in “collapse”, they keep talking about using cutting down forests to make charcoal for various uses in many different civilizations. so i was curious how you actually make charcoal. i found a couple of links off google. the main part of this site was about making small pieces of charcoal for drawing, but also had this page on making it for home use. it was more interesting for parts near the bottom. this page from someone making their own charcoal for use in a forge seemed much better and less wasteful. i like how it reuses the gas (key components are surely the hydrogen, methane and nitrogen) to fuel the fire. almost like a nuclear chain reaction. it would be great to build one of these. maybe even a more compact, portable design. handy knowledge for when the revolution comes.
i also stumbled across this site on how to bar-b-que. seems like some useful information.
i was going to go to a nationwide conference game today (dagenham & redbridge v altrincham), but it was raining. i pretty much stayed in all day and read. rain sucks just as much as software. we can probably do just about as much to prevent it too.