Author Archives:
Update: Note to Mathew, call people, don’t just google companies.
I recently had the chance to sit down with Brent from Hyphae Design Lab in person. Although they don’t say so on their website, they have extensive toilet experience and know exactly what they’re up to. I look forward to hearing more about the project. This could really set composting toilets back [...]
Public Laboratory wins a grant from the Knight News Challenge!
At the Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science, of which I’m a co-founder, we’ve just been awarded $500,000 by the Knight Foundation. Congrats to all my co-founders, Jeff, Sara, Shannon, Adam, Liz,Stewart, and to our whole online community, and thanks to the Knight Foundation! This is really going jump-start a lot of work! Read [...]
Compost-heated Greenhouse c.1750
Ním Wunnan points us towards the Lost Gardens of Heligan, where they have restored to operation a “pineapple pit,” a compost-heated greenhouse in fashion in the mid-18th century for growing pineapples in Britain. It is, as far as is known, the world’s only operational pineapple pit.
Tuning the Aeration of our Pile
We’ve built a compost pile that is designed to be minimally turned and composted in a vessel, so we’re using a blower to get air in, and we need to tune the aeration rate. Our first problem running aeration tests is to measure the effective aeration of our system. As detailed below, the New Alchemy [...]
Greenhouse & Sensorhub up and running
Check out our data streaming in at cloacina.sensorhub.org explanations and images of the greenhouse and electronics will be forthcoming.
Help Protei! Autonomous, oil-sopping sailbots
This is fairly off topic, but I had to cross post from my personal blog.. Protei is a project I whole heartedly support, and provide tiny bits of advice too. Cesar Harada has put together an incredible team, and with a little money it is going to happen. “We are developing Protei : a low-cost [...]
Pail Collection and Composting in Skaneateles!
This is the longest-running pail collection system I’ve seen in the Western World. Run from 1908-1998 around summer cottages in upstate New York, 5-gallon buckets were picked up from public outhouses and private summer cottages. Sewage was banned to protect the watershed. PDF article here. Continuous interaction with cottage owners has been essential to the [...]
