El Rancho S-OH-S Part 01 by KimB

Episode: The Lot

Nearly every time you turn on the TV you see one of those Fix It Up House programs showing how ezpz it is to swap your old humdrum boring house for a super swanky fab house with hardly a fuss to your shellacked coiffure or chip in the 4 inch long manicured finger nails.

So, not to be out done or under done, I am jumping the shark a bit to post about my own project:

An undeveloped 5 acre lot
Located about 1 hour east of Fresno, California.

Well, it's not much a project at the moment, but I do own the dirt and trees and as there isn't anything else, except the local wild life, that lives there, I haven't dented anything except my bank account.

The PLAN

To build a small house using green renewable technologies with a lot of old fashioned know how.

The IDEA

I am now moving past the middle part of older-personhood, I want a small house where things are comfortable but not so grand or swank. I no longer have need for many things that builders put in housing, like a second floor. I am not hosting grand dinners and country getaways for the rich and famous, just ordinary suppers so I don't need dining space to seat 400 for Sunday Afternoon Brunches.

The BUDGET

This is easy: NONE.

As the old saying goes you can make a small fortune in race horses. Provided you start with a large fortune, you can change it to a small one.

Since I have no fortune to begin with, small is closer to none at all.

I am planning on many things but how much I will be able to accomplish is going to be the interesting part of the project. Lots of ideas about how to spend money I don't have. Saves a lot of wear and tear on the finger nails when the price tag goes beyond the cost of a burger and fries.

The OUT

Well, every project has an "out" where things get so muddled up, everyone throws up their hands and gives up. The TV shows don't show you many of those but one can guess that the Big Home Lumber Stores aren't making money because things worked out the first time.

Years back there was an old saying:

It takes 3 trips to the hardware store to fix something.

Trip 1: You buy what you think you need.
Trip 2: You buy what you forgot to buy on Trip 1.
Trip 3: You buy replacement parts for things you broke trying to fix the something.

I would add

Trip 4: Return all the unused items you bought in Trips 1, 2 and 3.

The OUT is to just stop. I may not be able to achieve what I want. I don't have a time table, other than before I die, so if things don't work out, well they don't work out. The dirt and trees and wild life won't mind at all if I don't move in with them.

Rather than tell you all the grand things and how ezpz things are, I figured it might be a bit more entertaining to explain all the items you do not see on those 30 Minutes to Masterpiece Reveals, that are de rigueur. Since this is an on-going project, be prepared for more shifts and turns and jumps than a Down Hill Ski Racer.



The Lot

Knitting Math by KimB

Knitting is a popular activity. Knitting requires physical, mental and artistic abilities all at the same time. Using colored yarns and various methods of looping the yarn in rows along a sticks of various dimensions and shapes, knitters create clothes, blankets, tapestries, toys and lots of other items. The famous Weasley Jumper(Sweater) being a common holiday gift in the Harry Potter series as an example.

For the most part, knitters concern themselves with the number of stitches and where to make a loop change. They use repeating patterns to create cables and designs. What they don't consider is Physics.

Well, the Physicists are taking notes and it turns out knitting is pretty darn complex. They love it.¹

There are several interesting areas:


Strechiness

Elasticity or Stretchiness. Yarn by itself is not very elastic but when knitted into a sweater or socks it is very elastic and can stretch as much as double the individual lengths. The type and way the loops are formed creates stretchiness.

Material Properties. The end product displays properties beyond that of the base material used. Taking a one dimensional shape (yarn) and turning it into a multidimensional object (sweater). The sweater has many times the strength of the individual yarns or loops.



Smocking Variations²

An embroidery technique called "smocking", used before elastic was developed, gathers fabrics in a way that it can be stretched.² By using various knots, smocking creates a bending energy that translated into stretchiness. A smocked cuff can expand and then contract. A gathered/smocked cuff shirt is almost a required costume for any production of Hamlet.

Knitted knots are interlocking slip knots looped back and forth. A knot pulled to the front is a "knit stitch" and a knot pulled to the back is a "purl stitch". Combining front and back knots creates the pattern and linking them in different ways creates 3D shapes.

Each stitch or pattern yields a different amount of elasticity. Not only does it expand but it returns to the original shape. The amount of "give" depends on how many stitches are linked or crossed over the neighboring loops. Physicists are working out the math that goes into how a single thread of yarn becomes a bendable knitted item and how much stretchiness it will display. Once they sort it all out, they can use predictive modeling for new materials and new applications for knitted items.

Analyzing Weasley Sweaters is just the start.

Knitting Slip Knot

References

1. https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/03/physicists-are-decoding-math-y-secrets-of-knitting-to-make-bespoke-materials/
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smocking
   
   

   Smocking Stitches
   A	Cable stitch
   B	Stem stitch
   C	Outline stitch
   D	Cable flowerette
   E	Wave stitch
   F	Honeycomb stitch
   G	Surface honeycomb stitch
   H	Trellis stitch
   I	Vandyke stitch
   J	Bullion stitch

A Story for a Hot Day by KimB

I went shopping mid-morning as the heat was running towards 100+; so nice and cool in the store. I did the rounds of the discount bins and found a few items and I hit a good sale on Fruit Popsicles too.

We recently tried them and they are very good: 100% fruit and no junk. They come in different flavors and sizes. There is a standard popsicle size (4 per box) or a tube size (10 per box). We decided the 10 box smaller one is better as it is just enough when u want a cool pick-me-up and you can have a second one guilt free.

I pay for my small haul and a nice person helps me out to put the bags in the car. The heat hits like a hot skillet as we leave the store for the real outside.

I go to open the doors of my High Tech DNA car and

they do not open

It is 100+F outside and my super fancy car won't open the darn door!!! I tug, pull, and push all the ways I know of to trigger the door to open and ... NADA. I stab all the In Case buttons on the key fob and ... NADA.

I know there is a bypass for an emergency key that I have to find, but

my popsicles are melting!!! YIKES!!!

zho ... the kind person takes my groceries back inside and stashes them in their cold box until I can get things sorted.

I have to uncover the key bypass, which after a bit I manage to do. Now I have the door open and ...

hmmm...

 DNA cars do not use a key to start them

hmmmm ....

What to do Percy?

I make a call to the dealership service folks and explain the dilemma: I am in the car but how do you start it with no key???

They explain there is a voodoo ritual to get the car to start and after a few tries I get the car running. WOOTS!!!

I collect my popsicles from cold storage and make it home PDQ to get them in the freezer. YIPPEEE!!

Now I have to deal with the DNA car and we complete the Jedi Mind Trick again and cruise down to the dealership where they quickly replace a battery in the key fob for me.

A BATTERY??

A BATTERY IN THE KEY FOB???

The whole DNA car depends on a BATTERY???

The story ends well. The popsicles are fine. The groceries put away. I got an adventure and it cost $5.00. WOW!!

If the internet doesn't collapse under its own bloat first, all we have to do is wait for the key fobs linking the internet, cars, and commerce system together to have a $5 battery failure. All those self-driving cars will congeal on the tarmac as their parking-valet systems collapse into a pile of discharged ions.

For the want of a battery the system was lost

The End