March comes in like an (expensive) lion

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…  Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities It’s been a rewarding month, but an expensive one due to happenstance, my own errors, and willing choices. I’ll be ok; that’s what emergency funds

three unexpectedly positive reviews

I’m a bit of a cynic about marketing so it’s a welcome surprise when products live up to their billing. grape solar 100w poly panels Ever wonder if cheap panels work? This is the output of a Grape Solar 100w panel at around solar noon on MPPT: Ordinarily I’d expect something like 83w out of

renewed adventures in contact heating: zippo handwarmer

I had one of these back in the 80s and it seemed to work pretty good. While I was doing the reading for the posts on contact heating I ran across the naptha handwarmers again. Previously I’d used lighter fluid; the cost wouldn’t break me but since I carry Coleman fuel now I figured I’d

final contact heating experiment: heating pad

Finally found a simple heating pad to test for the contact heating experiment. It’s a plain Sunbeam 3-setting pad, $15 in the pharmacy section of Smith’s which appears to be associated with Kroger grocery.  The SKU on the package appears to be specific to the retailer, but it looks like this one from walmart. The kill-a-watt

cooking with Pareto

The Pareto Principle is famously interpreted to mean that 20% of the people do 80% of the work.  More formally, it says that “roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes”. I’ve been experimenting and I think it also applies to cooking:  80% of the cooking is done by 20% of the fuel.