Odd Culture

Got myself a new hobby today - Hydroponics

2008-06-18T13:02:00.000-07:00

Hydroponics has been an interest of mine since I read Gerald K. O'Neils book The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space. The pictures in that book of perfect bug free gardens spoke to the technician in me.

I have tried real gardening, but it is a lot of work with shovels, rakes and other heavy equipment. The results have also always been very varied.

I have tried a greenhouse, but that was also a lot of work, and the tomatoes were never that good. Those few that made it to the end.

One of the problems is that I expect it to be "set and forget". I mean, plants they grow everywhere. I spend hours every year trying to eradicate weeds. So why cant usable plants be just as easy?

That is probably the main reason I have failed with garden and greenhouse. Because they seldom are. On the other hand there is no end to the amount of trouble i will go to to make automation work.

So Hydroponics should be just my cup of tea.

I recently got my interrest in hydroponics renewed, and did a few days of research. I found the book How-To Hydroponics about the subject. I bought it as a pdf and read it in a few hours. There was a lot of good tips, and a lot of experience in it. Highly recommended! (No I don't make money writing that ;-))

I got bitten by the bug again and decided to build a small indoor system to try it out. I believe that the best place for a hydroponic garden is inside the house in the living room, kitchen etc. as it has several advantages.

- You need artificial light to grow indoors. If the garden is inside your house, you can turn of the other lights you would normally use. So lighting is cheaper that way. Just time the light to turn of at midnight.

- Indoors is close to the kitchen where the produce is used.

- plants cleans the air. How to Grow Fresh Air: 50 House Plants that Purify Your Home or Office. Yes I have read that too.

- Indoors is already heathed. Plants love that.

- Plants are perty. I love that.

The main problem with that idea is that the hydroponics systems that are available all seem to have their origin in professional gardening. Not exactly a business known for its design acumen.

I want my indoor garden to be pretty. A Scandinavian designer furniture. A statement. Something I would be proud to have in my living room.

Nothing like that is available, so I have decided to make my own.

Well ok I will begin on a small scale and rebuild an IKEA bookshelf to a hydroponic indoor garden that I will place in my cellar.

That way I can show the wife my vision before I put neon lights, water and aquarium pumps in the living room.

More in the next article.

Cheap and stupid wins every time

2008-03-07T01:43:00.001-08:00

There is this article at the guardian Why falling Flash prices threaten Microsoft.

I have seen a lot of articles like this the last 10 years, It seems that those that have not read Clayton M. Christensen's 1997 book The Innovator's Dilemma are bound to reinvent it in short articles.

Claytons book is about how inexpensive technologies take the bottom of the market, where the established companies find it hard to make a profit.

The technologies starts out worse, but eventually take over the more expensive and "better" products as they gradually get better.

In short: Linux will overtake Windows at some time. Word will be replaced with a browser based word processor at some time. Actually all software will be inexpensive and browser based in the future.

For Seven Years God Has Told George Bush How to Run The US - How Did That Work?

2008-02-14T01:25:00.000-08:00

According to George W. Bush God speaks to him directly. He has been a president for seven years. Apparently he is not a very good listener.

"Fun" graph from thinkprogress:

Leader in Public Transportation ... Bogata, Colombia

2008-02-12T06:04:00.001-08:00

Who would have thought it. All you ever hear about Colombia is about drugs, kidnapping and Farc.

But it also seems that they have one of the most advanced transportation systems in the world. And it is based on busses no less.

Read more here.

Top 40 Photoshopped Images

2008-02-12T03:56:00.000-08:00

The Photoshop geeks at VertusFluid Mask have made a list of their Top 40 Photoshopped Images.

Photshop an surrealism is such a brilliant fit. No I only need an oil color plotter for that handpainted look.

Another Obvious Idea - Finally Kids Don't Make A Mess When They Play

2008-02-12T03:34:00.000-08:00

The Rideable Vacuum Cleaner looks like a lot of fun. I have always believed that a a smart vacum cleaner was the way to go. But it seems that a stupid kid might be just as good.

More pictures at http://blog.thisnext.com/

What Came First The Inacurate Reporting Or The System Educating Inacurate Reporters?

2008-02-12T03:18:00.000-08:00

You often hear that US citizens are poor at geography. But one must really wonder if they are at fault them self or if it is the medias fault?

Sometimes It Is Just About Seeing Things Differently

2008-02-12T02:37:00.000-08:00

The developed countries have a lot of problems. One of them is that they have no infrastructure that rewards new ideas. And sometimes a new idea is all that it takes.

A good example is this Q Drum:

We have all seen the pictures of women balancing heavy buckets on their heads. Or small children hauling them over long distances. This is such an obvious solution. Once you have seen it that is.

Now the water transport is improved. How about getting water in the first place? If you have a well, you can use the PlayPump. Kids love to play, they hate to work. So why not make work play?

The people at PlayPums have made a merry-go-round that has a double function as a water pump. Look at the video on their home page: http://www.playpumps.org/

If there is no ground water nearby, but sea or dirty fresh water, you can use the Watercone. A cheap plastic device that uses the sun to distill water.

See the video about Watercone on youtube.

The common denominator for these products is that they are inexpensive to use, simple to understand and make you wonder "why has no one thought of this before?".

Imagine how many ideas the developing countries could get if they did not have to use their time fetching water or graining cereals. And they had an infrastructure that could reward them.

Technical review: Color Pencils

2008-02-12T02:25:00.000-08:00

This graphical tool gets a so and so review. Generally it is a disappointment:

Preparing the color pencil device for usage is relatively straightforward. As shown in the photo, you will have to open the lid of the metal box using your right or left hand. This installation however was completely undocumented, which may leave non power users confused.

but there is also good thing to be said

However, there are admittedly some neat features coming with color pencil devices which are not found in many of today’s tools:

Mix and mash: as shown in above photo, you can combine several colors by holding multiple pens.

Color Pencils Reviewed

So Much Fun Stuff To Do, So Little Time To Waste

2008-02-11T15:22:00.000-08:00

If only one had the time, one could build scifi models like this: Scratchbuilding Sci-Fi Models Tutorial

History Shows That Famous Thinkers Also Get It Wrong. And they admit it

2008-02-11T14:57:00.000-08:00

"One hundred and sixty-five eminent thinkers, researchers, and communicators, at the annual request of the edge.org website, answered the following question: 'What Have You Changed Your Mind About? Why?' "

Scientists are often wrong. About what?

Pirate Bay Captain Speaks Out on TV for the first time

2008-02-11T14:45:00.000-08:00

"One of the most popular online communities - ThePirateBay - is known as one of the Internet's largest file-sharing sites with free music, games and movies available for download. But the man behind the project is now facing copyright charges."

See the news item here.

Sometime you Must Wonder Why

2008-02-11T14:40:00.000-08:00

I don't wonder why people does bodybuilding. But sometimes I wonder why they dont stop.

The Dutch are Unable to Create Websites

2008-02-11T14:31:00.000-08:00

You load them in your browser and they simply fall apart. Worst construction ever seen. They even require flash to run.

http://producten.hema.nl/

M&M Battle Royale

2008-02-11T14:25:00.000-08:00

No matter one does, another one has done it before you. I thought I was the only one squezing the M&M's. Now I only need to check if it also follows rule 34.

In this piece: Survival of the fittest on craigslist you can see what passes as science in Tampa Bay. Well ok, and in my living room too.

On the edge of engineering, advertising and art

2008-02-11T05:58:00.000-08:00

Perhaps we need a new degree in technical advertising?

Tech Support Pricing Structure

2008-02-11T05:53:00.000-08:00

Calling me with a question $10
Calling me with a stupid question $20
Calling me with a stupid question you can't quite articulate $30
more here ...

Well if you want the real Bastard Operator From Hell

The Onion: New Remote Control Can Be Operated By Remote

2008-02-11T05:50:00.000-08:00

The Onion is always spot on: "Television watching became even more convenient this week with Sony's introduction of a new remote-controlled remote control."

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39226

The Comfort of Marriage - A Double Edged Sword

2008-02-07T01:15:00.000-08:00

Or "Why Productivity Fades With Age"

It has long been known that highly criminal youth get less criminal with age.

Around the age of 25 criminal activity declines sharply. That is probably why it helps to lock people up for a long time. Put them in jail until they are 30 and they will come out reformed ... oh wait, then it is not actually the imprisonment that works, just the passing of time.

This decline of crime is caused by a few factors. The testosterone levels drops. The lifestyle changes, like less clubbing. The major factor however is seems to be wife and kids. Yes marriage and family life is the best crime stopper!

That is nice.

But there is a major downside. Dr Satoshi Kanazawa has made some research (.pdf) showing that is has the same effect on scientists. Their productivity declines sharply with age. Especially following a marriage.

This also seems to be true of other "driven" people, like musicians and painters. It might help explain why the music business is filled up with young people.

So if you want to stay on your toes, do not get married. It will probably not make you happier, but it will keep you productive.

The First Ever Techno Music?

2008-02-06T13:42:00.000-08:00

Electronic music (electronica) is often considered to be a very new genre.

Even people who likes electronica seem to think that it came into existence with Kraftwerk in the beginning of the seventies. Many Americans even seem to believe that techno started with Detroit House.

Electronic instruments came first. One of the best known is the Theremin from the twenties. Though that did not make the music into electronica. It was just a single electronic instrument among a lot of acoustic and electric instrument.

The pioner musicians also started long before the seventies. Listen to this short piece of music from the fifties. Twilight In Turkey (.wav) It was made by one of the pioners of both music and electronic instruments Raymond Scott on his own instrument The Electronium.

This is the first piece of electronic music I have heard that sounds like modern electronica.

In the late sixties there was another pioneer Bruce Haack who made music that sounded a lot like the early Kraftwerk. Only he made it several years before they did. Starting in 1963.

Look here for for more info on The History Of Techno.

Does any of you know of earlier techno? I would love to know.

0 degree F is colder than it will ever get in Denmark - Or how failures persists

2008-02-06T05:13:00.000-08:00

The history of science and technology is far from perfect. A lot of issues have been decided by irrational individuals. Usually the scientific establishment is able to rectify these irrationalities. But sometimes it gets political or cultural. That is when it gets amusing.

A few years back the EU decided that the union needed a standard voltage all over Europe. Central Europe used 220 V and the UK used 240 V. It had been like that for many years, and no one would budge.

So what was the solution? To declare 230+-10 Volts the new standard.

The reason I came to think of this story was that I stumbled upon this link

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_188.html

It is about how the Fahrenheit scale came into existence.

Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686-1736) was a German instrument maker who invented the first practical mercury thermometer. Casting about for a suitable scale for his device, he visited the Danish astronomer Ole Romer, who had devised a system of his own. As it turned out, it was a case of the blind leading the blind.

Basically it tells this story: Rømer did not like to write negative numbers in his weather log, so 0 had to be colder than it gets in Denmark. He also set the freezing point of water to 7½ degrees, and body temperature to 22½ degrees. Fahrenheit made slight changes to this and developed the Fahrenheit scale.

To this day it is used in the imperial and US systems.

Almost all of the world has changed to the metric system where 0 is the freezing point of water, 100 is the boiling point of water and 37 is the body temperature.

A much more elegant and simple system, that is easy to remember the definition of.

But I chuckle every time i think about that the definition of 0 degree Fahrenheit is "Colder than it ever gets in Denmark"

The Pretty Boys

2008-02-05T14:10:00.001-08:00

This week I learned about a new subculture. I have never had a word for it before, but knew exactly what it was when I heard the word. I Love it when something you have in your subconsciousness suddenly gets a name.

It started with a group on facebook called Stop Pretty Boys, started by some danish students.

A quick google turned up name english name guido. Here and here.

From Wikipedia:

"Guido" (Gino in Canada) is a pejorative slang term for a young, lower class or working class, Italian-American and Italian-Canadian male from the urban Northeastern United States and Eastern Canada, most often New York and the surrounding area due to the large number of Italian-Americans living in the area. The guido stereotype is often portrayed as humorously and incorrigibly uncultured, with a thuggish and overtly macho attitude and an unyielding pride in his Italian ancestry.

It is most amusing that there is such a strong subculture in Denmark with this over the top style.