::knowhere::

Safe speeding

2006-01-29T04:11:00.000+11:00

I just recieved a speeding fine. 102km/h in a 60km/h zone. Well above the limit, yes. Fair cop? Yes.

However.

I feel that I was innappropriately charged. You see, the story starts like this. The road on which I was offending the law is two lanes each way, isolated, open, empty. I was booked at 11:20pm - the road was, subsequently, deserted. Now, this is not an excuse. Speeding is speeding, so write the lawmakers. And indeed, I don't dispute the legality of the charge. I dispute the philosophy.

Speed in of itself is dangerous. But it doesn't cause accidents. "Excess speed was a contributing factor" is a phrase bandied around a lot in response to motor vehicle accidents. Well of course. Accidents wouldn't ever happen if no-one moved anywhere. No matter the accident, if the car had been moving slower, it probably wouldn't have happened. This is as true at 5km/h as it is at 100km/h. So what is the purpose to limiting speed? I have always believed that speed is limited in the interest of appropriateness. 100km/h is appropriate on a road designed for it. Open, wide, smooth, gentle curves in place of sharp corners. 50km/h is more appropriate for a tight, winding suburban street.

A little more of the story . . .

Following the recording of the speeding offence, the officers followed me home, close behind, lights off. I had no idea they were there (black car, no lights, dark night) until they switched on their lights as I pulled into my driveway. On the way into my driveway, I turned into my street. This is a ninety degree turn from a major road into a minor one; a minor road likely to be bordered by parked cars and filled with errant cats. This turn I took at 50km/h (from the outside lane, with indication). A perfectly legal maneuvere. But one that was hardly safe, extending as it did near to the limits of the cars adhesion and ability to be controlled (although well within these limits). And one that was observed in full (and in fact commented upon as a well executed racing line) by the arresting officers.

So there is the problem.

At one point I broke a relatively arbitrary limit in a very safe way. At another point I stayed perfectly within the letter of the law and yet still managed to do something quite dangerous and unsafe.

So what was the true offense to the spirit of a law intended to ensure safe roads?

In the interests of safety, I believe I should not have been booked with a speeding offence, but rather with a dangerous driving offence. That the officers should have been permitted to make a judgement on the true nature of the driving taking place, and make a booking according to interests of safety. Our legal system has allowance for situations where the exact letter of the law is not appropriate. This is partly why we have a system of appeal. I don't deny the officers did their job (which they did, with professionalism, courtesy and friendliness). I deny that the job they were set to do was appropriate.

Some reading on the topic can be found at wikipedia, discussing the SafeSpeed campaign in the UK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SafeSpeed

the city table

2005-11-05T15:37:00.000+11:00

I'm working on a coffee table design for my brother's lounge room. This is what i've been thinking about.

I currently have a couple of ideas about how this could really come together. Idea one is what you see here - with some sort of attachment for the blocks, probably metal tubes running in a grid through the lot of them. I really like the look and idea of the base coming up through the surface. Colour wise, the render is pretty close, although instead of red and white (say hello mr trendwhore) it would probably be mainly white, with the supporting posts (the three currently red) left a natural woodgrain finish, with possibly random faces throughout the "city" also left as polished wood, with the rest of them gloss white, with probably frosted glass.

That is what I'll do if I can afford to watercut the glass top. If I can't, I have another idea. I think it would be cool if you could move the blocks around. How I would do this would be to make a base with space for the blocks. The supporting posts would have a strong magnet placed flush with the top surface. There would then be three free floating magnets which would be slid into place above the glass, holding the table top in place. Other than that, you would be free to place the blocks in whatever arrangement suited you. But this would mean that the blocks could not pierce the glass top. So if I can't afford the cutting, I'll do that, otherwise Idea 1. Although I do really like the idea of being able to move the pieces around. It's like playing with building blocks.

going knowhere

2005-11-04T21:58:00.000+11:00

i have been somewhat absent from here. i keep meaning to blog stuff but always forget to do so. is that wrong? i'm not sure what it is that keeps turning me away. it feels like i always have something else i want to do. but hey. here i am.

and what news i have.

new jobs, new stuff, new things to say.

hmmmm.

i've been thinking lately about collective power - as in, things which in of themselves are not powerful, but which collectively in large groups become powerful indeed. and i was in the city the other day looking out at the yarra and the rubbish collecting things and how unsightly they are, and had me some thoughts as to how this theory could be applied here. i started thinking about water filtration, and how nice it would be if the yarra was clean.

now the first thing i thought of was largish robot things, suitcase size, but lots of them. dozens, crawling along the base of the river, and possibly floating along the surface, performing a dual task. they not only chemically filter the water, they also collect floating garbage.

but then i thought, why not more? and smaller? and better?

why design something that looks like it shouldn't be there? why not something that looks like it should be there?

what should be in a river?

so i turned to fish. little robotic fish. piezoelectrically propelled, they would look and move just like real fish. they would filter water as it passes through them, and move around in schools. there could be thousands upon thousands in the river. this also brings in all sorts of economies of scale, given that if you're manufacturing tens of thousands of small simple things they would each be nice and cheap. they could even get rid of floating garbage and whatnot in the same way fish do. by eating it. if one robofish finds a plastic bag, say, it could radio for help from it's nearby robofish buddies, and if they each take a small bite of the bag and store it internally, pretty soon the bag is gone.

there could be little refill and repair stations here and there, where the robofish could stop by the empty their little bowels and clean out their filters.

this is a system of eco-management taken from asimov in many ways. but so practical. imitate nature. nature's good at doing this sort of thing, when we're not around to screw it all up.

just imagine the look on the big fishes face when he eats a little robofish!

hehehe.

- a

geeky activities

2005-10-15T19:10:00.000+10:00

ok, i know it's geeky but it's still fun damn it.

went out wireless sniffing with my friend today. we had to drive into the city, so we took his wireless enabled laptop and set it on "sniff" and went driving. we first drove a bit around my suburb, yarraville, where we found 77 different wireless networks, most of them with absolutely no security whatsoever, so we were able to use internet and should we have wished it, could have hacked the internal networks of these people as well. some people are just silly. after that we drove to the city to see my brother - between yarraville and south melbourne, we'd picked up a further 96 new networks.

one of them, suspiciously named "LASERCAM", we picked up just off the bridge. we strongly suspect it is the network controlling the speed cameras on the bridge.

more on that later.

- a

yet more maxwell stuff

2005-10-10T15:54:00.000+10:00

hmmm. but it is fun.

here's a room i'm creating - i'll probably end up creating the entire house, pretty much, and have it as a simple set up to make contextual renders - objects floating on geometrical planes with a perfect sky are great, but it's hard to get a real feel for what's going on. this way, as shown in the speaker renders, it is possible to get a good feel for the product in a real world environment.

plus, it's surprisingly enjoyable working on interior designy kinda architecturey things. designing for single production, rather than mass production, has it's benefits.

an interesting idea about product value

2005-10-10T15:39:00.000+10:00

my mother needed a pen, the other day. she was frantically rumaging around, and when she finally found one, it didn't work. now, usually, a ball point that doesn't work can be cajolled into working by writing on something soft, like skin, or leather, for example. so what does my mother do? she picks up my brother's watch off the desk and starts scribbling on the back of the leather band.

i was immediately horrified, and snatched the watch off her, saying: what the hell are you doing?

trying to get the pen to work, she replied.

on the watch?

why not? it's on the back, it's not like you'll ever see it.

but this is a very expensive watch. $500 worth.

and then . . .

but why should this matter? she's right. it would never be seen. under all circumstances under which the watch would be seen, this mark would not be. the worst that could happen would be that it would perhaps rub some ink off onto the wearer's skin.

straight away, i was struck. why was i placing so much value on a material item? why was i so upset, not so much because i liked the watch, or that it had some special sentimental value . . . yes, it was an expensive watch, but it was free. yes it was a nice watch, but it's no tour-de-force of the watchmakers art.

so what was at the root of my objection, here? i seemed to be placing value on a thing purely based on it's monetary cost. and retail cost at that - i am fully aware that the production cost of a watch like this would be less than $20 at most.
now, i have been accused in the past of being elitist, and placing to much emphasis on monetary value, and i think this is a perfect example.

sure, there is a fairly large proportion of the objection relating to my general appreciation for quality goods, and a corresponding unwillingness to damage them, but i have to admit that a possibly equal proportion was an objection to damaging an expensive item.

so what does this say about me, and my attitudes towards value?

- a

even more maxwell

2005-10-09T16:04:00.000+10:00

graininess is noise from the render. the longer you render, the cleaner it gets. these two took about 2 hours each.

- a

more maxwell

2005-10-09T14:47:00.000+10:00

well here's my first successful render, after some playing around.

have several more on the way, all queued up in my network.

- a

even cooler thing about maxwell

2005-10-08T23:54:00.000+10:00

just found out something even cooler. something i've been waiting for someone to do for years. something that is just brilliant.

you can save a render in progress, and pick it up later.

*speechless*

- a

maxwell test render

2005-10-08T21:02:00.000+10:00

here is the first render i've managed to pull out of maxwell. mmmmmm. soooo tasty.

the whacky thing about the renderer is that since it's so accurately representing a camera, you can't just fudge it with lighting and things. you have to get your shutter speed, film speed, f-stop, everything just right.

luckily for me, i have a professional photographer for a brother.

swish

took me a bit of playing with the exposure to get this visible.

it's not a brilliant render, just me playing around and trying to get a result. i've decided to build a room to put the speakers in. grooooovy. cause maxwell does such brilliant internal renders, how could i not, hmmm?

the other thing i've figured out how to do is get maxwell to network render, so i can parcel the render out to my brother's computer while he's watching cartoons and nick all his processing time. sweet.

still playing.

- a

first year cad

2005-10-08T03:58:00.000+10:00

just to prove a point in a comment, not to worry.

first year second semester cad:

first project: redesigning the object

second project: form as character

third project: human powered vehicle

to sleep, or not to sleep. that is the question

2005-10-08T03:20:00.000+10:00

my sleeping pattern is totally screwed. i've been staying up very late, and consequently sleeping very late. this is bad. very bad. i don't like it, but it tend to happen to me with annoying regularity, what with all the late night rendering sessions and whatnot. so tonight, i'm doing what i tend to have to do once a month or so, which is kick the old sleep clock in the head a few times to effect a reset. basically this means staying up all night, and then not sleeping until a reasonale regular hour the next night, such as 10ish. this way i sleep properly, wake up at a real time, as in anti-meridian, and can return my sleeping patterns to something approaching normality. you know, for the holidays, when every second of the day counts. i suppose.

ha.

anyway, that's why this post is time-stamped at 0322hrs. groovy.

in other news, i have a new toy. a fun new toy. it's called maxwell render. it's brilliant. truly brilliant. the kind of rendering engine that everyone has just been hanging out for, for as long as rendering engines have existed.

where other rendering engines use the false colour spectrum of RGB, maxwell uses the real spectrum, all the way from infra-red to it's archrival, ultraviolet. it simulates everything this way. perfectly. it even simulates the camera to an obsessive degree, such as, for example, the shape of the iris - as in how many mechanical elements go into the iris, what angle they are at, and so on.

this thing is brilliant. here's an example.

if you model a nice pretty prism, and tell maxwell render it is made of glass. then you shine a nice pretty white light through it. you will get a rainbow. a nice, pretty rainbow. no other piece of commercial software on the planet will do that.

now how cool is that?

only downside is rendering time, which is fair enough, and hardly unexpected. i am currently waiting on my first test render of my speakers. it's taking some time.

however, the thing about maxwell is, the way it works, you don't tell it to render and it tells you when it's done, you tell it to fractally render the same scene for as long as you like, and it does. so i've told it to render for 5 hours, or 50 iterations, whatever comes first. looking at the speed of the iterations, i'm thinking it's going to be a close call. but will probably time out first. but even a half completed, blurry, noisy render, still looks better than anything i have ever rendered before.

mmmmm. i like new toys.

- a

another day, another redesign

2005-10-07T00:24:00.000+10:00

knowhere is now up to what i think is about it's fourth iteration. i rather enjoy the process of reworking the graphic elements for a new look, as well as massaging the code, and learning css somewhat in the process. am liking this red/black thing at the moment, and am playing with creating random whacky art with illustrator, rather than super clean nice stuff as i'm used to doing. hmmm. fun.

- a

first issue

2005-10-06T22:15:00.000+10:00

it's always a nice surprise when group projects actually sort of work. this one i had my doubts about - it is a large undertaking, especially for a big group, but everyone seems to have pulled through pretty much. a lot of content has come in, the layouts are nearly finalized, leaving us about a week and a half to put it all together, which should be pretty doable. all in all, i think this is going to work well, and come out looking great.

the allocation of work around the group also seems to be working - i'm glad lots of people have volunteered to help out with the grunt work of putting it together - it's a bit of a menial task for one to go at alone. so hopefully that'll all work out as well.

plus, it's nice to be doing page layout stuff again. it's been a while, and it's always a satisfying thing to do. working with brilliant software like indesign just makes the whole experience a pleasure.

anyway.

- a

studies presentation

2005-10-06T20:13:00.000+10:00

so i finally found a phone. after a couple of weeks of hunting through every op/junk/antique shop i could track down, i finally found a phone that's just perfect. and old 70's rotary dial number, originally courtesy of telecom, bless them.

this is for my studies presentation, which is on the rudeness of the ringing telephone. and it was fun to write, and now that i've finally managed to find a phone, should be fun to present. however, it may not happen in the way i want.

the idea is the have a phone on a pedestal or other stand that rings. constantly. except when you take the phone off the hook.

the problem is that phones don't have a built in ring system really. they have a ringer, yes, but it's controlled by the ring signal sent out by the phone exchange. so if, for example, i were to simply hook a battery up to it, it would just ring constantly, not the nice "ring ring, ring ring" we're all so used to obeying. this may be ok though. because making the " ring ring" thing will be hard.

so a compromise on this is perfectly acceptable.

what strikes me about this phone is how simply it is made. it's a very mechanical device, very simple. all the circuitry is very basic and simply plugged in - no complex PCBs or anything. this is made in the 60s remember, before computer designed PCBS and such. so it's all hand made. and has a circuit diagram even, inside, in case you wanna see how it works.

what this means is that it should be very easy to rewire for my own devices. muhahaha.

i suppose.

- a

internet gaming

2005-10-02T19:54:00.000+10:00

i spend way too much time doing this, when i should be working.

i have stuff i should be working on now in fact, and i've just been playing games. i've been playing games so much that i got recruited into a gaming clan.

ick.

ah well.

in other news, i have been trying to designerly educate myself, through subscriptions to mailing lists such as ID forum, and frequention of forum sites like productdesignforum.

not sure how well it's working, but seems to be helping my thinkings.

- aml

studies 4 - what happened?

2005-09-22T23:31:00.000+10:00

i really don't know. this project just didn't happen for me at all. am now in the embarassing situation of having to grovel to kate and ask what i can do to salvage a basic pass for this subject.

i have gained a lot from the subject, but unfortunately not as much as i'd hoped, and this reflects in the lack of production for my assessables. i never really managed to tune in to this one, which is a pity but unavoidable at this stage of the game.

oh well.

better luck to me next year, perhaps.

- aml

cooking

2005-09-21T23:11:00.000+10:00

i spent most of this afternoon cooking. i made -

- three loaves of bread - one for dinner, two for later

- cracked pepper linguini - again, enough to have some for dinner, some for later (currently drying)

- lemon and lime cream tart - some for dinner, some for the fridge.

all of these i made from scratch - mixing the dough for each, using my new pasta roller/cutter, etc.

i love doing this.

i've never been much for cooking. i find that i can follow a recipe, but i don't know too well what goes well with what - so if you say, go cook something, i flounder. but i am attempting to better myself. i feel that i should be able to cook, and cook well. i would like to. it's very satisfying. i love the feeling of fresh dough, soft, smooth. i love the potential, feeling what will come from what i have made. i spent 5 hours in the kitchen preparing a meal that lasted about half an hour. but so much more than that - with a good meal, the family will sit and talk over a glass of wine for long afterwards. nice music, good conversation, enjoying the food and the company. an emminently enjoyable evening.

even though all i did tonight was follow recipes, it is nonetheless immensely satisfying. i've tried pasta before, but without the roller it's hard to get it thin, and so it's tough and nasty. i've done the tarts before, but only chocolate ones - the lemon lime thing was an entirely new challenge. bread i'm good at. i make bread often, and have it good now. but that i find most satisfying - knowing that this is something i can do, and do well, and enjoy doing, and enjoy the results.

hmmmm.

- aml

why is my blog unavailable?

2005-09-21T13:35:00.000+10:00

it's giving me 403 forbidden errors . . .

a day in the life of . . . .

2005-09-20T22:09:00.000+10:00

so here i am again. this blog hasn't really been a place of reflection, just random crap. but things happened today that warrant reflection, i think. studies class today was interesting. first the continuation of the peer reviews, amy's and then raph's.

ah.

a classic case of things simply getting out of control.

raph's essay was, diplomatically, lacking.

it was, however, archetypical of a symptom i have seen. people seemed confused about this essay assignment we were given. on the one hand it was posited as a formal essay of research and argument. on the other, as a body of reaction to a text, to be submitted in company of the research behind itself.

if you are submitting the research concurrently, then the essay does not need to stand on its own. if you are not, then it does.

if it is a formal academic essay, which at this level it really should be, then there are also certain forms to be followed, which were not outlined or requested. the discussions in class held differing emphasis to the handouts. this created a level of confusion amongst the student body which caused essays like raph's to be submitted - something representative of a great body of work, but not independent from it.

so i argued that point with simone, and other people argued other things heavily defending an unworthy essay, and a fun time was had by all. well, except for raph, who was looking forward to a shit-kicking.

so where to from here?

what happens next essay? from what i've seen there are very few people who know how to write a formal essay.

if anyone is interested, i have made one of my theology essays available. this is a formal essay written and formatted to strict guidelines, using the harvard system. if you want to know what a formal essay is, this is a good example.

- aml

studies 4 - an approach to journaling

2005-09-15T00:37:00.000+10:00

unfortunately journaling progress doesn't come naturally to me. it occurs to me that it requires a specific mindset and habitual process to thoughtfully blab on every thing that crosses the mind whilst engaged in a project, and that i possess neither.

that said, progress is being made. i'm just not adequate to elucidate it eloquently or frequently enough to maintain a level of content here or elsewhere.

- aml

doubt

2005-09-10T15:53:00.000+10:00

sometimes i'm just not sure i'm doing the right thing here.

stereo concepts

2005-09-08T03:28:00.000+10:00

well, here are some early renders of my new stereo. these created with the aid of the original cad files for the motorola packaging extrusion. how cool is that? this way, when i get the side parts laser cut, they'll fit super duper perfectly, laser accurate. grooviness.

studies 4 - a better beginning

2005-09-07T18:05:00.000+10:00

well, with other work now out of the way, i have started throwing myself into my studies 4 assignment. working on redefining my proposal, with kate's comments in mind, and am also working on researching these areas of imbalance as identified in my proposal.

for kate, if you ever see this, anything relating to my studies project will be subjected "studies 4 - [topic]" for easy reference.

and hell while i'm here

2005-09-07T03:20:00.000+10:00

here are some other things i'm working on. my uncle owns a flat-panel speaker research company in new zealand, called slab and i've been working with him putting together some concepts. here's the first one, called aliante, made of hardwood and aluminium. it stands 83cm tall and is 60cm deep. the base is only 10cm wide, the main body a mere 6cm.

as well as that project, we're also working on something even more unconventional. kimberley is a very tall, very abstract, almost sculptural speaker, totally different to anything else out there, really. it is the spiritual successor to a still-born speaker project called volare, and will be badged v2. it stands 170cm tall and is constructed from aluminum tubing and glass. the main glass body is but a single centimetre wide. i have also popped in a detail render of the tweeter housing i have just recently finished, just because i think it's a really cool detail, and i'm very happy with it.

just for the record, the designs are totally my own, my uncle and his fantastic team of engineers are currently working to try and make these things a reality. all going well i should be able to bring a pair of both in to show and tell mid next year. now wouldn't that be cool?

bedtime, i think.

- aml

stereo project

2005-09-07T02:51:00.002+10:00

to keep with the image posting flavour, here's some more.

i recently bought a new mobile phone, and was most impressed with the packaging:

it came in a box made of extruded aluminum, and looked great. this immediately gave me a sneaky idea - i want to pull apart my little mini system, shown here:

and then, i want to repackage it inside the phone packaging, creating a super super cool little stereo. am currently working on some cad stuff to get it all sorted - this project will involve getting some parts (possible carbon fibre, yay) laser cut, so i'll cad the whole thing up before i start.

in cool other things, i am negotiating to get the original cad files for the extrusion profile to use in my modelling. loverly. the packaging is manufactured by a company called telpack, who make some groovy cool stuff. it's for the motorola v3 razr, in case anyone didn't know. i had to make a formal agreement to both not use the product for financial gain, and also to remove any and all branding. which is fair enough. there's a motorola logo stamped into it - luckily, that's where the screen will go, so no worries there.

it's gonna be cool.

i'm excited.

will post funky (shiny) renders when i have them.

- aml

picture frame images

2005-09-07T02:51:00.000+10:00

as promised long ago, here are some shots of the finished picture frames, as well as the gallery space. this project is now going ahead as a commercial venture, so here's hoping.

look there, look away, look back

2005-09-04T05:24:00.000+10:00

andrew was walking down the street. doing the usual. wandering, thinking, listening to music. not really paying much attention beyond what is necessary to maintain adequate thought to the people around him.

who does, really? in the city, wandering around. do you ever really look at anyone? other than a quick glance at the freaks, a quick perv at the hot girls, a quick sneer at the bogans? (keep those classes alive people)

did you ever see someone, look away, look back, and they were gone?

andrew looks around himself and sees nothing but people.

there

that guy, over there. nothing that unusual. andrew casually lets his glance slide by. looks at something else, someone else, comes back, the man is gone. nothing special. probably ducked into a shop, or down a side alley.

no shops around. no alleys

andrew walks home, via the train, via the city. getting off the train, walking down the road. there's a lady, walking there. look there, look away, look back. where did she go? down a side street, i suppose. down a driveway. probably saw you looking, and freaked out, and is now at least five hundred metres away, and still accelerating. nah.

he gets home, goes through the motions, eats, shits, sleeps, wakes, walks again. back to the city. not many people around today.

there

another man walking, wandering, off to work, off to school, off to see his secret lover, who knows? look there, look away, look back. where did he go?

andrew gets to uni, goes through the motions, talks, thinks, talks again, wanders around. pays less attention than he should and more attention than he thought he was. looks around.

there

one of his classmates, sitting at a desk, working quietly, not bothering anybody. look there, look away, look back. where did she go?

thinking hard now.

wandering around some more. looking there, looking away, looking back. where did they go?

more and more he sees it. he can see someone. he looks there. he looks away. he looks backs. they are gone? where did they go? surely not everyone is ducking down side alleys and off funny places here and there.

where are they going?

ah well.

better things to think about than this, surely. put some music on, wander around for a bit, browsing through shops. noticing, unfortunately, this trend continuing in the shops. that man, there, looking at board games. look there, look away, look back. where did he go? seriously. he's not anywhere. wander throughout the store. look around. can't find him.

andrew wanders home, looking around him all the way. everywhere there are people, everywhere there are thinkers and doers and feelers and freakers. look there, look away, look back. where did he go? that guy, he was there a minute ago, now he's gone.

that couple. that family. that group.

the city seems so quiet. on the train, he sits right at the back, keeping as many people as possible in view. he looks up. he looks away. he looks back. the train is empty. where did they go? the carriage is empty. we haven't stopped. no-one got off. the other carriages, too . . . people i didn't see at first seem to be there now, but where is everyone else? where did they go?

there

the next station. look to the front of the train, the station is full of people waiting for his train, waiting to go home, to families, to pets, to nothing. look there, look away, look back. the platform is empty.

scared now, he runs home. andrew walks in the door, greets his cat, looks there, looks away, looks back. the cat is still there, mewling for food. he walks inside, greets his family. they can tell, can't they? he doesn't go upstairs, not for a while. he won't. he keeps his family in sight. eventually he falls asleep on the couch, watching tv with the family. he wakes, morning has broken, just like the first morning. the first morning of what?

there

what is this place now? he gets up, eats, dresses, thinks, feels, leaves the house, walks down the street. doesn't think too hard about it - didn't see the family this morning, they all left for work and sundry before i woke up for my late class. everybody must be at work. hardly anyone around.

no-one on the roads. middle of the day, nothing special.

andrew calls a friend. talks shit, trying to make himself feel a bit better. feeling a little wierd today. rings off, hangs up. walks in silence. gets a little freaked and calls back.

"the mobile telephone you have dialed is either switched off, or not in a mobile service area. please try again later"

huh.

there

this is getting freaky.

what the fuck is going on?

why does pink floyd keep coming up?

2005-09-04T04:24:00.001+10:00

i have so many thousands of songs.

maybe my computer is possessed?

I have an HD on my wall

2005-09-04T04:24:00.000+10:00

up there, it sits. i can't stand it. i sit here, in bed, looking at it up there, and it drives me nuts.

it took at least 100 hours of work, last year. i'll be the first to admit that it's beautiful. all the things that make cad worth doing. shiny surfaces, pretty reflections, obsessive detail.

it's cool. really cool.

but it's not finished.

not even close.

and that's not even what shits me about it.

i mean, that's really annoying. i find myself staring at the thing thinking of how to fix it up. move the wheels here, the driver here, the windshield here, change this, change that. spend another couple of months of obsessive labour on it and it might become something approaching completed.

but this got an hd. the highest mark (94) i've ever managed here at rmit in fact. wonderful. a testament to the commitment of a dedicated academic (like i've ever been accused of being such before) and truly a wonderful thing.

but really.

it's not finished.

it's not done.

it's cool.

but it's not finished.

could it ever be finished? what kind of mark would that be worth? if i spent another couple of months finishing it, would i get a better hd? obscenely distinct? ridiculously distinct?

"Take us to Ludicrous speed"

ludicrous indeed.

and so, it strikes me, is the entire concept of the hd.

the lecturers have so artfully impressed upon us the consequences of aiming for an hd.

i believe it can be creatively summarized as representing a ludicrous level of engagement with the course material, culminating in a phenomonal result of unalloyed brilliance.

which it certainly would be.

but try doing it twice. at the same time. this is more than spinning plates, people, this is really hard yakka. you don't even get a beer at the end of it because you can't stop. you end up lying on your bed looking at the renders and being unable to shake your gaze from the shoddy attachments on the front suspension. this is after the ludicrous commitment, i remind you. you've already given up life, liberty and love for this project. you've certainly given up any hope of achieving a high mark in any other subject.

learner centred education is just that. centred around the learner. education.

what does that mean?

does it mean obsessive life endangering obsession over obsessive details? does it mean committing yourself so heavily to one subject that all others pale into insignificance behind the shining brilliance of your one great achievement for the semester? is this education? is this even learning? is this, just a bit, stunningly demented?

university used to be a place of growth. learning to mentally engage with the people around you, with the world around you, with the systems around you. learning to look at something and saying, no, this is not good enough. this must be fixed. and i know just the thing.

if i wanted to learn how to make kickarse cad renderings i would have gone to tafe. because that's training. spending that much time on any one thing, to the total exclusion of all else is a facet of training. and it's obsessive, and it's not healthy. if i spent that much time eating ice-cream, do you think i'd be healthy? possibly not. so why is it different to do the same for a project?

to be honest, i don't care what i get. a pass is good enough for me, because a pass is all i need to get the degree i'm apparently partaking in.

but give me a good conversation in class over another hd to hang on the wall any day of the year, any time, any place. because i will have learned so much more, about how to think, about how to feel, about how to act.

if you want hd's, go do math or chemistry. you get the formula right, you get the hd. simple. you want to try and a. force yourself to ludicrous extremes for a project at university that's not even real and b. force your lecturers to attempt to quantify a work of philosophy and creativity, then go right ahead. if you want to learn something about how to be a better person, about how to think better about the world, about how to do better about the world, go for a pass and spend the rest of the time learning, teaching, doing, thinking, feeling, being what you can be, what you can become from being in this group of people we all are.

to summarize, i won't take it down. it will stay there, to remind me of what a 3 day cad render can get me. right here, shitty about the suspension.

the end of the kinetic wok

2005-08-22T07:25:00.000+10:00

without julian damn it. that's just pissing me off.

here it is.

2005-08-18T21:41:00.000+10:00

Version 2 - this one has an internal cavity between the inner and outer walls providing space for the electronics involved. it also has tauter surfaces and a bowed square base rather than round.

kinetic wok

2005-08-18T03:38:00.000+10:00

been working some on the wok project - the whacky one that came out of the corporation games on monday.

possible idea is that the wok is electrically powered, using batteries charged by leg-worn kinetic chargers. the deal is that you walk down to the shop to buy your (locally produced :) food, then when you get back you have stored the energy required to cook it. have sent a couple of emails to the good folks at rmit's electrical engineering faculty asking about the possibility of such a pipe-dream. in the interim have been playing with form, such as seen here will demonstrate. working on this with julian.

sadder news

2005-08-16T00:14:00.000+10:00

in sadder personal news my girlfriend kim and i parted ways on saturday. the adjustment is strange and difficult.

2005-08-15T23:18:00.000+10:00

my snail isn't dead.

i thought he had expired.

but he is alive.

better design studies 4 proposal

2005-08-15T23:02:00.000+10:00

the imbalance of dependence in corporate relationships and it's effect on sustainability

andrew lock - 3063936

desired grading outcome - credit

aim
the aim of this investigation is to examine relationships between very large companies, and comparitively very small companies. these relationships are often heavily imbalanced in terms of financial dependence, and lead to bullying and unethical behaviour on behalf of the larger company in the quest for lower retail price points. this is a well documented relationship, and the effects of it on both the large and small companies, and the market, are well observed. i would like, however, to examine this from a point of sustainability, in terms of product development, production, usage and disposal, and how this imbalance of dependence effects these issues.

background
often this case presents itself where a small company will find itself in a position of providing to a large company. an example of this would be a small farm providing a huge supermarket with fresh produce. the interest in the situation is this - where the large company will often represent a massive proportion of the smaller companies business - upwards of 80%, the small company will represent only a tiny proportion of the larger companies' supply, often in the fractions 1%. this enables the large company to exert tremendous pressures on it's tiny supplies, as everybody involved knows that the supermarket can always find another supplier, but should the producer lose the supermarket as a customer, often they will become insolvent. this has very profound effects on the way these smaller companies conduct their business.

objectives
for the purpose of this study i will focus my investigation on the relationship outlined above - that of a large supermarket chain, such as safeway or coles, with small primary producers. i would like to find satisfactory answers to the following questions -

- what effect does this imbalance of dependence have on the financial viability of these primary industries?

- how does this effect the sustainability practices available to these industries?

- what, if any, solutions are currently available or could be proposed?

in terms of the value of this investigation, i think it is important to be aware of the effect taking place here. this is an area of sustainability i haven't personally looked into - i have more concentrated on areas such as emissions control and effective recycling, and such. but business relationships play a large part in how the world operates, and i believe this particular relationship should be examined for it's effect on sustainability.

method
this paper will be researched online and using library resources. i also intend to speak personally to as many relevant people as i can, such as purchasing staff for supermarkets, finance operators for same, as well as the aforementioned primary producers. i also think it is important to examine the public awareness of and reaction to this phenomena, so i will examine this through interviews, surveys and research.

screw that

2005-08-15T22:59:00.000+10:00

i can't make my proposal for studies 4 work properly in my head. it just comes apart. i don't want to do it, and have now officially cracked it.

i have a better idea, one based on something i actually know some small thing about, that i can see ways in which to write something meaningful about, and that i actually care about. that thing is imbalance of dependence, and it's relationship with sustainability issues.

onwards and upwards.

design studies 4 essay proposal

2005-08-13T23:53:00.000+10:00

andrew lock - 3063936

history is littered with accounts of a person or groups thereof utilizing a solution known to be harmful, but considered the best option, or even the only option. rather than preventing the problem arising outright, this dangerous quantity will be implemented. but is this acceptable? if you really want to do something, but there is no way to do so without causing known harm, is this an excuse to endanger the environment, wildlife, human lives?

seldom is need brought into this equation. more usually it is an extreme case of want, of desire for something. i might desire insulation in my house - i don't need it, but it would make movies in winter more enjoyable, so i'll stuff some asbestos in the roof. it's nasty stuff, but i really want that insulation in my roof. i really want to get some t-shirts to a warehouse in japan. the only way to get them there is with a horribly polluting diesel cargo ship. i don't want to pollute, in fact i'm very active in my local area against pollution, in fact the t-shirts are environmentalist propoganda. but i really want them there, so i'll happily use the ship. i probably won't even think too hard about it. there's no alternative at the moment, so i'll just have to be happy with the pollution.

still not sure how to get anywhere meaningful with this, but i'll keep trying . . .

2005-08-11T23:50:00.000+10:00

i went to a community meeting today. how about that? it was instigated by a local council member, and was to talk about yarraville train station, and the myriad problems besetting it. things such as the lack of a pedestrian under/over pass, crappy timetabling, dodgy toilets, usual stuff. had a bunch of council members, a couple of guys from the department of infrastructure, the local customer service rep from connex, who was a total bogun twat, by the way.

i've never been to anything like that. there were a bunch of people from the community, all filling some lovely stereotypes quite nicely - the pro-active hippy mother (won't somebody please think of the children), the righteous intellectual (you tell me what the cost of a human life is!), the old guy asleep in the chair (*disruptive snoring*), you know, the whole gamut.

ah but fuck it, i can't talk about this now.

2005-08-09T23:51:00.000+10:00

does anyone else find themselves thinking incessantly of practical solutions to problems rather than philosophizing deeply on the grave ramifications of said solutions? or is that just me?

project status

2005-08-09T23:45:00.000+10:00

was talking to a friend today, and he was showing me the "my presence" thing his phone does. basically it's something like what i want to talk about in my essay, but more restricted. it's a passive system, whereby (if you are approved) you can access a persons "presence" meaning availability, by polling their phone.

this kind of works, but it is too passive, and doesn't suit my purposes in that it doesn't address the psychology of the problem. you will, most of the time, as it's a subscriber service, still just call people, expecting to be answered, or hang up on people, expecting to be understood.

what i envisage is an active polling system, whereby, as an example, when you select someone's name in your mobile's phonebook, their status will appear, as not available, for example, or free to chat. this way you can leave them what i call a "desire to contact" message. it's not urgent, just lets them know you would like to talk with them at an appropriate time.

this way it intercepts the user pre-call, stopping them from just blindly calling.

so far my thinking has been towards the system design i want to work with, which is not that helpful. i need to think more on the philosophy of what i'm working with, which is similarly fascinating, but not as easy to conceptualize on the train home.

think i should do some research into the history of the ring tone. it conveys so much of what i want to break down.

- aml

studies 2 inquiry proposal

2005-08-09T23:31:00.000+10:00

a ringing telephone must be answered

telephones in our modern world occupy a unique position. they are vital communications devices, enabling us to collaborate with others over long distance with speed, ease and simplicity. but it is worth thinking about where this system came from. the telephone system was first very sparse, and ‘phones themselves were very rare. if the telephone was ringing, it must be important. an emergency of some sort, a vital message coming through. the ‘phone rings, answer it! it is rude not to. from this system, ‘phones became more universal, cheaper, common, used dozens of times a day for many and varied reasons.

why is it so vital to speak to someone immediately we ring them?

i consider a ‘phone call to be equivalent to walking up to someone and shouting at them until they talk to you. no matter what they’re doing, who they’re talking to, how appropriate it is to talk to them, how urgent your message is. the act of calling is a demand for their attention. would we do this face to face?

so many of our other communications in this world have far greater flexibility in this. a perfect example is internet chat – you are easily able to communicate a status, ranging from “free to chat” to “do not disturb”. but how often are you so taken up that you can’t answer a chat request online? by comparison, how many times during an average day would be it completely inappropriate to answer a phone? but how do you communicate this? you have your caller id, and can make a decision based on that as to whether to answer, but there is no real way to let the other party know the reason for your decision, or even that it was a decision at all.

as i see it, this problem stems from two distinct zones. firstly there is the psychology of the telephone, as mentioned earlier. we feel compelled to answer a ringing ‘phone, as we similarly expect a ringing ‘phone to be answered. secondly, there is the physical manifestation of this psychology, in terms of the ringing phone itself. why is it an invariably intrusive device? loud, harsh, sudden, alarming. answer the ‘phone!

this is not a notification of a desire to communicate, it is a demand for attention.

consider two situations:
one – you are talking to an office receptionist about some matter or other, and the phone rings. “excuse me” he says, and answers the phone, diverting his attention away for several minutes while attending to the query. thereby, someone has just interrupted your own interaction – a situation that would not be attempted or tolerated face to face.

two – you are in a meeting, and your phone rings. you have forgotten to put it on silent, and so you whip it out of your pocket and bar the call. in the same way that the call itself is a demand for attention, barring it in this manner is a flat out rejection, with no medium for explanation.

both of these situations represent failings in the telephone system to comply with general social guidelines for polite interaction. i wish to explore this issue, with the aim of an outcome geared towards changing the system to reflect these guidelines.

i believe this outcome will take the form of a researched essay, with a system presentation to demonstrate the proposed alterations and amendments.

2005-08-07T20:36:00.000+10:00

are mushrooms sustainable?

labyrinth - an exhibition

2005-08-07T19:04:00.000+10:00

a project i've been working on for a couple of months now has finally come to fruition. my brother is a photographer, and a couple of months ago my girlfriend, who runs a meeting room/cafe kind of space in the city, said to him,

"we're looking for some artwork for our walls. you have some. interested?"

and so it started. what we realised was the biggest hurdle to hosting an exhibition, once the venue is out of the way, is the cost of printing and framing the photos. early and conservative estimates put the cost at easily approaching $1000 for 20-25 8x12 prints framed nicely. looking deeper into the cost breakdown, the cheapest frames at that size we could get were about $45. we thought,

"we can build frames cheaper than that"

and then,

"if we're doing it ourselves, they don't need to look like frames we could have bought"

and so it started. a design exercise for me, this one involved seeing what was available, and was an intriguing challenge - designing something to be built in quantity, in wood, by hand, by me. this meant it had to be relatively simple, carpentry wise, and yet still look very good and be built very well - competing with professional framers in essence.

the big long story of effort time and money continued - i found a place in port melbourne selling recycled timber - this was most excellent, as looking at new timber i had the choice of plantation pine (= nasty wood, but sustainable), or old-growth hardwood (= beautiful wood, but ouch to tasmania). so recylced timber was the way to go, meaning we could use hardwood, but without actually having to cut down trees to get it. the particular wood chosen is from a eucalypt called messmate, and was sawn from beams of old warehouses. it is a beautiful wood, with amazing sap that has dried and created cavities and pattern.

many, many, many, many hours of cutting, routing, glueing, sanding, staining and coating later, we had the required 18 frames completed. many problems with the design came out during the process. one being that as i had chosen to screw clear acrylic on the front of the frame (pictures to come will show this), the frames had to match the holes in the acrylic pretty much perfectly, or the plastic would warp and distort. not much fun fixing that one, especially as the acrylic we had several hundred dollars to get cut and drilled was both cut and drilled wrong. size was off by up to 2mm, which is pretty significant, and the holes were also in the wrong spot by over 1mm. massive frustrations, as the whole frames had to be reworked around the irreplaceable acrylic.

a render of the final design. it was changed slightly from this once
production issues became known, but is pretty much the same

but it all came together in the end, with my brother printing his photos in a combination of his darkroom under the house and the print shop up the road (who want nothing further to do with us), and a couple of days setting up the exhibition. we had our opening night last friday - mostly friends and family, but still a great night. my girlfriend has managed to scab some drinks and snacks for us all, so it was all good.

the whole deal ended up taking us about 3 weeks over schedule and costing about $1500, but the photos are up, and there's already purchase interest.

if anyone wants to see it, it's in the shell building mezzanine level, corner of flinders and spring streets.

- aml

end-consumer sustainability awareness

2005-08-03T10:55:00.000+10:00

Have been thinking about the whole sustainability doovy a lot lately, as have we all I think, and it seems that a lot of the problem is with public awareness of both the problems, and the solutions being presented. Looking at my clothes dryer gave me an idea (which may or may not have been expounded elsewhere) that some sort of rating could be given to products.

Based not just on energy efficiency, but rather taking into account all aspects of the process involved for that product - from development, to production, to usage, to eventual disposal and recycling. Perhaps a star rating out of five such as the energy efficiency ratings currently found on domestic appliances, or even a percentage - e.g. "This product is 37% sustainable".

I think a star rating is probably more palatable for general consumers, while a web-address could be provided per product to break down what's going on to make it that level of sustainable.

I use the term "sustainable" here in accordance with Phillip Sutton's definition, being that it simply determines something able to be sustained, whether in terms of production emissions, energy usage, recylclability, or whatever. No complex waffling on about some synthesis of ecology, humanity and table tennis, but the basic nitty-gritty of actually making the damn thing work.

ecocreto

2005-07-30T15:38:00.000+10:00

Browsing through the Thinkcycle site, I came across this link. Ecocreto is a pervious concrete that is as strong as regular concrete but 100% permeable to water in every direction, meaning that footpaths, roads, driveways etc. can be used as collectors for the water supply, without the bottleneck of drainways and guttering, which gets heavily clogged with lots of other detritus. Anyone who's been somewhere like Sydney in heavy rain can appreciate the need to get lots of water off the road and footpath surfaces fast.

Groovy stuff.

timestamping

1990-01-01T00:00:00.000+11:00

isn't it interesting how you can change the time of your post to many, many years before blogger actually existed?

i was hoping i could change it to before i was born, but unfortunately google's time-travel expertise doesn't stretch that far back.