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Episode-2750- Listener Feedback for 10-12-20 — 5 Comments

  1. Re Krakty and fluid refills killing plants. That’s why I prefer raft systems which can be refilled without concern for air roots. Rafts are an easy go-to for smaller plants. A pepper plant would necessitate some design work, but it could be done. An alternative I’m trying right now to grow tomatoes through winter is kinda Kratky-ish.

    I am using a 5gal bucket with a 10″ net pot and grow stones (hydroton would work too). I’ll manually refill the bucket to about the 3gal mark, leaving 4-5″ of the net pot above water and let the grow stones provide support while keeping the air roots in the air. The whole thing is in a mini-greenhouse with 8 2ft Barrina lights. If all goes well, I’ll have fresh tomatoes all winter.

    Re Sous Vide and hard water. I’ve always used RO water. No hard water issues, and after cooking, use it to water plants.

  2. Re: Fedcoin, crypto, & gov’t

    When I first seriously got into bitcoin & cryptocurrency, I thought that some of the small countries might really flock to it in a big way. I figured the nations with tenuous currency situations and no personal stake in the dollar might see crypto as an opportunity to change their lot in the world. Last year at a Mongolian Fintech conference I talked to some of the current & former gov’t officials attending. Turns out some DO see it as a great potential growth opportunity, but any enthusiasm is heavily dampened by their worry of potential AML & KYC issues that can potentially ‘blacklist’ the country within the existing international financial system. Mongolia was already recently put on the FATF ‘grey list’ (for reasons unrelated to crypto AFAIK), and since then I haven’t heard anything about the then planned ‘fintech/crypto regulatory sandbox’ making any headway or progress. I still have some hope we’ll see more gutsy nations (or states/provinces like Wyoming) embrace crypto full speed ahead, but am not quite as optimistic as before.

    Anyway, I’m thinking that this ‘blacklist’ threat and/or cutting off from the established banking network will be the primary threat or “stick” used to keep smaller nations from experimenting with non-state-backed crypto. But outright bans, maybe not so much so long as the blacklist threat keeps working so well. Meanwhile the “carrot” might involve special treatment and/or favorable terms for those willing to strongly tie themselves to the emerging “Fedcoin” (for the lack of a better name) network. I figure the bigger question is will the new Fedcoin be run by the US gov’t & Federal Reserve, or by an international operation like the IMF where the US has strong influence but not control. I’m leaning a bit towards the latter, as it’s more about what banks want than what nations want.

    • “will the so-called Fedcoin be run by the US gov’t & banks, or by an international operation like the IMF”

      it will be run by a consortium of private banks, which are owned and controlled by a handful of families. just like now.

  3. Re Freedom: Dr. Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning is about his time in Nazi concentration camps and keeping hope and his mind to survive.