Google is planning to release a star gazing application for the Android platform in the next few weeks. Star Droid will allow users to use their Android phones to identify star constellations in the night sky.

The Star Droid app will use Android’s built-in GPS technology to match the position of the device with existing maps of space, and attach relevant name tags to the stars and planets that can be seen through the phone’s viewfinder.

The Star Droid application will be available free to download from the Android Market, and is expected to appear in the Market soon.

[via telegraph.co.uk]

Updated…. May.15, 2009, Its here!

Now this is cool. They’ve just released Sky Map, an Android application that tells you exactly what you’re looking at in the night sky. By using a combination of GPS, sensors, and the compass, Sky Map can determine what part of the sky you’re looking at and what the name of the stars are. It’s really amazing.

Go download Sky Map from the Android Market for the low price of FREE today! I guarantee it’ll amaze every one who sees it.

This years Cushing Crossing at Squaw Valley turned out to be quite the challenge. Despite the solid week of rain that postponed the annual event, local contestants came out in force to support the pond skim. It seems this years pond crossing turned out to be a bit more challenging due to the steep drop off into the pond and the slower run in. That didn’t stop contestants and brothers Derek and Tyler Brown from giving it their all. Tyler made a strong attempt on a pair of stilts and damn near made it all the way before face planting. Derek was not so lucky and despite his best efforts to cross switch, landed with a laid out back flop about 5 feet in that surely left a mark!

Below are some pics of some of my buds not quite making it. JT Holmes and his crew with the Three Man, 2 ski, 2 monoboard attempt, Eli Osbourne blowing bubbles, and Travis Eckert spreading shark sugar… amazingly, Eli was able to keep his camera dry!

[View with PicLens]

Every once in a while, you hear about something and wonder why nobody thought of it before…

Alfredo Moser is a Brazilian inventor and he has invented something that will aid mankind and benefit the earth. Curious? Think renewable energy, simple, powerful, cheap, easy to manufacture, and capable of affecting lives all over the entire planet. Any light bulbs yet?

That is exactly what Alfredo got, and now Alfredo’s newest invention is spreading like wildfire through his neighborhood in Brazil. Like all really great ideas, it was born out of necessity… during a 2002 energy blackout in Brazil, Alfredo’s workshop was drowned in darkness and became to dark to work. So Alfredo set out to do something about it McGyver style. Using a simple 2-liter bottle of water, a cap full of bleach and an old 35 mm film canister, he created this “light bulb.”

He figured out that all he had to do was cut some holes in his workshop roof, so the new water-bottle light bulbs could shine the sun’s rays directly into his dark workplace, bathing it in light! Voila, instant illumination, and he could go back to work! As he has shared this invention with others, these “light bulbs” they have been using his invention to light their homes without having to pay for electricity.

Now, most folks are not going to go punch a bunch of holes in your roof, so that you can use these lil beauties to light up your life, but it could easily work in off the grid homes, Earthships, shipping container dwellings or even that workshop in your backyard! I’d be willing to bet you money that there are folks trying to figure out how to commercialize it as we speak wanting to capitalize on some of those renewables that Terra-Cycle has been so hyped on.

Of course it does have its limitations. For instance, it works using the sun. No sun, no light. However, It’ s not a solution to all our lighting needs. It’s a solution to light up a dark place during the day, without spending one single penny on electricity. This works wherever there is sun, even in the poorer third-world nations… this invention is going to change lives. This invention is changing lives!

I have been interested in off the grid living and alternative living styles since I first visited Narrow Ridge in the late nineties with a few friends. It is a self sufficient off the grid community north of Knoxville, Tennessee where I helped to build straw bale homes and massive solar water heaters.

Recently I ran across this article by Kelly Hart at www.greenhomebuilding.com and I thought I would post it along with some photos of shipping container dwellings that I have collected.

If you would like to learn more about ISBU’s and ISBU Architecture, check out some of these links.

International Equipment Inspections, Inc.
International company that provides the SIR inspections and reports so ISBU and shipping containers can be certified by architects and engineers for building construction projects and storage units.

ISBU Association
Fast growing grass roots network and resource for shipping container home construction. Please check with them as they are without a doubt the most complete and informed organization. They are membership driven and not owned or funded by any large companies or organizations.

Bob Vila
Site for construction tips and ideas. Also good for ISBU Shipping Container information.

Inhabitat
Prefab of all types with a few Shipping Container projects.

Happy Earth Day!

Building with Shipping Containers by Kelly Hart

An idea whose time seems to have arrived is the use of stockpiled shipping containers as modular units for building homes. Because of the balance of trade in the United States, these hefty steel boxes are piling up in ports around the country and posing a storage problem. Several architects and builders are taking advantage of this surplus to recycle the containers.

According to David Cross of www.sgblocks.com, “a container has 8000 lbs of steel which takes 8000 kwh of energy to melt down and make new beams etc… Our process of modifying that entire 8000 lbs of steel into a “higher and better use” only takes 400 kwh of electrical energy (or 5%). Granted it takes a bit more “muscle” but we call this Value-Cycling which we feel is that next step up from Re-cycling.”

Each container measures 8 feet wide by 40 feet long by 9 feet tall. SG Blocks sells the finished structural systems (also called SG Blocks) for $9,000 to $11,000 per unit. The finished units have one or two walls removed and include the necessary support columns and beam enhancements.

According to KPFF Consulting, a structural engineering firm in St. Louis with extensive experience working with shipping containers, the units are stronger than conventional house framing because of their resistance to “lateral loads” — those seen in hurricanes and earthquakes — and because steel is basically welded to steel. The roof is strong enough to support the extra weight of a green roof — which has vegetation growing on it — if the owner should want it.

As for their energy efficiency, they claim that when the appropriate coatings are installed, the envelope reflects about 95 percent of outside radiation, resists the loss of interior heat, provides an excellent air infiltration barrier and does not allow water to migrate in.

One idea that has occurred to me is that this system might benefit from the use of SIP’s (Structural Insulated Panels) for the roofs, rather that standard truss framing. SIP’s are very well insulated, install quickly, and use much less wood than convention roofs.

Shipping containers are self-supporting with beams and stout, marine-grade plywood flooring already in place, thereby eliminating time and labor during the home-building process. Cross said construction costs are comparable to those in conventional building. Four to seven units are used in a typical home, he said.

Instead of nailing the siding they use “Super Therm”, a ceramic paint made by Superior Products of Minnesota; it can be used as a paint, an adhesive, an insulator, a fireproofing material and an acoustic barrier. With this ceramic paint, they claim the insulation capacity is equal to a conventional house.

This finished house is virtually indistinguishable from conventional housing.

Adam Kalkin, of www.architectureandhygiene.com , has also become enamored with shipping containers as an architectural solution. The idea to do something with shipping containers came to Kalkin, a New Jersey resident, when driving to New York City, where he saw sky-high stacks of the unused cargo containers in the shipyards he passed.

“The cargo containers, with a life span of about 20 years when used for their original purpose, have an “infinite life span” when stationary and properly maintained,” Kalkin says. “To me they are like a treasured antique: they may not be inherently valuable, but the history and the storytelling add value.”

Environmentalists have embraced the design, applauding the recycling inherent to Kalkin’s designs. And advocates for affordable-housing like the design, since according to Kalkin, “the total cost of a house—between $150,000 and $175,000 after the buyer settles upon the various options—works out to be between $73 and $90 per square foot, about half the cost of the conventional $200 per square foot for reasonable quality, new construction in the Northeast.”

Kalkin has recently opened a factory—“a hangar at a little airport in New Jersey”—to manufacture Quik Houses. “There are a lot of elbows flying in this process, and this is the best way to protect the quality of the house, to keep the accounting transparent, and to make sure I am not unwittingly responsible for heinous crimes to the built environment.” Once the factory is fully functional, Kalkin plans to export many of his products, commenting that “the possibilities of working on a world scale are exciting.”

Twenty-one thousand containers hit American shores every day of the year. Containers can be shipped to the interior of the country via trains and trucks. Shipping containers are like Lego toys and the modules can be assembled in thousands of ways.

In general it is a good thing to recycle materials that otherwise have no further use for their intended purpose, and this is true here. As for whether one can make a comfortable house out of these metal boxes, the biggest question is: insulation…it is essential, but there are many ways to insulate these containers, so this is not a big concern. Another concern that many people would have is whether a metal box would have adverse health effects because of EMF (electro-magnetic frequencies) generation or propagation. Some people are sensitive to these while others are not.

According to the tags on the doors, the timber component (the floor) almost invariably is treated with serious pesticide. There are multiple purposes to the pesticide treatments – a) to prevent transplantation of harmful insects around the world, b) to protect the structure of the floor, and c) to protect the contents from infestation and damage. So care should be taken to either remove the flooring (if pesticide has been used) or protect it from affecting the contents of the container.

There is no doubt that these containers can be used to fabricate very strong shells that would withstand substantial abuse from the ravages of nature.

[View with PicLens]

123►