Project updates

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A quick status check on some of the irons I have in the fire.

  • The brackish tank is doing well. I’ve managed to persuade the archerfish to take Arowana Sticks in addition to crickets, so feeding is a lot easier. The scat will eat anything, but loves the sticks too. With summer and increased insolation, I’ve had some trouble with green water (single cell algae free-floating in the water column) – increasing the frequency of water changes has helped and I’m awaiting the delivery of  some Corbicula fluminea. I’m hoping that filter feeders in the tank will consume the last of the free algae. I’m growing out some black mangroves (Avicennia germinans) that Hydrophyte sent me (along with some other aquatic/emergent plants in an awesome care package) – not sure yet how I’m going to integrate the blackies into the brackish tank, but I have time to ponder while the mangroves embiggen.
  • Plants in the African stream tank have gotten over transplant shock. All the Anubias are sending out new roots, the Bollbitis are fiddleheading and the Java moss is sending out new growth as well.
  • The frog rack is fully populated. I moved my new banded leucs out of their quarantine tank into the middle level viv. They are quite shy; I’m hoping they get bolder as they get used to their new home and as the tank grows in and provides more cover.
  • The Mediated Toybee Tile project keeps simmering. Adhesive testing is pretty much done, though we may want to run some additional tests with this stuff (or just use it, give how nicely plain ol’ 5-minute stuff performed). I need to touch base with JY and CT and talk next steps as regards tile fabrication.

Ephemeral project – over and done with – baking with cherries from my little tree.

Cell phone III – E71x first impressions

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Another cell phone jump – this time, only a little ahead of schedule. An interesting side note – did you know that cell  phones and cell phone batteries have cunning little patches that indicate if the device has been immersed in – just to pick a random liquid – water? They do! I once again resisted the siren call of the iPhone – two things are holding me back. First is the whole Apple=control freak thing.  I don’t want my first interaction w/ the phone to be jail-breaking it – I have absolutely nothing against cracking the darn thing open, but if that’s the first thing you need to do, something’s wrong. The second barrier is more important – cost. The monthly bill for those little candy bars is significantly higher that for any other smart phone and that’s before AT&T reveal the additional $$s you’ll need to pay for tethering (you can tether now, I’m told – see point 1: jail-breaking). And there’s the additional $$s for text messages and I’m sure there are other charges that I’m not paying attention to. I’d also looked at the G1/Dream but purchase price (how quickly we get used to carrier-subsidized prices) and concerns about functionality on a ‘foreign’ network put me off.

I ended up with a phone I’ve been eyeing for a couple months – the Nokia E71x. It runs the Symbian S60 OS – an oldy but goody with a lot of software written for it. Hardware-wise, it’s got a 3G cell radio, 802.11 b/g (WiFi), a GPS, a hardware keyboard (something I’ve found I prefer) and a decent screen. The front panel size is on par with most landscape-screen-above-chiclet-keyboard devices I’ve seen, but it is a lot thinner. A couple pictures with my work Blackberry for comparison:

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Speaking of hardware keyboards – notice the PC Keyboard in the top photo? It’s an IBM Model M – at least 11 years old and still clacking away in bomb-proof style.

First impressions of the new phone are very favorable. Battery life isn’t great, but it never is on a smartphone. I think if I could stop asking the phone to jump through hoops all day long (ooh! shiny! as applied to software) it might last a little longer between charges, too. It comes preloaded with a ton of AT&T bloatware, but as soon as my new micro-SD card arrives, I plan on using the instructions here to get rid of most of it. Things the phone will do for me (some out of the box, some with additional software):

  • make phone calls. Quality and reception are very good – my office is a cell phone torture test area and the new phone makes and receives calls. Win.
  • tether to my Nokia N810 (and presumably other bits of hardware – haven’t tried that yet).
  • run a full Twitter client. I’m using Twittix – had some trouble installing the demo of the other contender – Gravity – so Twittix wins by default.
  • scan barcodes. See this demo over at Mediated Toynbee to get a sense of what’s going on.
  • check email. I can see both my gmail account and my super-seekr1t personal account using Nokia Messaging.
  • see where I am. I’m using Google Maps rather than the preloaded (and not free) AT&T/Telenav mapping app. I’m also trying to load Nokia Maps – no luck so far. If I need turn-by-turn naviagtion, I’ll use my N810 – better screen and free navigation app.
  • set up an ad-hoc wireless network. Saving the best for last – I installed JoikuSpot Premium. JoikuSpot turns the phone into a wireless access point with a cell uplink – I fire up the application and a new wireless network appears. If you connect your computer (or iTouch or N810 or…) to the network, the phone gives you access to the internet via it’s cell connection. Big win.

I still have some tweaking and tuning to do but so far – big thumbs up.

Hydroaeroplane – Patent #1,307,318

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On a recent tour of an incredible basement and barn collection, I was shown this – a patent model constructed around 1918, in support of a patent for a flying sub.

Further objects of the invention are to provide a hydro-aeroplane which admits of the wings or supporting planes being readily moved into and locked in operative position when the craft is to be used as an airship, or to be swung rearwardly into an out of the way position against the hull of the craft when the device is to be operated as a marine vessel, which provides effective means for propelling the craft through the water as well as through the air, which may be equipped with torpedo tubes and used for the discharge of torpedoes while submerged, and which is at all times under the perfect control of the operators. *

US1307318-0

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Irwin Allen, you’ve got nothing on Mr. Hans Christian Petersen of Ludington, Michigan – though your creation is much swoopier.

flyingsub

For more on the history of patent models there’s this story from the NYT and the history page at the Rothschild Petersen Patent Model Museum (the Museum will soon be added to Atlas Obscura by yr humble correspondent). And yes, that’s an Isetta in the background.

Sarracenia

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The new sarracenia from Rarefinds came in safe and sound. After giving them a week and a half to catch thier breath, I repotted them into the mini-bogs they’ll be living in for a while.

Sarracenia catesbaie (natural hybrid of S. flava and S. purpurea)

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Sarracenia rubra

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Sarracenia alata

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And the big bog – S. purpurea and an unknown (hybrid?).

More Schnabel

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Took a trip up to the Mt. Washington Valley today to see the Schnabel car before it leaves. I’d been told that they were probably going to unload it last – Murphy loves me. It was unloaded and reconfigured for running empty (cradle on it’s attendant flatcar, A and B ends joined) and the riggers were getting ready to ‘jack and slide’ the second, smaller transformer component off the heavy duty depressed center flatcar. Normally the flatcar would have been a ‘lookit that!’ item – with the Schnabel two cars away, it lacked punch.

Apparently ferroequinophiliacs are a problem:

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And the slideshow (complete set here):


Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

BBCX 1000

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Last Saturday the Conway Scenic Railroad brought a BIG load down through Crawford Notch (part of the old Maine Central Mountain Division – one of the biggest grades east of the Mississippi). The load consisted of  a two-piece transformer – one component on a heavy duty depressed center flatcar, the other on a cradle carried by a Schnabel car. The load came in from China (sigh) to Searsport, ME and made it’s way to Hazens, arriving there on Friday. Friday night CSRR hooked up 2 FP9s and a GP7 as motive power and attached a couple passenger cars to the tail end for potentates, panjandrums and poobahs.

I wasn’t able to get up to watch – I am going to try to get up for at least some of the transfer to a truck for the last leg – but the internet comes to the rescue. Some footage of the train going through the Gateway and at Bartlett.

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Transporter n

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I just caught the male pepperi (they’ve been renamed) dropping the kids off at the pool.

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In other critter news, hydrophyte inspired me to re-do the 29 gallon aquarium in the Design Student’s room. After losing all the inhabitants during the ice storm, I repopulated it with an African butterflyfish (Pantodon buchholzi) and a pair of upside-down cats (Synodontis nigriventis).  I’d seen a beautiful West African setup in Yoshino and Kobayashi’s The Natural Aquarium – combine that with a chapter on ‘The Aerial Advantage’ in Walstad’s Ecology of the Planted Aquarium and all I needed was a glimpse of hydrophyte’s ripariums to precipitate a new approach to the tank. I covered the back wall with plastic needlepoint grid and tied Java moss, Anubias and Bolbitis to it; I’m hoping the moss will expand to cover everything. I took the water level down to 10 inches – approx. the golden ratio point –  and I planted most everything so that it has the opportunity to grow emersed. We’ll see what happens.

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I changed the filter set-up – without the filter change, the lower water level would have been a problem. I had been using an external hang-on-back style filter – I switched to a piece of foam the same size as the side of the aquarium with a small powerhead behind it. You can see the foam on the right side of the picture above.

I also snuck in a juvenile pair of Pelvicachromis sacrimontis – love those dwarf cichlids.

Yesterday was the three year birthday of the blog – I was too busy being a crazy natural historian to post, but thanks to all who have stopped by over the past 3 – it’s been fun (for me, at least).

Art, animals and wunderkammer

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A week or so ago, I heard through the grapevine that the Shark Girl had been free diving with a group of Spotted Dolphins when a pod of Bottlenose Dolphins swept in and sexually aggressed the hell out of the smaller Spotteds (I’m deliberately not using the word I heard when we were talking about it – rape). I was, initially, really disturbed by the story – Flipper? John Lilly’s buddies? Thanks for all the fish? Rapists? WTF? My emotional reaction remains, but intellectually the story made me reflect on anthropomorphism and how little of the interior lives of other animals we understand. I have little doubt that inter-species aggression is not a good thing for the victim and perceiving it as a good thing would be profoundly maladaptive – beyond that, I’m not sure what to think. It sure wouldn’t be the first time that interspecies sex was used to express dominance – that foo-foo dog humping your leg is not in love with your shoes – the message is something else entirely.

With all this percolating in my head, I came across the work of Isabel Samaras in Juxtapoz. Her latest exhibition is called “Into the Woodz”:

I guess the theme is “Woodland Fabulous”!  When I started with the paintings of Goldilocks and Baby Bear I wanted to put in some nice solid visual clues so you’d know who they were without having to be told — there’s a bowl a porridge, some “Just Right” brand oats, and I gave Baby a big gold dookie rope necklace with a gold nameplate that said “BABY” on it.

I had been doing all these animal drawings in my sketchbook and had given some of them necklaces made from gold foil chocolate wrappers.

It suited him so well that I added a gold tooth with a diamond chip and a bling ring and Goldy got some huge gold doorknocker earrings.  I started pulling out old records I had from the 80s – Rob Base & D.J. E-Z Rock, EPMD, Salt-n-Pepa, Derek B, Kool Moe Dee, Sweet Tee and RunDMC.  Next thing I knew I was painting a porcupine with gold “love/hate” rings and a bunch of mockingbirds having a rap war sitting on a big boom box.

Mocking Box (The Rap Wars)

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[I chose this one because I’ve heard of some urban mockingbirds greeting the dawn by imitating car alarms – life = art.  Dr. H]

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The next piece was set deep among the trees and I just never left.  I became one of the girls who didn’t come out of the woods!  And I started to wonder ‘who else might be in there’?  Forests are wonderfully mysterious places—if you go to an intensely old one with massive moss covered trees you really do half expect to see a party of dwarves marching along or odd things springing out at you. They’re magical places.

In this case the animals are a bit “urbanized”—they’ve come into contact with human culture and taken a few things back into the woods with them. *

Some wonderful grist for my “we see our reflection in everything” mill. I don’t think it was specifically her intent (that’s why art doesn’t come with an instruction sheet), but the image of a squirrel with a rope and a gold nut really makes concrete for me the way stories and myth make animals avatars of certain human characteristics – for dolphins, the intelligent and peaceful  older brother. On a slight tangent, the painting on Isabel’s book calls another favorite artist to mind.

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For folks who want more, Ms. Samaras has a blog and – as noted – a book.

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When my Netvibes feed from Bibliodyssey popped up a new post with the title “A Cabinet of Natural Curiosities“, I couldn’t click over to Peacay’s place fast enough. In amongst the monitors and birds of paradise was this fellow:

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The birds look reasonable and I recognise the Flying Dragon, but I think Albertus Seba may have gotten a feejee mermaid style gaff as well – I’m not sure there are any Revelation lizards crawling/squirming/dragging around – but I could be wrong. That hasn’t stopped folks from rendering the Beast in Lego (h/t Tom B.).

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Let’s see… From delphine rape to the Whore of Babylon in Lego. Yep, that about covers it.

U-ren Ishii

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Utricularia reniformis Giant

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Seventy-five percent of the purpose of this post is the horrible play on words title. The other bit is to show off a picture of a bladderwort I picked up yesterday at the Black Jungle BBQ. Both leaves and blossoms of this utric get huge and the flowers are beautiful. Keep your fingers crossed!