Small Fish, Big Pond

Sorry this post is still a week late

On Wednesday I was sick and didn’t go to work. Outside mirroring my feelings an early summer thunder storm was rolling over making the sky dark even at noon. The only light came in bursts from lightning shortly followed by loud thunder.

The wind was thrashing the trees about, leaves and small branches were rattling off the side of the house. When the small amounts of rain did come down it slapped noisily against the windows.

I laid in bed slowly recovering, wondering why the wind had me so much on edge; something just didn’t seem right but it hid at the back of my brain. It was a whirlwind outside but I was safe indoors buried under a blanket. It not like the wind could knock the house over on top of me, crushing me like a small cucumber plan-

SHIT THE PLANTS!!!

I jumped out of bed, yanked on a pair of shorts and shoes without putting on socks and ran outside to check the hydroponic setup.

The A-frame was really good at keeping things from falling away from the plants so when it collapsed it did right on top of everything, yanking some of the plants out of their positions and knocking one of the planting tubes off to the side.

The pump can pump through the whole reservoir of nutrient in less than the 15 minutes that the timer runs so with the planter knocked off to the side it drained everything out onto the ground leaving the plants dry for however long it had been sitting there. Luckily there was enough humidity in the planter that it kept the roots alive except for the cucumbers on the end which were pulled completely out. Its root mat had gotten big enough that the roots stayed in the planter and ripped apart from the plant itself.

It’s amazing how little you think of being sick when you’ve got something else to worry about. But I didn’t really feel upto rebuilding everything so I pulled the wreckage of the trellis off, put the planter back together and filled the reservoir up with water. That should hold everything until to Friday when I could rebuild everything properly.

Over the next 2 days the cucumber that had been yanked out didn’t fully recover and might as well be replaced. One of the peppers had a lot of its new upper growth smashed off but should be ok. The peas had already been producing but lost a few stems that had to be trimmed.

This weekend I got a replacement cucumber and a bunch of hardware to reinforce the trellis rack to support the plants. Plus the remaining cucumber has gotten large enough it needs some support to grow up so I needed to get some twine for it to hold to and some gardening velco strips that can support the vine.

The reservoir lid was yanked part way off and one of the hoses came off. Now everything is nice and neat again.

Finally all back together and with some good reinforcements to keep it from falling over again.

Well weather doesn’t always want to play fair. We were past the final freeze of the spring when I planted the hydroponic system and temperatures were in the 60’s. Then the increasingly unstable weather decided to get cold again and for 2 weeks we had overcast late winter weather.

It never got down to freezing but it did get within a few degrees of freezing; now I know that Beans and Cucumbers hate the cold. The beans (nearly) died and I haven’t found replacements. Luckily cucumbers are plentiful so I just dumped the dead ones, rinsed out their net pots and put in new cucumbers.

The peppers grew slow but they showed new roots growing out of the pots so I knew they would pull through. The Snow peas lived up to their name and did really well in the cold weather and are now in need of support they’ve gotten so big.

I’ve been debating how to create an overhead support for the plants. I’m trying to emulate being on an apartment balcony where they is usually another overhead balcony or cover. In that case it’s a simple matter of screwing a few heavy duty hooks into the above floor and suspending a pole three inches from the top using wire or something.

The south side of the house has no overhead and I don’t want to punch holes in the siding. I need to create something that stands on the ground, is about 7.5 feet tall, will support the weight of the plants hanging off it, and won’t tip or blow over in the wind.

First the plants as they are now. As you can see the peas are looking for something to grow up. The peppers are getting bigger with a blossom here and there (I’m actually clipping them off since I want all energy to grow large plants right now). The 2 new cucumbers are about 7 days old, have gotten over the shock of transplanting out of soil and are starting to get bigger. The poor bean plant that seemed dead actually struggled out a few new leaves but its so far gone I don’t want to wait for it to come back, it will be replaced in a few days.

As it’s been about 3 or so weeks since the last nutrient solution went in. It probably doesn’t need it but since over half of the system got overhauled with new plants I decided to refresh it by dumping the old and mixing a new batch. I found that if I dissolve the solid nutrients by hand in about 4 cups of water then filling up the rest of the water it get much more of it to dissolve (I actually learned it from mixing cornstarch in to foods while cooking).

You can see all the Ph balancing stuff still out from getting the nutrient ready.

I decided an A-Frame setup holding a rod of electrical conduit above the plants is the way to go. It’s very stable front to back but from side to side a baby could knock it over. I had some ideas to stabilize it but figured they could wait till next weekend.

A very costly mistake.

Things just keep seeming to fall behind other countries. When compared to the rest of the world our speeds are pitiful and we have to pay a premium for what little we get. As of last year we ranked 28th in the world, averaging 5Mbps where South Korea is averaging 20Mbps. But what is pissing me off today is the fact that services online are restricted to specific ISPs due to business agreements.

I want to watch the US World Cup game online, BBC streams it but like all BBC stuff it’s UK only. But US isn’t exactly lacking for sports channels and websites, ESPN3 proudly advertises that they’re the home to the World Cup here.

So I goto the live streaming section of their page to watch. I’m willing to put up with all the BS commercials and advertising that I’d get on ESPN TV as well; I’m looking for an illegal download or anything. But ESPN only has deals with certain ISPs so unless you’re with a service provider that has a deal with them you don’t get the game.

When your ISP doesn’t show up or you choose one that isn’t supported they have the gall to tell you that if you want to watch the game to change to somebody that has a deal with them. However it’s not like opening the page in a different browser or going to a different access point, changing ISPs is like changing phone providers only worse. And what about when we’re on a corporate network that doesn’t go through a consumer ISP? Many businesses get their internet from AT&T or Verizon, but they get business connections so they don’t have “V-cast” logins to get to the streaming site.

It creates an environment hostile to small businesses that want to compete with the big players. If I start a small ISP and want to provide for my customers I can’t compete on the same level at AT&T, and if ESPN doesn’t work on my ISP customers will flock to the huge providers (local ISP Xmission wasn’t even listed as an ISP on ESPNs site). So users stay with the big players which consequently are the ones that charge awful rates and use deceptive business practices to bleed their customers dry.

There is a movement in the government to basically level the playing field of the internet by passing laws to guarantee Net Neutrality. The idea is that all traffic is equal for people who pay to be online. ISPs can’t restrict what or where people go online, just like if you have a car and a license you can drive to a different city; companies can’t say, “Sorry, you’re from New York. You can’t drive through Kansas, and if you go through Nebraska you have to stay under 10 MPH.”

Opponents to Net Neutrality say that by putting laws on how internet providers and businesses work will be putting restrictions on internet freedom. This is a red herring, America has freedoms but we need laws to guarantee those freedoms, it’s like saying that making a law that guarantees free speech you’re restricting freedom of speech.

But the ESPN3 issue proves that monopolistic businesses create an environment that restricts business and consumer freedoms when laws don’t exist to guarantee those freedoms. Our internet is getting more and more restricted because the big boys only play with the big boys, and then lobby congress to stop laws that would allow other companies to get a foot in the door.

Anyway I’m pissed that ESPN wouldn’t let me watch the game from their site, not only was I willing to put up with their commercials but the option to watch wasn’t even a possibility since none of the local ISPs had made a deal with them, even Qwest was cut out.

And they wonder why people go to illegal means to get stuff.

I’ve been really lagging in posting updates on the hydroponic garden so I’ll post the last few weeks this week. Just pretend you’re speeding forward through the last month in the next 3 days. However here’s the main points learned this year:

-The system NEEDS an air bubbler to airate the water.
-There is about a 1 week adjustment process from transplanting for the roots to start growing in nutrients.
-Many plants die at freezing point.
-Unstable homemade trellises need to be able to hold up to the wind or they’ll smash your plants.

Now the full story, Planting day!

Today the whole setup is going live. I actually purchased the plants about a weeks ago but between work and lazyness didn’t plant them.

First I needed the official place that I could plant everything that was out of the way, had good sunlight, didn’t interfere with the normal garden. The cool thing with hydroponics is all you need is the floor space and you’re good to go, the actual ground can be poor quality, contaminated, or solid asphalt.

South side of the house is where the garbage cans are stored and naturally becomes a storage area for garbage and mostly green trash that is waiting to be fed into the garbage and hauled off. Currently is was about 2 feet deep of bags of landscaping sand covered in 3 feet of dead branches. Once cleared and all the spiders were scared off it left a perfect longs narrow strip just under the garage window so I could feed a power line out to the system.

Next I had to get the plants ready to plant.

Ideally I would be germinating my own seeds straight into hydroponic ready growing media, but that is an experiment for next year. This year is to try to make it as easily accessible to the average person as possible so I’m taking normal potted starter plants and moving them into hydroponic media.

The process isn’t really that hard but it seems weird to people used to normal gardening. Instead of taking a plant out of a plastic tray and moving to the ground we’re going to wash all the dirt off and transfer the bare plant & roots to our own medium.

From right to left the first two buckets are full of water. The third is full of coconut coir and water giving it the consistency of wet potting soil. A few unused but rinsed off plants are on the ground.

1. Start with the plants of choice.
2. Take out of the pot or plastic tray and rinse most of the dirt out of the roots.
Just soak the root ball in the water and alternate between gently massaging the roots and swirling it in the water. All the soil will rinse without needing to be manhandled.

!!!Remember that the roots are the life of the plant, try to keep and protect them as much as possible!!!

3. In the second bucket you can rinse the last of the potting soil off with ease.
4. Then take a plastic 3” net pot and hold the plant in the center with the roots at the bottom.
5. Fill the netpot up with coconut coir, gently packing it down with your fingers till it’s full to the rim. Try to position it so the roots start at .5” to 1” below the rim.
6. Set aside and you’re done. It’s important the roots stay moist so I put them in a container with an inch of water in the bottom. Plus I found it’s good to keep the tags with the plants so you don’t forget what is what later on.

Now the setup need to be put together and filled with fresh nutrient. I found a nice little nylon filter bag at the pet store that I could put on the end of the drain tubes. I rightly figure that for the first few days a lot of coir would wash out of the netpots into the reservoir. Hopefully keeping as little from getting into the pump will limit the lines getting clogged even though the pump has it’s own filter as well.

You can see a little bit of the leftover solid nutrient at the bottom of the reservoir. No matter how hard I try to mix it in some of it never dissolves. Liquid nutrient would obviously not have that problem.

The plug for the pump is outdoors and exposed so I wrapped it with a few overlapping layers of “Stretch and Seal” Tape and a couple layers of electrical tape. Pull the electrical tape tight as you wrap, overlap each row, and make sure your last layer goes from bottom to top to shed water better.

And here is everything planted and running, kind of small and unassuming at this point. I still have on planter empty for something else in the future. Hopefully pole beans.

“A remake of 1984’s Karate Kid comes out this weekend, where the main character learns Kung Fu. We’re just as confused as you are”

We all know Hollywood can’t find an original idea to save their lives (or their bottom line for that matter) but do they really need to keep destroying our childhoods by doing crummy remakes?

What’s next, remake “Fievel Goes West: American Tail” with “Fievel Goes East: Fievel explores business outsourcing in China.”? I like my remakes like my socks, old and worn out since the 90’s.

Interesting fact: this near straight to VHS crap starred future Academy Award winner Hillary Swank as the star.

Insp. Geekosystem

EPIC!

Excellent video of the space shuttle Atlantis making it’s last jump into space.

One slow day at work we watched a NASA feed of a shuttle launch from T-5mins to fuel tank separation (~+8min). One co-worker is a walking encyclopeida of the shuttle and it’s systems so it was like being on a tour of the launch process.

If you notice at launch, water (350,000 gallons in 41 seconds) floods the pad. It’s not to cool things off, it’s added sound suppression because the shockwaves from the engines were actually damaging the Solid Rocket Boosters and Shuttle wings.

The shuttle is clamped down to the pad and won’t launch until the explosive bolts blow and the clamps let go. Hence the impression that the shuttle leaps off the pad. The Saturn Rockets that flew the Apollo missions worked the same way. Astronauts often have colorful ways to describe the feeling of going from rumbling on the pad to instant high-G acceleration.

The shuttle launches “Downrange”. Although it seems it’s going straight up the shuttle is really rolling onto it’s back as it launches; because it’s lateral speed around the earth that sends it to orbit, not necessarily altitude alone.

At an altitude of about 35,000ft the shuttle hits Max Q which is where the speed and air density create the maximum dynamic pressure and stress on the shuttle. After this point speed increases but due to low air density the stresses on the shuttle lower making it a major milestone in the launch.
The Challenger disaster happened around Max Q; when stress on the structure was at it’s peak the SRB mount broke causing the SRB to turn into the fuel tank. As the fuel tank broke up the orbiter veered out of position and the aerodynamic forces at Max Q caused the orbiter to disintegrate (it didn’t actually “explode”).

As the shuttle launches if you listen to the NASA sound feed you’ll hear Ground Control announce the passing of certain Abort Modes.
-First is Return To Launch Site (RTLS). The shuttle would ride until the SRBs burn out (they’re like bottle rockets and can’t be stopped once they’re lit), then shut off main engines, jettison the 3/4 full fuel tank and glide back to Florida.
-Next is Transoceanic Abort Landing (TAL). Upto about +8mins the shuttle can abort, run out the SRBs and main engines then land in Europe about 25 minutes after launch (beat that Concord!). Weather conditions need to be good at Florida and at least one of the three Europe landing sites. Prep at the sites begins 2 days in advance of launch.
-Abort Once Around (AOA) is rare. It’s when the shuttle has too much speed to make Europe but not enough for a stable orbit. The Shuttle would return to a Florida landing 90mins after launch.
-Last is Abort to Orbit (ATO). Basically orbit can be attained, but possibly not as high as they wanted. But it does give the opportunity to think things through and either come up with a solution or find a way down. It’s only been invoked once, the Challenger had one of it’s main engines shutdown during launch but made it to orbit. The mission was salvaged and it landed safely.

Google of course is recognizing the day with a custom header on www.google.com. The trick is that the google title is playable; open up google and hover over the title. It’s worth it for the nostalgia of the authentic sounds alone.

Pac-Man Facts:
Like most games of the time Pac-Man is Japanese, Paku Man. “Paku Paku” is a Japanese mimetic word for the sound of eating, like “Doki Doki” is the sound of a fast beating heart. So the name comes from the act of eating; converted to latin the Japanese name パックマン becomes Pakkuman, which we simplified to Pac-Man.

The ghosts Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde are of course American names. The ghosts original Japanese names describe their attack personalities; roughly translating to Chaser, Ambusher, Fickle and Stupid.

Pac-Man only has 255 levels, all are the same; but due to a programming issue the game won’t work past 255. Because computers at their core work on binary a certain number of bits is required to represent the data. In binary 8 bits has a maximum number of 255 (this is why IP addresses don’t go over 255 per octet). Pushing for that 9th bit to be able to count to 256 causes Pac-Mac to only render half the screen.
Perhaps this was a deliberate oversight by the programmers, after all who would ever play a game through 255 levels?

Along with the Atari ET game, the port of Pac Man to the Atari 2600 was one of the reasons for the video game crash of 1983. As good developers fled Atari due to publishing rights arguments games with known good potential like Pac Man were cranked out as pieces of garbage and the gamer market responded by abandoning systems. Nintendo would pick up the pieces 2 years later.

“Back in the day” it was common for a game to be produced by only one or two programmers who would get billing on the title screen. One of my favorites was “Floyd of the Jungle” by a certain Sid Meyer in 1982.

Atari wanted all their games to be “by Atari” on the title screen. Hard working programmers felt they didn’t get the recognition they deserved and fled starting up their own programming companies like Activision.

Dilbert is great.

But unfortunately news moves too fast for the comics to be too topical. So these comics will never see the light of day.

I’m sure coming up with hilarious comics every day is pretty taxing, so having a comic that writes itself has to feel great:

Take a moment to marvel at the fact that I didn’t need to add anything to the story as it has been told in the media. All it really needed was Wally. I don’t think any of us will ever know what really happened. I based the comic on the media’s speculation of events. Remember that I’m in the parody business and not the truth business.

Original iPhone story.

One tradition most all of us have on the first nice days of spring is to take the car to the carwash and spray off winter’s accumulation of road salts and other muck from the last 3 months. For car lovers it’s practically a holiday and marks the true beginning of spring.

There are a few different ways to go about this, the best is to spend the most of your weekend doing an intensive hand wash and wax in your drive-way.
The most expensive is to pay $50 to $100 dollars to have professionals detail the car for you.
The most useless is to pay the local cheerleader squad to clean it for you; too expensive and poor quality. And if you want to look at soaped up girls in bikinis you’re already on the internet; honestly figure it out (but read my blog post first).

Most of us are lucky if we can find time to spend $5 at the local coin-op wash waving a wand over our car and hoping for the best. Here’s how to make the most of that coin-op wash and get results close to what you get after a weekend hand wash. Best of all how to give you car a great wash in 20 minutes and as little as $4 dollars.

What you need before you wash:

-Enough money for two wash cycles, most coin-ops take $2 to get started.
-A Chamois (check the local auto parts stores)
-A clean rag or towel you don’t mind getting dirty.
-A decent coin-op wash
-*Optional* Rose Royce – “Car Wash” on your iPod while you wash

As for finding a good place there are a few things that you want, first is a “Foam Brush” option.
This is a must!
Second is just simple quality, some car washes don’t mix much “product” in their systems; also look for a wash that has a “Spot Free Rinse” option. You can only find this by trying different car washes and shopping around; some places recycle water without properly cleaning it so the rinse cycle leaves spots.
Optionally look for a wash that has a wringer for removing the excess water from your Chamiois.

Rules to keep in mind:

-Check the local weather report (if it’s raining tomorrow you may want to wait).
-Keep moving, keep things wet. Dry soap leaves spots.
-Use Gravity. Wash and rinse from the top down.
-It takes about 10-15 seconds for the sprayer wand to change modes.
-The best clean comes from physically touching the car, avoid “touchless” washing.
-Every time the hose slaps the side of your car it’s a potential scratch. It can’t be avoided but try to minimize it. NEVER use a carwash that has metal connectors midway on the hose where they may hit your car.
-Most selections on the dial can be skipped. All you really need are “High Pressure Wash”, “Foam Brush”, “High Pressure Rinse”, and “Spotless Rinse” in that order.
-Best time to wash is just after sundown. Drying off in the hot sun can lead to waterspots if you’re not quick.

How to wash your car at the coin-op

1. Before you put in any money get everything prepped.
Lift Windshield wipers into the upright position. Have your change ready, usually two stacks of quarters for two separate cycles. Make sure your car is centered in the bay and you can easily get around with the wand and brush. Check the Foam Brush is relatively clean. The last guy may have been scrubbing mud off his ATV’s and you don’t want to smear that into your paint. If it’s dirty remember to give a quick spray from the wand in the next step.

2. Set the dial to rinse. Put your money in and wet the car down, if you have any extra change you want to use it in this first cycle. Since you usually use $5 in the change machine I use $3 for the first cycle, $2 for the second. Don’t wait until it beeps, put the extra in now.

*****Important*****
The trick to a quick cheap wash is knowing how to get the most out of your limited time. Try to divide the car into quadrants and constantly walk around the car washing those quadrants. A simple car will be:
Top, Front, Driver Side, Back, Passenger Side, Underside&Wheels, usually in that order.
Some cars will have hard to reach areas, you’ll get a feel what places you need to focus on.

3. Once you’ve gone through all quadrants wetting down the car switch to “wash” to cover it in some soap. Again you’re not looking to scrub anything off yet, just cover everything in soapy water. Remember the 15 second delay, switch to “wash” about 10 seconds before you need it.

4. By now you should only be about a minute into your allotted time (usually 4-5 minutes); switch to the foam brush. Spend the remaining time covering the car in a good lather; let the timer run out without putting in more money. Even after the time runs out there should be plenty of suds to scrub around and the brush still works without the timer running.

Make sure that when your time runs out you’ve at least covered the car in suds. Once it’s covered you can take any extra time you need to scrub bad spots. I like to make one quick trip around to cover the car in suds and a second to really scrub it down. The timer runs out on the second pass but there is plenty of soap on the car by then.

5. Try to leave scrubbing the wheels, underside, and wheel wells to the end since they will have the most dirt and you don’t want to spread that onto the rest of the car.

6. Once the car has been scrubbed but before the foam starts to dry put in the rest of your money and switch to the “High Pressure Rinse” mode. Make one quick pass over the whole car to keep it wet and keep the foam from drying.

<7. Now start at the top and rinse everything down. Soap likes to hide in cracks and seams, spray parallel to the seam to get it out. Work as quickly as possible but be thorough; try to spray soap down and off, not from one side to the other.

8. Once you’re confident you got the soap off switch to “Spotless Rinse” and finish rinsing the car down until time runs out. “Spotless Rinse” is kind of optional; it’s better to get all the soap off than it is to make it to the “Spotless Rinse” step (using a chamois will get all the spots anyway).

8.5 If you want to use a spray-on “wax while you dry” product, now is the time to put it on. They aren’t a substitute for a proper wax job but they do maintain an existing wax job pretty well. I prefer Meguiar’s version of the stuff.

9. Once you’re out of time get the chamois and dry off the car. The coin-op “code of conduct” is that if people are waiting that you vacate the wash bay and dry off in the vacuum area. However if it’s a hot sunny day and nobody else is waiting feel free to make use of the shade to dry off. Otherwise the sun will dry the car before you can, leaving water spots.

10. Wring the chamois out often. Don’t worry about the windows too much, there will be spots on them no matter how hard you try to get them, you’ll have to Windex them when you get home.
For the underside of the running boards, bumpers, and wheels use the rag/towel. They never seem to get 100% clean and will dirty up your chamois.

11. Now you can head home but when you get home check the back of the car, around the gas cap cover, and handles for more water to wipe up. The eddy-currents caused while driving will suck water and soap out of cracks you didn’t know you had and will streak if you don’t dry them now. Wipe off and polish any chrome and your automotive badges so they have that extra shine.

12. Finally Windex and Rain-X your windows. Then step back and admire your handy-work because if Murphy’s Law has anything to do with it it’s going to rain tomorrow.

Sorry I’ve been so quiet. I’ve started my new job and all my attention has been directed at learning new equipment and how to do a job without making mistakes that crashing internet for thousands of users.

see more Political Pictures

I recently lost my job; it’s no big deal, I was already looking for a new one because I felt underutilized and under recognized but having the NEED to go find a new job is never fun.

I worked for AT&T on the EVEN turn-up team; basically that means when a big company gets a new T1 or DS3 line to connect their main an remote offices together, I’m the guy who sets up the routers so they work. So a technician onsite plugs everything in then I remotely connect and configure the device to work as the gateway between the customer LAN and AT&T’s backbone with VPN tunnels to other sites belonging to the company.

Already this leads to a job that is very much in danger of being outsourced since I don’t have to actually be anywhere near the equipment; from Orem I was connecting to devices all over the US setting them up. If you can connect in from 1000 miles away why not just do it from 2000 miles away, thus to save money the company decided it would be better to have people in Slovakia do the job. Many other tech companies have already sent their services overseas, I’m sure that most people have talked with a representative from overseas, the tech industry is no different.

Obviously there are issues with having your talent located thousands of miles away from your companies’ equipment. In fact one time it became very apparent the problems with having people remotely configure systems.

One night I was migrating a customer site from their old routers to a new high-speed connection that required new equipment. The AT&T equipment was already setup and running but the customer LAN hadn’t been moved over from the old equipment to the new. To make the change we had to changes it over when everybody had gone home so as not to disrupt the network during business hours.

I was in a conference call with the customer’s LAN technician who himself was an outsourced tech working in India. His accent was thick but bad and he was a very friendly guy; while we waited for the customer’s onsite tech to arrive we chatted for a while. It was evening for me and pre-dawn for him so being away from home on the odd shift.

The problem is that the tech never showed. So what we had was an unmanned datacenter in the New England area in a remote locked building without so much as a night security guard to help us. Since the two routers involved were mounted right on top of each other all we needed was a person to move a yellow wire from one connector to the identical connector 2 inches above it.

Both me and the Indian tech were helpless to do anything, each remotely connected in from two opposite points on the globe to two devices humming along next to each other, two inches from a job well done. All we needed was any flesh and blood human onsite to perform a task that required absolutely no technical knowledge whatsoever.

Outsourcing had affected the Company in question so much that there was nobody left to perform the most simplest of tasks. Of course we were able to reschedule the switchover for a couple weeks later (we were always booked up for about 8 business days) and the customer finally had some intern go make the switch late one night. Who knows what was lost in money having to depend on their oversubscribed line for a few extra weeks (they were already paying for our highspeed connection since it was their fault the ball was dropped). Imagine having your business stuck on the equivalent of dialup while paying for a DSL connection that you can’t use. Except in this case the unused DSL was over 20 times the cost of the connection you were stuck maintaining.

For me that highlighted one problem with sending all knowledgeable people away from the company; the next big problem is the communication barrier and how it affects your service.

There are many extremely good bilingual techs outside of the US but there a lot more who don’t have a great of hang of the language; and since you’re already outsourcing so you can pay people a fraction of the low US wages chances are you’re going to get the ones with language issues. Dell computers has been struggling with this issue directly from many years.

When I first got a Dell laptop about a decade ago Dell was lauded for some of the greatest customer service in the business. I even had to deal with them a few times myself and had nothing but praise about my experience. But then around 2002-2003 they outsourced everything to India and their reputation for service dropped to the bottom and Dell customer service became a joke synonymous with uselessness. I found it was better to ignore the call in service and use email or just try fixing the issue myself without their help.

For my job moving to Slovakia I already know our US onsite techs, the guys that actually physically install the equipment, are already dreading the changeover. I was told many times how relieved a tech was to be talking to somebody in the US and how it was much easier to get a job done in 30 minutes through good communication rather than taking 2 hours to struggle through a foreign language barrier.

Most companies don’t see these secondary issues that arise. Sure it looks great on paper that you’re spending $20,000 less a week on online techs, but they don’t notice that the pay for onsite techs jumps up $20,000 because they have to be onsite longer for a job that isn’t done as quickly. You also can’t resolve customer issues as quickly, there may be greater frustration on the customer’s end with the delays and that can cost a contract. And just one lost contract of the size we dealt with would immediately counter any monetary gain from outsourcing.

Lost customer loyalty can be so bad that many businesses that outsourced in the early 2000’s have already brought back their customer facing divisions so that when customer’s call in they get somebody speaking the same language.

The sad reality is that it will continue to happen and there is nothing any of us involved can do; it’s not even a South Park “They took our jobs!” issue. Businesses go where they can charge less to boost profits and hopefully pass savings onto the customer. It’s be nice if customers rose up and fought back against the trend of outsourcing but the lure of just slightly cheaper prices are too great.

And so I move to a different job, hopefully it will be a while before that one is sent overseas.

BTW: I know the guys in Slovakia are good guys, the picture at the top is a joke.

Continued.

I didn’t like the drains on the end caps. It worked great at first but it was too easy to bump the drain hose and dislodge the end cap; then they leaked. So I went back to the original method, just drill a hole in the bottom, beneath the drain access hole. This is also where the feeder lines will come out since the caps will be on both ends.

Then I glued a garden hose adapter to the bottom to attach the drain lines to. You don’t really need that but I thought it would allow a bit more flexibility in how the planters can be placed. The alternative is to just glue a PVC piece over the hole, drill a hole in the top of the reservoir and drop line up the PVC pipe over the hole (that’s how I did it last time).

A bead of plumbers putty will be used to seal the end caps. Just pretend you’re in kindergarten making snakes.

Then put the bead in the bottom of the cap. It doesn’t need to go all around because the nutrient level will never be more than a quarter of an inch up.

Here’s what it looks like on the inside when the caps are pushed on.

Filtering was a problem on the last attempt. Here I have a simple aquarium pump and a cheap aquarium bio-filter from the pet store.

Carve a hole halfway into the filter so it can go over the intake.

Here it is fitted on.

And you can see it inside when all bottled up.

Here are all the components for the manifold that will split the pump into the 4 feeder lines.

And again all glued together. The black end pieces were just screwed on so that they can be disassembled to get to the filters inside.

Now we can immerse the pump in water, position the drains over the reservoir and give it all a test. Looking straight down you can see how holes sprat at the planter positions.

It’s a bit hard to see but on the right of the netpot you can see the stream of water spraying in.

And the view looking down the whole system. The streams may not spray with much force but they don’t need to. As it is they already pump much more solution into the system than they need. But unlike a drip garden this will drain out one end and be recycled back into the lines.

We finally had some sunny weather to go outside and show everything in action. The system is complete setup and running, the only thing missing was the cover to a the reservoir and some plants to start growing.

The planters can be doubled up if length is an issue.

It can even be bent to go on the corner of a balcony. The PVC legs are handmade, more professional looking ones can be bought online or like I did last year you can just flip over buckets or use cinderblocks. The important part is that one be at least an inch taller than the other so nutrient drains easily and not pool (which can cause rot).

When hauling this out of the garage and onto the back deck I realized how well it all packs up. The legs, pump, drain hoses, and end caps fit in the reservoir with room to spare. The small tote on top has the nutrient fertilizers and pH balance solutions in it. All of this can easily be carried around and stashed in any storage space for the winter.

Although it snowed here for the last 3 days it’s the last snow of the year and next week I should be able to clean up a space outside to put this and get a few plants in it.

I’m going to round up all the receipts I have and figure exactly what the costs was for this. I’m estimating about $100-$120, and that’s only because of the $40 pump and $30 for the 8ft vinyl post.

I thought the iPad was officially going on sale on Saturday April 3rd (unless you’re a big enough news outlet to get a preview model the day before yesterday.

So how come Stephen Fry already got one? Looks like he just picked it up at the Apple store too.

The New Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry

He did interview Steve Jobs so maybe this was a parting gift for such a nice interview. If you’re in the US and you want it you’re going to have to wait another 2 days.

Where have I heard that idea before…

Treehugger has a cool concept from a green design challenge. It’s a clip on shed for apartments; although I prefer the term one of the comments used, “Parasitic Architechture.” I have to say it’s a great idea, I just posted on my own desire for the same thing.

Those of us lucky enough to have yards can consider a garden shed as way of getting a little more space. But what about those in apartments and condominiums? They don’t have basements or spare rooms or space for a shed.

The Plant Room solves this problem. It is a “a prefabricated room that bolts-on to a variety of existing apartment types, improving the quality of living, reducing energy and water use, and generally making the building more sustainable.”

I still like my idea more: It’s not a concept. The price is so affordable anybody can do it. It doesn’t violate any building codes. Somebody can make their own over the weekend.

But a clip on shed is still a cool idea. If properly built it could allow for some extra features, although it seems like it requires alot of materials to create a small area. I like using a handful of easy access materials to make better use of existing space and resources.