be best known for her ability to live [very frugally](http://pitafree.com/users/kaylee/human/expenses/index.htm?butn) in a van and experiments cooking with what is available. She documents it all for the benefit of others. In this post she describes using one of Zatarain's cajun-style mixes as the base for [a crockpot meal](http://pitafree.com/users/kaylee/food/crockpot/index.htm?butn). --- I usually keep a box of their Jambalaya mix in [the pantry](https://mouse.mousetrap.net/cooking/pantry.html), waiting for the chance to pick up some smoked sausage on sale/closeout. The local grocery store had a sale on Andouille so I got 1lb of it for $3. Will cook it up today or tomorrow. My kitchen situation is a bit different, because during the build I had sufficient salary and time to build a [robust power system](https://mouse.mousetrap.net/boondocking/camper.html#power). This allows running a fridge and the smallest Instant Pot. In practice this means I typically cook in full batches and store the leftovers in the fridge for another meal. I adapt the Zat for Instant Pot by reducing water from 2.5c to 1.25c and cook at pressure for 13 minutes instead of simmering for 25. If I'm at elevation (like 8k-10k') I will bump the time to 14-15 minutes. Natural release in all cases, mainly because it reduces foamy messes that requires lots of water to clean up. Related RVwiki article: [cooking with excess power](https://rvwiki.mousetrap.net/doku.php?id=food:cooking:excess_power)
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My guess is this reaction is what happens when community posts show up in All. Communities really need an option to keep posts in house.
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part of Lincoln National Forest closed due to the the fires near Ruidoso.
I saw that on the news. Now the burn scars are causing runoff flooding. :-(
The closure notice described the designated area for closure in such a way it was very hard to understand and visualize
The NF districts really could do a better job of it. At least have an English major read the GIS wonk's writeup before publishing.
We moved from Fort Stanton/Snowy River Cave NCA
That site is a gem; I try to hit it in spring/fall when I pass through. Too bad the cave is closed because of white nose.
BTW, water fills are free at the nearby paid campsite if one asks the host. Used to be a day use fee for it but they removed that spigot a couple years ago.
www.blm.gov
>> the Business Plan proposes to increase current fees from $180 to $600 per long-term permit, and from $40 to $200 per short-term permit. It would also modify the short-term permit length from 14 days to 30 days There is a comment period for the public.
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Sorry to hear it didn't work.
I subscribe to the RSS feeds of all the NF/BLM districts I [boondock](https://rvwiki.mousetrap.net/doku.php?id=camping:dispersed) in while [snowbirding](https://rvwiki.mousetrap.net/doku.php?id=camping:snowbirding). So I knew that a small section of NF land outside Santa Fe, NM where I was headed next was [closed for a year](https://www.fs.usda.gov/alerts/santafe/alerts-notices/?aid=88339). I picked a spot at least a mile outside the "designated area" that was closed. A friendly ranger pulled up this morning and asked how long I'd been here (4 days). He started to gently/professionally inform me the area was closed. I pointed out this spot was outside the designated area. He was skeptical and rechecked the map on his phone. I think he was embarrassed (and thinking of others he might have punted) because he wanted to show me how hard the map was to read on his phone. He also said I was the first person he talked to that had actually read the closure notice. We commiserated a while about the misuse that caused the closure. He was a good guy and I assume he will go back and clarify the situation for anyone else he misinformed. #takeaways - reading the district's announcements can be both directly and indirectly useful - bringing up the NF's official language ("designated area", "dispersed camping") seems help establish rapport
Details are on reddit. Hopefully going back there won't give anyone PTSD. :-)
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What's on your "Everyday Carry" USB stick?
- scans of my DL and other licenses
- scan of my DD214
- system rescue ISO
- a TEMP dir with random things I need in the short term
- portable apps versions of putty, WinSCP, etc.
... in which I relate my first wild bear sighting (with crappy pic) & and double the size of my LiFePO4 house battery bank .
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If employee vehicles are in danger perhaps the employer (or property owner) could hire a security detail? Might present this as a benefit to them to keep customers from getting scared off by crime?
I worked at a place in a ratty part of time once. Literal crackheads and prostitutes wandering through our lot. After a couple break-ins the company put up a fence.
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people are starting to catch onto my patterns and hover around my vehicle like vultures. Please tell me the best security system you know of.
A free first step would be to have no observable pattern. And/or leaving that general area if possible.
I would think about the actual threat model and what I could do about it. If someone steals your doodad with an airtag on it are you going to find it and take it back from them?
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Do normal people who don’t do this stuff for a living use Linux now, outside handheld gaming devices?
I run into folks using linux fairly often in tech hobbies. Ham operators, DIY solar folk, people dorking around with a RasPi, etc. And some Normals who want a lighter experience than Win.
Last dedicated windows box I ran at home was Windows NT 4, IIRC. Last time I had to use it at work was Win7 (?) before I retired. I do have a Win7 virtual somewhere around here I spin up every couple years to run something obscure I can't get to run in WINE.
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Was it mainly a hobbyist thing at the time
Yes, I'd say so. Lots of tech geeks were playing with it but no Normals. Getting audio running was not always pleasant....
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I picked up a solar garden light from walmart. I pop the hood and trap the light in the lid so the light is under the hood and the minipanel outside it. I haven't had a problem since then, but it it could be coincidence, or my being more careful scouting for mouseholes before pitching camp.
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I put it under a secondary cover and used it for my outside DC outlet, and replaced my external solar panel outlet with a CNLINKO LP-28 2-Pin IP67 Waterproof Connector rated up to 50A.
That connector looks interesting. It addresses one of my unstated concerns, the panel wires pulling down on the connector. This one looks like it has enough "neck" to relieve the strain. If I were doing the van again I'd mount all the inlets in one place under a secondary cover as you describe.
The domain name is up for purchase ($9999.99 according to my registrar), so it looks like it's lost rather than just temporarily parked for a slightly overdue bill. Luckily the site was recently [backed up by the Internet Archive](https://web.archive.org/web/20240603054512/https://boondocking.org/) and the archived All, gpx, and csv links seem to work.
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10W? What kind of roof? Residential? RV?
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When I was in the army the S1 desk jockeys were using dedicated word processors with 8" floppies. Get off my lawn! :-)
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I have Visible (Verizon MVNO) for $25/month. I put the SIM in an LTE router I got off amazon (open box) for $42.
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Could my 10 year old SDF account still exist?
Mine does. I finally remembered to log back in and there she is...
Caveat: the hostname had changed; I signed up at lonestar.sdf.org IIRC (no longer extant) and now it is on freeshell.org
I found my notes from ten years ago so I know what my username was
Another caveat: I think usernames were truncated to 8 chars in that time period. Don't know if that's the case now or not, or if extra chars are thrown away anyhow.
>> a swamp cooler and humidifier of this design are doing the same thing: blowing air through a wetted, porous medium. The goals are different (humidification vs cooling) but the mechanism is the same.
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Wireguard self hosting
I parsed this as Wireguard self-loathing and thought "that's a little harsh". :-)
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warning: some non-linux included below
- minix
- slackware
- early Debian
- FreeBSD (ftp installs instead of 20 floppies! OMG!)
- Debian
- Crunchbang <-- loved that original project
- Solaris (friend gave me a Sparc 5)
- DSL, Puppy linux (had a tiny netbook)
- **Debian on workstations and servers since ~2014 **
- various debian-based distros on RPI
I do spin up other distros in a VM from time to time to see what's what. Most recently NixOS since people won't STFU about it. :-)
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Yeah, they look like horses and act like cats. My grey was the finest doggo I ever had.
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I’m not a fan of the Mises Caucus, so I think this is hilarious.
Same. the Mises Caucus was to the LP as Trump was to the GOP - a takeover by opportunists.
I know next to nothing about Chase Oliver
Seems broadly in line with (pre-Mises Caucus) libertarianism. Definitely more in line with my thinking than anything the D or R parties are putting out.
being gay and young will certainly set him apart from the old men he’s competing against
I don't think young and gay necessarily carries intrinsic benefit, but I agree there is some instrumental benefit. It will set him apart as you say, and also will reveal bigots and reactionaries for what they are.
TL:DR: I saw a set of cheap panels with weird specs at Home Depot. I bought some to experiment on and to use as portables to augment my mounted solar. ----- Home Depot is selling 200w of panel for $114. That's $0.57/Watt. Not *amazing* compared to used panels (typically $0.33/Watt) but HD is all over the place and has free ship-to-store. It also comes with mounting brackets and one of those [single-stage PWM controllers](https://rvwiki.mousetrap.net/doku.php?id=electrical:solar:charge_controller#single-stage_chargers). I'm not bagging on that kind of controller, but it's not a great fit for this particular set of panels. #THE CATCH The panels are a weird design, apparently 24 cells in series. Normal "12v nominal" panels have 36 in series for ~18Vmp. These have a Vmp of 12.0v, so I think we would call them "8v nominal". This makes them practically unusable in parallel for charging lead or LiFePO4. You *could* run the panels in series on the PWM controller since it has a 50v input max and the series Voc would be 30v. But, due to [the way PWM works](https://rvwiki.mousetrap.net/doku.php?id=electrical:solar:charge_controller#pwm) the panels would be running at in the 14v range at the most. This is way, *way* off the 24.0Vmp of the series array. I'd expect a max harvest of ~120w with that kind of setup. If these were normal panels in parallel and on PWM I'd expect a max of ~160w. We can go into the math on that if anyone wants. The **best case scenario** IMO would be to run the panels in series with an MPPT controller. This would get us closer to ~170w max harvest. some other thoughts: - The panels might work well enough in parallel for 3S Li-NMC because of that chemistry's lower voltage - HD has a 10% discount program for veterans if you provide them with a bit of documentation.
... in which I camped in a spot infested by mule deer, picked up spent brass, and trusted the local forecast enough to do my cooking off solar....
in which I bumblefsck through figuring out why my solar setup no worky
I was outside the zone of totality, so was still making some power. Notice that panel voltage did not decrease like many think, it does. Vpanel is stable above ~10%-15% insolation, depending on the panel
I did this because the hotplate was a bit more than my offgrid rig could handle comfortably. Been using it at ~500w to very good effect.
This is probably worth considering in general, but dealing with financial lockouts on the road is a particular kind of dumpster fire. TL:DR: I deposited a check and things went weird (not an NSF scenario). My bank got spooked and locked not just that one account but all of my access for two weeks. I scrambled to open new accounts elsewhere and move direct deposits over. Soon (like 12 hours) after completion my bank said "oopsie!" and restored my access to the accounts this morning. Having pre-existing accounts at other locations would have been stressful because one institution could not bogart my funds.
> ... up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. Yay. BTW, I keep track of laws like this in [this RVwiki article](https://rvwiki.mousetrap.net/doku.php?id=camping:banned)
Like an idjit I smoked my old shunt by shorting it while moving stuff around. I eventually replaced it with the Aili type. It works fine, but I don't like how the data is presented. Totally my fault, I saw what the display looked like when I bought it. Grrr......
> House Bill 1365 was filed in January. It prohibits camping or sleeping on public property without a permit. The bill would give local municipalities the power to designate specific areas for sleeping or camping. Such properties must have restrooms, running water, security, and access to health care for mental and physical health. Also under the provision the specified areas may not negatively impact local businesses. [Here](https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2024/1365) is the info if you want to follow along
> This year was more tumultuous than usual. A couple things were literal once in a lifetime events.
>> [I found a] 3qt crockpot to replace the 2qt and 4qt. Back to my original setup. The Crockpot 3120 is rated at 75w/150w and I measured it at 69w/134w.
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Frater Mus
fratermus@ lemmy.sdf.orgLiving offgrid in a campervan since 2018 w/ pibble+boxer Muffin.
LIKE dogs, books, thoughtful people of all flavors DISLIKE bullies, sh1tposters, partisans, noise
- lemmy community for folks living in vans, RVs, cars, etc
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