Canned Goods storage

Just an idea for storing canned goods. I see that rack like they use for the Cambells Soup Selects at my local grocery store, and I want something like that for my kitchen.

The basic idea is that the cans sit stacked up in a rack on their side, and you can put the new cans on top, and you take the oldest can out of the bottom. Just like those fridge soda can despensers.

I know I use a lot of canned corn, tomato soup, and canned fruits, but I think that can of cream of celery soup is about to expire. I would need to make a high and low volume set of can holders.

There would be 'normal' shelves on the bottom couple of feet for larger canned items like that massive can of baked beans, and the family sized can of cream of mushroom soup. There would be shelf or two up on top for those odd cans like that can of coconut milk - I don't know why I have it, but it's good until 2010 so I am keeping it.

The whole thing would be on a tall, narrow drawer that pulls out. I would probably place it next to the fridge, and have it be as deep as the fridge. The cubby that the fridge is in would need to be vented outside - it should be anyhow during the summer, and optionally have it vent into the kitchen during the winter. But that is a different topic for a different day. Heat will damage the food, while canned foods won't spoil, they will go bad - taste funny, be less nutritious etc. This cabinet will have a couple of computer case fans to pull air in off the floor, and vent it out the top. This should keep the canned goods fairly cool - room temperature at least. Maybe put a thermostat on it so if the temp inside the cabinet is warmer then the intake temp, it will run the fans. I may be cooking and warm the kitchen up enough that it is cooler in the cabinet then in the kitchen. Hmm, I could even run the cold water pipes for the kitchen sink up and down radiator style in the back of the cabinet to keep it cooler. Interesting idea.

Ideally, I would like to cool the whole thing down to like 50 degrees. I wonder if I can canabolize a small fridge and make a cooled pantry. I could hook the thing up on a solar panel on the roof, and when I have sun, it cools, and when I don't, it doesn't. It's not like the cans NEED to be cooled, they will just last a lot longer if they are cool. I read somewhere that food will store twice as long for every 10 degrees cooler it is kept at (or the converse, it will spoil twice as fast for every 10 degrees warmer it is stored at). So bringing the temp from 70 to 50 would quadruple the shelf life of my canned goods.

I am also trying to figure out how do make a can counter so I can tell how many cans of food in a particular slot I have. It would be great to have digital access to this counter so that I can have my pantry make a shopping list for me. It would be internet enabled so I could pull up a list of what i have with my phone, or SMS the pantry asking it what I need to get. A cheap sensor to count cans as I would need dozens of them. Mecanical switches would get very expensive, and be difficult to place to relaibly read any diameter can I put into each rack. Optical switches would probably work. A preasure switch on the face of each slot could measure the weight of all the cans pressing against it. Maybe make a series of metal contacts each hooked up to a resister. I could then read the resistance from one side to the other with a simple R/C timer circut. As more cans are added, the resistance will drop (parallel resistances). I could then have the computer poll each slot, read the resistance, and calculate the number of cans in each slot.

DIY Silent Pellet Trap for .22 cal Spring Piston Air Rifle

I picked up a Diana RWS 34 Panther Spring Air Pellet Rifle.
I wanted to make a safe and silent home made pellet trap. I bit of searching online found what I need. Use Plumbers Putty as ballistic putty. A couple inches of this will stop pellets from an air rifle.

So, I wondered over to Lowes to pick up some plumbers putty. They where out. I drove to Home Depot. They had some in stock. I bought all five 5 pound buckets that they had. There was a run on Plumbers Putty in Lakeland that night!

So anyway, I also picked up a galvanized metal tray to put it in.

Here you can see what 5 shots look like. They penitrate about an inch and a half. They are stopped with less noise then the pellet rifle makes fireing the pellet.

Here you can see what a pellet looks like when it was caught by this pellet trap.

Home Made Rabbitcore Embedded Microcontroller Server Uptime Monitor

I have been having trouble with some web servers going down on me in the middle of the night. I decided I had enough, and am going to make a Server Up-time Monitor. Now, I could dust off one of the old computers I got laying around here (heaven knows I got enough of them), install Linux, and Nagios, but I want the monitor to wake me up in the middle of the night and consume VERY little power.

I decided to build it based of a Rabbit-Semiconductor RabbitCore RCM3100 embedded Micro-controller. This devise is small -about the size of a pack of gum, uses very little power do to it's size, and can be made to actually DO things, like control X-10 power modules or directly run relays, sound alarms, play .wav files, etc.

Phase 1 is to make it work.
Phase 2 is to make it useful.
Phase 3 is to make it indispensable.

I have completed phase 1 tonight.
I wrote some code, based off of the samples that came with the Ethernet Starter Kit I bought a while ago, and am using to make my automatic fish feeder.
Basically, all it does is ping the server once a minute. If the server fails to reply to the ping 5 times in a row, an email is generated. This will be sent to the email address for my cell phone, effectively paging me.

Some things to make this 'useful' and 'indispensable'. Here is a simple list of what I am thinking it could and should do:

• Check multiple web servers
  
• Page multiple people's cell phones.
• Check actual HTTP service by loading a web page and making sure it's what is expected.
• Display a simple 'status' by some method - a red & green LED display panel, LCD display, etc.
• Turn on the night light in my bedroom at night
• Turn on an alarm
• Play a wave file that indicates the current status

I am going to publish my Dynamic C code, and any future updates, here to my blog in case this is useful to anybody else.

Please feel free to leave any comments/questions/patches/etc.


/*******************************************************************************
Web Server Montitor
Author Mike Creuzer
mike.creuzer.com

Based from the RabbitCore sample files:

Samplestcpipping.c
Z-World, 2000

ICMP demonstration, by pinging a remote host.
Prints a message when the ping response arrives here.
If PING_WHO is not defined, then it pings the default
gateway.

smtp.c
Z-World, 2000

A small program that uses the SMTP library
to send an e-mail.







*******************************************************************************/

/***********************************
* Configuration *
* ------------- *
* All fields in this section must *
* be altered to match your local *
* network settings. *
***********************************/

/*
* Pick the predefined TCP/IP configuration for this sample. See
* LIBRARIESTCP_IPTCP_CONFIG.LIB for instructions on how to set the
* configuration.
*/
#define TCPCONFIG 1

/** Remote interface to send PING to (passed to resolve()): **/
/* Undefine to retrieve default gateway and ping that. */
#define PING_WHO "mike.creuzer.com"


#define FROM "ServerMonitor@creuzer.com"
#define TO "ServerMonitor@creuzer.com"
#define SUBJECT "Monitor Update"
#define DOWNBODY "Server is down."
#define UPBODY "Server is back up."


/*
* The SMTP_SERVER macro tells DCRTCP where your mail server is. This
* mail server MUST be configured to relay mail for your controller.
*
* This value can be the name or the IP address.
*/

/*
* The SMTP_SERVER macro tells DCRTCP where your mail server is. This
* mail server MUST be configured to relay mail for your controller.
*
* This value can be the name or the IP address.
*/

#define SMTP_SERVER "smtp-server.tampabay.rr.com"

/*
* The SMTP_DOMAIN should be the name of your controller. i.e.
* "somecontroller.somewhere.com" Many SMTP servers ignore this
* value, but some SMTP servers use this field. If you have
* problems, turn on the SMTP_DEBUG macro and see were it is
* bombing out. If it is in the HELO command consult the
* person in charge of the mail server for the appropriate value
* for SMTP_DOMAIN. If you do not define this macro it defaults
* to the value in MY_IP_ADDRESS.
*
*/

#define SMTP_DOMAIN "aquaria.serveblog.com"

/*
* The SMTP_VERBOSE macro logs the communications between the mail
* server and your controller. Uncomment this define to begin
* logging
*/

// #define SMTP_VERBOSE

/********************************
* End of configuration section *
********************************/

#use dcrtcp.lib
#use smtp.lib


int main()
{
longword seq,lastpingrecieved,ping_who,tmp_seq,time_out;
char buffer[100];
int down, sentdown, sentup;

sock_init();
// Wait for the interface to come up
while (ifpending(IF_DEFAULT) == IF_COMING_UP) {
tcp_tick(NULL);
}

/* Print who we are... */
printf( "My IP address is %snn", inet_ntoa(buffer, gethostid()) );

/*
* Get the binary ip address for the target of our
* pinging.
*/

#ifdef PING_WHO
/* Ping a specific IP addr: */
ping_who=resolve(PING_WHO);
if(ping_who==0) {
printf("ERROR: unable to resolve %sn",PING_WHO);
return 1;
}
#else
/* Examine our configuration, and ping the default router: */
tmp_seq = ifconfig( IF_ANY, IFG_ROUTER_DEFAULT, & ping_who, IFS_END );
if( tmp_seq != 0 ) {
printf( "ERROR: ifconfig() failed --> %dn", (int) tmp_seq );
return 1;
}
if(ping_who==0) {
printf("ERROR: unable to resolve IF_ROUTER_DEFAULTn");
return 1;
}
#endif

seq=0;
lastpingrecieved = 0;
down = 0;
sentdown = 0;
sentup = 0;
for(;;) {
/*
* It is important to call tcp_tick here because
* ping packets will not get processed otherwise.
*/

tcp_tick(NULL);

/*
* Send one ping per second.
*/

costate {
//waitfor(DelaySec(1));
waitfor(DelaySec(60));
_ping(ping_who,seq++);
}

/*
* Has a ping come in? time_out!=0xfffffff->yes.
*/

time_out=_chk_ping(ping_who,&tmp_seq);
if(time_out!=0xffffffff){
if(down == 1){
printf("Service has been restored. n");
down = 0;
smtp_sendmail(TO, FROM, SUBJECT, UPBODY);

while(smtp_mailtick()==SMTP_PENDING)
continue;

if(smtp_status()==SMTP_SUCCESS)
printf("Message sentn");
else
printf("Error sending messagen");
}
printf("Received Ping: %ld %ldn", tmp_seq, time_out);
lastpingrecieved = tmp_seq;
sentdown = 0;
}else
{
if (seq - lastpingrecieved >= 5 && sentdown == 0){
printf("Host Unavailable. n");
down = 1;
sentdown = 1;

smtp_sendmail(TO, FROM, SUBJECT, DOWNBODY);

while(smtp_mailtick()==SMTP_PENDING)
continue;

if(smtp_status()==SMTP_SUCCESS)
printf("Message sentn");
else
printf("Error sending messagen");
}
}

} // end FOR
}







A cool dry place. A root cellar in your kitchen.

I don't know about you, but it's hot and muggy here. I keep looking at items that want to be stored in 'a cool dry place'. I wish I could say that my apartment qualified, but, unfortunately, it doesn't some days. I turn the AC off while I am at work to save some money on the electric bill. The temp climbs up into the high 80s. Not exactly cool. It isn't exactly dry either.

I brought my small dorm room fridge down from WI and wasn't sure what to do with it. I figured it out. I think I am going to build a cool dry place.

I am going to build an insulated pantry. It will look like a normal pantry on the outside. But the inside will be insulated with foam insulation. I will also use one of those water rid buckets or large amounts of silica gel to keep everything dry. I am thinking that the small refrigerator and a good amount of insulation should enable me to bring the temp down to 50 degrees or so. You know, normal root cellar or basement temperatures.

On the bottom shelf I will put the dissecant as well as anything that isn't food stuff compatible, like batteries, etc. The shelf above that I will store my negatives in their fireproof box as well as anything else that won't bother food as a buffer between the stuff I don't want to eat and the stuff I do.

On the upper shelves I will keep things like my flours, spices, oils, potatoes and onions. You know food stuffs that don't really need to be in the fridge, but ought to be kept cool.

I suppose the veggies will need to be in their own little moisture cubby so they can stay a bit more damp then the rest of the unit. Just like the crisper in the fridge.

Hrmm.. I wonder if I can make an easy access panel for my spices. I am seeing something like the butter drawer in your fridge, only pointed out, into the room through the door. This could keep the spices cooler than sitting in a cupboard, and help decorate the cabinet. I wonder if I could get some UV filtering glass for the spice doors....

Just thinking out loud... I suppose I could make this a bit smaller, like a table top unit for keeping my veggies and such. A counter top root cellar. I bet that is a marketable product right there. A 50 degree refrigerator for storing your veggies.

A little market research. I am seeing these little wine coolers. These look about perfect for what I am looking for for a root cellar. I could probably tint the front glass with window tinting to block most of the light.

What do you think? Is something like this useful for you?

Electronics Hutch

I recently moved all my junk to Florida from Wisconsin and don't have a place to put all my electronics peices and parts and tools and whatnot. I don't want it all laying around for the cats to sort for me, as most of it would end up sorted under and behind the furniture.

So I have been looking for either a TV armoir or a computer hutch. I ended up at the Rooms To Go warehouse on exit 10 off of I4. They sell all the local scratch and dent items there.

Man did I make a find! I picked up a Tracey Computer Cabinet which retails for $699.99 for $327.99. Good deal, eh? It has some minor nicks and such in the corners, but nothing more than I would pick up in a year or two. It is missing the top crown moulding and only has 3 of the legs, but this works out in my favour as well!

I am going to put it on a cabinet so it stands taller. 23 inches taller in fact. That is the height of my elbows to the keyboard tray as the hutch sits on the ground tonight. This way, I can work on it standing up, or I can use the tall chair I will be getting/making for it.

Being that I am a internet junky, most of my electronics requires programming and an eithernet connection. So I will use the 'computer' part of the hutch to full effect. My 4U rackmount computer will just be either in the lower cabinet or sitting on the top of the unit. I will put my rackmoutn KVM in it to, as my next main computer will be DVI and won't work with the KVM. I will also add a 24 port hub so I don't run out of ethernet jacks.

I plan on picking up one large or two smaller LCD monitors for use in the hutch. This will give me the maximum amount of storage space inside.

 

This is the unit sitting on the ground without the legs. I will be getting a cabinet of some sort to go underneith it. This cabinet will be for storage of all the 'good junk' parts like old VCR boards and so forth that I would be canabalizing from. This should leave about a foot to the ceiling. I will put the computer gear up there I think so it can keep itself cool.

 

It even comes with a whiteboard and corkboard! Here brother is checking it out. One of the few times he will get to sneak into it.

 

The Keyboard tray is sitting in a pull-out work surface. This is PERFECT for my needs as I can pull out the workbench, and also access my keyboard.

 

The bottom has 2 drawers, a thin shelf (for the computer I guess) and a pull out printer drawer that won't fit either of my printers. Looks like parts and tool storage to me!

DIY Homemade Custom 110 gallon Aquarium Stand Plans

I brought my 110 gallon fish tank to FL from storage in WI. This post is going to be as large as my tank!

I have big plans for my big aquarium. I have a pass-thru from the kitchen to the living room. I am going to build a stand that is tall enough to put the tank so it fills the 'window' in the pass-thru so I can watch my tank from the kitchen. This tank stand will be custom built for this specific space, but I will also take into consideration the need to move. It will be against a wall, or possibly BE a wall in the future.

This 1 tank stand will actually house 5 or 6 different tanks. It will also house as much extra water as I can put into it as part of a sump filter. I am also going to have some built in planters that will utilize water from the tank to water the plants - probably straight up hydroponics. I doubt I will use it for foodstuffs, but it would be fun to experiment.

Download Google Sketchup File

Tank 1 will be the 110 gallon tank. This will be the display tank. Decked out. Live plants. Under-gravel heating coils. LOTS of light. CO2 injection. Basically, a thing of beauty. I will have lots of little fish - the largest fish I will have in it will be a breading pair of Angel fish.

Tank 2 will be a 55 gallon tank. This will be the only tank I will need to purchase. This will be housed in the cabinet. It will also be a planted tank. No under-gravel heating. It will be a plant rearing tank. It will only have bottom feeder type fish in it and few at that. It's main purpose is to run (lit up) at night to maintain CO2 and oxygen levels in the system. It would actually be considered to be part of the 'sump' filter.

Tank 3 and 4 will be 10 gallon tanks. These will also be planted tanks. One will be hooked into the main tank water supply; the other will be independent, but able to accept water from the main tank. The one piped into the main system will be my fish rearing tank. I can keep delicate fish in this tank or use it for rearing fry. The other tank, which will posses it's own filter system, will be my sick tank. I will probably be able to attach/detach it from the water system. I may get a UV sterilizer for it to keep it as a sick tank, but keep the main water system hooked up to it on low flow, primarily utilizing it's own filtering. Not sure yet on that part. Gotta research that idea. These two tanks would be in each end of the stand. They will probably both be set up to slide out on drawer hinges. Make it easier to access the tanks as there will be limited room above the tanks.

Tanks 5 and 6 will be my 4 foot by 4 inch by 4 inch nano tanks. By coupling them to my big fish tank, I don't need to worry about all the little problems that come from a very small water volume tank. One will be incorporated into the fish tank stand on the 'front' underneath the main tank. The other will sit in the passthrough. These will be both set up as stream tanks with a decent amount of water 'current' running though them. With 2 of them, I may set them up differently. The one in the stand will probably be planted, as I can hide a light in the stand, and the one on the pass-thru will probably be just piled rocks.

The main filtering will be done by a type of filter called a wet/dry filter or sump. These sump filters look to be sized about 20-40 percent of the tank volume. I will see if I can push mine to be at least 50%. Each 'stage' of my sump might actually end up being separate containers nippled together with PVC pipe. I will probably end up using garbage cans due to their tall size and square form factor. That and they are cheap! The first section will hold bioballs. This is the one that the 110 gallon tank will flush into. I will probably have this one taller then the rest to support an extra column height of the bioballs to splash the water and air around in. This will probably flow into a second one, into a third, into a fourth, etc. The final stage of this sump filter will be the 55 gallon fish tank. I will pump water out of this 55 gallon tank into the rest of the tanks. And the water will gravity & siphon feed back into this tank through the rest of the sump filter. The water level in the 55 gallon tank will be the only water level that will fluctuate. I will probably position the pump pickup 1/3 to 1/2 half the way up this tank so I have room for 25-30 gallons of evaporation loss.

All the tanks will be filtered using a internal/external weir or sump overflow box that leads to the central sump filter. These are boxes that hang on both the inside and outside of the tank. They operate by creating a siphon from the inside to the outside box. As you drain water out of the outside box, the water flows out of the tank. These will be set up so that if the power were to go out, they would not siphon all of the water out of the tank. I will accomplish this by having the pickup tube either be a stand-pipe in the outside box or have a 2 chamber, outside box with the siphon leading into one part of the box and the water flows over an internal wall into the drain half. If the tank were to stop receiving water from the pump for whatever reason, the tanks will drain down to the top of the standoff or the inner wall height in the overflow box. By building the overflow boxes so they can handle several times the water flow of the water pump, I don't need to worry about any clogged overflow boxes causing a tank to overflow.

I am thinking of building a storage tank automatic re-filler. I can't plumb the tank to the water supply directly (as I live in an apartment). I like to 'treat' my water by aging it with an aerator. This aerator(s) will be the only aerator in the system - well maybe I might have one available for the rearing and sick tanks. The premise here is you let all the chlorine that the city may add to the water out-gas into the air. I also am not precipitating out any trace minerals out of the water that those treatment drops can do. This is important for raising live plants. I will use a toilet float (actually 2 in series) to allow water from the aging tank to flow into the 55 gallon tank to top it off. The aging tank will probably be a large, shallow tank/tub or two right below the main tank, above all the sump tanks and gear. This will have many baffles in it to force water to travel a long path to get from the entrance to the exit point. This will help prevent freshly added water to race it's way to the 55 gallon tank and enter it un-aged. I will add a manual cut-off valve so if I allow the aging tank to drain completely, I can shut off the flow into the 55 gallon tank and fill the aging tank. This will force the water to age for 24 hours to out-gas and temperature acclimate. Then I can top off the 55 gallon tank, shut off the aging tank, age the water, turn the auto-fill valve on, and go back to my regular topping off routine. Kinda complex, I know, but call me paranoid. I just don't like adding 'fresh' water to my tanks, either from the tap or from a pet store! I float my fish in a bucket of water that I siphon tank water into, and then net the fish into the main tank, so I don't add any fish store water to my aquariums.

The main structure will be of treated lumber designed so that all load bearing surfaces have a direct path through ground. This basically means that there won't be any screws or hanging brackets that bear weight. These are only to hold the thing together. I should be able to assemble the whole frame without any screws and it should be free standing. This baby will have a LOT of weight! 110+55+10+10+3.5+3.5 X 8.34 lbs/gal = about 1600 pounds of water, not including what is in the sumps, piping, etc. This is in addition to the roughly 275 of glass in the 110 gal tank, hundreds of pounds of rock at the bottom of the tanks, etc. As one website put it, it's like standing your vehicle on it's nose in your living room.

I will probably trim out the stand using oak, which, while not cheap, seems to be readily available here.

As for the lighting, I haven't figured out exactly all the details of this. 3 watts of florescent per gallon is nearly 600 watts of lighting with the possibility of dimming lighting to simulate sunrise/sunset and blue/red/black lights for night viewing. The one thing I thought of, though, is that I am not going to want to pay the electric bill for this thing! I may end up seeing if I can run the bulk of it off of solar panels. The bulk of the lighting is during the day and into the evening, so I think this may work out. I am also thinking of running all the water pumps at 12v and running these off of solar charged batteries as well. I will probably run the two separately, or if combined, allow the lighting to drag the battery down through an inverter only so far before switching over to 110v from the power grid. Another benefit to this is that WHEN the power goes out (it does it a lot down here in Florida), my pumps have an inherent backup system. Additionally, if the batteries are running low and 110v is available, I will at least partially charge them back up. Just in-case it's been rainy all week, etc. I could also top the batteries off before a hurricane, so I can run just the pumps for an extended period of time.

I plan to have this tank 'wired' to the internet. I will be making leak detectors, water level sensors, lighting sensors, temperature sensors etc. and wiring them into a rabbitcore Ethernet enabled micro-controller. This will allow me to 'page' my cell phone via its email address if there are problems with the tank. While the tank should be able to find it's own safe 'stasis' level, maybe one of my cat's could get inside and really bugger things up! I am also probably going to wire in at least one webcam into the tank. I may include a pan/tilt inside the cabinet as well. The feeders will all be the automatic feeders I am building. The lighting will be controlled as well, so if I want to watch a movie, I can turn the lights down low on the tank.

I am thinking of building the tank stand about 4-6 inches larger then the tank on the 'front' 3 sides and build into it a hydroponics setup around the base of the tank. The tank will feed the plants water and food and I can utilize the stray light coming off of the tank for the plants. I probably won't use this for edible plants, but at the very least, I can have some nice low flowers like violets that will be 0 work plants.

I really like the looks of my CO2 reactor. I am thinking I may incorporate two of them into the outside corners of the stand and backlight them with black light or something. If I did that, I would probably bubble them up from the bottom or somehow make a separate bubble counter.

I have always wanted to incorporate a small bookcase into this stand. It is starting to get a little full, so I may do a book display type concept instead. I can display a few fish/aquarium related books on it. Maybe something low so the little kids have something to read - and identification books. Oh, maybe a photo album type book with photos of all my fish and a little about each type. That might be cool.

Anyway... what are your thoughts?

Second load moving into my new place.

Katie and I dropped off my second load of stuff today. This was the truckload that Bill was so kind enough to let me store in his garage for a year and a half. The only thing broken out of all the glass was a chipped mug that could have come from the store that way.
I haven't decided how to do the living room but I have awesome ideas for the kitchen. Matt and Jessica left a rolling dishwasher for me, so I have a dishwasher now. It isn't built in so I am going to make a small cutting boad surfaced island to put against one wall to wheel it into. I will get another folding barstool and I can use it as a breakfast table too. I am going to make it nice and tall so it will be a great prep area for me.
The coolest idea is for the computer in the kitchen. I will put each of my 19 inch monitors into the two corners of the kitchen on those wall TV shelves even with the top of the cabinets. They will both show the same screen, and each end of the kitchen will have a wireless keyboard and mouse in a tray under the cabinets. I will use my current Media Center PC so I can watch the food network or have a recepe on the screen. I am thinking it will be cool.
I am also going to build a storage shelf that is strong enough to put the fridge and a chest freezer ontop of so I don't need to squat down to look into the fridge.

I am going to make another trip this weekend for my junk. I will be moving my fish tanks. That will be a chore. I am thinking all the fish will end up in the planted tank for the time being. I want to put the tv tank into my entertinment center. I think I want a stand for my planted tank and put that between the doors to the bedroom and bathroom. I may break down and buy that instead of building it.g it.

A month already?

I can't believe I haven't had a chance to work on my boat in a month already! With the new job, and the commute, and the getting ready to move, I just haven't made time to work on it. Last weekend, I did pick up a new piece of aluminum stock to replace a piece that I incorrectly bent for the coaming. I have been working until after 6 and 7 so I haven't been getting home until dark some nights.

I have been thinking about how I am going to move my stuff that has been in storage in Wisconsin for approaching 3 years now down to Florida now that I have a vehicle that can actually carry stuff. I was thinking about buying/building a flatbed trailer, and then using some of the ideas and techniques from the PakYak to make a collapsing box so I can have a covered trailer. I also have some ideas on how to make the trailer itself fold up so it is easier to store. I have to think through the safety implications of a folding trailer, but I think it is doable in a safe manner.

Skyfarming

I came across an interesting article today on Skyfarming. The article talks about building 30 story farms in metropolitan areas.

I have been bouncing an idea around in the back of my head for something similar, if not so... extensive. My idea was to use the south 5 feet of a high rise building as a farm. The noonday sun won't really allow much deeper reach of direct sun, especially in more southern locations. Essentially you set up a vertical hydroponics greenhouse.

If you figure 1 acre of land is 43,560 square feet. A 200 foot wide, 5 foot deep swath of a 44 story building will yield over an acre of urban "land" for growing produce. According to the referenced article, an acre of hydroponic grown strawberries is equivalent to 30 acres of traditionally grown strawberries. Other similar sized crops would be able to be grown as densely as well. Or, another view of it, these urban vertical greenhouses has potential to grow as much food (actually more) per acre of land as their rural, traditional farmland, even including the surface streets, and shorter buildings that are blocked from the sun by the towers.

Only a percentage of the building would relinquished for growing crops. The southern 5 feet would be walled off by glass walls to keep troublemakers out of the greenhouse. If the high rise was a condo or an apartment building, the residents could have access to their own little gardens in a section of the greenhouse on their floor, or they could "rent" it to the building farm coop. Local restaurants found in the first floors of these buildings would be able to have fresh, locally grown produce (within a few hundred lateral feet if not immediately "upstairs") available to them. The low transportation costs and high yields would address the high cost per square foot value of the floorspace. (Does anybody have any numbers for this? If managed as a aquaponics vegetable and fish farm, growing lettuce just on the floor would yield in excess of 24heads/case * 45 cases per week * 52 weeks per year = 56,160 heads of lettuce and 900lbs/6 weeks * 52 weeks = 7,800 lbs of fresh fish a year. This is not even close to utilizing the space efficiently - just a rough estimate that you would probably need to produce about 10X this to make it cost effective at market prices. )

The buildings would reap other benefits beyond a regular food and income source from the rent of greenhouse space, or the direct sale of produce and flowers (depending on how the building owner did it). The large quantities of growing plants would be an active air filter, helping maintain a healthier air supply, and reducing heating/cooling costs because of the reduced need to ventilate the building. The hydroponics water could provide a lot of thermal mass and a ready distribution method for heating/cooling during the day by heating or chilling the water at night when the energy costs are lower. I am leery about gray-watering foodstuff plants, but I have no qualms about ornamental plants such as flowers. Office buildings would have a bit of the outdoors pulled inside, providing a more relaxing environment.

Maybe I would finally be able to buy a decent tomato in the city!

We have all read stories about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, but how cool would it be to see the High Rise Gardens of Boston?

Automotive Navigation

I had a thought today. I went over to a friends house that I have been to 3 times total in the last 2 years. I don't really remember how to get there.
I looked up his address on google maps, and printed it out.

I would like to get a GPS for the car. I don't know how much work it is to key into your GPS where you want to go. I don't think I would want to get directions in the GPS software on the computer, download it to a memory card, and load it into the GPS unit. I guess I don't know how you key into a GPS where you want to go.

I think that I would be willing carry a keychain fob that has my address book on it. The GPS can read my key chain via Bluetooth or RFID type wireless connection. In the GPS, I select "get address from remote device", key in the PIN for my address book keyfob, scroll through my addresses, and select one. Hrmm, I could even be in a friends car, and do this.

The keyfob plugs into the USB port of you computer and updates off of your address book.

I think if it talked bluetooth, the GPS could even log into your phone, and pull the address book off your phone. You would need to enter addresses into your phonebook. But with the data cables nowadays, there should be software that autosyncs to your outlook address book.

Anyway, this was my half-formed idea as I was driving to go pick up my jigsaw tonight.

I know you SoiSentinal and Stewie have opinions on this one! What do you think?

HDR Video Camera for Automotive Use

I want to put a video camera into my car so I can have it take photos and video for my car blog.

I would want it to have maybe 24 hours of recording time set up so it it erases the oldest footage automatically. It would be set up so that it talks to the main computers in the house at night when the car is in the garage and moves any video footage over. I may have a button on the dash to flag important parts, such as an interesting car, license plate, or somebody doing something stupid.

The hardest part of this is getting video of stuff at night. The camera would either adjust for the darkness and the lights would completely blow out the image, or the camera would adjust for the lights, and everything else would be pitch black.

I am thinking that the video source could possibly alternate between the 2 extremes, every other frame. Basically half the frames would be balanced for the darkness, and the other half would be balanced for the lights. You could then take any 2 frames and create a High Dynamic Range HDR a composite image together to create an image that is usable. You could even possibly HDR merge a video together merging each frame into the following frame. It may be easiest to just cut the final frame rate in half if this was done.

I don't know if the camera CCDs are tuned at the hardware level or by software.

Maybe 2 cameras placed very close together so the parallax is minimal? Have the cameras manually set to +4 and -4 or something? No, probably would need to be hard set for night time traffic. Maybe 3 cameras, one allowed to auto-adjust, and the other two set up for night.

I have been bouncing an idea for a "singing waterfall" around in the back of my head for a while now. Well, since the Chicago Auto-show of what, 2003m 2004? I don't remember when exactly.

Jeep had an interesting display involving a waterfall that was manipulated to "spell" out the Jeep advertisements in falling water. It was pretty impressive.

A discussion with Matt recently brought it back up. We talked about it, and I decided that I just as well 'put it to paper'.

The premise of my singing waterfall is that water falling into different sized containers make different sounds. If you could change the size or shape of the splash pool in a waterfall, you could change the pitch of the pool. If you somehow managed to be able to dynamically control the size and shape of the splash pool, you could make the waterfall play music or "sing".

I am not sure how to change the shape or size of a splash pool without making a lot of noise doing it.

Who is to say that you can't have multiple pools, and you change the water volume flowing into each splash pool.

For my intents, there are 2 types of waterfalls with multiple splash pools, serial pools and parallel pools (or a combination of the two, but, lets keep it simple for now).


Serial Pools, water flows from one splash pool to the next.


Parallel pools where the water is split into many thinner individual falls.

By controlling the rate of water flow into the individual splash pools, the overall tone of the waterfall as a whole should be able to be changed over time. The addition of electronic valving and water outlets to feed individual streams into individual splash pools should give you the ability to play music with a waterfall.

I am thinking that by creating a wide parallel waterfall you could compartmentalize individual splash pools and create a waterfall with the capabilities to produce a wide range of musical notes.

Sheet waterfall with streamlets of heavier water flow.

By controlling the individual streamlets of water flowing into the tuned splash pools a singing waterfall that doesn't look like it is being manipulated should be achievable. A steady stream of water across the waterfall sheet would give a consistent undertone. Increasing and decreasing the individual streams give you the notes.

I would have individual (or multiple) feeds each controlled by an electrically controlled valve to turn on or off a stream of water. These water feeds would be positioned and separated in a way that turning one on would have it provide water flow to the appropriate splash pond.

There is enough water control information out there that I won't get into that here at this point. Looking into that is more appropriate when I.. uhm.. have a place to put a waterfall. Although the micro-controller could be interesting because to get the music to play on key, the lengths of the feed pipes and the time it takes for the water to fall from the top of the falls to the splash pool will need to be accounted for. The larger falls will need to start and stop sooner then the smaller falls. Interesting... Sound buffers and delays... Hrmm...

I think the challenging aspect of this idea is the splash pond design and construction. I think a fair amount of trial and error is in order to spec out an individual fall to produce a given note. Aspects such as size, depth, shape and water volume held of the splash pool combined with water drop height and volume of flow would all need to be cross correlated by experimentation to be able to get the desired dynamic range in the output sound. The construction materials could also possibly also greatly affect sound quality. A soft bottomed sand splash pool may absorb a significant amount of the sound created. Stones & concrete vs shaped and colored concrete may also effect the resulting sound of the splash pool. A hollow resonance "drum" may need to be created for a splash pool to get the tone or volume right.

I think that once these variables are mapped and graphed, the actual waterfall could be designed. You would know what notes would need to be created, so you would create a waterfall with that in mind. The layout of the space around the waterfall will probably need to be taken into consideration so that some smaller, higher pitched splash ponds aren't acoustically blocked by foreign objects like rocks, bushes, tress, plantings, or even blocked by some of the falls itself.

Once the singing waterfall is complete, it could be so much fun. Build a controller that could take a MIDI feed and play the music on the falls. Tie the falls into the home security system so if somebody comes to the front door when your out back, the falls plays the old fashioned door chime sound. If the kids are up to no good, the whole thing could get really quite... You could have the falls chime the time like a grandfather clock. It could forecast the weather for you. If your trying to sleep, it could play a lullaby or a nice, smooth, relaxing white noise. If your busy in the garden it could be running hard, creating a drumming thundering noise that would be great working music.

Gosh, I like this idea so much I may have to build it.

If you have any thoughts, or use any of these ideas, feel free to let me know. I would just like to see a singing waterfall.

***
Forgive my use of somebody else's photos. They are beautiful and I don't have anything that will illustrate what I am talking about myself.

Creuzer: Introduction to growing your own furniture

Creuzer: Introduction to growing your own furniture

In response to Stewie's comment (it was too long of a comment):

I already thought of that...

5 acres of bar stools. 1 acre a year. I could sell them online!

Home Grown Barstools only at homegrownbarstools.com

Hrmm... I can create each one in a raised planter the width of the mower apart so I can mow around them easily. Bark mulch to keep the weeds down. Every 5 years, break the planters down, chip them up, till that acre with a tractor to refresh the dirt, incorporating the old mulch, and rebox and replant new stools.

I think I want clover instead of grass. And honey bees, yes, I want honey bees so I can have clover and apple honey! 1 free pint of honey for every stool purchased!

Gonna need a green house to get my seedlings started. Oh oh oh, and a workshop to make the stools... and a drying shed to cure the stool stumps after they have been cut, but before I can work them.

Now to make some interesting tops... I could do covered. I am thinking a nice inlaid wood top would be cool. So my workshop will need to also be set up to do wood inlays. Oh gosh, custom inlays - somebody's fancy mountain cabin, 4 stools, 4 inlays from photos taken in each direction.

Now only if I had some land....

Introduction to growing your own furniture

Introduction to growing your own furniture

OK, I found a new hobby! I SO want a set of stools and end tables made from grown furnature! This looks SO neat!

I want to make a full set of stools and tables out of grown furniture. I would probably need to make a few different hights as I am taller then some. But really tall stools for a bar would be cool tool! I guess that means I will need a bar for my uber-cool stools.

It would also really make nice looking patio furnature.

Hrmm...

I can dream, right?