More of an Attitude than a Custom Tool

As I get older, I've realized that I can't trust my memory. This is especially true for tasks that I perform infrequently. Such is the case when mixing Roundup in my sprayer. This is how I solved this old man problem.

If you are interested, please see

http://rick.sparber.org/MOAA.pdf


Your comments are welcome. All of us are smarter than any one of us.


Thanks,

Rick

Marking sprayer canister with the volume of ingredients is all kind of efficient, even conserving the chemical. You could mark the chemical can too, each subtracted amount to predict last available ounces.
Mixing up url's isn't an issue, all your posts are useful Rick. We geezers need to stick together...I did the same thing with my comments. Lol

Actually there could be a special search category named geezer's solutions to life's daily adventures

Rick,

I had a good laugh when I read "That ratio is buried deep in the pamphlet stuck to the side of the bottle". I am not sure why the makers of Roundup® use super fine print, make us search for the information and make it even harder by gluing the instruction pages together. I have a four gallon backpack sprayer with an electric powered pump and rechargeable 12VDC gel cell. I use a Roundup® concentrate and typically spray 64 to 72 gallons in the June and July timeframe after initially brush clearing tall weeds down in our box canyon behind our house. The box canyon ground slopes about 40 to 45 degrees (and a lot more in some parts) so this geezer gets a great workout but worth it for wildfire protection.

Not to make the mixing of Roundup® concentrate too confusing but there are at least two types of the weed killer concentrate. One is Roundup® Weed & Grass Killer Super Concentrate and typically uses 2.5 oz/gallon for a strong mixture and this is the one I use. The other is Roundup® Weed & Grass Killer Concentrate Plus and typically uses 3.0 oz/gallon for most weeds. That is probably the one Rick is using? It is a subtle difference but a big deal when I am mixing 60 to 70 gallons in one season and the super concentrate is pretty expensive.

Regards,

Paul

This is more clever than it may appear at first. I've been using a formal productivity system for over 10 years now (the one I like is called GTD). When I purchase an item, I'll download its manual from the internet, or scan in the paper version if I can't find it online. The system hinges in part on the realization that we are terrible at storing information just like this - holding a ratio in your memory for once-yearly use. And that once you devote a small portion of your mind to this task of rote memorization, it detracts from your ability to perform higher cognitive functions like ideation or critical thinking.

I have noticed that as I practiced the habit of immediately storing such information for future retrieval, I abandoned the practice of rote memorization, and my ability to remember things like this has deteriorated. We do know that memory decreases with age, but there is also something to be said for the fact that, as we mature, we develop superior systems for storing and retrieving information, and thus reduce our dependency on rote memory.

Using the computer as a virtual filing cabinet has other benefits as well...

Miniscule text can be magnified without the need for optics
Storage rearrangement and reordering is no more difficult than dragging and dropping icons
With cut and paste, the creation of hard copy "cheat sheets" is a mere bagatelle
No matter how much material you keep in your virtual filing cabinet, it never takes up more office space than your computer

and the most important...

The computer can do the searching for you.

All my stuff of this description is stored in one giant file on my desktop. Of course, all this file contains is a bunch of sub-files for each topic. The advantage of this for me is that, at backup time, I can simply drag this file icon over to the icon for the 1 TB exterior hard disk and drop it - backup of that material is done. Photographs are stored and backed in a similar manner. A backup of all the files I may have modified in the past week takes five to ten minutes.

One of the handiest files in my collection is the "woist" (German for Wo ist? (Where is it?)) file, With a small shop, stuff gets stored where there is space, not necessarily in the most logical location. When that happens, I make a note in woist.txt. Next year when I want to retrieve that item, a quick search in woist.txt locates it without the need to pick through everything in the shop.

I should mention that, if you're going to use your computer as a surrogate memory, YOU BETTER HAVE AND REGULARLY USE A MULTIPLE MODE BACKUP REGIMEN.

My system works for me so I'll describe it here for the benefit of people who wish to know what I mean by the ALL CAPS shouting above. I'm not suggesting readers should adopt my system. Make up your own regimen; it's more important that you backup regularly than the exact details of how and when you perform backups.

If I happen to invest a lot of time in a composition or program I'm working, I'll copy it immediately to the external hard drive that serves as my first level backup. Otherwise, my computerized calendar (Mozilla Lightning) reminds me weekly to run the two anti-virus programs and then copy bookmarks and address books to their backup files after which all the files containing my stuff are copied to the external drive. The external drive lets me access the most recent version (no older than a week) without having to dig out thumb drives and DVDs (explained below).

Once a month I'm reminded to copy all my files to a thumb drive which is hidden in a location in the house unlikely to be searched by burglars. Thus even if the computer, external drive, and the DVDs are stolen, the information is recoverable.

Once every three months I'm reminded to dump everything onto DVDs. This provides backups in a third medium as well as providing a long term memory of what my files looked like over time. If a critical file gets accidentally deleted, I can recover from the DVDs, although, thankfully, I've never had to do that. If you're worried about fires, earthquakes or tsunamis, store the DVDs in a secure physical location removed from your residence.

Perfect! Let's get started...I see a book in your near future by that name!

FWIW, I "went paperless" years ago. Bought this scanner, and scanned in everything I had. The scanner earned its reputation and steep price; it can whisk through a stack of papers, do double-sided scans, and does a good job of fixing digital images composed from crinkled paper, as long as you regularly clean the contact wheels. I only kept hard copies of official paper documents or sentimental stuff. Now when I receive paper, I just chuck it in my inbox, and then do a once-weekly scan.

Ironically, I will still print something out on paper so that I can reference it more readily, but it's no longer my long-term storage medium.

It seams that every few days I receive an ad wanting me to store my data on the cloud I may be just an old sometimes narrow minded retired industrial design engineer with sometimes failing comprehensive communications skills but I simply cannot bring myself to buying a subscription to something like that
First off I cannot get my thinking around having to pay to store my stuff. TO me that is akin to having a house full of furniture you really don't want to get rid of but do not have a good way to store it in a protected manor so you put it in a mini storage eventually the monthly/ yearly fees amount to more than the stuff was worth, it having a value only to you and not worth selling.
Second I visualize those cloud type storage mediums as nothing more than a place for unscrupulous persons to snoop around in your private affairs
And thirdly technology is constantly on the more, sometimes for the better sometimes not as in the constantly changing operating systems of computers. A lot of things we have done on older computers if we did not upgrade our data with each software change much of that would be lost
I do not know what the ultimate panacea would be for preserving our treasured data would be for right now I try to do about the same as Marv does but admittedly not on as regular or regimented regime as he says he has. because currently I have 2 500 or 750 GB 2.5" hard drives that I cannot get to boot up and no way of knowing how many millions of photos drawings or documents I might have on them that are not stored on another Media

If you are regularly backing up your personal data to your own hard drives, the only advantage you are going to get from also backing up to the cloud (besides simply additional duplication) is geo-distant backups. So you would essentially be prepping for a catastrophe that destroyed your onsite backups, and possibly backups that you keep within the area. A house fire won't do this, but a wildfire or significant flood can.

Most of those fancy cloud storage companies are simply re-packaging existing cloud storage services available from companies like Amazon. You can just signup for their cloud services yourself, and pay a tiny fraction of what others are charging. Agreed that they can snoop on your stuff quite easily.

Hard drives do fail, but if yours won't mount, you should be able to analyze them with some specialty software or existing system utilities.

Remarkably, very long term apocolypse-proof data archiving might actually be best accomplished by storing the data in DNA. Harvard Medical School has tinkered with this concept, storing 700 terabytes of data in a single gram of DNA. There's even some chatter about doing this on cockroach DNA, so that the data can survive widespread nuclear destruction.

Recognize that the cloud, and the data it contains, can evaporate instantly as soon as the cloud owners decide it isn't making money for them. INMNSHO, the cloud is most definitely not a backup medium. It's for lazy people who haven't thought things through.

Old external drives shouldn't be a problem if you think about the fact that the data on them is valuable. Whenever you buy a new computer with a new operating system, copy all the data on the old EDs onto the new ED you bought to run with your new system. Once the data is verified, disassemble the old drives, extract the magnets and drill holes in the discs before passing them under a bulk tape eraser. Discard or use them to make an artsy-fartsy objet.

If your old EDs break down, you've got backups on other media. Follow the procedure outlined above for turning them into earrings or nose rings.

I don't think I mentioned it in my post above but it's important to remember...

Run all your virus checking software immediately BEFORE doing backups.

You don't want to backup the malware.

These were not Ed's they died while being the computer's drive Back when I had 2 desktops and a laptop The laptop was more for just caring to job site offices even though I had all of the same software on it as the ones in both my home and shop office I only kept current applicable projects data on it Shortly before returning to the States I copied all data from both desktops to the laptop and 1 ED having limited baggage space the computers had to be packed in with our household and my shop equipment which none of that ever got shipped or was lost at sea I figure the forwarding company never received my materials.
this laptop has since suffered from 2 total drive fails when the first one failed I put the Ed in it to become the drive since it was a perfect clone I bought another ED then copied my data over to it but it was smaller and could not store everything so I bought a 2nd ED to store the rest on but I did not set either up as clones being that they were only 250 GB drives Looking back now I should have dedicated one of them as a ghost drive clone for the OS and all of the programs but hind sight improves while foresight sometimes diminishes. When the drive failed the second time I just put in a new one and started over using as many of my program disks that I had then transferred all data back to the laptop but somewhere along the line I have lost 1 of the smaller ED's the one that contained the oldest files.
Someday I will get enough guts to try and recover the data on the 2 failed drives they both spin up when I plug them in my dock,but something is wrong with the heads or the cards because my laptop cannot detect them .I miss the old IDI drives because I could just tear into them pull the disks and put the disks in another drive tweak a couple things then read away

I have mSecure on my phone which is an encrypted file of all passwords that is shared in real time with my wife. VERY handy. I have also gotten into the habit of using the iOS app called Day One which prompts me to have at least one diary entry per day. It has turned out to be invaluable. I just have to be careful about using key words to my searches don't miss anything.

I hardly ever use my phone for any internet searches mostly because Io find it just too tedious the 3x5 screen is far too small for the propaganda of most web sites plus their actual content that I happen to be searching for.
I mostly use it as a phone and to take pictures but even at that I find an actual camera less bothersome since I can 1 hand my camera but to hold the dumb phone and try and make 1 of my fingers touch the right place on the screen one handed is just not going to happen most of the time. using a touch screen to make calls is bad enough and that for me takes both hands so as you can imagine I rarely text, never really understood the big deal about texting anyway Either call hte party wait till sitting at a computer and email them or post on a forum forget chat as well the streaming conference of that doesn't float my boat.
I'd still be using a button type non flip phone if they were available I tried a flip phone for a while but after breaking the screen off about every other time I used it I got rid of it when my partner decided to put my phone on his business plan and gave me the one I have now I must say that I have surprised myself in not breaking it yet. Which may be because it is encased in a military grade rubber armor case He had close to 300 APPS programmed in it but I have deleted almost all of them As I said phones are for calling and talking not for playing games or or trying to locate myself on GPS if I don't know where I am by now I never will.

Thanks Rick! We've added your Spray Concentrate Mark to our
Measuring and Marking category, as well as to your builder page: Rick's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

<div id="blocks"> <div class="block b1 pngfix"> <div class="bimg"> <div> <a href="http://www.homemadetools.net/homemade-spray-concentrate-mark"><img src="http://www.homemadetools.net/uploads/200785/homemade-spray-concentrate-mark.jpeg"/></a></div> </div> <div class="head pngfix"></div> <div class="left pngfix"></div> <div class="right pngfix"></div> <div class="blockover b1 pngfix"> <div class="title"> <a href="http://www.homemadetools.net/homemade-spray-concentrate-mark">Spray Concentrate Mark</a> <span> by <a href="/builder/Rick+Sparber">Rick Sparber</a></span> </div> <div class="tags">tags: <a href="http://www.homemadetools.net/tag/drilling">marking</a></div> </div> </div> </div>

The problem with Roundup is that it comes in various "concentrates"... I usually buy the "Super Concentrate" in the biggest container that I can find (usually a one gallon container)... and I can usually only find a "concentrate" at the local Tractor Supply... forget Home Depot... they only have weak formulas.

Last summer I ended up buying the Roundup Super Max concentrate in a 2.5 (?) gallon container... the extra thick pamplet (112 pages) was ridiculous trying to find out the proper mix with water for just killing gravel driveway weeds, and other weeds and poison ivy in the woods that surround my lawn.

There is a table for mixing with handsprayers that just gives desired volumes and desired percentage of roundup... WTF ?

I always fill up my 2.5 gallon sprayer and can always use every drop in it until I'm too hot and sweaty from pumping it up and walking around for 3 hours.

I normally would just write the mix ratio on the mixing cup with a permanent marker that came with the super concentrate.

Not sure yet what the correct Power Max ratio is... but I usually always put too much in just to make sure I kill what needs killed... :)

the problem with most concentrates is as has been said the mix ratios are obscure and sometimes absent completely like in those garden hose sprayers. what happens when you want to use part of the refill in a hand pump sprayer????
Also another reason that mix ratios are obscure is a lot of these products are manufactured off shore hence one reason for the instructions being written in a dozen or more languages.
Lastly and probably the biggest reason for obscurity is the manufacture is out to sell product they sure are not going to tell you that a little may work as well as a lot if you add a surfactant like any cheap dish wash liquid.
When using any herbicides I always mix in about half a cup of dish wash liquid in my 1 1/2 gallon sprayer and cut the chemical by about 20% of the recommended quantity
the dish shop breaks down the surface tension of the water then when sprayed on the weeds or what ever the mixture coats better and soaks into the fibers plus the solution evaporates slower I also find that using Luke warm water seems to yield better results

Why are you still using Roundup? That stuff is seriously not enviro-friendly and the technology is some 30 years old. There are modern herbicides with greater dilution rates and formulated to target specific genus.
Good point about mix ratios, they should be burnt into the container as in pyrography.

Out here where I'm at I doubt that round up would do anything more than turn the weeds greener, Agent Orange might do some good . I have had pretty good luck using fire spent all last summer pretty much scalping everywhere I mowed going back over and over several times about once a month over an area of about 4 acres. then as luck would have it a hot spark from a grinder in high winds set an area on fire late last fall. This summer not a single weed were the fire burned
Might just have to mix up some napalm for the brush areas after I finish knocking down about 8 acres of 3 ft high scrub oak sage brush and 10 to 20 ft tall mesquite