We've developed a problem in the house. Somewhere, common houseflies are reproducing. We're not sure where. It could be any of a number of plants, and because of the hydroponics setup, we also have a number of places where there is (mostly) static standing water. However, I'm not going to cull any of my babies on account of flies.
Today I came up with the solution (hopefully the solution, not just a solution): carnivorous plants. Turns out there are a number of people growing them in hydroponics and there's a fairly healthy industry of cultivators and distributors (though nothing even remotely as active as orchids and cannabis cultivators).
I've been thinking about this some, and it occurs to me I have an opportunity to create an ecosystem rather than just another hydro tank. I'm picturing a shallow fish tank with aquatic plants and goldfish being used as the nutrient solution, and plants with expectation of poor or no nutrients (e.g., orchids and the carnivores) suspended into it via grow buckets. I still haven't quite figured out how to work that, and it almost certainly requires use of lighting (which I kind of don't want because it's hot and it costs money). It works out to be a pretty simple closed-loop ecosystem, and with a heating pad or two, I think I can even get everyone to agree (maybe even my truculent fern!) that it's tropical. ish.
And so it would seem that 2010 is the year when my garden fights back, taking sides with the humans. Not that it had much choice, heh.
05 January, 2010
04 January, 2010
Archaeology, 2009 style
I just cleaned up my books-read pile that started around February. It's enormous. In sum, it's a hair shy of 15,000 pages of reading. To apply perhaps more meaningful metrics to that, I normally allot one minute per two-hundred words of text. Rounding out something like three million words, or one hundred solid days of reading (2400 hours), of course not accounting for sleep. I generally don't take sleep in eight-hour increments (usually long gluts of sleep on the weekend and relatively little during the week), but if we are to assume that we are awake only two-thirds of our lives (244 days a year), we can further extrapolate this to 41% of my time awake is spent reading words-on-paper. Obviously, I'm not including time reading text on my laptop or otherwise busy with work stuff (which has been remarkably light this year), or with audio books, as I'm not sure how to "measure" how many audio books I've "read" or how to normalize the time spent "reading" them (as it is split between reading and managing traffic or on the subway, or whichever).
So, in 2009, I spent very close to half my waking hours (we can construe this as "my life", rather than "waking hours," but I'll wager some people would argue that sleep is statistically significant) reading. Remember, too, that I had a serious concussion in February and couldn't read words-on-paper for about a month thereafter. The number becomes far more than half if we factor in the missing months (thus making it a ten-month year instead of twelve) or the time spent completely unable to read or move due to (among other things) motor vehicle accidents.
I am still gnawing on a seventies-era CJ Cherryh book (Finity's End), and I received the concussion (in February) while reading Regenesis (also Cherryh), so that's a cute little pair of (chuckle) bookends to those numbers.
As to the content of the books: if somebody had asked me to project how much I would read in 2009, and in what ratios of content, I would have said something like 10% glossy magazines (The Economist, The Atlantic, SuperBike [and lots others, there...], and various trade rags [regarding IT or aerospace and defense]), 60% fiction, with the overwhelming majority there in the science fiction genre, and the rest either as-needed (and usually non-fiction, like O'Reilly books) or handed to me (the chronicle of Herodotus, Caesar's Anticato, and the like). On looking back, it's really a lot more evenly split. I think I spent a very small minority of time on magazines, and split the rest between non-fiction (history, technical, literature, and "homework," such as reading up on the new Wankel engines before diving headlong into an RX-8) and fiction, with the fiction split about 35/65 in favor of science fiction (note I do not use the term "speculative fiction") and the rest being, idunno, garbage I picked up here and there. Thud, for example.
Only two books were thrown across the bedroom in disgust (but this is of course not where all the reading gets done): Lucifer's Hammer, and something else that was so hideous I only remember throwing it across the room, not what its title was. I'm rather afraid to go looking after that last one. It's probably lurking somewhere.
Reread in 2009 were Corky Bell's somewhat dated Maximum Boost, Iain Banks' The Algebraist, and Richard Morgan's Woken Furies ('make it personal'). Perhaps that's a useful enough sample in and of itself.
Also interesting is that my wife began reading Alastair Reynolds this year, as well as Richard Morgan. Banks is kind of a towering ogre of a writer, and she didn't like The Business (which I loved to pieces) because he (her words, but I mostly agree) seems to be using the reader as an outlet to show just how very clever he is. But that's definitely a first. One wonders what she will wind up with in 2010.
Someone at this point should probably ask "why on earth do you have a stack of books ten months old?" Well, I don't have an answer for that. Now we need more bookshelves. I've dug out of this heap, and realized there was nowhere to place the books that weren't already on shelves; the shelves were full already.
Now I need something new to read. Dammit.
So, in 2009, I spent very close to half my waking hours (we can construe this as "my life", rather than "waking hours," but I'll wager some people would argue that sleep is statistically significant) reading. Remember, too, that I had a serious concussion in February and couldn't read words-on-paper for about a month thereafter. The number becomes far more than half if we factor in the missing months (thus making it a ten-month year instead of twelve) or the time spent completely unable to read or move due to (among other things) motor vehicle accidents.
I am still gnawing on a seventies-era CJ Cherryh book (Finity's End), and I received the concussion (in February) while reading Regenesis (also Cherryh), so that's a cute little pair of (chuckle) bookends to those numbers.
As to the content of the books: if somebody had asked me to project how much I would read in 2009, and in what ratios of content, I would have said something like 10% glossy magazines (The Economist, The Atlantic, SuperBike [and lots others, there...], and various trade rags [regarding IT or aerospace and defense]), 60% fiction, with the overwhelming majority there in the science fiction genre, and the rest either as-needed (and usually non-fiction, like O'Reilly books) or handed to me (the chronicle of Herodotus, Caesar's Anticato, and the like). On looking back, it's really a lot more evenly split. I think I spent a very small minority of time on magazines, and split the rest between non-fiction (history, technical, literature, and "homework," such as reading up on the new Wankel engines before diving headlong into an RX-8) and fiction, with the fiction split about 35/65 in favor of science fiction (note I do not use the term "speculative fiction") and the rest being, idunno, garbage I picked up here and there. Thud, for example.
Only two books were thrown across the bedroom in disgust (but this is of course not where all the reading gets done): Lucifer's Hammer, and something else that was so hideous I only remember throwing it across the room, not what its title was. I'm rather afraid to go looking after that last one. It's probably lurking somewhere.
Reread in 2009 were Corky Bell's somewhat dated Maximum Boost, Iain Banks' The Algebraist, and Richard Morgan's Woken Furies ('make it personal'). Perhaps that's a useful enough sample in and of itself.
Also interesting is that my wife began reading Alastair Reynolds this year, as well as Richard Morgan. Banks is kind of a towering ogre of a writer, and she didn't like The Business (which I loved to pieces) because he (her words, but I mostly agree) seems to be using the reader as an outlet to show just how very clever he is. But that's definitely a first. One wonders what she will wind up with in 2010.
Someone at this point should probably ask "why on earth do you have a stack of books ten months old?" Well, I don't have an answer for that. Now we need more bookshelves. I've dug out of this heap, and realized there was nowhere to place the books that weren't already on shelves; the shelves were full already.
Now I need something new to read. Dammit.
20 December, 2009
18 December, 2009
I'd like one of these for christmas, in case anyone was, you know, pondering. also willing to accept on chinese new year.
Motorcycles reconsidered via restructuring the questions.
We all love to curse about cagers and that guy that was morbidly obese and holding his cell phone between his enormous neck and his shoulder, eating fries with one hand, and one finger on the wheel from the other hand, due to the other digits being used to pick his nose. Or something.
The automatic retort we get from cagers is "do you know how dangerous motorcycles are?" The answer is that yes, anyone who rides has been terrified at least once, usually in the last month, while somebody did something particularly obnoxious or dangerous in a cage. So, yes, the cagers are the problem, I think we agree. But instead of identifying a problem, let's examine the details so we can have some perspective.
The guy is driving a 6,000lb thundercage from a factory in alabama somewhere and has giant super-swamper tires on the vehicle. He has double-wide mirrors from which to ignore you. The truth is, in any kind of confrontation in which you cannot tap down two gears and burn ass down the road quickly enough, the nose-picker wins. Every damn time. You're paste on a jersey wall and he may not even notice he's killed you. So let us examine why this happens.
Basically while he is an amorphous mound of fetid humanity, he has the benefit of 6,000lbs of metals and polymers protecting him from you. You may have very fancy leathers, even airbag-deploying leathers, the best goddamn helmet you can buy, elbow, neck, knee, ass, and back CE shielding, but the bike is both your best friend (in the case that you escape on one wheel rising up to 140mph away from the thundercage) and your worst enemy (in the case that it actually adds, in the case of a high side and some low side accidents, to the tonnage that is going to emulsify you with careful handfuls of cement and asphalt).
In addition to armor you may be wearing (and remember, kids, it's "all the gear, all the time."), you are your own cage, stupid. It's just a lot smaller and more fragile than the thundercage.
So in addition to riding, which really helps one stay fit, one should work on making sure they have a sturdy cage. You need to work on very important muscles that control your posture and will help you in a fall. That probably means that in order to ride at the peak of your ability, you need to be doing a routine, just as any athlete would. You may already be doing this via a regimen you took up to keep yourself, uh, prettier in the mirror (or?). But think specifically about strengthening your abdomen and lats/traps as well as quads, hams, and calves. Integrate a lot of stretching into your workout so that you can indeed hang off the bike like a dog out a window if you have to.
And, in the end, what this provides you is a force multiplier for your armor and for any safety features on the bike. The bike is still a win, but only if your cage is sturdy enough to handle being thrown at a wall at 60mph, or sliding 100ft on asphalt. If you haven't done either of these things, I humbly submit that these are much harder things to accomplish than you might think. Regardless of your leathers and armor.
The automatic retort we get from cagers is "do you know how dangerous motorcycles are?" The answer is that yes, anyone who rides has been terrified at least once, usually in the last month, while somebody did something particularly obnoxious or dangerous in a cage. So, yes, the cagers are the problem, I think we agree. But instead of identifying a problem, let's examine the details so we can have some perspective.
The guy is driving a 6,000lb thundercage from a factory in alabama somewhere and has giant super-swamper tires on the vehicle. He has double-wide mirrors from which to ignore you. The truth is, in any kind of confrontation in which you cannot tap down two gears and burn ass down the road quickly enough, the nose-picker wins. Every damn time. You're paste on a jersey wall and he may not even notice he's killed you. So let us examine why this happens.
Basically while he is an amorphous mound of fetid humanity, he has the benefit of 6,000lbs of metals and polymers protecting him from you. You may have very fancy leathers, even airbag-deploying leathers, the best goddamn helmet you can buy, elbow, neck, knee, ass, and back CE shielding, but the bike is both your best friend (in the case that you escape on one wheel rising up to 140mph away from the thundercage) and your worst enemy (in the case that it actually adds, in the case of a high side and some low side accidents, to the tonnage that is going to emulsify you with careful handfuls of cement and asphalt).
In addition to armor you may be wearing (and remember, kids, it's "all the gear, all the time."), you are your own cage, stupid. It's just a lot smaller and more fragile than the thundercage.
So in addition to riding, which really helps one stay fit, one should work on making sure they have a sturdy cage. You need to work on very important muscles that control your posture and will help you in a fall. That probably means that in order to ride at the peak of your ability, you need to be doing a routine, just as any athlete would. You may already be doing this via a regimen you took up to keep yourself, uh, prettier in the mirror (or?). But think specifically about strengthening your abdomen and lats/traps as well as quads, hams, and calves. Integrate a lot of stretching into your workout so that you can indeed hang off the bike like a dog out a window if you have to.
And, in the end, what this provides you is a force multiplier for your armor and for any safety features on the bike. The bike is still a win, but only if your cage is sturdy enough to handle being thrown at a wall at 60mph, or sliding 100ft on asphalt. If you haven't done either of these things, I humbly submit that these are much harder things to accomplish than you might think. Regardless of your leathers and armor.
I so admire Jane's view on the world.
She's just spot-on again. And really, there are people I like reading, but it's something more here.
Wow! Typing recovering!
I am now approaching the speed and accuracy of touch-typing I had before The Big Fuckup of 09.
Oh look! Is dat some IP there?
yes, i am tired and foolish. i do not know what friday holds. but i just bumped a bunch of shit into the skeleton of SFR. can't wait for the meat.
A big bunch of nerve spew forthcoming.
Without going into details, I've had a really rough month or so, culminating in a severe neurological, ahem, incident. I am just now compiling the things I've been thinking about in a discontiguous blob, asynchronously not always to my advantage. So I mostly codify where I can, expand where I can, and this means that there are probably between 3,000 and 10,000 words (figure, twenty and forty-five minutes of reading, respectively). I can't promise it's actually useful to anyone, but as they say, may you live in interesting times. I can only qualify it thus, that it will be interesting. Note that in this context, "interesting" is a curse. So it's probably not going to be pretty. But then, it never really is.
Just wanted to sort of beep at the rest of my group of peers & friends. I has a keyboard and manifest notebooks with scrawlings thereon.
Just wanted to sort of beep at the rest of my group of peers & friends. I has a keyboard and manifest notebooks with scrawlings thereon.
16 December, 2009
hopes from a cursed year
- a new pair of oakleys.
- some of the newer, smaller-me denim of proper origin.
- another, thicker, and longer, scarf.
- a set of sways, bushings, and springs for the sti, from eibach. (the whitelines are cooler, sure, but the eibachs are great and a whole lot less)
- new monogrammed pencils & pens for the sfr staff (to include me :( ).
- some friendly monetary gifts or investments in spun.
- a holster for my 1911.
- bjarke ingalls group looking over my own designs for a renewable hangar with exhaust exits, plane storage and rotation, offices, and a small area for overnight stays. (big.dk)
- more books from my favorite authors and prettier book shelves to keep the books on.
- a single, edible and not-unpleasant tasting, device to give me all of my drogas diarios in a single, maybe muffin-sized fluffy prescription goodness. po is so old fashioned, ya know?
13 December, 2009
A follow-up to an old post of my own
It would appear that more people than solely myself have noticed the epilepsy-suicide-bipolar-or-major-depression comorbidity. The latter study points out that among folks with bipolar disorder, four percent of them attempt suicide in a given year. That's terrifying if you think how many people that is, and how little is actually done to prevent it.