The Bottleneck

Webster Defines bottleneck as "a narrow route"


Why did the Neanderthals disappear? They lived for 400 thousand years.
Why did Homo Sapiens survive and all others disappeared?

What is the differentiation factor?

Saw this one on TV last week
Becoming Human Last Human Standing

Though there is an embedded message.

We are at another evolutionary bottleneck. Another resource crunch. The bottle-neck of Peak Oil. Those of us who can survive and adapt to a much lower energy lifestyle will come out of this bottleneck. Rest will disappear in the endless sand of time and become the Neanderthal fossils. We need to redefine progress and growth. Infinite growth on a planet is mathematically impossible. Rest of the world wants to follow the so called 'developed' nations. This is not a path to prosperity but a path to the proverbial yeast killing itself in its own alcoholic excrement.

Growth is embedded in human evolutionary physiology. It is impossible for politicians, corporate leaders and rest of the people in power to even think of a path other than growth. Anyone who wants to come out of the bottleneck ahead of us must think against the concepts of growth embedded in our DNA and move to much much lower energy lifestyle.

Toddler socks

I made this pair of socks for my toddler son last year.

Instructions

These are made in sport weight yarn, with a ribbed leg. You can do them in one colour, or in a combination of colours. I made a pair in orange, with black stripes at the top of the leg and black for the heel and toe. (they were for the baby of a teacher I work with, and these are the school colours!)

**Special Abbreviation: ssk - this is an alternative to the old psso decrease. To ssk, you slip the next two stitches knitwise, then insert the tip of the left hand needle into the front of these two stitches, then knit them together. If you prefer, you could always use the psso decrease instead. (Slip 1, knit one, pass slipped stitch over), but I find the ssk is quicker and neater.

Materials:

One set of 3.25 mm double-pointed needles.

Sport or DK weight yarn.

Optional: contrast for stripes, heel and toes.

Cast on 32 stitches, distributed evenly on three needles:

1st needle: 10 stitches

2nd needle: 12 stitches

3rd needle: 10 stitches

Rib in k1, p1 ribbing for 4 inches.

Heel:

k1, p1 for 8 stitches off of the first needle. Turn, p8, then p8 from third needle. You now have 16 stitches on one needle for the heel flap. Turn.

Work another 12 rows in stockinette stitch.

Turning the heel:

Row 1: k8, place marker, k2, ssk, k1, turn

Row 2: sl 1, purl to 2 stitches past the marker, p2tog, p1, turn

Row 3: sl 1, knit to 3 stitches past the marker, k2tog, k1, turn

Row 4: sl 1, purl to 3 stitches past the marker, p2tog, p1, turn

Row 5: sl 1, knit to 4 stitches past the marker, k2tog, turn

Row 6: purl to 4 stitches past the marker, p2tog, turn

Row 7: knit

Pick up 8 stitches along the first side of the heel flap. Using the second needle, knit across the 16 instep stitches. Using a third needle, pick up 8 stitches on the other side of the heelflap, and knit 5 stitches from the first needle.

Shaping the instep:

Next round: knit

Decrease round: 1st needle - knit to last three stitches, k2tog, k1.

2nd needle - knit across.

3rd needle - k1, ssk, knit to end.

Repeat these two rounds until there are 32 stitches remaining.

Knit 15 rounds in stockinette stitch.

Shaping the toe:

Next round: knit

Decrease round: 1st needle - knit to last three stitches, k2tog, k1.

2nd needle - knit 1, ssk, knit to last three stitches, k2tog, k1.

3rd needle - k1, ssk, knit to end.

These instructions are from geocities.com but the link is not working.

Useful youtube vidoes:

• Kitchener Stitch
• Make The Heel
  

1840s Carolina Village

On October 24th I went visited Hart Square. This is a 200 acre farm owned by Dr. Hart. He has tried to recreate life of settlers in Catawba county in 1840s in his farm. This place is open to visitors only once a year on the 4th Saturday of October. The tickets get sold out very fast


This place is close to Hickory NC. It was raining very hard so the drive up there was not too great. There was no rain at Hart Square so we were able to enjoy rest of the day. Life back then was simple with no plastic pumpkins. There was no TV, no malls and people had real jobs.

I took as many pictures I could from different types of professions people had back then like coopering, shoe making to wheel wrights.

We picked up a pound of $2 corm meal from the water driven grain mill. The corn bread made from this corn meal was delicious :)

Pictures cannot do justice to the great atmosphere that me and my family enjoyed that day. Please enjoy this sideshow of over 200 pictures. The originals of each picture is 16X of the one shared on web. If anyone is interested in any specific original then please leave a comment on my blog and I will get back to you.

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

Wood Shaving's from board Jointing

Wood Shaving's from board Jointing
Originally uploaded by sumantamandal

Yesterday, I finally got some time to use my shiny new
#7 Jointer plane. Its a beautiful product from Lie Neilsen.
Works right out of the box without any need for tuning.
This picture below tell the story of shavings from this
white oak board. I could have had this board jointed at
the lumber yard for $0.35/bf but I would have denied myself
the joy of shaving and some arm exercise.

Antique Farm Equipment

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

Today I visited NC State Fair 2009. There was one hall loaded with antique farm equipment. The old farm equipment is a joy to watch. This is the beginning of life long journey to farm using the older equipment. My goal is the understand the purpose of each human or animal powered equipment and build few of them as no one builds these equipments any more.

HDTV Antenna - Day 1

HDTV Antenna
Originally uploaded by sumantamandal

It has been months since we have digital only television at home. We have been using the old black rabbit ear antenna since then. We were constantly adjusting the rabbit ear antenna to get reception. Today I finally decided to build my own HDTV antenna.

This antenna uses GH10- rev 2, Hoverman design from
http://www.jedsoft.org/fun/antennas/dtv/gh.html

The antenna is not complete yet as I ran out of time today. I tested only the main element by hanging it from the PVC frame. I cut some reflector parts. I will install them in next few weeks.

I'm using 3/4" thick PVC pipes for frame and 1/4" Outer Diameter soft copper pipe for the metal element of the antenna.

Even without the reflector, we are getting a much better reception of all local channels. Hopefully with reflector elements we will get few more channels. I will write more about the size, cost of the parts and the building process.

Mount DeWalt DW621 router to Kreg Precision Router Table insert plate

This weekend I finally had some time to mount my router on router table's insert plate. This router table has been sitting un-assembled since April, 2009. It will take me another weekend to finally get this router table fully assembled.



Here are the steps:

Step 1: Mark the edge of the router base plate that you want to face front with a piece of masking tape

Step 2: Place the insert plate face down on work surface with Kreg logo close to you

Step 3: Position the bull’s eye template so that the concentric rings line up with the opening of the insert plate.

Step 4: Remove the base plate from the router and using it to find the correct drill bit size for drilling holes in the insert plate

Step 5: Place the base plate face down on the bull’s eye template and center it on the concentric rings. Use the masking tape to secure the two together

Step 6: Place a sacrificial board on the drill press under the plate to reduce the possibility of blowout

Step 7: With three items secure, drill the holes using drill press

Step 8: Clamp the insert plate to drill press and drill holes into the insert plate

Step 9: After the holes are drilled separate the three items and using a counter sink bit to counter sink each hole on the top side of the insert plate to accommodate the mounting hardware

Step 10: The screw head should not sit above flush or too far below. I used 20mm long base plate screw to connect the base plate to router

I tried to ensure that the router bit stay at the center of the circular opening of the router table's insert plate. One of the mounting screws hole is on the edge
. I used a 14 mm long screw for this lower height hole.