Okay, maybe the blimp was a poor choice (though excellent to curb your roomate’s excessive chatting, provided you live in a mansion or treehouse. A much better example of what’s available on makezine is this DIY household flood alarm, which texts or emails you when water levels reach too high. Cool, eh?
After a few requests for group emails regarding Central America, I’ve finally ceased to be communicatively lazy. So, for those interested, here’s a quick update.
After a brief visit to SE Arizona for Corina & Dave’s extremely aerobic wedding and some tramping into the desert, I headed down to Guatemala City late last month with Heather. Since then, we’ve been through several of the main tourist cities in Guatemala and S. Mexico (in Chiapas), doing normal western tourist things, like over-eating-out, looking at old things/places, and walking accidently down streets of questionable character which may contain large(r) men (than me) who may have lots of guns, jerry-curls and motor-scooters and maybe power/drugs/money.
Some of the highlights include:
Some of the definite downsides:
Soon, language school and a new passport. Next time, a better plan to not get stuck in the regular gringo route, which is fun, but unproductive to maybe for everyone but a few.
Also you should check makezine.com has lots of funky DIY projects of all types (some of them are even useful) and especially their rad forums. My favorites here are the Altoids iPod speaker, rare-earth LEDs for illuminating the metal object of your choice, and a gigantic semi-intelligent helium blimp that is attracted to EM waves (i.e. cell phones), how cool and annoying!
We’ve always known that it’s true, but it’s nice to see that other people are acknowledging the preëminence of Vermont in US politics.
When atmospheric CO2 concentrations go up, we all can agree that global mean temperature will go up. We might debate why CO2 concentrations are changing, and we also might wonder how this will might matter for things living on this planet. One clear answer: the crop we grow will be give us less nutrition.
Plant physiologists have known for a long time that plants generally grow much better high-CO2 environments, getting taller and reproducing eariler. CO2 is the basic ingredient of all plant material, thanks to the magic of photosynthesis. But in these enriched environments, plants are just adding carbon (the C) without adding much else — like nitrogen (N). So the ratio of C to N goes way, way up. For food, we care a lot more about the N than the C, since that’s the protein we’re looking for.
That’s the general notion. But it’s really just a hypothesis about how things might work — where’s the evidence? Three scientists in Texas have just now put together all the individual studies looking for answers to these questions, and find a powerful, consistent pattern of reduced protein in the edible bits of all crops which have been tested. That goes for kernals of corn, ears of barle, and grains of rice. Read all about it here.
So: if you ever hear some punditry about how more CO2 is actually good for agriculture, now you’ll be prepared!
a few days ago, I biked from selma to montgomery, following almost exactly Martin Luther King’s historical march back in 1965. going from one civil rights landmark to another in the space of a day was many things: an exciting ride (recreating a four-day march in four hours!), a somber reminder of how close this country is to its history, and an uplifting supplement to Obama’s victory in Iowa.
I reached a trip-high 100 miles not too far into Georgia that day, enjoying the rolling hills and well-marked bike lanes on state highway 96. The good times did not last: I got a flat at dusk and broke my only tire lever – a dinky piece of plastic that is essential for removing the tire from the metal rim of the wheel in order to access and repair the damaged rubber tube underneath.
Hitchhiking was quick and easy. No sooner had one car stopped than four more did as well. I was happy to see such a great display of kindness, until I learned that all were concerned for my safety in this corner of Georgia. Spent the night in a motel up the road run by a former Marine, and learned the ins and outs of rural Georgia. Crooked politicians, lumber interests, crack dealers… real eye opening.
With a ride to and from Walmart I was able to fix the bike on a Sunday, not a small feat in the bible belt. Poured it on for the next two days and reached Savannah, GA last night at around 7:30. New record (for me): 130 miles in a day.
So now, having covered ~700 miles in 9 days, I’m thinking of calling it quits. I have to be in DC next Wednesday, and the forecasted rain up and down the south Atlantic coast probably won’t help. But as usual I haven’t made up my mind…
I think the question is; what would College Bowl National Championship winning quarterback Matt Flynn do?
I think maybe this article sums up my trip pretty well, metaphorically speaking – although this one deserves special mention because of the lede: “Matt Flynn has a lot going for him these days, including being tabbed as a look-alike for People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive.”
what can I say
thats what a construction worker yelled to me yesterday.
a road clean up crew guy just told me this today: “go git some”. that was my mantra for the measly 50 miles I covered from Demopolis, AL. Go git it! Go on, git some!
But then I called it quits to stave off frostbite in the feet, and to do some site-seeing.
I’m in Selma, AL. It’s been slow going, getting all the kinks worked out and trying to adjust to sub-freezing temperatures. Apparently it’ll be 70 this weekend, which is more what I had expected.
Off to visit the National Voting Rights Museum, very apropos today.
Hope ya’ll are staying warm.