Poopy Pond

Source:   SciTechDaily . To some, wind farms are eye sores to the point that a former liberal US senator who championed renewable energy does not want them near his vacation home .  However, wind power is a growing source of energy for Britain.  And soon, British energy bills could start going down as it becomes more cost effective and cheaper to produce power using wind than traditional fossil-fueled power stations.   By mid-2020s, instead of getting government subsidies to offset the cost of setting up wind turbines, these wind farms (sorry, Senator Kennedy) will not only need no help from the government but they will start lowering electric bills to the average British consumers. It's like that other countries that have invested a lot of sources and encourage green power generation will also soon reap the benefits of their decades long investment.   The SciTechDaily article is based on a study from the Imperial College London that studied the price of electricity.  Summarizing e

“Time to turn that backyard into something out of this world,” I said to myself as I looked out the kitchen window at the mess of a yard outside.  I held the cup of morning coffee I made fresh with freshly coffee ground using a manual burr grinder. I saw the possibilities.  What made me thinking more seriously about doing something with my yard was when a friend sent me his before and after photos of his new backyard in his new home in the Pacific Northwest. It was a small and simple garden but it was cozy. He’s still working on it with his wife with the help of a professional landscaper. It reminded me of a garden I’ve seen in Irish cottages on photos. Tall green trees from neighboring yards, an assortment of plants and flowers with a stone pathway leading to a small bench. They even put in a bird bath. He sent me a couple of videos of birds playing and driving in the small pool. Here us a photo of my yard. Yeah, it’ll need a lot of work. I’ve thought about putting up a hummingbird fe

Source:   CNET . Nearly every household in America has one of those brown boxes with an Amazon smiley logo.  And they come in different sizes.  Some are useful. Some are not.  Amazon will not do something about that with their "less packaging, more smiles" program to turn these boxes into more interesting and fun uses. Some of these boxes are reused.  Repackaging, returning items, or just storing items for moving.  Now, Amazon wants to turn these boxes into housing for cats or help spur a child's imagination by turning into a space ship. Amazon's website for  has a variety of ideas.  Spaceships, robots, housing for pets, or even one's own fortress of solitude assuming there are enough boxes. What other builds can the wall of boxes in every household's living room be turned into?  Tables?  Definitely.  Amazon should start a new contest or Instagram feed on how people use their packaging materials creatively.

So the article I read in the New York Times is called “The Food Expiration Dates You Should Actually Follow” written by J. Kanji Lopez-Alt.  What goes on in this article might be familiar to you, if you are like me.  You bring home groceries or leftovers and put them neatly away in the refrigerator or pantry.  And of course, you have every intentions of revisiting them later on.  As with a lot of things, life goes on, the grocery and leftovers you brought home are nothing more than a distance memory.   What I like about this article educated me on things I did not know, but perhaps you already know.  What happens when you go to your refrigerator and you find something with the expiration date has come and gone?  For me, this has happened many times, for example I might go into the refrigerator because I want a glass of milk.  I grab to milk jug only to see that the expiration date is today!  Or other times I might not even pay attention to the dates and kept drinking the milk.  So,

The lessons in Swift development is from an app called Code Swift on iOS and iPadOS.  The updates is part of my goal to eventually build robots and get into artificial  intelligence .  The road map that I have  laid  out is to use what tools are available to me to achieve this goal.   If you're interested in learning a new skill, please use these updates as a means to also follow along so you can see how I've progressed and I hope that it'll give you inspiration to move forward on yours. Lesson two still not too difficult but I can honestly tell you that I would not be able to explain to you why I would enter certain codes or symbols. I'm told that there is a structure to programming.  I don't know if I'll never know why I am using this syntax or typing things a certain way.  For now, it's just enough that I follow along and gain proficiency in doing it. I do think the app lacks, at least for me, the definition and explanation i.e. If, If else

Learning to program has been something I always wanted to do but I never had a chance to really get into it.  Life, family, work.  But I remembered discovered that if there is a passion I want to follow, there are means for me to make it happen.  Along with my brother, we decided on a path and will follow it to the end.  Well, there is no end.  But it's a path to move us forward.  Is that not what we all want?   So join us.   Learning   the code was not too difficult. I began using an app on the iPhone for that.  There are a number fo online options to use as well and I will include it in a separate post for us beginners.  And if you have an iPad or a Mac, Apple has generously offered an apple called Playgrounds that made coding so basic and fun that it is essentially a game.   I started using an app called Code! Learn Swift ( link ).  First, I want to let you know that the app is free to download and use.  The first two lessons are also free.  After that, you ha

With much of the state in lockdown during April and May, it was a time for self-discovery.  There was some of that but much of that time was squandered.  Well, not really.  Some of the time.  So I wanted to make sure that does not happen going forward. Here will be a series of posts about what we are doing here at Poopy Pond to begin anew topics that help ourselves, and hoping you as well, that will move us forward.  Some of the articles are about sustainable living.  Others are about looking inward and growing from within - knowledge and physical and metal health. We recently started working on learning coding.  That is a segment of our future.  Since we are beginners here, you are welcome to join us if you want to use this opportunity to also learn this new and much needed skill.  Did i also mention that being able to program is a highly valued skill in the market, whether it is for a future side-gig or to find a new job? Okay, so here we go.  The title of each blog will be eas

Source: NPR ,  Facebook , 3DVerkstan . “One Way to Help Strapped Hospitals? Print PPE Using 3D Printers” an article written by Hannah Hagemann from NPR should speak to all of us who. It is an article about the human heart and ingenuity working singularly to lend a helping hand.  By now we have all heard about the mask and personal protective equipment (PPE) shortages around the nation. We even have officials imploring people to resist buying masks, so that those on our front line in the fight against the COVID-19, doctors and nurses do not have the necessary protection to save our lives.  We do not send our men and women in uniform into war with the best equipments in the world and ample supplies.  Why is this any different for our care providers?  This article showcases how technology helps us provide the rudimentary needs such as protective equipment for hospital staff and spread the word with a few keystrokes.   3D printers have been a very fantastic innovation