Slightly related musings on building a hut in the trees... Home
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To Do:

Cut bush.
Pick rocks.
Put poles.
Platform.
Tent.
Screens.
LAN.
Garden.
Power.
Toilet.
Walkways.
Water.
Kitchen.

treehouse

Tuesday, November 23, 1999 11:57 a.m.

Before my wife would allow me to work on the construction of our house in Canada, she insisted that I take a night school course is woodworking. Good idea - I learned enough not to cut my arm off. You could start by reading this book, then check your local high school for continuing education.

Monday, November 22, 1999 07:53 p.m.

There is a cyber city, and a cyber island, and a cyber bicycle, so why not a cyber treehouse?

I have 10-Base-T and fiberoptic wiring around the rest of the property, so naturally I want to put a few outlets in the treehouse for impromptu net surfing.

Sunday, November 21, 1999 04:56 p.m.

Having just been through Hurricane Lenny and over 36" of rain, I am pretty sure that a treehouse is not where I would spend a hurricane.

We are pretty busy cleaning up, but we have our solar panels back up and our generator going and Internet back, so life is not all bad.

While waiting for me to restart the PC that has the voluminous treehouse research files, why not take a look at the Apathy pita. It was the first I ever looked at - it covers a wide range of seemingly unrelated topics.

Wednesday, November 17, 1999 08:16 a.m.

Hurricane Lenny is causing us some worry, so I won't be posting much today. Why don't you spend the time while I am busy visiting one of my other sites ...

siliconisle

... a continuously sifted set of entertaining links devoted to the proposition that the Internet allows a programmer to live and work anywhere he wants, including a tropic island -- or does it?

Tuesday, November 16, 1999 11:15 a.m.

How about a honeymoon in a treehouse in Belize?

Prices at Parrot Nest are $25 per night:

"Spending the night under a 100’ guanacaste tree in a thatched treehouse is like nothing else! The lodge is surrounded on three sides by the Mopan River, so a refreshing swim in clear water is never far away and the wildlife of the area abound. Yes, parrots are in great number here, along with hundreds of other types of birds, making this an ideal location for birdwatching. Coati, agouti, otter, and the giant iguana are among the many animals which are regular visitors to our beautiful gardens which, though lush and exotic, are virtually mosquito free, a real bonus for those who love the great outdoors - and a good night’s sleep."

Monday, November 15, 1999 04:03 p.m.

Look at the "mailto" link above (and Email on the left side of this page.

Seems normal doesn't it? But it isn't. If you look at the source code, you will see a "spam-proof" link.

mytreehome@yahoo.com

is coded as

mytree home@yahoo.com

It works as my email address, but enough of it is coded as Character Entities (i.e., m means 'm'). If you put your cursor over the link, it even displays correctly.

This wasn't my idea. I got my special link from SiteUp's Mailto Encoder. It looks like it should stop an ordinary spam robot sifting through my site, but couldn't the robot be programmed to be smarter?

One problem! If you try to edit existing Character Entity codes in a Form textbox, your browser is likely to display them as the equivalent printing character. Then when you submit your edit, your spam-proof link becomes an ordinary spam-lure again! So keep a copy of your encoded Mailto link in a file to cut and paste again.

Monday, November 15, 1999 10:34 a.m.

Here is a tented pole pavillion for a restaurant where we had lunch last week.

It uses stainless steel bolts, cables and fasteners. And the poles are cross-braced by diagonal stainless cables. Very elegant. For a tent.

Sunday, November 14, 1999 09:42 a.m.

Stay in a treehouse for $45 per night, and up, at treehouses.com

Have them build you a treehouse. Study Treeology. Read about their 10 year fight with the planning authorities. Attend their World Treehouse Conference.

Saturday, November 13, 1999 10:38 a.m.

Having lived without regular power for 3 months in the aftermath of a hurricane, I can tell you that one of the things you miss the most is reading in bed after dark. So our new house has solar power, batteries, and an inverter.

But what about the treehouse? I could run power from the main house into the trees and put an ordinary lamp next to my treehouse bed, but that seems like cheating.

How about a propane or kerosene lamp to read by? Or a self-contained solar lantern?

Saturday, November 13, 1999 09:57 a.m.

Oops.

I put the wrong email address on my 'Email' link on this page. It should be mytreehome@yahoo.com

This means that the email links on the archived pages will always be wrong. Sigh..

Such a mistake is a reminder to check every link, which I normally do. However, I don't configure an email client for my browsers anymore, so I never tested the email link. Reason: most newbie Net users can't figure out how to configure email in their browser, so I like to see web pages the way they do.

I have another news site that allows people to subscribe to an email notification. I have learned that many people cannot type their email address correctly (about 30% of those you can guess the correct address, as in babydoll45@hotmail).

Which reminds me of what I suggest when people are picking email addresses and web domain names:

• keep them short
• do not use words that are frequently mispelled (even your own name)
• be sure you can say it over the telephone without having to spell it out
• do not use l or 1 or O or 0 in any context where they can be confused
• do not use special characters such as dash or underscore.

Saturday, November 13, 1999 08:05 a.m.

Rats! Treehouse.com is already in use and .Net and .Org are taken.

Don't dispair. Try the Domainator. Another cool project by Nathan Wallace.

Friday, November 12, 1999 05:17 p.m.

Three views:

The key to the Net's extraordinary innovation is that it doesn't allow a term like "allow":

"First, it can't possibly work, and if it did, damned if we are going to allow the creation of a competitor to ourselves."

Power To The People:

"Buffy, we simply cannot allow these lower classes to program. They work so cheap the profession will be ruined".

Technoids distrust government and would prefer to dismantle the state than work with it -- or for it:

"We don't even care about Washington. Money is extracted from Silicon Valley and then wasted by Washington."

But as Oscar Wilde aptly noted, nothing succeeds like excess. As long as Silicon Valley continues to innovate, create wealth and set the technological agenda for the nation and the world, it's also likely to maintain a skeptical view of the current political institutions and power relations, both here and abroad. The skepticism is part of an arrogance born of extraordinary accomplishments.