Monthly Archives: March 2010

West African Stream Tank Re-do

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In this case, at least, plastic needlepoint mesh has shown itself to be a suck substrate for Java moss. After seven months of very little progress, I decided to re-do the back wall of my West African stream tank. I ordered a random selection of driftood from AES and picked up a couple pieces of red lava rock.

Layout:

The masked-off section to the left is space that needs to stay free for the filter plenum.

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Foamed in (hooray for Handi-Foam!):

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Detail – with placeholder hose section – of where the water will return to the tank, producing a nice waterfall/drip wall.

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The waterfall in action with unidentified W. African fern, Bolbitis heudelotii and Anubias:

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More Anubias, some African begonia and an Aeranges biloba:

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The tank looks 100% better and I think it’ll only improve as the begonia grows in and covers everything – I’ll post some pix once things start to grow.

Shipping Containers Redux

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Tangentially via a tweet from @snarky_malarkey, a slide show of shipping container dwellings. My earlier musings on containers are here. The tree house slide show that led me to the containers got me thinking – my Goff/Bavingeresque cable and phone pole hack ought to include a nice big beech or oak at the center. Another thought: not sure how to integrate it, but a waste container based aquaponics rig should fit in somewhere (ground level, obv).

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NASA Finds Shrimp Where No Advanced Life Should Be: 600 Feet Beneath Antarctic Ice

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NASA Finds Shrimp Where No Advanced Life Should Be: 600 Feet Beneath Antarctic Ice | 80beats | Discover Magazine.

There’s a lot more going on beneath those huge sheets of Antarctic ice than you might think. NASA researchers say they uncovered a major surprise in December: The team drilled an eight-inch hole and stuck a video camera 600 feet down, hoping to observe the underbelly of the thick ice sheet. To their amazement, a curious critter swam into view and clung to the video camera’s cable [Washington Post].

Geyser!

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As mentioned in the previous post, we’ve seen a bit of rain (as best I can tell, something like 5 inches[update – 7.4″ in Dover]) over the past couple days.  Rivers are in flood and storm drain systems are overwhelmed:

March NH Media Makers

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The weather today leaves a lot to be desired – cold, windy, pouring rain – as a result, attendance this morning was a lighter than the SRO+ that has been the rule at recent HMM meet-ups. No matter – lots of cool projects…

Angela’s drawdio jellyfish puppet:

Update – Angela has posted more drawdiofish info.

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Dan Freund had a rig for his phone that he used to record his pitch which was then uploaded to/streamed from his site:

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I was not the only person taking pictures of someone videostreaming themselves (you can see Roger Goun’s lens on the right side of the shot), but I think I was the only one snapping away with my cell phone, thus completing the cell phone media takeover.

Our meeting spot – Crackskull’s in Newmarket – is both a coffee shop and a bookstore. I went browsing and found this bit of awesomeness – a wunderkammer cookbook!