NOTE: As someone pointed out, this is a DANGEROUS process and requires a lot of safety precautions. I would refer to other instructions with more safety measures. I posted this more for the uses of #Lime (as opposed to using tons of chemicals).

Burn #Seashell #Lime in a Primitive Straw/Clay #Kiln!

By skillcult

"In this project we use Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Animal, Vegetable and Mineral to make something with a multitude of practical uses. The text is detailed and stands alone, but the videos are very useful and entertaining. Video #1, the Quicky version, is the 7 minute general interest, entertainment version. Video #2, buildcult, is the long educational 20 minute version. I'd recommend watching the short version first, before reading this instructable, so that you have a visual reference. I did my best to make it worth 7 minutes of your life. I conceived this project for the Brave the Elements contest, which you can vote in here, hint hint.

"The goal is to build a kiln from natural materials in order to burn and slake #lime for #seashells. Lime is immensely valuable! If lime disappeared tomorrow, civilization would fall hard! It is the main ingredient in cement and can be used to make #mortar and #plaster. It can also be used in the arts for #limewash and fresco, in #Soapmaking, mixed with casein (milk protein) to make #PreIndustrial waterproof #glue and #paint, for smelting and refining metal, and to remove hair and prepare skins for rawhide, hide glue or tanning. Ever read the ingredients on your tortillas or tortilla chips and seen 'traces of lime'? That’s because lime is used in processing #corn kernels to make tortillas, hominy and grits, which is easy to do at home. Not only does it make corn more nutritious and digestible, but it also lends to the unique flavor of those products. Beet sugar is processed with lime too. Lime is also used to potentiate certain drug substances such as betel nut and coca leaves, a small bit of lime being chewed with the plant material to activate it. So, yeah, wow, lime is one of the most useful substances ever!

"A WORD ON SAFETY: A lot of people think that lime is some deadly scary chemical that will burn you face off. It’s not… not really... well, maybe. #QuickLime is dangerous, but that is a brief transient state. During #slaking, the quicklime will give off heat and boil vigorously, so that is dangerous since the stuff can splatter around and is not only hot, but also highly alkaline. So, yeah, okay, maybe doing a face plant in a boiling tub of quicklime may burn your face off. Don’t do that! Otherwise, the stuff is not that horrible, and people have been making #tortillas, mixing mortar, plastering walls and tanning leather without goggles and hazmat suits for a very long time. It is also non-toxic. You definitely don’t want your pets drinking lime water or your kids playing with lime, but that is due to it’s concentration mostly, and not to inherent toxicity. When diluted, it becomes less and less caustic and is at some point completely harmless. Once converted to #CalciumCarbonate by drying, it’s just like egg shells, sea shells or stone, not only non-toxic, but actually used as a #calcium supplement. So, don’t get it in your eyes, keep it away from children and pets, be careful when slaking and use common sense and everything will be fine. It will temporarily dry skin though skin though, so be aware of that.

"Before we get to the fun stuff, let me explain how this works. Don’t be intimidated by the chemistry terms, they aren’t important. The changes lime goes through have a name, The Lime Cycle. By heating stone or shells red hot, about 900 Celcius (called calcining), we can change lime from it’s stable inert form, calcium carbonate, into #Calciumxide. Calcium oxide, aka Qucklime, is the most unstable and highly reactive form of lime. Quicklime reacts violently with water, giving off tremendous heat and boiling vigorously. This reaction with water makes it into #CalciumHydroxide, which is similar to #lye, but not as strong. This is the form that is used the most in the arts and industries mentioned above. If the lime is kept under a layer of water, it will not only keep forever, but it improves with age! This stuff is called lime putty. You may be more familiar with the dry lime you can buy in a bag, which is dry calcium hydroxide. This bagged powdered #HydratedLime is widely available, but inferior to wet #SlakedLime putty. You can hardly buy lime putty, and it is very expensive, but you can make it! For more on the forms of lime see my article, Understanding Lime.

"Basically, #LimePutty is like liquid rocks. Once it is allowed to dry with exposure to air, it absorbs carbon from the atmosphere and turns back into a hard rock (or shell, which is pretty much the same thing). Think about that for a second. That is awesome!

"And thus the lime cycle is completed from rock or shell, to quicklime, to lime putty, and back to rock/shell.

"In my book, it doesn't get much funner than burning and slaking lime, so lets get this party started!"

Learn more:
https://www.instructables.com/Burn-Seashell-Lime-in-a-Primitive-StrawClay-Kiln/

#SolarPunkSunday #OldTech #LowTech #LoTech #DIY #TraditionalTechnology
#AncientTechnology #CalciumCarbonate #TraditionalMortar #History #HistoricalMethods #OldTech #SeashellLime

OK, now I know why people stick to #unixoid operating systems like #GNU/​#Linux:

#UNIX is a universal #glue :-).
(See attached photograph.)

#joke #witz

When does #Iceberg beat #Parquet+projection on #AWSGlue, and when doesn't ?

An end-to-end #ETL PoC on #AWS to find out: producer, #Kinesis, two #Firehose paths, two #Glue jobs, #Athena.

🔮 Spoiler: how the data is read is the key to the choice.

In the article: every choice with its why, plus a few gems from some Glue experience 😄

https://alessandra.bilardi.net/diary/articles/2026-05/when-does-iceberg-beat-parquet-projection-on-aws-glue-and-when-doesn-t.en

#DiaryOfALazyDeveloper

The thread about Asa Wass & Son; the rags-to-riches rag-and-bone men of Victorian Edinburgh

This thread was originally written and published in January 2020.

There was for many years a Steptoe-like institution in Fountainbridge by the name of Asa Wass & Son Ltd. Asa is a biblical Hebrew name and Wass an ancient Anglo-Norman surname, most common in Asa’s time in the Midlands of England. According to my Dad, who grew up in nearby Dalry in the 1950s, the correct local pronunciation is “Azzy Woz“. There is an old Edinburgh tongue-twister which goes;

Izzy Azzy A’ways Iz, or Izzy Azzy Woz?

Asa Wass was born in Morley, Yorkshire in 1833 to Judith and Stephen Wass, a carpenter and moulder. According to the 1851 census, when he was 18, he was trained in his father’s trade. He married Hannah Hirst in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, in 1858 when he was 25 and she 24. They moved to Edinburgh and their first daughter, Elizabeth, was born here in 1859 within the year. More children followed; Judith Ann (Judith was the name of both Asa and Hannah’s mothers) in 1861; Clara in 1866; Thomas Henry in 1868; John Arthur in 1871; Sarah Hannah in 1874.

The “Mapping Jewish life in Edinburgh” publication by the The Research Network in Jewish Studies at Edinburgh University lists the Wasses as Jewish, and indeed Asa and Hannah are names from Hebrew. However, Asa’s mother was baptised into the Wesleyan Methodist Church; he and his siblings were baptised into the Church of England and Asa and Hannah were married in a civil ceremony, so I am not sure on the basis for this assertion. The Wass family are buried under a Celtic cross but I suppose that might just be fashion!

In 1861, the family was resident in the humble surroundings of the Old Town at 235 Cowgate (at the foot of Blair Street), with Asa’s occupation being rag merchant. They are first advertised in Edinburgh in the 1863 Post Office Directory as being at 4 St. Leonard Street, which was the family home, and the shop and yard were now at 260 Cowgate. so we can make an assumption that they are not living and trading in the same place. The entry in the PO Directory is also a symbol of success as it means that they can afford to pay for the listing.

In 1871 the Wass family residence and the business itself are moved to 63 Fountainbridge, where they are listing themselves as “woollen rag merchants“. This was on the corner of Lothian Road and Early Grey Street, so a prime position to trade from. In 1878, Asa Wass (“Broker, Fountainbridge“) his wife and his manager James Erskine were found guilty at the Burgh Court of contravening the Brokers Act for purchasing “three small quantities of old hair without being in possession of the necessary licence“. Each was fined £1 with the option of 3 days imprisonment instead. Despite this curious brush with the law they obviously prosper, as within ten years the business has moved to a much larger premises in a yard at 161 Fountainbridge and the family are at Spyfield Cottage in Colinton. They have a shop unit that occupies 153-159 and 163 Fountainbridge and at number 161 is the pend given access to their yard.

The same census that places them here also records only 12 Wasses in Scotland, all in Midlothian and 9 of them being Asa, his wife and his children. They are still living in Colinton in the 1891 in the census, by which time there are an entire 16 Wasses in Scotland. Asa’s occupation is still recorded as being the humble-sounding “Rag, Rope, Paper and Metal Merchant“. However we begin to get a real sense of his success in business; the family had a live-in servant, Margaret Catcher, with them in Colinton and the PO Directory lists a house in town at 17 Leamington Terrace, as good a neighbourhood then as it is now. In 1893, Asa Wass was given permission by the Dean of Guild Court to erect stores at his yard at 161 Fountainbridge.

The photograph that I have found of Asa Wass shows a dignified, respectable-looking Victorian gentleman, clearly somebody who was doing well in life. Edinburgh had a big glue & gelatine manufactory near Fountainbride at Cox’s in Gorgie which demanded bones and skins and both the rivers of the Esk and Water of Leith supported a paper industry who made use of copious quantities of linen rags in their process. A central clearing house, the General Rag Warehouse, had been established in the city as early as 1793 to act as a middle-man between the paper makers and the individual collectors of rags. Rags would be sorted into one of five different categories; Superfine, Fine, Blue, Second and Grey, before being sold, and there was a big premium for the better quality. There was a ready demand in the city for Asa’s skins, bones and rags and he obviously made a lot out of these.

He passed away aged 66 in on November 10th 1898 at the family home at 11 Morningside Park, a very respectable address. His funeral was held on Monday 14th at 3PM at the Dean Cemetery – not where you neccesarily expect to find a rag-and-bone man buried. Asa left an estate worth about £160,000 in today’s money. All the evidence points to him having done very well out of his trade. Hannah Wass continued to live at Morningside Park and died there in 1911.

On the death of Asa, his eldest son Thomas Henry takes over the running of the business, although the properties are is in his mother’s name and it remains known as Asa Wass & Son. However the following year the entire business is listed for sale, and the year after a shop that they used in Rose Street is also sold. By the 1915 valuation rolls the business and proprietor of 161 Fountainbridge are Asa Wass & Son Ltd, but with Thomas Henry in charge. He lived in a pleasant house at 6 Merchiston Grove and died in 1922 at an even larger and more pleasant one at 3 Midmar Avenue, leaving an estate worth at least £400k in today’s money. His son was also Thomas Henry, known as Harry, but I am not clear if he took over from his father. There is a photo of the Wass nag and cart in 1925, by which point Asa has not been around for nearly a quarter of a century, his son too has died, but it still trades under their name and reputation.

In 1941, Asa Wass & Son Ltd. occupies 161, 169 and 177 Fountainbridge, telephone number 21544. By this time, they are the only bone merchants listed “in the book” in Edinburgh. The are also listed under rag merchants and metal merchants and have taken out a not insubstantial advert. Business is clearly still prosperous and the local paper and glue industries still have a use for the wares of Asa Wass & Son Ltd. and of course wartime Britain could not get enough scrap metal.

The business ceased trading and was abandoned in the early 1960s, by this time it had traded for longer under the Asa Wass & Son name for longer than either Asa himself was involved. The yard became a haunt for local children to play in and there are some photos from this period here; http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/0_B/0_buildings_-_asa_wass_yard.htm. The whole area was very run down and was swept away in the early 1970s when Scottish & Newcastle relocated the Fountain Brewery there (from over the road) .

Asa and Hannah’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth, moved to Devonshire on her marriage and when she died in 1934 was recorded as living at a house called Dunedin Crediton, one wonders if this was some sort of family joke about the source of the family’s wealth. Her younger brother, John Arthur Wass, was confined to the Crichton Institution for Lunatics in Dumfries in June 1890 around the age of 19, far from home. This is another indication of the family’s wealth; this was the best sort of place money could afford to send somebody with a mental health condition at this time. He was discharged around a year later, but is admitted to the Aberdeen Royal Asylum in 1895. In 1899 he is transferred to the Dundee Asylum, from where he escapes in November of that year.

John Arthur was a private patient (i.e. he or his family were wealthy enough to pay), and was suffering from moral insanity (“madness consisting in a morbid perversion of the natural feelings, affections, inclinations, temper, habits, moral dispositions, and natural impulses, without any remarkable disorder or defect of the interest or knowing and reasoning faculties, and particularly without any insane illusion or hallucinations“) according to his Notice of Admission to Dundee in 1899. After his escape he emigrates to the US in 1901 (I am not clear if he was ever “recaptured”) and here he settles down, marries and becomes a poultryman, in Monmouth, New Jersey. By 1915 he was living in New York as a landscape gardener and by 1920 was a sculptor. I sincerely hope he found peace here after the torment of his years in Victorian asylums.

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Circular glas cutting (and glueing broken glass)

https://spectra.video/w/uvQptuLo7cjNa3Z8PL22Wz

Just finished disassembling a late-Intel-era Macbook Pro to remove the spicy pillows from it, and I gotta say, I am not impressed with Apple's hardware engineering on it.

I'm not talking about them gluing the cells of the battery to the case - that's been discussed to death, and was unnecessary. I'm talking about some other rather bad choices made during design.

Specifically: fasteners. In general, you want the fewest different types of threaded fasteners possible in your design. Fewer parts to keep in stock, fewer possible mistakes when assembling and disassembling units, etc. And Apple utterly failed this design rule.

It's like each separate part in this machine is held in with 3 different fasteners. Sometimes that's unavoidable in a design; you're using machine screw #1 for most things, but there's one that has to go into this particular place where it can't be as deep/long or there isn't room for the same head or something. But in this case, most of the fasteners are different for no very good reason. There's room for them to have used a common screw for many of the cases where they just ... didn't.

Paying the Apple tax for this kind of janky design (and user-hostile repairability) is just insulting.

"Designed badly in California, manufactured in China".

#Apple #AppleTax #Macbook #MacbookPro #glue #SpicyPillow #design #BadDesign #hardware #janky #UserHostile #CaptiveMarket #AppleMac

“takesada matsutani: glue” (lisa rovner for ‘ursula magazine’)

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSobbOjEIio&w=625&h=352]

In a new feature exploring the physical matter of art-making, Ursula magazine invited filmmaker Lisa Rovner into the Paris studio of artist Takesada Matsutani to respond to a single material used by the artist.

Born in Osaka just before the Second World War, Matsutani was a key member of the ‘second generation’ of the influential post war Japanese art collective, the Gutai Art Association. This innovative group was focused on the merging human and materials properties to concretely comprehend abstract space. During this time and in the years since, Matsutani has developed a unique visual language of form and materials.

Inspired by the plastic quality of vinyl glue, the artist began working with this material in 1961—when it first became widely available in Japan—and has gone on to master it, transforming this commonplace substance into something magical that straddles the line between painting and sculpture. By applying the glue to canvas, letting it partially dry to form a skin and then manipulating it with air blown through a straw, hairdryers or fans, Matsutani brings the material to life—a principle central to Gutai. In some works, he leaves swollen convex shapes, while in others allows the glue to rupture and wrinkle, exploring the wide range of possible forms and tactile qualities of the substance. ‘The idea was something three dimensional, on the canvas,’ the artist explains. ‘An organic kind of shape.’

*

Takesada Matsutani’s exhibition of new works, ‘Combine’ was on view at Hauser & Wirth New York, 22nd Street, 3 February – 2 April 2022.

Lisa Rovner is a French American filmmaker based in London. Rovner has collaborated with some of the most internationally respected artists and brands including Pierre Huyghe, Liam Gillick, Sebastien Tellier, Maison Martin Margiela and Acne. Her first feature documentary ‘SISTERS WITH TRANSISTORS’ (2020) follows the story of electronic music’s female pioneers, composers who embraced machines and their liberating technologies to transform how we produce and listen to music today.

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Hauser & Wirth is an international contemporary and modern art gallery with spaces in Zurich, London, Somerset, New York, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Gstaad, St. Moritz, Monaco and Menorca.