How Much Does a Cloud Weigh?

Most normal people have, at some time in their lives, laid on their back in the grass and looked up at the summer sky as clouds drift slowly over. Often we play games of finding familiar shapes in those clouds. But have you ever wondered how much a cloud weighs?

At first thought, that would seem to be a nonsensical question: obviously, it doesn’t weigh anything because it’s floating in the air. But if you think that through a bit more, you’ll see that this claim doesn’t hold water.

Cloud watching What are clouds made of? They’re mostly air and water in some form or another. Generally this would be water vapor. Think of it as cold steam. The droplets are so tiny, they can ride eddies and currents of air that constantly swirl about in our atmosphere. Dry air is also denser than water vapor, so it will buoy the clouds up until the vapor turns to larger droplets (rain) or freeze into snow or hail.

It is a common sight here in the Great Smoky Mountains to see fog banks that form overnight along creeks and rivers be lifted up the slopes of the mountains as the morning sun warms the trees, which warm the air, which rises. As the warmer air rise, it drags these fog banks with it, up the slopes, to the mountain crest, then they launch; changing from fog to cloud (which is essentially the same thing except for location).

Water has weight: 8.34 pounds per gallon at room temperature. So if clouds are made of water, clouds must have weight. Can we calculate the weight of a cloud?

dressing for work the tug-o-war between prfessional and comfortable — Credit: www.heligirl.com

There has for some time now been a tug-of-war going on between two schools of thought about how writers should dress when they go to “work”. On one end of the rope we have the combatants who advocate dressing for comfort: if that means a well broken-in sweat suit and bedroom slippers, then so be it. On the other end are those who insist that writers treat their writing like a job and dress appropriately, just as if they were going to work in an office with dozens of other people. This is not necessarily a power suit, but at least a dress shirt and slacks for men, and equivalent for women.

Both camps have some compelling arguments in their favor. Let’s look at them. Continue reading “Dressing for Work as a Writer”

Recycling Rubber

Most of the rubber that is recycled comes from automobile and truck tires. The EPA says that over 300 million tires are disposed of in America every year. If they end up in a landfill they cause problems because of their bulk and their void space. The empty area inside can trap and hold methane gas that is supposed to be collected and vented out of the landfill. Air or methane inside causes the tires to “bubble” up through the landfill composition. They can also damage the liners placed in some areas of a landfill to prevent ground water contamination.

Tires that are stockpiled or dumped illegally create an eyesore and a breeding ground for mosquitoes and disease carrying vermin. Tire fires can occur easily: burning for months and creating substantial pollution in the air and ground.

Tires account for most of the rubber available for recycling, but not all of it. Shoes, especially sports shoes, often have rubber soles. Rubber is used in construction materials, floor mats for home, industry and automobiles, and inner tubes for bicycles, trailer tires, hand trucks, wagons, etc.

How is Rubber Recycled?

There are basically three methods of recycling rubber.

Refurbishing

Refurbishing a rubber product, like a tire, is to replace the worn parts with new to make the product useable again. A tire that has worn tread but a good carcass and bead can re re-treaded to make a usable tire at much lower cost. This is a common practice for over-the-road trucks because their tires are quite expensive. Retread tires are exported in bulk to Mexico and other countries where lower cost tire alternatives are in high demand. Some shoes can be re-shod, though most people don’t bother any more.

Grinding

Rubber products can be run through a grinding apparatus that shreds the product into small pieces that will be used as-is for other purposes. When shredding tires, provisions must be made to remove steel and fiberglass from the shredded rubber to eliminate safety hazards to consumers using the shredded rubber product.

Some use a purely mechanical process, some use liquid nitrogen to freeze the rubber to a crystalline state which can be shattered with a hammering device. This generally produces rubber with fewer contaminants to be removed.

Devulcanization

Most rubber products are made using a process called vulcanization which uses heat to rearrange the molecules in the natural rubber to increase its elasticity and durability. Because it is vulcanized, rubber cannot be simply melted down and recast into something else like some plastics, glass, and most metals can. To be used in this manner, the rubber must first be devulcanized: a process that involves very high heat and some highly toxic chemicals. The process is considered so environmentally unfriendly that its use is highly discouraged. Research continues for a means of making rubber reusable in a more responsible way.

What is made from Recycled Rubber?

Recycled rubber can be simply ground up to make products such as rubber mulch for use in gardens and as a loose playground surface instead of pea gravel. Like mulch make from ground wood, the rubber mulch aids in retaining ground moisture, helps prevent weeds, and can be dyed a variety of colors to make it attractive. Rubber mulch does not break down, so it doesn’t have to be replaced, as wood mulch will. Rubber mulch also does not attract termites, ants and bees as wood mulch can. Because it does not break down, rubber mulch will not, however, enrich your soil.

Granulated rubber can be pressed into a variety of shapes to become new products such as parking lot curb blocks.

Granulated rubber can also be processed into flooring tiles, mats and sheets that offer a durable, shock absorbing surface for gymnasiums, health clubs, industrial work stations, and homes.

Rubber is being used increasingly as the surface of running tracks.

Pelletized rubber can also be added to asphalt and used as a road or driveway pavement.

Tires can be used as fuel by burning them in industrial applications and power plants.

Tires can also be directly converted into new products my simply punch-stamping the tread or sidewalls to create shapes used in other ways.

Why Recycle Rubber?

As mentioned above, disposing of tires (legally or illegally) creates a number of environmental issues. Reclaiming and recycling rubber uses less energy than producing new rubber. Additionally, recycling rubber reduces demand for new natural rubber, which helps keep rubber tree plantations from expanding into sensitive tropical ecosystems.

How to Recycle Rubber

These days most tire dealers will accept and recycle your old tires when you buy new ones. There is a small processing fee associated, but it saves you from having to haul them off to a recycler. If you are disposing of old tires, your local county convenience centers generally accept them and will send them off for recycling. Or you can search for local businesses or artists that use old tires by stamping or cutting them into parts for their product. They may even buy them from you!

Some shoe manufacturers are engaging in a shoe take-back program where they offer you a discount on a new pair when you bring back the old ones for recycling.

If you have large rubber items like floor mats, check with your local waste management service. Most will accept these and send them off with the tires to be recycled.

Summary

Recycling rubber products – especially tires – reduces bulk in landfills, reduces potential contamination and damage to landfills. Using recycled rubber reduces the cost and energy consumption of producing products from new rubber and holds down demand for virgin rubber that would endanger rainforest environments.

Recycling tires helps eliminate health hazards that come from mosquitoes and vermin that will breed in them.
Recycling rubber is convenient.
Recycling rubber helps create an array of useful new products.
Please, recycle your unwanted rubber products.

References

EPA: Scrap Tires — Basic Information
EPA: Innovative Uses for Scrap Tires
EPA: Ground Rubber Applications
California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery: Evaluation of Waste Tire Devulcanization Technologies

Battling the Evil Flea Beetle

The adult flea beetle is a tiny (1/10 inch long) black, brown or bronze beetle that can jump like a flea when you disturb it. You’ll know it’s around when you see the small, round “pinholes” they chew through leaves. They will attack most vegetables, flowers and weeds but are particularly fond of brassicas (cabbage family), potatoes, spinach, radishes and eggplant.

Flea Beetle

Flea Beetle Life Cycle

Flea beetles are found throughout North America. The larvae live in the soil and are thin, white, legless grubs with brown heads that feed on plant roots. Adult Flea Beetles emerge from the soil in spring to feed and lay eggs on the roots of plants. The adults die out by early July. Their eggs hatch in about a week. The larvae feed for 2 to 3 weeks then pupate in the soil. The next generation of adults emerges in 2 to 3 weeks. These voracious pests produce two to four generations per year before the final generation of adults settles down for overwintering.

These beetles are most damaging in early spring when an infestation can kill seedlings. As plants mature they are better able to survive and outgrow the damage, unless the beetles carried a plant virus.

Battling the Enemy

Prevention is often the best defense. The larvae overwinter in soil and can be destroyed with regular hoeing and cultivating. Be sure to remove all debris from previous crops and keep the area weed free. Weeds are an important early season food for flea beetle larvae. Without cover and food, the larva will starve.

Editorial Quick Tags

While you are writing, it is generally best not to break your stride by stopping to puzzle out or fix some inconsistency or fill in a blank spot or detail. Keep writing so you stay in the groove, but toss in a tag so you can easily find the trouble spot later. When doing a read-through of a completed manuscript, you may want to tag problems rather than stopping to fix them so you can stay in the story. Editors sometimes use tags, along with pages of notes on those tags, to flag areas that need rewriting or revision.

Editorial tags need to be unique so they can be easily searched for when it is time to deal with them. Common tags are TK or TC, which mean “to come” and are used to mark gaps in the text where something else is needed. These are letter combinations that do not occur in words, so they should not provide false hits in your search.

I tend to like <<NOTE>> because it is visually catchy as well as easily searched for. I can amend NOTE with a quick comment on what needs fixing and still be able to find them by searching for “<<NOTE”. Others might be <<EXPLAIN>>, <<SHORTEN>>, <<NEED PHOTO>> or <<UNCLEAR>>. You might think you’d have to start keeping a list of tags you’ve used, but you don’t because you can just search for “<<” and pull them all up.

When doing blog posts or magazine articles, I use this same trick to mark photo placements: <<<MyPhoto140625.jpg 300 Left>>> which gives me the title, width in pixels and the alignment. I learned this from a magazine that accepted text and photos through e-mail but needed to format and assemble the articles for print in their own system.

Tags have a variety of uses in both the writing and initial editing phase of your manuscript.. I hope this helps you out as you write.

Seeking the History of the Screened Porch

Anyone who has experienced one has to admit that a screened porch is a wonderful addition to any house. A screened porch offers the breezes, scents, sounds, and sights of being outdoors – but without the bugs and the blazing sun. In rural areas – before air conditioning became rampant – many people used a screened porch as a bunk room on particularly sweltering summer nights.

Source: underthegables.blogspot.com/
Victorian home with a sleeping porch on the second floor. Usually built off a bedroom, the sleeping porch was screened in on three sides for maximum air circulation.

But like so many brilliant architectural adaptations, the screened porch has been shoved aside by more modern innovations and changes in lifestyle. Conversion to a year-round sunroom or blown out into a larger deck or patio that offers a full open-air atmosphere, the screened porch is fast becoming a nostalgic memory.

Have you ever wondered who first thought of enclosing a porch with window screening? Let’s have a seat in the Wayback Whensday machine and see what we can find out. Continue reading “Seeking the History of the Screened Porch”

Recycling Yard Waste Into Something Useful

Unless you rent an apartment, you probably have a yard to maintain. That means grass to mow, bushes and trees to tend, maybe flowers or a vegetable garden to maintain. A yard of any size will produce a fair bit of yard waste. What do you do with all the trimmings, clippings and cuttings?

Municipal Disposal of Yard Waste

If you live in a city, you can probably put your yard waste into special biodegradable bags and the city will pick it up for composting. This may be the easiest solution, but if you are also buying fertilizer for your yard, it’s not the best solution.

Composting

You can easily compost your yard waste and kitchen scraps (fruit and vegetable) to make a nutrition-rich soil additive to fertilize your plants. And it costs you nothing!

Read the Rest

Recycle into Planters for a Super Summer Spruce-up

As spring swings into summer many are beautifying their yards with flowers. Some can be planted directly in the ground, others – for a variety of reasons – are best in planters. Commercially made pots serve this purpose but so, also, can a variety of other items that would otherwise be considered refuse. Let’s look at a few things that can be re-purposed into unique and decorative planters.

Tires as Planters

Old tires can be used as-is and laid out on the ground or hung on a wall, filled with dirt and planted in or they can be painted, or they can be turned into fancy planters with a little elbow grease and a sharp knife or reciprocating saw.

Planter-Tire _elegant_ShoestringPavilion_blogspot_com

Rims can also be used. Line a rim with weed fabric or a fiber hanging planter liner and fill that with soil. They can be used au-natural, painted or covered with a mosaic pattern for a spiffy planter.

Clothing

Shoes, boots and galoshes are commonly seen repurposed as planters but with a little ingenuity one can use pants as well! How about an old fedora?

Furniture

Read the Rest

Speak Up, Stand Out, Build Your Audience

Original Pub Date: January 2, 2012: Webupon.com

Many of the expert book marketing folks have touted the benefits to authors of running a blog. On a blog you can offer excerpts from your book, talk about your characters, offer insights into your life and personality, even plug your books, all with the intent of piquing the curiosity of your target audience so they will want to buy your books. But to do that, people must actually come to your blog and read it.

A blog, or a web site, is like a box of brochures in that they can be effective advertising tools if disbursed but if left sitting in the back of a closet, they are useless to you. Handing out your digital brochures can be done in a number of ways.

Put the URL on every print piece of advertising you produce; from business cards to your books.
Add the URL to your e-mail tagline.
Add it to all your social media accounts.
Comment on other people’s blogs and fill in the URL field.

It is this last one that I want to talk about today. Commenting on other blogs that are related to yours or attract the same readers that you want to reach is a good way to introduce yourself to a new group of people. But to do it effectively requires some research and some thought. Continue reading “Speak Up, Stand Out, Build Your Audience”

Back In The Day: A Miner’s Life

I found this brief tale of a miners life fascinating and wanted to share it. A link to the original source is below.

Back in the day breakfast consisted of Bacon, biscuits, black coffee, a pull from the whiskey bottle and then cigars or a chaw from the plug of tobacco. Being a working miner living in a shack was a tough but rewarding existence. Daily survival was the driving force. Hunting & chopping wood was required to live. There were no supermarkets or mini malls. There was no air conditioning, running water, jacuzzi tubs, high speed internet, smart phones, big screen TV’s, or mail order warehouses that sell every widget know to man. In the summer we were hot, in the winter we froze.

If you were lucky enough to find some color in the rocks you had to constantly look over your shoulder for the next backshooter trying to steal your claim or from taking a shot at you from a distance! Old miners lived high on life, adventure, hard work, sweat, Elk loin & Elk jerky, but most of all whiskey straight from the bottle! — with Link Borland wannabe.

Original Source