My question about commie clothes was a legitimate one. Twin Oaks makes it quite clear that visitors must be arranged in a specific way. The website directly tells people not to just “show up”. The reasons are pretty obvious: it is a hassle to deal with unannounced visitors, and there’s a small risk of having to deal with a truly weird or dangerous visitor.

Likewise, “corporations” (or in this case, a state-run college) have their reasons for keeping random dumpster divers off of their property. You understand the “why” when it comes to TO policy, now you understand why other organizations have similar policies as well.

By the way – I like your blog and the descriptions of communal life. That’s why I visit. I do seek out viewpoints different from my own, of which you obviously have plenty.

You do have a bug up your butt about me. The reason they dont want the stuff cherry picked, is they dont want the space filled with people going thru the clothes. They have no concern about where it end up ultimately. By taking it outside and sorting it there and returning it to the system, we were not doing what they did not want. We then conscientiously returning the stuff to the drop off points they specified so it stayed in their system and went to other charities, if we were being selfish and lazy we could have just thrown the stuff into the dumpster.

The analogy of UVa dumpsters being the same as Twin Oaks commie clothes is so pathetic as to be laughable, usually you are at least a bit more clever than this, please try harder. Or perhaps, bother someone else.

i am happy you are an avid recycler. i wonder how good you are at sharing, since that is where the long lever is.

We told them exactly who we were, they gave us permission to come to Chuck it for Charity (and for the record it was Acorn and not Twin Oaks, tho this is a more understandable mistake). I get that it is important for you to make me out as some bad guy, but you are going to need to work harder at it.

There are lots of interesting blogs out there and there is always Reddit, perhaps you should spend more time there.

Paxus at Acorn
14 Kewaunee Closes 2013

It is definitely better with a group. Passer bys are unusually supportive of dumpster diving, in my experience. They often like the idea that discarded things are getting use.

i appreciate you are willing to name pride and vanity as your stumbling blocks and i hope you have allies in moving past those barriers. Not so much for dumpster diving, but for other more important live decisions.

Be well, thanks for your comment.

Paxus at Twin Oaks
14 May 2013

We have very different experiences. The delays on the reactors i have fought, have never been the function of regulators slowing things down, they have always and regularly been because the construction firms have problems building these things. It is true that in some cases (like Finland) the construction firms have screwed up so badly that they have had to redo faulty work they did and this was dictated by the regulator.

The problem in the west is that regulators are generally “captured” by the nuclear utilities. We see this repeatedly in the US (see http://funologist.org/2012/10/20/nrc-hides-information-about-high-probability-dam-breaks/ in which we see the NRC hiding damaging information they know about utilities so they can save money and not do corrective actions which are needed).

Chinese reactor builders dont have this problem. The regulators are doing nearly nothing, so they basically never check safety features (similar behavior in the ex-USSR helped createt he Chernobyl accident). I would be willing to bet the Chinese delivered price on both Hydro and Wind is below nuclear. (See http://funologist.org/2012/10/25/the-finnish-domino-and-chinese-hurricane/ in which China is developing by far more renewables than nuclear power).

Your simplistic “bad government slows good reactor makers” analysis does not pass the laugh test. The fact is reactor makers worldwide have over promised and under delivered consistently. I have been told as much by pro-reactor folks who were willing to have an honest conversation about nuclear. Perhaps you should join that group, rather than the Fox News crowd.

Paxus at Twin Oaks
14 Kewaunee Closes 2013