Arduino NG rev. c

About a year and a half ago I bought my first Arduino, it was a Arduino NG. At the time it was quite new by the fact that it had a USB port. I did a lot of experiments with it, borrowed it a couple of times and now it is back home.
I never used it with external power until one day I wanted to do an autonomous robot. I programmed some test code, removed it from the USB port, powered the auxiliary power supply (a.k.a 9v battery) and nothing...
The usual debugging technique followed:
- test program with USB, it worked.
- remove from USB, change switch to external, power external and wait...wait..nothing.
- check the web... I found here that the problem existed and already had a solution.
- while browsing "problem Arduino NG" I also found here that the "autoreset" feature of the diecimila had been implemented.
So I picked up the soldering iron, my pack of SMD components and went on to hack the board. So I changed the 3rd resistor from the top and I placed the capacitor just below the RX Led (a reader told me it was very clear what I had really done to the board...)
Here is the final result:

Harvesting the Carrots

Last Weekend we decided to Harvest my carrots from the vase. When we came back from a week away we noticed that they were not growing that much. We thought that they must have reached their limit in the vase so...it was harvest time... and we were in for some surprises...

The first one out of the vase was "Quasimodo", because we transplanted the carrots some of them had grown into strange forms. Lesson learned.... do not transplant carrots...

This one we really don't know what to call it... or... we do but it's not nice...they are actually two carrots that started in the same yogurt cup and ended up knotted together.Here's a picture of the whole crop, not bad for a single vase. Last but not the least:
This is the way the world ends,
this is the way the world ends,
this is the way the world ends,
not with a bang but with a chicken stew (at least for our carrots).

Back from Holidays - Frappé

This year we went to Greece, Crete in particular, for our summer get away. It was fantastic, great beaches, great landscapes, great food, great weather, all this and you still can visit some impressive archaeological sites.



It has been some time since I posted about coffee, probably because other than being "surprised" by the excessive price of an expresso, nothing of notice happens outside...
Well in Crete I've found what is probably the only good use of instant coffee... meet the Frappé!.
This is how I do mine, I've talked to some Greek friends and they do it a bit differently...
Put the instant coffee (one or two spoons) and some sugar (with sugar you can do more foam) in a glass and add a few drops (or a table spoon of water).

Use the an electric whisk until you a get a foamy cream.

Whisk until the foam starts getting white in colour.

Add water and ice, a straw and you're done... Instant frappé!

Summer Solstice

According to Wikipedia this year's solstice was on the 21st of June and it was the "official" begin of the summer. My peppers finally blossomed and I was waiting to get more peppers and earlier than last year. I still hand pollinate them as on this high floors bees or the like are very scarce, on the other hand, Ana's tomatoes just need some wind...


We were having some bugs attacking our crops, specially the parsley, celeriac and the peppers. I took a picture of them and then tried to find something similar on the web. I was also looking for advice on how to biologically get rid of it, since we actually intend to eat our products we didn't want to used any harsh chemicals. The appeared to be an Aphid, but I was not sure it looked more like this one. Here's a picture of a celeriac leaf with the pest.

As with all my plants problems I called mum and dad, experienced "farmers and plant growers", for a cure.... And they delivered, mix the ash of a full ashtray with water, mix it well, filter it through a cloth, put it in the sprayer and "splash them all".
As we are not smokers, I asked Tiago to collect his cigarette ash.. He definitely is not smoking that much (which is very good for him!), this was what he collected in two weeks.


I mixed it with water, filtered it through the cloth, then place it in the sprayer and off I went... A lean, mean, bug killing machine.

Two weeks after, the plant is alive (although the leaf in question has almost dried) and the bugs are gone!
Just great! Many thanks to Tiago, "without whom none of this would be possible" (sort off :-).

Meanwhile my carrots are also growing steadily, some of the tops are popping out... can't wait to get them out... but I need to leave them by one more month...