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Nuts are very expensive by weight. Take shelled walnuts... those can be quite expensive. If I remember right an 18-wheeler carries about 50 metric tons of goods

Nuts are very expensive by weight. Take shelled walnuts... those can be quite expensive. If I remember right an 18-wheeler carries about 50 metric tons of goods, so at $15/kilo for shelled walnuts that's $750,000 sitting on a truck that seems to be protected by a little $100 GPS tracker that can be easily disarmed. $750,000 is a lot of money for a truck full of nuts. Even if you just skim 13%, that's a hundred thousand dollars. If you're selling consumer electronics, you attract attention. If the police see your car full of iPhones, or if they open a basement and find thousands of iPhones, that's suspicious. But if they see a basement full of walnuts? They'd just close the door and move on. Nobody suspects walnuts to be stolen unless you're actively looking for them. It's not as if the walnut farm can blacklist the walnuts' IMEI or something either. Just go around to a bunch of small, independent grocers and ask if they want to buy $2000 of walnuts for half the usual price. Or, even more brilliantly, start an online walnut selling business. Grocers might turn you in for your obviously stolen nuts, but some random Internet walnut buyer? I'm someone who eats a lot of nuts and I have no idea how I'd even check if my nuts were stolen. What am I gonna do, call them? "Hello, do you sell stolen walnuts?" "Nope" "Ok thanks!"

rsynnott 9y ago
> But if they see a basement full of walnuts? They'd just close the door and move on I mean, I think that'd at least lead to a casual question or two.
- CPLX 9y ago
  Just tell them you are transspecies and identify as a woodland squirrel.
- ptero 9y ago
  Likely dodge-able. One can, for example, play a nut "the world food supply chain is breaking up, GMOs are everywhere, etc. This makes me keep a few years' worth of calories in all natural foods close by."
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - owenversteeg 9y ago
    Which leads me to my second favorite thing about nuts: calorie density! That shipment of nuts would have 327 million calories. Assuming you're 30, will live to 100, and eat 2,200 calories per day, you'll only consume 56 million calories in the rest of your life. That shipment of nuts could be passed down in your survivalist family. First, it would be all the food you ate for the rest of your life. Then, your first child would be born and would start eating the nuts, continuously, until they died at 100 years old. They would have a child - your grandchild, and your grandchild would eat only nuts until THEY turned 100 and died (having a kid along the way.) Your grandchild's first kid would be born (your great-grandchild), start eating nuts the day they were born, have a kid, and die at 100. This final kid, your great-great-grandchild, would eat only nuts for their entire life, slowly whittling down the stockpile that lasted five generations. Eventually your great-great-grandchild would die in this basement, at the age of exactly one hundred years old like their ancestors, surrounded by the remnants of the one single truck of walnuts that their great-great-grandfather stole hundreds of years ago. Nuts are insanely calorie dense. If you disaster-plan with a more conservative 80 year lifespan, are 30, and eat 2200 calories per day, you'll only consume about 6 metric tons of walnuts for the rest of your life. If you put that in peanut butter, which is (like walnuts) very calorie dense, you'd fit enough calories for the rest of your life into 5.5 cubic meters, roughly the size of a small bathroom. (Not that the police officer would be likely to know the calorie density of walnuts, of course. Also, I love the pun.)
    - caliagent 9y ago
      Nuts go rancid. Bad idea for a survivalist story. http://ucanr.edu/datastoreFiles/234-2753.pdf http://ucanr.edu/datastoreFiles/234-2753.pdf
      - Mathnerd314 9y ago
        The almonds there last 10 months, long enough to grow and harvest some fruits/vegetables in a suitable climate. Typical emergency preparedness guidelines suggest stocking food for maybe a week. What kind of scenarios are you preparing for?
John23832 9y ago
Reminds me of the illegal oil trade. Once you mix the good with the bad and put it on the market, who can tell the difference. Better yet, other than the farmer that's stolen from, who would actually care?
saosebastiao 9y ago
50 metric tons would be an exceptional trailer. 15 is much more likely. To get to 50 metric tons, you're typically looking at something like this: https://www.google.com/search?q=cozad+drop+side+deck+trailer&client=safari&hl=en-us&prmd=sivn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiyq7SvuKnUAhUUUWMKHW3XACoQ_AUICigC&biw=667&bih=331&dpr=2#imgrc=aGDTkGnrfHuvYM https://www.google.com/search?q=cozad+drop+side+deck+trailer...:
- owenversteeg 9y ago
  Huh, really? I would've bet on 50. Google tells me an 18-wheeler's max weight in the US is 80,000 lbs, or about 35 metric tons. That's substantially less than I'd expect to be honest. 35 metric tons isn't _that_ heavy, and I always thought of 18-wheelers as these massive behemoths of the road that carried villages worth of supplies. Further reading shows that the US has uniquely low maximum weight limits, which results in containers that are legal under European laws arriving at US ports overweight. The UK for example has a maximum weight of 44 metric tons, and Canada (or at least some parts) have a maximum weight of 64 metric tons. Do you know if trucks running at 44 (such as in the UK) use special trailers like those Cozad trailers? Side note, while Googling truck things I found this gallery. http://www.cozadtrailers.com/en/gallery/ http://www.cozadtrailers.com/en/gallery/ I highly encourage anyone reading this to take a look at it. I had no idea things that heavy could be moved on a truck trailer. One truck is moving an "Ocotillo Nacelle" at 350,000 pounds. Another is moving a SR-71 Blackbird.
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    > I always thought of 18-wheelers as these massive behemoths of the road that carried villages worth of supplies. Well, it's probably carrying a village's worth of nuts...
  - saosebastiao 9y ago
    > Do you know if trucks running at 44 (such as in the UK) use special trailers like those Cozad trailers? They'd probably not look like that, but they would be different from the standard 53 foot, 8-tire, 2-axle trailer. Maybe the same box dimensions and height, but with 3 axles. Possibly double chained 20ft trailers with 2 axles each. Once you go over container shipping weight thresholds (which might be 44T like you say), you stop seeing box trucks. The cosad trailers are amazing for their weight capacity, but typically used for heavy machinery and are designed with low floors which heavily constrains how they distribute the weight (and thus the tiered chains of 9-tire per axle bogies). There are other designs out there, but that trailer was just what I searched for because they're from my hometown and I used to be a truck driver.

rsynnott 9y ago

> But if they see a basement full of walnuts? They'd just close the door and move on I mean, I think that'd at least lead to a casual question or two.

CPLX 9y ago
Just tell them you are transspecies and identify as a woodland squirrel.
ptero 9y ago
Likely dodge-able. One can, for example, play a nut "the world food supply chain is breaking up, GMOs are everywhere, etc. This makes me keep a few years' worth of calories in all natural foods close by."
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- owenversteeg 9y ago
  Which leads me to my second favorite thing about nuts: calorie density! That shipment of nuts would have 327 million calories. Assuming you're 30, will live to 100, and eat 2,200 calories per day, you'll only consume 56 million calories in the rest of your life. That shipment of nuts could be passed down in your survivalist family. First, it would be all the food you ate for the rest of your life. Then, your first child would be born and would start eating the nuts, continuously, until they died at 100 years old. They would have a child - your grandchild, and your grandchild would eat only nuts until THEY turned 100 and died (having a kid along the way.) Your grandchild's first kid would be born (your great-grandchild), start eating nuts the day they were born, have a kid, and die at 100. This final kid, your great-great-grandchild, would eat only nuts for their entire life, slowly whittling down the stockpile that lasted five generations. Eventually your great-great-grandchild would die in this basement, at the age of exactly one hundred years old like their ancestors, surrounded by the remnants of the one single truck of walnuts that their great-great-grandfather stole hundreds of years ago. Nuts are insanely calorie dense. If you disaster-plan with a more conservative 80 year lifespan, are 30, and eat 2200 calories per day, you'll only consume about 6 metric tons of walnuts for the rest of your life. If you put that in peanut butter, which is (like walnuts) very calorie dense, you'd fit enough calories for the rest of your life into 5.5 cubic meters, roughly the size of a small bathroom. (Not that the police officer would be likely to know the calorie density of walnuts, of course. Also, I love the pun.)
  - caliagent 9y ago
    Nuts go rancid. Bad idea for a survivalist story. http://ucanr.edu/datastoreFiles/234-2753.pdf http://ucanr.edu/datastoreFiles/234-2753.pdf
    - Mathnerd314 9y ago
      The almonds there last 10 months, long enough to grow and harvest some fruits/vegetables in a suitable climate. Typical emergency preparedness guidelines suggest stocking food for maybe a week. What kind of scenarios are you preparing for?

John23832 9y ago

Reminds me of the illegal oil trade. Once you mix the good with the bad and put it on the market, who can tell the difference. Better yet, other than the farmer that's stolen from, who would actually care?

saosebastiao 9y ago

50 metric tons would be an exceptional trailer. 15 is much more likely. To get to 50 metric tons, you're typically looking at something like this: https://www.google.com/search?q=cozad+drop+side+deck+trailer&client=safari&hl=en-us&prmd=sivn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiyq7SvuKnUAhUUUWMKHW3XACoQ_AUICigC&biw=667&bih=331&dpr=2#imgrc=aGDTkGnrfHuvYM https://www.google.com/search?q=cozad+drop+side+deck+trailer...:

owenversteeg 9y ago
Huh, really? I would've bet on 50. Google tells me an 18-wheeler's max weight in the US is 80,000 lbs, or about 35 metric tons. That's substantially less than I'd expect to be honest. 35 metric tons isn't _that_ heavy, and I always thought of 18-wheelers as these massive behemoths of the road that carried villages worth of supplies. Further reading shows that the US has uniquely low maximum weight limits, which results in containers that are legal under European laws arriving at US ports overweight. The UK for example has a maximum weight of 44 metric tons, and Canada (or at least some parts) have a maximum weight of 64 metric tons. Do you know if trucks running at 44 (such as in the UK) use special trailers like those Cozad trailers? Side note, while Googling truck things I found this gallery. http://www.cozadtrailers.com/en/gallery/ http://www.cozadtrailers.com/en/gallery/ I highly encourage anyone reading this to take a look at it. I had no idea things that heavy could be moved on a truck trailer. One truck is moving an "Ocotillo Nacelle" at 350,000 pounds. Another is moving a SR-71 Blackbird.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  > I always thought of 18-wheelers as these massive behemoths of the road that carried villages worth of supplies. Well, it's probably carrying a village's worth of nuts...
- saosebastiao 9y ago
  > Do you know if trucks running at 44 (such as in the UK) use special trailers like those Cozad trailers? They'd probably not look like that, but they would be different from the standard 53 foot, 8-tire, 2-axle trailer. Maybe the same box dimensions and height, but with 3 axles. Possibly double chained 20ft trailers with 2 axles each. Once you go over container shipping weight thresholds (which might be 44T like you say), you stop seeing box trucks. The cosad trailers are amazing for their weight capacity, but typically used for heavy machinery and are designed with low floors which heavily constrains how they distribute the weight (and thus the tiered chains of 9-tire per axle bogies). There are other designs out there, but that trailer was just what I searched for because they're from my hometown and I used to be a truck driver.