cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/24123511

Desemboque del Seri, a community in northern Mexico, has seen stunning results after installing solar panels in family vegetable gardens.

Verónica Molina, a member of the indigenous Comcaac community, has led the charge, according to Inter Press Service. After learning about solar farms in India in 2016, that experience inspired her to change how her community functioned.

This change has allowed Molina's community to save money and live in a healthier environment. While this technology is relatively new to Mexico, Molina's work has the potential to revolutionize how many people live.

"With the panels, we pay less for energy, and with the gardens we save money on vegetables," Molina said in a translated statement to IPS.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/20107320

Source: Bon Bagay: Permaculture, Abundance and Autonomy (scroll to bottom)

The Berkley Method is the quick way to compost - the claim being 14 days, but most find 18 days to be the right pick.

A great way to make use of manure as well, some have the right ratio ready to go.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27518637

I'm not sure if it's a tad dry, or if that's just how challah works, this is only my second attempt. Still tasty though!

I used the America's Test Kitchen recipe which calls for an internal temperature of 195F after 35-40 minutes, but I got to about 210F at 30 minutes.

Cabinet details cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27518175

Plywood for the main box (3/4" sides, 1/4" back, rabbet and dado joints). Cut the door 1" too narrow so I added a handle from cedar scrap. Shelves and sheet pan brackets are reclaimed bed slats, planed. Window hole is routed with plexiglass insert, my first time doing any significant router work.

The brackets for the baking sheet have a cutout to accommodate two bowls. My goal was either two bowls or two baking sheets.

An obvious improvement would be to install an under-counter outlet so the cord is less prominent.

Heating is from a 45W incandescent bulb (which was the hardest part to find). It's in the top of an old desk lamp. Adding an 8x8" pan of hot water kept the humidity high so I didn't have to cover the rising bread. Temperature/humidity logging is from an SHT30 (plus two DS18B20s) running Tasmota and reportig to HomeAssistant, viewed in Grafana. I expected to have to cycle the light, but just keeping it always on seems to give me the right temperature range.

I ended up coming across videos from Kris Harbour, who makes wildly cool things - such as this working wind turbine - which are incredibly useful for off-grid living. A worthwhile addition here, and a very worthy channel to archive.

Originally from fix.com, in a blog post titled Sifting Through Soil

The important parts:

Most state extension services will perform a detailed soil analysis for a small fee, but you have to wait for the results. Many people take a soil sample in spring, but you can home-test the soil at any time during the year. There are soil test kits for sale at most home improvement stores, but a no-cost, at-home soil test is simple, can be done in any spot in your garden, and takes just a glass jar. Once you complete the test, you can use the results to figure out what to add to your soil to improve it.

Step-by-Step Soil Test

• Clean a pint or quart mason jar and lid
• Fill the jar about halfway with soil. I like to do several different tests, isolating spots in the garden—a jar from each flower bed, for example. That’s because the soil may differ from spot to spot
• Fill up the rest of the jar with water, leaving a bit of headspace in order to shake up the contents
• Tighten the lid and give the jar a good shake for two to three minutes
• Put the jar down and let it rest for four to five hours. As the jar is resting, you might notice the soil doing something interesting: It’s separating into distinct layers: sand at the bottom, silt in the middle, and clay at the top.

Analyze Your Soil

After completing the soil test, you need to determine the percentages in your mason jar. Measure each of the three layers and calculate approximately how much space each takes up in the jar. That’s the approximate makeup of your soil, and indicates what soil type you have

TL;DR: Want to use my desktop keyboard/mouse with my Laptop. What software are you using/enjoying? Arch+KDE w/ Wayland will be the main host, main client is Windows 11. Secondary hosts may be Debian and MacOS, same client, but low priority on the Mac.

Hey folks, I'm rearranging some things a bit at home, would love to get some current thoughts on keyboard/mouse sharing over IP (no video).

I have to put up with some tools that don't play nicely with wine/proton, and so my work laptop is a windows device. I'll be controlling that device primary from Arch and Debian, though MacOS is a possibility. I'd like to keep the laptop closed and not add another mouse/keyboard into the mix, so Keyb/Mouse over IP it is.

Here's what I'm looking at, haven't tried them all yet, but looking for opinions:

• Barrier - Dead fork. Hasn't been updated in some time, being superseded by input-leap. Most portions of the project managed by someone who had not been active for a couple years before the Input Leap fork.
• Input Leap - Forked from Barrier at the end of 2021, and nearly 3 years later, no stable binary releases yet. Development seems fairly active, but no binary releases yet doesn't provide a massive amount of confidence that it will be stable. Doesn't mean I won't build and test though.
• Lan Mouse - Seems pretty neat, the lack of input capture on MacOS could create an issue for me in certain situations, but I can work around that if I need to for the rare times I'd need it. Traffic is unencrypted/plaintext. Its entirely local, and I've got more security than most users (and some companies), but still. Probably leading the pack right now.
• Deskflow - Upstream project for Synergy, a rename to differentiate the user project from Synergy. TONS of recent activity, but the switch is very recent. I don't know if there are any binaries built, but its a longstanding project (and like many, many others, I used Synergy before it went commercial, it was nice).

Any other options out there? Good/bad experiences with any of these?

TL;DR: Got any of them "banned" book recommendations for kids? We have a 2 1/2yr old and a 6 yr old who love book time

So a recent popular post in politics was about a book that stirred up controversy - My Shadow is Purple, which is the second book in a series (Here's the first).

Local library doesn't have them unfortunately, so I'll be putting in a request (then checking out a local store).

It made me wonder about some other great books out there that more conservative areas might not have. My township is pretty progressive (, but not large, so the school library is only OK. The county library is literally a few blocks away, so no town library. And while amazing as a library, the in-county magas have made the library slow down on some kinds of books. Its ridiculous, but one problem at a time.

So I'm hoping to get some kids books they might not otherwise see, like the My Shadow is Pink/Purple books mentioned, but I don't know what's out there.

Anyone have some favorites to share for the young kids? Looking forward to any ideas!

I got my hands on a Lenovo ThinkSmart Hub 500 - you may have seen these in conference rooms, its a small Teams Room or Zoom Room device, based off their Tiny lineup, with a built-in touch display thats about 11" in diagonal.

https://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/ThinkSmart/ThinkSmart_Hub_500/ThinkSmart_Hub_500_Spec.pdf

I left the 128gb nvme in there for now, and threw Debian 12 on it. Touch worked throughout the installation process, all I did was attach a keyboard, power, and network (along with the thumb drive with netinstall), now installed with KDE.

Considering the specs, the only part I'm surprised works well is the touchscreen, its otherwise just a generic lenovo tiny (which I have several of already, 6th-9th gen, as part of my tiny/mini/micro server stack). I could have chosen a different flavor, but I'm a long, long, loooonngggg time Debain user so its my go-to.

In terms of touch, tap, drag, and long press are all working. Video looks good with the UI set at 125% scaling, and to be candid its rather snappy and responsive.

I did this 100% for my own personal entertainment, so now for some thoughts for the community - what would be fun to use it for? A few of my thoughts....

• I could use it as a HomeAssistant kiosk. Neat, but.... overkill compared to the tablets doing the same job.
• Make it an emulation station, attach my steam controller and maybe my usb adapters for N64/GC/Sega/PS/etc.
• Use it to test a series of distributions to see how well they handle touch drivers for this silly thing (EndeavorOS is probably going to happen, I may be a long time Debian guy but I should spend more regular time in other things, and not just my arch VMs).
• I don't know, gcompris for my kids? They already have it though on an android tablet and an old mac mini (like, 2011ish) hooked up to the TV in the living room.
• Make it another proxmox endpoint for the cluster, install a DE anyway, and then let it be an always-visible display for grafana?
• Install OBS, let the hdmi capture have some purpose?

What about you folks, what would you find fun to do with this box?

TL;DR: How do you sort your books for your book server?

I'm thinking of reworking my eBook/comic/etc library, and I'm curious how other people structure things.

I don't want to separate fiction out by genre or anything since some can fit multiple genres, so I'm leaning towards Dewey decimal system categories personally.

I'm also planning a bit ahead since my daughter is now starting to read more than sight words books, so I'm thinking of separating kids fiction and adult fiction.

I also currently have a section for comics, manga, and LNs. Those are separated mostly for who goes to what, and what they do/don't want to read. So my library right now (plus the kids section) will look like:

• Kids Fiction
• Adult Fiction
• Comics
• Manga
• Light/Web Novels
• Non-Fiction

Simple for navigation, and searchable, but maybe not the best for browsing. So I was thinking maybe the Dewey categories:

• Computer Science, Knowledge, and Systems
• Philosophy & Psychology
• Social Sciences
• Language
• Science
• Technology
• Arts
• Adult Fiction
• Kids Fiction
• History/Geography

Nicely browsable, but some of those sections will be really light on books.

What method of sorting do you use? Any librarians out there with thoughts on better approaches than the Dewey decimal system?

EDIT: I really like what @thayer@lemmy.ca mentioned, which I've currently adapted to:

• Instructional (How-to, manuals, gardening, etc)
• Tech (Electronics reference materials, programming reference books, etc).
• Equine (all my wife's horse stuff)
• Kids Fiction
• Kids Non-Fiction (I've got some geography books and such my daughter likes, I'm sure it will expand over time)
• Adult Fiction
• Adult Non-Fiction
• Comics
• Manga
• LN/WN

I can easily allow the kids accounts to have access to the Kids section, not include the comics/manga/tech my wife has no interest in, etc.