saibot

Ed thanks for your concerns this something I have thought about in this depth for a while. We only use the fridge for vegetables and only over summer. We live for 8 months of the year with it turned off. I do Not store any meats, dairy products or heat volatile foods. I have a fresh is best , at room temperature attitude. If I want fish I can go fishing or if I want some meat I buy from the butchers and only catch or buy as much as we need for the next meal. So I really think it depends on what you use the fridge for, for us its more of a cool room to prolong the shelf life of garden vegetables for 2 - 3 days max when its really hot. I understand that fridge works harder in the morning to get the temperature down and I am expending the life of the fridge for the life of the batteries. seems to be a similar economic trade off. From my experiments using our system this works the best and we have spare power for when there is little sun. Really we would need more panels and batteries to run the fridge full time and have the same amount of power we consume for other devices.

The batteries are AGM Deep cycle by power sonic. We are around the Tropic of Capricorn and have heaps on sun all year round. Our fridge is Chinese 60L Engel copy bought from ebay as I could not afford an Engel at the time. We make sure our system cuts off just above 50% of battery. Our fridge cuts in just after dawn cuts out just after sunset so it only consumes power from the panels. This is ok but needs regular cleaning ever 4 days as condensation build up quickly in the base. Cleaning takes about 2-3 minutes so I don't see it as issue.

I have been living off grid for a bit over 2 years now. We have 300 watt amorphous solar system with 200 amp hours of batteries. The panels are from UNISOLAR and do not contain any glass and very strong. It is ample to run a small 12v 60 watt compressor fridge during summer. All our devices like computers, mp3 players etc have rechargeable batteries built in . Except for the stereo which is a digital car amp from china (amazing volume for little power) and dsl modem. All the lights are LED which I got from hong kong via ebay. A backup diesel generator is used when it raining for a week or I want play electric guitar with a drummer. The amorphous panels works well enough in over cast days to have power at night. Our house has been built so suit the system. The whole system has cost a little over $4000 with no help from the federal government as we are to close to power lines for an off grid system. The federal government is not interested in helping people be individually sustainable unless they are very remote. Once you get used to using power wisely it is no problem. I could even imagine now how easy it would be not to have power at all. Why not build your own solar hot water system (It a great engineering project and a great way to learn about convection and plumbing) You can also change your routine go to bed early. and be awake for as much of the daylight as possible then you really don't have to use much power at night to light your house. Replace energy efficient fluorescent light with LEDS as they don't require a large spike energy to start thus you can turn them on off regularly when you leave a room.

https/ssl offshore proxy servers. pretty simple solution. Would be interesting to see how the legislature would classify and block access to secure proxies as they are not a publication.

Yeah they are really my pics. 1st 3 are taken with a digital SLR, others are taken with HD video camera (thats why everything is in focus) The 1st bridgesiodish plant was a chance find (I think it drew me to it to help). It really broke my heart to see it in such a dismal state.

This plant was unloved and sick when I found it. It once was quite large with 10 or so columns that had died and rotted away. The owner gave me the whole plant, which I really could not take. It was cut back and should rejuvenate nicely and these are the healthiest tips off the dying branches. Its a very unique plant IMO. Here are some nice shots of other plants I spotted on the same weekend.

It could well be. Dragon fruit are highly variable, I have many plants all from different locations. I only collect them when I see them fruit and they all look different from each other except for the flower and fruit. One of them looks similar to your photos. I have seen and eaten its fruit which is most definitely a dragon fruit. Fruiting of wild growing dragon fruit is spasmodic and dependent on rain and nutrients. Attached is an image of massive plant that has consumed a mature 80 year old pine tree. It rarely fruits but flowers heavily however this year was a bumper year for some reason. This plant has so much variation in branches that is hard to believe it is the same plant.

Why would you want graft on that it a beauty by itself. Put it in the ground!

I also know of this plant. The mother plant is over 6 metres tall and is just starting bud. I will go back in 3 weeks or so to take some photos of the flowers as I can't seem to ID it either. if you have a look at http://www.columnar-cacti.org/trichocereus/index.html you will see some plants with a similar spinal formations. however there is thin raised line in between ridges and it is different to any Trich and Stetsonia Coryne I have seen.

What electronic music do pirates listen to? Rum n' Bass! Open Source DAW equal to Cubase Neundo etc. free for you scurvy dogs : http://ardour.org/ Ye old VST Plugins via >> http://ladspavst.linuxaudio.org/?q=node/905 Jack will get all ye old audio softwares working together >> http://jackaudio.org/ So you psy guys can use jack to link together : http://www.linuxsampler.org/ - sampler http://www.hydrogen-music.org/ - drum machine http://zynaddsubfx.sourceforge.net/ - software synth http://filter24.org/seq24/ - minimal loop based midi sequencer http://qsynth.sourceforge.net/ - another synth https://sourceforge.net/projects/bristol - Moog, Sequencial Circuits, Oberheim, Yamaha, Roland, Hammond, Korg, ARP, and Vox algorithms. http://jack-rack.sourceforge.net/ - effects rack If ye can't make music with that then ye better walk the plank and swim the sharks. If ye had the skills of Autechre all ye need is MAX http://freesoftware.ircam.fr/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=14 no software can beat a reel to reel, a cutlass and some scotch tape.

Open Source is not a hippy ideal and it is definitely profitable. Checkout the open source financial model that Troll tech, Canonical, Novel or Sun use. Watch more companies open their code bases up and embrase the open source financial model over the next few years to be competitive. Yes even microsft has begun the transition. Apple also has their system core open >OpenDarwin > which originally was a port of BSD. Nokia now use linux as it mobile phone base and its software open. Believe it or not Torsten's SAB model is an open source fiscal model. He allows amazing amount of sharing and still survives > why is this? because it is open. I disagree with open source only having to be good enough to keep the major software manufactures on it toes. Open source software is better. it makes for better code hence the amazing growth of the freely available operating systems over the last 5 years. Software houses like Adobe, Autodesk (whom I use program for) have old 15 year code bases > no wonder their products are more advanced. When Open code bases reach that maturity you will see software that is complete amazing, much beyond any private closed software. Compare the GNU Linux system 10 year open code base to the Microsoft 25 year closed code base. Which is better and faster the the open one. As for software being lesser: Apache PHP MYSQL drives the internet (this forum inculded). School of Audio Engineering UK uses Ardour as its Digital audio workstation. Open office is equal to MS office. As for their not being the support for for film technologies i would challenge you to find film studios not using linux or writing their own software for it. Cinepaint is used widely used for post processing. Cinerella is as good as Final Cut. Blender is now being used for 3D and post work. the list goes on and will continue to grow. I will use a guitarist analogy. A budding guitarist acquires all of the highest quality equipment, (amazing effects units, Super Duper Tube Amp stack, some American, factory, robot made guitar) but does not make him sound or play any better. Give a disciplined guitarist a cheap Chinese plywood guitar and he/she will make is sound amazing. A technology/tool is only as good as its users skill and creativity. Pirates are Pirates because they are Greedy Thanks for listening

I am not flaming you but Warez are bad news. Get off Windowz or OSX and switch to Open Source. GNU Linux or GNU BSD. No virus no nasties trying to infect your computer. Get a free copy of GNU linux with Cinerella, Gimp, Blender, Ardour Etc for your multimedia needs and your in business. Support free software and the software quality gets better and better. by stealing form the monopolies that run the world does nothing just makes them created more sophisticated mechanisms to lock you in. Supporting and contributing to an alternative open sharing system brings freedom.