phone
    • chevron_right

      A District In Japan That Works Together with Fish FISH

      blair · Monday, 22 July - 14:51 · 1 minute

    I understand that not everyone will have access to a stream/river with fish, but I thought people might find this interesting anyways.

    Do you have videos that stick with you? "Through the Kitchen Window: A Town Living with Water [Harie, Shiga] " is one that occasionally pops back in my mind.

    In Harie, Shiga(Japan), water canals run through much of the town, and the people there use it to develop a mutually beneficial relationship with fish. 🐟

    Imagine a pool of water that people use for washing fruits, vegetables, and dishes. That same pool has carp that call it home, and the carp eat the scraps and keep the water crystal clear. This could be inside the home or outside, but it is constantly added to by natural spring water, and the water exits in to a canal. This system is called “Kabata,” and has been used for over 300 years.

    (Both images above are from this website)

    That running water then heads to rice flats, which benefit from the natural fertilizers the fish provide. That water then heads to wetland area, where the water is cleaned by reeds and other vegetation before entering a lake.

    More Info:

    • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rwxsjzjDhs
    • https://youtu.be/THcKJpXwqVM
    • chevron_right

      Giant List of Free Resources

      blair · Monday, 22 July - 14:39 · 4 minutes

    I have been collecting free resources I come across! Know of one not listed? Please share it for everyone 😊

    Note: While I have tried most of these, I have not tried all of them. Please do some research before downloading anything.

    📸Photo Editing and Digital Art:

    💻 Programs:

    Character Posers:

    Other:

    🎨 Palettes:

    💬Fonts:

    • FreeTypography: Free fonts for commercial use
    • Creative Fabrica: Free fonts for commercial use (sign-up required. Click “Menu,” then “Freebies.”)
    • Font Base: Free program made to organize and preview fonts (for graphic design)

    📽️Video

    🎙️Audio/Recordings/Podcasts:

    • Audacity: Audio editor
    • Craig: a bot for discord that lets you record audio conversations (not sneakily, publicly) for podcasts. It even splits everyone into separate audio files for easier edits.

    📖Documents and Writing

    🖥️Website Building/Coding/Programing

    Misc

    • Etymology Dictionary: History and meanings of words
    • Marginalia: search engine that focuses on non-commercial content
    • Text-To-Speech: Chrome Extension for hearing text spoken and seeing it highlighted
    • Dictation: will transcribe audio
    • FreeLearningList: several lists of websites where you can learn for free
    • TinyWow: A website with several different useful tools; such as converting file types, photo editing, and more.
    • Omni Calculator: This website has several different calculators/generators; including a solar setup calculator (tells you how many panels you need), constructions calculators (such as telling you how many sheets of drywall you will need) and more.
    • Food Swap Network: share homemade, homegrown, or foraged foods with each other.
    • Freegle: A free app for either giving away items you no longer want, or finding ones you need.
    • Dimensions: Need to know the average size of something? This website can show you the standard measurements and sizes of many different things.
    • Gramps: Free family tree and research program
    • Frappe Books: Accounting Software
    • iFixit: Look up the repair guides for many different common items
    • Repair Clinic: Enter the model or part number, or problem, and it will help walk you through repairing the exact item you have.

    DIY Builds:

    • Awesome Social Robots: How to build a robot companion
    • Open-Sourced DIY prosthetic leg: “With an ever-increasing availability of new technologies, we created an affordable bionic leg that is accessible to everyone.”
    • DIY Open electric drive kit for wheelchairs - alpha v “The present page is a follow-up project done by a group of 3rd year students from Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Imperial College where they built a first prototype of an electric wheelchair that will be the basis for future development of an open kit to build electric wheelchairs for cheap. The idea is to keep information open and make the system suitable to use off-the-shelf components.”
    • DIY Talking Smart Glass for the Blind “A pair of talking smart glass, intended to help the visually impaired.”
    • DIY Solar Powered WiFi Weather Station V3.0 "An Open Source Solar-Powered Weather Station to monitor Temperature, Humidity, Air Pressure, Wind Speed, Wind Direction, Rainfall, UV Index, and Lux Level”

    📺Media and Entertainment

    • Tubi online streaming platform with ads
    • VLC: a media player that can play pretty much anything
    • inoreader: RSS reader so you can follow your fav websites without ads.
    • Calibre: ebook management
    • Playnite: Video game manager
    • Kodi: Video media manager

    Free Books (Legal):

    🖼️Public Domain Art

    Once something reaches a certain age, it can fall under public domain. This includes classical art (like the Mona Lisa). If they are public domain, you can use them for commercial use or marketing.

    🌎 Environmental Protection DIY Plans:

    • Senso: “Senso is a device that detects deforestation using sound analysis detecting machines used to cut down trees and warning the authorities”
    • Project Eel: “Monitoring river water quality based on open-design multi-parameter sonde, built along with QuickFeather and SensiML service.”
    • Stream Research: “Data is power, and with sufficient data we can approach our respective municipalities, and provide them with all the information they need to seek or allocate funding for the preservation and conservation of our natural waterways.”
    • Droncoria: Dronecoria develops Open Source biotechnological tools and knowledge. Enabling large-scale, low-cost environmental restorations through sowing drones and seed enhancement.
    • chevron_right

      Balcony Gardening Videos

      blair · Monday, 22 July - 14:38 · 1 minute

    I do not have a balcony, but I thought I would share the videos I have collected in the past just in case they ended up helping someone. I just joined, so I am not sure how/if they can be embeded, so I will just put links.

    Also, here is a website that might help.

    “If it is a South or West-facing balcony, you’ll have sunshine almost all day, which means you can grow anything. An East facing balcony receives sunlight in the morning, which is sufficient for most greens, herbs, and root vegetables. On the contrary, a North-facing balcony usually remains shady throughout the year, and it isn’t easy to grow vegetables in the shade. However, you can still try lettuce, parsley, peas, cilantro, fenugreek, green onions, bok choy, and mustard greens.” BalconyGardenWeb

    The image used was also sourced from that website.

    • chevron_right

      Ollas: Underground Watering Pot

      blair · Monday, 22 July - 14:38 · 1 minute

    If you are looking for a way to both conserve water but also have a healthy garden, an Olla might help.

    While surface watering, some of the water will be lost to evaporation, and you may not get the soil damp enough to encourage the roots to spread deeper.

    This is when the Olla becomes helpful; made from porous clay, this pottery can be filled with water, which it will then gradually seep into the surrounding soil. While most of it is burred, enough of the neck is out of the soil to fill it.

    You can make your own for your outdoor garden using terracotta pots and water-proof adhesive. Simply glue two pots together, and fill the hole on one side. When the glue is set, just bury the pots (with the unfilled hole up), fill with water, and cover the hole with a saucer, cork, or rock.

    If, however, you only have indoor plants, you have an option, too! You can get terracotta watering spikes that work in a similar way, but a glass bottle fills it.

    While they might not be suitable for all plants, for many plants they are suitable, and can help with your gardening chores.

    While they might not be suitable for all plants(such as plants that prefer dry soil), for many, they are.

    Images from Permaculture Research Institute

    • chevron_right

      Aquaponics For Urban Living FISHSEEDLINGCITYSCAPE️

      blair · Monday, 22 July - 14:37 · 1 minute

    Aquaponics is similar to hydroponics, but makes use of fish to create fertilizer-rich (fish waste 💩) water for the plants to thrive. In turn, the plants help clean the water for the fish.

    You can put the pumps and fish feeders on a timer to automate them, and even use fish types people eat for fish farming.

    My only ask is that you remember to make the tank nice for the fish. A stressed fish is a dead fish, and way too many aquaponic users just throw a bunch of fish in an empty(no stimulation) and overcrowded tank.

    The below videos talk about using the systems to grow food in urban spaces.

    • https://youtu.be/9ZLDDhFLWCY

    “Ever heard of aquaponics? In urban areas, aquaponics helps combat barriers that come with farming in cities, like lack of access to space. “

    • https://youtu.be/_YmkWODcqbA

    “There are so many barriers in place when it comes to growing food in cities, but education and lack of access to space are the hardest to overcome. Yemi Amu has dedicated her life as a farmer to solving this problem, by starting the only Aquaponics farm in NYC. Oko Farms in Brooklyn is both a working farm which provides fresh food to surrounding neighborhoods, while also actively engaging the public in education on how to grow food for yourself in urban environments.”

    • https://youtu.be/hKWREFjNWX4

    "What's up everyone, in this video i build part 1 of an indoor DIY aquaponics system for my 10 gallon fish tank! I have been interested in aquaponics for a while now and know i wanted to build an indoor DIY aquaponics system early on when i saw the price of most retail aquaponics kits. This DIY aquaponics system was built using all materials found either on Amazon or at local hardware stores and came in under $50 total! "

    • chevron_right

      Interesting Solar Concepts

      blair · Monday, 22 July - 01:58 · 1 minute

    I just thought I would share some different solar projects I think are interesting.

    Terracotta Solar:

    "Designed to be indistinguishable by the naked eye from regular terracotta roof tiles, “Invisible Solar” tiles are made to improve the energy efficiency of heritage buildings without compromising their historic appearance. They make each tile out of a non-toxic and recyclable polymeric compound they themselves developed, and the tiles allow for sunlight to pass into a hidden bank of photovoltaic cells without the human eye being able to tell they are translusent." | Good News Network

    Apartment Balcony DIY Solar

    If you have a sunny apartment balcony and have ever been interested in solar, there are many options; including some designed to look like privacy walls. It is supposed to be as easy as strapping on and connecting the panels, then plugging the system into your outdoor wall socket.

    “In the best case scenario, a 600 W balcony panel pays for itself after just a few years,” said Hermann Dinkler, an energy expert at the German technical inspection association TÜV. With a shade-free southern orientation, an optimal inclination angle of 35 degrees without shade and 2,000 kWh of electricity consumption per year, a typical 600 W system pays for itself after about five years, according to German institute HTW Berlin. - PV Magazine

    To find out if solar would work for your apartment balcony, make sure to do the calculations(such as with a solar panel calculator), ensure you have an outdoor socket, and check the rules of your building.

    (Image Source)

    Solar Glass Bricks

    These ones (amusingly) do remind me of the 1980s glass brick wall fad, but these are made to used to replace windows or other glass in office blocks, buildings and even bus stops. The inventors at Build Solar think they look better than solar panels and take up less space, so could be an eco-friendly alternative to current building materials.

    Adding Solar to More Devices

    The company Ambient Photonics showcased a bifacial solar cell. It can harvest from both the front and back simultaneously, and aims to charge small electronic devices; such as remote controls. It is supposed to work even in low-light, including indoors.

    Its flexible and thin design means it could work in many different device types.

    Funnily, the tech is reminding a surprising amount of people of the solar-powered calculators that used to be everywhere.

    Crafted by a potter named M Sivasamy, this clay pot was designed to help keep produce cool for days.

    He made a cylindrical pot made out of clay with a tap on one side and an outlet to pour water on the other side. A smaller pot fits inside the bigger one where you can place your vegetables which is then covered with a lid. The technology is simple — the water in the pot remains cool keeping the vegetables fresh and cool. - BetterIndia

    For places with no or limited electricity, this could help immensely. Especially considering terracotta(earthenware) clay is almost used worldwide.

    More Info:

    • https://youtu.be/Pr-FxgNTXtA
    • chevron_right

      “Awnings: a simple cooling tech we apparently forgot about” 🪟

      blair · Monday, 22 July - 01:44

    https://youtu.be/uhbDfi7Ee7k

    This video by Technology Connections talks about how window awnings can greatly help cool your home.

    Another thing I want to add is that window awnings can protect windows. We get pretty big hail here, and (wood or aluminum) awnings can save your window glass. I have also heard of “Clamshell Awnings” which are on hinges, so you can remove the poles and lower the awning to cover and protect windows in extreme weather.

    Lastly, here are some old window awning ads for your entertainment (from Wikimedia commons)

    Image Links: Image 1, Image 2, Image 3

    ^ (Image Source) ^

    It is no secret that white reflects heat, and that is true for your roof as well. In fact, many hot climates around the world have been utilizing this knowledge for centuries.

    “The darker the surface, the more the heating. Fresh asphalt reflects only 4 percent of sunlight compared to as much as 25 percent for natural grassland and up to 90 percent for a white surface such as fresh snow.” Yale

    Other places have also started catching on. For example, even in 2012 in the USA, volunteers started painting tar roofs white in New York. However, this is not something trending everywhere. Some places are accustomed to dark colored roofs, so even in hot climates, they are slow to change.

    This change will of course be easier in places where flat roofs are more common and ready to paint, but slanted roofs have options too.

    For example, metal roofing is more environmentally friendly than shingles(100% recyclable), is more durable, and can last longer. What is more, the reflective properties of the metal can also help cool your homes. Some are now even made to look like tiles.

    ^(Image Source)^

    There are other (more expensive) options as well, such as painted terracotta.

    However, if these are not your style, solar panels on your roof may also reflect heat, so you could generate some power while you stay cooler.

    “Solar panels “cool daytime temperatures in a way similar to increasing albedo via white roofs,” according to a study by scientists at the University of New South Wales. ”Yale

    If you live somewhere cooler, I do not suggest a white roof, since the white can raise winter heating bills.