Learning the alphabet was fun. Singing the alphabet song has got to be one of the highlights of early life. When we started school many years ago, we had to learn the ABC. Kids still do, but the only thing that stayed the same is that A still stands for Apple!
Old School Alphabet
New Alphabet for kids today
Related Post: Learn the National Anthem the ABC way
Posted in Just for fun
Tagged ABC, Alphabet, alphabet chart, alphabet picture, Alphabet song, education, funny, happy Friday, humour, Just for fun, learn alphabet, learn something, New Alphabet, Old Alphabet chart
I HAVE found existing guides for hatching brine shrimp on the Internet overly complex. I have been hatching brine shrimp for tropical fish since I was a child and can confidently say that it is not a complicated process.
Brine shrimp are a great live food source for tropical fish, especially if you are breeding fish and want to raise healthy fish spawn. They are also great for varying the diet of smaller tropical fish species.
Brine shrimp generally come in small plastic containers. Some brine shrimp guides will tell you to keep these in the fridge, but this is not necessary. So long as the container is kept sealed so that moisture cannot enter and glue the eggs together, brine shrimp eggs can be kept at room temperature.
Some brine shrimp guides suggest using a cone-shaped device for hatching the eggs. What I find works best is a small rectangular tank or transparent container of about five litres. The corners are useful for getting the brine shrimp to cluster together so that more can be extracted at once.
Add two cups (500mls) of fish tank water to your breeding tank – diluted with a teaspoon of salt. Some brine shrimp guides will urge you to use aquarium salt or non-iodated salt. This is best, but I’ve found that ordinary table salt works just as well. It’s cheaper too.
You want the salted water level to be between 2-3cm. Gently sprinkle some brine shrimp eggs over the water surface and allow them to spread out. It doesn’t matter whether or not the eggs sink or float but you want to ensure that none stick to the sides of the tank and dry out.
Other brine shrimp guides may also argue that the water needs to be aerated and heated. You can do this however you see fit if you wish, but it is not essential. In the summer months you can keep your hatchery in the sunlight near a window. During Winter, room temperature should be adequate. Also bear in mind that if your brine shrimp hatchery is in the sunlight more water will evaporate and more eggs will stick to the sides, dry out, and won’t hatch.
After about two days you should see little orange movements. Your brine shrimp have hatched and are ready to be fed to your tropical fish! Brine shrimp are attracted to light and will swim towards it. Use a small torch or light source to attract them towards one of the corners. Once they have mustered together, suck them up with a plastic syringe or eye-dropper and slowly eject them into your fish tank.
A little salt in your tank is good for your fish. It helps ward off parasites and keeps your fish healthy. Just don’t overdo it! One syringe full of tasty brine shrimp per day is ample depending on the size of your tank. Your tropical fish will love you for the treat!
Tropical Fish Care Posts:
Posted in Gadgets & technology
Tagged Aquaculture, aquariums, brine shrimp, brine shrimp eggs, brine shrimp guide, fish, Fish and Aquaria, fish profiles, Fish Tanks, freshwater fish, freshwater fish profiles, hatching brine shrimp, hatching brine shrimp eggs, hatching brine shrimp guide, pets, Recreation, something fishy, tropical fish, Tropical freshwater fish
IT amazes me how music stores manage to survive in the information age. We are already able to stream music online from websites and radio stations, watch music videos freely on YouTube (and download these), listen to hit singles by our favourite bands via their websites and share music with others using our cellphones, iPods and iPads. The number of songs that can be stored on an iPod or MP3 player is also so high that buying a CD with between 10 and 20 tracks just seems like a disappointment.
It is also not difficult to download songs illegally online. File-sharing websites such as The Pirate Bay and programs such as LimeWire have been under scrutiny ever since their launch, but are still around and remain popular. It has even been argued that people who download music are far more likely to buy original CDs than those who don’t. Being able to familiarise ourselves with a new band or artist by listening to more than just one promotional track allows us to make a more informed choice whether or not we want to support the group by buying their original work. It also reduces the risk of being disappointed and R100-odd poorer, so the arguments go.
There is no doubt that music corporations painstakingly attempt to protect their copywrite material. Using just a few seconds of a dated song in an online video could result in a hefty fine. What often happens in the case of YouTube videos that use copywrite music is that a stern e-mail is sent to the creator stating that the video will not be pulled but that YouTube has the right to advertise alongside the video. When this happens your YouTube channel begins to look like a corporate website with big, flashy adverts unrelated to your video content.
The games industry has already realised the value of offering dated games for free online. With the proliferation of new titles, it becomes nonsensical to try to sell older games. But game companies and developers still want us playing and appreciating their previous work and familiarising ourselves with their brands. Offering older titles for free may also muster new fans and potential buyers of their newer titles. So why isn’t the same done with regards to music?
Spotify – the free music website
Spotify is one of many websites that allow users to listen to and share music freely online. Their ultimate goal is "to have all the music in the world available instantly to everyone".
Spotify is one of many websites that allow users to listen to and share music freely online. It hosts more than 13 million songs and it is free to share everything you listen to on Spotify through social media sites and services such as Facebook, Twitter and even YouTube. The Spotify application is available for PC, Mac, cellphones and even home audio systems. “Just help yourself to whatever you want, whenever you want it,” it says on the Spotify website.
Spotify openly admits that its goal is “to have all the music in the world available instantly to everyone”. It also admits, however, that it takes time to arrange licensing agreements with record labels, which indicates that its goal is a legit one. Unfortunately, this does mean that Spotify is not yet available in every country, including South Africa. It’s no surprise that the countries where it is available are the most liberal when it comes to freedom of information and the Internet, such as Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands.
What is great about websites such as Spotify is that they promote the consumer policy of “try before you buy”. Users are able to purchase songs or albums off the website, which can then be downloaded in MP3 format.
But one might ask, if it is entirely free, in theory, to listen to and share just about any song on the Internet, then what difference does it make whether the same songs are downloaded? We may wish to load up our iPod before a jog or create a music CD for our car — whatever 21st-century convenience tickles our fancy.
It seems a bit bizarre that we (or at least people in some countries) are able to consume the music of our choice to our hearts content all for free, but the minute we want to listen offline at our own convenience we have to pay for it — even if they are songs or albums that are no longer stocked in music stores.
Maybe they want us spending that time listening on their websites so they can build up a record of what we like and send promotions our way.
WHEN I SAY I’M BROKE – I’M BROKE!
A little old lady answered a knock at the door one day to be confronted by a well-dressed young man carrying a vacuum cleaner.
“Good morning”, said the young man. “If I could take a couple minutes of your time, I would like to demonstrate the very latest in high-powered vacuum cleaners.”
“Go away!” piped the old lady. “I’m broke and haven’t got any money!” and she proceeded to close the door.
Quick as a flash, the young man wedged his foot in the door and pushed it wide open. “Don’t be too hasty!” said he. “Not until you have at least seen my demonstration.” And with that he emptied a bucket of horse manure onto her hallway carpet.
“Now, if this vacuum cleaner does not remove all traces of this horse manure from your carpet, Madam, I will personally eat the remainder.”
The old lady stepped back and said, “Well let me get you a fork, ’cause they cut off my electricity this morning.”
THE BANANA TEST
There was a very, very tall coconut tree and four animals, a lion, a chimpanzee, a giraffe, and a squirrel, who pass by. They decide to compete to see who is the fastest to get a banana off the tree. Who do you guess will win? Your answer will reflect your personality. So think carefully. Try and get it within 30 seconds.
Got your answer? Now scroll down to see the analysis.
If your answer is:
A coconut tree doesn’t have bananas!
Obviously you’re stressed and overworked. You should take some time off and relax, banana brain. Try again next year.
Posted in Just for fun
Tagged Banana, Banana Test, clean jokes, funny, happy Friday, humour, jokes, Just for fun, something silly, The Banana Test
GOOGLE has announced that it will be digitising a further 250 000 books from the British Library. This is in line with Google’s mission statement to “make all of the knowledge contained within the world’s books searchable online” as part of its Google Books service. Google has already scanned around 13 million books worldwide through partnerships with over 40 libraries. This recent endeavour is predicted to take the company three years to complete.
As part of this new agreement, the texts, pamphlets and periodicals that will be scanned were published between 1700 and 1870 and are out of copywrite. The digitised material will all be freely available online through Google Books as well as the British Library’s 19th Century Books app compatible with tablet PCs such as the iPad. Readers will be able to view, copy, and share all the digitised texts for non-commercial use.
In an article published on the Guardian website, president of the Royal Historical Society, Professor Colin Jones, says: “There is no doubt that the digitisation of this unique material will greatly benefit the research process. Academics are increasingly using new technologies at their disposal to search for innovative ways of investigating historical material to enable us to probe new questions and find alternative patterns of investigation. Digitisation gives us the freedom to not only do this quickly and remotely, but also enhances the quality and depth of the original.”
There will always be arguments, perhaps moments of reminiscence, over the value of reading a hard-copy book made of paper versus reading an e-book using a digital device. But what will this move towards digitising published books mean for the public library? Can anyone honestly say that they have made regular visits to their local library since their university, or even school days?
The existence of public libraries today has largely depended on community support and attendance. According to Wikipedia, the formula to get funding was simple: demonstrate the need for a public library, provide the building site, annually provide 10% of the cost of the library’s construction to support its operation, and provide free service to all. It can be argued that the need for public libraries is fast dwindling due to the ever-growing presence of the Internet. So what might replace the public library?
What has emerged, at least in the United States and Europe, are smaller scale centers for learning, funded and operated by groups of people with collective interests. Hackerspaces, Fabrication Laboratories (Fab Labs) and TechShops have been sprouting up in just about every state in the U.S. according to a blog called makezine.com
“There are hundreds of hackerspaces that have appeared, almost overnight, around the world. From my re-collection over the past decade, the ones in Europe were really appealing. Many makers were travelling around the world, and eventually word spread. Now, just about every state in the U.S. has one, and most large cities have hackerspaces.” — http://blog.makezine.com
The concept of a hackerspace sounds really appealing and seems like a productive and worthwhile civic building for any city to fund. Hackerspaces are membership-based operations that generally consist of tools, workshops, computer networks and people with common interests. Members share rent for the building(s) utilised as well as resources and information that they have accumulated.
“A hackerspace or hackspace … is a location where people with common interests, usually in computers, technology, science or digital or electronic art can meet, socialise and/or collaborate. A hackerspace can be viewed as an open community incorporating … machine shops, workshops and/or studios where hackers can come together to share resources and knowledge. Many hackerspaces participate in the use and development of free software and alternative media and can be found in infoshops or social centres.” — http://blog.makezine.com
The Fab Labs that have emerged are similar to hackerspaces. They can be thought of as small-scale workshops that create products that are generally limited to mass production.
TechShops, on the other hand, are commercial ventures that provide all the tools and equipment needed to make almost anything. They are also funded by membership but go further by offering classes and workshops and provide members with access to a library of tools and equipment, instruction, as well as a community of creative people.
The author of makezine.com Phillip Torrone, explains that TechShops are designed for everyone, regardless of their skill level. TechShops are “perfect for inventors, makers, hackers, tinkerers, artists, roboteers, families, entrepreneurs, youth groups, arts and crafts enthusiasts, and anyone else who wants to be able to make things that they dream up, but don’t have the tools, space or skills.”
So in considering the role that the public library can or should have in the future, it may be useful for members on the city council to consider the value that hackerspaces, TechShops and Fab Labs have to offer in educating future and current generations. Perhaps public libraries could provide this space to fill the void as more and more books go digital.
Over@Witness This New
