rob rhinehart claims to have given up alternating current, but to my understanding he just moved it out of his house:

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/...ating-current/

a bit kooky? sure... slightly delusional? in part... still, good experiment.

It's getting really good. What a hoot.

his response (doesnt talk about the electricity tho)

he makes good points. i can't agree with all because he goes too far on some things.

after all, the guy doens't have to worry abouy money, or the price of restaurants.

but after reading his earlier post i've been considering selling my truck and seeing how many uber rides it will pay for.

probably a few hundred. not sure it makes sense.

eta: he's looking at just total energy consumption not prices. he gets 20% of his calories from restaurants. i get nearly 0.

if economies of scale are so efficient, why would it cost me more to eat garbage 3 times a day at macdonalds than it costs me to eat GREAT at home?

i get that he makes bazillions per hour coding or running his startup incubator, but most people make a limited amount per hour on a limited workday. so it's good economic use of their free time to cook at home.

too many people eat themselves into debt--- he won't because he's got unlimited cash and can think purely in terms of physical efficiencies instead of price efficiencies like most mortals.

yeah those are fair points.

altho he did invent soylent which will soon be cheaper and more widely available than fast food

right. it's not quite there yet. $2.50 for 400-calorie "meal" is $12.50/day for 2000 calories. not sure of shipping prices? average a family of 4 (some eat less, growing kids eat more), it's $50/day or $1500/month.

same family would get food stamps for $4/day/person or roughly $480. that's the established "basic" level.

so you'd save $1000/month by foraging the supermarket like a donkey looking for feed, lol (that was funny).

that makes soylent a convenience not a basic food at this point.

not to say that nothing can be learned from it--

i currently use whey and caseine powders as backup "meals". my own soylent-- i blend it "deluxe" with frozen berries/cherries and some natural peanut butter they're pretty great,d take only minutes to make + clean, etc etc. probably costs the same as a bottle of soylent 2.0 but i understand it tastes a lot better.

so one can approximate without copying. which is what i appreciate about extreme experiments-- they point towards a direction, not necessarily a destination. they don't have to be followed to the letter-- but we can learn things from them. like reading the recovered log of an anctarctic expedition and realizing the power of pemmican.

similarly, i get ideas from bodybuilders and downscale them for my non-hypertrophic needs.

--

eta:

if i could get soylent for $1/dose (more than what i pay for complete protein), i'd seriously look into it. i wouldn't mind having to blend it myself because shipping bottled water when we already have municipal sources is ultra-wasteful.

This picture put a smile on my face.

Soylent?? Whey powders?? You ninjaz need to go Old World, the Levant already has a tastier protein source.. falafel

Preparing for demise. Reading Tibetan Book of the Dead.

i love how you always make pronouncements with a great sense of authority about shit you know nothing about, because you don't bother with trying to understand it in the first place-- you already know.

have you ever made falafel? of course not. because if you had you'd realize the massive amount of preparation and labor that it takes... from the start all the way to its messy deep-fried end.

falafel is made from garbanzos. if you wanted to say "garbanzos" i'd say "sure" because those are easy to slow cook or pressure cook without a lot of supervision-- though it takes time & energy.

but the whole soylent idea is not even about "a source of protein", it's about eliminating the time and resources required to compose an "ideal" nutrition from less-than-ideal sources as they are found in nature & the supermarket.

so garbanzos, while great, are not "complete" nutrition-- garbanzos need to be combined with other things-- oils, greens, fruits, etc-- to give you the full thing. and then you still have too much of something too little of the other and you spent a lot of time and labor fixing that. soylent attempts to eliminate the guesswork.

i definitely do not want to live my life driking tasteless grey sludge for "perfect nutrition", and i enjoy the time and labor that it takes to source and manufacture (and consume) my feed, but it requires understanding of a project before one sets out to criticize it, so that at least you can speak on the same level as the project was defined, i.e., address it on its own terms.

e.g. them: "i want to make a flying machine" you: "but submarines!"

FALAFEL!

--

ps - one more thing - whey is a byproduct of cheesemaking, and therefore an ancient food. dehydrating it is only a logical step for preservation, easy distribution, etc.

i want to pay more for convenience. soylent 1.0 is still too much hassle for me because you have to mix the powder with water. 2.0 is premixed and you just drink straight from the bottle. eventually they will release bars. i'll eat 3 bars a day, have boxes in my kitchen/bedroom and keep a supply in my pocket/coat/workbag. that for me is the most amount of time and effort im prepared to spend on food. no more washing dishes.

im the type of person who buys a bottle of water on the way home at the shop thats 2mins walk from my house. i cant stand the effort of planning food and dont want to think about it. unwrapping a bar is enough for me. having an entire days food in 3 bars in my pocket is ideal.

yeah. good too for hikers/campers/climbers/ etc. but will need more calories (3x400=1200/day is below basic needs even for a sedentary)

how hard was it to mix version 1 with water? the guy mentions that in his blog post-- getting rid of his (electric) blender. was it hard because of the oils? because the powder won't dissolve? was it sticky?

you know what packs the most nutrition, most protein, most minerals, most energy of any other food?



Meat.

bear in mind ive never actually bought soylent as its not available in euro. i use european clones like joylent and jakeshake that are practically the same

its not hard. you pour water into a shaker flask from a bodybuilding store with the metal round shaker thing. you add the powder and you basically shake it hard for 30 seconds. sometimes it can clump but a knife will stop this. but the problem is its way better to refridgerate it, makes it go down better/taste better. so you have to wait ages and its not that convenient, i sometimes stick it in the freezer.

the drink itself takes a while - you cant just down it because it wont digest well. you have to sip it. still faster than cooking most meals. my hair literally grows faster on the stuff and it feels like my consciousness upgraded to hd.

but atm i got a months supply of jakeshake and cant use it due to the ibs cure im on. really, soylent itself is the only one you should eat because its been scientifically engineered and had about 6 versions and has a team of serious professionals working on it while the others are clones that havent caught up with the soylent level of ingrediential precision.you can buy small batches of soylent to try it.

ive been eating utter crap due to my new job and low finances and ive got serious work to be getting on with so im off the board for a while. seeya round all

damn! alright. best leg breaks!

i'll be working on multiple systems flat out while fending off viral infections and customers far more vicious than the jsdff



but at least i'll be paid and in good finance before the winter. when i come back i got to share all the survival kit i'll have bought by then. take it easy and keep your at fields strong yall