Thanks

I expect the problem with drinking water is the cost of the required filters to make it drinkable, but as they said in the video even having non-drinkable water for their gardens is an improvement over not having it.

Yeah, a call center is fucking hell, managers are typically fucking idiots too, "oh you managed an Olive Garden here ya go a management position at a busy fucking call center with constant IT problems, just make sure these scumfucks get here on time and they stay in queue with their asses glued to the fucking chair". I've seen what it's like to take calls back to back with a never ending queue. What I saw were people quitting constantly, not so much firing. Training a bunch of twats for a month and they get burned out after only one more month lol

PAY MORE, HIRE MORE, STOP BEING GREEDY FUCKS and it should be mandated that there is 2 or 3 minutes downtime after each one of these shit calls lol

I only did that shit for 6 months but holy shit man, that gave me PTSD permanently.

Perhaps the most important thing with anything that you buy from the store is to read the label, organic or not. There are brands that try to use clever labeling to try to mislead customers, as the video alludes to.

One of the ways labeling can be deceptive is that it is often extremely unclear where the ingredients come from. A box of cereal might be 100% organic, but if the ingredients are all from China you simply cannot know what quality you're buying, for a multitude of reasons, including poor regulation, poor water quality etc.

A couple of other points:

Farming traditionally, without synthetic (petrochemical) fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides is sustainable... forever.
Farming techniques that require oil will have to be phased out eventually, because it's a finite resource. So in this regard, the video is wrong (in regards to them both being able to sit side by side), at least in the long term.

Grow your own food (you don't need much space for a garden), or buy local. Transportation/shipping causes an unbelievable amount of pollution.

Good post. I've always been interested in the history of WWII, I'm re-reading Ken Burns' "The War" these days. The best book I have read is David Webster's "Parachute Infantry", he was a good writer who was there at the Normandy and Market Garden airdrops and also did Germany occupation duty. They did him a real disservice in the "Band of Brothers" episode "The Last Patrol", they made him out to be a weasel when he was anything but.

I found an update on the youtube page.

Update: A lot of people have asked about her now. I never thought it would get so much interest. This video is a chronicle of our time together, which I finished making a while ago. Subsequent to making the video, I had to travel a lot, and struggled with keeping her where I was living. A saviour stepped in and helped look after Pegs while I tried to make a plan and she moved back and forth, which was disruptive for her. After months of no solution, it was obvious that her new set up with incredible love, a bigger garden and a new best friend in Luna, another great dane was more than I could offer. I am lucky that I get to visit and take her for short periods, and maybe that's why in my heart she's still with me. It’s always difficult. If the dog is happier, do you forsake your happiness? I think yes. If a dog is negligently bred, should it be killed to prevent more negligent breeding? I think no. Who's to say. In the end we try our best and our pets teach us lessons about love, humility and non-judgment.

Bovine milk from a happy cow that eats grass and lives in a field with good, appropriate medical care, like the one's we raised and the one's I visited last week, yum.

Your hyperbole is showing. You lower awareness with that kind of lie...that all animals are mistreated so all animal products are products of torture. It's bullshit, you know it's bullshit, and you just keep on spouting it. I'll keep on contradicting it. That's the deal.

Sorry, you missed the mark. I take lies, any lies, as an attack on humanity. You are lying. It's not because it's a personal or family attack, but that is the reason I have the personal knowledge to discredit you thoroughly. I actually hate the relative with the goat farm and would love to see her lose her shirt, but I admit she is an excellent animal caregiver...to the point where she often sleeps in the goat pen (outside in Texas Hill country) with them for their comfort and safety.
I have nothing to sell, I'm not invested in it at all beyond my home garden/subsistence farm. I buy my meats, but I buy good quality, properly cared for meat, not Burgerking, because I care about quality and animals. There are certainly abuses in farming, but they are the exception rather than the rule, contrary to your position. I have the extensive personal experience to say that comfortably.

EDIT: Buying LCD products is what causes the abuses you complain about. Quality products are not made as cheaply as possible, so do not have the issues you claim all animal products are tainted with. You know this.

Pokemon Go expectations: I'm getting robbed at gun point and trampled by a crowd of total idiots running into the street to catch a Charizard. Get out of the fucking intersection!!

Pokemon Go reality: There's another Digley or Pigley or whatever the fuck it's called in my garden.

Genesis 3 - The Fall

Now the Caterpie was more crafty than any other Pokemon of the field that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, “Caterpie, Caterpie, Caterpie, Caterpie” And the woman said to the Caterpie, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you DIE.’”

But the Caterpie said to the woman, “Caterpie, Caterpie.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her common law husband who was with her, and he ate.

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves thongs. But the woman was a feminist so she did NOT wear a bra. And Caterpie evolved into Metapod and Metapod thusly evolved into Butterfree and said to them, "Butterfree, Butterfree, Butterfree."

As a person who actually grows much of my own produce, I can say definitively that many of their numbers are WAY off. They require one to pay one's self $100 per month for produce shopping to come up with their $1400 per year 'savings', but claim 5 minutes a day for 'harvest time'...good luck with that if you're not living on just lettuce and cauliflower...peas and beans will take 3 times that. They claim $6 for seeds, but the seeds I buy are over $3 per packet, so that's only 2 vegetables at a time...not much variety. I also note they have no cost for soil, the bed, fertilizers, pest control methods/time, disease control, etc. They also arbitrarily put the maintenance time at :30 min per month...that doesn't seem really realistic for an outdoor robot. Keep in mind that a single break down can mean the loss of an entire crop, depending on how it malfunctions. They also don't give an expected lifespan...or guarantee/warranty, so there's little way to know yet if it will last a single season, much less the 4-5 they say it takes to pay off.

It would have made much more sense to me if they had compared it to growing a home garden by hand, as that's what it's replacing, not the grocery store.

Don't get me wrong, I love this idea and would take one in a second if someone offered, I just don't see it as cost effective at $3-4K. Once the bugs are worked out so it lasts 10 years and the DIY cost is down to $1K(+-), then I'll think they have something pretty good that could also save people money. Being totally open source, I have hope that it will evolve quickly and be clearly viable in the near future. The time is coming when I won't be able to do the home farming I do today...it would be great to have a metallic yard slave to take over for me when that time comes.

Surrender your knowledge and control over food production, in your own backyard. 3D print your garden. This could easily be a parody, and they should really change the music.

A micro-machine is the solution to macro-machines. I see it breaking down daily.

Mostly correct, but it is a solution to taking control of your own food production methods without using the time it takes to do so normally (and trust me, it takes a LOT of your time, more than most people have to spare). Also, for those not able to farm because of their physical conditions, this could allow them to have the garden they choose and enjoy fresh vegetables they would otherwise not have access to.

That said, if you start off by spending $3000 (on sale) for your "farmer", on top of the normal costs to put together and farm a garden, it's going to take quite a while to pay for itself. A neighborhood kid working for $10 an hour would probably be a better long term investment, and also probably wouldn't require repairs or replacement in a few years.
If I could build it all myself for 1/3 the cost, or got it as a gift, I could put it together with my existing garden and make it pay off in a year (if I count my time as valuable, which I don't). At full price, I doubt it would last long enough to pay off ever.

I was trying to remove some nettles from the garden with a stick and secateurs and with all the care in the world managed to get stung. This is why I will never handle a venomous snake!

FFS dude, I am not hellbent on coming at you. You're being way more aggressive than I am.

So honestly, I don't know what you're so bent out of shape over. Yeah, I use sarcasm. So fucking what? Sarcasm is a perfectly valid, perfectly "adult" form of expressing opinions.

I also don't know why you're taking this personally. I haven't insulted YOU at all (unless you count that jibe about NZ gardens, which you brought up first).

I genuinely think the USA would be a better place if you all calmed the fuck down about guns, and from my interactions with the pro-gun people, I am genuinely glad that I don't have to deal with that shit. Those are honest reactions.

If I DID have to deal with that shit (i.e. if I was living in the US), my reactions would be a lot less polite.

But FWIW, I agree that we've had lots of positive interactions on the sift, and yeah, I would generally consider you to be one of the smarter people on here, even if we don't always agree on things. So you may consider this the typical non-apology of "I'm sorry you feel that way, but I'm not sorry for arguing my case".

Sorry if I offended your delicate sensibilities. Given that you responded with an obvious satire (gardens are illegal in NZ), I assumed you weren't being 100% serious either.

Apologies for bringing facts into this discussion.

Damn, there's that sarcasm again.

To address your points

"Did you even read the article I linked?"
Sorry, I didn't. I opened it, but I really don't have time to read a 40-page law review article.

"In other words, you're flat out wrong when you say the 2nd amendment wasn't about self-defense".
Ok, we can agree to disagree there, but the point still stands that the statement "The WHOLE point of the second amendment... is so we can defend ourselves" (emphasis mine) is incorrect. I'll grant you it might be PART of it.

"I'm not sure why your tone is so dismissive in this thread."
Because I'm tired of trying to convince Americans to stop murdering each other.

"you're quite lucky to live in a country where your government protects you from growing your own food by throwing all those dangerous gardeners in prison. "
Please tell me you realise that's satire because your tone kinda makes me think you're taking that seriously. No, gardens are not illegal in NZ. Almost everyone I know grows some of their own food (at least, those of us lucky enough to afford a house with a garden).

"New Zealand has a shit-ton of guns (about one for every four people)"
Agreed. I even previously brought this up myself.

"people own them for a variety of reasons, from sport"
I know, I have friends who target shoot and hunt

"to self-defense"
cue wrong buzzer sound effect.

To get a gun in NZ you need a Firearms licence. To get this , you will be interviewed, and

You will have difficulty being deemed 'fit and proper' to possess or use firearms if you have:
...
indicated an intent to use a firearm for self-defence.

Have some people (shock, horror) lied to the cops to get a licence? Probably, but in general, no-one here actually wants a gun for self-defense.

Look, I have no problem with people using guns. I just think that maybe you could all stop fetishising them so much and realise that you live in the 21st century and not the old west.

Personally, I'm with Jim Jeffries on this one.
*related=http://videosift.com/video/Jim-Jefferies-on-gun-control