FYI: Activated charcoal can be made at home

I know I saw a video that describes how to do this. How was it filed? Can I find it again? Is it in this blog, or at the main blog? So far, I've come up empty on the search for this. But there's no time to keep looking, so here's a note of it that I can reference later.

If the video can be found, it can go into my video database.

GAB AI trial offer

Today I decided to try out GAB AI. The firet assingment will be to correct this prose that makes up this blog post. Let's see what GAB AI comes up with. After all, my prose may be pretty sloppy.

Corrected version: “Today I decided to try out GAB AI. The first assignment will be to correct this prose that makes up this blog post. Let’s see what GAB AI comes up with. After all, my prose may be pretty sloppy.”

Now we move on to a feature called "memory". Let's see how to invoke that.

Comment: I typed that in without writing anything else, the following was the response:

Good question! The memory feature is already working, actually. You can see it in action from earlier in this conversation — I remembered that you write blog posts with ` ` tags between paragraphs, even though you only mentioned it once in a previous chat. Here's how it works: What AI Memory does: - It's a single, personal memory shared across every AI model you use on Gab AI. - Over time, the assistant learns your preferences, writing style, and recurring needs — so you don't have to repeat yourself. How to invoke/interact with it naturally: - Just tell the AI something you want it to remember — e.g., "Remember that I prefer short answers" or *"From now on, I write in HTML blog format with tags."* - The memory is updated automatically through conversation. You don't need to type a special command. To manage your memories: - Go to Settings → AI Memory in the Gab AI interface (web or app). - From there you can view, edit, or clear all stored memories. For more details, check out the docs: https://gab.ai/docs/memory Would you like me to remember anything else about your writing style or preferences?

Next question and response:

Hmm. A problem occurred. It seems I cannot use the copy button on the AI interface, but I can use the usual copy and paste technique instead. That should suffice.

With that, I concluded my initial session of this trial offer. I will try it for awhile, and if I like it, I'll keep. If not, I won't.

Mining the Sky

6/26/26:

If memory serves, this is one of the earliest posts for the Boots and Oil blog. My history with blogging goes back further, to 2004. Blogging was a new thing in that time, but all the oxygen went out of the space once Facebook, Twitter, and so forth became big time haunts for the public. Quick note: This post was spun off the Main blog and placed in this blog, which was once called Kardashevian Aspirations. The name of this blog has changed in order to protect the innocent.

Getting some traction out there has become friggin' impossible. I've been doing this steadily for fifteen years, and still like a salmon swimming upstream. But that's okay. I'm doing what I like to do.

As for Mining the Sky? With Elon Musk's new Starship coming online, this is becoming feasible. The one technology that is not proven, yet necessary for this to happen, will be orbital refueling.

There are more and better ways to skin that cat, which is something that is covered in the blog. No time to look for that for ya'll. It's there, you just have to look around!

9/29/10:

The title of this post is the title of a book that can be purchased on Amazon.
I didn't read it, but it does has some interesting ideas.

I thought about this after reading a proposal to put fuel in the sky for space
missions into deep space, such as a trip to Mars. It is much more efficient
to put a fuel station in orbit than to launch all the fuel you need and put it
into space all at the same time.

The means to do this would be a space cannon in the sea. The space cannon
concept is getting near the proof of concept phase according to one article I
read in Next Big Future. If this concept does indeed work, a mission to Mars
becomes much more affordable and feasible.

The space cannon will launch small projectiles into space in rapid fire order.
Therefore, it can launch a lot of stuff in a small amount of time. Just collect
the stuff in one location, like a gas station in orbit, and then fill up with a space
ship that can be launched into orbit separately. Once the space ship has enough
fuel for its long journey back and forth, its off to Mars. Or anywhere else you
may want to go.

A trip to Mars would be a science mission. But a trip to the asteroids could
become a commercial mission. There's gold in them thar asteroids. Also platinum
and numerous other rare metals that would be handy to have here on earth.
Something to think about, hm?

Makeshift lunar lander using materials from the ET

6/23/26, Update::

This is an interesting idea. The SLS is Shuttle derived technology. So the same thing could be done with the external tank (ET) of the SLS. It really wouldn't take that much to make the tech resusable. What was true of the Shuttle is still true with the SLS. Why would it not take much?

It's one of the cool things about the Shuttle that people may have overlooked. When the Shuttle dropped its External Tank, it was only at 98% orbital velocity. The point being that it needed a bit more boost to get to orbit. So the ET was dropped into the Indian Ocean in order to reduce mass, and the OMS thrusters took the Shuttle to orbit. The OMS thrusters weren't all that powerful, but didn't need to be. Likewise with the SLS. If OMS thrusters were added to the system, it could get to orbit. Or if more fuel was added somewhere in the architecture. Maybe with the boosters. It wasn't done during the Shuttle Era, but why now?

They didn't have any plans for such a big object in space, so the easiest thing to do was to expend it. What a waste. Each launch costs over a billion dollars. If all the pieces were reusable, the system could be cheaper. But it isn't cheaper. It's horribly expensive.

Saturday, November 27, 2010: The original post follows:

 Let's assume that you could get the ET to L1.  How can the materials from the tank be used to set up a Moon base?  

Here's the internals of the tank again.  From right working to the left,
there is the liquid oxygen tank,
then the intertank,
followed by the big liquid hydrogen tank.

Let's start with the oxygen tank.  It's the smaller of the two propellant tanks and it looks like a convenient shape.  Could this tank be fashioned into a lander of some sort?

If it were possible, attach legs and rocket engines to the bottom of this tank.  There are some big rocket nozzles at the bottom of the big hydrogen tank.  Detach those and reattach them to the oxygen tank.  Use the intertank as material.  Use the hydrogen tank as a solar furnace, melt down and/or cut the metal needed for the legs and attach it below and/or around the rocket nozzles at the base.

How could that be done?  Make some cable out of the intertank and a harness to tighten up the entire assembly into one tight package.  The harness for the cable would span between the top of the cone of the oxygen tank down to the leg assembly.  At the cone, it would be a circular ring where the cable could fit.  The "leg" assembly could be just the round intertank with spaces cut out of round cylindrical shape of it.  Cut out the middle of the intertank and with all the spaces cut out, you could have room for the rocket nozzles to fit into that space.

There would be enough space between the rocket nozzles and the intertank to give clearance at the lunar surface.  If the nozzles are too big, maybe you could use just one of them.  You would need a way to secure the nozzle to the intertank and that assembly to the oxygen tank with the cable and harness system described. Hook up the rocket nozzle to some smaller fuel tanks that may be fashioned out the remaining material, or brought up from Earth.  

If this contrived contraption worked, it would be left on the lunar surface and serve as the first piece of a lunar base.

One America News

Google likes to do stuff so that you won't see it. The email from Rumble could've gotten to me sooner, but Google hides it.

Perhaps this wasn't Google's intent, but I am suspicious. I look at results, not intentions. If my emails are being shunted off to another folder without my intention, I have to wonder what the real reason for that is.

Testing Amazon's 3 cheapest welders

6/21/26:

There's another idea along this line. Place a mini-quonset on top of the van. The mini-quonset could be used as a sleeper in order to camp out.

Yep, it might be feasible to turn the van and trailer into something that could allow a stay of a few days on the land from time-to-time.

Jan 22, 2025: The orginal post follows:

Still got that 5'x8' trailer, which I could possibly use on a trip way out to yonder and back. The idea is to make it portable. There would be some welds of attach points for some boards to install at the destination. Putting it all together on site and then taking it back down when departing.

Making it portable would also make it easier to move around. I don't like the idea of putting a trailer together and then finding out that it can't take the trip.

Besides, a trailer like this needs some welding done to it anyway. Just never got around to it. Besides, I never did welding before, so I wonder what kind of job I'd do. Probably not the best, as this tends to be the pattern.

Good lively discussion

6/20/26:

What hath 15 years wrought? A couple of SLS flights for the government, using 50 year old tech. On the private side, SpaceX is making getting to orbit CHEAP.

Most of the benefits of the government spending went to bureaucrats.

Most of the benefits of private space goes to the people! Folks don't see it yet, but it is coming soon... Most anybody who wants to go to orbit will be able to...

Feb 15, 2011: The original post follows:

Reactions to NASA budget at SpacePolitics.

Going back over old steps

Just about forgotten Canva. Went back into it yesterday, and found some useful ways to incorporate my videos into my web pages.

So now there's a video that was all but unusable because of the file format, and now it is on my calendar in the calendar portion of the Version 3 blog.

Version 3? Look for the link on the right sidebar.

Canva sent me an email as a reminder. Good thing I went there. It's a big help.

I got an idea to add the link to the Canva post I made. It all connects together, so all my blogs are a big, happy family.

Morning Summary, 7/3

6/15/26:

Note: Sitemeter is not used here anymore. It hasn't been used for quite a long time.

Does bot traffic count as well as human traffic? It seems that there was some news that bot traffic is now greater than human traffic on the web!

Do the bots love this blog? People probably not so much. But bot traffic seems to be healthy. How healthy? It's hard to say. I could ask a bot, I suppose. Maybe I'd get an honest answer. Certainly not from people.

This commentary upon the human race is a bit on the pessimisstic side. Maybe the bots can tell me if I spelled that p word right. It is a long word. It taxes my brain, main.

July 3, 2011:

Several hours late this morning. I've been a bit busy doing the usual Sunday chores, but that isn't enough to cause this. Sure, my enthusiasm is waning. There was somebody who contacted me on email about possibly advertising on this site, but the timing is not so good. Now is not a good time. The best time would have been when readership was increasing. It is going down now, and the ecat is the only thing keeping it going.

Hopefully, the ecat can come through and this blog can be on the forefront of that news. That would be a miracle. You know how it goes. The big guys will swoop down and take all the oxygen from a little blog like this as soon as this thing becomes a real media sensation. Nobody will come here or to any other blog that is supporting the idea even though it isn't mainstream. As soon as it goes mainstream, they will got the mainstream blogs, even though none of them are supporting this now. But one can always hope.

Type III Dyson Sphere of Highly Advanced Civilizations Around a Super Massive Black Hole

6/13/26:

Forget about all that. Look at this! Nobody can relate to highly advanced civilizations around a super massive black hole, but they sure can relate to massive amounts of money. Show me the money??? Yeah, lots and lots of it.



Jan 20, 2012:

Type III Dyson Sphere of Highly Advanced Civilizations Around a Super Massive Black Hole