aoi_to_midori

The 31-year-old electrical engineer says poor reception is a common frustration for residents of Vermont's Orange County. To address this issue, he's providing his community with a new way to stay connected.

Schlott has taken old pay phones, modified them to make free calls, and set them up in three different towns across the county. He buys the phones secondhand from sites like eBay and Craigslist and restores them in his home workshop.


I've always said that dismantling pay phones was dangerous, because even if most people have cell phones, those can be lost, broken, or out of service. It's nice to see this public good reviving in at least some areas.

The Poetry Fishbowl is now CLOSED. Thank you for your time and attention. Please keep an eye on this space as I am still writing.

Starting now, the Poetry Fishbowl is open! Today's theme is "Books and Learning." I will be checking this page periodically throughout the day. When people make suggestions, I'll pick some and weave them together into a poem ... and then another ... and so on. I'm hoping to get a lot of ideas and a lot of poems.

I'll be soliciting ideas for readers, writers, storytellers, scribes, editors, publishers, students, teachers, caregivers, children, parents, bookworms, nerds, bookstore owners, librarians, an anonymous benefactor, activists, volunteers, superheroes, supervillains, other bookish people, reading, writing, delighting the reader, editing, publishing, bookbinding, shopping for books, telling stories, teaching, inviting students to a lesson, demonstrating tools, educating the whole child, learning, studying, parenting, lending a hand, cooperating, concentrating on a current task, volunteering, supporting people in hard times, respecting people, modeling manners and skills, learning to trust others, observing the environment, engaging all the senses, cultivating a full life, creating intimacy, making friends, getting to know each other, cooking together, choosing your own goals, discovering things, improvising, adapting, cooperating, bartering, sharing, making mistakes, fixing what's broke, changing the world, accomplishing the impossible, other educational activities, books, scrolls, magical tomes, printing presses, pens and pencils, bookstores, libraries, Little Free Libraries, book nooks, windowseats, Montessori schools, other alternative schools, preschools or daycares, Montessori homeschool, prepared environment, colleges and universities, beautiful places, craft centers, community centers, coffeehouses, outdoor classrooms, parks, nature centers, other spaces designed for learning, Triton Teen Centers, mentor circles, intentional communities, clubs, quiet rooms, inclusive workplaces, Thalassia, the Maldives, the Lacuna, the Aqademy of the Qrossroads, Waldorf toys, Montessori materials, intrinsic motivation, child independence, respect for the child, freedom to choose, freedom of time and uninterrupted work periods, absorbent mind, post-traumatic growth, individualized education, three-part cards, language lessons, mathematics, diverse ages and abilities, self-correcting toys and lessons, natural consequences, freedom of movement, intentional neighboring, diversity, inclusivity, emotional closeness, nonsexual intimacies, first contact, rescue, interspecies relationships, trial and error, trust issues, teamwork, found family, complementary strengths and weaknesses, personal growth, and poetic forms in particular.


Currently eligible bingo card(s) for donors wishing to sponsor a square:

Crime Classics Bingo Card 8-1-25

Among my more relevant series for the main theme:

An Army of One involves education and reading in the Lacuna.

Arts and Crafts America focuses on fine arts and practical crafts, sometimes education. Bookbinding would be a logical craft.

The Bear Tunnels has future books in a past culture.

Daughters of the Apocalypse have to rediscover many historic skills for survival, including earlier methods of sharing knowledge.

Frankenstein's Family has two scientists teaching villagers to be thoughtful instead of stupid, and after a few years, several more people keenly interested in books and education.

Not Quite Kansas started with mishandling a book of spells, and involves trying to learn about a whole new world.

Path of the Paladins includes the Canticle of Thorns and other books.

Peculiar Obligations has Quakers in organized crime. The Religious Society of Friends has been greatly involved in education, including abolitionist and natural science publications.

Polychrome Heroics is largely about people learning things. Threads particularly focused on this include Antimatter and Stalwart Stan, Aquariana, the Big One, Danso and Family, Dr. Infanta, Iron Horses, Officer Pink, Rutledge, and Trichromatic Attachments.

Quixotic Ideas is set in a world with plenty of magic and a positive tone, where people often help each other and solve challenges peacefully. It includes a healthy magical school.

Schrodinger's Heroes save the world from alternate dimensions, and they learn a lot along the way.

Or you can ask for something new.

Linkbacks reveal a verse of any open linkback poem.

( Read more... )

prettygoodword is posting about the Uto-Aztecan language family, and today's word is saguaro.  Apparently they have edible fruit.

Today is cloudy and mild.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches plus a male cardinal.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 8/4/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 8/4/25 -- I did a more work around the patio.

As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.

Underground life on Mars? Cosmic rays could make it possible

Research challenges long-held assumptions about where life can exist in the solar system.
Cosmic rays from deep space might be the secret energy source that allows life to exist underground on Mars and icy moons like Enceladus and Europa. New research reveals that when these rays interact with water or ice below the surface, they release energy-carrying electrons that could feed microscopic life, a process known as radiolysis. This breakthrough suggests that life doesn't need sunlight or heat, just some buried water and radiation.


*laugh* Took them long enough. Earth has an ecosystem around the black smokers that runs on heat and chemistry instead of sunlight.

Today is mostly sunny and mild, a beautiful day. :D

I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, plus a fox squirrel screaming at me from the top of a tree.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 8/3/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 8/3/25 -- My partner Doug mowed the house yard and paths to the fly-through feeder and new picnic table.

I picked up a branch in the house yard.

I did more work around the patio.

I've seen a pair of mourning doves foraging in the cut grass.

EDIT 8/3/25 -- I did ass-busting amounts of effort to haul the hose around, watering the septic garden, new picnic table garden, patio plants, old picnic table garden, and a few other things around the house yard.

EDIT 8/3/25 -- We did more ass-busting amounts of effort to remove the old stretchy hose from the reel, then get the new tape hose onto the reel.

EDIT 8/3/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 8/3/25 -- I watered the telephone pole garden and savanna seedlings with a watering can. Both of this year's pawpaw seedlings are still alive! :D

As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.

These are pictures from the left side of the Charleston Food Forest on Saturday, August 2. (Begin with Part 1: Right Side.  Continue with Coles County Food Forest.)

( Walk with me ... )