If you could take one luxury from home...

Lassen Forge · Post by **Lassen Forge** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 11:56 pm

...to bring to BRC with you, what would it be?

Me? Hot water. Yeah. Ahhhhh...

Post by **Eric** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 12:25 am

My one luxury would be The Boyfriend, who is non-playa through & through. But only if we could brainwash him into being a burner.

Otherwise- a non-dusty bed. I can deal with the dust everywhere else (yes, there too), but the dusty pillow & sheets get to me by Friday.
Luckily I can drink enough not to notice. *g*

Captain Goddammit · Post by **Captain Goddammit** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 2:22 am

Well, you can, and I do, bring virtually all the luxuries of home to the playa...

But if it's a rhetorical question about having to choose just one thing, I'd have to go with the hot water too!
Showers are priceless out there!

robotland · Post by **robotland** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 5:32 am

Three 10-15 ft. spruce trees.

Post by **AntiM** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 7:57 am

My cats to snuggle with at night. They'd teleport back home during the day.

Kinetic IV · Post by **Kinetic IV** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 8:04 am

I'd say manageable hot water showers. As in a working shower / grey water recovery system and water that's truly hot.

HughMungus · Post by **HughMungus** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 8:13 am

I was going to say my bed and then I thought no, it's fun to sleep in strange places. Then I went back to bed for an hour and thought, no, I would want my bed there. Of course then people would be fighting each other to get to sleep in my real bed with me. That might turn out tragically...or happily. Who knows. Anyway, if not my bed then a 7-11 would be great.

can't sit still · Post by **can't sit still** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 4:37 pm

I'd like to bring my doppleganger so that I could see twice as much.
Also, that wild little brunette named Val who I met several years ago.
5ft. 4 in. and petite but she wears a belt knife with a thong on her thigh to secure it. She pulls it out often and it definitely cuts down on the amount of BS that she hears.
Dan

Curmudgeon · Post by **Curmudgeon** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 7:34 pm

Bay Bridge Sue wrote:...to bring to BRC with you, what would it be?

Me? Hot water. Yeah. Ahhhhh...

I'm thinking that might not be impossible. Take all of this with a grain of salt, because this isn't really my field of engineering and I'm sure that somebody else could come up with something much better, but I'll take a shot at it.

Picture a lightweight, highly reflective surface with a parabolic cross section; ie. in geometric terms, you're taking a parabola and pushing it back through space, sort of in the same way that you picture yourself pushing an arch back through space to generate the shape of a vault. Got that shape in mind? The direction of travel is perpendicular to the plane of the parabola.

As you push the parabola through space, picture the line that you're generating by pulling the focus of the parabola through space. Run a water pipe through there, with the axis of the pipe along the line generated by the focus of the parabola. The pipe is suspended from a support from above, with the lightweight mirrored surface (protected by windbreaks) suspended independently, turnable by a wheel. Why?

Because if you turn the surface so that it's basically facing the sun - ie. so that a line dropped from the sun through a point on the line generated by the focus of the parabola will intersect the suface at a point generated by the vertex of the parabola (ie. on the "bottom" of the reflector, where the bottom is when the reflector is turned to face directly upward), then while the rays of the sun won't all land on the same point along the pipe, they will all end up on the pipe.

Make the pipe black enough, and that incident sunlight will become heat. The virtue of using the elongated parabolic design instead of something like a searchlight mirror is that you don't have to work so hard at following the sun. You just have to turn the surface along one axis, making for much easier mechanics.

You do want a windbreak, so that the surface doesn't blow down - large surface area and lightweight can be a problem in high winds. What I would need to compute out (and haven't, yet) is how much wattage you'll need to warn your shower. Are you better off heating and using it as it flows, or building up a good supply of hot water in an insulated tank and then using it? I don't know, yet.

It might be an interesting problem to work on. Do you picture yourself having access to a pump?

RingO'Fire · Post by **RingO'Fire** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 8:31 pm

Curmudgeon,

Sounds like you've come up with an idea for a smaller version of this:

Here's the full article on the solar generators:
http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/ener ... bolic.html

Seems to me that if you had a few mirrors and a glass cutter that you could cut the mirrors into long thin strips and then affix them to a parabolic form, perhaps a frame of parallel metal strips bent into the shape of a parabola, or perhaps a wooden form. It would be a crude parabola at best, but just might do the trick.

Otherwise, Mylar is pretty reflective, although it would probably be a bitch to glue onto the parabolic form. On top of that, the wind might shred it.

As far as a pump goes, you could use something like this, http://www.femyers.com/products/sse/sse_fpso3.html, although from the looks of it, I'd say it's probably pretty expensive. Just googling "battery powered dc pump sump" I found several in just a few minutes in the $300-$400 range. This one from northerntool.com http://www2.northerntool.com/product-1/4866.htm is only $159 - still a bit pricey for a week of hot showers, but since we're just kicking ideas around...

Hmmm....[scratches chin]....I wonder if you could....hmmm, maybe...wait a minute, I'll bet Mr. Robotoland would know...That's it! I'll ask him, He knows everything.

can't sit still · Post by **can't sit still** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 8:32 pm

You've definitely addressed the problem of heating the water, Next, you might want to give some thought to the problem of transporting and disposing of same water.

Ms Crypto, do you have any idea if anyone has tried drilling a small diameter hole several feet deep and letting waste water percolate down and away?????
It seems like it should be pretty simple.
Dan

Ranger Genius · Post by **Ranger Genius** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 9:07 pm

You can't dump gray-water on (or in) the playa. Soap and oils and such change the composition and create scars and erosion problems. You have to evaporate the water off or pack it out with you. Of course, you can get the JotS people to pump it away with their RV service vehicle, for a fee. I've known a few camps with overloaded evaporation ponds to use this approach, but it's fairly pricy.

can't sit still · Post by **can't sit still** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 9:47 pm

RG, I know the rules and the conventional wisdom. That's not what I asked. I asked if it had been done.
I'm not a big fan of useless rules.
Water percolates into the playa during every storm. I'm talking about injecting a couple of fluid ounces of body oils and soap a couple of meters below the surface. I'm sure that the chemistry of the playa would break down simple oils in a few days. Alkaline PH disolves metal,,,biodegradable oil is no problem.
Your comment about erosion make little sense either,,,even if it were on the surface. Erosion needs flow. It won't flow on a flat surface. That leaves mud. Mud may not be allowed but it's not a scar. It doesn't take a genuis to realise that 50 gallons of water 2 meters below the surface won't destabilise anything.
You're parroting the BLM mantra. I prefer to think for myself.

The BLM has control of huge areas that are used for resource extraction. Historically, they've never required remediation after you finished mining.

If you look in the right places, you'll see companies leaching gold with cyanide on BLM land. Until recently, you could leave all the mercury and cyanide that you wanted on BLM land and they didn't complain.

It's only at Burning Man that they require a bond and onerous restrictions.
I've been to other alkalai flats. The combination of solar radiation, O2,O3, and alkalai will break down anything.
They want to regulate Burning Man out of existence. I understand the necessity of complying with the rules.Just the same,,,i'm not a big fan of blind acceptance of rules.
Dan

Zulegoona · Post by **Zulegoona** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 10:05 pm

As I recall individuals and maybe even small camps are permitted to spread there gray water on the roads. but those are generally small amount of water compared with gray water generated by large theme camps.

The playa dust I think is an alkali clay that would limit the rate water could leach in. Also erosion on the playa is from wind not water, where water has pooled the surface becomes harder and mounds are left not depressions like you would think of with normal erosion .

diane o'thirst · Post by **diane o'thirst** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 10:14 pm

I was going to say "I'm gonna be like AntiM and say 'My Cat'" but my cat couldn't take the Playa. He'd have a heart attack out there. My horse is the next best choice and he could probably handle it a lot better...but that's another topic of discussion entirely...

Curmudgeon · Post by **Curmudgeon** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 12:18 am

RingO'Fire wrote:Curmudgeon,

Sounds like you've come up with an idea for a smaller version of this:

Yes, that's the geometry I had in mind. I wonder if steam power is the direction they should be trying to go in with that, though. Getting water hot enough to warm a bath is one thing. Getting fluid hot enough to raise the thermodynamic limit on a heat engine's efficiency to something acceptable is quite another. I don't doubt that the practicality of what I'm looking at, I'm just not sure that they couldn't do a lot better.

Seems to me that if you had a few mirrors and a glass cutter that you could cut the mirrors into long thin strips and then affix them to a parabolic form, perhaps a frame of parallel metal strips bent into the shape of a parabola, or perhaps a wooden form. It would be a crude parabola at best, but just might do the trick.

Crude is probably good enough, and putting strips together is going to be a LOT easier than producing a curved surface. We're not attempting any kind of imaging with these optics and we're aiming at a broad target (the pipe). I'd have concerns about using glass, though, and I think that you've already guessed what I'm going to say: MOOP.

We have a mirrored surface suspended from a framework, turned maybe by a crank. Mice and men and their plans and all of that - we should build with the thought that despite all of our precautions, things will go very wrong and this thing will get knocked over. At that point, picture being the poor schlub on the cleanup crew, left to shift broken shards of glass (many of them no more than slivers) out of a deep blanket of dust. It would be a nightmare.

Having never made a mirror myself, I don't know if this would be practical, but how about this:

Take some less brittle material - maybe wood - put a layer of some kind of resin over it to provide a very hard, very smooth finish feeling sort of glass like, and deposit metal on top of that, to produce a mirror that would be less shatterprone, and maybe lighter as well?

Otherwise, Mylar is pretty reflective, although it would probably be a bitch to glue onto the parabolic form. On top of that, the wind might shred it.

Wind is definitely the enemy. We need something with a large surface area, to be able to capture and focus enough sunlight, but light enough to be turned. Hence the reference to setting up a windbreak.

Having grown up in a high wind area, much windier than the Playa, I can tell you that walls are relatively poor windbreaks. The wind will flow over them and around them and at times seem to be coming from all directions at once. On the other hand, forests make excellent windbreaks. Maybe there's the key.

Instead of blunting the force of the wind with a few blocks that'll tend to turn into sails, lay out an array of more linear (treelike, if you will) obstacles that will tend to turn a smooth, laminar flow of air into mutually opposing eddies that will tend to slow each other down. Lots and lots of kinetic energy dissipated as heat, without a lot of momentum being deposited in any one location.

Curmudgeon · Post by **Curmudgeon** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 12:18 am

RingO'Fire wrote:Curmudgeon,

Sounds like you've come up with an idea for a smaller version of this:

Yes, that's the geometry I had in mind. I wonder if steam power is the direction they should be trying to go in with that, though. Getting water hot enough to warm a bath is one thing. Getting fluid hot enough to raise the thermodynamic limit on a heat engine's efficiency to something acceptable is quite another. I don't doubt that the practicality of what I'm looking at, I'm just not sure that they couldn't do a lot better.

Seems to me that if you had a few mirrors and a glass cutter that you could cut the mirrors into long thin strips and then affix them to a parabolic form, perhaps a frame of parallel metal strips bent into the shape of a parabola, or perhaps a wooden form. It would be a crude parabola at best, but just might do the trick.

Crude is probably good enough, and putting strips together is going to be a LOT easier than producing a curved surface. We're not attempting any kind of imaging with these optics and we're aiming at a broad target (the pipe). I'd have concerns about using glass, though, and I think that you've already guessed what I'm going to say: MOOP.

We have a mirrored surface suspended from a framework, turned maybe by a crank. Mice and men and their plans and all of that - we should build with the thought that despite all of our precautions, things will go very wrong and this thing will get knocked over. At that point, picture being the poor schlub on the cleanup crew, left to shift broken shards of glass (many of them no more than slivers) out of a deep blanket of dust. It would be a nightmare.

Having never made a mirror myself, I don't know if this would be practical, but how about this:

Take some less brittle material - maybe wood - put a layer of some kind of resin over it to provide a very hard, very smooth finish feeling sort of glass like, and deposit metal on top of that, to produce a mirror that would be less shatterprone, and maybe lighter as well?

Otherwise, Mylar is pretty reflective, although it would probably be a bitch to glue onto the parabolic form. On top of that, the wind might shred it.

Wind is definitely the enemy. We need something with a large surface area, to be able to capture and focus enough sunlight, but light enough to be turned. Hence the reference to setting up a windbreak.

Having grown up in a high wind area, much windier than the Playa, I can tell you that walls are relatively poor windbreaks. The wind will flow over them and around them and at times seem to be coming from all directions at once. On the other hand, forests make excellent windbreaks. Maybe there's the key.

Instead of blunting the force of the wind with a few blocks that'll tend to turn into sails, lay out an array of more linear (treelike, if you will) obstacles that will tend to turn a smooth, laminar flow of air into mutually opposing eddies that will tend to slow each other down. Lots and lots of kinetic energy dissipated as heat, without a lot of momentum being deposited in any one location.

tisha2 · Post by **tisha2** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 2:49 am

yeah....warm *running* water, without all the engineerig and gray-water drama.

what a gift we have in the 'real' world, eh?

Steven bradford · Post by **Steven bradford** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 8:08 am

Do we get to choose whose Home we can take the luxury from?

Killbuck · Post by **Killbuck** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 1:38 pm

I'd bring a portable plutonium cell generator to power the elevator.

RingO'Fire · Post by **RingO'Fire** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 3:09 pm

Kernul Killbuck wrote:I'd bring a portable plutonium cell generator to power the elevator.

Here ya go Ker-Null, I've got an extra. You can borrow this one.

Killbuck · Post by **Killbuck** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 4:52 pm

Gosh, THANKS!!

robotland · Post by **robotland** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 4:56 pm

RingO'Fire wrote:Hmmm....[scratches chin]....I wonder if you could....hmmm, maybe...wait a minute, I'll bet Mr. Robotoland would know...That's it! I'll ask him, He knows everything.

In my infinite wisdom, I have generated the solution....Simply create a Humana Radar-Range, utilizing the magnatrons from a half-dozen castoff microwave ovens and a secondhand JOTS box. Why deal with the greywater hassle, soap scum and trauma from potentially forgetting the conditioner when you can simply Excite Your Body- Or at least, its Precious Bodily Fluids... Searing hot water in mere moments, plus the bonus of minor wound cautery. Once refined, this could become a beam operated from a turret by a Qualified Remote RadioBath Technician.

...Must rest....Genius is SO tiring.

Curmudgeon · Post by **Curmudgeon** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 6:20 pm

tisha2 wrote:yeah....warm *running* water, without all the engineering and gray-water drama.

what a gift we have in the 'real' world, eh?

Gol' durn kids don't know a good time anymore! (grumble, grumble)

RingO'Fire · Post by **RingO'Fire** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 6:54 pm

robotland wrote:
RingO'Fire wrote:Hmmm....[scratches chin]....I wonder if you could....hmmm, maybe...wait a minute, I'll bet Mr. Robotoland would know...That's it! I'll ask him, He knows everything.
In my infinite wisdom, I have generated the solution....Simply create a Humana Radar-Range, utilizing the magnatrons from a half-dozen castoff microwave ovens and a secondhand JOTS box. Why deal with the greywater hassle, soap scum and trauma from potentially forgetting the conditioner when you can simply Excite Your Body- Or at least, its Precious Bodily Fluids... Searing hot water in mere moments, plus the bonus of minor wound cautery. Once refined, this could become a beam operated from a turret by a Qualified Remote RadioBath Technician.

...Must rest....Genius is SO tiring.

Gee-willikers! Space-age RadioBath waves from on-high! Wowie-Zowie! Once again, Mr. Robotoland, I'm in awe of your mental prowess. I knew you wouldn't let us down.

All of a sudden, I feel like singing! Why don't you and Penny do the Watusi while I sing?

...la la la...Ra-di-o Bath wave! Roastin' your 'nads from far away...

bdeywoo · Post by **bdeywoo** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 11:31 am

My dog, hardest thing about going to BRC for a week for me.

If you could take one luxury from home...

If you could take one luxury from home...

Re: If you could take one luxury from home...