solbear

joined 2 years ago
[–] solbear@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 month ago

Nice - I am about to repot my tomato seedlings now as well. I have planted Garderner's Delight, Venus and Ildi this year.

[–] solbear@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 month ago

Hehe, now there are three different suggestions for a gravity-feed system, so I will need to take a closer look at how I could set that up!

Thank you (and to the other suggestors)! :)

[–] solbear@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 month ago

Oh, I were not aware of these. I'll have to check my soil mixture to see if they contain any, and at least be on the lookout when getting new bags. Thanks :)

[–] solbear@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I don't have a water outlet on my balcony, and I wouldn't want the noise associated with a water pump running. But I have been wanting to add moisture sensors later, and if I could find some other way to regulate water flow in, I could use that to control it.

[–] solbear@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

It's a balcony setup without a water outlet, so this is unfortunately not possible.

[–] solbear@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 month ago

The way I designed the baskets in the end was to have holes to allow water to seep in only at the very bottom of the baskets. That way I can still make use of the entire reservoir, but reduce the amount of water that is in contact with the wicking material. This was a change from my initial design that had holes along the whole basket. This approach did reduce the overall moisture I believe (I mean, it should right?), but since it was later in the growing season with higher temperatures, I couldn't judge the effect very accurately.

I have tried to think up some way that would allow me to completely close of the water from the wicking material and reopen after it had dried out, but so far I've not had any luck with this.

 

Last year I experimented with a self-watering system for some containers to grow primarily salads and potentially some herbs. They are placed in a way that makes watering a bit cumbersome, and I am typically gone for days at the time during Summer, so that such a setup is very useful to me. It consists of two containers: a top container containing a soil mix and a bottom container filled with water. From the top container, I have a couple of baskets filled with perlite dipping into the water that wick moisture up into the soil mix (I originally used soil for this, which ended up with some nice mold growth :) ).

This worked reasonably well, and I had some good harvests of arugula and some regular green salads. But I found the moisture level of the soil becoming too high, especially towards the end of the season when the Sun and temperature were not as aggressively evaporating the water.

The soil mixture I used then was a general purpose plant mix mixed with perlite. I was planning on adding even more perlite this year as an attempt to lower the average moisture level, or simply go down to the beach to get some coarse sand and mix that in instead.

Any other things I should consider?

[–] solbear@slrpnk.net 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

kWh. kW is a unit for power, kWh is a unit for energy (power of 1 kW delivered constantly for 1 hour). Power ratings for batteries are a thing as well, so best not to confuse them.

[–] solbear@slrpnk.net 7 points 6 months ago

If only traffic congestion could be solved by having fewer people rely on driving... oh well.

[–] solbear@slrpnk.net 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So not just sales, but the actual use of them? I've only ever been to Hanoi once many years ago, but there was an enormous amount of gasoline-powered motorcycles there then that would need replacement. I guess their domestic Vinfast brand will see a surge in sales in anticipation of this legislation, but the transition might even be well on its way?

[–] solbear@slrpnk.net 1 points 11 months ago

There's a mismatch between the link and the title. Nothing about Paxster in the article.

[–] solbear@slrpnk.net 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But adding a new language will just make it even more inefficent.

The idea being that eventually (though that would need to be far in the future) you would not need to translate as it is a common language among all member states.

Why not just use English which is already well established and even widley known amongst most European citizens.

Because it is a difficult language to master and it puts many non-native speakers at a disadvantage. As pointed out above, there are only two countries who do speak English natively now, but depending on your native language, some citizens still have an substantial easier time learning English.

[–] solbear@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hehe, I get that. However, if adopted properly, it would be a practical language skill, as it would be a language officially in use. Besides, if those studies described above are to be trusted (not sure if they are), it would facilitate additional language learning. But that argument is what you are getting at with your comment on Latin?

 

While English is still the de facto lingua franca, with the US burning bridges to Europe like there's no tomorrow, and the UK having left the EU, should they adopt an easy-to-learn auxillary language?

I'm thinking of an language like Esperanto, but not necessarily that. I was intrigued by Esperanto and went through the course on lernu.net and found it easy to pick up (though I am by no means fluent yet). While it is constructed, it was developed without any modern linguistic knowledge, so another option could be to construct a new language for this purpose, or adopt another already developed language that would serve the purpose better (I don't have an overview of what is out there).

I know there are several official languages already, but I imagine that leads to a lot of overhead. An auxillary language could make communication easier, and make it easier for citizens of any member state to participate in the Union, and would to some extent remove any power asymmetry resulting from native mastery of a language.

Good idea? Poor idea? Why? Why not?

 

There's so much so-called "news", but most of it is just noise. In this situation, it seems easiest to either A) get consumed by it, trying to follow everything and reading every "he said what?"-piece posted or B) become more or less apathetic and avoid news altogether.

To be able to make proper choices and help move things in the right direction, B) is not an option, as you need to understand current events to at least a minimal level, but A) leaves you just as clueless, overflowing with useless information, with a heavily worn-down ability to be source critical, not remembering where you read any given "fact".

So how do you keep up to date with current events? Have you found a good way? Am I mistaken in my above assessment?

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