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THE HYPE. has begun
FLUTEBOX
The flute meets beatboxing
FEATURE
PRODUCTS
Closed Environment Agriculture – Part 2
RAW soluble Pure Kapow Wilma XL
MUSIC HOMEbox Evolution Q240 Vortex Grow Box The Neutralizer ®
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2014 News Code interview
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WELCOME
Editor: Laura Middlehurst Grow Editor: Jeffrey Winterborne Copy Editor: Pascale Winterborne Art Director: Nick Cordell Online Editor: Kevin Baird
2014 is here; let’s make it a great year to grow! The year has started with a cold chill in the air, it’s important to keep your grow room environments warm and eliminate any chances of the cold infiltrating them. A great way to do this is to use a Grow Tent and in this edition the original manufacturers, HOMEbox®, explain more about their new HOMEbox® tent the Evolution Q240 and the multiple benefits over their competitors. The Hydroponics professor Jeffrey Winterborne provides us with his next instalment on Closed Loop Environment, educating us all on how to make the best of your space and how to get the maximum output from your room. Our undercover Music reporter has their next Music news instalment as well as an in-depth interview with the unique talent that is Nathan ‘flutebox’ Lee! Also in this edition you can find more information on new products being launch in 2014, such as Kapow, a new insecticide spray and RAW powders. These and more can be found on the Product Flash pages. Last but not least, we have more Fishing content for you, explaining more about Lure Fishing and our Carp Fishing Guru provides us with an insight into a day in the life of a carp fisherman. Be sure to keep up to date with all of your favourite grow and lifestyle content via our website www.thegrindmagazine.co.uk
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Sales Manager: James Walton Operations Manager: James Walton Advertising Sales: James Walton 0(+44) 7787 565 650 sales@thegrindmagazine.co.uk Copyright 2014 The Grind Magazine. ISSN 2050-2141 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the authors. The authors assert their moral rights. In recent years, it has come to our knowledge that some people use information and equipment related to the subject of hydroponics for illegal activities. The authors, producers and publishers do not advocate breaking the law, nor is this publication (and corresponding website) intended to encourage or promote the use of illegal substances or activities. We do not accept responsibility for any errors although we attempt to ensure all information is accurate at time of publishing. The views of our contributors do not necessarily reflect those of The Grind Magazine. Note: Every effort has been made to obtain permission of the copyright holders of articles and artwork used in this publication. We apologise for any instance where permission has not been obtained and invite the copyright holder to get in touch with us. Disclaimer: The articles in this magazine are for educational purposes only and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, publisher or advertisers. Our sole aim is to stimulate rational debate and discussion of the important issues of our time. We do not endorse any treatments, medical or otherwise, and encourage our readers to continue with their own research and consult a health professional if they are ill. The Grind Magazine does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The Grind Magazine cannot be made liable for claims, actions, legal and/or court fees brought against oneself in connection with any use of this publication or products ordered from our websites, catalogues, cd roms, dvds, advertising or other media. WWW.THEGRINDMAGAZINE.CO.UK | 07
CONTENTS
CONTENTS 26 28 48
36
FEATURES
ARTICLES
PRODUCTS
26 Flutebox 28 Nutrient Film Technique 32 Are nutrients really needed to grow a great crop? 36 Closed Environment Agriculture (CEA) 48 UK Lure Fishing Part 2
1 2 The Vault of Non-Words 16 Fishing Guru 44 Music News 52 Hype 56 Code 58 Applications of the Principles of FMOTL 62 Beard 64 Vintage V Retro Trainers? Part 2 70 The End of Nations
10 RAW soluble 14 Pure Kapow 20 The HOMEbox速 Evolution Q240 34 Vortex Grow Box 42 The Neutralizer 46 Wilma XL
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PRODUCT FLASH
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We must have hit some sort of cultural jackpot here in England. Having been instrumental in their modern incarnations the twin worlds of business and politics have hauled our language across borders and through boardrooms globally. Even space may not have escaped an influence with aged radio waves carrying those first fuzzy Archers episodes out to distant alien colonies, perhaps giving the impression that Planet Earth is rather more of a pastoral pushover than is entirely true but, with the success of English slang (‘totes amazeballs’ etc.), business jargon and legalese, what potential gems are getting left behind?
Furgle – to feel in a pocket or bag for a small object such as a coin or key Optotoxical – a look that could kill, normally from a parent or spouse
Scrax – the waxy coating that is scratched off an instant lottery ticket
Oninate
Non-words are simply potential verbs and nouns, waiting to escape the vault and walk out into your conversation. Why not adopt a non-word from the list above and, by its dunandunation, change English Language history!
Furg
le
Spatulate – removing cake mixture from the side of a bowl with a spatula
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p
e l
b ib
d e at
n o l i a d ic
r x o o t c o t c
Spatulat
e
x
Peppier – a waiter whose sole job is to offer diners ground pepper, usually from a large pepper mill
Of course, being effectively a reject list (though the dictionary staff are hesitant to use the term), this contains contenders that only marginally missed the cutting board as well as absolute howlers. An interesting little term like ‘Dringle’, a watermark left on wood by a glass of liquid, is easy to imagine resurfacing at Home County dinner parties or biding its time with the postimperial keepers of ‘tiffin’ and ‘doily’. Likewise ‘Earworm’ seems plausible enough for our modern vocabulary, describing a particularly catchy tune that refuses to budge. Maybe it is these pleasingly unpretentious words that seem likelier to leave the vault in a time when advertising bombards us with clunky portmanteaus or suspiciously slick compounds. It is surely harder to imagine the same level of affection for their sterile neighbours ‘Lexpionage’ (sluething of words/phrases) or ‘Nudenda’ (an unhidden agenda).
ra
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Accordionated – being able to drive and refold a road map at the same time
Xenolexica – a grave confusion when faced with unusual words
Sc
The ‘reject list’ at the office of the Oxford English Dictionary is vast. Millions of words declined by OED staff are placed in a vault for storage only to be resurrected for publication if their circulation becomes prominent. But these non-words have a value in their rejection, highlighting on one side the efficiency-driven streamlining of a language and, on another, a natural battle against coarser amalgams. With some dating back to around 1900 these non-words cover a wide spectrum that includes grammatical issues (‘Dunandunate – the overuse of words or phrases that have been recently
added to one’s vocabulary’), practical and social considerations (‘Oninate - to overwhelm with postdining breath’) and even includes a few truly awful puns in the form of ‘Parrotise’ and ‘Quackmire’, the former being a parrot heaven and the latter describing the muddy edge of a duck pond. Here are some of the more appealing entries...
Wurfing – the act of surfing the Internet while at work
gle
ed
By your roaming scribe Max Welks
Wibble – the trembling of the lower lip just shy of actually crying
Wurfing Pep p Xenol ier exica
The Vault Of Non-Words
nt e m m
t Accordiona
COMMENT
Fur
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PRODUCT FLASH
CT U D O PR ASH FL
Pure Kapow Natural Ingredients
Pure Kapow’s active ingredient is super refined essential Lemon Grass Oil from India, which is one of the greatest and safest natural Pesticides and Fungicides on the planet. Lemon Grass Oil is also a 25B compliant substance. This means the EPA and Department of Agriculture have listed it as safe for the environment in use as a pesticide. Kapow is strictly a bug and fungicide killer. Combatting Mites and other leaf dwelling insects, mildews and moulds. KAPOW! May be sprayed on fruits, vegetables and foliage to combat mites, thrips, aphids, white flies, eggs including mites along with mould mildews and most leaf dwelling insects. It is safe to use up to and including the day of harvest. For more information visit: www.easy-grow.co.uk/pure-kapow
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SPORT & LEISURE
bottom baits to a powder and add a bit of flavour to use in a little pva stick for added attraction. I use the Gardener Tackle pva; it totally melts and comes in a range of sizes.
G N I H FIS
FISHING GURU
Here’s a little tip when using pva bags - only tie a knot at one end and the other end leave as a tag, hook it on then wrap the tag around the hook shank. This will secure the hair rig whilst you cast out plus before filling the bag put a little piece of dissolving foam in the bottom; this will keep it straight and when it melts, the pva nugget floats to the surface giving you a marker to bait up to. On some lakes the carp seem to be right out in the middle but if there’s a cold wind blowing I try and
find a sheltered area on the lake. The more time you spend watching the water the more you learn. It could be carp fizzing or the fish just sticking their heads out, that’s all I need to see and as long as it’s shown in my swim. If my rods are already out and I see a sign of fish activity I will recast using a single yellow popup right on it. If it’s not raining I tend to leave most of my gear on my barrow just in case a quick move to another swim is needed to get on the fish. On one of my sessions I drove to Yateley angling and booked two nights on Sandhurst. On arriving I walked round the lake and had a chat with one of the fishermen to see if he’d had much. He said that he had heard a couple of carp jump in the night a >
Carp fishing can be hard going especially in winter. I rarely bother with big deep weedy low stock pits, instead I concentrate on shallower venues with not so much weed with lots of carp of all sizes. I like Farlows in Berkshire or Sandhurst, which is in Yateley; these are fairly shallow waters making them more governed to the weather. When you get milder weather these lakes tend to warm up quicker than a deep lake, and fish reasonably well through the winter but you still have to work for a bite. I watch the weather forecast and try to fish when we get the mild spells but this is not always possible what with work and family commitments.
Try not to use fishmeal type boilies instead I opt for milk protein/birdfood type boilies. These tend to be high leakage creamy boilie like Dynamite’s Tiger Nut or fruity flavoured plus I use smaller baits like ten to fifteen mm boilies and sweet corn. If there’s not too many nuisance fish like roach and bream, I would use maggots. This was a brilliant method on Sandhurst but there are so many roach in there now it is impossible to use them on the hook.
If you have a club lake that’s local to you it’s definitely worth going there for a walk around to see if other anglers are catching and if you’re allowed, to bait up a couple of spots with say thirty boilies. This keeps the carp actively looking for food.
Single high attract and very visual popups work well in the colder months. Yellow and white are good colours but it’s all down to personal preference. I tend to use a popup on one rod and a bottom bait on the other. I would grind up some
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SPORT & LEISURE
couple of swims down to his right, so after a quick cup of tea I said good luck and carried on walking round, there must have been about seven other anglers on the lake. I got to the swim where the guy said he had heard the fish and I noticed a patch of bubbles about sixty yards out. I dropped my water butt and continued walking, I passed another guy but he was asleep. On my way back to my car I didn’t see any signs of activity so I thought that I would try the swim where I saw the fizzing. With that I loaded my barrow and pushed it to the swim, had a quick look to see if there were any signs of carp about the place and started to set up. Luckily it was dry so I got my rods set up first, I left all the rest of my kit on my barrow, just in case I wanted to move. That way it’s easier and quicker if you see carp in another swim. If it had been raining I would have set the bivvy up first. I decided to fish one rod sixty yards out with my usual critically balanced bottom bait with a three-
bait stringer. The other rod I had on a single popup and if I saw a carp jump out I would reel in and cast the single popup on it. All done I put the kettle on as it was getting dark. It was a cold night with no action but I woke up at about 3am and heard a carp jump out in front of my swim. As I looked at the water I could see the rings coming in straight, so I thought that’s near my left hand rod. I watched for a couple of minutes with no action then drifted back off to sleep and didn’t wake until 6am. It was about 8am when the guy who was fishing to my left walked in to my swim and asked if I had had any luck during the night, I said nothing yet then to land it. On looking into the net I saw a nice carp. Brilliant! The guy said well done and he helped me weigh and photo her; she weighed 31lbs 8oz.
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I fished the rest of the day but no more action so I packed away and headed home well pleased.
Other members of the Green Power family
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ISSN 2050-2141 (Print)
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THE HYPE.
Hobby 3 way Relay Timer
has begun
FLUTEBOX
Commercial Contactor Timers
The flute meets beatboxing
FEATURE
PRODUCTS
Closed Environment Agriculture – Part 2
RAW soluble Pure Kapow Wilma XL
MUSIC HOMEbox® Evolution Q240 FREE Vortex Grow Box THE HYPE. The Neutralizer has begun
2014 News Code interview
ISSN 2050-2141 (Print)
FLUTEBOX
The flute meets W W W.T H EG R I N D M A G A Z I N E .beatboxing CO.UK
FEATURE
PRODUCTS
Closed Environment Agriculture – Part 2
RAW soluble Pure Kapow Wilma XL
MUSIC HOMEbox® Evolution Q240 Vortex Grow Box The Neutralizer
W W W.T HEGR I N D M A GA Z I N E . C O . UK
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Professional Contactor Timers
2014 News Code interview
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PRODUCT FLASH
PRODU FLASHCT
HOMEbox® Evolution Q240
Boris Bell reviews the new HOMEbox® Evolution Q240—a grow tent that promises to set a new benchmark in this highly competitive market. The accolade of producing “the world’s most advanced grow tents” might actually mean something this year! Back in 2001 (when HOMEbox® was the only show in town) the Berlin-based grow tent designers achieved this status by default. However these days, with a bunch of other brands all jostling for position, growers demand to see real evidence of market-leading innovation to back up such lofty claims—and the new HOMEbox® Evolution range does not fall short! Quad Damage! Late last year, I was lucky enough to get my hands on a pre-production model of the new “Q240”—a beast of a grow tent measuring 2.4m x 2.4m giving a total growing area of 5.76m2. This represents somewhat new territory for the premium grow tent manufacturer which has historically focused on small and medium sized tents for the dedicated hobbyist / plant connoisseur while directing larger scale growers to their ‘make any size or shape you want’ HOMEbox® Modular system. The new 20 | WWW.THEGRINDMAGAZINE.CO.UK
retaining some valuable relative humidity so your plants don’t succumb to the transpiration stress that plagues so many over-ventilated rooms. Par Optimisation PAR watts have finally superseded lumens as the preferred term to describe light intensity for plants. Lumens are based on the human eye whereas PAR (Photosynthetically Active Radiation) is the range of the electromagnetic spectrum that plants actually use (between 400 and 700 nm). Earlier last year HOMEbox® announced their new “smart material” called PAR+ which was shown to outperform the ubiquitous silver-lined grow tents in their ability to reflect light and dissipate excess heat. Independent laboratory tests showed that 91.8% of the growing area in a HOMEbox® with PAR+ received 80 PAR watts or more compared with just 69.4% in a silver-lined tent.
As far as the plants are concerned, the PARoptimised Q240 creates a ‘brighter’ growing environment which is easier to keep cool. This adds both to crop quantity and quality. (Ask any experienced grower and he’ll tell you nothing kills quality faster than heat issues!) Assembly You’ll make life a lot easier if you get a friend to help you assemble the Q240. The poles are thicker (22 mm diameter) with spring-loaded metal >
HOMEbox® Evolution range fills an important gap. The HOMEbox® Evolution Q240 has clearly been designed with one thing in mind: the creation of a flowering powerhouse! (Although it could also feasibly double as a somewhat opulent propagation nursery or veg tent.) The intention is clear: pump out copious amounts of your favourite crops using intense light levels with industrial level air-exchange. The recommended lighting is a whopping 4 x 600W HPS. There are twin 200 mm (8”) ports high in each side panel to accommodate air-cooled reflectors if required. Arguably this affords growers the option of using 4 x 1000W HPS too if they wish or even 6 x 600W air-cooled HPS in two rows of three. Of course, the practical utility of dedicated ports for air-cooled reflectors is the ability to remove a reported 50% of the heat generated from the lamps independent of your garden’s ventilation. This means you can remove the heat whilst
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PRODUCT FLASH
fasteners and the reinforced corner connectors work perfectly too. The sleek, black-on-black, heavy duty outer canvas material has the familiar feel of premium quality that HOMEbox® aficionados will already be familiar with. We have the frame constructed in well under ten minutes and it’s at this point you get a real sense of its size in-situ.
Clearly the HOMEbox® Evolution Q240 means business. Just make sure you’ve allowed up to a metre of extra room around all sides of the tent otherwise things will soon get a bit “mission impossible”. (There’s also a Q200 in the range measuring 200 cm in every direction — a perfect cube of joy!) Height-wise, the Q240’s generous provision of two metres makes practical sense. While some other brands offer extra height (and even height extension kits!) you have to wonder if it’s really needed if you’re controlling your growing environment correctly. The problem of tall, leggy plants isn’t corrected by adding extra headroom — plant stretching is merely symptomatic of inadequate lighting, excess heat and high temperature differentials. The Q240 is built for the real world of the professional indoor grower who understands the importance of keeping plants squat, wide and low for optimum lighting efficiency. The Q240’s cover slips on easily and snugly — no tugging or stretching required as with some of the competitor models. There’s no longer an additional catchment tray at the bottom as its been integrated into the main tent cover. Simplified Access Entry to the tent is easier thanks to a single, nothreading required, zip strategy. The roll-up doors 22 | WWW.THEGRINDMAGAZINE.CO.UK
mean you can totally open up the front of the tent when you need to. It’s also easier to move in and out of the Q240 (especially with heavy equipment) without tripping up. Zippers have been upgraded from rubber to metal and the zip itself provides total blackout without the need for additional Velcro flaps—a welcome innovation that reduces the faff of keeping your grow light-tight. The larger models also feature generously proportioned side access ports making it easier to check on plants at the margins of your indoor jungle. ‘Omniflow’ air vents (there are six of them!) even allow growers to direct the flow of passive air being sucked into the garden — easy to get the hang of and, after weeks of playing with these, I think they’re quite ingenious! Bug screens have been enhanced to OCD levels of precaution — 700 microns! This helps to ensure that no life forms take up residence in your Q240 uninvited. My 250mm (10”) RVK extractor sits securely over one of the two 250mm roof ports. It shifts just over 1000 CMH (cubic meters of air per hour) according to the factory specs but, when attached to my carbon filter, this will be closer to 800 — just above the recommended 795 CMH for the Q240. The frame easily supports everything a grower could possibly want to suspend and the cable ports have been thoughtfully and cleverly located.
HOMEbox® have hit a home run with their new 2014 Evolution range. Sure, its premium price-point won’t be within everyone’s budget but, as with most things, you certainly get what you pay for. The Q240 confers a whole host of unique practical benefits and grower dividends that more than justify the price tag. Most importantly, the Q240’s enhanced growing environment was clearly demonstrated in my plants’ response. Plants were squatter and denser. Aromas and flavours (of familiar phenotypes I’ve grown many times previously) were markedly enhanced compared to normal.
In a marketplace where the trend is to go cheap at the expense of quality, HOMEbox® Evolution is a breath of fresh air — literally! MORE INFO www.homebox.net PAR+ Lab Test: www.youtube/ED7yBe_AJpw YouTube Search: PAR+
Overall my plants just seemed happier in the Q240—it’s as simple as that.
It’s clear that the Q240 has been designed by and for the most passionate and exacting of growers. However, if you want to go even bigger, there’s a Q300 offering a colossal nine square meters of growing space should the need present itself! THE VERDICT: 10/10 – I can’t fault it!
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MUSIC
ic s u m view r e t n i
FLUTebox
This month The Grind caught up with the uniquely talented Nathan ‘flutebox’ Lee who incorporates his dynamic trademark by simultaneously playing the flute whilst beatboxing. He has graced the stage and worked in the studio with the likes of The Prodigy, Asian Dub Foundation, Nitin Sawhney, KT Tunstall, Foreign Beggars, Plan B and Beardyman to name just a few. Nathan has established himself as a 21st Century pioneer of his art form by blending a futuristic fusion of Hip Hop, Dubstep, Drum & Bass beats mixed with Jazz, Funk and hypnotic Eastern melodies. Huey from the Fun Lovin’ Criminals said he does “to the flute what Jimi Hendrix did to the guitar...” so it’s easy to see why Arena Magazine rank him number 18 on their list of the ‘100 Coolest Things on the Planet.’ How did you discover you could beatbox through a flute? When did you realise you could make a career out of your talent? I started out beatboxing and then when I was twenty I got given a flute by my mate. That was it really, people I knew were supportive and I played to friends in Ladbroke Grove. My mate had a West Indian barbers called Mo Betta Cutz and we used to have a pool table out the back with no pool balls so we set up this hip-hop karaoke machine on the top. We used to have hiphop nights and there used to be boxing practice there as well. Quite aggy really ha. It just seemed 26 | WWW.THEGRINDMAGAZINE.CO.UK
the natural thing to do. I was just messing, it was fun and I never thought it would go anywhere or that it would be a career. Who thinks they’re going to get off a building site beatboxing through a flute – get a degree! Are there any artists that have influenced your work? I love all music really but I was blessed. When I was digging a hole down in a trench. I was there with Mikal who made music and other musicians around me, that London community. I suppose in terms of artists, I used to listen to all types of music. I was into hip-hop, dnb and listened to jazz but there was no one making music like mine. Before the beatboxing I started to do jazz gigs down the Cat’s Back. That’s when I realised I could make a living out of music although my first gig was paid in Mexican brandy!
played with or done shows with. Mike Pagulatos started it, just a group of like-minded people who had other jobs and in our spare time we would make music and it went from there. So I guess since about 2005. 2011 was a landmark year for you and your band The Clinic, with the ‘Flutebox EP’ released to critical acclaim. Mixmag named it ‘Album of the Month’, calling it ‘sheer musical genius.’ Have you been working with the band on any follow up projects? I’m working on my first album, hopefully working with Skeptic and also Will Power who is Wiz Khalifa’s producer and I have been lining up other artists I want to work with. I have a few people I want to do stuff with and Asian Dub Foundation have been helping me out too. You have recently become a member of Asian Dub Foundation, how did this collaboration start? Yes I am but I have been part of the crew for the last ten years, working on gigs here and there and the odd track and piece. We’ve just done a tour all over Europe, Japan and we’re off to Columbia and Brazil hopefully in January and the new ADF album will be released in the first half of 2014.
You’ve been working on the latest Asian Dub Foundation album can you tell us about any tracks that you’ve been involved with? The album is a re-emergence of the more militant face of Asian Dub Foundation. Chandrasonic, (Steve Chandra Savale) the guitarist has played some amazing howling, crushing guitar sounds that wail! Sometimes he’s the sky or the sea, sometimes he’s a killer robot – a Godzilla! That sounds amazing! Yeah! I’ve heard you’ve written a poignant track for the Asian Dub Foundation album, can you tell us more about it? Yeah it’s called a ‘Song for Samira’ written by myself, Mike Pagulatos and ADF. It’s about a homeless woman beaten to death in Belgian police custody. We did quite a controversial gig in this big square in Brussels. There were police there but it was so polite, an amazing gig, it was very emotional. You have worked with so many people. Can you tell us how you approach working with such a broad range of artists? You know you just hit the ground running! Do you have any tours or gigs in 2014? I’d like to do some impromptu solo gigs and I’m putting material away for the album too but I’m really just enjoying working with ADF at the moment.
You also have a band The Clinic which features World DMC Champion DJ Tigerstyle, Human Beatbox WanDan, Rappers Skrein and Mystro, Biscuit, Mike Pagulatos, Hanif Khan and Maquenzie. How long have the group been together and how did it start? The thing is with The Clinic is that there has been so many people in it. It’s a community, I kept it really loose, it’s like musical therapy it’s anyone I’ve ever
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HYDROPONICS
cs
oni p o r d
hy
NFT Only For the Pro! By Ravi Grewal
NFT or Nutrient Film Technique, is one of the oldest hydroponic systems out there, yet it still gives some of the biggest yields possible. But, I wonder how many of you reading this, have messed up your plants using an NFT system? I know I have - several times before I got it right. The reason why it gives such massive yields is because, to put it simply, the plants are receiving nourishment exactly when they require it. This allows the plants to grow fast and grow big, given the right conditions. An NFT table is quite simply that, a table upon which the plants are placed – allowing nutrient solution to constantly run along the surface of the table, thus feeding the plants. It follows then that the main key to success with these systems is the nutrient solution in the tank. This solution is constantly circulated from the holding tank over the table surface and back. As the roots of the plants on the table have no medium to absorb fluctuations in pH, temperature, concentration and so on, they rely solely on the grower to keep this solution ideal for them at all times. This is when huge plants can be grown. The easiest thing to do is to keep check of the pH and EC (electrical conductivity) levels in the solution to keep the plants’ nourishment available to them. This is an absolute must, because if 28 | WWW.THEGRINDMAGAZINE.CO.UK
the pH is out, the root surface will not absorb the correct ratios of nutrients, which can be detrimental to your plants.
problems and I hope to eliminate this in your operation. As we all know in nature, plant roots have plentiful access to atmospheric air in the soil. However, once again, in NFT the grower is in control of this. As with nutrients, plant roots will use up the DO in the circulating solution thus leaving less and less available with each cycle. This becomes a big problem when plants are triggered to flower. As their root growth accelerates during this period, more and more oxygen is needed. But less is available. The root tips begin to die back and water borne Pythium begins to feast on dead root matter. To combat this, firstly make sure you change your solution tank just as the plants are triggered. Cold water holds more DO than warm water so keep the tank covered with reflective material. This will reflect the infrared radiation from your lights and keep the solution cool. Also try lying thick felt instead of thin capillary matting between the plant roots and the tabletop. The thick felt will inevitably break up the water meniscus allowing more oxygen to dissolve back into the solution. If you get the first four weeks of flowering period right then you have a greater chance of achieving those legendary NFT yields.
It might also be worthwhile investing in a DO meter, but be warned, they are not cheap! Pythium spores are forever present in our water, however the fungus only sets in if you have weak plants or roots. So prevent this by keeping an eye on your growing environment at all times. However, as an extra preventative measure, ozone filtration is a great way to keep your nutrient solution free of fungus spores. This is a commercial grower’s method of ensuring a truly clean mineral solution, without organic additives. Ozone machines are available in all the hydro stores and are a simple case of connecting one via an air stone to your NFT to keep everything clean. Remember this is only a preventative measure, above all make sure the plant roots are healthy and white, just because there is no Pythium present after ozone treatment, doesn’t mean that there will be sufficient dissolved oxygen present in the solution for plant roots to carry on growing. So really NFT is a juggling act – to keep all the factors in check to ensure the plants have the perfect growing conditions below the root line. Good luck!
It follows then that as the nutrient solution is circulated through the system the plants take out more of some elements and compounds than others, so the NPK ratio of your solution quickly becomes imbalanced. Although, the EC meter may not show an overall reduction true to the plants’ preference to just some of the key elements in the solution with time, it is possible to keep a healthy solution just by topping up the tank with fresh NPK solution. However, sooner or later you will cause a build up of the elements that are taken up at a slower rate than others. So the only way to keep your tank in tiptop condition is to change the nutrient solution every week. This will maintain the sufficient levels of all the nutrients and micronutrients at all times. The biggest killer of NFT plants is DO (dissolved oxygen) depletion. This leads to all kinds of
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S in ee t a c he t io sy n st on em lin s e
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HYDROPONICS
cs i n o Are nutrients really needed drop y h to grow a great crop? By Eljay
When I first started growing I used to wonder about nutrients. Are they really needed? And which ones are essential, and which ones are just add ons for better performance? And which ones work the best? I ended up just getting some 3 part base nutrients ‘as they were the cheapest at the time’ and a single pack bloom booster. I only grabbed the bloom booster because it was on the 50% off shelf, and the gentleman at the hydro store had told me that I would need a bloom booster to get bigger yields. And, I was off to the races. At the time, I had a tent, and was growing next to a couple of other buddies that also had tents. There was a very cool camaraderie that had emerged amongst me and my mates while doing our side by side grows. Every night we would get together and talk about how one of us was going to out yield the others, and that this system was better than that one, and life was great. I had devised a homemade Aeroponics tub that had basically a micro sprinkler system built into this tub, so that it would mist the roots at regular intervals. I felt good about this water delivery as everything I had read thus far was pointing to this being the most aggressive way of feeding a plant. And because I was pushing water on them so aggressively I figured that my victory was in the bag. Well the months pushed on and we all yielded our respective crops. And as I had suspected, I out yielded the two other 32 | WWW.THEGRINDMAGAZINE.CO.UK
guys that had entered this gentlemen’s competition with me. But is yield all I was looking for? When entering this little competition I had suspected it was. But after seeing the quality, smell, and flavour of what they had grown, I felt a little lacking. Although my two mates had gotten slightly less overall weight, what they grew was so much better in every other way. We had been in the same room, with all of the same temperatures, humidity levels, CO2 etc with the only differences being what and how we fed them. I was doing a very aggressive Aeroponics mister system, another guy was doing soil, and the third was doing Ebb n Flow with trays and net pots. As I furthered my investigation, I noticed that the two other guys were using way more products than I was and higher end products than I was. They were using a brand called Advanced Nutrients. As I looked through their regime I found several products that I did not have represented in my run. B52 – This is a product designed to reduce all things that may stress a plant, and to provide essential building blocks of your plants’ metabolism. This product contains several different B vitamins and Folic acids to increase nutrient uptake.
Big Bud – Big Bud is pretty much the best bloom booster I have used prior or since. This stuff creates huge swell in any plant you use it on. After doing this for years now, I have still never found an easier or better product that adds so much weight. Overdrive – This is the follow up to Big Bud. You use this swelling agent in the last two weeks of your grow and wow! When in those last two weeks using Overdrive, I can see a noticeable change in my plants daily. You can physically see them stacking on denser weight. Connoisseur Ultra-Premium Base Nutrient – This is the Ferrari of all plant foods in the world. It has most everything you need to have a healthy, fat harvest, already present. But when you use it with other additives with it to push swelling and production, I have never had better results. Bud Candy – Bud Candy is the Carbohydrate supplement made by Advanced Nutrients. I was using Molasses at the time for this. But as I got into researching Carbs later in my career, I found that the type of Carb you add makes all of the difference. This is the most scientifically engineered carbohydrate supplement out there.
bottles in the hydroponic store contained mostly the same thing. They all had Minerals and Micro Nutrients in them so I had assumed that they were all kind of the same. But after getting my ass handed to me in quality of my crop, I quickly realized that they were not. After years of growing, and carefully watching my plants, I now think that it is so important to start with quality materials in order to create a better nutrient. That’s why I use Advanced Nutrients. Nobody else in the world (to the best of my knowledge) has the labs, PhDs, and infrastructure to create products like Advanced Nutrients, maybe that’s why they are so big, I don’t know. But I do know this, after putting everything else out there to the test in my grow, I am still using the Advanced Nutrients products. They simply work better than everything else. Whether you are a guy with one light or a guy with many, if you are trying to get the best possible performance out of your crop, in my experience, there is nothing else like Advanced Nutrients. Once I find something better I will switch, but after six years of trying, I am still looking for its equal. So for now, get yourself some Advanced Nutrients, you won’t be let down.
You see, what I realized was that yes, nutrients are needed. But what really got me was that, like everything else, you get what you pay for. I had previously kind of assumed that all of the different
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PRODUCT FLASH
T C U D PRO ASH FL
Vortex Grow Box
drawn through to the additional Grow Box or Grow Tent before being filtered and finally extracted away. Using our Grow Boxes in a sealed loop enables you to maximize your grow space while still retaining a sealed and controlled environment. So what are you waiting for? Come and see for yourself at www.vortexgrowboxes.co.uk or visit us in store at The Grow Home - Unit 26, Bolney Grange Industrial Park, Haywards Heath, RH17 5PB.
Do you have a desire to grow your own fruit and vegetables but do not have a garden? Perhaps you are worried about the associated electricity costs of indoor gardens? Well then a Vortex Grow Box is for you… Each Grow Box is coated in anti-bacterial paint. Initially designed for use in hospitals, this paint will prevent diseases or bacteria from lingering. We’re sure you’ll agree that prevention is better than cure. The paint works in an active way to protect your plants killing up to 99.9% of bacteria within hours of contact. It’s durable and can be easily wiped down and the anti-bacterial properties last for years. We’ve done the maths - we have worked out what you will need to replace the air in your setup at the correct rate preventing deficiencies and improving yields, plant health and growth. We also feature speed adjustable fans on both our intake and extraction fans. This combined with our unique manufacturing methods enables our Grow Boxes to be used in a variety of different climates. The cabinets we use are second to none. They are wider, deeper and taller than other Grow Boxes available in the UK. Manufactured from less pieces than other cabinets and sealed both inside and outside they allow for a more controllable environment. All of our cabinets also feature a three point key lock to keep your plants safe together with 34 | WWW.THEGRINDMAGAZINE.CO.UK
metal door hinges which are not featured in other UK cabinets. Each Grow Box is designed to be near silent. We use low noise components that feature anti-vibration technology and have low decibel (db) ratings. We can also line your Grow Box with Superfoil. Designed by NASA this material works as insulation allowing for a more controlled climate and has a reflective layer that works like a mirror to reflect light back. You can be confident that even if you need to install additional pumps or other hydroponics equipment such as our NFT hydroponics kit, our Grow Boxes and cabinets will still retain their low noise ratings. Unlike other Grow Boxes all of our Grow Boxes feature fully removable components enabling you to reconfigure your setup. You can even move the hooks used to hang your equipment to any place you wish within the cabinet. Our Grow Boxes are modular, meaning you can directly connect one Vortex Grow Box to another via ducting. This means a user can easily add a second, third or even fourth Grow Box or alternatively a Grow Tent containing nothing more than a light inside. The air can then be
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HYDROPONICS
So that is humidity taken care of.
Closed Environment Agriculture (CEA)
cs
ni o p o dr
hy
Merging Nature and Technology Even Closer Together
Closed Loop Horticulture By Toby Berryman and Jeffrey Winterborne
In the last issue, we were discussing air conditioning and humidity within the Closed Loop environment. In this issue, we will be discussing calculating your dehumidifier and air conditioning requirements, how to reuse the purified, clean, distilled water from your air conditioners and dehumidifiers, oxygen and CO2. We will also be touching on pests and disease and air scrubbers. It is quite difficult to come up with a precise equation for calculating your dehumidifier requirements, and we have always found it better to oversize these things than to undersize, so a good rule of thumb when sizing a dehumidifier for a closed room environment is to allow 1 litre of dehumidification per plant. We also advise for the earlier stages of plant development in a closed room, that growers employ humidifiers, the reason being is that very young plants in a sealed room will not be transpiring very much water vapour into the atmosphere of the room, and with your air conditioners and dehumidifiers running, you can end up with lower than desired levels of humidity. This will only be an issue in the very early stages of plant development, and once the plants begin to grow rapidly and establish, in most scenarios humidifiers will no longer be necessary. 36 | WWW.THEGRINDMAGAZINE.CO.UK
One more subject to briefly touch upon while on the subject of humidity in closed room environments, is the massive benefit of the availability of pure clean distilled water, also known as Reverse osmosis water (R.O water) as your air conditioners and dehumidifiers are collecting condensation from the air. Instead of wasting this essentially pure water down the drain you can collect it and use it to top up your tanks. You can literally create your own micro climate, or eco system if you will, recycling the same water, being fed through the plants and transpired into the atmosphere of your room and then dehumidified and collected back into your tanks and fed back to the plants again, eliminating the need to use contaminated tap water which is full of chlorine and sodium fluoride and who knows what else! And never having to run hoses to your tanks all the time.
The final vital components of a sealed off grow room are CO2 and oxygen. Many growers believe that plants need to have fresh air in order to survive; in actual fact plants only require two components of what fresh air contains, and these are oxygen and CO2. Firstly, we would highly advise the use of air pumps installed outside of the grow room blowing small amounts of fresh air directly into the reservoirs and root balls of the plants. And in a sealed room that is full of CO2, the roots of your plants will have a hard time finding oxygen - this is why it is very important in any closed room situation to keep the air pump outside of the grow space, because if it is placed inside, you will be blowing CO2 into the roots which will have an extremely detrimental effect on the plants. Aeration to the roots of plants is one of the most overlooked things in horticulture and keeping the roots constantly aerated will boost the performance of any plant to higher levels. At the same time, it makes it very difficult for disease to find its way into your water, as it will remain rich in oxygen, especially when kept down to optimal temperature of 65°F/18°C. We do NOT advise growing in soil in a sealed room as roots have a hard enough time finding oxygen in soil as it is. In a sealed room, without a super aerated hydroponic system, a plant in soil will just not have the oxygen levels in its root ball to produce bumper yields. Next, let’s take a look at CO2 levels. We all know that plants need CO2 in order to photosynthesise, so we’re going to supply this if we’re not relying on fresh air ventilation. Growers using standard ventilation can maintain normal atmospheric levels of CO2 in their indoor gardens. If they wish to add more, however, they often encounter a dilemma. What’s the point of injecting extra CO2 into your indoor growing environment if it’s going to be vented out again before your plants have had a chance to benefit from it?
THE GRINDTM
High energy plants in optimum lighting conditions of approximately 10,000 lumens per square foot can happily consume 1,200 to 1,500 parts per million (ppm) of CO2. The outside air we breathe contains approximately 300 to 400 ppm, so in layman’s terms, you can double the growth rate and productivity of a plant by supplying it with the levels of CO2 it requires to be able to harness the massive levels of light we are giving them. Whilst on this subject, there have been studies that are not very well known by many growers around the world, concerning CO2 uptake in high energy plants, you can overdo it, and many, many people actually are over doing it, consistently. When you take CO2 levels in a grow space past a level of 1500 ppm, in most species, the stomata on the underside of the leaf which absorb the CO2, actually start to close up and from that level of 1500 ppm and higher, the further you push the levels, the less and less efficiently the plant will grow, so we advise maintaining the levels between 1200 to 1450 ppm for optimum growth rates. Another quick tip for all you closed roomers out there is when using CO2 do NOT believe the hype about raising the temperatures in your room into the 85°F/30°C range. While plants can tolerate slightly higher temperatures in a CO2 enriched environment, it does not mean they perform better at all, trust us! 75°F/23°C is optimal with or without CO2. In a perfect closed room situation, we would highly advise the use of one of our CO2 generators, which can produce massive amounts of CO2 by burning LPG propane gas, which is easily available and cheap to run. These types of generators can be water cooled and have an electric ignition so there is no pilot light to be worried about. You then plug the generator into an infrared CO2 monitoring device with a photo sensor which will perfectly regulate the CO2 levels in the room while the lights are on, and will shut off the CO2 when the lights are off. Trying to guess it with older CO2 dosing equipment may work, but is not advisable. All equipment in a perfect closed room should > WWW.THEGRINDMAGAZINE.CO.UK | 37
HYDROPONICS
be running from sensors to monitor air and other factors to ensure an ideal growing environment: 72-76°F (23-25°C) temperature, 50% humidity, 1,200-1,450 ppm CO2, constant air flow and aeration, and scrubbed air. Some sensors can be equipped with remote monitoring and notification features so that growers are notified by pager/ mobile phone if their grow room environment has slipped out of optimum growing parameters. When combined with computerised interface and cross-links to security systems, growers can instantly find out what’s happening to their grow room from almost anywhere in the world. Now, as with sizing up the air con and dehumidification requirements, there is a rough rule of thumb to sizing up a CO2 generator as well. The higher the rating of the generator, the faster it will fill a given space with the set level of CO2. Burning LPG to create CO2 will produce approximately 2.5 BTUs of heat per cubic foot of space you are supplementing. For example, a 10’ x 10’ room which is 8’ high is 800 cubic feet. So 800 x 2.5 is 2,000 BTUs of heat created per hour, but this can all be accounted for if we remember to always allow 4000 BTUs of cooling power for every 1000 watts of HID light. So these are the vital components within the fresh air which your plants require sorted. Or if burning gas is not for you… you can simply fit a normal CO2 bottle and regulator to one of our CO2 sensors, set the ppm you require and the rest is easy. Also, the use of bottled CO2 can facilitate the killing of spider mites and other pests. In true sealed grow rooms that have no leaks, growers can kill all pests by upping CO2 levels to 10,000 ppm for one hour. Other CO2 augmentation methods are incapable of generating 10,000 ppm for an hour. Only the bottle supply method is capable of providing that concentration of CO2. In particular, when using 10,000 ppm bug-killing tactics, growers must 38 | WWW.THEGRINDMAGAZINE.CO.UK
use safety methods that minimise the health problems that CO2 can cause to humans.
yourself of so many problems that growers have been combating for so many years.
Another thing to mention is pests and disease, airborne or otherwise. Nothing can get into your room to cause your plants harm, as there is no way into your room. Unwanted heat and odours will not be expelled from the room either. We highly recommend running ozone generators to combat any spores or fungi that could occur within the sealed space and to utilise some blue light throughout the entire growth cycle. Metal halides and daylight lamps are abundant in UV light, which whilst causing no harm to your plants, actually benefits them in many ways and will also keep at bay things like powdery mildew and botrytis. Employing the use of a ozone generator inside the room is a potential must to ensure a true bacteria free environment is maintained.
Now, lastly as far as choosing your cooling system, whether it is a large commercial sized system or a smaller 1 or 2 ton set-up, water cooled or split, it is important to consider that not all air conditioners are designed for grow room applications, and in the UK especially it is very hard to source easy, user friendly do it yourself installation systems that are of the kind of quality required. The systems we stock from the smaller, mini split air conditioners to the larger water cooled and commercial grade units, have all been designed for self installation without the need of a certified air con technician. Just as important, our air con systems are designed for closed environment grow room specific applications, and are capable of the heavy demand they are up against; normal everyday air con units just won’t cut the mustard, and if they fail on you half way through a crop, don’t say we didn’t warn you! And there you have it; a truly perfect room where you are the one dictating what is happening inside of your Garden instead of the outdoors doing so.
The use of activated carbon filters (scrubbers) should always be used in a sealed grow space. Place your filter wherever you like in the room, attach an inline fan of the correct size for the filter and just have it on 24 hours a day, pulling air through the filter and blowing back into the room again. This creates no positive or negative pressure and you are not exhausting any air; you are literally just scrubbing it clean of any unwanted air-borne contaminants and helping to control odours. With all the previously mentioned items in conjunction with hydroponic systems and lighting systems, we can help you create a room which can easily be kept at the exact levels of temperature, humidity and CO2 required to make your plants go absolutely bonkers 365 days a year!! Seriously, you will not believe the results that are achievable, no matter what the outside conditions may be. And once you get your head around the concept of closed environment growing, it really is a simpler way to do things, because you are relieving
THE GRINDTM
Want more info on closed loop growing? Then visit Esoteric Horticulture in Guildford, Surrey, where you can see for yourself (to the best of our knowledge) the only closed loop demonstration grow room in the country! We can help anybody in sizing up any size space. It is relatively easy to calculate the air con, dehumidification and CO2 requirements for a room of any size from a few lights all the way to as many as you want. Any questions or queries regarding Closed Environment Agriculture just come into our shop or give us a ring and we will be more than glad to talk you through anything you want to know on the subject. www.1-hydroponics.co.uk 01483 596484 WWW.THEGRINDMAGAZINE.CO.UK | 39
PRODUCT FLASH
T C U D PRO ASH FL
The Neutralizer
Available now exclusively through NutricultureDGS, The Neutralizer is a revolutionary odour neutralising system. Winner of the prestigious Best Product of 2013 European Product Award, The Neutralizer is the result of years of careful research and development. The Neutralizer is compact, easy to use and cost effective, costing a maximum of 4p an hour to run. It does not mask unwanted odours, it completely eliminates them. The system consists of a plug-in sized electronic molecule evaporator (EME) that activates a cartridge containing a combination of natural essential oils. You just plug the EME into a wall outlet and let the system take effect, which takes place in an hour or less depending on the size of the room. The essential oil cartridges will last six weeks with 24 hour-a-day usage, and replacement cartridges are also available through NutricultureDGS. For more information, visit www.nutriculture.co.uk or contact a hydroponic store near you. 42 | WWW.THEGRINDMAGAZINE.CO.UK
MUSIC
music news Daft Punk will perform live at this year’s Grammy Awards, their first televised performance since the 2008 Grammy Award appearance with Kanye West. The French producers are nominated for five awards including Album of the Year, Best Dance/ Electronica Album for ‘Random Access’ and Record of the Year and Best Pop Duo/Group performance for ‘Get Lucky.’ They plan to deliver “a collaborative and celebratory stage performance that honours their multi-nominated music;” including Stevie Wonder, Pharrell Williams, Nile Rodgers amongst others. Rick Ross is suing LMFAO for copyright infringement over their use of the line “Everyday I’m shufflin’,” from their 2010 hit ‘Party Rock Anthem’ which the suit alleges is infringement on Ross’ 2006 hit ‘Hustlin.’ Rick Ross has just recently
44 | WWW.THEGRINDMAGAZINE.CO.UK
2014 starts as it means to go on with new festivals and music genres exploding in correlation with their popularity in social media.
won his own 3-year battle against drug kingpin “Freeway” Rick Ross, for adopting his name and likeness. Which leads me on to my music trend predictions for 2014. Expect more suing and counter-suing over samples, copyright, names and content. Following in the steps of Beyoncé expect more secret gigs, surprise albums and old DJ’s pretending to be new ones. The trend by artists to omit vowels from their names for example SBTRKT will die off and we will see a continued rise in female DJ’s who later turn out to be men using women’s names. Finally Tropical Bass will continue to take over Dubstep and the following under twenties will see their status continue to dominate the music scene.
1. Alex Young – This 16-year-old electronic producer from Washington D.C. was a break out star in 2013. Now signed to the Windish agency home of the biggest hitters in the music game expect to see him tour widely in 2014.
2. Madeon – Within the first few days of posting the 19-year-old French house producer’s You Tube video “Pop Culture” had reached several million views and to date has been played over 22 million times. If you watch the video it is clear his hypnotic talent is far beyond his years. 3. Lorde – Pint sized power and pathos make up the arsenal to this girls material and ‘Royals’ was a break out hit of 2013 and she dropped her critically acclaimed album ‘Pure Heroine.’ Expect THE GRINDTM
the 17-year-old Kiwi’s status to grow with her refreshing observations of modern fame.
4. Chance the Rapper – The 20-yearold Chicago MC is the poster boy of psychedelic hip-hop. Chance delivers poignantly dark lyrics to a fun offbeat Andre 3000 style whilst pointing out “it’s dark a lot… easier to find a gun than it is to find a xxxxing parking spot.” 5. Jake Bugg – 19-year-old U.K. veteran Bugg is slowly reworking every classic rock sound with his modern gravelly edge and genius. With the Brit Awards nominating him in the same category as David Bowie for Best British Male Solo Artist, it seems he has established himself amongst rock royalty already. WWW.THEGRINDMAGAZINE.CO.UK | 45
New & improved for 2014
PRODUCT FLASH
T C U D PRO ASH FL
Spoilt for choice Sixteen brand NEW designs
NEW WILMA
Building on the success of the Wilma XL range launched late last year, Nutriculture are pleased to announce a completely new and improved Wilma range for 2014. Produced in 16 new sizes to suit the most common grow room spaces, the improved Wilma comes with unique new features including a handy nutrient mixing tap, multiple pot locators per tray – giving the grower the ability to switch between pot sizes, and more drippers per pot on the larger systems. A collaboration between Nutriculture and Atami, the Wilma range is designed specifically for growers looking for the flexibility of growing in pots, combined with the accurate feeding and increased yields that are possible with active hydroponics.
The most comprehensive range of drip-irrigation systems available. Take the product tour at www.nutriculture.co.uk/Wilma
A collaboration between Atami and Nutriculture
For more information on the new Wilma visit www.nutriculture.co.uk/wilma 46 | WWW.THEGRINDMAGAZINE.CO.UK
Find out more at nutriculture.co.uk
directgardeningsupplies.co.uk
SPORT & LEISURE
FISHIN
UK Lure Fishing Part 2
G
A decade ago you could only have dreamt of having access to such a variety of lures that is available to every angler now. From spinners to soft plastics, we can have it all if we want to. But which ones are the best? Do they all work? When do you choose soft plastics over plugs? Well, in this part we will look at several peerreviewed lures, and tell you exactly why you simply cannot go fishing without some in your tackle box! In my personal opinion, you cannot go far wrong with the old classics such as Rapala minnow and floating plugs. Even these two ranges of theirs are available in a multitude of colours and patterns. But the simple fact is this, their formula works. The action on these lures has been tried and tested over the years, and some anglers choose only to fish with these. Rapala Floating Lure This original still packs a heavy punch even with the deadliness of the modern-day Japanese lures. Still considered by many as the go-to lure, its wounded minnow action is simply irresistible to any predator species from Brown Trout to the stunning Sea Bass. In fact it is one of the most versatile lures ever made and can be worked in the water in a variety of ways, depending on your target species. The Floating Minnow can be worked with a slow and steady retrieve, or at the complete opposite side of the scale, it can be made to dart from side to side with a vigorous retrieve. Either way, even you will struggle to differentiate between 48 | WWW.THEGRINDMAGAZINE.CO.UK
your lure and an actual minnow. So if you haven’t already, try it! The Dexter Wedge This is again an old classic, though not quite as established, its score sheet speaks for itself. This is such an obvious design; it is exactly as the name suggests - a wedge of shiny metal. One of the longest casting lures out there, with superb aerodynamic properties. Mostly used for sea angling but monster Pike have fallen victim to this killer. Fast sinking, ideal for deeper water, it has an irresistible wobbling action and suits a faster retrieve to keep it away from any snags on the bottom. However, it is perfect for fishing the lower parts of the water; simply because it is so bright it reflects what little light there is at that depth. This lure allows you to reach further and deeper so the chances of bigger fish being caught increases dramatically.
When fishing this lure your brain really does need to be switched on, every movement and shift on the rod affects it in the water. It casts really well and gives you considerable distance over which the lure can be worked. It really is a work of genius and simulates an injured baitfish nicely. On its day this action is second to none and at the right time in the right place I can safely say that it will guarantee a fish or two. It dives down to about 3-4 feet upon retrieve and will be spotted by any predator lurking down below. One thing that may be worth noting is to remove the middle treble hook. As with all three hook lures, it lessens tangling and causes less damage to the fish. Berkey Soft Lures – the worms! In the last few years this lure has quickly made its way across the pond from the Big Mouth Bass anglers there to our shores. Berkley’s range of soft lures is simply too large to review on just a few pages but as a taster lets concentrate on its most prolific fish catcher, the Berkley Power Worm! The worm requires a special worm hook in order to fish it. The hook guides itself through the body of the
worm so that its point is hidden inside the worm, ready to come out as soon as a fish takes the bait! This drastically reduces the amount of snags you will experience. So it is absolutely ideal for working the lower parts of the water, even bouncing off the seabed while retrieving. It works especially well when fishing from rocky parts of the coast line and in lime green, black and brown colours these jelly worms have accounted for hundreds and hundreds of Pollack and Ballan Wrasse. The worms have a unique action in the tail that is just irresistible to fish hunting on that type of ground. Not only are these lures effective they are also relatively good value for money and, as previously mentioned, the multitude of colours will suit your every need. So there you have it, that was a just a snippet of the type of lures out there, and to cover them all we would require a ‘’part 20’’ for this article, so this is just a guide. Bear in mind what ground you are fishing, if there is a tidal race to think about, how cloudy the water is and most of all – make sure to have a selection of lures for every occasion!
Maria Angel Kiss Precision engineered, this Japanese plug is worth every penny. It is a larger lure, best suited to a stiffer spinning rod, with braided line, to enable the angler to feel every little movement in the water.
THE GRINDTM
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FASHION
N O I H FAS
HYPE.
were on the right track. With their Autumn/Winter ‘11 collection primed, photographed and laid out on a brand new website, the next drop hit bigger and better. A successful first night made sure the following month was filled with promise; a key stockist ‘FootAsylum’ came on board, the A/W ‘11 collection sold fast and they took the chance to exhibit at festivals around the UK.
With the first few months a distant, but close, memory; these two friends continue to push the boundaries and venture ever higher. HYPE. is now stocked in Independent stores across the UK, Europe and further internationally! For more information and to buy HYPE. products please visit www.justhype.co.uk.
HYPE. began in Summer of 2011, when the UK weather, for once, was good! Two friends, both on summer breaks from University, decided they wanted to spend their holiday doing something more than just kicking back and relaxing. With an understanding of retail and business from previous jobs and a fascination with independent clothing companies, creating a brand was high on the cards. After a week of late nights, copious amounts of Monster Energy and the odd bottle of rum; these two friends had created the beginning of HYPE. They set to work on the foundations of the company, quickly and efficiently building a powerful string of social networks with nothing more than word of mouth. HYPE. launched its first designs; a lighter inscribed with the statement: ‘Get Your Own Fucking Lighter’ and a range of ‘alternative’ designs; a modified Einstein, Monroe and Elvis on separate t-shirts. With the initial idea of investing £200 each into the first range, the lads were shocked, when after entering a competition with just minutes to spare they won 100 free t-shirts to be printed. This was thanks to the help of their current 52 | WWW.THEGRINDMAGAZINE.CO.UK
following, by choosing their design to win an online merchandise competition. This happened twice more…With three designs printed and fully stocked and a unique lighter design bought with the initial investment, the boys were on a roll. The drop was announced for a Sunday at 8pm and was well anticipated by their following. By midnight all t-shirts were sold out. They couldn’t believe it. With a response so rapid and overwhelming; the lads spent day and night sending out orders, restocking products, responding to their online following and creating new designs.
The HYPE. had begun. Fast forward 3 months and HYPE. has moved out of the bedroom and taken up premises in Leicester, to house the expansion of the fresh, growing company. Now whilst able to look over production closely, house more products, create an office space for friends to come and help, they knew they
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MUSIC
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c i s u m view r inte
Something Of The Night... Interview with S. Kayne
The avant-garde Black Metal pioneers talk us through the birth of ‘Augur Nox’, their latest opus. For many fans at the extreme end of Metal it was with 2005’s superbly blackened debut album, ‘Nouveau Gloaming’, that the name Code became synonymous with originality and excellence. For others it was the Spellemann nominated follow-up ‘Replendent Grotesque’ (2009) that brought the band to their attention, a refined exploration of a surreal world that twisted Black Metal shards into something strange and new. Sadly this is when the pan-European effort that pulled together members of some of Extreme Metal’s best and brightest (At The Gates, Arcturus, Blutvial, Borknagar, Dodheimsgard, Ulver, Ved Buens Ende) parted ways, seemingly forever. But Code’s founder, Aort, felt there was more to be done and set about rebuilding the band. Signing to Agonia Records last year a reinvigorated lineup released Code’s majestic and critically acclaimed 3rd album, ‘Augur Nox’. I talked shop with the band’s new vocalist, Wacian... 56 | WWW.THEGRINDMAGAZINE.CO.UK
Code’s sound changes drastically from release to release. What new direction does the album take? Sonically this lies somewhere between the nastier moments on ‘Resplendent’ and more traditional Rock sounds, I think. A combination of what is being written by Aort and where collective influences stem from. A number of us have Bluesheavy backgrounds and so that undoubtedly plays its part and can re-characterize familiar elements in original ways. The grimness is still there but observed from a different point, as with the dreamlike quality. In the case of the latter it is rather more pinned-down here as it centres around a concept – a gallery of paintings whose common factor is Night.
tends to be an attempt to summarize what already exists there but lyrics both articulate and shape the mindset thereon in. The concept is cold, grandiose, amoral and malign and has made Augur Nox a harsh and claustrophobic album, sometimes oppressively black. I know we made it but it feels like it made itself. This incarnation of Code seems to have much less of an emphasis on Black Metal, in terms of background. Was this a deliberate move away from source? I believe the main problem previously had been the sheer distance between members. We all live fairly close and so it is easier to work as a band rather than a studio project. Other than proximity Aort’s writing had moved into new territory. The bloody-minded spirit that takes you out of your comfort zone is the irreverence of Black Metal. There are other Progressive Black Metal albums that have approached the kind of Rock-orientated area Augur Nox covers but none so definitively. I don’t think any Code album has been a purist’s idea of the genre and this takes the avant-garde edge in a different direction. What can those who follow Code expect from the future? We are playing Bristol’s Temples Festival in May and perhaps a few other European dates over the year before starting work on the next album and that is something much looked forward to. Augur Nox is vast, layered and something we are very proud of but it was not easy to bring about. For more on the band visit: www.facebook.com/codeblackmetal www.agoniarecords.com
So how does the concept influence Augur Nox? Because much of the music was written before my contribution any idea you have as a lyricist
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NO. 6
No.6 Applications of the Principles of FMOTL by No.6 “I’m not a number…but a freeman”
The principles that were outlined in the previous article have provided the basis for a number of different actions. There have been some successful challenges to civil proceedings, and in some cases the people involved have been assertive by serving commercial liens on those concerned. However, its principles do not apply just to court proceedings. The principles of FMOTL can apply to many aspects of daily life. There is some very interesting video footage on the web showing what has occurred when Freemen have tested these principles in court or when challenging police officers. Search for ‘Raymond St Clair’ on YouTube being interviewed by a police officer and ‘Freemen in the magistrates’ court’ for non-payment of council tax. In these videos, the officials are confronted with a frank refusal on St Clair’s part to identify his natural person with his legal fiction. 58 | WWW.THEGRINDMAGAZINE.CO.UK
And also search for the term ‘bacon breath’ being stopped by the police on YouTube – this chap is off the wall! In the particular cases of the court proceedings listed above; in each case they fail at the moment when the magistrates are asked to produce evidence of their authority in the form of their oath of office. As they are unable to do so, the proceedings cannot continue. When attempts to remove the lay adviser who is requesting this evidence from the court fails, the lay adviser explains to police officers the basis of his request and its lawfulness. The conclusion is that the magistrates leave the court and the lay adviser declares the court to have been abandoned by them. The first thing to note is there is no rulebook for the application of these principles. The FMOTL is a fairly new movement. It is an interesting
situation to watch, and there are several possibilities when analysing the responses to the FMOTL principles. One possibility for the success in the application of these principles is because the principles behind the actions concerned are deemed to be valid. The other possibility is that these actions cause so much confusion and disruption among the powers that be that whether the principles are valid or not, they are very effective in preventing the court process from taking place, or possibly place the court process under an intolerable strain in respect of time and resources. These possibilities have the desired effect, which is to nullify or substantially constrain the action against them, and therefore make it prohibitive when recovering these monies compared to the expense involved. This is also the case of attempted arrest or issuing of fines or penalties by officers of the law. Once again, these lay people are able to question the law that the police officers are trying to enforce. It should also be noted that persons applying these principles
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are lay people or rarely qualified in the legal system so there is no ‘framework’ or lawyer to go to who can help you. It’s down to you. You need to do the homework and the research, and then apply it. So it behoves you to know exactly what you are doing. There are numerous websites, YouTube videos, articles and books such as ‘Freedom... Is More Than Just a Seven-Letter Word’ by Veronica of the Chapman family and ‘So, They Say You’ve Broken The Law’ by the lioness. Simply Google or YouTube ‘Freeman on the land’, ‘Lawful rebellion’ and ‘the anti terrorist’ for more information. Reactions The reactions to the introduction of these principles has been fascinating. There has been a lot of flat denials that these principles have any pertinence, and that the Freeman on the Land concept is wishful thinking which has been based on archaic legal precedents that have been in some way overthrown, and there are detailed > WWW.THEGRINDMAGAZINE.CO.UK | 59
NO. 6
cohesive, lawful and peaceful protest by the public against what is discerned as the unjust abuse of the civil law. If this disruption to the courts by this movement which have been witnessed thus far, were to be replicated on a greater and more extensive scale, it would more than likely cause the breakdown of civil law due to the fact that the consent underlying that jurisdiction had in effect been retracted by a significant proportion of society, and that obtaining a judgement against a defendant could no longer be regarded as generally enforceable or affordable. In conclusion, whether these principles have a firm basis in law or not, is of considerable interest, however, it is not the only or the most important aspect of the Freeman movement.
matters concerning the greater importance of statute law over common law that deserve a more detailed examination than this article can offer. However, in a move guaranteed to outrage the conspiracy theorists within the movement, these denials tend to take the form of a sweeping statement rather than a detailed interpretation, explanation and edification of the matter. Clearly, many of those opposed to the Freeman philosophy have tried to undermine it and were unsuccessful in doing so. They have become prominent critics of the movement. Others may have infiltrated Freeman forums, their intention being to disrupt them on the grounds that these principles are seen as a threat to the state, whose interests these critics in some way seek to protect. The actions of this group are seen by the conspiracists as evidence that the authorities are beginning to take this matter seriously and
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The key to the importance of this movement lies in the assertion of the sovereignty of the individual, the opposition to the officialdom of the bureaucratic state, and the willingness through lawful and peaceful rebellion as the means to disrupt the force of that state where they are deemed to infringe upon the inalienable, god given rights of the individual. That obstruction to the system of civil law has the potential to create a paradigm shifting change in the basis of the relationship between the state and the individual. Please note that nothing in this article is intended as legal advice for any person or situation, nor is it intended as an endorsement of any of the individuals featured herein. This is simply an item of interest and is intended as a forum of free and enlightened discussion. Be seeing you...
identify that it has the potential to cause them rampant upheaval. As said earlier, these forerunners upholding the Freeman philosophy are not, as far as we can tell, legally trained or qualified, and presently, there is an intriguing lack of commentary from solicitors or barristers who you would have thought would be interested at least on a purely academic level. There is further evidence that notaries are becoming more and more reluctant to cooperate in the affidavit processes as referred to in the previous article. This suggests that these issues have ramifications for the relationship between the state and the legal profession, which has become manifestly closer in recent years. The real repercussions of the Freeman movement are not likely to come from any esoteric legal discovery but from a systematic,
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o m s! ro nd a ow r gr r b ur rio yo nfe st i ru to tt n n’ atio Do ntil ve
LIFESTYLE
beard
(The Bedsit, Snetterton. Winter 2013-2014) by poet, onanist & raconteur Spud Plinth
You tell the world, beard That I am a Man As if they needed confirmation That these breasts are purely cosmetic You hug my face, beard Possessive and warm Like a jealous kitten Forcing yourself into my unhappy mouth
E
L Y T S LIFE
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You change my look, beard Age and blur me Requiring airport security To go through all of my pants You try and define me, beard Stretch and curling Chameleonically shifting with seasons Afraid that I will bore of you And …cut ……you ………off But you forget, friend I have a comically small chin Nestled into another, much bigger chin And without you I’d look like Eric Pickles 62 | WWW.THEGRINDMAGAZINE.CO.UK
le as a Availab in and tw single, tatically s o therm ed unit ll o r cont
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FASHION
VINTAGE V RETRO TRAINERS? PART 2 By Joe Bloggs
Some other classic trainers…
N O I H S
FA
Onitsuka Tiger Nippon 60 trainers from the 1960s. It made a brief reissue appearance in 1970 and has not been seen since…
Adidas Tokio trainers – originally came out in 1964, last seen 2008.
Converse All Star, Stan Smith, Puma Clyde. Do you know how these famous trainers got their names?
Last time we covered some of the history of some of the trainers, and so though I love the vintage, I own and wear the retro trainers. Why? Well, I did like all those lads in the 70s.
I wear them, I throw them out, I buy a new pair. I like brand spanking new trainers that fit under my jeans. I don’t do grubby old trainers except to wear in the shop, when I’m doing DIY or working in the garden. Simple… so though it would be nice to wear the originals, it would be like a vintage car – stuck 64 | WWW.THEGRINDMAGAZINE.CO.UK
in the garage and only taken out once a week when the weather’s good. Still, when they reissue these trainers, they should take care that they are producing trainers that look just like the old ones. It is a bit lazy on their part if they can’t be bothered to get the details right as they have archives…
Nearly everyone has a pair of Converse All Stars, and if not, you’ve probably got an imitation pair. It is the original basketball shoe and the French still call them “basket” (with a French accent!). They were introduced in 1917 and in 1921 Chuck Taylor the famous Basketball player, was drafted in to promote them. He added the iconic patch at the ankle with his signature. Converse was bought by Nike in 2003.
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Puma States – a personal favourite of mine. Puma designed this new trainer for Frazier, the New York basketball player, but they weren’t called Fraziers. They used his nickname which was Clyde as Frazier dressed like the famous bank robber Clyde Barrow. In the photo above, you can see Frazier wearing Clydes and one of the other players wearing Adidas. > WWW.THEGRINDMAGAZINE.CO.UK | 65
FASHION
Adidas Stan Smith named after the successful Californian tennis player. When he won the US Open in 1971, Adidas signed him and the Stan Smith tennis shoe was born. It is still as popular today. Puma and Adidas are both iconic makes, but did you know that they were once the same company? Both Puma and Adidas are major German companies that produce athletic shoes, footwear and other sportswear accessories headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, Germany. The two brothers, Adolf and Rudolf Dassler, formed a company in 1924 called Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik (Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory). They also made running shoes that were used by Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics, and thereafter worn by the world’s leading sportsmen. Quite quickly after this, the relationship between the two brothers deteriorated to such a point that they agreed to split in 1948. They formed two different companies, Adidas and Puma. Puma and Adidas became bitter rivals that divided the town of Herzogenaurach. There were even two football clubs – ASV Herzogenaurach club which supported Adidas and 1 FC Herzogenaurach which supported Puma. This rivalry lasted their entire lives and the two brothers never reconciled. They are both buried in separate corners of the same cemetery. Puma made football shoes and sponsored a number of footballers, most notably Pelé. They sponsored many sportsmen and even today they sponsor the Jamaican athlete Usain Bolt. In the US, Puma are famous for their suede basketball shoes, which they introduced in 1968. They eventually were named Clydes after the New York Knicks basketball star Walt “Clyde” Frazier. However, Adidas developed a reputation as a superior product, and this helped it grow into a major European brand.
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COMMENT
online and start searching. There’s so much more choice and eastern promise!) Now is the time to make some beautiful, bilingual, F1 hybrid babies. Not only do our Chinese brothers and sisters diligently manufacture practically every consumer good we crave from iPad Pros to double-ended, pet-safe dildos, they are decades ahead in scientific research, not least in the field of genetic engineering. Soon Chinese couples will be able to benefit from an in-vitro embryo selection method that will reportedly add up to ten IQ points per generation thanks to screening methods that can identify the genes associated with intelligence. According to proponents of the technology, it’s like a couple having 100 babies and culling 99, leaving just the very smartest. Of course, most educated Chinese would most likely already kick your flabby ass on a Mensa test or any other contrived cerebral challenge and they are arguably far more determined and hard working than your stolid, Anglosaxon monkey brain can even begin to fathom. Best start your Mandarin lessons.
nt e m com
The End of Nations By Max Welks
“When I was poor and I complained about inequality, people said I was bitter. Now I’m rich and I complain about inequality, they say I’m a hypocrite. I’m beginning to think they just don’t want inequality on the agenda because it is a real problem that needs to be addressed.” Russell Brand Nations suck. All those illusory, manmade borders drawn donkey’s years ago by a self-important colonial type with a moustache seem a bit ridiculous—especially if you’re a Pakistani applying for a US tourist visa. In a world where corporations span multiple continents, air travel can transport us almost anywhere in hours and memes starring moody-looking cats can circulate the globe in minutes, isn’t it time we erased those impossibly straight lines forever? What do they even mean? For the answer to that, try asking a Kurd. You’ll find them dispersed, displaced and dissected across Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran—not in any place called ‘Kurdistan’. Apparently they didn’t get the memo from the man with the moustache back in 1918. Awfully tough luck there, Kurds. Proud to be English, Welsh, Scottish or Jedi? 70 | WWW.THEGRINDMAGAZINE.CO.UK
Whether you like it or not, the world is becoming one. That’s right—one big fat blue planet. No more immigration visas. No more work permits. No more language tests. Free movement, anywhere and everywhere. I’m all for it, barring the requirement for us to accept microchips in our arms for the so-called privilege. We will finally realise what corporations have been exploiting for decades—a global market of human labour. Does that mean hoards of ‘foreigners’ avalanching on to our shores and taking our jobs? Not necessarily. They can already do that remotely from call centres in Delhi. Seriously though, if you are worried that an unskilled person from overseas who barely speaks English is capable of taking your job in the first place, maybe its you who’s a bit…. well, crap? Or are you merely afraid that globalisation will out you for the evolutionary “give way” sign you really are? Perhaps your labour is only worth 19p an hour and you’ll only be able to afford gruel for dinner? Apparently the poverty endured by others hasn’t >
Seriously, get out more. No—not just a zombie safari around one of our cloned city centres— you’ll actually need to leave the island. Be brave. Book yourself a ticket with Ryanair or Easyjet and discover the world at your doorstep. A cultural exchange with Bulgaria or Romania would be particularly apposite right now, don’t you think? You could proudly show off our ‘national dish’— Chicken Tikka Masala. Or maybe you could offer them direction on the finer points of our English language, kindly donated to us by the Germans around 1,500 years ago and delicately seasoned with more than a little je ne sais quoi in the years since. With eyes cast wistfully beyond our shores, let us not forget the Chinese—not least because they make particularly good breeding material. (Get
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COMMENT
caused you any sleepless nights. Soon it might be your turn to live the dream.
holidays and suicide nets to catch you when you fall. Viva equality!
Of course, there is one prerequisite to all of this one world business—the introduction and acceptance of a global monetary system—a level playing field. No more can we tolerate a situation where a thousand of my Mickey Mouse rupees only equal a measly one of your faux-federal monopoly dollars. That’s just not cricket. We must all work for the same type of tokens and compete for the same goods based on supply and demand. That’s fair isn’t it? Sure, you might have to start cooking more meals from scratch instead of relying on Heston and Waitrose for your readymeals but surely you’d be happy for everyone to stand an equal chance of their labour amounting to nourishment for their family, wouldn’t you?
Or perhaps equality starts with a single, shared, global scale of value—not a single currency? Don’t know the difference? Well, this is not as big a philosophical leap as you might think.
Now, in case you haven’t noticed, World War III is not being fought on the land, at sea, or in the air. In fact, it hasn’t even been officially declared! (Declaring war is so passé these days.) And yet it’s taking place right now over a territory that is both virtual and real—control of the global monetary system. If we persist in our adopted role of the powerless TV-watching, culture-consuming minion, fearful of losing our meagre rations of processed food and other western comforts, we will wake up tomorrow in a world beholden to a single, global, debt-based currency—in fact, after the collapse of the dollar, pound and euro, you will probably clamour for it. This global currency will be utterly opaque and impenetrable, cementing itself in our malleable and deferent minds as both a scale of value and a unit of exchange, comparable to nothing other than the goods and services we can afford with it. If you’re worried about which country controls this currency then clearly you’re still thinking like a nationalist. So, just for you, odds are it will be the Chinese and they’re going to make you work learly learly hard, 18 hours a day, with no
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Ding ding! All aboard?
We already have inches (and centimetres) to measure length. An inch in Birmingham is exactly the same as an inch in Bali. Inches are not subject to inflation or exchange rates. They just are. Nobody owns them. Nobody issues them. Neither is a house left half built because of a suddenshortage of inches. Give corporations, not banks, the issuing power of currency, with every self-issued credit representing a promise of future production, all valued against a global scale of value. If a corporation issues too many of its own tokens (i.e. demand for their token is less than the goods and services they represent) the value of each token automatically reduces in real time, driving it back towards parity with the units of our global scale. The solution, in practical terms, is nothing more
than elementary maths and a little distributed computing. Why not let us, the people, decide whose money we use in a truly open currency market? Don’t like a particular corporation’s ethics? You don’t need to accept their currency! True equality cannot be forced upon us. Each of us needs to understand its true nature, moral necessity and implications.
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” Richard Buckminster Fuller Still scratching your head? YouTube is ready to blow your mind. Just search: ‘The essence of money’ (7 minutes) and ‘Introduction of digital coin’ (15 minutes)
The richest 85 people in the world could fit on a single double-decker bus. They are as wealthy as the world’s poorest 3.5 billion people who would require over 41 million double-deckers to transport them. THE GRINDTM
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