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Episode-1571- Listener Calls for 5-8-15 — 43 Comments

  1. Can’t wait to listen to show. I was just about to call in the ant question yesterday, but got busy and couldn’t.

  2. The show was “elementary”. “Sherlock” is a BBC show with Benedict Cumberbatch (Khan in the last Star Trek movie) as Holmes and Martin freeman (Bilbo Baggins in the hobbit) as Watson

  3. listening now.
    Jack,
    There is a lower audio quality this week. “`Not complaining”, just wanted to point it out in case something is off with your mic and you didn’t notice. It’s a little like the Jetta days.

      • I agree there does seem to be a little bit of an echo or something. Not the normal high quality. Also not complaining, just wanted to point it out

        • you know I produced a small file in very high compression yesterday I bet I never changed the setting back. I will remaster the file but you will need to delete and redownload it, give me about twenty minutes.

    • I think the fix might have made it worse, I’m not getting sound at all. Tested it on two devices and verified that my headphones are working.

      Looks to be an interesting show!

  4. Jack, I for one would like to hear more from Steven Harris on the Tesla Li-Io battery in a future show, if it makes sense.

      • I can’t speak for @Stryder, but I wanted to know more about Li-Io batteries in general. Every Li-Io battery I’ve ever worked with works great for a year or two and then craps out. And that’s under ideal conditions. So, when I heard Tesla was going to power cars with it, where they are going to be parked outside in the hot sun, I scoffed, and said ‘Good Luck with that car 3 years from now’
        In your segment in this show, you mentioned ‘chemical tricks’ that NASA does to extend the life to potentially have a life longer than 100 years, and that there are multiple types of Li-Io batteries that are radically different from each other.
        So, how do I know a power tool or laptop with a good Li-Io battery from a bad one? And are there ways to program my laptop, smartphone, tablet, or power drill to extend the life of the battery the way NASA does?
        Also, specifically with the Tesla battery, I think this question is a few years ahead of its time, but I’ll ask it anyway… If you want your battery to last up to 72 hours in an emergency and you calculate that you’ll need 21kWh (as an example) of stored power to accomplish that, can you install 3 Tesla batteries to combine for the 21kWh needed? I assume that a backup generator could charge the battery just as much as the solar panels would. So having some solar panels, a backup generator, and the Tesla battery seems like a pretty good way to prep.
        I live in So. Cal. where our energy costs are very high, so in theory, if day-night arbitrage alone does in fact have a 5 year payback, and I can get a low or no interest 5 year loan on the battery, then it’s prepping for free. And any length of time the battery lasts beyond the 5 years is just free money.

  5. Is there a list of the people on the expert council? And what their ‘specialty’ is? I have listened off and on for over a year, and know a couple, but I am sure there are a few I don’t know. Haven’t yet listened to this podcast, so maybe you have answered my question there.

  6. The podcast does not start until 21:00 or so on the downloaded version.

      • Thanks for getting that fixed so fast. I know today must have been rough trying to get things back in order after being gone and then having a beloved pet die.

  7. Jack, Dorothy and Family.

    I am sorry about your loss. I lost a great cat friend a few years ago, long lived, loving and over all wonderful. I know Ralph will still be in your hearts and minds.

    There is a belief in the Bi Frost bridge, where all cross over and are again re united with thier animal loved ones.

    I trust the reunion, when it happens is as joyful as the memories and experiences of your loved ones was in life.

    Blessings.

  8. I love raising turkeys. No they are not dumb just misunderstood. No they don’t drown in the rain. I live in the PNW rains dang near 9 months a year. Mine do just fine.

    The biggest thing people think they are dumb because of fencing. Just like Jack was saying. They have a one way fly way. Where ever they go over they will not come back the same way. They are a big bird and basically have have a one way fly way. They don’t want to crash. They are also in need of routine. They can be rounded up or herded back to their pen nightly.

    Little ones can fly like crazy. The hens fly more than the toms. They love to roost up high. Like on top of the barn. For a house they NEED air circulation. so a 3 sided lean to with wire side on the 4th is best.

    Keeping turkeys with chickens your turkeys can get black head. Not good and can be deadly if not caught in time. Even then the bird may not live. However I have run my chickens and turkeys together all the time and never had a problem. Yet. They do sleep in different areas. Well except Emma she likes to sleep with the chickens.

    They are also a good warning for flying predators. When the tom sounds off ALL the birds run for cover. Great at eating bugs. Friendly. Love to talk to you and follow you around. They kinda like to go where the action is.

    Our tom is a super dad. Mama says watch the little ones. They hide under his wing and she will go kick butt. Now I have had one hen that was overly protective of babies. She would go and swipe the other hens babies. Then attack the other hens. She went after a piglet and gave it a good puncture hole. She went after the dog next. I went after my gun. She was done.

    So far all mine seem to take fosters ok. Now the little ones. Good grief they get into all kinds of trouble. They find places to get stuck in holes to hide in. So many have drowned in water troughs. We now keep bricks and rocks or floating ramp just in case. I am constantly going around saving babies. We walk the pasture, yard, and barn, all the time looking for dangers. Worse than having a toddler.

    They also like to have their dust bath. Can make a pretty good size hole with repeat use. We mix soil and then throw in some fire place ash they like that.

    It’s so great to watch 11 toms doing the fan dance and making the thump thump sound. You call to them and they call back. Amazing birds. Best return on investment we have had. Feed can be varied but they do need a higher protein than chickens. Love the meat. Bacon infused ground turkey OMG good. Easy to process. They reproduce on their own. Or we can eat the eggs. The pups love the big tail feathers for chews.

    Free range is fine but you will want to train them to an enclosure . Makes catching for processing much easier. Note take off your glasses when trying to catch them. Those wings on a 3′ tall bird are big and powerful. Both hubby and myself have been knocked on our butts more than once. My method is go in way low to catch them. I have better luck than hubby does with that.

    Not an expert yet have only had them for 4 yrs. Still learning. But know enough that I would give up the pigs before I would give up the turkeys.

    • Great post! I’ve been wondering about turkeys and you answered a lot of my questions. Thx!

    • I liked raising turkeys, but we got attached. They will come to you and sit down and let you pet them. They would come to the windows of the house and say hello. It made it hard come Thanksgiving time. We had a guy process her for us.

      We had a heritage Turkey too. That girl wouldn’t stay in the yard. Clip the wings no difference. She would fly everywhere.

      I don’t know why people think turkeys are dumb. Our chickens are dumb, compared to the turkey’s we had.

      I would say watch the roosters and the turkeys. We had a female turkey kill our rooster, then she tried to kill the second rooster we had 🙁 That was the one thing that made it easier for Thanksgiving.

  9. You hunt Turkey’s in central Texas….You will understand they are the hardest birds to HUNT…They are smart as hell!!!

    • Yep like I said right up until you start shooting them under a feeder that throws corn 8 times a day.

  10. First of all, Jack, so sorry about the loss of your cat. It’s happened to me a few times now and it never, ever gets easier.

    I’d like to add my appreciation for the new Friday format. Good stuff..

    You had me rolling in the fire ant segment. I lived in various places in the South growing up, and have some horrible memories of them. I live in the Northwest now and occasionally the ‘Great Bugs of the South’ conversation will come up with others. No one around here seems to have any concept of what those little #!$*#& can do to you. “What? Ants that bite?” “Uh.. yeah. Bite really isn’t the word for it.”

    Putting on my weather nerd hat, a comment about the TorCon thing. Dr. Forbes is a smart guy, but I worry that the TorCon is mainly a marketing gimmick for the Weather Channel. To be specific, it seems to me that they tend to overdo the area of the forecast. I’ll notice the NWS will have a forecast near, but not including big metro areas, but the Weather Channel will go ahead and include the city. “Breaking” headlines at the bottom of the screen like “80 million people in the line of severe weather today” doesn’t help.

    Here’s my advice, for the very little it’s worth. There are three websites you can bookmark on your computer, tablet, or whatever that will provide you with most everything you’d want to know.

    1) http://kamala.cod.edu/SPC/

    This is information compiled at the College of DuPage, but stuff that really comes from the Storm Prediction Center. They offer graphics, forecasts for the next few hours to the next few days, current watches, etc. There’s even a cool storm report section at the bottom. If you want the real-deal Storm Prediction Center page, it’s http://www.spc.noaa.gov.

    2) http://kamala.cod.edu/svr/

    This is linked from the first page, but good to have bookmarked separately. It’s a compilation of every warning that is issued. It refreshes automatically every 2 minutes.

    3) http://www.aviationweather.gov/adds/radar

    Yep, radar. You mentioned people should learn to interpret radar images and loops. That’s a great idea. And this is a good way to get to quick, clickable access to every radar site in the country. Warnings will also display on the individual images. One final note about this.. when you’re looking at an individual radar image and you want to loop it, choose the Base loop. There’s a big long explanation, but I just want to make it simple for anyone that’s thinking “Uh, yeah, which one of these do I want?”

    Sorry for the ramble, hopefully something here is of value to y’all..

    • The weather channel has gone to sh*t. Its a load of crap. They started ‘naming’ winter storms….. who the F gave you the right to start naming storms. The rest of the world does not. Its just a winter storm !!!

      Now its hard to get your weather from them, it use to be you got your local weather on the 8’s but now they have so many stupid shows on you can’t tune to the weather channel to get the weather.

      CNN is doing the same thing, stupid shows in the evening and you can’t tune in to get the news. Headline news went to crap this way 10 years ago. Long are the days I miss 30 minutes of headline news with Chuck Roberts, every 30 minutes.

      Steve

      • Amen!

        I learned so much about, you know, weather from The Weather Channel back in the 90s. Them the slide towards being ‘hip’ and ‘relevant’ began, and in the past 10 years it’s pretty much been weather in name only.

      • For a weather site to replace TWC, try Weather Underground. It seems to have everything I need in 1 graph and also breaks it down nicely as well. And not Slow like TWC.

  11. Sorry Chef Keith, but I’m gonna nit pick. : )

    The Spanish “z” is pronounced differently in Spain than in Latin America. In Spain, it is pronounced like the “th” in the English word “think.” In Latin America, it is pronounced like the letter “s”.

    Keith, thank you for your podcast and videos. I learn so much from them!

  12. I subscribed to a few of NWS’s many Twitter feeds. It has been a great way staying informed by getting radar stills and alerts. Two I like are:

    @NWStornado
    @NWSSevereTstorm

  13. I raised turkeys with chickens last year. Just a warning….my chickens literally ate the tail/tail feathers off the turkeys. One tom had to be butchered early because of the hole eaten into his butt, despite the fact I kept Blucote sprayed on all of the turkeys rear ends. The chickens were out for blood and found the large tail feathers easy pickins. I put chicken blinders on the worst offenders with minimal success.

  14. It is my understanding that the 6 month residency requirement for TX CHL was either dropped a couple years ago or is not really enforced, or something.

    I’ve seen several forums and CHL websites that show that the requirement was dropped several years ago. Based on that, I just contacted two Dallas area CHL instructors (@ Shoot Smart FtW and DFW Gun) and both said that the 6 month period is not required as long as you have a valid TX driver’s license. The Shoot Smart instructor said the penal code still has the 6 month requirement on the books, but said it’s not actually required because, well. . . it’s complicated. I’m not sure what that means, but it’s worth looking in to.

    I expect to start the process in the next week or two and will be able to confirm this info at that point.

    Hope this helps,
    Cheers,
    David

    • This MIGHT be the applicable exemption:

      GC §411.172 Eligibility.
      GC §411.173. NON-RESIDENT LICENSE. (a) The department by rule shall establish a procedure for a person who meets the eligibility requirements of this subchapter other than the residency requirement established by Section 411.172(a)(1) to obtain a license under this subchapter if the person is a legal resident of another state ****or if the person relocates to this state with the intent to establish residency in this state. ****

  15. Hi Jack,
    Another CCL debate….again.
    Every time this topic comes up my head feels like it is going to explode.
    Serious questions follow , …I know you get it,… but as a whole, why do we the people persist in the wrong argument of tweaking “Second Permission” a.k.a. the CCL “laws”, when they absolutely do NOT supersede the Constitution? (Not to mention Natures Law of self preservation.)

    And HOW can we join together all Pro-Constitution groups and argue against this B.S. called CCL, and hold any and all oath breakers accountable?

    The following “Original Text”, and “Explanation” is copied from The U.S. Senate website.
    Clearly , they know what it says, and they have lied and violated their oaths.
    http://www.senate.gov/civics/constitution_item/constitution.htm

    “Constitution of the United States ”
    Article VI

    …..(Paragraph one:, omitted for this discussion)

    …Paragraph two Original Text:
    This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any state to the Contrary notwithstanding.

    (Explanation; The “supremacy clause” is the most important guarantor of national union. It assures that the Constitution and federal laws and treaties take precedence over state law and binds all judges to adhere to that principle in their courts.)

    …Paragraph three Original Text:
    The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

    (Explanation; State and federal officials, whether legislative, executive, or judicial, must take an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. No religious test, either an avowal or a repudiation of any religious belief, shall ever be required of any public officeholder in the United States.)

  16. Just caught up and heard the discussion about CCW and non-resident licenses. here is a link to a quick discussion of the benefit between Florida vs Utah non resident CCWP’s.
    (http://forum.pafoa.org/showthread.php?t=16369)
    I am getting set up now to offer the Utah non resident training in Indiana but one thing that has been stressed in out training that we are supposed to give is that you must have the CCW for your state or the non-resident license is not considered valid. What I haven’t gotten clarification on so far is that some of the literature makes it seem that your non-resident CCWP is not valid in the issuing state without your state of residence CCWP as well or if it is in any state that this is the case. EX: Indiana resident cannot carry in WA without Utah N-R CCWP, and Utah will not issue the N-R CCWP without you having the CCWP for Indiana. Not sure if this is true for the FL CCWP as well or not.

  17. In defense of the fire ant, I have lots of fire ant mounds on my 5 acre pasture in North Texas, I’ve noticed after 3 years, however, that I have no chiggars or ticks. I have a strong suspician that there is a relationship here. After being eating alive by chiggars in another area pasture, I’ll gladly take the ants. I’ve learned to watch my step and sometimes I carry a handful if seed with me and just sprinkle it on whatever mounds I see.

  18. On the ant, is there a way to eliminate the little black ants? We call them “sugar ants” but not sure if that is correct. They are not in the garden but that is about the only place they are not. They have recently (early January) found a way into my kitchen and use my counter-tops to get exercise running back and forth. They have small mounds in between the seems of my driveway and throughout the yards. As with most all insect life I am fine with them outside but when they come inside, the must die. Does your fire ant killer work on these little monsters?

    • @Andrew – I have the EXACT same problem, and was wondering the same thing. There nests are so inconspicuous that they are hard to find, and they seem to move fairly regularly. I really wouldn’t care if they just stayed in the garden, but just about the only place I can count on them NOT being is in my garden. I’ve tried things to repel them, and I’ve tried just about everything to kill them, but there’s just too many of them.
      I’ve never heard of Orange Oil as ant killer, does anyone know if that works on these guys too?

  19. Any ant will die with antifuego. It kills anything it is directly poured on with an exco skeleton.

    • Sounds like the froze today as they were left unprotected but what they didn’t do is look up at the sky, open their mouths and drown. That didn’t and does NOT HAPPEN EVER. Sigh.

      • It happened to him with two batches of 25. They were scattered throughout the pen which would indicate to us they weren’t cold. They were six weeks old Rio grand turkey’s. I can’t say they definitely drowned but something happened when it rained which killed all of them.

        • God people will believe BULLSHIT really how damn stupid is this belief in reality, there would not be a turkey alive on the planet.