Communal Living 2014

What with recent graduates and young families in need of financial help moving back in with parents, and many sharing apartments to help with expenses, the concept of communal is becoming attractive again.  In the U.S. communes were big in the '60s and '70s, but fell out of favor.  The article on communes at Wikipedia notes:

Andrew Jacobs of The New York Times wrote that, contrary to popular misconceptions, "most communes of the '90s are not free-love refuges for flower children, but well-ordered, financially solvent cooperatives where pragmatics, not psychedelics, rule the day." There are many contemporary intentional communities all over the world, a list of which can be found at the Fellowship for Intentional Community (FIC).

Huffington Post has a section on Communal Living.  The video below was found there.

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BBC's article, "Living the communal life," gives some interesting insights into why people decide to share their living space.

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Living the communal life, BBC (Julius Schrank/www.juliusschrank.de)

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This Washington Post article also has some good insights:  A new generation of 'Golden Girls'. And this thread at Reddit caught my attention: Want to live in eco-village/hippie commune.. help!

Lisa Law's history the '60s counterculture and  of communal living at Smithsonian's site gives a detailed account of how and why they lived on that frontier.

-- Marge

Cartoons: keep flapping

No theme today, just some funny and apt glimpses into life and the news...

I can sympathize with Bush calling for the TV controller, but that's about it.

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Chan Lowe, US News

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Cartoonist Sheneman's depicting an IRS operative as a medieval executioner has a ring to it.

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Drew Sheneman, US News

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In keeping with the fairy-tale aspects of the IRS investigation--

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Chip Bok, The Week

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And finally, don't we all have to just keep flapping at times?

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Jack Ohman, US News

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--Marge

DIY: Living minimal

Eloise Ghioni, Third Skin (Paper)

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In his beautiful post, "5 Life-Giving Truths From 5 Years of Living with Less," Joshua Becker quotes C.S. Lewis:

The process of living seems to consist in coming to realize truths so ancient and simple that, if stated, they sound like barren platitudes.

The comments are well worth reading, too.

Minimal or simple living isn't new. Nor is it necessarily asceticism. But it is refusing to let your possessions and desire for new possessions to take control. In a world where we are constantly barraged by advertising and calls to action, it's becoming more and more important to step back and reclaim the freedom to just be and to see what we want to become or do.

Here's a collection of articles about minimal living. At WikiHow there's  "How to Live Like a Minimalist" (in 13 illustrated steps). The blog Simple and Minimal offers a list of books on the topic.  The BBC has an article titled "The joy of living with less," which quotes author Francine Jay:

A minimalist lifestyle entails being mindful about the things we own, the things we buy, and how we spend our time.

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Deborah DeWit, before time

-- Marge

Civil disobedience to terrorism

In today's social vocabulary the term radicalized is usually applied to an individual or group embracing Islamic terrorism.

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upstateNYer, The Machine Stops, Wikipedia

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But in a world increasingly out-of-balance, economically and politically, the instances of a person or group being wounded by the 'system,' whichever system it is, mount in number.  A recent attempt to speak out in the form of Occupy was summarily dismissed by local authorities, sometimes by unnecessary measures.

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Defining civil disobedience becomes a philosophical exercise.  Quoting the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

The term ‘civil disobedience’ was coined by Henry David Thoreau in his 1848 essay to describe his refusal to pay the state poll tax implemented by the American government to prosecute a war in Mexico and to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law. In his essay, Thoreau observes that only a very few people – heroes, martyrs, patriots, reformers in the best sense – serve their society with their consciences, and so necessarily resist society for the most part, and are commonly treated by it as enemies. Thoreau, for his part, spent time in jail for his protest. Many after him have proudly identified their protests as acts of civil disobedience and have been treated by their societies – sometimes temporarily, sometimes indefinitely – as its enemies.

The Civil Rights Movement and protests against the Vietnam War were acts of civil disobedience.  The assassination of Martin Luther King and Kent State Shootings are examples of what can happen when wronged or dissident groups speak up in America.  The article Domestic Terrorism in America During the 1960s and 1970s gives a succinct history dissent during that periond of history.  Pop History Dig has a page devoted to the reaction to the Kent State Shootings.

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John Paul Filo, Kent State massacre, ©Valley News-Dispatch

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One thing is clear: open protests simply cause a war-like reaction from those in power. Members of the 99% who recognize the threats inherent in the growing economic gap in so-called first world countries, realize that your strength is in numbers and the 1% cannot survive without your economic support.

 -- Marge

Cartoons: Carry a big Sharpie

Among the perpetual reports of unwelcome news: Iraq is back again. For extensive coverage, check out NBC's "Iraq Turmoil" page. As you have probably heard, ISIS is the new enemy. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross' article "Why Iraq's jihadists just keep on coming back meaner" is a good read on the topic.

Today's political cartoons aren't particularly funny (my apologies), but they do offer some good insights.

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Dana Summers, US News

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John Cole, The Week

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Walt Handelsman, The Week

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-- Marge

DIY: a nuclear fusion reactor

Now this DIY project is worthy of an X Prize competition.

You may think such a project is outside possible for regular folks; but in June, 2013, the Russian magazine RIA Novosti reported that "Fifteen high school students in the world have built nuclear fusion reactors." The Russian article was describing Conrad Farnsworth's build (video below).  Other teen builders are Jamie Edwards and Taylor Wilson.

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For some background on fusion here's a page at NextEra Energy Resources with simple explanations (I like simple). According to Wikipedia, "A fusor is a device that uses an electric field to heat ions to conditions suitable for nuclear fusion."

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You can find instructions for building a fusion reactor at Instructables.  Note that there are a number of safety warnings.

For continuing information on the current state of nuclear power, sign up at World Nuclear News. And this is an interesting piece of information: "Lockheed Martin announces compact Fusion Reactor plans."

 -- Marge

Monday Blues

It's Monday and back to the grind.  If you're feeling not-so-good about the weekend being over, you're not alone...

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Unknown, Cheezburger

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Memeguy

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Catasters

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Foller

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theblondekid

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-- Marge

Cartoons: the genie out of the bottle

Gary Varvel, The Week

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The news this week may appear to be about Eric Cantor, House Majority Leader, losing the Virginia primary to a Tea Party candidate, but it's really about what voters will tolerate.  In the Washington Post's Opinion Section E.J. Dionne says:

We’ll never know whether Cantor would have done better if he had held steady on the subject [of immigration reform]. What we do know is that sending out campaign literature bragging about a news story that declared him “the No. 1 guy standing between the American people and immigration reform” did nothing to placate or persuade those who were out to defeat him.

Dionne's article is an excellent look at Republicans, the Tea Party, and the effectiveness of Republican attack ads, presumably backed by Big Money Republicans.

I don't know about you, but to me the Tea Party has become scary. They seemed innocent enough when they started out and their goals looked good, then they shut down the U.S. government and gloated about it.

At least the cartoonists can still evoke a laugh.

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Adam Zyglis, The Week

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Steve Sack, The Week

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Michael Ramirez, US News

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R J Matson, The Week

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Interesting that in this last cartoon Google takes on the role of Supreme Manipulator.

-- Marge

DIY: earth homes

Mankind has been building with earthen materials for ages.  Think adobe, brick, turf, and rock.  Earth houses take a number of forms--above ground, below ground, embedded in an embankment, and so on.  Building materials range from bagged dirt to old tires, concrete to fiberglass composites. 

To get an idea of the organic beauty that can be achieved in building underground, take a look at the article "Beautiful Swiss House is Buried Under the Earth," published by Inhabitat.

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Underground home, Vals, Switzerland, Inhabitat

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The house pictured above is part of a complex designed by Vetsch Architektur.  More about the complex and more images can be found in "Unconventional Earth Homes in Switzerland."  Construction details can be found at Greenroofs.

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Unconventional earth homes in Switzerland, inthralld

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If you prefer to build above ground, here's information about a Superadobe earth home. Cal-Earth (California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture) describes the building process in detail.  It is reported to be low-cost.  Below is the interior of a home built with Superadobe.

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Superadobe earth home interior, Busyboo

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Terminology for underground homes includes earth-sheltered, earth-bermed, earth-covered, earth-bunded,  and subterranean. Prefabricated components for an earth-sheltered house are available, such as the ones manufactured by Colfibrex.

Dragonfly Hill is a blog that chronicles building an earth-sheltered home. Below Michael G. Smith describes his craft--building above ground with earth and straw.

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Since there are no step-by-step project instructions (that I can find) available for underground homes, just notes on what you should keep in mind, I urge you to look at my earth homes playlist.

 -- Marge

Eugene Goostman, the chatbot

Eugene Goostman, PrincetonAI

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Gizmag reports, "Eugene Goostman chatbot passes Turing Test." O.K.  Why does a chatbot have a full name and how did it pass such an important-sounding test?  Here's more on the Turing test.

The entry for Eugene in Wikipedia says:

Eugene Goostman is an artificial intelligence chatterbot. First developed by a group of three programmers; the Russian-born Vladimir Veselov, Ukranian-born Eugene Demchenko, and Russian-born Sergey Ulasen in Saint Petersburg in 2001, Goostman is portrayed as a 13-year old Ukranian boy in an effort to make his personality and knowledge level believable to users.

Time Magazine has published an "Interview with Eugene Goostman," in which the author notes:

Chatbot Eugene Goostman supposedly passed the legendary Turing Test on Sunday, tricking 33% of a panel of judges into believing he was a real boy during the course of a five-minute chat conversation.

The milestone conveniently occurred 60 years to the day after Alan Turing passed away; Turing bet that by the year 2000, computers would be intelligent enough to trick humans into thinking they were real 30% of the time.

You can talk with Eugene yourself by surfing to his homepage at Princeton ai (Artificial Intelligence).

Searching on 'artificial virtual assistant', you'll find a number of companies that offer their services.  IKEA features one, Ask Anna, on its Customer Service Contact Center page.

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Anna, Automated Online Assistant, IKEA

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-- Marge

Cartoons: Canary in a coal mine

Drew Sheneman, The Week

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Big news this week is Big Coal.  The EPA has proposed a rule to cut emissions; read all about it in "Everything you need to know about the EPA’s proposed rule on coal plants." Here's an excerpt:

The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday proposed a rule designed to cut carbon dioxide emissions from existing coal plants by as much as 30 percent by 2030, compared with 2005 levels. The regulation has prompted heavy lobbying from industry and environmental groups, and the ensuing battle promises to become, as the Natural Resources Defense Council Climate Director Peter Altman put it, “the Super Bowl of climate politics.”

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John Cole, The Week

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Of course, the Republicans have a lot to say about it (and anything the Obama administration proposes or does).  Here are a couple of cartoonists' views.

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Walt Handelsman, The Week

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Jack Ohman, The Week

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Meanwhile, we ordinary folk are left wonderin'.

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Chip Bok, The Week

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-- Marge

DIY: Mosquito repellent

Here an Anopheles stephensi female is gorged with blood and
beginning to pass unwanted liquid fractions of the blood
to make room for more of the solid nutrients in her gut (Wikipedia)

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There are two main reasons to make your own mosquito repellent or buy an herbal one: avoid using products with DEET and keep the damn mosquitoes and whatever off.  This year, here in Alaska, they are particularly voracious and the stings itch for days, if not treated.  You can buy products that are supposed to relieve the itching, but I found one of the best treatments is dabbing on a little witch hazel.

Stories about DEET abound.  I've heard fishermen report that contact with DEET-containing repellent took the varnish off their fishing rods.  The CDC's ATSDR (Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry) site has an article on its Health Effects in Humans. And Wikipedia's article on DEET is very good.

There are many recipes for herbal repellents online.  Most of them use essential oils.  Here's a site, Mountain Rose Herbs, selected at random to illustrate how essential oils may be offered.  Be careful of the term aromatherapy, many products offered are a mixture of oils, blended with a specific purpose such as stress relief, aphrodisiac, purification, and so on. Amazon has a good selection; best to search for the oil specifically by name.  Another thing to keep in mind is that some essential oils should be diluted with a carrier oil, which can be olive or grapeseed oil--so follow the recipe.

Inhabitat has a collection of  "Homemade Insect Repellent Sprays and Lotions." Wellness Mama offers a variety of recipes, including ones that use dried herbs. 

Here's a recipe I found a while ago, but haven't tried yet.

Ingredients:
1/2 liter of alcohol
100 gram of whole cloves
100 ml of baby oil or similar (almond, sesame, chamomile, lavender, fennel, etc)

Preparation:
Leave cloves to marinate in alcohol four days
Stir every morning and evening
After 4 days add the oil
It's now ready to use.

How to use:
Gently rub a few drops into the skin of the arms and legs.
Observe the mosquitoes fleeing the room.
Repels fleas on pets too.

One of my favorite ready-made repellents is Herbal Armor, which can be purchased at Amazon.

I find that these natural repellents last about half-an-hour, then must be refreshed.

Also, I couldn't resist including the Russian sculpture below.

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Valery Chaliy, mosquito sculpture, Laughing Squid

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-- Marge

Alternative fuels: where are they now?

From time to time we hear in the news that a revolutionary new substitute for petroleum-based fuels, termed 'alternative fuels,' is being developed, then hear little more about it.  Here's an update on the current state of alternative energy, especially as related to vehicles.

For a survey of the types of alternative fuels currently considered viable the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), take a look at the Alternative Fuels Data Center. The site has a section called Station Locator for finding alternative fueling station locations.

Algenol, a company that produces algae-based biofuel, states that it can offer its product "for around a mere $1.27 per gallon."  Paul Woods, CEO of Algenol says in a piece at Renewable Energy World that

Converting algae to fuel requires only sunlight, carbon dioxide and saltwater to produce ethanol, gasoline, jet and diesel — four key fuels that have the power to change the way we consume at the pump.

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Algenol, algae bio-fuel production, Renewable Energy World

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To keep up with the latest trends in algae and other biofuels, watch Biofuels Daily.

There's some interesting news in the area of fuel-cell-powered vehicles:

Cars that drive hundreds of miles on a tank of hydrogen and spew nothing from the tailpipe but water will hit the market this month in California. (SFGate).

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Hyundai's first mass-produced Tucson full cell CUVs arrive in Southern California. Photo: Associated Press

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As a side note--remember Doc Brown turning trash into fuel in Back to the Future?  To see a real world application of the idea, take a look at Gizmag's article, "Could this little-known biomass generator start an energy revolution? The Power Pallet described in the article uses a process called gasification. According to Ross Pomeroy at Real Clear Science,

Gasification was actually widely used in Europe during World War II when petroleum became scarce.

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Jim Mason, Power Pallet, Gizmag

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This post just touches the surface.  Many are working on solutions to the expected depletion of oil.

-- Marge