Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Intro to building with Straw Bales
lessons and info by Andrew MorrisonProfessional Straw Bale Contractor
strawbale.com
- http://www.strawbale.com/lesson1-af.html
- http://www.strawbale.com/lesson2-al.html
- http://www.strawbale.com/lesson3-aq.html
- http://www.strawbale.com/lesson4-ar.html
- http://www.strawbale.com/lesson5-aw.html
- http://www.strawbale.com/lesson6-ap.html
- http://www.strawbale.com/lesson7-aj.html
- http://www.strawbale.com/lesson8-bw.html
- http://www.strawbale.com/lesson9-bs.html
- http://www.strawbale.com/lesson10-ba.html
Monday, June 23, 2008
Scribd: Publish Yourself Online/Read Library
Scribd (http://www.scribd.com) is a free, web-based, document sharing community and self-publishing platform that enables anyone to easily publish, distribute, share, and discover documents of all kinds. E-books, presentations, essays, academic papers, newsletters, photo albums, school work, and sheet music are just a few of the different kinds of documents you can publish and share on Scribd.
Scribd provides:
Scribd provides:
- A simple yet powerful method of publishing and distributing your own electronic books and documents in a variety of formats - for free.
- A vibrant global community of eager publishers, readers and collaborators that offer great content and constructive feedback.
- A massive, perpetually growing library of open, community-generated content.
- A secure, flexible private document managment system.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Make a Reusable Shopping List
A reusable shopping list is a shopping list that you can use over and over again. It lists all the foods that you ever use. Before doing your shopping, you check your kitchen and highlight each of the things on your reusable shopping list that you need to buy. You can also sit down with a cook book and highlight items on your list that you need for a recipe you plan to cook. As you get each item from the shops, you rub the whiteboard marking off the list.Materials and tools needed
- Paper
- Printer (or a pen if you don't have a printer)
- Cardboard
- Scissors
- Two small key rings
- plastic sleeves
- sticky tape
- Paper glue
- White board marker
Great Idea! Cool Cat and Smarty Cat will think of alternative ideas and "spin-offs."
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Animate Photo(s) with light...
Learn how to make your own snazzy light-animations on the cheap. We made an animated music video with light-painting, stop motion, long exposure photography and lots of patience,http://www.instructables.com/id/Animate-with-light/
Sleeping Beauty - City lights / Music video
View the full video at Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/1007693
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Video Shooting Guide
Shoot your own videos with film-maker Mat WhitecrossMat Whitecross shares his top filming tips and shows how you can make someone fly in your videos.
When I started out making films I spoke to so many people who told me that you needed to have a special camera or you needed to shoot on film, you couldn’t shoot on video. Actually there’s some of the most famous film-makers in the world right now making films on handycams, just as good as the one you’ve got, so just get out there and make them. It doesn’t matter whether you’re using a film camera, a video camera or your mobile phone.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blast/downloads/blastcasts/filming.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blast/film/tipsandtools/videoshootingguide/ (excellent, straight forward, how-to info)
SOLAR COOKER from an Abandoned Satellite Dish
In many parts of the world outdated, abandoned satellite dishes clutter the landscape. They are abandoned because they have been replaced by much smaller dishes.
In early 2004 a neighbor gave us the dish at the left, just to get rid of it. We removed the signal-collecting apparatus suspended at the focal point in the center of the dish, and the metal webbing between the ribs. Then we were ready to start adding things.For $27.50 a 50-ft x 20-inch roll of aluminum flashing was purchased from the local hardware store. After carefully measuring the spaces between the satellite-dish's ribs, with tin-snips I cut out 16 triangular aluminum wedges. The dish was factory-made with each of its ribs having slots along their entire lengths, so we were able to fit the triangular wedges in place by sliding them into their slots. While I cut the wedges, a couple of friends positioned the wedges. It took us about half a day to do the whole thing, with the most time-consuming and difficult part being positioning the wedges.
At the left you see how we built a platform where pots, skillets and the like could be placed during the baking process. The platform was constructed from an upside-down, metal-wire frame used by florists to hold standing flower arrangements of the kind seen at funerals. Then an aluminum tray salvaged from an abandoned refrigerator was attached to that frame, with metal clamps.
The resulting creation boils water, fries eggs in a skillet in ten minutes, and bakes a perfect skillet of cornbread in less than half an hour.
Total cost: $27.50. We had the flower stand and clamps on hand.
WARNING: This is a powerful apparatus. It can surely damage eyes, and I know from experience that it can make painful burns. Notice how I am grimacing in the picture. If you should accidentally put your face at the light's focal point, your vision might be impaired permanently! http://www.backyardnature.net/j/solardsh.htm
CCC: Instead of a cooker, one could build/construct and place a small box like BOILER to heat hot water. A water pump and hose (that can handle hot water) can pump to a very well insulated tank (for example, an old hot water heater). One could put the dish base on a tracker system, to track the SUN. This way one could have SOLAR heated water!
Homemade Solar Water Heater
This is a dated (1979) article and (of course) the costs would be more; also this is a crude design, but it shows, in all its simplicity, how-to a solar hot water heater can be constructed.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Renewable-Energy/1979-09-01/
Drying Vegetables
Quick Facts...
- Successful drying depends on heat, air dryness and air circulation.
- Select vegetables to be dried at peak flavor and quality.
- Blanch vegetables before drying to stop enzyme action and enhance destruction of microorganisms.
- Package dried foods in tightly sealed containers and store in a cool, dry place.
Drying is one of the oldest methods of food preservation. Drying preserves foods by removing enough moisture from food to prevent decay and spoilage. Water content of properly dried food varies from 5 to 25 percent depending on the food. Successful drying depends on:
- enough heat to draw out moisture, without cooking the food;
- dry air to absorb the released moisture; and
- adequate air circulation to carry off the moisture.
When drying foods, the key is to remove moisture as quickly as possible at a temperature that does not seriously affect the flavor, texture and color of the food. If the temperature is too low in the beginning, microorganisms may survive and even grow before the food is adequately dried. If the temperature is too high and the humidity too low, the food may harden on the surface. This makes it more difficult for moisture to escape and the food does not dry properly.
Although drying is a relatively simple method of food preservation, the procedure is not exact. A “trial and error” approach often is needed to decide which techniques work best.
Nutritional Value of Dried Foods
Drying, like all methods of preservation, can result in loss of some nutrients. Nutritional changes that occur during drying include:
- Calorie content: does not change, but is concentrated into a smaller mass as moisture is removed.
- Fiber: no change.
- Vitamin A: fairly well retained under controlled heat methods.
- Vitamin C: mostly destroyed during blanching and drying of vegetables.
- Thiamin, riboflavin, niacin: some loss during blanching but fairly good retention if the water used to rehydrate also is consumed.
- Minerals: some may be lost during rehydration if soaking water is not used. Iron is not destroyed by drying.
more details here...
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/foodnut/09308.html
DIY ~ TRACKING SOLAR COOKER (plans)
http://www.solarcooking.org/plans/Cookerbo.pdf
The concept of solar cooking began over 220 years ago and was used by the French Foreign Legion starting in the 1870's. All solar cookers work on the principle of concentrating the direct solar rays to raise food or water to cooking temperatures.
The concept of solar cooking began over 220 years ago and was used by the French Foreign Legion starting in the 1870's. All solar cookers work on the principle of concentrating the direct solar rays to raise food or water to cooking temperatures.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Create huge images from photo or scanned art...
Upload an image, print the resulting multi-page pdf file and assemble the pages into extremely cool looking poster up to 20 meters in size ($free).(this one took 50 Sheets of 8.5"x11")
http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/
examples........ http://www.jpgmag.com/themes/19
more... http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/gallery.gas?6051
Clearing up Clutter...
Everything you possess "has a thought form on it." Simply stated, you know where it came from (thought), when you bought or got it (thought), even the atmosphere of the place and people (more thoughts). It's much easier to clean and organize someone else's place, because you are not personally attached to the objects (and can be more objective).
Every item you have, has a thought form on it!
Start in ONE CORNER and deal with each item.
Is it important? Storage? Junk? eBay sale item? Donation or Trade item?
Clear up both the clutter in your home or office and you mind!
Firefox 3 ~ New Features video short (4 min)
Firefox 3 is still in Beta (public soon/mid June), but many of these features will help with bookmarks, organizing, easier searching using key-words and smart security features.
Typical Household Energy Use...
http://www.homepower.com/basics/started/Your heating/cooling & water heater draw 60% of home power/energy use. By using passive solar or wood + excellent insulation to conserve & heat your household—you CAN reduce your energy bill 60%.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
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