What book are you reading right now?
For physical books…
- Other Minds. The Octopus and The Evolution Of Intelligent Life. Peter Godfrey-Smith. Harper-Collins (U.K.). Other Minds. The Octopus, The Sea, And The Deep Origins of Consciousness. Farrat, Strauss, Giroux (U.S.A.). 2016. I picked up this book during our July 2019 pre-Covid summer trip to England and Scotland. It was a 3-books-for-2 at Blackwells book dealer. Now I’m away from teaching, I can resume reading my multi-year book backlog.
- Astrophysics For People In A Hurry. Neil DeGrasse Tyson. W.W. Norton & Company Inc./Ltd. New York, NY (U.S.A.) and 15 Carlisle Street, London (U.K.). 2017. I think this might be another book I purchased from our U.K. trip. Same story as above.
For online periodicals…
- New Scientist. From their about-us webpage: ” New Scientist is the world’s most popular weekly science and technology publication. [Their] website, app and print editions cover international news from a scientific standpoint, and ask the big-picture questions about life, the universe and what it means to be human. If someone in the world has a good idea, [Paul] will read about it in New Scientist”. Link. If I want technical journalism and essays, then I pay for it.
- Ars Technica. Their website’s footer explains why I read this periodical in a nutshell: “Ars Technica has been separating the signal from the noise for over 25 years. With [their] unique combination of technical savvy and wide-ranging interest in the technological arts and sciences, Ars is the trusted source in a sea of information. After all, [Paul doesn’t] need to know everything, only what’s important”. © 2024 Condé Nast. Link. I used to rely on How To Geek as my computer-tech resource. Since the founder sold the company, and its current owner flooded it was pop-up ads, I have given up on that site.
Like TS, I read several books simultaneously. Effectively? Well, unlike TS, I tend to combine all their narratives together into a mish-mosh of ideas. That keeps my 54 year old mind entertained!
sunday, december 29 2024 rock farm report
We moved in. We’re unpacking. Today, we’ll try putting up curtain rods to our bedroom windows (otherwise nature-boy-neem will continue traumatizing the forest creatures). This weekend, we’re learning all about the intricacies of sewage treatment systems.
- In our case, a 3-chambered tank with a mechanical sewage pump that uploads it to a buried settling tank, that lets effluent percolate into a leach field.
- Hey! Our shit don’t stink (as bad as I thought it would).
- I guess the floaties, stinky-sinkies, and other bio-horrors break apart in the first 2 chambers and get diluted by the flushed-down greywater (i.e., sinks, showers, washing machine, dishwasher). Hell, that saying we put into grade 9 science courses rings true: “the secret to pollution is dilution”.
- Chamber #3 collects blackwater where a pair of float-switches cycle the submerged sewage pump on/off. The chamber is also monitored by a necessarily obnoxious high water alarm system (howling buzzer + red warning lamp).
- Tobey and I spent our time in chamber #3 with its pump. Paul had his heavy-dooooty rubber gloves on, a telescoping prodding stick, tools, and a flat-headed shovel at the ready. With rinse-water nearby. TS documented and provided sanity-checks and analysis.
- Another lesson I learned about septic outflow: I thought there was a f##king pinhole leak in the PVC piping exiting the pump’s stainless steel manifold. Wrong. That’s a weep hole designed to prevent freeze-up farther down the pipe.
- We’re working with our developer to calibrate the pumping cycles.
- Kevin Goetz of Goetz Haulage & Contracting drove up from Walkerton (1.5h each way).
- He calibrated the float-valves (these gadgets control pump cycling and when the levels go too high [obnoxious buzzer and blood red light]).
- If you want to know the name of an AWESOME plumber who has INTEGRITY, EMPATHY, and DEALS FAIRLY with us despite being 2h away from our rock farm, look up Mayne Piping and Plumbing.
- Tim Mayne. Owner-operator.
- Monitored telephone voice-mail: 519-270-0243. Email: maynepiping@outlook.com and their website. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maynepipingandplumbing/
Despite an overcast, and then very rainy afternoon, our PV panels produced some electrical power.
You, my dear reader, might be asking yourself… Um, Paul, the numbers don’t add up. Yep. Inputs and outputs don’t always equal themselves out. And these values are ESTIMATES. For exact values, I have to go to our mechanical room and view the system’s control panel.
BCB&B, neemtree, bdb, and blog 