DIY Supermaterial Could Save You From Heatstroke: Salt based PCMs
A simple mix of two cheap salts, Sodium Sulfate and Table Salt (Sodium Chloride) dissolved in boiling water can create a really useful Phase Change Material that has a melting point of 18c (65f) which allows it to be recharged back into it's cooling state simply by putting it in a basement and can then be used as a cooling blanket, back rest, neck pillow, etc to help keep you cool in hot weather. Longer lasting and less energy intensive to charge than an ice-pack.
In the video he talks about the potential for using a similar higher temp PCM behind solar panels to reduce efficiency loss or damage from over heating. It could also be a really interesting thing to use for transporting heat from where it's unwanted to where it's needed.
This is really cool, I've been mapping my area and thinking about making a game that does a similar thing, nothing special just thought it'd be fun to make something that tries to generate levels using map data. I've got plenty of other stuff to get on with and mapping is addictive enough on it's own so i might just try this instead.
this is sadly one of the big problems with farmbot, keeping the trackways clear in an actual use situation requires as much work as weeding. My hope is that ambulatory platforms (spider robots) which are able to nimbly move through a garden space while carrying the required tool heads will be able to use these methods to work in much larger areas and without so much visually disagreeable infrastructure.
i feel weird about self promoting but I make a project called the Pigrow which is an open source garden automation project designed to be as cheap and flexible as possible by using a raspberry pi and basic components from ebay or wherever. It's got tools to help you monitor and control the grow environment including various watering tools. It's not as polished as farmbot but under constant development and having new features added all the time, if you want to set up a cheap irrigation automation system then it might be a good option and if not then i'd love to hear what features it'd need for you to consider using it so i can try and add them. More info at [email protected]
I love FarmBot, not really super practical at the moment and wildly expensive but it's been making great progress and is unquestionably heading in a great and very useful direction. I think we're very close to ai controlled robotics being able to replace the clunky CNC system at which point the project will really come into it's own. Really glad they're still working on the automated weeding and stuff, that'll all be so useful when more reliable and easier hardware platforms are available.
that's a great graph, really looking forward to seeing those times where renewables exceed demand get more common then all flatten out as systems designed to use excess power are added - pumped storage for example and desalination can be scaled to match the excess.
Basically you have a desalination plant near your solar or wind and any excess power gets diverted there, fresh water is then pumped into lakes and reservoirs which can either be converted back into power via hydro or used in agriculture, industry and homes as needed.
Shortest day to Spring Equinox, 7600 pictures in a single image.
I used the camera on one of my pigrows to take pictures out my window every five min then used the daygrid tool to put them all into a single image - this is a slightly updated version with more readable labels and a red line at sun up and sunset, i'll update it in the repo as soon as i've tied it up.
Plans announced for the first tidal energy plant in Southeast Asia
Energies PH, Inc, through its affiliate San Bernardino Ocean Power Corporation, has contracted with Inyanga Marine Energy Group to build Southeast Asia’s first ever tidal power generation plant. The site will be at the remote Capul Island of Northern Samar in the Philippines, along the San Bernardin...
>The 1MW project, which is expected to deploy in late 2025, will use Inyanga’s innovative HydroWing tidal stream technology.
>The HydroWing tidal stream turbines will be connected to the electrical network of Capul, an off-grid island currently relying on a 750 kW diesel power plant. The first stage of the project consists of a 1MW tidal power plant, to be connected into a microgrid network coupled with Solar PV and energy storage, delivering a reliable, sustainable, and cost-competitive alternative to fossil-based power generation.
Here's the diesel power plant that it's replacing https://maps.app.goo.gl/bfUhRTxcTLGRJ21d9
There's been a huge push for large scale tidal projects recently with proposals for several in big rivers in the UK but I think these smaller projects are really interesting too, replacing the islands diesel generator means they won't need regular diesel deliveries and so not only will have far more reliable power but also one less dirty cargo ship polluting the area - hopefully the limited amount of vehicles on the island can be replaced with electric especially ebikes and electric outboards so that they never need any fuel delivered - and when all the islands start doing it the boat delivering fossil fuels will no long be required and the port it sails from can clean up a bit without all the oil based products, maybe even remove the pipeline feeding it entirely if the demand for boat fuel has decreased enough due to cheap electrical prices.
It's a relatively small project but filling an important niche, will be really interesting to see how it works out.
tarmacking is a horrible job especially at night, personally I'd rather reduce the cost of infrastructure maintenance using automation and then pay people a living wage to do nicer jobs.
UK starts early trials of World's first pothole preventing robot
Driverless vehicle that uses sensors to measure road surface quality and repair small cracks to stop them turning into potholes and hopefully decreasing the cost of road maintenance while improving average surface quality.
Filming Timelapse with a Raspberry Pi and using ChatGPT to help code image analysis modules
I'm trying to get things to a good position where i can run a competition to create the best modules for the timelapse tab, i'm hoping to use it to attract more attention to the project while also inspiring people to create useful timelapse tools we can all use.
The modules i'm demonstrating here are the analyse set tools which scan through every image in a timelapse set, process them or analyse them then gives a single image output - currently they're all very basic and written pretty much just to demonstrate how the tools work, they are very useful though so i'll be upgrading the code when i get the chance.
Currently this tool is only available in the timelapse tab of the new gui but it's been designed in a way that allows them to be incorporated into datawall displays when i expand that feature. Also i'm hoping that the timelapse analysis tools can be a great way of testing for useful metrics which we can use to help monitor and maintain grows that are in progress, once we've established that an analysis tool is accurate with pre-recorded timelapse we can write a version designed to run every time a new image is captured.
This is really positive news especially as most the efficiency savings come from things that are only at the start of their roll-out, a lot of the infrastructure development for solar and wind is already in place with construction already in progress for huge amounts of generation. It likely also that the lower demand for electricity comes in part due to more efficient devices gaining market share; better water heaters, heat-pumps, LED lighting, etc combined with better insulation and more focus on efficiency - plus of course home solar or similar, an increasing amount of people are at least partly off-grid and use home generated power which reduces demand on the power grid.
We also have some really useful new tech starting to reach market like tidal generation, tandem solar cells, Perovskite (which we've been hearing about for ages but they're actually starting to build factories), e-fuels (again long heralded but actually starting to move into commercial production), and various new electric planes, boats, charging technologies, energy storage mediums, and etc all of which will help increase the rate of adoption and help decrease carbon emissions.
New version of the Pigrow Windows Remote including the upgraded timelapse tab and some minor fixes (most in the camera tab)
I'll have a video coming soon showing how to use the new timelapse tools and write modules to stylise, analyse, select frames, etc.
https://github.com/Pragmatismo/pigrow_windows_remote/blob/master/test_guiWin_007.zip
You can copy your gui settings file and frompigrow folder to carry everything over. To make and play timelapse you'll need MPV installed - there's a script that does it on their website https://mpv.io/installation/
It doesn't currently have the overlay log feature as that will be added when the Graphing is (because it uses the same log loading mechanism).
As it's still too cold to paint or pour resin I still can't finish my growbox which means i'll probably have the user logs and graphs tabs ported into the new gui soon - also i'll be making a video explaining how to make tools for the timelapse tool.
Here's an example of one of the new analyse tools; https://imgur.com/a/UtOPgz4
it makes it very easy to see missing images, light level changes, etc. Depending on your computer it may take a long time with bigger image sets.
new graph too, https://imgur.com/a/uPmVQrT
it's showing seconds since the first image was taken, a smooth ramp means even spacing and any sudden steps suggest a missing period.
I'll be adding a few more upgrades and new tools, any suggestions or ideas i'd love to hear them.
Timelapse tool new feature; Clock Stylize - 24 Hours in a Single Image
I've almost finished porting the timelapse pnl over so there will be a new GUI release very soon, most of it is pretty much the same with improvements and a few sections are now modular so it's easy to drop in new scripts when required. This is the stylize timelapse tool which feeds the images through the selected python script to create a new image set, the stylize tools included to start with are mostly just to demonstrate how it works and look cool but i'd like to create some useful and informative ones also so anyone with any ideas for anything i'd love to hear.
notes on upgrades to the timelapse system (will be included in next test gui version)
Still fixing my water tank with layers of resin and stuff so don't have any space to work on the turbidity, pH sensor or anything but I'll get back to that as soon as my desk is cleared - hopefully be able to get the timelapse panel ported over while i wait for the resin and paint to set then there's only two more tabs and we can delete the old gui :)
oh that's an interesting one, maybe take some soil from both places, dry it out and weigh a set amount then add a measured quantity of water to calibrate them? i don't know if it would work but it's probably where i'd start experimenting.
Here's a video of it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHNsRzzsbZ4
The video talks about controlling the fans but the heater is essentially the same, if you just want to log data and see the graphs then all you need is a Pi Zero (or any pi model) connected to a BME280 (a few other temp/humid sensors are supported but the bme is cheap and reliable)
I use the Pigrow software i wrote (free and open source) which can do most the complex stuff for you and make a whole range of graphs to break it down in useful ways. If you want to try it then i'd be more than happy to help you through setting it up, and there are guides on the github wiki and a few videos with more coming soon on the youtube channel.
If you do put in a Pi then also consider getting a camera (picam or webcam), pigrow can help you capture and assemble timelapse video too, it's a great way of seeing your plants grow and react to events especially when paired with the graphs (you can overlay them so they sync up) - there's a whole load of other sensors supported too and options for setting up watering schedules and stuff but yeah a pi and a bme280 is all you need to measure temp and humidy.
Just a graph of my growbox heater maintaining the temperature overnight.
A cheap greenhouse bar heater connected to a relay controlled by a Pigrow, i've had this box (bluebox) set up the same for a few years but not in use for the last months - just turned it back on and happy to see it's still working as intended.
Did notice because the OS on the Raspberry Pi is so old that it's using a prior version of python that isn't compatible with a few of the scripts used by the new gui - it should be fairly easy to update it without affecting anything else, though if not i'll copy the config files and install a fresh Raspian (RasberryPi OS) then upload the config files back in place. No rush though it's doing it's job well.
Yeah that makes a lot of sense, personally I think a big part of the solution will have to be some form of community focused solution to end the culture of conspicuous consumerism and economic based social value - i don't think it's wrong to want good things or beautiful things but valuing something more because it's got a certain logo is absurd, even more so when you're valuing people simply based on which logo's they can afford. I fear when worker run cooperatives compete it'll still create that imperative to advertise and gain market edge which has caused so much of our twenty-first century woes.
My solution would have to involve a strong attack on not just copyright, patents and monopolies but on the very structure of our industrial economy. We need school and universities to be actively participating in community science and design projects to create verified and tested open source designs which can be fabricated locally anywhere in the world - it's a pretty radical idea really because it involves changing pretty how we do and think about pretty much everything but it's got a lot of positives.
Firstly it's basically how the PhD system was intended, you put all that effort into doing a bit of science and when you've done it they check it's ok and say 'yep, you're a real scientist now' and that science gets added to the public storehouse of knowledge for the benefit of all - we could extend that so the education system teaches and guides participation in community benefiting projects like citizen science and collaborative design -- for kids things like data gathering, group experiments, etc while university students are doing design work, materials testing, creating documentation, user guides, or other related media depending on specialisation. Projects will be worked on by community members in various ways, either as part of official efforts, community projects or individual work - basically the same model as social media, sometimes a random person goes viral for making something cool and sometimes a big company uses their budget to make good content.
The thing i always think about is washing machines because they're so painfully simple and yet when you look at the choices available in stores there's a crazy amount of totally meaningless choice - we ended up having to pick between one with 'sport' mode and one with 'sanitary' mode - presumably actually essentially the same thing but my why do they have these weird settings? because then they can have one with limited choices as the cheap one, then the next level up one that can do most the things you'll probably want and expensive ones that can do it all and have an app.. it's all just software settings, it doesn't cost them anything to have a mode that spins the drum for X seconds and runs the heater for X seconds - we could have a really simple design for a washing machine that's easy to fabricate and repair, an easy to flash microprocessor connected to controls so you can easily choose the modes you're likely to want and change your mind if the situation changes (for example you take up sports and require a longer soak and wash cycle or a new cleaning agent is developed which works better when used differently)
school kids could do supervised and documented tests to determine ideal washing conditions, it'd be a fun way to learn about science and how it relates to real-life plus they'd have more of a connection to the world they're part of, the washing machine wouldn't be a weird alien device from on high it'd be something they actually helped create - a wonderful feeling.
design students could participate in various design related challenges and projects such as creating custom displays and dial configurations, art students on making various options for making them look cool and beautiful - all passing work (i.e. work that meets the required criteria) is added to the general database of designs and options which people anywhere around the world can access when ordering an open source washing machine fabricated from their local small industrial firm, community run fablab, or to create with their own tools.
Again not saying this is the final or ideal solution but everyone should be used to having access to the very best, most efficient, and well designed things - if someone wants to show off then they should show off their good taste not their ability to outspend people without generational wealth. A community working together to design and create is always going to be better than a community battling itself.
I think about this a lot it's an interesting one, the current system of money is kinda crazy but the principle of having a token that can be used in trades is great.
Like @keepthepace said I can see it's significance diminish but not entirely vanish, if I want you to come and do the colour scheme for my living room then it's taking time from your life which i'd like to repay you but you might not need anything i know how to do -however personC might want something i can do and be able to do something you need - rather than having to work out every trade and find the people to agree we just use a token, that token is money.
The problem comes when you need that token to live and they're all in the hands of a greedy group of crazy people obsessed with having the most tokens - maybe we actually need more types of money not less, like maybe we should get land tokens that allow us to trade land but everyone gets a set amount and you can't just buy a thousand acres because your great-grandfather sold opium... Maybe even two types of money to buy food, a basic ration that affords for a complete and healthy diet of your choice plus a surplus coin which is earned by supplying the economy with foods or materials required (e.g. if you grow apples and supply them to the community pool you get 1 surplus token per kg but strawberries you get 1.3 st per kg due to local demand) these tokens can then only be spent on luxuries, rare items, and non-essential services.
I'm certainly not saying that's the system i propose or support simply that there's a lot more options and possibilities than we normally consider - maybe one land token gets you a small beach-front property or a huge bit of old farmland to restore, that gives everyone personal choice and helps manage demand with all sorts of interesting challenges - if you move onto a ruined plot of land and make it beautiful then you deserve more tokens than it cost you to get there but that opens of the possibility of someone purposely getting a rough bit of land, paying others to work on it using their excess surplus tokens then claiming the extra land tokens for themselves... and is that a bad thing or a good thing?
Thinking about things in obscure ways can really help to crystallise the interesting and important parts of something we're so used to thinking of in everyday terms, like what really is money and what is money supposed to be.
I know it doesn't look much like a growbox but my moss garden will be doing long-duration testing of as many water and air based sensors as i can fit in there
It's at a bit of an awkward stage to make content about at the moment because to finalize any part of it the other parts need to be at least vaguely in-place and tested, it is all coming together well though - minor a few disasters such as the leak i'm fixing today which soaked my carpet.
I have a video on the EC sensor coming soon, then turbidity (cloudiness), and pH. Any other ideas for water based sensors to test? Already done basic level sensors which work the same as switches.
Also going to be adding air quality sensors, maybe Co2 or something? I've experimented a couple of times but never been happy with any of the sensors i've tried so suggestions would be great,
The timelapse part of it is working really well which is nice, as i'll be using that part of the pigrow more i'll probably get round to porting that into the new pigrow gui with some upgrades - i am still working on upgrading and porting the user logs tab also, i think it's only graphs after that then we can discontinue the original gui and finalize the new improved one -- the graphs tab is going to require a lot of work to reorganise and improve especially with all the new datawall features, but i do want to get it done soon.
It's looking pretty scrappy at the moment but it's really starting to come together, i made that little switch and LED box to hold the bits I added in the last video and when i get the pigrow in a case with a ribbon cable between the GPIO and sensor breakout, controls, and relays it'll hopefully be fairly easy to replicate on other boxes i have planned - a desert garden, mushroom growbox, decay box, and various experimental boxes. (also i haven't forgotten about the windowsill one, that'll be upgraded and black in place soon hopefully. my working pigrows are still just doing their thing quietly, i check the night temp graphs occasionally but they mostly look after themselves, and now it's actually possible to get zeros again i'll put some together to go outside with some sensors and solenoid controlled watering (hopefully if the testing and setup in the moss garden testing box goes well i'll be able to have a sensor unit i can put into an outdoor water butt to monitor, maintain and dispense rain water)
unaffordable to poor people, annoying to the middle classes, utterly inconsequential to the rich. economically slavery was pretty good too, there's a lot more to making a good society than economics.
trying to price people out of living only affects those that already can't afford it, we need to be creating actual solutions at price points where they can gain widespread adoption.
yeh this is a really promising technology and it's not as far as most people seem to think from being widely adoptable, there are some great projects underway
The CCH2 [Carbon Capture and Hydrogen production from Biomass, Kew Technology] Project will develop designs for additional modules which will upgrade this gas to produce separate high-purity Hydrogen and CO2 streams. The hydrogen can be sold for industrial / transport applications and the CO2 sent for sequestration (20,000 tonnes per year per module). The strong revenues from the hydrogen enable overall very low costs per tonne of CO2 removed and the financing of sustainable biomass supply chains in a circular economy providing multiple environmental and societal benefits including new rural and industrial jobs.
basically you grow a load of plants (generally the excess biomass from crops and maintained spaces) and burn them (in this case through a gasification process that releases hydrogen also) the carbon which is released is then captured for storage or use, this can be especially useful when burning plants that have grown on toxic ground or polluted rivers as a way of absorbing all the bad stuff which is then trapped forever and returned to an old coalmine along with all the carbon that originally came from there.
another interesting project that just got funding is DRIVE;
Mission Zero has developed a new DAC technology that, at scale, is projected to have 75% lower costs and energy footprints than today’s commercial solutions and is suitable for both carbon utilisation and sequestration (CCUS) use cases. With engineering support from Optimus, the project will design Mission Zero’s 365 tons a year pilot plant in Phase 1. This will integrate with O.C.O Technology’s CCUS process which stores CO2 permanently while producing building aggregates from waste.
using the captured carbon to make useful materials like building aggregates makes it far more likely systems will get adopted, especially if they get to a price point where they're creating profitable items This is something a lot of people are working on
[Cambridge Carbon Capture Ltd] aims to deliver a fully costed plan for a demonstrator capable of capturing CO2 from air and converting it directly into a mineral by-product with uses as construction materials using CCC’s CO2LOC carbon capture and mineralisation technology.
Another really cool use of captured carbon has recently passed a loads of tests from the US Air Force who've worked with a company called Twelve on a project to create a viable jet fuel from CO2,
E-Jet fuel is SAF produced using Twelve’s revolutionary carbon transformation technology, which uses only renewable energy and water to transform CO2 into critical chemicals, materials and fuels conventionally made from fossil fuels, and in partnership with Emerging Fuels Technology. As a power-to-liquid SAF with up to 90% lower lifecycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared to conventional, petroleum-based jet fuel, E-Jet fuel meets the applicable ASTM International specifications and is a drop-in ready synthetic fuel that works seamlessly with existing aircraft and airport infrastructure. It faces no real constraints on feedstock, thus offering the best viable long-term solution for addressing GHG and other emissions from the aviation sector.
the test facility they're currently building isn't going to produce much but it's a huge first step on the way to industrialisation of the technology,
The facility is expected to begin E-Jet fuel production in mid-2024 at a capacity of approximately five barrels per day (40,000 gallons per year), with plans to quickly increase production capacity.
that's only about 0.00007% of the Jet Fuel used per year, but if they refine the system and make one which can be built at any airport using power from onsite renewables then it's likely we'd see a very rapid adoption.
yes they do that in some facilities, it's called sewer discharge and can be quiet effective in a well monitored and designed system, surface water discharge uses a similar method of dribbling brine into the water as part of a system that uses ocean currents and tides to disperse the brine back into the ocean.
While brine return is a complicated and important step it's really not some major ecosystem destroying problem in any of the modern installs - it's just important to model and monitor the system, the same way sewage systems find a location where currents carry stuff away and allow it to disperse brine return systems do, with brine it's just stuff that belongs in the ocean anyway so it all mixes back in fairly quickly.
A lot of people seem to like to learn the difficulties involved in a new tech and then just use negative thinking to exaggerate it into a reason the tech will never be useful even after decades of improvement and investment. There are huge projects around the world which have done really positive things for local ecosystems, they're even refilling the sea of galilee after decades of over extraction and allowing groundwater levels to restore.
New version of the Pi released, pigrow should work fine with it, we don't really need any of the extra performance so i still prefer the 3 and Zero for their lower cost and power usage.
There are a couple of cool features that i'll be testing out at some point, they now have two dual use camera and display ports which will make it much easier to make a camera that measures photosynthesis (using a regular and IR camera next to each other) - you might have seen be doing this before using two zeros which worked but was awkward, this should make it much easier and maybe we can film a spring timelapse of a landscape changing.
the new PCIe access is likely to bring some interesting new additions to the Pi ecosystem, while a lot of focus is likely to be on crypto we'll no doubt see a lot of GPU/Compute modules tailed to AI which might be fun to play with plus some of the performance upgrades already help that a lot which hopefully will allow us to start building some interesting Computer Vision tools into the pigrow, maybe even experiment with some robotics control if and when cheap and useful tools make that fun.
I can't see any fundamental changes which will require changes to the Pigrow, i assume the new dual cam ports will work with the new libcam tools so that shouldn't be a problem but of course until i'm able to test it i won't be able to say for sure and as it's expensive i doubt i'll purchase one until i have a justified use case (probably the stereo camera)
Pigrow Development News: currently filming testing and set up of water sensors for sagemoss testbox, will be making a datawall script for that and checking through everything for improvements in how it handles a cycling water system (as used in hydro grows) so hopefully that video will be out soon and close followed by others finalizing my sagemos testbox.
'previous waves of digital tech were used to deskill workers and defang smaller companies' just isn't even close to true, it's far easier to access learning resources, tools, and a final market for your product or skills than it ever has been.
I hate when people look back and say things like 'technology took away jobs' when the reality is it's what ended the brutal privation and poverty as described in works like Jude the Obscure and Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - imagine how different Jude or Robert Tressell's lives would have been with access to the educational and community organisation resources we all take for granted. Neither of those people had the slightest chance to reach their potential and that was the reality of working class life in those eras, today we all have free access to almost endless learning resources on any subject - we have for many things the tools freely available or at cost thanks to open source; coding, digital art, writing, publishing, film-making... If Joel Haver had been born Robert Tressell or Jude the Obscure then he'd certainly have never made a movie (anachronism aside) but today he and a million other normal people from average lives are able to create art and express themselves freely.
If anything tech has given fangs to little companies and independent creators, i've watched more Joel Haver movies than Marvel movies - one guy and his friends using hobby grade gear, home computers and a lot of passion is enough to make something that people all over the world can enjoy - tech has been fantastic for creators.
and when creators are able to use AI tools to make that even easier and to increase the scope of their creations it'll be the big companies that suffer not the small creative groups full of passion, ideas and strong connection to the world they live in.
yeah, i really hope we see better systems emerge for using energy at peek times or sharing power locally so that we can start moving away from the grid.
would be a great place to cook, and to relax while other people cook. love the kitchen garden in the kitchen.
A dual-use solar and agricultural site in New York will add 2 MW of solar capacity while retaining active market crop production.
love the move away from just seeing the choice for land use as solar or agriculture when it can be both, using the infrastructure of power generation to help protect growing plants could really help increase productivity for a small-holding especially when things like watering systems are tied into the PV infrastructure and we finally get round to taking advantage of roof space on things like barns.
I've seen some cool pictures of farms in arid regions using solar panels above irrigation to reduce evaporation too, i think solar mixed into where it's other properties are useful or where it's a good fit looks and works so much better than the neat rows of solar farms.
thanks, i'll check who's doing their social media at the moment and reach out
would be a real shame to see Open Source Ecology go, it's a great project - would be happy to help by removing spam and keeping an eye on things, i'm not affiliated with them but could post any news updates i see and possibly reach out to Marcin to see if anyone on the team wants to take an active role.
That's really cool, would be a really impressive thing to see in operation.
Love the write up too, like the idea of it working at a different pace - maybe it's designed in a way that it's got a section that's filled up with broken and sorted scrap that feeds in whenever it's hot enough to run - that way most the work would likely be done on cloudy days, after it's run for a few days they come in and refill the giant hoppers with scrap and when that's done they go take all the bars or forms it's made - probably like one of those huge industrial ones that have the conveyor belt of moulds that get filled then roll along something just long enough that they're cool enough to dump out when it gets to the end and inverts dropping it into a huge pile as the mold goes round to get refilled.
and yaeh totally agree about the street cars, something i really love about solar punk is that thing of using whatever works for a locality rather than the current global trend of one-size fits all. It would be great being able to travel and actually see different things again, like nearer the equator you'll see more sun based stuff and up here at 50N we'll have some mostly associated with summer activities and a lot more wind power, in arid regions they'll prefer processes that don't require or can't tolerate much water where as here we'll build under the assumption that for most the year eveything's damp. it certainly would be a more interesting world. I think localized industry is the key, especially a model when things are designed on a global scale through open source collaboration but selected and assembled locally to fit with the culture, tastes, requirements and available resources of the area.
i've been learning about different types of solar concentrators, has anyone tried anything like this for solar thermal?
I've been chatting to another user on here (https://slrpnk.net/u/JacobCoffinWrites who does the cool photobash images of solarpunk scenes) and it really got me thinking about solar concentrators so i went on a bit of a binge learning about them, there are so many really cool designs and so many things a source of heat like that can be used for.
One idea i especially like is using it to power absorption refrigeration (like off-grid gas powered refrigerators use) so when the sun is hot you can focus it's power and use it to cool your house -- then when it's starting to get cooler switch it to heating, ideally heating a medium which will retain the heat so you can distribute it through the night. For agricultural use it could heat greenhouses and drying rooms, industrially there's an endless amount of possibilities. Even recreationally it could be great, cutting out the cost of heating a pool or hot tub - could really make some off-grid luxury.
A great youtube channel with various diy examples is Sergiy Yurko, who's still managing to make great videos despite living in Ukraine - https://www.youtube.com/@sergiyyurko8668/videos
and https://www.youtube.com/@GREENPOWERSCIENCE/videos has some really cool videos too, like demonstrating using a fresnal lens to melt metal
Possible Paths to a Better Future - A.I. At the Seaside
I made a video about various future uses of technology we might see beside the seaside, would love to hear peoples opinions - it's more A.I. and automation focused than solarpunk but most of the technologies kinda fit here.
ideas wanted for new feature -- grow progress and comparison display
I'm trying to design a feature i've wanted for a while, it tracks the progress of your grow to make it easy to see things like 'these said they take 12 weeks from flower to finishing, yours have been in 13 weeks now..' as well as compare them to prior grows and get info like 'you've grown these seeds 6 times and with the new lights it's growing much faster' or 'this variety is growing faster than any other you've tried but the yield is lower' as well as things like 'grows where the temperature dipped below 10C took 12% longer on average to flower' (all those are random numbers btw).
I'd like to have it so the log and gui tools are generated based on a template file, there'd be an online repo which you can select templates from or upload your own to for others to use, hopefully we'd get a good selection of useful options that way and it could be great for doing citizen science community projects like all recording the same log info then comparing at the end.
Here's how i see it working for users;
User presses a button to start a new plant log, they select a template based on the plant type (preloaded, downloaded or custom) this loads a blank form with the initial questions ready to be filled in (appropriate type for the field - dropdown, date picker, text input, check boxes).
When the initial information is input the program generates a simple graphic display showing progress, as time progresses the user reports events (either through the GUI, messaging apps, or etc) which get added to the log and displayed in the graphic - also optionally included is log information from the growbox, high-low temps, humidity, soil moisture level, watering times, etc.
There will also be optional features to have periodic visual inspections, it will message the user through the selected means (in app notifications, push notifications, message to reddit/lemmy user, LED activation, etc) the user will then input the required information - for example; leaf / node count, height, general health / appearance, etc. This allows creation of more interesting data-points to graph and can hopefully be integrated with tools like CV node counting at a future date. The idea is to log things which can help compare future grows of the same seed type or to compare variants.
When the grow is complete the user will select the option to end grow (selecting if it was harvested, moved, failed optionally selection a rating) the data is packaged with other appropriate data and stored. When the user starts the same type of grow again they will be able to show comparisons with other grows - e.g. drawing out markers when prior grows were switched to flower and how long after that until they were harvested. This should make it much easier to notice what negatively and positively affects growing, what certain traits are associated with and seeing how new equipment (especially lights) changes the growth rate and yield.
example ------------
Plant log
plant type : Cannabis - photoperiod (name of the form preset used) plant name / ID : sum23cheese1 (unique plant identifier, default suggestion is autogen from date, type and numeric) seed origin : named seedbank seed type : the strain name, feminised notes: a text string used to put any info about the plant worth noting, copy paste of seed blurb or important details
grow medium : soil
expected growth duration : seed - 1-2 weeks veg - 2 months flower - 2 months
seed planting date : 14th June 2023
stuff logged through duration --
date transfer into current box : [cultivation, veg, flower]
prune log : date + what was done [trim, top, tie] + notes
date light duration change : aug302023 - 12:12 new ratio (on:off)
observation log : [problem noticed [bugs, discolouration, mold], new features [first true leaves, first flowers]
user measured : [every week] height = 45cm
harvested date : [date of actual harvest] opinion based rating : 7/10 final plant weight : optional dried yield weight : optional
pigrow dev update - nothing new but lots coming soon.
As normal I've not been doing much coding during june-july as the weather is nice out, i have been working on other stuff related to the project though (as well as maintaining my own mental well being and motivation by enjoying nature which is something i think is very important for everyone). I'll have my high-humidity box (sagemoss) fully operational soon which will serve as a space to test operation of a range of water based sensors and various monitoring tools such as datawalls and etc while i'm focusing on improving their implementation - i've also been investigating options for running a small private ActivityPub server of some description (lemmy or mastodon likely) on the pi which could open up lots of interesting possibilities - such as replacing the old reddit message bot which could control some features on the pigrow and send alerts.
Great news for the project is the raspberry pi shortage does seem to have come to an end so check out https://rpilocator.com/ and you'll probably be able to find an official retailer in your area that has stock - it means i've finally got some pi's that i can build into projects without having to constantly rebuild to test other things so hopefully i'll be able to make all the projects i've got planned and do longer term testing, as well as various water sensors and tools i've already started designing and getting the pieces together for my outdoor solar-powered build (a continuation of the solar panel monitoring one from before using Hall-effect sensors) so i'll make a video about that after I make one about getting sagemoss running. (oh and i haven't forgotten about my windowcill one, i'll get that put back in place soon and update on that)
I'm also starting to try and design a system for allowing everyone to work together on the various stages of design and development for new features, i'd love to be able to work as a community on designing things by identifying areas needing testing, designing test processes to get the relevant information and working out the best ways to implement it.
I will also have a load of new code features i'll be adding into the pigrow soon, mostly focusing on ease of use and ease of access.
A list of some of my favourite free audiobooks, mostly somewhat socialist or utopian themed from the Victorian era
Not really solar-punk themed as they're a bit too historical but hopefully close enough in theme to be interesting to people here, librivox is great resource and a great example of what can be achieved when people work together.
http://librivox.org/noli-me-tangere-by-jose-rizal/ -- Truly brilliant and beautiful work by the revolutionary hero of the Philippines, largely speaking against the colonialist priests of the catholic church and the inequity of the system imposed on the people; wonderful and rich story with great characterisation and seriously good asides about life, politic and the world.
https://librivox.org/the-ragged-trousered-philanthropists-by-robert-tressell/ -- Written by a jobbing painter, this gritty tale of the life of a working man in Victorian England is powerful both for it's prose and passion, sad as it is inspiring this work is a must read for anyone interesting in the history of labour and working class sentiment.
https://librivox.org/a-dolls-house-by-henrik-ibsen/ - One of Ibsen's many fantastic plays, in this Nora realises she isn't a song bird and dances a tarantella wile delivering some wonderfully powerful lines to a great collection of characters. Also check out Peer Quint it's probably one of the best plays ever written, also it's soundtrack by Grieg is brilliant.
https://librivox.org/hard-times-by-charles-dickens/ -- a classic which shouldn't be overlooked simply for being so popular, if you didn't study it in school then certainly give it a listen, a vital work of English literature from one of the great progressive fathers of English Reform. In it Dickens introduces us to the many hardships, problems and inequities of life in Victorian England.
https://librivox.org/les-miserables-vol-1-by-victor-hugo/ - Brilliant novel, considered one of the 19th centuries best 'Beginning in 1815 and culminating in the 1832 June Rebellion in Paris, the novel follows the lives and interactions of several characters, particularly the struggles of ex-convict Jean Valjean and his experience of redemption.'
https://librivox.org/king-coal-by-upton-sinclair/ -- Sinclair expresses his socialist viewpoints from the perspective of a single protagonist, Hal Warner, caught up in the schemes and plots of the oppressive American capitalist system. The book itself is based on the 1914-1915 Colorado coal strikes.
https://librivox.org/news-from-nowhere-by-william-morris/ - 'News from Nowhere (1890) is a classic work combining utopian socialism and soft science fiction written by the artist, designer and socialist pioneer William Morris.'
https://librivox.org/looking-backward-2000-1887-by-edward-bellamy/ - Fascinating time-travel story about a guy who moves forward to the year two thousand to find a utopia, kinda a disheartening read in 2015...
https://librivox.org/the-woodlanders-by-thomas-hardy-2/ -- [also his other works like Jude the Obscure] A powerful assault on the class structure and sentiment of the day, set in the semi-fictional Wessex it shows how sticking with 'the system' does nobody any favours, it's not a fair or sensible system at all. (this version read by Tadhg is really beautifully read)
https://librivox.org/the-iron-heel-by-jack-london/ - 'A dystopian novel about the terrible oppressions of an American oligarchy at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, and the struggles of a socialist revolutionary movement.'
https://librivox.org/the-jungle-by-upton-sinclair/ - 'Sinclair wrote the novel to portray the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in the United States in Chicago and similar industrialized cities. However, most readers were more concerned with his exposure of health violations and unsanitary practices in the American meatpacking industry during the early 20th century, based on an investigation he did for a socialist newspaper.'
https://librivox.org/moving-the-mountain-by-charlotte-perkins-gilman/ - 'Moving the Mountain is a feminist utopian novel' 'first volume in Gilman's utopian trilogy; it was followed by the famous Herland (1915) and its sequel, With Her in Ourland (1916)'
Elizabeth Gaskell - https://librivox.org/author/410 - 'Often referred to simply as Mrs Gaskell, was a British novelist and short story writer during the Victorian era. Her novels offer a detailed portrait of the lives of many strata of society, including the very poor, and are of interest to social historians as well as lovers of literature.'
George Bernard Shaw - https://librivox.org/author/603 - 'Irish playwright, essayist, novelist and short story writer. Nearly all his writings address prevailing social problems, but have a vein of comedy which makes their stark themes more palatable.'
Oscar Wilde - https://librivox.org/author/114 - Fantastic and funny playwright and wit of the late nineteenth century, wrote many dramas tackling social issues and class.
https://librivox.org/siddhartha-by-hermann-hesse/ "Siddhartha is one of the great philosophical novels. Profoundly insightful, it is also a beautifully written story that begins as Siddhartha, son of an Indian Brahman, leaves his family and begins a lifelong journey towards Enlightenment. On the way he faces the entire range of human experience and emotion:"