Topic Tuesday #65 2013/10/15 - "NaNoWriMo"

Topic Tuesday #65 2013/10/15 - "NaNoWriMo"

"NaNoWriMo" is not gibberish. It is one heck of an acronym for National Novel Writing Month.
http://cfiles.nanowrimo.org/nano-2013/files/2013/10/nano_13_press_release_official.pdf
National Novel Writing Month was established in 1999. It is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that believes stories matter. This year, they anticipate half a million writers joining their noveling adventure.

Last year 341,375 storytellers participated in 2012's NaNoWriMo. Over 250 of the novels, that made it though the month, have been traditionally published. 

This year, I'm going to try my hand at it. I don't even know what I'm going to write. I have plenty of ideas but nothing solid. So where should I start? Where does one begin such a project? 

Outline: Your outline will be the "elevator pitch" 50,000 foot overview of your work. The beginning, the middle, the end, and some sinew to join them, consisting your story's flow.
It has been said that if the outline doesn't make you want to write the book and tell the story, you need to start again. If you are going to write a book in 30 days, that needs to be true as your motivation and will alone will get you to the end. Don't give yourself a simple roadblock, like not wanting to write your own book.
Really, many people have come to rely so heavily on their outline that the outline begins to grown and grow until it becomes the book. They treat it and the first draft, second draft, rough draft and then only transcribe to the final draft, all while working from the original "living" outline. 
Many traditional writers will have a bible of the story containing all the notes they have taken on the world and its inhabitants. We don't have that kind of time, unless you are going to treat NaNoWriMo as your chance to do your final draft. (DO IT!)
There are no two outlines that will look alike, and that is as it should be.
Some will need a little more structure so the empty page doesn't seem so daunting.
I have taken plot analysis courses in college and found that the examination of a typical plot arch can give you a path. Many will call it a formula. Why not follow one as a beginner?  Included below is an empty plot outline to get you started, if you need it. (If you don't see it, follow the link to the blog.) 

Now... I need to get writing.



“NaNoWriMo Image courtesy of National Novel Writing Month. http://nanowrimo.org/press

Topic Tuesday #64 2013/10/08 - "Rose Colored Glasses & BS Detector Goggles"

Topic Tuesday #64 2013/10/08 - "Rose Colored Glasses & BS Detector Goggles"

I am, by nature, an inquisitive person. I do not take anything at face value. Everything needs to be respected enough to first give it some thought before drawing any conclusion. There are always shades of grey and multiple points of view. What these POVs have in common are facts. It's been said you are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts, and I adhere to that in my daily life. It is important to not get lulled into a false sense of reality, as many of the opinions you have were manipulated without your knowledge a long time ago (maybe generations in the past). This, at its core, is skepticism. Doubt.
We have many built in tools for detecting fraudulent things. The ability to recognize deception is something we have honed over millennia. At the heart of the matter is a misinformation maelstrom; an arms race of lies. Better detection, better lies. Many concepts are so susceptible to deception that we think they are true, time and time again. The rose colored glasses of what we wish to be true, regardless of facts. And then...  Conspiracy theories! Delicious tabloid lies!
I love a good conspiracy theory, as much as the next guy, and can certainly buy into them from time to time. It takes patient research to ferret the facts out of a "conspiracy" for one simple reason, most of the information is factual. The conspiracy just strings multiple facts together with leaps of logic that are just outlandish enough to be both interesting and possible, even if unlikely. The more grand and secret they are, the more they play on our psyche.
We have to bust out the BS Detector Goggles and put away the rose colored specs that make life just a beautiful and heart warming paradise. What we need are tools. Here is a list inspired and expanded from Carl Sagan's own "Baloney Detection Kit" born from "The Demon Haunted World".
* First, we have to have data. As much hard data as possible. Quantifiable facts are all you should be interested in until it is time to reason beyond them.
* Whenever possible there must be independent confirmation of the facts. Verification is important.
* Now, quickly you can apply Occam's Razor, and then Hitchen's Razor in turn.
  Occam's Razor: "The simplest answer is often correct." (Very powerful tool.)
  Hitchen's Razor: "What which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."
  With the one/two punch of these epistemological razors, you can quickly cut to the heart of an issue.
* Brainstorm. Don't simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy; spin more than one hypothesis.
* Tear it apart by yourself. Try to defeat the hypothesis. Can you falsify the argument? Is it testable? Can/have others duplicated the experiment and the result?
* In testing the arguments hypothesis, did it rely on shaky information? You've heard it before (and with good reason), a chain (argument) is only as strong as its weakest link.

**When dealing with people, I highly recommend familiarizing yourself with "Logical Fallacies". We use them all the time in our speech and politicians pop them out every few words. I suggest taking a look at https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/home and http://www.fallacyfiles.org/taxonomy.html but here are a few of the very popular:
* Begging the question (assuming an answer in the way the question is phrased).
* Ad hominem - attacking the arguer and not the argument.
* Straw man - caricaturing (or stereotyping) a position to make it easier to attack.
* Argument from "authority".
* Loaded Question - a question that couldn't be answered without appearing "guilty".
* Argument from adverse consequences (putting pressure on the decision maker by pointing out dire consequences of an "unfavourable" decision).
* Appeal to ignorance (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence).
* Confusion of correlation and causation.
* Post hoc, ergo propter hoc - "it happened after so it was caused by" - confusion of cause and effect.
* Meaningless question ("what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?).
* Non sequitur - "it does not follow" - the logic falls down.
* Special pleading (typically referring to god's will).
* Observational selection (counting the hits and forgetting the misses).
* Statistics of small numbers (such as drawing conclusions from inadequate sample sizes).
* Misunderstanding the nature of statistics (President Eisenhower expressing astonishment and alarm on discovering that fully half of all Americans have below average intelligence!)
* Inconsistency (e.g. military expenditures based on worst case scenarios but scientific projections on environmental dangers thriftily ignored because they are not "proved").
* Suppressed evidence or half-truths.
* Excluded middle - considering only the two extremes in a range of possibilities (making the "other side" look worse than it really is).
* Short-term v. long-term - a subset of excluded middle ("why pursue fundamental science when we have so huge a budget deficit?").
* Slippery slope - a subset of excluded middle - unwarranted extrapolation of the effects (give an inch and they will take a mile).
* Weasel words - for example, use of euphemisms for war such as "police action" to get around limitations on Presidential powers. "An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public"

Now hopefully you have prepared your own kit and can interrogate the world for facts.
Don't let the skeptics of the skeptics get you down either. Just because you traded your rose colored lenses in for a magnifying glass and ask a lot of questions and seem rather contrary, doesn't mean that the reality we share has changed, or that something tastes different because you know more about it. What they will be unhappy with is not being able to get a fast one over on you any more.
I'm all out of gum, watch out for the weasel words!

Topic Tuesday #48 2013/06/18 - "The Advocate"

Topic Tuesday #48 2013/06/18 - "The Advocate"


In this world there are uncountable things to be concerned with. Everything from how your laces are tied to what was served at the last White House dinner, that you weren't invited to, could flow across your mind. There are people out there that get really passionate about a few things. These folks raise money, awareness, and a ruckus in the name of their "cause". Sometimes the cause is relatively small, but nonetheless daunting. Other times, the cause is massive. Something so enormous in complexity and nuance you just have to be a little in awe of it. It takes a special person to devote themselves to a cause and rally for its support. Among other things, we call these individuals, Advocates. And we need their voices. When the message is clear and the personality is strong enough, one person can make a difference in anything. They often have stalwart opponents and detractors. Lies and slander are often the tools of the trade. Mudslinging as often as not is used as part and parlance to fundraising and handshaking. Sounds a little like politics doesn't it? It's because it is a lot like politics, and has to be since politicians are just the kinds of people that advocates are up against. Fighting fire with fire and so on.
You know all this already, or at least I hope you do. My point is to raise your awareness to the advocates around the world. take a second look at what they are doing, and why. These people are running full tilt with a plan. Some want to save a small nesting bird, and others want to save the planet. Some want to educate everyone, others just want to make sure no one goes to bed hungry or sick.
Almost universally Advocates for a cause are trying to change something. They see a problem and want to fix it. They advocate to have anyone who will listen help them in their cause.

So, my dear readers; What are you an advocate for? This is where you get to plug your cause and get just a little more exposure. 
Can we fix it?
We can try!


Topic Tuesday #42 2013/05/07 - "Disruptive Tech"

Topic Tuesday #42 2013/05/07 - "Disruptive Tech"

I love technology. I love history. I love science and science fiction (the inspiration for more of the former). The last few days have seen a turn in the direction of what was thought of just at the top of the year as pure science fiction. Well, when I say thought of, I mean all but those with their eyes on a gun manufacturer here in the United States. Defence Distributed, and its front man Cody Wilson, have dreamt up a cottage industry in disruption. Cody, over the last year, has designed and now succeeded in building a fully 3D printed firearm called the Liberator. It's designed as a homage to the single shot weapons that were air dropped over France during WWII. Besides that, the weapon is all plastic save the nail used as a firing pin. The plans have been released to the wild. Anyone can make one of these if they so desired.
And that is outstanding.
Don't think so? Let me explain my stance.
Freedom.
Oh... You probably want more of a platform than that. OK, look at it this way, this is a technology that cannot be stopped. It cannot be regulated to the governments liking and never will be without massive outrage. This is manufacturing in your garage. Dream it one day, make it the next. You don't need permission. You just need the know how, the raw materials and the tools to put them together. Cody made a gun. Will this gun be used to hurt someone? Almost certainly. This is a logical progression to this kind of device (3D printer). Think for a moment as I stroll down technology of years past lane. When Gutenberg and his movable type printing press came on the scene the scribes were out of a job, and it was revolution in the streets (Martin Luther ring a bell?). When the cassette tape was released and you could record onto it easily, the Recording Industry lost their minds. When the VCR came out the Motion Picture Industry went nuts. CD Burners, DVD Burners, BlueRay burners MP3, MP4, JPEG things that can make a copy of something without the originator getting their due, will always be disruptive. I recall that digital copiers were so good at color reproduction that they were used in counterfeiting operations. The Liberator is a statement and a loud extension of this phenomenon. This says, "You can't stop the future. This is the information age, and now we can make use of that information - whatever form it takes."
It is a shake up. It is a wake up call. What that call sounds like changes depending on who hears it, but really it's about freedom.

Personally, I knew this was coming, and making my own gun if just not my cup of tea. Personally, I would rather be the toy maker or make replacement parts and mockups for my own projects. But that is what most people will do. Again, take the internet as a case in point. When it was started, there was no security, no anti virus, no pictures... It was innocent, with innocent ideals. None of those early engineers considered that it would be used for terrorism, free speech, porn, dating, and social networking, or even voice and video. It proved to be disruptive. In a very short time, look how far it has come! Now, where will 3D printing go as the technology becomes less and less expensive?  In less than 10 years, I can see the personal 3D printer all over. Remember inkjet printers were very expensive when they first came on the scene; now they are practically disposable. The printer they used for the gun, was $10,000 on ebay second hand. You can get a MakerBot for considerably less. http://store.makerbot.com/ And I encourage you to go make something.

What will your imagination make next? Will regulation over these devices stifle creativity and rapid prototyping with red tape? Will it just be impossible to regulate, like desktop printing and copy machines?
What do you think?

Topic Tuesday #28 2013/01/29 - "Inner Peace"

Topic Tuesday #28 2013/01/29 - "Inner Peace"


I can be described as an even keeled person. Generally calm and collected.  But beneath the smooth exterior, there is fast running water. Turbulent thoughts and tumultuous emotions, just like anyone else.  I just keep it to myself. I would like to say it is through some sort of a meditation process. A skill that can be acquired through practice. But alas, I cannot, as I have never been able to meditate. Why would I need to, some may ask. Because I sometimes have to calm myself down. You may never see it, but that is only because I have trained myself to hide it. I have found a few things that do help to ease the tension and relax.
*Exercise. Sometimes you just have to let it all out and vent your own internal frustrations with work. The effort will have the excellent effect of making you more fit, but will also tire you out, and force you to relax as you catch your breath, which happens to be the next one.
*Breathing. Just breathing. Concentrated effort on controlling your breathings will have a direct affect on your body. Taking active control over your autonomic functions gives you the psychological boost of being in control of yourself. The deep breathing will oxygenate your blood and naturally calm you as it also will increase dopamine production in the brain. As you are only focused on one thing, your body, you will naturally gain the benefits of that focus. The stress of the other items on your overwhelming agenda are on hold. You make yourself busy; engrossed with the most important thing to you, yourself.
*Just stop. Sometimes that's all you need to do to calm down. Just stop whatever you are doing and count to 10 (or higher).
*Alcohol (or other medicinal derivatives). It bears mentioning.  The best over the counter muscle relaxer available. Numerous side effects, the most critical is that of depressant. Sometimes that is what is needed. Many drugs have been prescribed for their side effects. Always use responsibly.
*Get away. Change your venue. Maybe the break room is the wrong place for your daily bread.  Walk outside. Sit in the grass. Change the air you breath and the sights you see and you may change what's in your mind and weighing on your shoulders. It doesn't take long, but could mean an enormous difference.
*Smile. The body and mind are amazingly complex in their interactions. We are also easy to deceive. So easy, that you can trick yourself. Smile, for no reason. Happiness will start to take hold as you (as my wife likes to call it) fake it, till you make it. It may sound dumb, but smile. Others will smile too.  Then you know that your simple artificial smile brings natural smiles to others, and then your smile is as real as theirs. Happiness is a choice, and everyone wants to be happy.

Lastly - Meditate. I can't-for some reason. BUT-I encourage you to try. In 2007 an associate of mine and I recorded a guided meditation session. I know that it works for some. His breathing exercise is certainly worth a try. Here it is for your pursuit of inner peace. Special thanks to CJ Sugita-Jackson and Healing Revolutions for continuing the long tradition of helping people find peace through whatever means necessary.




Topic Tuesday #10 2012/09/25 "Water World - Part 2"

Topic Tuesday #10 2012/09/25 "Water World - Part 2"

We need quite a bit of water to survive on. It needs to be clean...
Last week I discussed the requirements of how much water we need to survive. Today, how do we make it safe?

I am going to quickly give some ways to clean up water so you don't die. 
There are 4 categories; Separation, Chemical, Filtration, Oxidation.
SEPARATION: (HEAT, LIGHT & GRAVITY)
  • SEDIMENTATION gravitationally settles heavy suspended material. 
  • BOILING WATER for 15 to 20 minutes kills 99.9% of all living things and vaporizes most chemicals.  Minerals, metals, solids and the contamination from the cooking container become more concentrated. 
  • DISTILLATION boils and re-condenses the water, but many chemicals vaporize and recondense in concentration in the output water. It is also expensive to boil & cool water. 
  • ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT is a good bactericide, but has no residual kill, and works only in clearly filtered water. Still in its infancy stage is a new technology involving super white light.
CHEMICALS
  • CHLORINE is common, cheap, but extremely toxic. It does not decrease physical or chemical contamination, it does increase colesterol formations, is a carcinogen, amd causes heart disease. 
  • IODINE is not practical, and is mostly used by campers. 
  • HYDROGEN PEROXIDE kills bacteria with oxygen, is chemically made and is very toxic. It is used in emergencies. 
  • COAGULATION-FLOCCULATION adds chemicals which lump together suspended particles for filtration or separation. 
  • ION EXCHANGE exchanges sodium from salt for calcium or magnesium, using either glauconite (greensand), precipitated synthetic organic resins, or gel zeolite, thus softening the water. Minerals, metals, chemicals or odors are not affected, and the water is salty to drink. 
FILTRATION
  • SLOW SAND of 1 cubic meter passes about 2 liters/min, and does a limited bacteria removal. 
  • HIGH PRESSURE/RAPID SAND of 1 cubic meter passes about 40gpm and must be backwashed daily. 
  • DIATOMACEOUS EARTH removes small suspended particles at high flow rates, must be back-washed daily and is expensive.
  • PAPER or CLOTH filters are disposable and filter to one micron, but do not have much capacity. 
  • CHARCOAL: 
    • -COMPRESSED CHARCOAL/CARBON BLOCK is the best type of charcoal filter, can remove chemicals and lead, but is easily clogged, so should be used with a sediment prefilter. 
    • -GRANULAR CHARCOAL is cheaper, but water can flow around the granules without being treated. 
    • -POWDERED CHARCOAL is a very fine dust useful for spot cleaning larger bodies of water, but is messy and can pass through some filters and be consumed. 
  • REVERSE OSMOSIS uses a membrane with microscopic holes that require 4 to 8 times the volume of water processed to wash it in order to remove minerals and salt, but not necessarily chemicals and bacteria.
OXIDATION - These are most often used in big water treatment facilities. These techniques attempt to mimic what mother nature does with rivers. See THE SELF-PURIFICATION OF RIVERS AND STREAMS, from 1919. You can read a great deal about it to understand how it is supposed to work.
  • AERATION sprays water into the air to raise the oxygen content, to break down odors, and to balance the dissolved gases. However, it takes space, is expensive, and picks up contaminants from the air. 
  • OZONE is a very good bactericide, using highly charged oxygen molecules to kill microorganisms on contact, and to flocculate iron and manganese for post filtration and backwashing. 
  • ELECTRONIC PURIFICATION and DISSOLVED OXYGEN GENERATION creates super oxygenated water in a dissolved state that lowers the surface tension of the water and effectively treats all three types of contamination: physical, chemical and biological.
The easiest for you and me to go through is likely to be the separation method. An issue to remember here, and one that has caught entire villages with a bad case of the runs, is proper storage of the water once you have sterilized it. There are many methods to do that, but that will be another topic. Look for "Food Safety" later on.

Now for your consideration: 

  1. What are your plans on keeping a supply of available, CLEAN, water on hand? 
  2. What would be the best method for scaling up for family clusters, to villages, to towns, etc? 
  3. Are you going to try any of these methods?

Topic Tuesday #9 2012/09/18 "Water World - Part 1"

Topic Tuesday #9 2012/09/18 "Water World - Part 1"

© hdptcar 
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
And you thought I was going to mention a certain movie where someone pees into a Mr. Coffee and gets Tasters Choice... Well you were right. Love it or hate it, Water World with Kevin Costner, presents some interesting scenarios. The only one I am concerned about is potable water. Clean water, that won't kill you. Pretty important stuff. You can live for about 72 Hours without proper hydration. Food is not without moisture but in the strictest terms, you will die from dehydration long before starvation. Now I could go on and on and on about conservation and the importance of water, but that will be for another topic. Today lets talk about solely about how much water we need and where we can get it. 
In a survival situation, water quite often is a life and death factor. If you are in your fortress of solitude, you may have a cache of water. The numbers on what is recommended you consume depends on the individual, environmental factors and labor exerted. The Institute of Medicine determined that an adequate intake (AI) for men is roughly 3 liters (about 13 cups) of total beverages a day. The AI for women is 2.2 liters (about 9 cups) of total beverages a day, for an average, healthy adult in a temperate climate. What you eat also provides a significant portion, an average of 20 percent of total water intake. Given that we are in the context of a survival situation, we will forego chat about excessive water consumption, hyponatremia. The above information was from the Mayo Clinic and the numbers SEEM high for consumption (given that FEMA recommends 1 gallon or 3.78 liters for drinking and sanitation). We will look at one more metric to determine our hydration needs: Urine.
"
Generally if you drink enough fluid so that you rarely feel thirsty and produce 1.5 liters (6.3 cups) or more of colorless or light yellow urine a day, your fluid intake is probably adequate."[Mayo Clinic] This also may seem high but to avoid illnesses and allow your body to properly dispose of waste, it is a vital number. Personally, I have worked long and hard and knew I needed to drink more as I hadn't had to pee for over 8 hours. That was with what I thought was large consumption of fluid. It wasn't enough; so watch yourselves and those in your care.

Now for your consideration: Recap: We need quite a bit of water to survive on. It needs to be clean, BUT given that is a HUGE topic on it's own, I'm breaking that out into part 2 for next week.
Where do we find our water? This is assuming the municipality stopped working or you are making a sequel to Swiss Family Robinson. Brain Storm with me and share your favorite methods to collect water.

Topic Tuesday #6 2012/08/28 "Crowd Sourced"




Topic Tuesday #6 2012/08/28 "Crowd Sourced"



Once upon a time, a man had an idea for a product or business. He had to go to the bank and borrow money, maybe a loan, maybe a mortgage against his property. Once he had the money in hand he was able to proceed with the idea. Today we find ourselves in a fascinating and fast paced world of instant communication and global collaboration. Recently the concept of "Crowdsourcing" has hit mainstream. If you have a question you may poll your social graph of followers and friends and get a variety of real world answers. Not all of them good, or right, but you will get contribution almost all the time. Now it has taken a more interesting turn. Crowd Funding. Websites like KickStarter.com, indiegogo.com and equitynet.com are providing a new way to get resources for projects, ideas and causes. There have even been some dramatic and notable projects that have been crowdsourced. Mathew Inman of Theoatmeal.com has just performed two such actions. There was a legal kerfuffle that was staunchly put to bed with massive contributions to a good cause being the result and more recently over $1,000,000 was raised to purchase land for a Nikola Tesla museum. A company called Pebble Technology was looking for $100,000 to put an Android powered E-Paper watch that will be called, "Pebble". They raised $10,266,846 through their Kickstarter campaign.

Non-profits have been using it, individuals have been using it. Some succeed, and others fail. Some get funded and fail to deliver later. It's like venture capitalist gambling, but for everyone. Pledge a dollar, and you help. Pledge more, and they may give you a cookie.

http://nistmep.blogs.govdelivery.com/2012/08/28/crowdfunding-as-an-emerging-method-for-funding-product-innovation/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=crowdfunding-as-an-emerging-method-for-funding-product-innovation


The topic for discussion today is related to the bigger picture. With the way our economy is going, these alternatives to traditional funding can provide rapid iteration and product evolution and allow more people to compete, where the barrier to entry was far too high previously. So what are the consequences? Where could this go? Do we need banks to provide loans anymore? Is this just cyber panhandling?

Topic Tuesday #4 2012/08/14 "Skills"

Topic Tuesday #4 2012/08/14

SKILLS. 

Topic Tuesday #3 2012/08/07 "Sustainability: The future is at stake."

Topic Tuesday #3 2012/08/07

Sustainability: The future is at stake. 
Open your mind to the sustainability of our actions as a species.
  • When we run out of oil, what will we do? 
  • When we run out of coal, what will we do? 
  • When we have contaminated the water, and can't drink it or eat the fish, what will we do? 
  • When the air we breath is toxic and the plants (not factories) all die from the acid rain that falls though the soup, what will we do?
We are literally consuming the planet. I'm not making it up. Fossil fuels (you know from the dinosaurs that died millions of years ago) are not renewable. We can recycle some of it, but not the gasoline that is converted into toxic hydrocarbons that we pump into the atmosphere.
Now the question, given the above as a primer: 
If you were granted virtually unlimited financial resources and the best and brightest minds, what do you propose we do to ensure our species lives for the next 10,000 years and beyond?
Richard Feynman ♥

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgaw9qe7DEE

Fun To Imagine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3pYRn5j7oI&feature=bf_

prev&list=PL04B3F5636096478C

Thanks to April for creating this and sending it our way.



Responses from Facebook (my wall is PUBLIC, so always remember that the world will see it.):



    • Tom Houston The people in charge making these decisions will be dead long before it becomes an issue so they don't care as it will be someone else's problem. :P

    • Andy Cowen But there is always someone to replace them. So what would you do? What would you hope that your children and grandchildren do to keep us going? The stock market punishes anything other than growth. We cannot grow infinitely (on this world). So how to we make sure humanity (such as it is at times) isn't a galactic flash in the pan?
      August 7 at 10:23am ·  · 1

    • Jim Mathews Our civilization has been built on technology and abundant, convenient and cheap fuel. The infrastructure up till now has been very robust because we are still operating on much of that infrastructure. We are facing many challenges before we even try and tackle expensive, inefficient and so far not sustainable without major government involvement which is why industry has only taken only a research interest.....

    • Andy Cowen 
      Again... What would you do if the limitations you specified were removed? Brainstorm with me. Science tells us some simple truths. As long as there is a difference, power can be generated. Take a fan that was still and put it into the flow ...See More

    • Andy Cowen 
      Sustainability is not just power... It's also agricultural. Currently our farmland and crops have been engineered to over produce. It strips all the nutrients out of the land leaving nothing for the next crop. All the nutrients have to be ...See More

    • Jim Mathews 
      Well, of course with unlimited resources and all those resources going to solve the problem instead of lining peoples pockets..... sorry, off subject, we could make anything we wanted. The technology is there. one of the problems is the pop...See More

    • Andy Cowen I think it may be a matter of population distribution.

    • Jim Mathews yes, that is definately a problem. the other problem is transporting food and resources to the population

    • Tom Houston Hydroponic Skyscraper Farms, about 1 square acre by about 100 stories tall. :)
      August 7 at 6:09pm ·  · 1



Responses from Google+ (my wall is PUBLIC, so always remember that the world will see it.):

AWE... Nothing today from G+

Welcome to the Wasteland...

The Handy Geek's Workshop: Part 0

Everyone needs someplace to tinker. Some people use their desks, some use their garages, some use the kitchen counter and table when their garages were impossible to navigate (that would be my dad, Fred Sanford). Here's where it gets problematic, my family moved from a large home (a geek haven with computers and tools around every corner and more stacked in the recesses) to a small home. I lost my 2 car man cave... Now to give an idea of scale, 2,200 sqft with 2 car garage to a 864 sqft stilt home with a carport underneath and 2 storage rooms.
The carpenter in me was screaming, "Where are we going to put the table saw? How can this work?". I was in agreement all around. It is a small house, but so far it is just me, my wife and our beautiful 1 year old daughter. It's small and easy to take care of and gives us a sense of closeness, because we are... However, where will my tablesaw go? I have an enormous 4x8 work table and lots of tools. So begins the renovations to make this smaller space functional. 
To give you a sense of the space, the house is a rectangle with the skinny end facing the street. The driveway leads from the street, underneath half of the rectangle all the way from the covered porch to the back. The other half of the rectangle is enclosed and is divided into two rooms. Each room has only 1 outlet, 1 door, 1 window, and a closet. One room has a ceiling light, and the other has none. The following posts in the Workshop Series, will involve the evolution of these spaces into; a workshop, a bathroom, and space for family and friends.
I will be adding in some sketches to illustrate the issues I have been facing. See you soon!
-Handy Andy