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Archive for category Sustainable Living

Outsourcing & the Karmic Egg

Jan 16

Posted by Aaron in Geekery, Musings, Sustainable Living | 1 Comment

So Melissa and I have finally decided to officially start our own publishing company.

She thought of the name “Karmic Egg” (the “egg” being short for “egghead”, I presume). We registered the domain karmicegg.com a couple days ago, set up a Twitter account, Facebook fan page, and I transferred my development wiki to the new domain.

Melissa designed this really awesome logo, as well! I’m not totally settled on the typography, but the graphic itself is wicked awesome.

Our Publishing company will be an outlet for both of our collective hobbies involving publishable media (ie. not her crafties, but any books, writing, cards, games, etc. that we may produce). She is currently shopping around for a printer for her Melissa Lenormand divination deck / art project, and I’m in the playtesting phase of one game and nearly there with another (two others are still in early development).

The company is still in its infancy, but we’ve already had an absolutely surreal experience. Read the rest of this entry »

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Book Reiew: The World Without Us

Aug 16

Posted by Aaron in Reviews, Sustainable Living | No Comments

World Without Us bookcover“What would happen to our planet if humanity vanished tomorrow? What are the clues to that outcome existing on Earth right now?”

That is Weisman’s central premise in his book.

Reading the cover & in-flap, and judging it from that alone, I expected the book to be a lot of conjecture, explaining in detail what will unfold for our planet if humans disappeared. Something along the lines of this chart that circulate the Internet some years ago (source unknown).

While the book was along those lines, it expanded upon that theme by finding specific scenarios on our planet right now where humans HAVE disappeared (due to political, military, or economic reasons), and observing how nature has recouped. Read the rest of this entry »

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Sustainability Saturdays: Biking, Blackberries, and Pancakes

Jun 27

Posted by Aaron in Foodities, Friends, Family & Pets, Sustainable Living, Ziggy aka Sullivan | 4 Comments

sulandlena_onbakfietsThis morning, my friend Mark stopped by to see if Sullivan and I were interested in going on a bike ride.

Mark has a really cool Dutch cargo bike called a “Bakfiets“, it’s like a normal bike except it has a wheel-barrow-sized cargo bay up front. It has a bunch of other nice amenities as well, including handcuff lock, internal-gears, and head/tail lights. They’re kind of pricey and a bit difficult to get used to, but definitely handy to have!

One of the nice features in the Bakfiets is that the cargo area has seatbelts built for children. We strapped Sullivan into the cargo area, right next to Lena (Mark’s daughter), and grabbed a plastic container for collecting blackberries (the fruit, not the PDA). Read the rest of this entry »

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Casting off the shackles

Mar 23

Posted by Aaron in Money, Sustainable Living | 6 Comments

family-budgetOn February 1st, I got my W-2’s.

On February 2nd, I filed our family’s taxes.

On February 12th, I got our refund.

On that day, for the first time in 10 years, I became completely liquid-debt free. What a glorious day.

Freeing up the $200-300 / month I was paying (well over the minimum, I was making aggressive payments to pay it off) has allowed us to finally start doing some planning for the future. Read the rest of this entry »

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Live-by-wire

Oct 24

Posted by Aaron in Musings, Sustainable Living | 2 Comments

A while back, there was a show on the Speed channel about Formula-1 (F-1) racing. Formula-1 racing is that kind where they use the crazy looking uber-efficient cars, with the huge spoilers, extra intakes, big tires, etc. It’s what the movie “Days of Thunder” was about.

In this particular show, the show’s host, a stock-car racer (think NASCAR), was chatting with an F-1 racer. The host was allowed to take an F-1 car out on the track and do a few laps. They did a video analysis of the run afterwards, and the F-1 racer noted that the host could have saved a few tenths of a second if he had taken a few of the turns a bit tighter.

Now if you have ever taken a sharp turn a little too tightly, you’ve no doubt felt your inertia mix with centripetal force to give you the sensation that you’re being pushed to the outside of the curve (sort of like riding the Teacups in Disney World). We’re programmed to interpret that feedback as “careful there! You’re taking it a little fast!”

Apparently, in F-1 racing, the cars have internal computers that handle transferring the power to the wheels in such a way that you can take sharp curves VERY tightly, in order to maintain as much speed as possible as you round the bends. (That’s partly what the spoilers are for, as well — keep the rear tires pressed to the ground for maximum traction on curves). The host was instructed that he needs to “trust the car” and let it handle the curves.

Trusting the technology instead of our instincts. This just all feels so unnatural to me, and I can just feel my instincts throwing up all kinds of yellow flags about it.

Read the rest of this entry »

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