Showing My Ars

I haven’t posted anything about my favorite web site Ars Technica in quite some time. Well here goes.

Ars had a nice article about a project to use some knowledge of thermoacoustics to develop a inexpensive, robust, and simple device that can use such a common item as a cook fire to provide the energy needed to provide rudimentary electricity and refrigeration. For those that don’t want to look at the article the goal is to apply acoustic cooling and high efficiency thermodynamics to create essentially a highly engineered tube that when one end is heated the other end cools and electricity is generated. And all of this with a minimum of moving parts. It’s a fantastic use of modern scientific and engineering understanding to create a simple item that can change people’s lives everywhere. It reminds me of an article in the NY Times not to far back about a man who spearheaded creating a solar charging flashlight for poor people in 3^rd world countries without electricity. The flashlight left in the sun all day provides about 8 hours of illumination. It allows them to read school lessons, cook, scare away animals and thieves, and any number of other things we take for granted. It also allows them to stop using soot producing lamps and such to light the dwellings. Both of these are good examples of industrialized nations footing a large development cost for a simple item that could help millions of people.

Ars also mentions a report that the Center for Naval Analyses released in which it calls global climate change a national security issue. It’s definitely an interesting article. I like that the report states that the military most often must take action and plan for worst case scenarios when there is usually a limited amount of information. They approach the problem from a tactics and logistics point of view. It promotes that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Climate destabilization can cause governments to fail and new enemies and wars to crop up. It would be far cheaper to offer technology to the countries we can help stabilize than it would be to fight in dozens of conflicts. It’s a good smart read.

And finally Ars mentions that Illinois’ citizenry are paying a rather hefty price for defending a law that they should have known was unconstitutional. Most probably the law was seen as a way to garner votes for election time by “Protecting the children.” I hope the tax payers of the state rise up and kick their government’s collective ass. Taking money from the welfare and public health to pay bills on stupid laws. I’m actually surprised SC didn’t end up doing something like that.

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Time Sink

Well I'm back at work after my long weekend. I'm hoping it's going to be a slow day, but who knows. I'd better get these posted while I can. Follow the link all ye with broadband connections.


This is a picture of the rows of okra. I planted it in two stages about 2 weeks apart. So far the okra hasn't been growing really fast. I think the first batch went in while it was still a little cold. Hard to believe that given how hot it's been, but really it hasn't been all that hot. It's just been incredibly dry with little wind. We haven't had rain in weeks, and the rain we did get came after weeks of going without. I'm having to water the garden a lot, daily for some things, but I don't water wholesale. I water each plant or down the middle of the row. I think I'm wasting very little water. I also don't water my lawn. I think it's a waste of water and money. My neighbor waters his lawn and uses a sprinkler in his garden. He has grass growing all in it, and his lawn starts wilting if he skips a couple of days watering. Anyway, I think the dryness of the weather and daily doses of cold water on the roots has stunted the okra, but they finally seem to be taking off with some big leaf production. Or maybe okra just takes a while to get situated before it starts growing. This is the first year I've grown anything here after all. The green between the rows is where I thinned the okra during the weekend and a little bit of centipede grass that came up in the pathways. I have mostly centipede in the yard, and it's the best kind of grass to have in the yard and accidentally get in the garden. It's drought tolerant, grows slowly, and stays fairly short. The centipede in my yard is brown; witnessed by the foreground of the picture; but if I put a sprinkler on it it turns green in a matter of 30 minutes. Gotta love it.


This is the corn. It's growing a might faster than the okra. The first two rows I planted are about 2 feet tall now and going strong. I wish I could get some soaker hose to leave between the rows to make watering easier. Oh well. The nozzle on my hose started malfunctioning this weekend and I had to go get a replacement. It'll have to do until later.


These are my cukes. I have them growing on the same cages I made for my tomatoes. Next year I may make larger cages. I don't really care for cukes, but lots of other people do. This garden is primarily for give away produce anyway. So far there are a few small cukes and one that's about 7" long but hooked like a clothes hanger.


The tomatoes are doing pretty good. A few are over 3 feet tall now. They seem to be alright with the weather, but I have been really putting the water to them.


These are of the the same Romas of which I took the first picture exactly one month ago. Given that the plant is now 10 times larger I can assume growth has been the primary goal for the past month. Virtually every blossom on the Roma produces a fruit. These things are enormous producers. I'm going to have Romas coming out my you know what. I'll have to start making sauce or something with them. If they ever start ripening.


This is the first fruit on my Brandywine tomatoes. It's much smaller than the picture makes out. I've mentioned before that the BWs are considered an heirloom variety and considered one of the most flavorful tomatoes. I was curious about them when I got them. Honestly I didn't know what to expect. I figured I would probably lose one and the insects would eat a lot of the others. Well the dadblamed things are the tallest of my tomato plants. Plus they stand up the best. They also don't branch as much as the other tomatoes, nor do they bloom as much. So far the BWs seem to have a pollination problem. I'm afraid the dry weather and the bee die offs may be adversely affecting their reproduction. Or they could just take longer to get busy making babies. I'm really curious about them though.


This gives a good indication of the rows of yellow squash and zucchini. They were doing ok and then all of a sudden about 1 1/2 weeks ago they started growing like crazy. I've got a few small zukes and squash, but the squash are straight with no bulge at the bottom. That happens some with the first fruit, cause the blossom's don't get pollinated properly. I'm just hoping we get enough bees and such to start pollinating them. Next year I may have to follow my Dad's lead and plant some flowers around the garden to attract pollinators.


This is one of my cayenne peppers. two of them have been putting out like no body's business. One still looks like it wants to die and another one is just odd. From the looks of it two will produce all the pepper I need. Oh and those are some of the free-range cantaloupe in the foreground. They aren't bothering anything, so I'm letting them go.


This is my first bell pepper. I don't really care for bell peppers either. And unfortunately cooking doesn't improve their taste to me that much. Usually a plant for which I don't care for the raw taste improves greatly with cooking. I think it might be allergy related. But with bell peppers there's a bitterness or something to them that just turns me off. Raw cukes cause a similar dislike, but at least pickling can make them delicious. Oh well, more stuff to give away.


And finally the item that I am most pleased with. This is a picture of the very Ichiban eggplant I took a picture of before. Yes that we 7 days ago, and you are looking at a week's worth of growth. It's amazing. I would go hit the new okra and corn seed with a little morning water and look at this plant. I would come home from work 9 hours later and the dang thing was visibly longer. In the mornings you can see how much it grew last night because it doesn't turn purple till the sun hits it. And I have 2 more fruit growing on two other plants. I pulled up the logs beside them, because I think insects in the logs were coming out at night to feast upon the yummy eggplant leaves. I was seriously expecting to lose two of the plants or have little production. The early insect damage seemed to confirm that feeling, but removing the logs and a one time sprinkling with Seven dust seems to have fixed that. I love it. And from the looks of it I'm gonna have a lot of these before too long. The guy I bought them from said they love heat and sun. Well they seem to be liking where I have them. Next year I'll move them from behind the asparagus ferns so they can get even more sun.


Well that's about it for right now. There's not much going on in the yard, since we haven't gotten any rain. Hopefully we might get some in a few weeks, but I'm not holding out much hope. So far I'm pretty happy with what's happened. Not bad for a first year attempt, though I did have second hand experience from the garden's my Dad, Godparents, and television allowed me to get close to. And I got a whole lotta sun this weekend too. Come on tan.

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Here Thar be Bloodthirsty Monsters

Well I had a pretty uneventful and enjoyable weekend this weekend. Each year we have to sign up for an Optional Holiday at work. I signed up for Memorial Day to offset something. Due to a State mandate we have to have MLK Jr. Day off. Well that ignored that, as an institute of higher education we don’t take many normal holidays, since they would reduce class time. That means we get MLK Day, but we don’t get President’s Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, or Veterans Day. I think it seems a little odd. Of course I think MLK probably would have preferred we celebrated Human Rights Day instead, but I digress. That means I had a 3 day weekend lined up. Work had been a little slower than expected so I asked and received Friday off. That hooked me up with a 4 day weekend. That allowed me to sit around a bit and get some things done at the house.

Friday my brother and I took advantage of being off work; he recently quit his crappy job along with 6 other people this month; and we went to see “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.” RT didn’t give the movie a great meta-review, but I don’t pay them that much attention. This is a continuation of the second movie essentially, and it basically has the same feel of that movie. It’s not as good as the first one, but if you enjoyed the second one then you should like this one. I saw it at a matinee, which I recommend.

Then Sunday I went to see “28 Weeks Later.” I saw the original on DVD at the house, and I was anxious about seeing this one in the theater. I don’t normally go see scary or frightening movies. I just usually don’t enjoy them much, and sometimes the camera movements on the big screen give me motion sickness. This one was ok though. It has a lot of the look of the original, which I like. And I would say it’s close to the original in quality viewing, but it kind of grinds down a little in the last part. The really scary part is watching people make bad decisions. You sit there thinking “Shoot It. SHOOT IT!!” or “Don’t do that!” I say think. I don’t yell at the screen. What they really needed was Guy from “Galaxy Quest” to grab one of them and say, “Did any of you ever watch the show?” Well have any of you ever watched a horror movie?

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Three for the Money

Well this past weekend I went and saw "Shrek the Third" at the theater. First of all I am terebly upset. I used to go to the theater by the interstate and they were bought by Regal. They stopped honoring the free movie every 9 cards and the matinée cost went up a quarter. I was a little frustrated cause the year before they had moved from a free every 7 card to the free every 9 card. That was ok. What killed me, and made me stop going there, was that concession prices jumped 30-50%+, plus they stopped serving Mountain Dew. This was after they had removed Dr. Pepper about 1 1/2 years earlier. So I started frequenting the theater near the Lowe's and Target farther into town. The ticket prices became the same after the price increase, and the extra distance was mitigated by them having both Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew. And all was good, for a time. Well we went into the theater this weekend and Dadblame it if they didn't switch to all Coke products like the other theater did. They don't even have Cherry Coke, and Mr. Pibb does not taste like Dr. Pepper any more than Pepsi tastes like Coke. But I digress.

Shrek III didn't get particularly good reviews on RT and I can understand why. It's the least entertaining of the three. I think most of the good lines and story point were used up in the first two movies. There's just too much drama and the movie takes itself too seriously. Give it a rental or go see the matinée with children, but don't bother paying full price for it.

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Chlorophylling a Promise

I mentioned last time I had a couple more pics to put up. I'll follow precedent and put them after the link.


Hopefully this yard and garden work will start taking up less time, but not right now. I wanted to post that my Dwarf Crepe Myrtles did survive the frost earlier this year, but not without significant damage. You can see the dead ends of the branches. I'm waiting to see if they put out anything, and then I'll trim them back later in the summer. I do like the way they look though.


My Cukes are coming on. Too bad I don't really like cukes. Maybe I can get a sliced pickle recipe. They have female blossoms that should start growing cukes this week.


And this is my surprise. This is one of my 4 Ichiban eggplant with a small fruit growing on it. I took this at 3:30 PM, and by the time I finished watering at 8:30 the fruit was larger. There are two others growing on the other plants. Have to start thinking about what I can make with these.


I've got a movie review I need to write as well. I may have another soon after too. Well now it's time for bed.

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Whatever my thumb has,...

it's turning the rest of me pink and brown. That's right it's time for another episode of "What You Got Growin' On?" To keep the front page clutter to a minimum I'll post it after my rambling link.

I've been busy in the garden, yard, and house this weekend. I have the pink and browning skin to prove it. I haven't had this much sun in years. After another month, people at work might start confusing me with Dexter. "snort snort" Well I haven't been working in the house as much as I'd like. I have next Monday off for Memorial Day, so maybe I can get some cleaning done. Eh. I'll get to it. Anyway, garden stuff is growing pretty well. The corn is coming along. The okra is getting there, but a couple of cold days stunted it. Now that it's warm again I'm watering the first batch of okra to get it going again. I've already planted the second batch of corn and okra i soaked the seeds for a few hours before planting and dadblamit if they didn't germinate a couple days faster than the first batch. Here's my oldest corn.


This is a shot of general tomatoes. They are growing pretty good, and I've been busy tying them up in the cages. They seem to like it here. The holes in that mesh are 6" square, for scale.


This is a batch of my Romas. I've got about 3 clusters like this on my plants with more clusters forming. I'm gonna be up to my neck in tomatoes.


This is in fact the first producer in my garden. The friggin cayenne pepper plants started producing not too long after I got them in the ground. I think I'm gonna lose one plant, and one has been kinda wimpy. The other two both look like this. they are making peppers like no one's business. This one has at least 8 peppers on it and it's only about 12 inches tall.


This is one of my largest yellow squash plants. I was worried because after I planted them they started yellowing some. I thought I might be watering them too much, so I cut back and they seem to be doing much better. If you look down inside you can see the very first squash growing. There is a smaller one on this plant and at least two more on other plants. Time to start looking for recipes. The zucchinis seem to be coming right on the heels of the squash, as always.


Last year when i bought the house the owners hadn't done anything with the garden that year. I did find 2 cantaloupe plants growing out there though. They made several fruit, but the overhanging grass prevented them from making a lot of sugar. They didn't taste that good. so I left them and didn't think anything about it. I plowed the garden and began planting. After a heavy rain a couple weeks ago I came out to a surprise. I have dozens of "volunteer," as my neighnor calls them, cantaloupes growing up and down the garden. I haven't decided what to do with them yet, so I'm just leaving them.


Next time I'll put a couple of other plants pictures up.

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I Think My thumb is Infected

Or something. Cause I'm thinking it may be turning green. Only time will tell. Since I don't have much of anything else using up my time, I decided to post more pics of my yard and garden. I swear I feel like on of those new Dads that always shows everyone pictures of their child. Maybe it'll wear off in a year or so, since I still haven't been in the house for a year yet. So you have the freedom to look at the pics or not, and since there are already way too many pics on the front page, you have to follow my rambling link to see them.


This is one of two lilies my Mother gave me last year for my birthday. She planted them, and they seem to be liking it. I had to move the other one to plant my dwarf crepe myrtle. It hasn't quire forgiven me for that yet, so I'll just show the big one.


Behind my property was a dead and rotting pine tree leaning against another tree at about a 70 degree angle. I knew it was only a matter of time before it fell. I wasn't looking forward to it, because it was tall enough to land on my fence at the back and break it. Well i stepped into the back yard the other day and as I was walking I heard this crack. I turned in time to see the tree falling. I winced and went to look at the damage. The thing broke in two, folded back on itself, and missed the fence by 2 feet. Nice.


I tied several of my tomatoes up on Thursday evening. I went home Saturday, for Mother's day, and came back Sunday evening. Dog gonnit if some of them hadn't grown and flopped over again. Some of the plants had grown over 3 inches in 2 days. I can go in the garden in the evening and see a noticeable change int the plant size. The stakes were a temporary support until i got the cages built and set in place.


Well that rate of growth made me move up my timeline. I went and bought 150' of concrete reinforcing mesh. It's not terribly expensive, and it works much better than those $4 tomato cages. I didn't need 150' but I didn need more than the 50' on the smaller roll. It's kinda rusty, but the galvanized fencing with the same mesh size came in 330' rolls. This is one of my 'Sweet 100' tomato plants. I even has one little tomato on it already. Those mesh holes are 6" square, so yeah, that plant is almost 2 feet tall. I've got to finish up the cages tonight.


This is one of my Romas that i need to put a cage on. It's starting to collapse under it's own weight. That big tomato is the same one I photographed earlier. On my 4 Roma plants I probably have a dozen tomatoes growing.


These are my two rows of corn.The green in the walk paths is from some weeding and thinning of the corn plants. I probably need to pull another 1/3 out. The two wet rows behind these two are freshly planted corn. I wanted to spread out the harvest.


These are my little okra plants. I need to thin them desperately. Hopefully I can do some of that today. Again the two wet rows behind it are two more rows of okra.


The sad thing is that I still have space in the garden. Maybe I'll plant some green beans, carrots, or something else. Do you guys have any suggestions?

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Last weekend

I’ve been meaning to write this since last weekend, but I’ve been busy, procrastinating, and gone. Anyway I’m doing it now. Last weekend I went to see 3 movies. Well one was on Friday and one on Monday, but it was all centered around the weekend. May seems to be the month of movies this year. I managed to see “Next” and “Hot Fuzz” with my brother, but I had to see “Spiderman 3” by myself. I’ll ramble on about them after the link.

I saw “Next” on Friday, since SIII would have been way to full. It only got a 30% on RT, but I will usually go see a movie down to about 20% if I think the idea has promise. As I’ve said before, I enjoy watching the thought process behind the movie plot and much as I like watching the actual movie. “Next” is based loosely on “The Golden Man” by Philip K. Dick. I don’t think it deserved the 30% though. I was seeing it as more of a 40%, not good but not bad either. With Nicholas Cage you can never be sure about a movie, but Jessica Biel confirms B movie status. Although she did help keep eyes glued to the screen. In this one Cage has the ability to see two minutes into the future and see all possible outcomes of his decisions in those two minutes. A nuke has made its way to US shores and a federal agent believes that Cage can find it for them. As one critic said Biel proves her acting skills by almost making you believe she is seduced by Cage, 18 years her senior. Yeah. Well the ending of the movie really stuck as harking back to the short story’s origins in the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Having read some short stories from that time it strikes me as a very likely ending for the story as portrayed on the screen.

Later I went to see “Hot Fuzz.” RT has it at 89%, and I dare say it’s worth all of it. It’s made by and starring the same people responsible for “Shaun of the Dead,” which coincidentally also got 89% on RT. That’s just one jolly good time right there. Simon Pegg plays Nicholas Angel a cop that is just too damned good at his job. His fellow officers in London get fed up with him making them all look bad, so he gets promoted and sent to the quiet village of Sandford. Once there a series of accidents causes him to begin seeing a huge conspiracy behind the near perfect facade of Sandford. It’s just great fun, and it’s British.

Then I went to see “Spiderman 3” on Monday. It got a 61% on RT. I would say that’s about a fair assessment, but I probably would have given it a 70%. It’s not as good as the first one or the second one. Not really form an acting standpoint, or a plot standpoint. It’s like they tried to do a little too much in the movie. I have been told that Venom was kind of forced on the writer, which kind of shows. He seems to be tacked on a little more. I also heard they wanted to to be 2 movies, but the studio overrode that decision. That also seems plausible. Raimi seems to have done the best he could with the short time and huge number of plot points he had to make. The problem I had is that the character development in this one is lacking. You don’t spend and lot of time with the new villains to get to know them. So to make up for that some of the character building scenes are heavy handed and hammer the point home with one hard blow rather than taking many soft blows. These also make the movie seem like it lurched forward all of a sudden. A scene would change and it would move the action straight forward. I was expecting a short character building, tender moment but got dumped into the next big plot point. I’m hoping the director’s cut will be better, but I don’t know. I’m also hoping that if they do a 4^th one that Raimi and the writer can point to the bad reviews and press and get more control back. But the bean counters will say, “Look at all the money we made on it though.” Ug. You should still watch it though. That is if you liked the first two.

So in closure, rent Next if you like stories like that, Go see Hot Fuzz now and buy the DVD when it comes out, and go see Spiderman 3 if you liked the first 2, but you may want to see it at matinee. I can’t believe I had to shift a Spidey review to an almost matinee view. Anyway I am going to post some more stuff soon I hope.

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