Using a wick to water plants while away

I had a four day weekend and used an old cotton t-shirt and some 3 L milk bottles to keep my plants hydrated. It's the same trick I used while I was away for two weeks in December.

Day 0: I was in a rush so was only able to set up a few pots

The basil and capsicum are growing heaps! The marigold seeds will be ready to be harvested soon.

Day 5: Most plants were hydrated

Growing capsicum from store-bought capsicum

I rinsed and dried some seeds inside a capsicum then planted them in a pot. I didn't sow them very carefully and a week later a bunch of them said hi 👋

Day 8 after sowing: they've sprouted!

Some of my capsicum seedlings in toilet paper roll pots

First basil harvest of 2017

A few months ago I sowed some sweet basil and marigold seeds. When the seedlings came up I repotted them into takeaway containers.

Pre-basil harvest

Today, was the first harvest for the season. Basil can be harvested when it's 30 cm tall or has three sets of true leaves. Mine had seven sets! I snipped off the top three sets of leaves about 2 cm above the node of the next one and added them to lunch. We had basil tomato cheese sandwiches for lunch. The aroma was amazing and a little went a long way.

Post-basil harvest

The original plant was quite small so I'm wondering how this will affect future growth... I need larger pots as well!

Importing CSV/TSV with Teradata SQL Assistant

1. Set up Teradata to match the format of your text file
1. To choose the delimiter:
• Under Tools → Options, go to Export/Import and select one of the options in 'Use this delimiter between columns', e.g. tab, comma, or pipe
2. To skip the first row, e.g. a header line:
• Under Tools → Options, go to Import and select 'Ignore the first record in the import file (Skip Header)'
2. Create the table in Teradata
1. Run the command:
• CREATE TABLE <TableName> (<column1> <datatype>, <column2> <datatype>, ...) PRIMARY INDEX (<column1>);
3. Import the file
1. Go to File → Import Data
2. Run the command:
• INSERT INTO <TableName> VALUES(?,?);
3. where the number of ? matches the number of columns in your data file
3. In the popup window, Open your file
4. Unset Import mode by selecting File → Import Data
4. Check that your table has loaded correctly
1. Run the command:
• SELECT * FROM <TableName>;

Find the space used by a Hive table

There are a few ways to identify the space used by a Hive table.

Unfortunately, my Hive wouldn't accept these commands (and I haven't worked out why...):

• hive > SHOW TBLPROPERTIES <TableName>("rawDataSize")
• hive > DESCRIBE EXTENDED <TableName>

So I resorted to using the file system shell:

• hadoop fs -du -h <URI>

I love the Boska Holland Monaco Cheese Slicer!

Today I tested the cheese slicer with a block of Colby. It's great!

I found it extremely easy to obtain a full slice of cheese but it does leave a bumpy texture. The handle has a good weight to it which made it much easier to use than the Chef Inox Como one that I've used in the past. The Como left me with small chunks of cheese instead of a full slice.

I moved from plastic sliced cheese only a few years ago and had been using whatever knife was around to slice it. I discovered cheese slicers last Christmas and I haven't looked back! It's also great that they double as a cake server