So am I. I’ve been writing software for a living for almost 20 years, so when I wanted to make a slightly more complicated box to 3d print openscad was my first choice too. Then I tried freecad and hated it with passion. Eventually I ended up making it in solidworks - it sucked the least of the tools I’ve tried.

It’s great when what you are designing is best described as code, but I find it absolutely not worth the hassle otherwise, because even basic things like chamfers/fillets are extremely hard to execute.

As much as I hate the guy I hope he isn’t killed. The last thing we need is republicans having a martyr, especially before they find out how bad for them he is.

With tariff fallout there are decent chances they will not have a majority for a long time. After the tariff act of 1930 they went from having 14 seats more than democrats to a low of 16 seats out of 96 In senate in just 8 years. After that they had a senate majority once and congress majority twice in the next 50+ years.

I’ve got enough seedling to fill 2 racks like this and then some - it was using way too much space around the house, so I went vertical

LEDs might emit much more energy as light compared to incandescent lights, but that light will get absorbed by plants and surrounding and will eventually end up mostly as heat, no matter what light you have. This rack has 24x18W = 432W worth of lights, which is equivalent of a small space heater running on low.

2 of those racks in a small room in the basement is enough for me to have 24C (75F) in that room while the rest of the basement is closer to 12C (45F). The fanciest of growlights may have saved me 1-2C, or not.

Nothing fancy - T8 LED tubes, cool daylight (6500K). IIRC some are Philips corepro 865, some are Osram equivalent - I used whatever I had left from installing new lights in garage. Brands you recognize, but their value product lines.

Are those as good as “real” grow lights? Hell no. Do they get me 80% there for 20-30% of the price? They sure do!

I’ve done something similar just not with a nicely maintained lawn but an overgrown meadow. And I did half an acre at once because I’m a glutton for punishment. Random notes/observations:

• get soil tested ASAP. It’s cheap and it will tell you what you are missing. Small amounts of targeted fertilizer (a single 10kg/22lbs bag for half an acre in my case) of missing microelements pretty much doubled my yields in second year. I wish I’ve done it earlier.
• grass is very resilient and will consider 6 weeks under a tarp a friendly challenge. You will be weeding it constantly for the first year. The only areas that ended up grass-free for me were covered with a tarp for a full year after being tilled. Tarp outside of vegetation season does nothing.
• it might be too late for wood chips this year, especially if you are adding 4 inches of them - it’s best to add them at the same time as cover crop
• raised beds are an easier option for a small area. Despite all the space I have I still have half a dozen large ones for herbs and plants that aren’t very compatible with the heavy clay I have here

I don’t care for microgreens at all, so it’s going to be a storage rack.

Tomatoes are moving to greenhouse second half of next week - I don’t expect temperatures outside to drop much below freezing after that, at least not beyond what an electric heater or two can salvage in an emergency. Peppers will have to wait until temperatures outside don’t drop below 5C (40F) even during the night - it’s going to be 6, maybe even 8 weeks. 6b zone…

All plants have been started within a couple of days 6-7 weeks ago.

I’ve added list of materials and total cost to the post.

Fixed height. Being able to adjust light distance per tray is better when you have different height plants on a single shelf. It’s also less work when building it.

Mandatory training to become a police officer:

• US: 600-700 hours on average, much of which is gun and combat training and not policing
• Canada 2080 hours
• Spain 2880 hours
• Germany 4000 hours

With that little time spent training and heavy combat focus a US cop might get as little as 2-4 weeks of training on everything that a cop does that doesn’t involve guns. People get shot by US cops because they weren’t taught anything else. People don’t get help from US cops because they were never taught solving problems that don’t involve shooting a minority.

Cartman yelling respect my authoritah! is not far off from what a rookie US cop knows about being a police officer.

Search for Anti-Coercion Instrument, the one that came into effect in December 2023

EU regulations that can be triggered in response to tariffs include an option to make that completely legal

Edit because I’m getting asked for a source: EU Anti Coercion Instrument that got passed in 2021 and came into effect in December 2023: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ:L_202302675

Specifically Annex I, paragraph 7:

ANNEX I

Union response measures pursuant to Article 8

[…]

7. The imposition of restrictions on the protection of intellectual property rights or their commercial exploitation, in relation to rightholders that are nationals of the third country concerned, which may amount, as necessary, to the non-performance of applicable international obligations with respect to trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights.

This applies to copyright and patents, but not trademarks as far as I know.

The mandatory in EU reversing camera.

In response my in-house policy has changed to allow purchase of 0 Xiaomi devices per year.

Wait, it’s physically possible to like Vance? I was sure the dislike is on a genetic level like uncanny valley.

• HDCP had flaws and keys up to version 2.1 were extracted/reversed. In addition to that there is hdfury device that legally and following HDCP licencing terms downgraded 2.2 to lower 2.x versions to provide compatibility. They got smarter and blocked downgrading in later versions. Blocking HDCP older than that would also break compatibility with devices that don’t support versions of the standard newer than late 2012. Add a capture card and you are set.
• Widevine L1 keys were extracted from a Qualcomm CPU in 2021. They are also stored in Intel CPUs in SGX which had so many flaws over the years I’d be surprised nobody grabbed keys at some point
• Both audio and video has to be decrypted and analog at some point - you can capture it if you have the hardware and willingness to e.g. grab it at a LCD display ribbon. Not as good/convenient as decrypting it, but it is an option.

Peak power can only be maintained for a minute (if you are lucky) before it overheats. Peak power is the main advertised spec, so it has to be high and default mode so you don’t feel cheated when you turn it on for the first time. The other modes you toggle through are settings that can be sustained for extended periods of time.

There should be calls to toss him into a volcano and they should be getting serious traction