Localised Global Warming

"When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money."

Alanis Obomsawin

Occasionally we come down from the snowy hills and we are always amazed at how much has changed as Tasmania is gripped by the local effects of global warming.  Here are a few images and a video from the last couple of weeks in April.

Beautiful one day, the same the next?

Interesting tropical plant life

Kym strolling among the palm trees

Local Songmeisters

Actually it is possible that we mixed up some Tasmanian scenes with those on our recent sojourn to Rarotonga - but still that global warming is crazy scary don't you think! Maybe hold off on buying that coastal block for awhile to see how it pans out.

Take care and stay out of the sun.

Flying bricks

"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The thing about flying bricks is that there are no “go arounds”; there is no engine on the returning space shuttle so if you fluff the approach, then you fluff the landing, or worse. So practise makes perfect (with a bit of a wobble around 10000’) and anyway it is said that any landing that you walk away from is a good one!

Port Arthur

"If a society is to preserve stability and a degree of continuity, it must learn how to keep its adolescents from imposing their tastes, values, and fantasies on everyday life."

Eric Hoffer

Another year, another waste of academic time for a camp - this time to Port Arthur. When they could pry their eyes from their phones, the self-absorbed saw tremendous natural beauty wrapped around buildings that oozed palpable pain.

An amazing place, wasted somewhat on the studied boredom of youth. Still, makes a change from geometry and anyway when is that stuff used in real life?

At the Coal River Site

The grounds of the Port Arthur Historic Site

The Broad Arrow Cafe Memorial

Tripping the light fantastic

“It makes a difference, doesn't it, whether we fence ourselves in, or whether we are fenced out by the barriers of others?”

E.M. Forster

As part of the ongoing foray into electrical engineering, with a view to for instance fully automate the hothouse (forgive the intermittent readings - much experimentation is taking place at the moment), we are exploring the wonders of optocouplers.

So as not to fry any control circuitry, these little devices (in our case the 2501) are able to send signals purely by light, creating a protective barrier in the circuit. Why it's like the 24th Century has arrived already!

A bridge of light

The whole shebang means that a possible fry-up on the load side (simulated by the green LED in the picture) would not affect the control side (provided by a 555 timer and indicated by the red LED). Thus all manner of pumps, servos and other inductive loads can happily short out and the micro-controller circuit should live on (famous last words, no?).

Warp speed, Captain!

We get quite a kick out of this stuff (especially when it works), but huge thanks to the interwebs for your advice and tutorials, especially:

• Great Scott
• Julian Illett
• Afrotechmods
• Ben Eater
• Big Clive
• EEVblog

Great contributions to the community, and specifically to us. Thanks y'all. And after having a little fun with the sound effects (don't believe everything you hear), this is the result...

Easter toil

"Ideas are easy. It's the execution of ideas that really separates the sheep from the goats."

Sue Grafton

While the goats look on and complain about the lack of pellets (there isn't a lack of pellets), we have been preparing our deck and railing for re-coating in oil and paint respectively.

Help! They aren't treating us well!

In the past we would have rolled up our sleeves and scraped and scoured the surfaces to be treated, covering ourselves in sweat and grime. Now that we are in our tertius actus we feel that cheating is allowed and therefore the Ryobi Jet Spray device has been deployed with fervour to scrape away the years and prepare for the future.

Hours of fun for the whole family

All the Easter gardening and painting preparation has been carefully overseen by our vigilant and enthusiastic canine crew who work so hard they need serious relaxation therapy to recover.

Jess always has one ear and one eye open for trouble

Happy Easter y'all and remember to celebrate the birth of little baby Jackson (happy 25th lad!)

Cheeky chap at 1 year, 5 months and 24 days

On the cusp - at 12 years, 6 months exactly

With mum at 24 years, 8 months and 27 days

Unfortunately he is likely to grow up and be a little absent minded like his dad...

Weeping and gnashing of teeth - Matthew 13:42

“A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence.”

Rollo May

The chance of an existential crisis occuring when reality crashes through our unreliable perception has appeared before on this blog - quite recently! Just this week we have proclaimed "heroes" appearing processionally on our television screens in a public display of self-flagellation all because on a sporting field half a world away a small piece of sandpaper destroyed a persistently preposterous perception (well it wouldn't be a proper blog entry without some alliteration!)

Many have pondered on the disproportionate outpouring of grief. The crumbling fable that Australians are tough but fair could be at the heart of the matter. Way back when Philip Ruddock was cheerfully locking up asylum seekers and we supported (and voted in) the Howard government even after the "truth overboard" fiasco, Australians still somehow believed that we played tough but fair.

Then successive federal governments cut overseas aid to a trickle and still we played on, happily renovating and cooking as a diversion and a salve for our darkening souls.

All the while sad and pathetic "men" in this country continue to bash, rape and kill women in numbers that defy any understanding, and seem immune to sane analysis or policy.

Through this shattering of our myths, some of us apparently could still look to sport and manfully strut about crowing of our supposed prowess (even as females were actually the ascendant sports stars - another blow to hyper-masculinity).

So what do we now have? A parade of boys in men's bodies, crushed by the public exposure of their fragility, offering up their abject apologies on the altar of our collective sporting stupidity.  Men need to take up less space in this society (thanks Jane Caro). It may be timely now to discuss an alternative to promoting sweating time wasters as sporting gods. Less hurtling towards Idiocracy and more studied introspection and perhaps leadership from our political masters.

Yeah, no, probably not - did you see the Rugby on the weekend, wasn't it awesome? Those guys are gods amongst men. Don't we want all of our boys to grow up to be heroes just like them?

But what would he talk about at work if he didn't?