2013

Steve Zeoli posted a link to the work of Maira Kalman in the NY Times today, in this case an enlightening graphic celebration of the inventiveness of Benjamin Franklin. This post was part of a series - "The Pursuit of Happiness (2009)" - a year long exploration of American History and democracy beginning with a story on the inauguration of Barack Obama.

Here is the NY Times article -> Can Do

I am looking forward to checking out more of her work, especially the illustrated Michael Pollan book.

Disturbing article by Lester Brown on the PRI website

"..Put simply, saving the Amazon rainforest now depends on curbing the growth in demand for soybeans by stabilizing population worldwide as soon as possible. And for the world’s more affluent people, it means eating less meat and thus slowing the growth in demand for soybeans…"

Where was once pristine Amazon rainforest, soybean harvesters march across the landscape instead.

Moving essay from David Sparks meditating about the influence of his father on his own pursuit of craftsmanship. I am sure that many modern craftsman were inspired to take up the tools for similar reasons, I certainly was growing up in a household where Dad always had a project on the go.

Craftsmanship and My Father — MacSparky

This is interesting, an interactive compilation of data visualisation techniques.

Quite a few here I didn't recognise. Click on the image to load the full diagram then hover over each cell for an example.

Via MacSparky

Is Organic Supermarket Food a Lie? Revealing look behind the supermarket green wash. The example is from Europe however it is surely just as relevant here in Australia. The call to action

Here is what we can do starting today
* Stop supporting industrial food by buying it. Organic is better than conventional, but still not good.
* Build relationships with small local farmers that believe in quality and practice sustainable agriculture.
* Learn to grow our own food.

There is an extensive collection of videos of showcasing makers and their work, at Those Who Make .

Here's one I particularly enjoyed

I have been interested in Permaculture since 1980 when I stumbled upon a copy of Permaculture 2 in our local bookshop (the same shop also introduced me to The One Straw Revolution and Ecotopia around the same time).

Over the years I have experimented with various permaculture methods and been fortunate enough to meet Bill Mollison on a number of occasions. One of these was at the Tanelorn Music Festival held at Stroud in the Hunter Valley in 1981, not long after I had discovered the book. I clearly remember Bill wearing a skin of some sort as he ambled about the festival. I also remember the inspiring spirit of his Permaculture workshop which had a strong focus on Ethics.

Maddy Harland, the editor of the Permaculture Journal has written a succinct introduction to the subject of Permaculture ethics which you can read here. You can download a free copy of the magazine from the same page.

The Permaculture Research Institute has a dynamic web site with a large range of resources online.

Very interesting diagrams to see at the Web Science Industry Forum Poster Session via Mark Bernstein

Mark Bernstein, the author of the Tinderbox platform is also a scientist who studies hypertext.

His recent post contains a link to numerous web science posters developed at various universities.

Lots of graphic design inspiration to be found here.

Mark Bernstein: Going To Conferences

Bernstein illustrates his argument by describing the photo below, which brought to my attention that so many these famous scientists were contemporaries.

Theres a picture in the lobby of the Hotel Metropole in Brussels of the attendees at the first Solvay conference in 1911. Madame Curie is sitting next to Henri Poincare they are both examining a paper and its more interesting than the group photo. Behind them, a shockingly young Al Einstein is paying more attention to the photographer. Nernst is there, and Rutherford, Lorentz, Planck, de Broglie, Brillouin, Langevin.

Mark Sisson runs a business that promotes a version of the Paleo diet and philosophy (Primal). He writes some excellent posts on his blog that I often find myself nodding in agreement with. A recent post that suggests a prioritised list of what to buy from organic sources is an example.

What Foods to Buy Organic

I like this list. In addition, its also important to consider

• Animal welfare. Always look for evidence of best practises in animal welfare and support these growers and suppliers
• Sourcing food outside of the large supermarket monopolies. These organisations are the front line for the globalised industrial agriculture hegemony that places profit above environment, health and people, see (Supply Chain complexity, UK Supermarkets ranked). Favour local shops, farmers markets and online retailers that support small farms and food diversity.

Its also worth noting that some of the tenets of the Paleo belief system are being challenged by research, as reported at MacDrifter today -> Paleo Dream.

This inspirational talk by Nick White at the Wellington Ignite Conference gives an insight into what its like for an avid public speaker to overcome head and neck cancer and the loss of his voice.

via Presentation Zen

Interesting article in The Magazine - Heavy Breathing .

I blogged previously about my own experiences with this disorder - fortunately, my case is less severe than the authors'.

I like this introduction to decision making techniques at Creative Market .

“Some decisions appear to be relatively straight forward until you take a step back and look at the entire picture with a fresh perspective. You may notice that there are a variety of factors that actually impact a choice or decision that you did not notice before.”

The post also features a nice mind map example from Learning Fundamentals focused on personal actions for reducing climate change impacts.

I find the iPad an ideal tool for mind mapping especially with the power of iThoughtsHD .

I am with but she's a girl, being a fan of Douglas Adam's book Last Chance to See. As I am also in interested in scripting and other geekery, this post hit all the right notes.

Our local Megapodes are known as Bush (or Brush) Turkey's and can destroy a productive vege path in seconds.

I have been enjoying the album Lost in this beautiful world by Jon Lacey. It’s a melodic piano and guitar driven folk album with an authentic feel, partly due to the raw quality of Jon’s voice. The songs are introspective and engaging.

I discovered Jon’s music while searching for recordings by one his collaborators on this album Tom McConville. We saw Tom play at the Marine Theatre in Lyme Regis during our last visit to England in October 2011. It was fun night with a small enthusiastic crowd of locals and the odd traveller. His playing adds haunting depth to some of the albums best songs.

Tom McConville & David Newey at the Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis, October 2011

Get the Album from iTunes

Mastering Archimate has worked with T36 in the creation of an excellent video that shows why Enterprise Architecture is important.

Goldmark have produced another fascinating “day in the life” video, this time featuring French potter Jean-Nicholas Gerard who makes beautiful slipware pots.

Although these videos are obviously produced to promote the artists ahead of upcoming exhibitions at Goldmark, they are in themselves a tremendous service to the ceramics community. The gentle pace and broad scope allow the viewer to be transported into the rhythm of these artists lives.

After years of exposure to Permaculture and having spent several years a decade ago implementing a disparate set of its common patterns at our previous property in Northern NSW, I am now taking a much deeper dive into it after enrolling in Geoff Lawton’s Online Permaculture Design Course. Its been running a few weeks now and my partner and I are both finding it a revelation. So many concepts and themes that we had previously read about but not really understood are suddenly making sense. Geoff’s an excellent teacher and the online format works perfectly for a couple of introverted types. We can take our time and review material as we go.

There were elements of classic internet marketing1 wrapped around the promotion of the course that had me a little worried, those concerns have proven groundless and I can understand that using the marketing approaches that work makes sense when your goal is to get this material out to the widest audience and in a sustainable way.

As a taster, check out this video Absolute in Abundance, they will want your email address however if you are at all interested in this stuff you will get a steady stream of really good links and content as a result.

I would highly recommend that anyone who has been interested in doing a PDC but not found the time or the right teacher consider taking one of Geoff’s courses.

Meanwhile, check out the many videos and resources that are freely available at the Permaculture Research Institute. The links to several excellent related documentaries can also be found here. The site is an aggregator of several of my favourite authors including George Monbiot who has a new book - Feral - A manifesto for rewilding the world.

Surfers interested in Permaculture should enjoy this chat with Geoff about the links between surfing and permaculture.

Here is another beautiful video celebrating craftsmanship.

It features Tom Ellis who started building mandolins from his rural workshop in late 1970's. Tom has recently relaunched his instrument line in collaboration with Pava one his co-workers.

The video was produced by the Fretboard Journal a very high quality magazine that features stories and photo's about guitars, players and makers.

In a previous post I wrote about the positive experience we were having taking part in Geoff Lawton’s Online Permaculture course. Having completed all the online lessons and the quiz we are now working on the practical assignment which is due by the end of August.

The course continues to stimulate us and our enthusiasm for the material remains strong. Even on evenings when we were tired from a busy day the prospect of some “Geoff time” was appealing and we had little trouble keeping up the momentum and staying more or less in line with the proposed course outline.

The course is well structured and its clear that Geoff has given it many times. His great depth of experience serves to ground the potentially abstract materials and to “keep it real”¹. For me the only time this focus was lost was in the final section “Creating an Alternative Society”. Geoff still had plenty of relevant experience to relate however the videos for this section felt looser and had a more rambling character than the bulk of the course. For students at the end of an intense two weeks this is probably a relief as Geoff kicks back and the amount of material being relayed eases off.

Random notes

• As we start on the practical exercise, studying maps and design options on paper and then taking that onto a plot of land has been revealing and exciting

• We didn’t make extensive use of the forums however whenever we had a question we could usually find someone else had already asked it. My wife and I watched all the video’s together and effectively formed a small team, this was very valuable as we continued to discuss the course content beyond the time spent “in lectures”.

• The regular uploads of videos with answers to participants questions are excellent and provided an opportunity for him to reinforce core concepts

• The course included a DVD set with all of the lectures plus the full set of DVD’s previously created by Geoff. So far we have watched a few of these and I can see they will be a very valuable resource

• While being very positive about the online course, I can see that the regular on the ground practical work integrated into the learning experience of an onsite course along with a gifted teacher and located at a well developed demonstration site would have many benefits. The quality of the teacher, the depth of their experience and their ability to communicate this would be a key factor in deciding which course to take

• Key learning - the mainframe design. The course has transformed the way we view landscape and has us spotting dam sites and swale opportunities everywhere. Walking around the site we are using for our practical assignment, a place we had visited many times before, revealed a completely new landscape potential to us. Geoff says the course will permanently change the way you view the world and I believe he is right.

I have linked to this video showing the making of a beautiful guitar before, but its so good its worth another run.