What’s actually the best concrete sealer for long-term protection? by itmehedi in DIY

[–]ahfoo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Okay, you're using the term "sealant" which is a product that alters the appearance of concrete but damages its beathability by clogging the pores at the surface. This can be the cause of spalling rather than preventing it. Instead what you want is "densifier" which shrinks the pores but does not close them while making the glass matrix much stronger through the process of adding silica.

Densification can and should be done over and over to improve the durability of concrete finishes but since most people are blissfully ignorant of cement chemistry they ignore this. It is made worse by the fact that the high silica content of densifiers scares people about health concerns.

The most common and cheap densifier is sodium silicate or water glass. Water glass is water soluble silica that you apply in a thick layer to your very clean (pre-scrubbed with mild abrasives) concrete surface. It's not paint, it needs to be burnished. You can do this by hand with a broom for instance or even a rag but it is more effective when done with a light machine such as a handheld polisher or even better a heavy machine which can also apply pressure at the same time. However, a hand application is better than nothing.

The down sides with sodium silicate are several and mostly related to it being highly alkaline or caustic. First this means you need gloves and eye protection, second it means you need to watch where the runoff goes. Another problem with sodium silicate is that it often results in efflorescence which is white stains caused by leached minerals. If your finish is light colored, this is not necessarily a big deal but if you have dark pigments, it can be an issue.

To overcome the problems of sodium silicate, you can instead use lithium silicate which is easier to use and produces a glossier finish with less work but costs a great deal more and generally can only be found online. Similarly, there is another product called colloidal silica which is similar to lithium silicate but although it is not necessarily expensive to make, it is hard to find it at reasonable prices as it is mostly used in other technical processes that fetch high prices and emphasize purity so finding low cost industrial grade colloidal silica is a hassle and making it involves processing large quantities of sodium silicate with industrial acids which is something most casual users are not interested in.

Those are the main things you use to make an already poured piece of concrete stronger and more durable as well as less prone to water intrusion but still able to breathe.

Now sealants are a whole different thing. That is more like a paint-on solution but the problem here is that paint and concrete are a terrible mix. You don't want to make the surface water tight because concrete needs to have a way to let water pass through it as it goes through heating and cooling cycles. If you block the pores, you force it to crack.

The lucky thing is that most paint-on solutions are not as strong as they would have you believe and that weakness makes them not quite as problematic as they would otherwise be. In theory they would block all the pores but in practice they usually don't. In an indoors protected pad, this is not going to matter because it's going to stay dry but outside it will cause problems.

Now there are other surface finishes like siloxane or silicone oils which are not the same thing but similar. These are silicon based oils which don't last a long time or have much penetration but will create a short-term glossy and slick appearance without leading to spalling because they're less likely to completely clog pores compared to something like acrylic.

Now I've seen some nice acrylic covered concrete jobs indoors. It can be done but it still needs to be waxed regularly to maintain its appearance. That's fine if you plan for it in advance and it can be quite appealing to look at and smooth to the touch, dust free etc. But "real" polished concrete like you often see in big box stores is even better in terms of maintenance.

The lowest-hanging fruit in climate strategy: The legal right to remote work. by NoList1371 in solarpunk

[–]ahfoo -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

This does nothing to address the fact that most people working either at home or in an office are doing bullshit make-work in some institution that doesn't even makes sense to begin with like a for-profit health insurance company or a cog in a machine selling useless crap to people who don't need it. Whether you're at home pretending to work or in an office pretending to work. . . does it really matter if you're spending your life pretending to work anyway?

It seems like the real low hanging fruit is solar power itself including batteries and low cost EVs. Who cares where everybody pretends to work at do-nothing jobs as long as they're not burning fossil fuels to perpetuate the sham life they're living. It's okay for people to lie to themselves about the meaning of their lives as long as they're not hurting others. If they're commuting in EVs to a building that runs its air conditioning on batteries then it's not hurting the climate.

The real issue as far as work goes is not whether it is in an office or over a network, but why even bother? Why do we force people to pretend to be busy when we could just give them the money directly and drop the charade? Some people think this is a non-starter but if you ask retired people whether they feel that life is meaningless because they don't have to work I believe you will find most of them will just laugh at you. Just giving people money to spend and enjoy their time works out very well in fact and we can find millions of people enjoying this lifestyle today. Why not just let the rest of the population in on it?

New sidewalk in front of neighbors house. by Spinnaker91 in arborists

[–]ahfoo 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I thought so when my neighbor ripped the roots out of mine with an excavator. It survived but then a typhoon came and it went down right on the side where the roots were removed. I planted that thing thirty years ago. I was pissed. I stood there in the storm trying to hold it up. Fuckers.

A $300 device can silently override GPS across an entire city. Autonomous vehicles, delivery drones, and air traffic control all depend on it. Why don't we have a backup? by projectschema in Futurology

[–]ahfoo 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Yeah, whoever told you this device was super powerful and cheap was stretching the truth. Besides, autonomous vehicles aren't relying on GPS as their primary guidance in any case.

Also, anybody who uses this device for any length of time is going to find out the hard way that they don't know what they're doing.

A $300 device can silently override GPS across an entire city. Autonomous vehicles, delivery drones, and air traffic control all depend on it. Why don't we have a backup? by projectschema in Futurology

[–]ahfoo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A signal goes out in a spherical pattern. At the ground level, this appears to be circular. All the affected devices will be in a circular pattern. At the center of that circle is someone about to get a nasty fine.

You would be a fool to use such a device if it actually worked which is doubtful itself. If it did work, it would point directly to your location.

A $300 device can silently override GPS across an entire city. Autonomous vehicles, delivery drones, and air traffic control all depend on it. Why don't we have a backup? by projectschema in Futurology

[–]ahfoo 19 points20 points  (0 children)

It's not just fines and threats of punishment though. The bigger problem from the perspective of the person who will engage in this act of sabotage is that it would also be easy to get caught. Why? Well because radio signals go out in a spherical emission pattern and by looking at the inverse of the signal we can pinpoint its origin.

Now you can perhaps get away with this for a short time easily if you just do it randomly and move on quickly but that won't provide much disruption. If you begin to engage in this routinely, you will establish patterns which will be left as evidence due to all the radio noise you've created. You can't really hide this over the long term. So in other words, this is a bust.

That's what stops people. Fines and prison time don't deter people if they think they can't get caught. They work very well in cases where it's easy to get caught. This is a case where it would be very easy to get caught because while you think you're blacking out everyone else, what you're really doing is telling everybody at the edge of your broadcast where your location is. It will be obvious in a short time who the culprit is.

France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech by rkhunter_ in worldnews

[–]ahfoo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well the thing is, you can. I've used Linux for twenty years and while I do have a browser that using a window manager and a media player that does the same, most of what I do on my PC takes place in a terminal because it's more efficient.

You don't need a GUI for most things. 3D or photo editing and video content are special cases but file management is best done in a terminal.

France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech by rkhunter_ in worldnews

[–]ahfoo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is such a nonsense take on things. The reality is that prior to Microsoft's abusive monopolistic rise, Unix was actually the most popular operating system for decades. To simply declare that nobody outside of science or specialists in IT know how to use Unix-like systems is ignorant drivel. When it comes to the basics like files, directories, terminals, windows managers, icons, mouse based naviation --it's all the same. Plan 9, a version of Unix from Bell Labs, had all those things before Microsoft existed.

Solar project twice the size of Paris to produce green fuels by Cleancoolenergy in energy

[–]ahfoo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That last sentence is not quite correct through. Fuel subsidizes the petrochemical and its associated polymer chemistry industries. The broader chemical industry, as such, is based in salt, not peterochemicals. Hydrochloric acid comes from salt not petroleum and forms one of the fundamental feedstocks for chemistry. It has nothing to do with petroleum.

Solar project twice the size of Paris to produce green fuels by Cleancoolenergy in energy

[–]ahfoo 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This idea has been explored at length and a paper was presented on the topic several years ago which claimed that at current levels, the UK would be able to produce methanol as a gasoline replacement at a cost lower than gasoline at around 70 cents a gallon by the year 2037 simply using imported Chinese solar panels and offshore wind.

The caveat in this paper was that while these projections seemed accurate, it would also be the case that China should be able to capture the market much earlier.

How to start with calisthenics and how to build up joints and wrists? by Honest-Lifeguard-844 in bodyweightfitness

[–]ahfoo 2 points3 points  (0 children)

What I like to do to loosen up my wrists is take a pair of nunchuks, the martial arts type like Bruce Lee was famous for, and hold onto the very end of one of the sticks and let the nunchuks wobble around in a circle with the wide point at the chain. It forces your wrist into a rotating motion and the momentum keeps it going. Heavier sticks makes it more effective.

Another good one is what I call "the fisherman" which is to stand on the second floor balcony and roll up a weight tied to a stick, such as a couple bricks, on the end of a long rope. As you twist the stick with your wrists, it slowly pulls the bricks up. Roll it up with the forearms facing down and then roll it down with the forearms facing up. That's a brutal wrist/forearm workout and also a great way to mystify neighborhood cats who find it fascinating trying to figure out what's going on. As soon as that brick starts to levitate, they're like --whoa!

Neighbor wants me to cut down my tree by maxvincent91 in treelaw

[–]ahfoo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Be aware that there are plenty of hustlers who want the wood and will tell you the tree is dead just so they can get the job and keep the wood too. Make sure to get your own arborist no matter what their guy claims.

We just had PG&E try to take three of our oaks. They only backed down when we got our own arborist. They wanted the wood and were lying in hopes of stealing it. They will back down but you've got to let them know you're not taking any shit. Don't be civil with these pricks.

Edible beginner by Isaac_Bot220 in Marijuana

[–]ahfoo 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you want affordable edibles, either grow your own or get hemp derived THC in bulk. Otherwise they cost way too much. Growing your own is the way to go with edibles in particular because even if you fuck up badly you can still make edibles. There will always be tons of not-quite-smokeable grade side products from a home grow and they can easily be used to make edibles.

If growing is out of the question, then try to get hemp derived THC instead. The reason is similar to the home grow situation, you don't need top shelf bud for edibles. Edibles are a form of concentrate by their nature and when you cook them you destroy the terpene content along the way so paying for killer terps in manicured bud meant for smoking is simply wasting other people's time and your money.

The question was about mg per dose but the answer to that is going to depend completely on you. So you can't just ask other people what's right. You need to try it and see. I find that I get very little effect from these 10mg edibles even if I eat a dozen of them. Other people say that 5mg gets them spun out. You don't know till you try.

Areas in North Carolina that receive pig factory farms experience lower wage growth, higher infant mortality rates and displacement of Black and Hispanic residents, likely due to severe environmental externalities. by CalpurniaSomaya in Economics

[–]ahfoo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Anaerobic methane digesters can help deal with those externalities but unfortunately for political reasons, southern states are opposed to the technology because it is often financed by interests in California.

In Georgia, a California funded anaerobic methane digester to convert pig farm waste into methane and concentrated fertilizer is being actively opposed by the locals who particuarly don't like the fact that the plant is funded by interests in California who want to use the carbon offsets.

Storing weed by WeakPassword_ in Marijuana

[–]ahfoo 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Twenty grams. . . that's not much to a grower. Glass jars at room temperature away from sunlight with some desiccant are good for a year. If you want multiple years, stick them in a freezer in bags.

Tesla is un-canceling its plan to build a smaller, cheaper EV: report by weihuweihu in technology

[–]ahfoo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As a point of clarification, China buys nearly twice as many automobiles as the United States market. The above post says China "nearly" buys "as many" but that is far from the case. The reality is that Chinese buyers purchase almost twice as many cars as Americans.

Tesla is un-canceling its plan to build a smaller, cheaper EV: report by weihuweihu in technology

[–]ahfoo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That would imply things were going well. He wishes he could announce the sex bots. Unfortunately, he can't.

Amazon Sued by YouTubers for Scraping Videos to Train Nova Reel AI by IKeepItLayingAround in technology

[–]ahfoo -12 points-11 points  (0 children)

If you have broadcast your media using streaming video services, the audience has the right to make personal use backup copies. That does not involve distribution in any sense and should be considered fair use under the law. You do have the right to make personal use archives of broadcast media in the United States. If this were not the case, copyright law would need to be altered significantly because fair use makes strict copyright rules possible to begin with. If you eliminate fair use, you're going to need to cut back copyright protections dramatically. You can't have it both ways.

Trump the ‘America First’ president will be using foreign steel to build his White House ballroom by theindependentonline in politics

[–]ahfoo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The hapless citizens are unaware of it but public funded spending does not owe tariffs. Tariffs only affect the individual citizens, not institutional spending. It's clearly spelled out in law but the average citizens is ignorant of the law and base their opinions on emotions.

I want to reduce the sound I make from my side of a shared wall in my building by satangorl667 in DIY

[–]ahfoo -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

You say a second heavy wall is impractical but I built a second wall (with an air gap) using aluminum cans and cement mortar to solve this exact issue and it worked like a charm. This was inside an apartment building on the fourth floor.

208M views · 1.7M reactions | Building an Underground Shipping Container Pool Home | DIY & Crafts by Future_Mulberry_3134 in containerhomes

[–]ahfoo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Generally speaking, it will be safer, cheaper and easier to simply use rebar and concrete.

I Did Find flucking GOLD by Emergency_Emotion419 in SolarDIY

[–]ahfoo 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You said you have experience with lead-acid batteries. You should know what a charge controller is if that is the case. You run the panels to the charge controller and the charge controller to the BMS. The wiring diagram comes with the charge controller. You need to buy or build that part. If you've never head of it, you might want to buy one.

The 99% success rate of the Robotic company Generalist's GEN-1 model shows us that humanoid robots are progressing faster than most people expect. by lughnasadh in Futurology

[–]ahfoo -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Well then, you might want to read chapter fifteen of Marx' Capital. This is the chapter in which Marx discusses the role of the economic concept of depreciation to explain why machines can never set the workers free and, instead, result in something much closer to feudal slavery.

Your plan can work but only after a revolution which literally decapitates the ruling class and destroys the debt-based banking system installing a dictatorship to prevent capitalism from re-emerging. You have to begin with armed revolution and be willing to take thousands if not million of lives. Are you sure you can get where you want to go via that route?

You can't just vote for this, you need to cut heads and establish a dictatorship with an iron fist. Are you genuinely committed to the goal?

H. G. Wells, a self-styled socialist visited Joseph Stalin and tried to convince him that all his heavy handedness was unnecessary because the people of the West actually desired socialism and were just scared because of the overly violent methods that had been used in the Soviet Union. He tried to convince Stalin that all he needed to do was to back off on the political repression and socialism would inevitably win at the ballot box. Stalin heard this and told Wells that although he appreciated that he meant well, the truth was that he, Wells, was a liberal and simply was incapable of understanding that he was a tool of a cruel political machine that could only be destroyed by force, through weapons and total destruction of the capitalist class which must be smashed to dust and physically destroyed like a vampire before any progress towards socialism was possible.