I am now procrastinating about heading to work… Something I never really thought I would do in this job as I used to like it. Might be time to start looking around for something new.
Happy to see the Data Liberation tab in the settings…
Happy to see the Data Liberation tab in the settings… Now if only I could find that in Flickr as well.
A new project… One worthy of Royalty.
Reply
I have a new project, one that I am keen to complete to earn myself something I want. The project is a chess set, one that celebrates the coming reign of Their Highnesses Cornielius and Elizabeth. My issue is that I have two conflicting ideas about how I would like to proceed with this chess set.
One thought it to do a period replica, using examples recovered from, as well as the techniques of the 15th century to make a chess set worthy of winning an A&S Competition. Fully documenting the entire set and making it out of materials that would have been used in period. This would
The other thought is to take the techniques I know that were around but not necessarily proven to be used in the 15th century to make a chess set that is uniquely a celebration of Their Highnesses coming reign and is very much a celebration of what it means to be SCAdian.
I’m leaning very much towards the latter option myself, as this would let me more utilise my mould making and casting skills and also alow me to make a chess set that is also saleable, and manufacturable in a reasonable quantity so that I can (yes, permission has been given), make sets to sell to the populace. The idea of making a full chess set with each of the 32 pieces being a unique piece also has appeal, however that task would be daunting if it were not for the ability to make a basic figure mould and then cast waxes and then individualise them. This ability alone makes me lean more towards the latter option as the chess set would be far more impressive with each piece slightly individualised.
I need to start this soon, which means getting moved fully so that my time is my own again. stay tuned to find out more…
Trafficking in energy – A smarter way?
Energy use is a scary thing when you start thinking about how much we use in what we class as normal day to day life, or to put it another way… Civilisation.
In the days before technology, back when electricity was still new and exciting they didn’t have traffic lights, real people were employed to control traffic, much like real people are still used today to control airline traffic. Don’t take the following as an anti-traffic light campaign, but more as something to get people thinking…
Traffic lights are most likely a 100 Watt bulb that is on constantly. Usually an intersection has at least 4 but most likely 8 and sometimes even 12 facings, that’s an average of 1200 Watts of electricity being used 24 hours a day 365 days of the year, when you add up the thousands of traffic light systems in a city that’s a lot of power and that doesn’t include the electronics and control equipment needed to run them. Whilst these are being phased out in favour of lower wattage LED lighting systems it’s not just the power to run the lights that you need to think about, in fact the greatest cost to energy consumption is probably the one you are paying for yourself. The energy that is taken from each vehicle each time it is stopped to let an already stopped car go. This might not seem like much, but when you stop 20 cars in order to let one car go that already has had its energy robbed it adds up. No only are the stop lights robbing potential energy from your vehicle, but they are causing you to have to invest that energy again to get your vehicle up to speed again. Is this still an acceptable cost to the environment?
So am I just whining about this cause I hate getting stopped at lights? Not really, I just think that we need to start looking at ways to reduce this cost to the environment. In the past before we had traffic lights we had traffic police who could intelligently look at the on coming traffic and work out the best solution for them getting through the intersection with as little as possible. Technology today has progressed so much that surely we can start putting in some more intelligent traffic light systems? Visual recognition systems could quite easily gauge traffic approaching the intersection, feeding this data into a computer to calculate the best sequence to allow all traffic through with the minimal cost to the environment. Programming lights to be aware of on coming traffic could also reduce congestion allowing better flow of traffic and utilising the gaps in traffic to allow cars to cross or turn. Image a set of lights that as you are approaching them turn green because they can see that there are no on-coming cars. This would be a huge improvement in traffic systems and save thousands of people from frustration and potential road rage.
Another solution is to start using more roundabouts as these when used properly can eliminate the need for traffic lights entirely. Though this solution would require an education campaign teaching motorists the proper use of a roundabout and how to keep traffic flowing.
The point is, adding more traffic lights without a significant look into a smarter way to implement them is only going to cost more in both money and the environment than I believe is really worth while. We seem to have an attitude of blocking/shielding ourselves from harm rather than educating in the dangers and I believe that all this will end up doing is hindering development of proper solutions and making life too controlled. Lets take responsibility for our own safety and not try and protect by reducing freedom.
Energy in the consumption.
Have you ever concidered your daily energy footprint, that is the amount of enery you use every day? I started contemplating mine this morning whilst having a shower and was amazed at how much I waste. Whilst I try not to use the dryer and heater that often I do have a computer I have running all the time as well as a Tivo, thats no to mention all of the things that draw power whilst on standby like the computer monitor and TV as well as numerous old style transformer plugpacks as well as newer switchmode ones… It all adds up. And whilst I was counting up all of these devices, I then started thinking about the not so obvious energy that I use each day, as well as the energy that I waste, energy that has no purpose such as boiling a full kettle for only a cup full of hot water.
What about other enery that we don’t even concider as energy, such as piped running water or peddling nowhere on a exercise bike. All of these things are designed to help us, but as the greenies have been saying for years are they really just tools to help us dig our own graves? Whilst we have all of these renewable energy sources springing up, there is one source that we are repeatedly not making use of and in fact using more energy in an effort to not use. And what is that energy source? It’s Us… ourselves. We create so many energy hungry devices and all in order to allow us to do less work in our day to day lives.
If you think about this cycle then it really is staggering… I mean we buy these devices so that we can have an easier time at home so that we can go out and work harder during the week to make money to pay for more of these devices and also the cost of the power they are using to run. Who are we really helping, ourselves or big business? Just think about the energy used to get food on your table, the farms, the farm equipment, the transport, the refrigeration, the fuel used to go and pick it up from the store, they all add up to a total energy added to the final product… A product that
Now think of those of us who actually pay money for a Gym membership…
Because our lives are less active these days due to these devices that we work hard at mostly shuffling data around to buy, we need to also pay for a membership to a gym so that we can then go and work physically to keep our bodies in shape. In times gone by this was accomplished by physical work around the house or at a place of employment, but these days modern society has machines and robots to do the meanial tasks that kept previous workers in shape. So now we are paying these Gym Memberships to use our own energy up doing meanial tasks such as riding a bike to nowhere or running on a treadmill or rowing a machine… These gym machines take our personal energy and well… wastes it. Wouldn’t it be far better than instead of spending time, energy and money ona Gym membership, we spend that same time and energy on creating something? Grow a garden? Harness the enegy in a bike powered generator or do something else just as productive?
As any decent economist will tell you all of these things are designed to keep the money moving. Having Money gives us choices, we can choose to pay for our energy consumption or we can choose to limit it. However the system is flawed… Not the Energy system, but the money system. Money seems to float to the top of the pile giving those with money more choices and those with less well… Less. Is the economy driven purely by Energy? I’m not sure but I do believe that this is what is scaring the major players into trying to keep our reliance on Fossil fuels and limit the change to renewable energies that they have less control over.
I too have fallen in with the rest of society but I do long to change. I think the difficulty though is that society has created a “Norm”, and we strive even if only sub-conciously to achieve that. But then maybe I am wrong, maybe I can change…
A Brilliant market stall.
Thanks to a kind Facebook friend I have been given a link to a fantastic Market Stall design that I am going to try and replicate. The stall would not necessarily be the smallest to pack down however I believe that I should be able to modify it slightly allowing for it to become reasonably compact.
The link: http://vonmeer.deviantart.com/art/Medieval-Market-Stall-155518797
Shows an awesome looking period example complete with counter. I have been contemplating my options and I shall be looking at making all of the pieces come apart so that it packs reasonably flat.
Plans are afoot!
The Pewter Plan… More procrastination.
My Laurel is doing a great job at attempting to inspire me to do more, however my lack of well…. motivation in life seems to be hindering the process. Having never been to Uni and just cruising through school and TAFE with the skills I could pick up, I don’t really have a background in research or planning. And well study is something quite foriegn to me. What I need is someone to sit down with and who is willing to help me put a plan into action… A Project manager as it were, but someone who understands research and the documenting of it as well.
In my Post/Page “2011 and beyond” I set out what I would like to acheive or this year, however getting from here to there as well as fitting in life seems to be a plan that is too big for me alone to grasp. If there is anyone local to Canberra who would be interested in spending an hour or so with me each week to help put this goal into small bite sized chunks and help plan the process to getting there I would certainly like to hear from you. I would love to learn from this experience and come out of it with a better knowledge of how to plan, document and research a project. I suppose the Internet also would allow that person to be aywhere in the world really, so it needn’t be someone in Canberra. However I personally think it would help.
Crossroads – A short update as to my involvement.
Flash Gallery
I’m still continuing with my dream to see Crossroads turned into something usable. It still needs either Members who value it enough to spend time out there and contribute money, or members to realise that they are holding the rest back and to pull out.
Above is some of the repair work that was needed to the guild hall, but thanks to a member is now being repaired. This is also so I can trial my new photo gallery software in an attempt to get all of my photo’s over to this site. This gallery will expand to have lots of photo’s of Crossroads, but probably not until after Festival.
Just a shorty…
Tis been a while, and I am procrastinating about getting work done…
I just changed the theme of my blog again as I wasn’t really liking the last one… was kinda too busy or something. This one is at least a little easier to follow. I shall tinker with it later in the week to get it more well me… instead of the default.
Still waiting for approval for holidays at Festival, once that comes through I’ll start the proper Festival planning process.. a little late I guess but then thats pretty normal for me. If I am coming to Festival I really need to start looking into weather proofing my tent, otherwise I’m going to end up with a viking A-Frame tent with a blue tarp over it to keep the rain out. Anyway… Too much time wasting and not enough work getting done, back to work I go.
Life after Life…
I have been watching Caprica lately and the main concept that really intrigues me is the concept of Life after death by being digitally copied into a virtual world. Thinking about this concept brings about some fundamental flaws, though the show does actually hint at these so I’m not really having a go at the show, just thinking out loud about the whole concept.
Lets say that if in the future we get to a point that we can transfer/copy our soul, or our mind into a digital virtual wold… If all of the physical limitations were overcome and allowed us to do this. Would it be a true transfer, or would it be a copy? Whilst I do believe that some day in the future we will be able to make a digital copy of someones personality with all their memories that would act and essentially be a copy of that person, I’m unsure as to whether it would ever become possible to transfer someones consciousness into a digital form.
My reason for bringing this up is that whilst I see the benefit of being able to copy an entity into digital form, I find it sad that I myself would never get to experience the benefits of such an advancement of technology even if it did happen in my life time. The whole Transfer as opposed to copy thing would mean that any copy made of me would be able to experience it, but I myself would still miss out.
Caprica discusses/theorizes that this copy is a means of eternal life, and there are parts of the story that explore either side of this argument. However for me it is quite simple, It can’t be eternal life if it’s only a copy. If the original cannot continue the experience, then no matter when or how up-to-date the copy is, it is still a copy, one form of life stops, and another starts albeit with the memories and experiences of the original.
Anyway, that’s my take on the whole issue… I find it an intriguing issue and would be interested if anyone else has a different opinion and why. 