Thinking - Personal theme Muzak, and the future of Humanity

In the future...

I like things that start with the words "In the future"...

In the future, people will carry, and secrete*, a personal soundtrack in much the same way that many people currently carry an artificial scent, making them either less stinky, more interestingly stinky, or sometimes just plain stinky.

My soundtrack will be the incessant tapping I do waiting for things from the Net to load. It's become such a part of my expression of "self", that I find myself doing it when in the company of anyone doing anything too slowly for my liking.

A canned version would help me notice just how impatient and irritating I've become.

Other options for different personality disorders might be...

• Nature, bird noises etc.
• Kittens purring 
• Dolphins making that sound I've never heard in all my time hanging out with dolphins
• The sound of Aquarius rising
• The girl from Ipanema (will inevitably be overused)
• A dripping tap, for people who feel they are not quite, or nowhere near irritating enough as they are.
• The romantic sounds of toenail clipping
• Death metal, for what ever reason death metal exists
• Road construction sounds, for people who think progress includes jack hammers, and the "TkerghhT"sound the talk switch makes on a two-way radio.
• Snoring, for people who are oddly reassured that their partners are still breathing
• Enya, because you can pretty much cut it anywhere and loop it back to the beginning and it will still make something like music, and people will generally be even more lazy in the future.
• Various tributes to Star Trek (still)
• That sound small dogs make that's a bit like an Ewok** when they're pretending to be giant predators gnawing on dinosaur/human bones after their planned uprising where they eat their overlords and gain access to the magic white box where all the cold food is kept..
• Some kind of music that you feel a connection with.
• Some kind of sound, or sounds that you feel express your personality, or feel a connection with.

Generally speaking, my prediction for the future is that it will be slightly more irritating, a tad naff, but generally a pretty interesting place to live.

I advocate continued existence, full participation, and secretly love the sound of someone else typing when I'm trying to get to sleep.

*Verb:	(of a cell, gland, or organ) Produce and discharge (a substance). <===This one Conceal; hide: "the assets had been secreted in Swiss bank accounts".<===Not this one
Synonyms:	conceal - hide - excrete - mask

**See Popular Culture



120 Things in 20 years, where I figure - If I go out on enough predictive limbs without thinking, and about thinking, one of them is bound to pay off, and grant great glory - unless my predictions are about personal theme Muzak, and the future of Humanity.

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Aquaponics - My first capsicum

I successfully grew some capsicums.

They look like this, and there are plenty more on the way.

That's it really.

Just the capsicums.








120 Things in 20 years, bringing you my first aquaponics capsicum.

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Aquaponics - Absurdly low energy system test result

I rigged something of a test to see if I could use my powerhead to create the zero head system I keep banging on about.

I'm not sure what the results mean.

It's very difficult to measure the flow when you can lift the pipe out of the water to check, but I think the test went some way to proving the concept.

When I turned on the pump I got around a 2.5 cm difference in water level between the grow bed and the the fish tank. I think that means that If I have a pipe joining the two, I should see all that head equal out. As it is I did have a pipe, but I suspect there was some air in it and I'm not sure how effective it was, but there was definitely flow.

Another major problem with my test is that I didnt want to break apart my powerhead. If I broke it and put the impeller into a tight fitting tube, I think I would move a LOT more water. As it was there was an inch of free space around the impeller where water could flow back past it the wrong way.




This video shows the pump being turned on at around 5seconds into the video, and it shifting 1cm deep of water from a completely full half blue barrel in 20 seconds.

So I think if I break the case off and commit to the design, I should be able to double my flow.

I made that double number up. Really I have no idea.

I think the flow I got was around 800LPH from a 12 watt powerhead, but as I said, there is a lot I can do to make it better.

for one thing, using a corrugated pipe is a bad idea, as is using siphons to go up and over rather than using bigger pipes directly connected. These were necessary because I didn't want to drill holes in the grow beds as I plan on using them differently.

I'll do some more tests, but for now I want to do a system expansion, and make a decent sized system that will feed us.



120 Things in 20 years, where we have industrial design standards, above which we will not go.

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Aquaponics - Absurdly low energy system test

I started work on my absurdly low energy test system and it looks a little bit like this.

Actually it looks exactly like this, because this is it.

And that's all there is gong to be until tomorrow at least.

The grow media this time is a product from Germany called Hydroton. It's clay balls that are puffed up like popcorn and are really nice to work with.

They are very clean, so all they needed was a quick rinse rather than the hard work that washing scoria was all about.

They are also great to work with.

Scoria was very sharp, and hard on the hands, but this stuff is a very different story. You can push you hand right to the bottom of the grow bed. I'm surprised it's stable enough for tall plants, but it doesn't seem to pose any problems.

I've read that it can float for a while, and mine is sitting in a half full tub, so perhaps it will settle a bit in time.

Because I've been feeding close to the maximum my system would allow, I should be able to compare scoria to Hydroton from the point of view of the bacteria colony. If I cant double the feed within a few months, it means the scoria is better, it will be interesting to see.


120 Things in 20 years, where sometimes, eventually, stuff like an aquaponics, absurdly low energy system test can start to take shape.

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Home made preserves - Latest batch of sun dried tomatoes

This sun drying tomatoes thing has become just another normal activity, and is a really easy and tasty thing to do with excess tomatoes.

Easy.
Child friendly.
Makes nice things to bring to people's houses when you visit.

Get tomatoes.
Cut them in half.
Quickly and un-carefully remove seeds
Put them in the sun.
Store in olive oil.
Eat







120 things in 20 years, blah blah Home made preserves - Latest batch of sun dried tomatoes

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Aquaponics - Powerhead zero head test

The absurdly low energy aquaponics system I've been working on, will probably use a power head to shift water between a fish tank, and a constant flood grow bed, both kept at the same water level so that the pump can run at it's most efficient.

To this end, I put a powerhead in a 90mm pvc pipe to see what kind of flow I can expect.

It definitely looks like being viable.

With only the tiniest head, the thing moved a lot of water. With a head of more than 2 cm, almost no water flowed at all, but I'm hoping to make a zero head system so it should work fine.

It's difficult to see the flow because I cant raise the pipe very much at all without stopping the flow altogether, but there is quite a bit of water fowing over the edge.

I would guess around 2000L an hour.

The flow at zero head with the pipe submerged is a lot more than this picture with a little head to overcome.






120 Things in 20 years, Aquaponics - Powerhead zero head test. I have an ear ache.

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Aquaponics - New air lift design

If you pump air down into a submerged tube, when the bubbles rise to the surface, by virtue of the fact that they take up some space, they change the average density of the water in the tube.

The result is that the new, lower density water floats, and you get water sticking up above the surrounding water.

In short, you get a pump.

This is nothing new, and even if all you do is stick some bubbles at the bottom of an aquarium and let them rise to the surface, you are seeing what has become to be known as an air lift.

Through the introduction of air into water, the bubbles cause a vertical current.

If you stick those bubbles in a tube, you create something of a pump.

An air lift in an aquarium is mainly used to create current and keep the top surface of the water moving. This top surface is exposed to the oxygen in the air, and the exposed water gains dissolved oxygen, or DO,  essential for the ongoing good times, and life, of the fish in your aquarium, or aquaponics system.

I don't have an air pump, because I run so much water through my pump, that it's not necessary. I do run a powerhead, which is a lot like a little outboard motor, that achieves the same thing, and in my case is totally unnecessary because, as mentioned, I pump so much water with my over sized pump.

An air lift, and a powerhead both move large amounts of water for a small amount of energy. My 5000L pump was 150 watts, my 5000L powerhead is only 13 watts.

The difference is the pump could lift water 5m, and the powerhead cant really lift water at all. All it can do is stir it.

An air lift can lift water, but it's a bit limited in how high it can lift it. It would be nice if an air lift could lift air to a greater height, because then we could create a really low energy aquaponics system in a conventional (grow bed above fish tank) arrangement, and still get the desired flow.

To this end, I drew this.

Normally a picture might paint a thousand words, but this is a picture of particular poor quality, so I'll need to add a few to make it paint up to around 150.

Picture a pipe with some chambers, all sealed and air tight, so whatever pressure is in there, stays in there.

If the air lift were to deliver it's water to a chamber, the water and air would separate.

If the air was then bled off from the chamber, and re-introduced under the collected, chambered water, it might be reused to create a second or third (etc) air lift.

This might mean we could lift air higher than with a normal air lift.

I have no idea if it would work, because I haven't been able to rope anyone I know who runs air in their system into trying it yet.

If I cant get anyone to test the idea, I'll have to buy an air pump.

Either way, I'll let you know if it turns out to be interesting.



120 things in 20 years, bringing you the vaguest suggestion of science in the hope that someone else will do the actual tests and see if my aquaponic, new air lift design actually works.

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