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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 22nd, 2023

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  • It doesn’t fit the bill perfectly but I’ve been using Obsidian with the Tasks and Day Planner plugins. Obsidian is no longer open source but I still like it because you have great control over your own data.

    I use Syncthing to sync the notes between my phone and laptop (and select shared notes to the devices of my spouse).

    The Day Planner plugins allows tasks to be time blocked / scheduled on a timeline of the day. There is also a week view and you can easily move from day to day.

    You can sync your calendars so your calendar events automatically show on the timeline. Though I prefer to just check my calendar and enter the events manually.

    The Tasks plugin lets you give tasks future or recurring due dates with some pretty flexible logic.

    Aside from the day planning what I like the most is that I can also use this for journaling, to make project pages / dashboards, meeting minutes, and as a wiki. Take can live right with the appropriate information / context saving me from moving between multiple applications. I can save relevant attachments like emails in line with my notes and tasks just by dragging in the file (or directly dragging from an application like Outlook desktop).

    In my opinion the sky is the limit with Obsidian. What I’ve described can feel a little rough around the edges but it works and the ability to build out your own process is unmatched. There are Kanban board plugins, drawing plugins (Excalidraw is amazing), and as for a mind map you can draw them or you can use built in view to see how all your notes link together.

    I suggest watching some demo videos on Obsidian Day Planner plugin and Obsidian Tasks plugin, and Obsidian itself, and see what you think. You might be able to build out a system that works for you.



  • I second the recommendation of using Jellyfin.

    Additionally you can use something like the Unified Remote app to make your phone control your computer instead of a mouse. Want to turn up the volume just use the volume rocker on your phone. You can also turn your phone screen into a large trackpad. Very convenient for watching media. I think there is an open source version called KDE Connect but I haven’t used it yet myself.




  • You’re describing a fancoil supplied with cool, regularly replaced, municipal water (normally this water would be a fully closed loop cooled with an air source or ground source heat pump). Your energy needs will just be a circulation pump. You’ll probably notice a little cooling but it depends on how cold the water is, the surface area of the radiator, and the flow rate of the water. It has the advantage of being low maintenance so give it a shot and perhaps build it in a way you can access the components and improve / experiment over time.

    Look into an approach / methodology called Passive House. Passive House focuses on making buildings that have near zero heating and cooling load. If you get the math right / design from scratch with this in mind you can make a Passive House in nearly any climate. Common modern single-family-home building techniques are generally not at all closely aligned with building a Passive House.

    When trying to keep a house cool, here are the things I would focus on (in order of priority):

    1. Reduce solar heating impacts: either place shade trees or awnings to block direct sun on the entire structure (or the windows at a minimum).

    2. Build a highly-insulating enclosure (~R30 walls and ~R50 roof at a minimum, but you could push that further). If you are set on building with lumber you still can, you could building an offset double-stud wall filled with insulation, and of course an appropriate amount of exterior insulation a well. The goal in addition to insulation quantity is to reduce thermal bridging. Consider a “simple” house layout. Avoid too many corners / details / flourishes that add construction complexity.

    3. Utilize free-cooling first: as your first stage of cooling, open large windows close to the ground and open clearstory windows in the roof / top of a stairwell or similar, it really depends on the layout of the home (and ideally the layout is design around this concept). This allows the heat to be drawn out naturally via convection. Include ceiling fans for comfort. This approach will work until outdoor air temperatures get quite high. Once free-cooling will not longer work

    Once free-cooling will not longer be effective you can transition to mechanical cooling. Close all windows and cool your space either a high-efficiency air-source heat pump (and / or your free-cooling municipal water fan coil).

    1. Similar to the design methodology to encourage natural air / heat flow out clearstory windows or “solar chimneys”, also consider just having higher ceilings where heat can pool but you won’t feel it. Your exhaust should pull from these areas.

    2. Dedicated outdoor air system (DOAS): don’t design your mechanical ventilation system to cool using air (aside from the free-cooling described earlier). It’s inefficient. Hydronic heating and cooling (moving heat with water) is much more efficient. That means heat pumps for heating as well as cooling. Mechanical ventilation rates should be the bare minimum, just enough for fresh air but not for temperature control. Perhaps look at flow rates included in ASHRAE 62.1 or a standard more focused on residential homes. Also, your supply air can be separately ducted to each room (not a shared trunk), each being much smaller than what you see in a “normal” house, this gives more control for every single room.

    3. ERV: of course you’ll want to install an energy recovery ventilator to capture what heat / “cold” you’ve worked to produce before instead of throwing it away along with your exhaust air.

    4. For heating your domestic water, get a heat pump hot water heater (with tank). Instead of making heat it takes heat from the surrounding room and puts it into your domestic water tank. That means it “outputs cold” into the surrounding room, the opposite of a gas or electric resistance water heater.

    5. Earth tubes: to naturally pre-condition your supply air by running it through the ground first. Another form of free-cooling but useful when the house is “buttoned up” because outdoor air temperatures are too high. This is when you’re only supplying minimum ventilation air.

    6. Limit the things in the house that make heat. Efficient refrigerators / freezers (see energy star website), computers that are no more powerful than what you need, etc. Place these things in areas where the heat won’t bug you as much.

    Hope this helps.