The biohack.me forums were originally run on Vanilla and ran from January 2011 to July 2024. They are preserved here as a read-only archive. If you had an account on the forums and are in the archive and wish to have either your posts anonymized or removed entirely, email us and let us know.
While we are no longer running Vanilla, Patreon badges are still being awarded, and shoutout forum posts are being created, because this is done directly in the database via an automated task.
[humour] We should set up a community
Comments
Displaying comments 61 - 90 of 90
-
So it's settled we dig a hole! Only catch is I don't know of any mountains for sale.... I wounder how deep land rights goes?
-
@thomasegi I'm not saying the zeolite is a bad idea but realistically can you pull enough water from a dry air to be useable for agriculture, drinking, hygene? That's the most basic need to be capable of surviving in a dry desert. Even getting out of the heat those few meters may produce more moister but you are still going to make solid type walls which will keep water from wicking in. Sure the old gold mines may be a bad choice and most are old and would need proper ventilation and reinforcement. My point was to find a median that wasn't going to drain what little resources you have at a start. Not only can you farm in non arid areas and non frozen but you have a pretty good chance of finding fresh water that can be purified extremely easily in large numbers to be drank. You could still do an underground type of habitat in a woods setting and there are still plenty of woods around that people just don't go too. I know you don't want to harvest an entire forest and I'm not saying do that either I'm simply saying you have options and resources that could help a lot to the start up just by making the area open to work in. Try considering maybe creating a new town and striking a deal with the state/country to be independent.
-
@Meanderpaul About zeolite. Yes it delivers. It adsorbs up to 20-25% of it's own weight in water, even under most severe conditions (even does that above 100°C). Worst case it'll take a bit longer for it to saturate. Usually it takes about 4 to 8h to saturate it. So one night is enough. Cooking it dry depends on the maximum permitted temperature of the zeolite (as specified by the supplier). Cooking it dry follows an exponential decay, the higher the temp, the faster it dries. 250°C is one of the most commonly found temps. Most water will be cooked out within 3 to 4 hours.Given 8h sunlight per day, 2 cooking cycles per solar heater would be possible. Letting the zeolite adsorb humidity at night would be just too easy. Just make sure there's enough air getting through it.Cooking would be as easy as connecting the storage container to condenser and heating the inside (fancy cooling isn't required, air will do).The cycle can repeat unlimited times and the process can be scaled as needed. My tests only ran on a small amount of zeolite and due to shorter cycle times i only got about 8% of the dry weight in water. Which is mainly due to short cooking time as I didn't want to run my oven for 4h at max settings in a tiny appartement and already hot summer temps.The water is extremly pure and usable for hygene, drinking and agriculture. If you use it for drinking you need to supply the body with enough calcium (easily done in form of bananas or chicken-egg-shells).Building a smaller test apparatus for harvesting 10-20ℓ/day is still within reasonable budget as the zeolite from china is pretty affordable. Other than that you only need some metal container, heat exchanger and a few flat-surface mirrors to get the temps high enough. Circulating the air inside the container helps speeding up the cooking by evenly heating. No pressure vessels, no super-hot parts (nothing that would get into structural problems with metal), no pumps.If you get condensing environments at night, the zeolite will saturate super-fast.Finding water on top of that would be very convenient indeed. But there's no real need for it. Since you don't have to focus on water you can pick less expensive properties or scout for one which has other treads, such as suitable geology for digging underground habitat, convenient in terms of accessing it etc.
-
There's no real need to be underground for us other than aesthetic. You could just build a normal compound and live there.
-
Normal compound building is possible. But there are advantages to hide behind a few meters of earth. It shields you from extreme heat and cold, averaging out temperatures. No energy demanding air conditioning is required. It's also good to isolate against noise between rooms/buildings. So you can have workshops with machines running 24/7 in close proximity to resting areas without disturbing anyone.If anyone in here has metalworking capabilities I'd gladly draft up a device to extract water from air. A list/pic of a junkyard and I may be able to make good use of scrap parts in the design.Btw, anyone has an idea how much deserts sells for? Like the worst possible kind of desert, dry, hot, barren, useless.
-
http://www.landcentury.com/land-for-sale/california/10-acres-land-for-sale-in-california/ Best I can do for Cali But Nevada.... http://m.landwatch.com/nevada/lander-county/land-for-sale/?id=205051500 http://m.landwatch.com/nevada/elko-county/land-for-sale/?id=289186709 http://m.landwatch.com/nevada/elko-county/land-for-sale/?id=205051576 Ah hell just look at the site! http://m.landwatch.com/results?t=5,63;268,6843 But this is as close to "just past absolutely no ware," I can do you: http://m.landwatch.com/nevada/pershing-county/land-for-sale/?id=289184071
-
2nd link seems interesting. chap, remote, some water seems to be around, annual taxes are a joke. There's a hill/mountain below it. Geology appears to be Basalt, Andesite according to maps. Not the most solid rock on this planet, but it should be possible to cut it into bricks at least.Only drawback appears to be some sort of mining business about one km away from it.Sub 10k for a 20 acre property with no building restrictions doesn't seem bad. Spending another 3 to 5k on zeolite for a stable water supply (with plenty of extra to store for cloudy days). Far cheaper than an island or giant ship for now.
-
A ship is still not out of the question, there are ways to get it to the coast.... Just need a tone of balloons. But for now I agree I wouldn't cut basalt to brick. I would start out with conversation bus's and teeth my way up to shipping containers and then build a cender block structure. A running bus could probably tow a non running buss. You don't think that mine could run under the property do you?
-
I think he's more concerned with waste/runoff
-
how about this one?Best I could find for a bit of cash. Huge, very remote, cheap. Any reasons this would not qualify? (legal, logistic, financial, etc?)
-
We would need to set up an IRB and make sure to get written informed consent if the site is in the United States so that all research done would be legally sanctioned.
-
@BCIuser What agency would issue a IRB licensing? Are we all settled on the land Thomas EGI has presented? If so we need to start moving on to the more practical aspects of what we are doing. Like are we going to rotate sessional staffs or would certain members of this bored work there full time and who visits for experiments when ever. What will we build the compound from? I am still partial to shipping containers. How will we get rid of wast water/matter? How will we secure it in case someone comes looking for trouble?(read drugs) There are a lot of people who will join this bored after we get this going what will we do for/about them? Tell them to screw off or charge them a fee for uses? Just somethings to ponder. Sincerely, John Doe
-
I'd recommend to get it mostly self sustained for the moment. So people can live there without being dependent on tons of external resources. Producing water, setting up hydrocultures. As for waste-water you can set up constructed wetland for most of the every day waste water. For more dangerous stuff such as waste water which is contaminated by chemicals you'd have to collect and hand it over to some recycling facility.Doubt there'll be a lot of trouble. If the facilities are covered by soil/ground/sand there's little precautions to take other than shutting windows/doors unless someone comes by with a bulldozer. Canada would probably a lot less likely to have angry locals.Talking about Canada: if we iron out the energy demand thing by any means and get some land with permission to build upon i'd be all in for Canada (any canadian law experts here?). Land is even cheaper there than in Arizona.
-
Immigration would be my issue with Canada. Plus doesn't Canada have real extreme environmental laws? Also if we chose the desert how many pounds of zeolite would we need that stuff ain't cheap! 26$/lbs EDIT: I got bored here is a cave for sale: http://www.jacobscave.com/ForSale.htm Seems like it could have promise, any one else?
-
If our conversation is moving up north, then would zeolite really be necessary? At that point lets just find a stream, dig a well, or even use a dehumidifier to suck water from the air. Of course solar power wouldn't be abundant, but we could still manage.
-
No zeolite needed in the north ofc.@JohnDoe not sure where you'r looking for and if you got the right type of zeolite. But you can get it for less than 1USD/kg. Check Alibaba, they sell by tons. I'd suggest plenty of zeolite, you can never have too much. If the apparatus is working well and if you are saving a lot of water, you could get away with a few kg. I'd say aim for more than 200kg for a decent supply and spare.
-
Oh trust me angry locals exist in Canada expesically if you are around their land and they don't agree with the way you use it. Or stop them from using the land that was open to the public.
-
For a topic that started off as a joke this seems surprisingly possible, especially if a large group of biohackers work together to fund this.
-
I wouldn't mind starting a alt coin....
-
Isn't alt coin a term for crypto currency like bitcoin?
-
Yes the idea being we can back stuff with it.... As well has have something we can use to raise money not much mind you buy something none the less....
-
sooooo are we gonna create an experimental commune ?i have a few questions :#1 what is the advantage of this as opposed to meeting up for a week or so and working on hacking projects together (aka. grindfest)#2 is there a specific benefit to the living arrangements? tax reasons? cheaper in general? appeals to our inner minimalist?#3 if this is to be a " living together happily ever after" type of thing, how do you deal with the different personality types/ conflict that inevitably arises? do they just get kicked out?
-
Yeah...so I definitely would end up conflicting with at least one person....if I had to spend time with people for a prolonged time frame....I see bad things...
-
I know this was all started as a joke and it will probably never happen but it got my interest.
What would the purpose of such a "community" be? Depending on the location, I suppose it could allow medical experiments and implants to be done without breaking any laws but then the talk started sounding more like a space colony.
This is a video of something that might be an option if you had a piece of land without building codes to worry about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaDWG7coaBc
I doubt an actual commune would work long term but maybe small groups of say 4 to 6 people might be able to survive a week or two at a time without killing each other. A simulated space ship or space colony might not be too hard to design considering you don't NEED to make it air tight or provide your own oxygen to breath.
Think a miniature version of Biosphere 2
Might be a good place for group meetings.
-
I feel like it could be a timeshare in a country with loss interpretations of medical laws/law in general....
-
I want to run security/police!
-
Self sufficiency should go without saying, but it depends largely on the location and what's available locally. I don't see a need for a dedicated currency as I'd imagine the society would function much like the semi-socialist dual economy of Star Trek, since that's where this all started. The only benefit I can see over a non-cyborg community is the ups/downs of every door having rfid locks and the establishment of some large scale Tesla-esque system to supply consistent passive power to implants throughout the community. The only imports necessary would be bulk shipments of Soylent and Noots.
-
Sure if you don't eat food....also I disagree with no currency that is bad. Socialism may work at first but in the end it will fail. Perhaps a barter system would work but saying nothing has a value and everything belongs to everyone most certainly will not work. Sorry if that's a bit scatter brained I'm having a messy day with thoughts.
-
@meanderpaul 2nded @lordfeng I think if we go this far we should be exporting noots, in fact I would even call it ignorent if we weren't.... For a society to work it must have exports.... A altcoin would make us a nation my definition not just by reasoning.
-
I'm not sure about the engineering aspects of this but possibly vertical farming at sea, or perhaps solar updraft towers in the presence of large bodies of water. Off the top of my head it would seem very difficult to build tall structures on the ocean. Either way this is a fun little thought experiment.
Displaying comments 61 - 90 of 90