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The Plight of the Martian Farmer

https://mceglowski.substack.com/p/the-plight-of-the-martian-farmer
25•zdw•1h ago

Comments

shermantanktop•1h ago
Warning: paywallus interruptus.

Kicks in just after it starts to get interesting.

mikestew•1h ago
Works on my machine, latest macOS/Safari behind a Pi-hole if that makes any difference.
vlian2088•1h ago
you didn't scroll far enough
t-3•14m ago
Shame about the paywall.

> Stowaway Australian cockroaches covered the floors at night and destroyed everything they could get their mandibles on, including much of the salad crop and both of the kitchen’s microwave ovens (they ate the wiring). The broad mite, a pest that normally afflicts tea plants, broadened its horizons in this special setting and killed the entire potato crop. In the Ocean, the biospherians engaged in a battle of wits with stowaway octopi who had been accidentally introduced into the habitat and whose voracity was only eclipsed by their cunning. After the first few weeks they were never seen, but their depredations continued.

Sounds like they should have added insect farming to supplement their food supply. Most cockroaches are edible when cooked. Yeast or maybe some engineered creatures to produce whatever is needed might be interesting for a modern attempt.

bwhiting2356•11m ago
Biosphere 2 one of their main problems is that growing food was labor intensive, as I've found with my own hydroponics experiments.
asmodeuslucifer•5m ago
I visited there and as others have pointed out, it's in a north-south running valley, so it loses an hour of sunlight in the morning and an hour of sunlight in the evening.

I was enraptured by the project ever since I saw it in the late lamented Whole Earth Review. I was driving across country and made a detour to see it.

I'm glad it was built and we learned a lot from it. I'm not a fan of billionaires but good on Ed Bass for financing it.

Organic Maps

https://organicmaps.app/
388•tosh•3h ago•106 comments

The Great Blogging Collapse: What Happened to 100 Successful Blogs?

https://danielstanica.com/posts/Great-Blogging-Collapse
39•thm•3d ago•30 comments

Introduction to Compilers and Language Design

https://dthain.github.io/books/compiler/
195•AlexeyBrin•5h ago•26 comments

Run Windows 2000 on a DEC Alpha with a new es40 fork

https://raymii.org/s/blog/Run_Windows_2000_for_Dec_Alpha_on_a_new_es40_fork.html
44•jandeboevrie•3h ago•21 comments

"These cameras are just like the Eye of Sauron"

https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.09239
11•dijksterhuis•36m ago•0 comments

Airplane Boneyards List and Map

https://airplaneboneyards.com/airplane-boneyards-list-and-map.htm
50•hyperific•1d ago•8 comments

Rayfish, Peer-to-peer mesh VPN with no server to trust

https://rayfish.xyz/blog/01-introducing-rayfish
57•captain_dfx•4d ago•39 comments

It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

https://popcar.bearblog.dev/its-about-ownership/
20•popcar2•2h ago•12 comments

Medieval-style fortifications are back in the Sahel

https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2026/06/25/medieval-style-fortifications-are-bac...
59•andsoitis•4d ago•39 comments

If you're a button, you have one job

https://unsung.aresluna.org/if-youre-a-button-you-have-one-job/
471•nozzlegear•15h ago•233 comments

Why DMARC's new "NP" tag can fail with DNSSEC

https://dmarcwise.io/blog/dmarc-np-incompatibility-with-dnssec
14•matteocontrini•2h ago•1 comments

Shadcn/UI now defaults to Base UI instead of Radix

https://ui.shadcn.com/docs/changelog
240•dabinat•12h ago•133 comments

EU Council forces Chat Control via fast-track

https://www.heise.de/en/news/Chat-Control-1-0-EU-Council-forces-messenger-scans-via-fast-track-11...
207•stavros•5h ago•103 comments

Autonomous flying umbrella follows and shields users from rain and sunlight

https://www.designboom.com/technology/autonomous-flying-umbrella-follows-users-rain-sunlight-i-bu...
32•amichail•1h ago•14 comments

The GNU Emacs Architecture: Unlocking the Core [pdf]

https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:2052282/FULLTEXT01.pdf
146•cenazoic•4d ago•9 comments

Show HN: KiCad in the Browser

https://demo.pcbjam.com/
64•ViktorEE•5h ago•26 comments

Pandoc Lua Filters

https://pandoc.org/lua-filters.html
122•ankitg12•2d ago•11 comments

Fast Software, the Best Software (2019)

https://craigmod.com/essays/fast_software/
99•ustad•10h ago•52 comments

Web-based cryptography is always snake oil

https://www.devever.net/~hl/webcrypto
62•enz•9h ago•71 comments

Solar rail could become common in Europe after successful trial in Switzerland

https://www.euronews.com/2026/07/05/italy-could-be-the-next-country-to-build-a-solar-railway-afte...
54•neilfrndes•2h ago•49 comments

Zuckerberg's Increasingly Bizarre War on Whistleblowers

https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/27/zuckerstreisand-2/#autodisparagement
27•deely3•1h ago•2 comments

Mark Zuckerberg tells staff that AI agents haven't progressed enough

https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/02/mark-zuckerberg-tells-staff-that-ai-agents-havent-progressed-as...
13•msolujic•36m ago•5 comments

Phosh 0.56.0

https://phosh.mobi/releases/rel-0.56.0/
127•edward•4h ago•44 comments

Megawatts by Microwave

https://computer.rip/2026-07-04-microwave-and-power.html
65•eternauta3k•11h ago•5 comments

Command and Conquer Generals natively ported to macOS, iPhone, iPad using Fable

https://github.com/ammaarreshi/Generals-Mac-iOS-iPad/tree/main
632•asronline•22h ago•267 comments

Cannabis users face substantially higher risk of heart attack (2025)

https://www.acc.org/about-acc/press-releases/2025/03/17/15/35/cannabis-users-face-substantially-h...
118•RickJWagner•5h ago•158 comments

Moby Dick Workout (2022)

https://www.hogbaysoftware.com/posts/moby-dick-workout/
89•helloplanets•13h ago•28 comments

Meta's Un-Stable Signature

https://hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/1098-Metas-Un-Stable-Signature.html
131•ementally•4d ago•21 comments

The Log is the Agent

https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.21997
90•iacguy•14h ago•38 comments

Artful Cats: Feline-Inspired Art and Artifacts

https://www.si.edu/spotlight/art-cats
74•jruohonen•3d ago•5 comments