How is a $25 life saving medication "too cheap"? That's 1/10 of the out-of-pocket maximum per year in Norway or Sweden. Which by the way covers all of medical visits, hospital stays, prescriptions.
The ability of a dry stack retaining wall to shift and breathe is a feature, not a bug. For stone walls that require added reinforcement against lateral loads, look into tiebacks or geogrid reinforcement.
This would be discussed in an introduction to soil mechanics and foundation design (Braja Das's textbooks used to be the standard reference in the US when I was a student 15+ years ago) but I'm afraid they're too dry for anyone outside the profession. I'm not aware of an author who can animate civ eng subjects for the adult with the talent of David Macaulay. But I can point you to a few "engineering gems" that might pique your interest if you like this sort of stuff: prestressed and post-tensioned concrete (the work of Freyssinet, see Billington's books), readings from John Ochsendorf's class on historic structures in https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/4-448-analysis-of-historic-struc..., bicycle wheel as prestressed structure (the same principle used in some tension-compression stadium roof structures): http://www-civ.eng.cam.ac.uk/cjb/papers/p20.pdf
There are Civil Engineers here (I only studied it at Uni - I ended up in IT!)
When you deploy a structure like a retaining wall you want to try and ensure that the materials you use will retain their properties as long as possible and if part of it fails, it should not case the whole structure to fail. Add additional design requirements as you like eg colour and texture but always think about function first or you will regret it later!
In a garden setting, you will want to consider: gabions, drystone walling and "sleepers" (large lumps of wood - like railway sleepers).
Some quick material thoughts: Wood is prone to rotting, so ensure it is treated and well drained. Drystone walling can be prone to collapse unless it is allowed to drain properly and plants/weeds should be removed. It should be slanted at around 5 degrees from vertical to resist collapse. Gabions made of galvanized steel wire are extremely strong and resistant to pretty much anything. Devon Popples are an ideal filling for gabions and make a phenomenal structure.
I built a deck part way down in my garden. It is about 5m wide and sticks out about 1.8m. Behind it is a sleeper retaining wall which is about 1.8m high. I angled it back by about 2 degrees from vertical. I laid it on a concrete strip to spread the load and gravel base and back filled with quite a lot of scrap brick and rubbish for drainage. I used some 2m x 10mm stainless steel threaded rods embedded into the conc base to ensure horizontal stability (horizontal shear). I used 180mm, No. 10 passivated screws to keep the wall together whilst I built it and back filled.
"Where can we read more on this engineering"
It's everywhere but you will have to deal with local conditions. I am not convinced you are what you claim.
Knowing where to look without colleagues or steeping in the field is difficult. When teaching people to code, I often run into the same issue: assuming people are good at googling, or know what Stack Overflow is.
I am very good at googling and other online resource discovery, but that is no replacement for a knowledgable practitioner pointing you towards known good, high quality online resources. You don’t know what you don’t know. "Unknown unknowns."
I will even pay subject matter experts when necessary to bootstrap the research and autodidact process. There is no speed limit when learning, but rails and direction have value until you have enough foundation in a domain. I will absolutely let someone teach if they’re willing to set me on the right path, one of the reasons this forum is so valuable: highly knowledgeable people willing to bestow knowledge for free. And asking is mostly free (assuming you are polite and receptive).
Another quick tip: resist the urge to stack your stones long-ways parallel to the course of wall. Instead, put the longest dimension perpendicular to the wall.
This makes it much harder for the wall to fall outward as it shifts.
Perhaps, and there are lots of different types of stone and how to stack them.
My garden walls are of blue lias which is a bit like slate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Lias) it lends itself to flat 1-6" thick blocks that lay into quite neat horizontal rows whilst still being disjoint and allowing water to flow out. Weeds do grow in the cracks and the woody ones at least should be removed.
As you say a thicker wall will be more stable. Water and soil pressure will be most intense at the base, so make the base thicker and thin out as you move up. A slight deviation from vertical will allow for the soil expanding. For example my walls were rebuilt after a dry spell so a few degrees off vertical allows for the clay to absorb water and expand.
Look at the Dry Stone Wall Association of Great Britain, or The Stone Trust in the United States. These organizations still teach traditional methods of dry stone walling which cover a lot of these techniques.
+1 to no labor shortage in the construction industry. Good luck getting trained as a tradesman outside the unions. Joining a union is a practical impossibility if you're a white male. You'll be subsidizing your non-union employers with your own savings as an apprentice well into your journeyman career. You'll be sitting idle unpaid in between jobs, when it's raining or snowing, when your car doesn't start... Even when employed, you'll have no benefits, no health insurance, no paid vacation. You'll be competing for the scarce work with people who're in this country without a work permit. Guess what the going wage is for your services.
I can trace some drastic changes in my own life's trajectory to this book. Baxandall treats a familiar subject in starkly unfamiliar terms. Putting it in context but not making it any more relatable as it would be in a work of fiction or scholarly microhistory. Rather he works out some fundamental relations, social networks, kin structures, schooling and tribal knowledge, higher cortical functions etc. from the basic principles. The canonical works of art (lesser known but no less striking when presented through this lens in his Limewood Sculptors of Renaissance Germany) served me as a vehicle to self discovery.
This is actually the most interesting book on this thread. I ordered immediately. I’ve been on a big Renaissance kick lately. You find inspiration in the unlikeliest of places. Thanks!
I'm not familiar with Stuyvesant, TJHSST and the like. The best Russian schools follow the Konstantinov [1] tradition of "listki" (handouts), where each student is essentially guided to re-invent the math curriculum by solving problems. There're no textbooks or lectures. You solve problems from the handouts at your own pace and discuss them with a TA when ready (typically volunteers from among former graduates of the same school).
Economic activity supports employment, and large portions of the world economy are being paused. There are many people already losing their jobs over this event. The question at this point is: how bad will it be?
