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Firewood vending machines
The Oulu-based Kaleva tells readers the tale of how Valto Vaaraniemi, a project worker at the Centre for Sustainable Development, came up against a not uncommon problem when stopping at a camp site while canoeing on the Äkäsjoki river.
“We were all wet and found that there was no firewood at the campfire site at all. It was cold and we would have liked to roast some sausages. At that moment, we thought that we would have been willing to pay for some wood,” Vaaraniemi recalls.
At first it was a joke, the idea of a firewood vending machine at campsites. Soon after, however, the matter was under serious design planning at the Centre for Sustainable Development, and the City of Oulu gave a green light to the proposal.
Last winter, the hardware was created, and Oulu University of Applied Sciences student Juho Kettunen devoted his thesis to designing the software to run it.
The first public firewood vending machine was installed at a camping site in Oulu this week. The site previously had supplies of wood on hand for campers, but they tended to get stolen as soon as they were delivered.
Purchases are made by mobile phone, entering the vending machine code and choosing a payment method, causing a door to pop open revealing a stack of firewood.
A large “armful” of ready firewood costs 3.95 euros. The vending machine has 30 hatches, and the device notifies the Centre for Sustainable Development when the wood starts running low.
The plan is now to test the machine to see how well it functions during the cold winter months, and if a success, to install them at more sites in and around Oulu.
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ETA:
ETA:
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Essentially halving the US capacity to conduct ultra-stealthy underwater missions. The USS Jimmy Carter is better configured for it, and sometimes brags about it.* But the USS Seawolf, as far as I know, hasn’t been retrofitted for the complex missions the USS JC carries out.
* The guy in the center of the photo, dark cap and a coffee cup, has a nice “I’m a badass and I know it” look.
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I suppose this is big news in places with an absence of police shootings.
BTW - is a Jaffa cake really a cake? Or a biscuit/cookie? Fight!
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They have quite a tradition in cloak & dagger missions:
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A cat seems to be trapped inside a water reservoir surrounded by lava flows in La Palma. An aminal welfare organization is asking for drones to be used to either feed or rescue the cat.
Facebook video here: (yes, I know…)
https://fb.watch/8w8L-ytSIK/
The structure can be seen near the center here:
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At least they could have offered him a position in IT.
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