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Idea Log 01122011

Finally made it to the exhibit!!!

Struggling Cities from Japanese Urban Projects in the 1960s 

by Naohiko Hino, Architect and Supervisor of the exhibition

What is a city? There can be no single answer to this question. For over 5,000 years cities have developed all over the world. In each, a unique material culture and lifestyle has formed to reflect local conditions and history. For example, there was a fortress of a city surrounded with walls in preparation for foreign invasion, a market of a city where various people met on trade routes, a city developed by industry, and a city where all the power of the government was concentrated. Thus, cities have been built in various ways.

In the 20th Century, influenced by modernization, cities changed themselves by rather stylized methods. A mesh of modern urban planning covered cities. As if to replace their local culture, cities were rationalized to fit the modern social system, planned according to an ideal based on an archetypal European city.

In the mid-20th Century, only 25 percent of the world's population lived in cities, in 50 years this figure rose to 50 percent. In light of the fact that it took 5,000 years for the urban population grew in the latter-20th century.

This rapid urbanization caused drastic change to cities and forced governments and cities to adapt to new conditions. Modern urban planning is less effective in larger-scale cities because of the difficulty of maintaining organic consistency while overcoming urban problems caused by modernization. Megacities are at the forefront of this problem.

In the 1960s Tokyo became a megacity. The population reached 20 million and continued growing rapidly. Newspapers were filled with articles about the problems caused by modernization: traffic congestion, pollution, housing shortages and sinking ground. In order to find a way out of these critical situations and to renovate the city, Japan mobilized industrial productivity during a high-growth period of its economy. In response to this increase in momentum, architects announced quite ambitious urban projects through mass media such as TV programs, newspapers and magazines. The project aroused the interests of a public caught in the waning mood of the times, a people that still believed modernization's promise of a brilliant future.

Representative examples are Kenzo Tange's "A Plan for Tokyo - 1960", projects proposed by the Metabolists, a group that included the four architects Kiyonori Kikutake, Masato Ohtaka, Fumihiko Maki and Kisho Kurokawa, and Arata Isozaki's "Cities in the Air". Although they were announced in tandem, in their details these projects have different meanings. Tange made a rational and systematic response to the problems. The Metabolists used fear of crisis as a springboard for proposing  progressive images of future cities. Isozaki thought that an essential problem existed in the fact that cities came to refuse urban planning itself. The differences between these projects emphasize the changing consensus from the modern to the contemporary age. The times steadily moved toward skepticism about modernism.

While none of these projects were realized in Japan, globally many urban plans by architects were implemented and modern cities emerged such as Brasilia by Locio Costa, the capital cities of Nigeria and Macedonia by Kenzo Tange, and Chandigarh by Le Corbusier. In most cases the architect's intentions were not fully realized. Part of a given city would be built to plan only to be surrounded by chaotic areas. As such it's ambitious city planning was unstable and failed to keep its consistency. This reality reveals the essential difficulty in modern urban planning, which Isozaki pointed out; it's extremely difficult to set visions for idealized cities and share the visions with people, and then realized them consistently.

Rather than difficult, urban planning may simply be unnecessary. Tokyo serves as a good example. Thinking back to the critical atmosphere of the 1960s, it's significant that today few of its citizens are aware of Tokyo as the largest megacity in the world. They merely feel inconvenience with that huge Tokyo. There is no vision of an ideal shape or consistency for Tokyo, it looks like an impromptu patchwork. The reality of Tokyo shows that expanded megacities can be functional.

So far as these megacities are concerned, why does ideal vision or consistency matter?

In some sense, cities resemble living things. Figuratively speaking, Tokyo is a self-indulgent creature tending towards schizophrenia. Why did this happen? It's hard to tell where Tokyo's unique characteristics end and where general characteristics of megacities begin. As stated above, other megacities continue to grow according to their own characteristic identities. We can at least recognize that like Tokyo, many megacities have a patchy structure in which old cities overlap new ones, and planned areas are adjacent to unplanned.These patchy structures exhibit a flexibility suggesting that development aimed at meeting practical needs is more efficient thatn building cities to strictly rational plans. It may sound strange, but it seems to be a natural fact that megacities themselves are irrational.

It's not easy to plan new city blocks to have true organic relationships which existing urban context. If new blocks are only planned to be in harmony which the rest of the city, cities as a whole would fall into things of the past. To keep cities active, it's necessary to have projects that can continually revitalize the context of a city. In this regard, Tokyo has few good examples to show. Even if we recognize Tokyo as a self-networking system with multiple variables, we are still searching for a way to lead and support the system. Facing the reality that many megacities are shifting to patchwork-like structures, it's clearly nonsense to consider cities as extensions of tree structures. A new vision for cities is needed, one which can connect unrelated things and create a new organism. This is a big and challenging problem for us.

Our understanding of architecture and cities has been depressed by Globalism and Neo-Liberalism. We need a vision that can release us from this depression and allow us to take the next step. We need to build momentum in order to develop cities with identify out from under of these banners of universalism.

Idea Log 14112011

Found My FAVOURITE DRINK ~ Hongcho drinking vinegar at Korea Town in TOronto P.A.T.

http://www.edaesang.com/

The more you drink, the more beautiful you get.
Beautiful international celebrities like Megan Fox and Gwyneth Paltrow credited a ‘vinegar diet’ for helping them maintaining a slim figure, which in turn triggered great interest in vinegar. Vinegar is beneficial not only to losing weight but also to skin and health. Building on this popularity, vinegar beverages are making a sensation in the market and Korea’s vinegar beverages are at its center. Called the Hallyu syndrome in the beverage industry, the Korean vinegar beverages are capturing the palate of people around the world.

Secret of beauty, vinegar

It is said the ancient Egyptian queen Cleopatra often drank vinegar with natural pearls melted in it for beauty purpose. More recently, top Hollywood actresses are maintaining their figure with vinegar. What properties of this sour drink captured their heart?
1) Vinegar contains more than 60 kinds of organic acids that are beneficial to the intestines like acetic acid, citric acid, succinic acid, and malic acid. Having one cup of vinegar everyday helps solve skin allergy.
2) Vinegar helps stimulate metabolism and burn accumulated fat to reduce body fat. Rich in amino acids and vitamins, it helps mitigate under-nutrition resulting from a diet.
3) Its main ingredient, acetic acid boosts metabolism to release waste from the body. And citric acid helps the body’s absorption of calcium and cleans intestinal walls to help activate the intestines and treat constipation. Vinegar is also great for skin.

 

 

Prevention of obesity, cancer, adult disease, and other illnesses
An American columnist praised vinegar that can prevent various diseases as ‘miracle water given by nature’. ‘Why did he think so highly of it?
1) When you engage in lots of physical activities, energy is consumed and lactic acid is secreted. Most of it is discharged in urine, but if one is exhausted, lactic acid remains in the body causing muscle pain, arthralgia, and such. Organic acids in vinegar resolve lactic acid into harmless water and carbon dioxides. This is why one should take in vinegar when feeling tired.
2) Vinegar helps remove cholesterol sticking to the walls of blood vessels and boost their flexibility. It also prevents sugar from turning into fat and boosts fat metabolism, thereby preventing high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis and more.
3) The enzyme angiotensin contained in vinegar helps to lower blood pressure, preventing high blood pressure.

 

How to drink
So it is clear that vinegar is good for health. But it is still difficult to take in. This is why vinegar beverages came into existence: they reduce the sourness and make it much enjoyable for men and women of all ages. The recommendation is to have it mixed with water or milk in a 1:2 to 1:4 mixture ratio. One should determine the dilution ratio depending on one’s taste. They come in various flavors such as pomegranate and blueberry.

N.B.
If you take in vinegar or an empty stomach, it may damage the stomach walls. If taken in a large quantity at one time, the body fluid may become strongly acid. One should take only one or two cups of diluted vinegar. If one has stomach ulcer or a bad kidney, one should consult with a doctor before taking vinegar.

Vinegar diet

The diet regimen known to enamor Hollywood stars for its great effects is a ‘banana & vinegar diet’. It is easy to follow: mix banana, vinegar, and maple syrup or black sugar in a ratio of 1:1:1. Warm it for 40 seconds in a microwave oven or in a double boiler to completely melt the sugar. Leave it at room temperature for a day. It is ready to eat and can be kept in the refrigerator for some two weeks. Remove any traces of banana and mix some three spoonfuls with water or milk to have before meals in the morning and evening.

 

 

Source: http://www.koreamedicalhub.com/index.php?page_no=17&mode=view&wr_id=119

Idea Log 13112011

The History of Fo/ Whoo
The History of Whoo products are formulated from rare ingredients that were used in the ancient royal family and are a prestigious line of cosmetic made with natural ingredients traditionally used in Oriental medicine. The products contain wild ginseng and snow lotus and work to rejuvenate skin, giving your face a younger appearance. The History of Whoo has limited production and is in high demand because of the rare and hard to find ingredients the products are made from. The products are known for their excellence in fighting against dry and aging skin, working to restore youthfulness to the skin and reducing fine lines while erasing the traces of aging.

The History of Whoo Gongjinhyang
The products in The History of Whoo’s Gongjinhyang (Oriental medicine-based ingredients) line are comprised of herbal ingredients that keep the skin soft and moisture-rich by hydrating dry skin and improving its purification capabilities. The highly concentrated herbal serum is a perfect solution for a more crystal-like, vibrant and luminous skin tone. The finest herbal ingredients offer a luxurious and silky smooth feel. The Gongjinhyang line incorporates the products of traditional beauty care with techniques from the ancient royal family. The herbal nutrition stimulates the skin’s viability, moisture retention and adds radiance to the skin. The synergy between Gongjindan and Polygonatum also provides excellent wrinkle improvement, adds firmness and promotes a naturally youthful glow around the eyes.

Benefits: Concentrates hydration, improves purification capability, wrinkle improvement and skin tightening

Major ingredients: Wild ginseng, cordyceps sinensis

>> more on history

In TOronto buy it at P.A.T SuperMarket in Korea Town in Toronto!

Idea Log 07112011

The Cell theory, first developed in 1839 by Matthias Jakob Schleiden and Theodor Schwann, states that all organisms are composed of one or more cells, that all cells come from preexisting cells, that vital functions of an organism occur within cells, and that all cells contain the hereditary information necessary for regulating cell functions and for transmitting information to the next generation of cells. 

The generally accepted parts of modern cell theory include:

1. All known living things are made up of one or more cells.
2. All cells arise from pre-existing cells by division.
3. The cell is the fundamental unit of structure and function in all living organisms.
4. The activity of an organism depends on the total activity of independent cells.
5. Energy flow (metabolism and biochemistry) occurs within cells.
6. Cells contain hereditary information (DNA) which is passed from cell to cell during cell division.
7. All cells are basically the same in chemical composition in organisms of similar species.

 

The cell is the functional basic unit of life. It was discovered by Robert Hooke and is the functional unit of all known living organisms. It is the smallest unit of life that is classified as a living thing, and is often called the building block of life.

The following is a glossary of animal cell terms:

cell membrane - the thin layer of protein and fat that surrounds the cell. The cell membrane is semipermeable, allowing some substances to pass into the cell and blocking others.
centrosome - (also called the "microtubule organizing center") a small body located near the nucleus - it has a dense center and radiating tubules. The centrosomes is where microtubules are made. During cell division (mitosis), the centrosome divides and the two parts move to opposite sides of the dividing cell. The centriole is the dense center of the centrosome.
cytoplasm - the jellylike material outside the cell nucleus in which the organelles are located.
Golgi body - (also called the Golgi apparatus or golgi complex) a flattened, layered, sac-like organelle that looks like a stack of pancakes and is located near the nucleus. It produces the membranes that surround the lysosomes. The Golgi body packages proteins and carbohydrates into membrane-bound vesicles for "export" from the cell.
lysosome - (also called cell vesicles) round organelles surrounded by a membrane and containing digestive enzymes. This is where the digestion of cell nutrients takes place.
mitochondrion - spherical to rod-shaped organelles with a double membrane. The inner membrane is infolded many times, forming a series of projections (called cristae). The mitochondrion converts the energy stored in glucose into ATP (adenosine triphosphate) for the cell.
nuclear membrane - the membrane that surrounds the nucleus.
nucleolus - an organelle within the nucleus - it is where ribosomal RNA is produced. Some cells have more than one nucleolus.
nucleus - spherical body containing many organelles, including the nucleolus. The nucleus controls many of the functions of the cell (by controlling protein synthesis) and contains DNA (in chromosomes). The nucleus is surrounded by the nuclear membrane.
ribosome - small organelles composed of RNA-rich cytoplasmic granules that are sites of protein synthesis.
rough endoplasmic reticulum - (rough ER) a vast system of interconnected, membranous, infolded and convoluted sacks that are located in the cell's cytoplasm (the ER is continuous with the outer nuclear membrane). Rough ER is covered with ribosomes that give it a rough appearance. Rough ER transports materials through the cell and produces proteins in sacks called cisternae (which are sent to the Golgi body, or inserted into the cell membrane).
smooth endoplasmic reticulum - (smooth ER) a vast system of interconnected, membranous, infolded and convoluted tubes that are located in the cell's cytoplasm (the ER is continuous with the outer nuclear membrane). The space within the ER is called the ER lumen. Smooth ER transports materials through the cell. It contains enzymes and produces and digests lipids (fats) and membrane proteins; smooth ER buds off from rough ER, moving the newly-made proteins and lipids to the Golgi body, lysosomes, and membranes.
vacuole - fluid-filled, membrane-surrounded cavities inside a cell. The vacuole fills with food being digested and waste material that is on its way out of the cell.

 Source: www.enchantedlearning.com

Idea Log 02102011

 

'Ice Man' vs. Global Warming

By Heidi Shrager, Monday, Feb. 25, 2008

Chewang Norphel, Director of the Leh Nutrition Project.

Rain is scarce in these snow-peaked Himalayas of northern India, and summers bring dust storms that whip across craggy brown slopes and sun-chapped faces. Glaciers are the sole source of fresh water for the Buddhist farmers who make up more than 70% of the population in this rugged range between Pakistan and China. But rising temperatures have seen the icy snow retreat by dozens of feet each year — to find evidence of global warming, the farmers simply have to glance up from their fields and see the rising patches of brown where, once, all was white. Knowing no alternative, they pray harder for rain and snow.

But Chewang Norphel has gone beyond prayer. The 73-year-old civil engineer has come up with a solution that won't exactly save the ancient glaciers, but it could stave off a looming irrigation crisis. Norphel has created artificial glaciers, frozen pools of glacier run-off perched above the farmers' fields, which thaw just in time for the start of growing season in April — two months before water from the distant natural glaciers is expected to arrive. The slanted pools melt into irrigation channels over the next six weeks, watering crops for villages of roughly 500 families and, as a bonus, recharging the valley's natural springs.

Norphel is known locally as "Ice Man," and cuts a rebellious figure with slick raven hair and a black leather jacket. His innovation has been hailed as an elegantly simple and cheap solution to a devastating problem. One artificial glacier costs just $7,000, compared to $34,000 for a cement water reservoir. Only local materials are needed, and the villagers themselves can build and maintain them. The seven glaciers he's built as head of a local non-profit managing the watershed program for the state of Jammu and Kashmir have won him widespread attention, as engineers from other mountainous regions in India and Afghanistan have visited to learn his methods.

But funding from the government and cooperation from villagers have proved fleeting, and his plan to put artificial glaciers in over 100 villages of his native highlands now faces Everest-sized obstacles.

One of the villages targeted by Norphel is the Buddhist hamlet of Sakti, tucked in the mountains of the Ladakh Range that stretch above the Indus River. Village head Tsering Kundan recalled the rush of optimism when Norphel's glacier was first built in 2001. People grabbed up more land to cultivate, planting groves of willow and poplar saplings between the fields. But now they're letting their man-made glacier fall into disrepair, says Kundan. Villagers accuse one another of secretly diverting its water, and the local watershed committee is neglecting to spend government funds on maintenance. "They're more interested in spending it on buying cows," said the 54-year-old farmer, his eyes glistening red from sun and wind.

Norphel found his state funds cut in 2006 as part of the fallout from an unrelated political dispute between government officials and Ladakh's notoriously crowded field of NGOs. Still, the quixotic Ice Man remains determined to prove the power of his invention. His biggest and most successful glacier is also the most remote, meaning that few officials are willing to make the seven-mile hike to see it. One nearer to town has been reduced to a series of dirt pits from neglect and a major flood. Unperturbed, Norphel sees this as a chance to rebuild the perfect showpiece.

Shimmying down the slopes toward the dry pools, he described the improvements he would make if he just had the money. The headworks at the natural glacier would direct water with more precision and efficiency. Stone channels would be widened so the water wouldn't freeze on its way down. Pipes leading to the pools would be deep underground, and made of concrete, to withstand floods. Water would cascade onto fields in April, and global warming would lose its grip, for a while.

Then people would see.

"I just need one village," said Norphel. "Then I can show everyone.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1717149,00.html#ixzz1Zg7NzrPc

 

Idea Log 30092011

SAULT STE. MARIE — Only the Ontario Liberals are committed to building a clean-energy economy — a plan that is creating jobs for families in Northern Ontario.
 
“Building Ontario wind turbines with Northern Ontario steel is a great example of how our new clean-energy economy is working — reaching all corners of Ontario to deliver good jobs for families and making us more competitive,” said Premier Dalton McGuinty.
 
The Premier made his remarks following a tour of Essar Steel Algoma — the largest employer in Sault Ste. Marie. The company manufactures 100 per cent made-in-Ontario steel that is being used to build wind towers for turbines. This is supporting jobs in Sault Ste. Marie and a direct result of the Ontario Liberal commitment to a clean-energy economy.  
 
Thanks to the Ontario Liberal Green Energy Act, Essar Steel Algoma has seen increased demand for their product. They’re getting orders from companies like Vestas, CS Wind and International Power Canada to supply steel for wind projects throughout Ontario. That’s great news for workers and their families in Sault Ste. Marie.
 
“We’re the number-one producer of cars in North America because, not only do we build the best cars, we build the best parts. Now we’re doing the same thing in clean-energy,” McGuinty said. “Our clean-energy economy is attracting new investments, and our workers are building the best materials to support it.” 
 
“Our leading-edge renewable energy strategy is transforming Sault Ste. Marie into the green energy capital of North America and building a stronger, more diversified economy by supporting jobs at Essar Steel Algoma and creating high quality, well-paying jobs at new companies, such as Heliene Canada solar panel manufacturing plant,” said Liberal candidate David Orazietti. “In addition to positioning the Sault at the forefront of the rapidly growing clean energy economy, the Ontario Liberal plan builds on the environmental protections that are improving public health as we continue to close coal-fired power generators.”
 
The Hudak PCs have a $14 billion hole in their platform — that means deep cuts that will put our economy, education and health care at risk. When Tim Hudak was Northern Development Minister in the Mike Harris government, he helped the PCs download $3 billion in costs onto cities and towns, causing property tax hikes and massive cuts to public services.
 
The Horwath NDP would introduce a crushing $9 billion in job-killing taxes, eliminating these green jobs. They would impose a moratorium on development north of 51, which would kill the Ring of Fire and destroy jobs in every Northern community. Both would take Ontario off track at the worst time.

http://votepasternak.ca/Document/367?l=EN

Idea Log 29092011

The Busan to Geoje fixed link project was an ambitious scheme to reduce journey times between Korea's south coast city of Busan and the island of Geoje - a tourist hot-spot and home to the country's biggest shipbuilding yards.

This world class project provides an 8.2km highway link between the southern city of Busan and the island of Geoje in South Korea. The overall link comprises two major cable stayed bridges, with main spans of 230m and 475m respectively, and a 3.4km long immersed tunnel. The tunnel, which carries traffic at a depth of up to 48m below sea level to avoid large container ships, is one of the deepest in the world.

Halcrow TEC JV were appointed Technical Advisers to Daewoo Engineering & Construction Co. Ltd, who led the consortium to design, construct and operate this vital US$1100m transport link, completed in 2010.

Halcrow–TEC JV provided advice to Daewoo on many aspects of the design and construction of the link, together with advice on contracts and contract strategy (including design contracts) and project organization.

The link slashes journey times from three and a half hours to just 40 minutes opening up the region to a wealth of previously untapped business and tourism opportunities thus boosting the economy.

http://www.halcrow.com/Our-projects/Project-details/Busan-Geoje-Fixed-Link-Korea/

BUSAN-GEOJE bridge under construction

 

Idea Log 24092011

ABOUT THE SHOW

There is an amazing race going on right now around the world to find the fuel of the future. More than three decades after the oil shocks shook America, the United States and the rest of the industrialized world is still addicted to oil. But now, for the first time in a generation, plans to break the black gold stranglehold are closer than ever to becoming a reality.

CNBC will broadcast a one-hour special, "Beyond the Barrel: The Race to Fuel the Future," anchored by CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla. The one-hour program will showcase the bottled promises ready to be unleashed from the Middle East, South America, Asia and here at home. This CNBC original production will introduce viewers to more than a dozen potential game changing innovations to power our planet. “Beyond the Barrel: The Race to Fuel the Future” will also take a critical look at why we are still years away from putting these ideas into practice.

CNBC, First in Business Worldwide, will cover this story from across the globe:

• CNBC’s Jane Wells will look at parts of the American west where new solar towns are popping up all over the map.
• CNBC’s Brian Shactman travels to Bolivia to report on the Country’s untapped reserves that can be used for new battery technology and change the way we use energy forever.
• NBC’s Adrienne Mong reports from China, a country accused of being a serial polluter. But at the same time, China's green-tech industry is catching up with the world's traditional leaders very quickly as they mass-produce the equipment and materials needed to create new forms of energy.

Additionally, Quintanilla will profile a small start-up in northern California that's working to turn toxic emissions literally into building blocks for tomorrow. Plus, Quintanilla will go one-on-one with the OPEC ministers who say there's no way the world will replace oil anytime soon and he'll talk to the naysayers who believe we'll be addicted to oil forever.

Idea Log 14092011

Automation is the use of control systems and information technologies to reduce the need for human work in the production of goods and services. In the scope of industrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization. Whereas mechanization provided human operators with machinery to assist them with the muscular requirements of work, automation greatly decreases the need for human sensory and mental requirements as well. Automation plays an increasingly important role in the world economy and in daily experience.

Automation has had a notable impact in a wide range of industries beyond manufacturing (where it began). Once-ubiquitous telephone operators have been replaced largely by automated telephone switchboards and answering machines. Medical processes such as primary screening in electrocardiography or radiography and laboratory analysis of human genes, sera, cells, and tissues are carried out at much greater speed and accuracy by automated systems. Automated teller machines have reduced the need for bank visits to obtain cash and carry out transactions. In general, automation has been responsible for the shift in the world economy from industrial jobs to service jobs in the 20th and 21st centuries.

 < KUKA robot for flat glass handling

Advantages and disadvantages

The main advantages of automation are:

• Replacing human operators in tasks that involve hard physical or monotonous work.
• Replacing humans in tasks done in dangerous environments (i.e. fire, space, volcanoes, nuclear facilities, underwater, etc.)
• Performing tasks that are beyond human capabilities of size, weight, speed, endurance, etc.
• Economy improvement: Automation may improve in economy of enterprises, society or most of humanity. For example, when an enterprise invests in automation, technology recovers its investment; or when a state or country increases its income due to automation like Germany or Japan in the 20th Century.

The main disadvantages of automation are:

• Unemployment rate increases due to machines replacing humans and putting those humans out of their jobs.
• Technical Limitation: Current technology is unable to automate all the desired tasks.
• Security Threats/Vulnerability: An automated system may have limited level of intelligence, hence it is most likely susceptible to commit error.
• Unpredictable development costs: The research and development cost of automating a process may exceed the cost saved by the automation itself.
• High initial cost: The automation of a new product or plant requires a huge initial investment in comparison with the unit cost of the product, although the cost of automation is spread in many product batches of things

Other goals of automation (beyond productivity gains and cost reduction)

In manufacturing, the purpose of automation has shifted to issues broader than productivity,costs and time.

Reliability and precision

The old focus on using automation simply to increase productivity and reduce costs was seen to be short-sighted, because it is also necessary to provide a skilled workforce who can make repairs and manage the machinery. Moreover, the initial costs of automation were high and often could not be recovered by the time entirely new manufacturing processes replaced the old. (Japan's "robot junkyards" were once world famous in the manufacturing industry.)

Automation is now often applied primarily to increase quality in the manufacturing process, where automation can increase quality substantially. For example, automobile and truck pistons used to be installed into engines manually. This is rapidly being transitioned to automated machine installation, because the error rate for manual installment was around 1-1.5%, but has been reduced to 0.00001% with automation.

Health and environment

The costs of automation to the environment are different depending on the technology, product or engine automated. There are automated engines that consume more energy resources from the Earth in comparison with previous engines and those that do the opposite too. Hazardous operations, such as oil refining, the manufacturing of industrial chemicals, and all forms of metal working, were always early contenders for automation.

Convertibility and turnaround time

Another major shift in automation is the increased demand for flexibility and convertibility in manufacturing processes. Manufacturers are increasingly demanding the ability to easily switch from manufacturing Product A to manufacturing Product B without having to completely rebuild the production lines. Flexibility and distributed processes have led to the introduction of Automated Guided Vehicles with Natural Features Navigation.

Digital electronics helped too. Former analogue-based instrumentation was replaced by digital equivalents which can be more accurate and flexible, and offer greater scope for more sophisticated configuration, parametrization and operation. This was accompanied by the fieldbus revolution which provided a networked (i.e. a single cable) means of communicating between control systems and field level instrumentation, eliminating hard-wiring.

Discrete manufacturing plants adopted these technologies fast. The more conservative process industries with their longer plant life cycles have been slower to adopt and analogue-based measurement and control still dominates. The growing use of Industrial Ethernet on the factory floor is pushing these trends still further, enabling manufacturing plants to be integrated more tightly within the enterprise, via the internet if necessary. Global competition has also increased demand for Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems.

Idea Log 10092011

 

"This book dares the human race to embrace change to be rationally optimistic and thereby to strive for the betterment of humankind and the world it inhabits." (pg. 8)

 

 

Idea Log 06072011

NY MoMath museum

aims to add to math appreciation

By Ula Ilnytzky <http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2011/04/22/ny_momath_museum_aims_to_add_to_math_appreciation/>

 NEW YORK—Mathematics. It's a subject that can elicit groans and exclamations of "boring."

But Glen Whitney, a former hedge-fund quantitative analyst, is betting he can change that with a formula that looks like this: math (equals) discovery (equals) beauty (equals) fun.

Whitney is planning to open the only museum in the United States dedicated to mathematics. MoMath, which will center on the wonders of mathematics and its connections with art, science and finance, is scheduled to open in New York City sometime in 2012, with the help of a $2 million grant from Google.

There are many great math teachers in the United States, but the subject's joy of discovery is lost to the "tyranny of the curriculum and the almost treadmill of standardized testing," Whitney said.

"That sensibility has sucked out the life of the subject," he said. "Math is evolving. It's an act of human endeavor. There's beauty" in its many patterns.

The museum will provide the element of surprise and excitement that textbooks cannot, added Cindy Lawrence, the museum's chief of operations who directs an extracurricular mathematics program for gifted students through a joint venture with Brookhaven National Laboratory.

The $30 million museum will occupy the ground floor and lower level of a 20-story building on East 26th Street in Chelsea; $22 million already has been raised.

The two executives have been testing the waters of creating a museum of mathematics for nearly two years with Math Midway, a traveling exhibit that has been shown in seven cities, and counting.

It will be at the World Science Festival street fair in New York on June 5, and at the Liberty Science Center in New Jersey from Oct. 7 to Jan. 22, 2012.

It is currently at the Museum of Nature & Science in Dallas, where school children recently scampered through the kind of carnival themed, brightly colored exhibits planned for MoMath.

Tents along one wall offered a variety of activities including a depiction of a ship on a moving circle that can only be "righted" by placing equal amounts of weight on each side; a rollercoaster track that kids can adjust to test out what angle gets the fastest time; and a harmonograph, which uses pendulums to draw a geometric image.

"It's just a very hands-on, exciting exhibit" that appeals to many ages, said Jason Treadway, an educator at the Dallas museum. "I think one of the great things about it is you're basically learning about math without knowing you're learning about math."

Another activity, "Pedal on the Petals," lets visitors ride square-wheeled tricycles on a track with a series of curves shaped like a huge sunflower.

A nearby sign that proclaims "There's a road for every wheel!" also asks "Do you dare to ride on a square?" The sign poses the question: "Why is the ride so smooth?" The concept is based on a mathematical theorem that there's a way to contour a road surface so that wheels of that shape will roll smoothly.

"Visitors can see -- and physically experience -- how math makes the seemingly impossible not only possible, but fun," said Whitney.

"The kids actually get to explore math rather than be told about it," said Marea Kelly, who brought her fifth graders to the exhibition. "It's really going to help the kids who don't see the concepts right away."

She said it made perfect sense to her students as soon as they rode the tricycle.

These and about 50 other interactive activities at the new museum will also demonstrate math's collaborative process.

"Mathematicians very often work together," said Lawrence. "We're trying to build on that" with exhibits that encourage collaboration.

Math museums exist in many other countries, including Italy, Germany, Korea and France, but none in the United States, perhaps reflecting the low regard for the subject in this country.

Studies consistently show that Asian students outpace their counterparts in other countries in math achievement.

The most recent Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study found that 40 percent of fourth-graders in Singapore and Hong Kong, for example, reached the advanced benchmark in math, compared with only 11 percent in the United States. At the eighth-grade level, Chinese Taipei, Korea and Singapore had 40-45 percent of students reaching the benchmark and only 6 percent in the United States.

"Given that math is used in more and more fields," from climate study to finance to astronomy, "there's a public problem here that needs to be addressed," said Sylvain Cappell, a professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University.

Cappell, who is on MoMath's advisory council, said a math museum is a different way to reach kids.

"It's not to denigrate what goes on in the classroom," he said. "It's to give teachers and students another tool."

Student math proficiency has gradually been improving in the United States over the past 15 years, said Zalman Usiskin, director of the Chicago School Mathematics Project at the University of Chicago. But he said a different ethos in Asia contributed to those students scoring high.

A vast majority of students in Korea, Singapore and Japan "go to school after school" where they focus on individual subjects, he said. In Korea, they are aptly called "cram schools."

"There's a different attitude toward how much time students should be expected to spend on studying," he said.

Conversely, U.S. education places more emphasis on well-roundedness.

The museum can make a difference, said Cappell.

"No one element is going to change around the whole national culture but I think this could make a difference in both enlarging kids' understanding of the world and in their life prospects," he said.

<www.momath.org>

 

Idea Log 27062011

Currently reading...

PREFACE

The projects included in this book are some of the very best examples that our post-war architects, designers and artists have given our city, Toronto. This book is a celebration of their work, their vision and their vision and their energy.

At the same time, the work featured here is fast disappearing. The year 2004 marked the demise and complete eradication of Parkin's Terminal One at the Toronto International Airport and of the A. V. Roe Company's administration building and the very hangars were the Avro Arrow and the Avro Jetliner, North America's first commercial airliner, were designed and built. The cancellation of the Arrow stands as a symbol of this Canadian duality; fresh, energetic design filled with possibilities, stifled by MOR administrative decisions.

The forum, the concert venue designed as part of Ontario Place, has been destroyed, replaced by the Molson Amphitheatre. The CNE Grandstand Stadium was replaced by a parking lot, its majestic cantilevered rood dynamuted, coming down in one fell swoop. The Shell Oil Tower, George A. Robb's seminal work of modern architecture, was torn down more than a decade ago to make way for the Molson Indy. The O'Keefe Centre for the Performing Arts and the modern collection at the CNE are threatened with each new corporate quaterly report.

The fact is, not much has been learned since Eric Arthur wrote his battle cry, Toronto: No Mean City, back in the early 1960s. Little has changed and Toronto remains a city with one of the wrost records for heritage conservation in North America. Our heritage laws have no teeth. Facadism is rampant and we are still turning sacred places like Maple Leaf Gardens into supermarkets.

It is my hope that this document inspired us to rediscover our modern past, to reflect on it and to preserve it in a meaningful and throughtful way; that it serves to encourage and support indigenous talent and to create places that speak to us.

For the industry, it is my hope that the work included here serves to move a new generation of architects to strive for excellence, to pick up the torch where modernism left off and to go further.

For the public, it is my hope that these works inspire them to expect more and demand excellence of their built forms; that they understand that architecture is not an elite sport but part of everyday life; that they learn to appreciate its beauty and poetry; that they be more discriminating in their scrunity of what is being passed off as architecture; that they observe and debate architecture and design in all its glory.

JOHN MARTINS-MANTEIGA/curator, Mean City/Director, DOMINION MODERN Museum of Modern Architecture & Design

Featured Projects:

>> Don Mills; Yonge Subway; Sun Life Building; O'Keefe Centre for the Performing Arts; Toronto International Airport, Aeroquay No. 1; Toronto City Hall; Toronto-Dominion Centre; Canadian National Exhibition; Grandstand Stadium; Shell Oil Tower; Queen Elizabeth Building; Food Products Building; Dufferin Gates; Hockey Hall of Fame; Better Living Centre; Ontario Place; Maple Leaf Plastics; Canadian General Electric K40; A.V. Roe Canada

Idea Log 23062011

Styles of Architecture in Buffalo, NY

KIT/ CATALOG Houses

After World War I, between 1900 and 1917, middle class society was expanding and, for the first time, beginning to buy more homes. To meet growth demand, companies started expanding in the residential building industry. Kit houses purchased through mail-order became popular in the 1910s, allowing new homeowners to be a part of the design and building process and giving the option of buying the home in stages,

Between 1906 and 1940, thousands of North American homes in the United States and Canada were built according to plans sold by mail order companies such as Sears and Montgomery Ward.

Aladdin Homes of Bay City, Michigan premiered the idea of kit houses in 1906. It wasn't until 1908 that the largest provider of kit houses, Sears, Roebuck and Co., building upon its earlier forays into building materials and house plans, entered the market for complete kit houses.

Often the entire mail order house (in the form of labeled timbers) came via freight train.

Other times, builders used local materials to construct homes according to the mail order catalog house plans.

According to Houses by Mail, over 100,000 kit houses were built in the United States between 1908 and 1940. Many people have lived in kit houses for years without realizing the historical and architectural significance of their humble abodes... Aladdin Homes of Bay City, Michigan premiered the idea of kit houses in 1906. It wasn't until 1908 that the largest provider of kit houses, Sears, Roebuck and Co., building upon its earlier forays into building materials and house plans, entered the market for complete kit houses. In the years that followed, Wardway Homes (Montgomery Ward), Harris Homes of Chicago, the Ready Built House Company, and Robinson's also got in on the kit home market. Sears Roebuck is still the most well-known of kit home manufacturers, perhaps because of their market share. Ordering directly from a catalog entitled Book of Modern Homes and Building Plans, prospective buyers enjoyed the convenience and affordability of a pre-fabricated dwelling. The purchaser would receive all of the necessary supplies in shipments by rail car (a typical house could fit into two boxcars) for assembly either by the new homeowner or a local contractor. These houses came in a wide variety of styles, designs and prices, although kit houses were generally cheaper than traditional building options. Following the stock market crash of 1929, the construction of these houses gradually declined and in 1940 Sears printed its last Book of Modern Homes. For many years these house were slowly forgotten, but in the 1980s, people looking for affordable housing began to discover kit houses. - University Libraries. University of Maryland, Kit Houses http://www.lib.umd.edu/NTL/kithomes.html

"Between 1908 and 1940, Sears sold about 70,000 homes in 48 states through their mail-order Modern Homes program, with 370 designs that you might not readily recognize as a kit home. Sears kit homes were shipped via boxcar and came with a 75-page instruction book. Each kit contained 10,000 - 30,000 pieces and the framing members were marked to facilitate construction." - WikiHow, How to Identify a Sears Kit Home

Above content taken out from: http://www.buffaloah.com/a/archsty/kit/kit.html

See also:

Francis R. Kowsky, http://www.buffaloah.com/a/archsty/kit/kowsky.html

The Rail Barons, http://www.railbarons.org/Layout/layout.html

Thorne House, 16 Tillinghast Place, http://buffaloah.com/a/tilling/16/ext/index.html (don't forget to look at pics of the interior!)

Idea Log 21062011

Whenever a major outer planet moves into a new constellation - and a new sign - in our solar system, it's always big news, for it heralds an exciting new influence that is about to begin. The world is seeing this situation now, since Uranus, planet of surprise and sudden action, has just recently moved into Aries on March 11, 2011, for the first time in decades.

Uranus is called "the great awakener" because this planet is known to bring lightning-quick flashes of insight along with very rapid change. This is the planet of rebellion and also the ruler of all things quirky, idiosyncratic, and just plain unreal. People with strong Uranus in their natal charts are pathfinders, courageously venturing into new realms. They often do the exact opposite of what everyone tells them to do. You might want to have a look at the Timeline assembled for you to see all the wonderful inventions that came into being the last time Uranus was in Aries.

A Timeline of Uranus In Aries 1927-1935

Things that have happened when Uranus was in Aries last time 1927-1935

Keep in mind: Jupiter was in Aries too in 1927, as it is now in the first five months of 2011. Aries rules pioneering, competition, force, bravery, brashness, courage, adventure, being a pathfinder, business enterprise, discovery, and also rules the face, hair, and individuality.

1927: Charles Lindberg becomes the first solo person to fly across the Atlantic Ocean.

1927: First transatlantic telephone call occurs from New York City to London.

1927: It takes 32 hours to fly from New York to San Francisco.

1927: A diamond rush in South Africa includes trained athletes hired by several major firms to stake claims. (Aries rules athletes AND pioneering.)

1927: First sports commentary on the BBC radio by Teddy Wakelam occurs. (Aries rules sports and competition.)

1927: First part-talking feature movie released, The Jazz Singer.

1928 First full, all-talking feature, Lights of New York, released.

1928 Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin.

1928: The Aschheim-Zondek urine pregnancy test is developed.

1929: The Great Stock Market Crash, the most dramatic and serious in the history of the United States occurred in October of this year, beginning a 10-year economic depression, affecting all Western countries.

1929: St. Valentine's Day gangland massacre in Chicago. Aries rules force and weapons.

1929: German psychiatrist Hans Berger develops the electroencephalogram (EEG) for recording brain waves. (Aries rules the head.)

1929: US Admiral Byrd, along with Floyd Bennett, Captain Ashley McKinley. and Harold June become the first to fly over the South Pole. (Now that is an adventure!)

1929: First public demo of color TV by E. Ives and Bell Labs in NY. Same year, Vladimir Zworkin had taken a first color patent for the TV set.

1929: Edwin Hubble, an American astronomer, proves that the Milky Way is not the only galaxy in the universe.

1929: Albert Einstein announces a new theory relating gravity and electromagnetism.

1929: Graf Zeppelin takes off from New Jersey on around-the-world flight and finishes it successfully in New Jersey.

1930 First diesel engine auto trip is completed from Indianapolis, Indiana to New York City.

1930: 3M markets Scotch Tape.

1930: Pluto is discovered in space.

1930: The then-tallest building, the Empire State Building. is completed.

1930: Frozen food (processed by Clarence Birdseye) hits commercial market for the first time.

1930: Visionary plans submitted for Rockefeller Center, New York.

1930: Edison tests 1st US electric passenger train between Hoboken and Montclair, NJ.

1930: Karl Landsteiner wins Nobel Prize for Medicine for identifying A, B, AB positive, and O blood types.

1931: The rise of the Nazi Party.

1931 General Motors's Frigidaire makes refrigerators safe for household use.

1931 Gangster Al Capone sentenced to 11 years in prison for tax evasion (freed in 1939; dies in 1947).

1931 Thomas Edison submitted his last patent application.

1932: April 14: John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton split the atom's nucleus.

1932 Chemist C.C. King isolates vitamin C.

1933: Marconi announces discovery of microwaves.

1933 Edwin Armstrong devises frequency modulations (FM) that permit radio reception without static.

1934: Hitler becomes Fhrer when chancellorship and presidency are united.

1933 Construction of Golden Gate Bridge begins in San Francisco.

1933 King Kong released.

1933: Nylon first produced by Dr. Wallace H. Carothers, a research chemist at DuPont.

1933: Great Depression: The US begins to enact FDR's New Deal.

1933: Adolph Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany.1934 First Purple Heart awarded for bravery.

1934 Dust Bowl Storm, a strong 2-day massive storm, creates chaos in the Great Plains, in one of the worst storms ever in this region. The storm is to ruin 100 million acres and does damage another 200 million acres of cropland in Kansas, Texas, Colorado, and Oklahoma ("Dust Bowl"). (Aries is arid and dry and rules the desert; Uranus brings unexpected events).

1935 Amelia Earhart becomes the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to California.

Full Link:  http://astrologyzone.com/lifelove/uranus_in_aries/

Idea Log 13062011

Currently reading... and I highly recommend the book and the WATER Exhibit at the ROM (even you can buy the book there!)

"In 1763 a twenty-seven-year-old instrument maker named James Watt repaired a model of a Newcomen steam engine owned by the University of Glasgow. Britain was in the grip of a dire fuel famine resulting from the early deforestation of its country side, and many of the primitive engines invented by Thomas Newcomen a half century earlier were working to pump floodwater from coal mines so that more coal could be excavated as a substitute fuel. While repairing the Newcomen machine, Watt had been startled by its inefficiency. Filled with the spirit of scientific inquiry then going on in the Scottish Enlightenment, he determined to try to improve its capacity to harness steam energy. Within two years he had a much-more-efficient design, and by 1776 was selling the world's first modern steam engine.

James Watt's improved steam engine was a turning point in history. It became the seminal invention of the Industrial Revolution"

(Solomon, Pg.1)

 

Idea Log 07062011

There is a popular belief in Japan that a person's ABO blood type or ketsueki-gata (血液型) is predictive of his or her personality, temperament, and compatibility with others, similar to how astrological signs are used, though blood type plays a much more prominent role in Japanese society than astrology does in the West.

Japanese blood type personality chart

Type A
Best traits	Earnest, creative, sensible, reserved, patient, responsible
Worst traits	Fastidious, overearnest, stubborn, tense
Type B
Best traits	Wild, active, doer, creative, passionate, strong
Worst traits	Selfish, irresponsible, unforgiving, unpredictable
Type AB
Best traits	Cool, controlled, rational, sociable, "split personality"
Worst traits	Critical, indecisive, forgetful, irresponsible
Type O
Best traits	Agreeable, sociable, optimistic
Worst traits	Vain, rude, jealous, arrogant

You can read another person’s personality through their blood type and sibling relations.

>http://globalvoicesonline.org/2007/09/22/korea-blood-type-and-personality/

Blood Type A, the dreaming romantic
Sensitive person. You’re easy to be hurt from even a small matter and you are unnecessarily sensitive. You think in your way, interpret, and misunderstand. But hiding your own thought, you look like a nice person considering others and take care of your surroundings. You like the romantic mood, forget reality, and are indulged in fantastic world. Unexpectedly, you are a stubborn perfectionist…

Blood Type B, enjoyable optimist
Optimist who enjoys life. You can even laugh facing your failure. Having a romantic tendency, you sometimes have thoughts distant from reality. But if you enjoy liberal life way too much, you might make enemies unexpectedly. You should change your easy-to-give-up personality.
You should think over whether you give up way too fast…

Blood Type O, leadership filled with confidence
You have a bright personality and lead others well. Your kind personality doesn’t let you leave people in trouble. You want to make your life dramatic, so people around you might not be so comfortable. Don’t forget there is happiness in ordinary life. You are proud of yourself and don’t like other people’s interruption. You would like to live in your own way, but over-confidence might return to you as a poison. When you fail you will feel in a slump due to your confidence. Take it easy and don’t forget even you might fail.

Blood Type AB, consistency with your patience and concentration.
With your strong patience and concentration, you can do anything. You can back up to let work go smoothly and easily when you are involved with projects with others. Being interested in politics and environment, you are full of intelligence. You make others who don’t know as much as you do look foolish and show an authoritative attitude. Don’t look down on others. Remember you should respect others’ values and the ways they live.

I am type O (haha .. very very true! and shhhhhh.. I want an AB type 남자 친구!)

My Sister is type B... (lol it's PINK!)

Link for more images for all Blood types Comics: http://blazesun.com/funny-comics/blood-type-comics-by-realcrazyman-type-ab-overview/

This post is dedicated to Kim Heechul; my fav AB Blood Type flag bearer! hahahaha.. just yesterday I just thought about looking up these blood type personality traits and instantly thought of him and today his friends had a AB blood type celebrity gathering that was revealed a couple of hrs ago! I must be psychic!! The next image is dedicated to Kim Heechul!

Idea Log 18052011

Water and You: From the Globe to Your Tap

Wednesday, May 18, 7:00 pm
Free

Humans are now changing the water cycle at a global scale, but why should you care and what can you do?  In this presentation, water policy expert Dr. Rob de Loë examines the critical role of water in our lives and explores our relationship with water. He will highlight the challenges and opportunities inherent in this global issue, and give you a toolkit of things you can do to change your relationship with water.

Rob de Loë holds the University Research Chair in Water Policy and Governance at the University of Waterloo, and is Director of the multi-university Water Policy Group.

Wednesday, May 18, 7:00 - 8:00 pm

Status:  Available

 
Distinguished Lecturer Water Series

Instructor(s)/
Speaker(s):
  Rob de Loë holds the University Research Chair in Water Policy and Governance at the University of Waterloo, and is Director of the multi-university Water Policy Group.

 
Location:  Royal Ontario Museum, Level 1B
Signy and Cléophée Eaton Theatre
Entrance:  President's Choice School Entrance  map
Cost:  Free.

 Public (RSVP only): Free Member (RSVP only): Free     

Contact Information: 
Tel.: 416.586.5797
E-mail: [email protected]

Date/Time:  Sessions (1): 
Wednesday May 18, 7:00 to 8:00 pm
 

 

Idea Log 17052011

 
Just purchased my very own yearly membership for the Royal Ontario Museum!!! As I might have mentioned before, I have handed in my resignation and hence, this is my plan B> to spend most of my unemployed moments here!

Idea Log 14052011

"For people to achieve and grow, it's not about the title or the status.

It's about accomplishing things."

- David Cornhill

David Cornhill is a pragmatist with a vision. He has taken small regional player Altagas and turned it into a diversified energy giant. And he has some strong views on where the energy industry needs to go in being a responsible corporate citizen. When he was president and CEO of Alberta and Southern Gas, which supplied much of California with natural gas, the company was wound up. Cornhill had the unpleasant task of laying off 120 people. He took 20 of those corporate refugees and founded Altagas as a midstream gas business in 1994. Since then, the company grew into a diversified income trust before reverting to corporate status last year. Today, it is growing its business into power generation, including massive wind farm and hydroelectric projects in B.C. and gas-fired generation. Cornhill has also worked for Gulf Canada and other energy companies. He shares some of the insights gained from 25 years in the gas and power business.

AV: Bear Mountain is an ambitious wind power project, the biggest in B.C. Why did you get into wind power and what is its commercial potential for Altagas?

Cornhill: We got in the power business in the early 2000s with the acquisition of a purchase-power arrangement in Alberta. Clearly, our strategy from day one was to reduce the carbon intensity and grow our power business. When we looked at the opportunities, clearly wind fit that opportunity and we were looking at Western Canada, which we knew. There wasn’t any great vision other than we wanted to grow our power, we wanted to be responsible and generate clean power, to reduce our carbon intensity. It fit the bill. We looked at various technologies and we felt the technology we were using was reliable on capability. It fit our strategy and we went forward; we looked at how we could reduce risk, how we could work with the people of Dawson Creek and try to build a project that would create value for the community but also create value for our shareholders. When we made the choice for moving into renewables, I guess I stepped back to think what our children and grandchildren think of where we should be going. Clearly, wind power is one part of the equation to generate green power and we believe that the need for electricity will increase in our economy. It seemed to be the right thing to do for the future, for what our children will be thinking of and what they will be looking out for in 25, 30, 40, 50 years from now. It was as simple as that, and then we worked hard to bring it in on time and on budget, minimize the impact on the environment, and I think we did a good job. And that was the big insight.

AV: What is the biggest lesson you have learned as a CEO?

Cornhill: Hiring the right people is critical. And if you make a mistake, it’s dealing with it quickly. I think that talking more, communicating more – and that continues to be challenge for me, as I like to listen more than I like to talk. I always say you can’t learn a lot when you’re talking, but you sure learn a lot when you’re listening. So those are the things: you need people who can help you offset some of your weaknesses and make sure you’re aligned. I think having the confidence to make decisions and move forward and commit to them is probably the biggest learning and I think we’ve done that successfully. We’re not afraid of new challenges and new learnings and to stretch our capabilities and to work hard to make sure we’re reasonably successful.

AV: What would be the single piece of advice you would offer to a rising young executive?

Cornhill: Work and think like you’re the CEO. Make decisions that are right for the shareholders, have confidence in your employees. You need to do the work and understand that. The other is don’t get overcome by the position and the titles and everything around that. If someone’s going to be successful, it’s once you accomplish things, once you create things. For people to achieve and grow, it’s not about the title, it’s not about the status, it’s about accomplishing things; it’s about increasing societal value, not individual value. If you do the right things, your own personal wealth will increase. But if you’re all about driving flashy cars and you’re all about the status, it doesn’t fit with what I want Altagas to be. If that’s what somebody wants, they should be looking at a different company.

AV: Has there ever been a corporate move where you’ve wanted to ask for a mulligan or a do-over?

Cornhill: The decisions I made around people. I’ve often sat in a meeting and wanted to go in a direction and there was active debate. At the end of the meeting, we went in the direction that I wanted to go. Then, on reflection, you realize that you’re wrong. Then you have to go back and change the direction because you were eliminating certain points of view that were really important. Then, with time to reflect on it, and I’ve done a lot of this – I want to go this way but I’m wrong, so we should adjust to take these other things into account. The biggest thing is to be able to listen. You may not immediately say, ‘You’re right.’ But then you go back and reflect on it and you say, ‘Where I wanted to go doesn’t make sense and we should be adjusting it for these reasons.’ You should have the courage to say, ‘Let’s go this way.’ I get mulligans all the time that way.

Any final thoughts?

Cornhill: It’s hard to reflect. When you look back, it’s all about the journey. Just go out and do it. If you think it’s too complicated, you’ll never accomplish things. If you understand the simple fundamental questions and act on them, and then be willing to learn and adjust as you move down that journey, you’ll do quite well.

For the full interview go to: www.albertaventure.com/cornhill

 

Idea Log 05052011

Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was an American inventor, scientist, and businessman who developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. Dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park" (now Edison, New Jersey) by a newspaper reporter, he was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production and large teamwork to the process of invention, and therefore is often credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory.

U.S. Patent#223898: Electric-Lamp. Issued January 27, 1880.

 Edison is the third most prolific inventor in history, holding 1,093 US patents in his name, as well as many patents in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. He is credited with numerous inventions that contributed to mass communication and, in particular, telecommunications. These included a stock ticker, a mechanical vote recorder, a battery for an electric car, electrical power, recorded music and motion pictures. His advanced work in these fields was an outgrowth of his early career as a telegraph operator. Edison originated the concept and implementation of electric-power generation and distribution to homes, businesses, and factories – a crucial development in the modern industrialized world. His first power station was on Manhattan Island, New York.

Life and Beginning of his entrepreneurial spirit: Edison's family was forced to move to Port Huron, Michigan, when the railroad bypassed Milan in 1854, but his life there was bittersweet. He sold candy and newspapers on trains running from Port Huron to Detroit, and he sold vegetables to supplement his income. This began Edison's long streak of entrepreneurial ventures as he discovered his talents as a businessman. These talents eventually led him to found 14 companies, including General Electric, which is still in existence as one of the largest publicly traded companies in the world.

Beginning his career: Thomas Edison began his career as an inventor in Newark, New Jersey, with the automatic repeater and his other improved telegraphic devices, but the invention which first gained him notice was the phonograph in 1877. This accomplishment was so unexpected by the public at large as to appear almost magical. Edison became known as "The Wizard of Menlo Park," New Jersey. His first phonograph recorded on tinfoil around a grooved cylinder, but had poor sound quality and the recordings could only be played a few times. In the 1880s, a redesigned model using wax-coated cardboard cylinders was produced by Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester Bell, and Charles Tainter. This was one reason that Thomas Edison continued work on his own "Perfected Phonograph."

Media inventions

The key to Edison's fortunes was telegraphy. With knowledge gained from years of working as a telegraph operator, he learned the basics of electricity. This allowed him to make his early fortune with the stock ticker, the first electricity-based broadcast system. Edison patented the sound recording and reproducing phonograph in 1878. Edison was also granted a patent for the motion picture camera or "Kinetograph". He did the electromechanical design, while his employee W.K.L. Dickson, a photographer, worked on the photographic and optical development. Much of the credit for the invention belongs to Dickson. In 1891, Thomas Edison built a Kinetoscope, or peep-hole viewer. This device was installed in penny arcades, where people could watch short, simple films. The kinetograph and kinetoscope were both first publicly exhibited May 20, 1891.

On August 9, 1892, Edison received a patent for a two-way telegraph. In April 1896, Thomas Armat's Vitascope, manufactured by the Edison factory and marketed in Edison's name, was used to project motion pictures in public screenings in New York City. Later he exhibited motion pictures with voice soundtrack on cylinder recordings, mechanically synchronized with the film.

Officially the kinetoscope entered Europe when the rich American Businessman Irving T. Bush (1869–1948) bought from the Continental Commerce Company of Franck Z. Maguire and Joseph D. Bachus a dozen machines. Bush placed from October 17, 1894, the first kinetoscopes in London. At the same time the French company Kinétoscope Edison Michel et Alexis Werner bought these machines for the market in France. In the last three months of 1894 The Continental Commerce Company sold hundreds of kinetoscopes in Europe (i.e. the Netherlands and Italy). In Germany and in Austria-Hungary the kinetoscope was introduced by the Deutsche-österreichische-Edison-Kinetoscop Gesellschaft, founded by the Ludwig Stollwerck of the Schokoladen-Süsswarenfabrik Stollwerck & Co of Cologne. The first kinetoscopes arrived in Belgium at the Fairs in early 1895. The Edison's Kinétoscope Français, a Belgian company, was founded in Brussels on January 15, 1895, with the rights to sell the kinetoscopes in Monaco, France and the French colonies. The main investors in this company were Belgian industrialists. On May 14, 1895, the Edison's Kinétoscope Belge was founded in Brussels. The businessman Ladislas-Victor Lewitzki, living in London but active in Belgium and France, took the initiative in starting this business. He had contacts with Leon Gaumont and the American Mutoscope and Biograph Co. In 1898 he also became a shareholder of the Biograph and Mutoscope Company for France.

In 1901, he visited the Sudbury area in Ontario, Canada, as a mining prospector, and is credited with the original discovery of the Falconbridge ore body. His attempts to actually mine the ore body were not successful, however, and he abandoned his mining claim in 1903. A street in Falconbridge, as well as the Edison Building, which served as the head office of Falconbridge Mines, are named for him.

In 1902, agents of Thomas Edison bribed a theater owner in London for a copy of A Trip to the Moon by Georges Méliès. Edison then made hundreds of copies and showed them in New York City. Méliès received no compensation. He was counting on taking the film to the US and recapture its huge cost by showing it throughout the country when he realized it had already been shown there by Edison. This effectively bankrupted Méliès. Other exhibitors similarly routinely copied and exhibited each others films. To better protect the copyrights on his films, Edison deposited prints of them on long strips of photographic paper with the U.S. copyright office. Many of these paper prints survived longer and in better condition than the actual films of that era.

Edison's favorite movie was The Birth of a Nation. He thought that talkies had "spoiled everything" for him. "There isn't any good acting on the screen. They concentrate on the voice now and have forgotten how to act. I can sense it more than you because I am deaf." His favorite stars were Mary Pickford and Clara Bow.

In 1908, Edison started the Motion Picture Patents Company, which was a conglomerate of nine major film studios (commonly known as the Edison Trust). Thomas Edison was the first honorary fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, which was founded in 1929.

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

One of Edison's famous quotations :

"If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward."

 

Idea Log 04052011

Moguls & Movie Stars: A History Of Hollywood (2010)

There are many legends surrounding the history of Hollywood-some of them true, some of them false, and some wilder than you imagined! This Turner Classic Movies documentary series traces the development and growth of the American motion picture industry from the days of Thomas Edison and Edwin S. Porter through the rise of showmen such as Jesse Lansky and Cecil B. DeMille, to the World War II era, the arrival of television, and beyond. <> Widescreen (Enhanced); Soundtrack: English Dolby Digital stereo; Subtitles: English (SDH), French; bonus footage. 7 episodes on 3 discs. 7 hrs.

http://shop.tcm.com/product.asp?sku=D82829

Episode 1: Peepshow Pioneers (1889- 1907)

Audiences were watching projected images as early as the 18th century. But the pictures were drawings, and they didn't move. That would come in the 1880s. The first movie pioneers were self-taught engineers and tinkerers, itinerant entertainers and street-smart showmen. The first film producer was probably the man known as "The Wizard of Menlo Park," Thomas Edison. He perfected a machine that created pictures that moved, although much of the credit belongs to his assistant, W.K.L. Dickson, the industry's first director. From the beginning, American movies were special, but they were influenced by breakthroughs overseas. From France, the brothers Lumiere, owners of a family photography lab, brought scenes of everyday life to the screen, while an ingenious magician, George Melies, created special visual effects that still have the power to amaze. In America, early moviegoers were astonished and amused by almost anything that moved - from vaudeville acts and boxing matches to three-minute gag reels. After a series of odd jobs, ambitious Edwin S. Porter found motion pictures in the early 1890s. While working for Edison, Porter was soon shooting and selling his own. Porter would create one of the first movies with a story, The Great Train Robbery. At the turn of the 19th century, while the movies were being born, America was experiencing a burst of technological ingenuity. The country's social fabric was being transformed by millions of new immigrants. The newcomers arrived with dreams, and many came with the will and imagination to make those dreams come true. The first generation of American movie makers joined with other innovators and entrepreneurs to create a totally new kind of entertainment and an art form that would transform the world. Adolph Zukor, once a successful furrier, joined with Marcus Loew in 1905 to establish a string of "penny arcades." Zukor would eventually found Paramount Pictures, and Loew would create a major theater chain. Carl Laemmle, the future founder of Universal Pictures, was another immigrant entrepreneur who saw promise in making a penny or nickel at a time. The Warner family settled in Youngstown, Ohio. Four brothers - Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack - started their movie careers as itinerant showmen, screening movies from town to town. From Hungary came William Fox, who was raised in poverty but found movies a path to success. Louis B. Mayer was the son of an immigrant junk dealer who, like other founding moguls, began as a theater owner. New York quickly became a business and distribution center, but the first "Hollywood" was in Ft. Lee, N.J. Here, the first great American film director, D.W. Griffith, learned his trade and began to develop the foundations of motion picture storytelling. The popularity of movies was unprecedented, and so was the profit potential. Realizing this, Edison joined a group of investors and equipment manufacturers, including Eastman Kodak, to corner the market. They established the Motion Picture Patents Company and demanded royalties from anyone who made movies. The pressures of the trust forced independents to look elsewhere, to the far-reaches of Los Angeles, with the safety of the Mexican border a short distance away. An unlikely southern California hamlet was about to become the world famous capital of motion pictures.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1759310/episodes

Episode 2: The Birth of Hollywood (1907- 1920)

Episode 3: The Deam Merchants (1920- 1928)

Episode 4: Brother, Can You Spare a Dream? (1929- 1941)

Episode 5: Warriors and Peacemakers (1941-1950)

Episode 6: The Attack of the Small Screen (1950- 1960)

Episode 7: Fade Out, Fade In (1960-1969)

http://www.tcm.com/moguls/index.html#/home

 *I will be making an entry on Thomas Alva Edison tomorrow!!!

 

Idea Log 28042011

Globe and Mail Home » News » Technology

The typewriter’s day is nearly done

JOHN ALLEMANG

Printed on April/27/2011

Who knew that typewriters were still being manufactured? Somehow word processing’s precursor had managed to endure in India for decades after the fickle keyboard crowd moved on. But now the 19th-century machine’s last gasp is that much closer with the announcement that Godrej & Boyce will close its Mumbai plant, which used to produce 50,000 typewriters a year. Defence agencies, courts and government offices were the last customers of the cumbersome device as sales plummeted to less than 1,000 per annum. Now, finally, even the tradition-minded Indian bureaucracy will have to face up to the efficiencies of the modern world.

They linger in dark places

The typewriter has been proclaimed dead for decades, but somehow it manages to linger on – at least in the U.S. prison system, which is now the biggest market for the transparent machines made by Swintec, a New Jersey firm. Authorities like the fact that prisoners can’t hide contraband in the see-through typewriters nor access the temptations of the Internet. David Berkowitz, the notorious Son of Sam killer, is one of the Swintec’s most satisfied customers, typing out two dozen missives a week to friends and acquaintances on his electric keyboard. Swintec also supplies typewriters to funeral homes that have to type up original death certificates and to the New York Police Department, which requires officers to do their two-finger best on carbon-paper documents such as evidence vouchers. If NYPD deskers look askance at your criminal complaint, researchers say, it’s probably because they don’t want to be bothered with the awkward tedium of an antiquated typewriter.

Speed demons

Before he was a renowned literary critic, Northrop Frye found fame as a speed demon on the typewriter. After graduating from high school in Moncton, he studied office skills at the Success Business College and competed in national typing competitions, winning an Underwood expert-typist award in 1929 at the age of 16. But his speed of 63 words per minute paled beside that of the fastest typists, who have reached over 200 wpm. Frye wisely moved on to a more cerebral level of verbal dexterity.

How to succeed in business

Was the typewriter sexist? The debate endures long after the office typewriter went the way of the three-martini lunch, thanks in part to the cult of Mad Men and its steno pools that placed young typists at the ad executives’ beck and call. As early as the 1920s, naughty postcards portrayed the typewriter as a suggestive instigator of boss-secretary shenanigans, and smart girls were advised not to learn typing if they wanted to advance in the work world. But some historians look on the old QWERTY keyboard more kindly: Office work at the typists’ level was better-paid, safer and less physically draining than other kinds of women’s work, while offering greater mobility in urban – and urbane – corporate culture.

The sound of productivity

The silent typewriter? A bad idea. Remington tried one out, and the market said no. People accustomed to the traditional clickety-clack, that reassuring indicator of productivity, found both the soundless machine and its noiseless office equally unconvincing.

Special relationships

Typewriters write the way people talk, said Ernest Hemingway. But Henry James, whose elaborate style couldn’t have been more different from Hemingway’s spare prose, dictated his novels to a female typist. Likewise, Friedrich Nietzsche trained the typewriter to obey his contorted verbiage. Jack Kerouac, a high-energy, 100-words-a-minute typist, was so impatient about his words keeping up with his streaming thoughts that he typed on a single continuous roll of paper. Maybe, as with any writing instrument, it’s each to his own: Paul Auster preciously described his Olympia as “a frail sentient being,” while gonzo journalist Hunter Thompson used to take target practice at his untalkative IBM Selectric. And the deadline-driven sportswriter Red Smith remarked that “there’s nothing to writing – all you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.” Still, would anyone ever say that about a BlackBerry?

No more revealing manuscripts

With the disappearance of the typewriter, says Robert Morrison of Queen’s University, comes the end of the literary manuscript. “When you have a typewritten manuscript, you can keep much better track of the author’s revisions and second thoughts and changes. With the computer, it’s all gone: Hit the Delete key and all your changes disappear into the ether. And what we know from looking at older manuscripts is that very often the crossed-out original is a lot more interesting than the final version.”

Dirty looks

Another reason the typewriter couldn’t last: After 9/11, it’s almost impossible to get it through security without being hassled. “The typewriter’s declining popularity arouses suspicion,” wrote the deliberately old-school author David Sedaris, “and I wind up eliciting the sort of reaction one might expect when travelling with a cannon.”

>> http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/the-typewriters-day-is-nearly-done/article2000014/?service=mobile

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/mags/PopularScience/11-1937/huge_typewriter.jpg

Idea Log 26042011

Reasons for Conducting Social Experiments

The motives for undertaking a social experiment invariably differ from one experiment to the next (for a detailed analysis, see Greenberg, Linksz, and Mandell 2003). We begin with the most cynical motive—that the social experiment is conducted to replace difficult political decisions with symbolic action. This charge, which was leveled against the income maintenance experiments, will always have surface appeal; for many, legislative and administrative actions have greater symbolism than content. Indeed, some groups often gain a political advantage by delaying a decision, and evaluations with any pretension to scientific standards do take time.

Despite the superficial attractiveness of this argument, we believe such a motive can be easily dismissed. A demonstration may serve as a symbol of a policymaker's sympathies, but no political logic requires a rigorous objective assessment of that demonstration. The usual purpose of delaying tactics is to make the issue go away. If that were the goal, an objective evaluation based on random assignment would act like a bomb with a very slow fuse, detonating years later, perhaps with embarrassing consequences for the policymaker's career.

Policymakers seem well aware of this. Egregiously pork barrel or purely symbolic "demonstrations," or transparently political "programs" often seem deliberately designed to make future evaluations of any sort impossible. To the cynics, we suggest that policymakers have many other useful pretexts for delay that present fewer risks.⁵

We turn now to less cynical explanations. First, an experiment may be intended for a specific policy decision. Feldman (1989, 80) has contended that if research were intended to influence a specific policy decision, both the timing of the decision and the alternatives to be considered would have to be known in advance. Otherwise, the research would probably not be available when the decision is made or would not be pertinent to the decision. Indeed, these conditions are seldom met in practice.

A less demanding explanation of why social experiments are initiated is that policymakers plan to use the information gained whenever it becomes available. Therefore, if a social experiment demonstrates convincingly that an idea really works, it will help to generate the political support required to place it on the policy agenda.

A final possibility is that the experiment is intended to create an inventory of information for future policymaking (Feldman 1989, 92-96). The implied intention is for the experiment to contribute to a stock of knowledge, reducing uncertainty should a relevant issue reach the policy agenda.

All but the cynical explanation for social experiments suggest that such demonstrations are intended to generate information relevant to the policy process. Almost without exception, social experiments test the power of particular policies to solve or mitigate serious social problems—long-term welfare receipt; rising health care costs; inadequate or unaffordable shelter for low-income families; long-term unemployment; the clouded future for former offenders, substance addicts, and at-risk youth. Experiments are funded when disagreement over appropriate policy interventions is caused, at least in part, by uncertainty over their potential consequences. If policymakers knew the outcomes, there would be little justification for sponsoring experiments. It is useful to keep this apparently banal idea in mind when considering whether social experiments are ethical and whether they are the best form of research for assessing policy choices.

LINK: http://www.urban.org/pubs/digest/introduction.html

Idea Log 25042011

What is a Social Experiment?

The summaries in this Digest focus on field studies of social programs in which individuals, households, or (in rare instances) firms or organizations were randomly assigned to two or more alternative treatments. The primary research objective of the experiments was to measure the effects, which are often called "impacts," of the alternative treatments on market behavior (such as the receipt of earnings) and corresponding government fiscal outcomes (such as the receipt of transfer benefits). Thus, a social experiment has at least the following features:

• Random assignment: Creation of at least two groups of human subjects who differ from one another by chance alone.
• Policy intervention: A set of actions ensuring that different incentives, opportunities, or constraints confront the members of each of the randomly assigned groups in their daily lives.
• Follow-up data collection: Measurement of market and fiscal outcomes for members of each group.
• Evaluation: Application of statistical inference and informed professional judgment about the degree to which the policy interventions have caused differences in outcomes between the groups.

Random assignment involves neither choice nor discretion. Whereas human subjects may or may not have the right to choose to participate in the experiment, they do not have the right to decide which group within the experiment they will join. Similarly, those administering the policy intervention may restrict eligibility for participation in the experiment, but once a person is admitted, program staff cannot determine the group in which that subject is enrolled, except by using randomization.

Social experiments test policy interventions: They are attempts to influence the endowments of, and the incentives and disincentives facing, human subjects. Thus, in most social experiments, one of the randomly assigned groups, the control group, represents the status quo and is only eligible for benefits and services under the existing policy regime. The remaining group or groups, the treatment group(s), are subjected to the policy innovation or innovations being tested. Comparisons of the control group with the treatment group(s) indicate the impacts of the tested innovations.

Social experiments are designed to determine whether (or how much) the policies being tested would affect the market behavior of individuals (e.g., their employment and earnings; consumption of food, energy, housing, and health care services; receipt of government benefits). Taken together, the second and third features of our definition exclude random-assignment experiments in medicine, psychology, economics, criminology, and education that are not designed to measure changes in subjects' transactions in their daily environment in response to policy innovations. For example, we exclude randomized clinical trials of prescription drugs intended to affect health status; we also exclude randomization of students to competing school curricula intended to improve scores on standardized tests.

Although outcome data may be collected by a variety of means, readers of this volume's summaries will notice that over time social experimenters have relied increasingly on administrative data rather than surveys. Once collected, outcomes among the groups of randomly assigned individuals are compared. Outcome differences between the groups provide estimates of the impacts of the tested policy interventions. However, the data do not speak for themselves. Analysts must decide what data transformations are appropriate; what, if any, nonexperimental factors should be considered; what statistical techniques to use; and what results do and do not make sense.

LINK: http://www.urban.org/pubs/digest/introduction.html

Idea Log 15042011

In the Phillippines, there is a geographic anomaly I want to draw your attention to: a volcanic island in a lake that's on a volcanic island in a lake that's on an island. Can you picture that? Vulcan Point is an island in a Crater Lake, and Crater Lake is in Lake Taal, and Lake Taal is on the Island of Luzon. (extracted from Apr/14/2011 Scorpio horoscope from www.freewillastrology.com)

  

Taal Lake is a freshwater lake in the province of Batangas, on the island of Luzon, Philippines. The lake is situated within a caldera formed by very large eruptions between 500,000 and 100,000 years ago. The active Taal Volcano, which is the one responsible for the lake's sulfuric content, lies on an island in the center of the lake, called Volcano Island. That crater lake is the world's largest lake on an island in a lake on an island. The small island on the far side of the lake is called Vulcan Point.

 

 

THIS IS PROBABLY ONE OF MY FAVOURITE FINDS!!

Idea Log 12042011

Vertical Farming a concept I just came across as I watch a documentary called "The Future of Food" on TVO.

Vertical farming is a concept that argues that it is economically and environmentally viable to cultivate plant or animal life within skyscrapers.

This generally falls within two categories:

1) The first is that of Dr. Dickson Despommier, an American ecologist. Despommier argues that 'vertical farming' is legitimate due to environmental reasons. He purports that the cultivation of plant and animal life within skyscrapers will produce less embedded energy and toxicity than plant and animal life produced on natural landscapes. He claims that natural landscapes are too toxic for natural, agricultural production. This is despite the ecological and evironmental costs of extracting materials to build skyscrapers for the simple purpose of agricultural production. Vertical farming according to Despommier thus discounts the value of natural landscape in exchange for the idea of 'skyscraper as spaceship'. Plant and animal life are mass produced within hermetically sealed, artificial environments that have little to do with the outside world. In this sense, they could be built anywhere regardless of the context. This is not advantageous to energy consumption as the internal environment must be maintained to sustain life within the skyscraper.

Dickson Despommier's 'The Vertical Farm', promotes the mass cultivation of plant and animal life for commercial purposes in Skyscrapers. This concept emerged in 1999 at Columbia University by American ecologist Dickson Despommier. Using advanced greenhouse technology such as hydroponics and aeroponics, these Skyscrapers could theoretically produce fish, poultry, fruit and vegetables. While the concept of stacked agricultural production is not new, a commercial high-rise farm such as 'The Vertical Farm' has never been built.

Proponents argue that, by allowing traditional outdoor farms to revert to a natural state and reducing the energy costs needed to transport foods to consumers, vertical farms could significantly alleviate climate change produced by excess atmospheric carbon. Critics have noted that the costs of the additional energy needed for artificial lighting, heating and other vertical farming operations would outweigh the benefit of the building’s close proximity to the areas of consumption.

2) The second category of vertical farming falls under the concepts proposed and built by the architect Ken Yeang developed at least ten years before Despommier. Yeang proposes that instead of hermetically sealed mass produced agriculture that plant life should be cultivated within open air, mixed-use skyscrapers for climate control and consumption (i.e. a personal or communal planting space as per the needs of the individual). This version of vertical farming is based upon personal or community use rather than the wholesale production and distribution plant and animal life that aspires to feed an entire city. It thus requires less of an initial investment than Despommier's 'The Vertical Farm'. However, neither Despommier nor Yeang are the conceptual 'originators', as seen in the following section.

Architectural precedence and Background

One of the earliest drawings of a tall building that cultivates food for the purposes of consumption was published as early as Life Magazine 1909. The reproduced drawings feature vertically stacked homesteads set amidst a farming landscape. This proposal can be seen in Rem Koolhaas's Delirious New York. Koolhaas wrote that this 1909 theorem is

“

'The Skyscraper as Utopian device for the production of unlimited numbers of virgin sites on a metropolitan location' (1994, 82).

”

Other architectural proposals that provide the seeds for the Vertical Farm project include Le Corbusier’s Immeubles-Villas (1922) and SITE’s Highrise of homes (1972). SITE’s Highrise of homes, is a near revival of the 1909 Life Magazine Theorem.

Contemporary precursors that have been published, or built, are Ken Yeang’s Bioclimatic Skyscraper (Menara Mesiniaga, built 1992); MVRDV’s PigCity, 2000; MVRDV's Meta City/ Datatown (1998–2000); Pich-Aguilera’s Garden Towers (2001).

Ken Yeang is perhaps the most widely known architects that has promoted the idea of the 'mixed-use' Bioclimatic Skyscraper which combines living units and opportunities for food production.

The latest version of this very idea is Dickson Despommier's 'The Vertical Farm'.

Dickson Despommier, a professor of environmental health sciences and microbiology at Columbia University in New York City, developed the idea of vertical farming in 1999 with graduate students in a medical ecology class.

Despommier had originally challenged his class to feed the population of Manhattan (About 2,000,000 people) using 13 acres (5.3 ha) of usable rooftop gardens. The class calculated that, by using rooftop gardening methods, only 2 percent would be fed. Unsatisfied with the results, Despommier made an off-the-cuff suggestion of growing plants indoors, vertically. The idea sparked the students' interests and gained major momentum. By 2001 the first outline of a vertical farm was introduced and today scientists, architects, and investors worldwide are working together to make the concept of vertical farming a reality. In an interview with Miller-McCune.com, Despommier described how vertical farms would function:

“

"Each floor will have its own watering and nutrient monitoring systems. There will be sensors for every single plant that tracks how much and what kinds of nutrients the plant has absorbed. You'll even have systems to monitor plant diseases by employing DNA chip technologies that detect the presence of plant pathogens by simply sampling the air and using snippets from various viral and bacterial infections. It's very easy to do. Moreover, a gas chromatograph will tell us when to pick the plant by analyzing which flavenoids the produce contains. These flavenoids are what gives the food the flavors you're so fond of, particularly for more aromatic produce like tomatoes and peppers. These are all right-off-the-shelf technologies. The ability to construct a vertical farm exists now. We don't have to make anything new.

”

Architectural designs have been produced by Chris Jacobs, Andrew Kranis at Columbia University and Gordon Graff at the University of Waterloo.

Mass media attention began with an article written in New York magazine. Since 2007, articles have appeared in The New York Times, U.S. News & World Report, Popular Science, Scientific American  and Maxim (magazine), among others, as well as radio and television features.

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

Idea Log 06042011

Economics - Definition

Economics is the social science studying production and consumption through measurable variables. It involves analysing the production, distribution, trade and consumption of goods and services.

Economics is said to be positive when it attempts to explain the consequences of different choices given a set of assumptions and normative when it prescribes that a certain action should be taken.

The subject is broadly divided into two main branches: microeconomics, which deals with individual agents, such as households and businesses, and macroeconomics, which considers the economy as a whole (including inflation, unemployment, industrial production, and the role of government). Aspects receiving particular attention in economics are resource allocation, production, distribution, trade, and competition. Economics may in principle be, and increasingly is, applied to any problem that involves choice under scarcity or determining economic value.

Areas of study in economics

Economics is usually divided into two main branches:

• Microeconomics, which examines the economic behaviour of individual actors such as businesses, households, and individuals, with a view to understand decision making in the face of scarcity and the allocation consequences of these decisions.
• Macroeconomics, which examines an economy as a whole with a view to understanding the interaction between economic aggregates such as national income, employment and inflation. Note that this is different from general equilibrium theory, which deals with aggregate problems from a strictly constructed microeconomic viewpoint.

Economics can also be divided into numerous subdisciplines that do not always fit neatly into the macro-micro categorization. These subdisciplines include: international economics, labour economics, welfare economics, neuroeconomics, information economics, resource economics, environmental economics, managerial economics, financial economics, urban economics, development economics, and economic geography.

 http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Economics

 

Idea Log 04042011

Preference - Definition

Preference (or "taste") is a concept, used in the social sciences, particularly economics. It assumes a real or imagined choice between alternatives and the possibility of rank ordering of these alternatives. More generally, it can be seen as a source of motivation.

For example, happiness is generally preferred to suffering, sadness, or grief. Also, more consumption of a normal good is generally (but not always) assumed to be preferred to less consumption.

Motivation - Definition

In psychology, motivation is the driving force (desire) behind all actions of an organism.

Motivation is based on emotions, specifically, on the search for positive emotional experiences and the avoidance of negative ones, where positive and negative are defined by the individual brain state, not by social norms: a person may be driven to self-injury or violence because their brain is conditioned to create a positive response to these actions.

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Preference

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Motivation

Idea Log 31032011

Water Works Thursday, 31 March 2011

I have long admired the work of eminent Japanese scientist, Masaru Emoto. He maintains that water has a memory, a sensitivity, even a 'consciousness'. These are far fetched concepts to some. But to me, as an astrologer, they make much sense. Doctor Emoto says "During over twenty years of research of water crystal photographic technology, I have witnessed that water can turn positive when it receives pure vibration no matter how far away it is sent from." At noon today Dr Emoto would like you to join him in a prayer to the water, now being used to cool the reactors at Fukushima. He believes it could make a difference. So do I. P.S. The email in which I received this information suggested Noon local time (wherever you are). Which means Dr Emoto doesn't feel it must be a 'simultaneous worldwide transmission in order to have potency'. So if you forget at Noon, do it when you remember. Or just do it now!

Taken from www.cainer.com

Idea Log 20032011

The largest full moon in more than 18 years – a so-called "supermoon" – did not disappoint eager skywatchers around the world Saturday when it rose, big and bright, into Earth's night sky.

The full moon of March was 221,565 miles (356,575 kilometers) on Saturday, March 19 just 50 minutes after it hit its full phase, making it the biggest and brightest full moon since 1993. The "supermoon" phenomenon occurred because the moon was in its full phase and just 50 minutes past perigee – the point of its orbit that brings it closer to Earth

 

Above: Over the Village of Brill in the UK

Below: March19/ 10:12pm > Iwent to work this morning at 4am but it was too cloudy but took this picture tonight and the moon looked so beautiful. Not exactly the Supermoon from my window but it was sure bright enough to light my apartment.

 

Idea Log 19032011

Watched it, Loved it and Highly recommend it!

The Story of India is a BBC TV documentary series, written and presented by historian Michael Wood, about the 10,000-year history of the Indian subcontinent in six episodes.

As in most of his documentaries, Wood explains historical events by travelling to the places where they took place, examining archeological and historical evidence at first hand and interviewing historians and archaeologists, as well as chatting with local people.

Episode 1 - "Beginnings"

Michael Wood travels throughout the subcontinent, tracing the richness and diversity of its peoples, cultures and landscapes. Through ancient manuscripts and oral tales Wood charts the first human migrations out of Africa. He travels from the tropical backwaters of South India through lost ancient cities in Pakistan to the vibrant landscapes of the Ganges plain. Archaeological discoveries in the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex in Turkmenistan by Soviet archeologist Viktor Sarianidi, including horse drawn carts (mentioned in the Rig Veda), cast new light on India’s past. Wood also attempts to re-create soma, an ancient drink recorded in the Rig Veda.

Episode 2 - "The Power of Ideas" <my favourite episode>

The second episode in Michael Wood’s series moves on to the revolutionary years after 500BC - the Age of the Buddha and Mahavira. Travelling by rail to the ancient cities of the Ganges plain, by army convoy through Northern Iraq, and down Pakistan's Khyber Pass, he shows how Alexander the Great’s invasion of India inspired her first major empire in the form of the Maurya kingdom.

 

Episode 3 - "Spice Routes and Silk Roads"

In this episode he traces India in the days of the Roman Empire; the Greco-Roman navigator Hippalu discovered monsoons for the Romans. In Kerala the spice trade opened India to the world, whilst gold and silk bazaars in the ancient city of Madurai were a delight for visiting Greek traders. From the deserts of Turkmenistan Michael travels down the Khyber Pass to Pakistan to discover a forgotten empire, the (Kushan Empire) of Northern India that opened up the Silk Route and at Peshawar built a lost Wonder of the World. The Wonder is nowadays known to people as the "Bare Raja Ka Tila". Also offers an interesting theory about the death of Emperor Kanishka at Mathura.

Episode 4 - "Ages of Gold"

The achievements of the country’s golden age, including how India discovered zero, calculated the circumference of the Earth and wrote the world’s first sex guide, the Kama Sutra. In the south, the giant temple of Tanjore built by emperor Rajaraja Chola and traditional bronze casters, working as their ancestors did 1,000 years ago are shown. Michael Wood calls Tamil Nadu, "The only surviving 'Classical Civilization' in the world.

In an interview to The Hindu Michael Wood said "One that’s 2,000 years old like ancient Greece or Rome. Tamil is the last living classical Indian language. The first surviving work in Tamil, a 300 B.C book on linguistics, refers to an already existing culture. Tamil is older than any modern European language. I wanted to remind Western-centric audiences, who implicitly assume the superiority of Western modes of thought, that Tamil is one of 23 official Indian languages, with a literature comparable to any in the West. It makes viewers sit up and question their assumptions".

Episode 5 - "The Meeting of Two Oceans"

The documentary series about the history of India charts the coming of Islam to the subcontinent and one of the greatest ages of world civilisation: the Mughals. Mahmud of Ghazni leads an expedition to Somnath and destroys the temple of Shiva and all idols there. Michael Wood visits Sufi shrines in Old Delhi, desert fortresses in Rajasthan and the cities of Lahore and Agra, where he offers a new theory on the design of the Taj Mahal. He also looks at the life of Akbar, a Muslim emperor who decreed that no one religion could hold the ultimate truth, but whose dream of unity ended in civil war.

Episode 6 - "Freedom and Liberation"

This episode examines the British Raj and India’s struggle for freedom. Wood reveals how in South India a global corporation came to control much of the subcontinent, and explores the magical culture of Lucknow, discovering the enigmatic Briton who helped found the freedom movement. He traces the Amritsar massacre, the rise of Gandhi and Nehru, and the events that led to the Partition of India in 1947.

 

 

Idea Log 11032011

Magnitude 8.9 - NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN

2011 March 11 05:46:23 UTC

Earthquake Details

• This is a computer-generated message -- this event has not yet been reviewed by a seismologist.

Magnitude	8.9
Date-Time	Friday, March 11, 2011 at 05:46:23 UTC Friday, March 11, 2011 at 02:46:23 PM at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location	38.322°N, 142.369°E
Depth	24.4 km (15.2 miles) set by location program
Region	NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
Distances	130 km (80 miles) E of Sendai, Honshu, Japan 178 km (110 miles) E of Yamagata, Honshu, Japan 178 km (110 miles) ENE of Fukushima, Honshu, Japan 373 km (231 miles) NE of TOKYO, Japan
Location Uncertainty	horizontal +/- 13.5 km (8.4 miles); depth fixed by location program
Parameters	NST=350, Nph=351, Dmin=416.3 km, Rmss=1.46 sec, Gp= 29°, M-type="moment" magnitude from initial P wave (tsuboi method) (Mi/Mwp), Version=A
Source	USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Event ID	usc0001xgp

 

Earthquake Summary

Earthquake Summary Poster

Tectonic Summary

The 03/11/2011 earthquake (preliminary magnitude 8.9) near the east coast of Honshu, Japan, occurred as a result of thrust faulting on or near the subduction zone interface plate boundary between the Pacific and North America plates. At the latitude of this earthquake, the Pacific plate moves approximately westwards with respect to the North America plate at a velocity of 83 mm/yr. The Pacific plate thrusts underneath Japan at the Japan Trench, and dips to the west beneath Eurasia. The location, depth, and focal mechanism of the March 11 earthquake are consistent with the event having occurred as thrust faulting associated with subduction along this plate boundary. Note that some authors divide this region into several microplates that together define the relative motions between the larger Pacific, North America and Eurasia plates; these include the Okhotsk and Amur microplates that are respectively part of North America and Eurasia.

The March 11 earthquake was preceded by a series of large foreshocks over the previous two days, beginning on March 9th with an M 7.2 event approximately 40 km from the March 11 earthquake, and continuing with a further 3 earthquakes greater than M 6 on the same day.

The Japan Trench subduction zone has hosted 9 events of magnitude 7 or greater since 1973. The largest of these was an M 7.8 earthquake approximately 260 km to the north of the March 11 event, in December 1994, which caused 3 fatalities and almost 700 injuries. In June of 1978, an M 7.7 earthquake 35 km to the southwest caused 22 fatalities and over 400 injuries.

Seismologist Bernd Weber of Germany's Geoscientific Research Institute GFZ in Potsdam poses for the media as he points on a graph with the magnitude of the earthquake in Japan on a monitor in Potsdam, March 11, 2011. The biggest earthquake to hit Japan on record struck the northeast coast on Friday, triggering a 10-metre tsunami that swept away everything in its path, including houses, ships, cars and farm buildings on fire.

Idea Log 10032011

HAPPY 72nd BIRTHDAY

"SHIZUKI ELECTRIC WORKS  Co. Ltd."

Corporate Profile

Corporate Data

Trade Name	Shizuki Electric Co., Inc.
Head Office	10-45, Taisha-cho, Nishinomiya, Hyogo 662-0867, Japan Tel : +81-798-74-5821
Website	http://www.shizuki.co.jp
Founded	March 10, 1939
Established	September 1, 1947
Paid-in Capital	\5,001,745,595 (As of April 1, 2006)
Employees of Group	1144 (As of April 1, 2006)
Main Business Lines	Capacitors and related equipment and facilities Electrical machinery and equipment Manufacture and sale of information equipment
Office Network:	- Corporate Headquarters : Nishinomiya - Branches : Tokyo, Kansai& Chubu - Sales Offices : Sapporo, Sendai, Hitachi, Hiroshima & Fukuoka - Representative Offices: Malaysia & South Korea
Shizuki Group:	- Kyushu Shizuki Co., Inc. - Akita Shizuki Co., Inc. - Okayama Shizuki Co., Inc. - Shizuki Techno Service Co., Inc. - American Shizuki Co., Inc. - Shizuki Electric (Shanghai) Trading Co., Inc.

History of Shizuki

 

Mar. 1939	Founded as Shizuki Works in Somedono-cho, Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture.
Sep. 1947	Incorporated as Shizuki Electric Co., Inc.
May 1960	Moved to new Head Office and Plant completed at present location in Taisha-cho, Nishinomiya.
Oct. 1961	Listed on the second section of the Osaka Securities Exchange.
May 1963	Listed on the second section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Nov. 1963	Okayama Shizuki Co., Inc. established (now a consolidated subsidiary).
Apr. 1968	Akita Shizuki Co., Inc. established (now a consolidated subsidiary).
Dec. 1969	Kyusyu Shizuki, Co., Inc. established (now a consolidated subsidiary).
July 1973	American Shizuki Corporation established (now a consolidated subsidiary) and begins marketing in the US.
Nov. 1985	Signed licensee agreement with Oriental Electric Industry in Thailand on L/V power Capacitors.
Nov. 1986	With acquisition of the capacitors business from TRW, American Shizuki Corporation starts manufacturing and marketing in the US.
Jun. 1988	Developed all film H/V power capacitors.
Jun. 1990	Developed active filters to solve harmonics.
Mar. 1998	Certified to comply with ISO9001.
Oct. 1999	Developed double layer capacitors,”FARADCAP”.
Dec. 2001	Certified to comply with ISO14000.

Greetings from President & CEO

Shizuki Electric Group is striving in this new era, committed to be company with beneficial presence and high aspirations.

Shizuki Electric has been constantly achieving customer satisfaction with our no waste product manufacturing, and with respect for human nature as well as the environment. The Company has also been providing products based on our policy of contributing to society through business activity and development. As a manufacture with beneficial presence, we are continuously innovating product development for this new era by addressing the requirements of environmental protection and energy saving. Shizuki Electric provides and supplies new products for capacitor components, module integrated components, electrical instrument devices, as well as for IT applications. To meet these challenges, we would like your support now and into the future to help us achieve these goals and benefits for society.

 

Idea Log 09032011

Interview

Study helps unlock key to long life

Reporter: Nancy J. White

Who tends to live longer:

The happy-go-lucky type or the plodding worrier?

The slacker or the workaholic?

The never-married female or the divorced male?

A study of 1,500 people over the course of eight decades found that some of our common notions about longevity are dead wrong.

The key factor leading to a long life? Not cheerfulness, not marriage. It’s conscientiousness.

“This is the first study to ever follow people over such a long time period and gather this type of data,” says research psychologist Leslie Martin, co-author of the new book The Longevity Project.

In 1921, Stanford University psychologist Lewis Terman began studying a sample of 1,500 bright boys and girls, most born around 1910, to discover what traits — social, psychological and physical — are sources of leadership. On his death in 1956, researchers continued collecting information about the now middle-aged participants.

Terman’s bright boys and girls grew up to lead diverse lives — as businesspeople, lawyers, engineers, housewives, clerks, policemen and technicians. A few gained some fame: Shelley Smith Mydans was a reporter for Life covering World War II in Asia, where she was captured and spent months in a prisoner-of-war camp; Jess Oppenheimer helped create the I Love Lucy show.

In 1990, psychologist Howard Friedman, co-author of The Longevity Project, began collecting data on the surviving participants, now elderly men and women, to analyze the lifespan factors they shared.

Martin, a psychology professor at La Sierra University in Riverside, Calif., spoke to the Star recently about the traits that promote a long life. Here is an edited version of the conversation:

So who lives the longest?

A number of factors predict a long life, but one of the most consistent findings is that people who are conscientious lived a long time. Another characteristic is social connectedness, particularly if it involved helping others. We also found that individuals who worked hard tended to live long lives. And we found that worry is not the risk that people think.

Conscientiousness is the top predictor. How so?

A conscientious person is responsible and organized and not very full of ego. They’re pragmatic and they think ahead. It makes sense that these qualities would be related to a long life. Because they think ahead, they are less likely to encounter as many stressors. They tended to wind up in more stable marriages. They gravitated to stable careers that they found fulfilling. All these dimensions are pathways that can lead to a long life. The highly conscientious were more likely to be moderate drinkers or abstainers and were less likely to smoke.

What if you weren’t conscientious as a child but became more so as an adult?

We divided the data into categories: stably conscientious, stably not so and those who switch, becoming more conscientious over time or becoming less so. The stably conscientious lived the longest and the always not conscientious fared the worst. Those who took steps to be more so in early adulthood improved their life expectancy and those who became less so had greater risk of a shorter life.

What finding surprised you the most?

The difference for men versus women who divorced and remarried. Divorce is harmful to anyone. But men who remarried diminished their risk quite a bit. For women, remarrying didn’t help. Many of them had similar outcomes to those who stayed single after divorce. For both men and women, being steadily single was almost as good as being steadily married.

What common beliefs about living a long happy life are wrong?

You commonly hear, “You’re working yourself to death. Take it easy.” That’s wrong. Those who worked the hardest tended to live the longest.

And contrary to what most people think, the most happy-go-lucky, cheerful people had the greater risk of dying earlier.

How do you explain that?

That was one of the most surprising and hardest to explain. We looked at other studies to reconcile our findings. If you are faced with a crisis, being cheerfully optimistic is a good thing, enabling you to engage the problem and recover. But as a life approach, where decisions are shaded by unrealistic optimism, it leads people to take more risks and make potentially problematic choices. In our study, the most cheerful kids grew up to smoke and drink more and have riskier hobbies.

The participants in your study were all smart and nearly all white and middle class. They were born and grew up long ago. How relevant are the findings to people today?

When we look at personality characteristics, the participants are not so different from people in a developed country today. These were all smart kids but they ran the gamut of educational and career success. Personality characteristics don’t vary according to IQ. It would have been great if the sample had more ethnic diversity, but we fortunately had almost half girls. Nobody looked at girls in the 1920s. When we look at other studies with a more diverse sample — none go back 80 years — we see our findings are confirmed.

Maybe the ones who lived longer just had better genes.

We didn’t have genetic data for our sample but because we have the full-spectrum of a life span, we are able to look at all these other factors. Certainly genetics plays a role but these other characteristics also play a very big role.

What about exercise? Do nerds live as long as jocks?

Yes, they do. People who were active early in life often feel they’ve built up a bank of activeness that will protect them. We found that’s not the case. Being active in mid-life and later was important regardless of what you did early on.

The other important thing, if you don’t like going to the gym or jogging, we recommend you don’t do it. These participants tended not to jog or have formal exercise regimens. We found that the people who stayed active were doing the things they liked, maybe playing tennis, gardening, skiing, woodworking, and they were more likely to be consistent.

You say that being sociable doesn’t necessarily help you live longer, but social connectedness does. That’s confusing.

Envision a social butterfly with lots of casual friends. A sociable person doesn’t necessarily have the kind of deeper, emotional connections that are protective.

After doing this research, how have you changed your life?

I’m a workaholic and it used to bother me that I wasn’t doing myself any favours. I would hear that from my parents. Now I don’t worry about it. I‘ve always valued my friends, but now I value them even more, recognizing how vital they are to my own well-being, not just my happiness but perhaps my life span.

Idea Log 06032011

The BBC is bringing us The Genius of Design — a new five-part documentary series exploring the broader history of design, from the Industrial Revolution through the Bauhaus of the 1920′s, the swinging 60′s, the fetishism of the 80′s, to today.

Though a “design documentary,” the series touches a diverse cross-section of disciplines, from art history to architecture to cultural anthropology.

 

Part 1: Ghosts in the Machine

The first episode of this new series tells the fascinating story of the birth of industrial design. Alongside the celebrated names, from Wedgwood to William Morris, it also explores the work of the anonymous designers responsible for prosaic but classic designs for cast-iron cooking pots to sheep shears - harbingers of a breed of industrially produced objects culminating in the Model T Ford. Includes interviews with legendary designer Dieter Rams and J Mays, Ford Motors' global head of design.

Part 2: Designs for Living

In the crisis-stricken decades of the 1920s and 1930s, with the world at the tipping point between two global wars, design suggested dramatically different ideas about the shape of things to come, from the radical futurism of the Bauhaus to the British love affair with mock-Tudor architecture and the three-piece suite.

In Europe, the 'modern movement' promoted the virtues of the machine and the machine-made with theories and products like open-plan living, the fitted kitchen and tubular steel furniture which have become absorbed into the mainstream of the designed world. In the USA, designers like Raymond Loewy and Henry Dreyfuss explored and exploited the dreams and desires of American consumers to develop a market-based approach to design which has become one of the bedrocks of the modern consumer society. Featuring Niels Diffrient and Tom Dyckhoff.

Part 3: Blueprints for War

The Genius of Design examines the Second World War through the prism of the rival war machines designed and built in Germany, Britain, the USSR and the USA, with each casting a fascinating sidelight on the ideological priorities of the nations and regimes which produced them.

From the desperate improvisation of the Sten gun, turned out in huge numbers by British toy-makers, to the deadly elegance of the all-wood Mosquito fighter-bomber, described as 'the finest piece of furniture ever made', the stories behind these products reveal how definitions of good design shift dramatically when national survival is at stake. Featuring desert war veteran Peter Gudgin and designer Michael Graves.

Part 4: Better Living Through Chemistry

The story of design enters the 50s and 60s, when a revolutionary new material called plastic combined with the miracles of electronic miniaturisation to allow designers to offer post-war consumers something new: liberation.

Designer Verner Panton pursued the seemingly impossible dream of a chair made from a seamless piece of plastic while Joe Colombo proposed the Austin Powers-style 'cabriolet bed', complete with built-in cigarette lighter and stereo. Meanwhile in Japan, designers at Sony were shrinking radios from pocket-size to palm-size, paving the way for the ultimate in portable lifestyle-the Walkman. But the optimism of the era came to an abrupt end when concerns about the environmental impact of plastic came to the fore.

Featuring Sony master designer Teiyu Goto, Alberto Alessi and Stephen Bayley.

Part 5: Objects of Desire

Picking up the story of design from the drab days of the late 70s, the final episode tracks the explosion of wild creativity that defined the 'designer decades' of the 80s and early 90s. By addressing wants rather than needs and allying themselves to the blatant consumerism of 'retail culture' designers emerged from the backrooms to claim a starring role in the shaping of modern life.

Designers also played a decisive role in making the world-changing power of computer and digital technology available to the masses through the design of keyboards, the mouse and the 'desktop'. And now, with concerns growing daily about our insatiable appetite for 'stuff', designers are also offering new ideas about sustainable consumption for the future.

Featuring Philippe Starck, Marc Newson, Jonathan Ive and Stephen Fry.

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00snmqy

I just watched it two days ago on PBS (?) Everything that is me!

Idea Log 23022011

Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba; in Chinese and Japanese 銀杏, pinyin romanization: yín xìng, Hepburn romanization: ichō or ginnan), also spelled gingko and known as the Maidenhair Tree, is a unique species of tree with no close living relatives. The tree is widely cultivated and introduced, since an early period in human history, and has various uses as a food and traditional medicine.

*The ginkgo leaf is the symbol of the Urasenke school of Japanese tea ceremony. The tree is the national tree of China.

Ginko Trees — A link to the Past and Good Trees for the Present: http://www.treesforyou.org/Selection/Articles/gingko_trees.htm Marianne C. Ophardt Washington State University Cooperative Extension Area Extension Agent   There’s a lovely row of old gingko trees in the parking lot at the WSU Research and Extension Center in Prosser,WA.  They were planted there many years ago and have grown into very nice specimens.   However, it wasn’t long ago that some employees wanted to have the trees cut down.  The problem was that several of these gingko trees have turned out to be female fruit producing trees.  The awful smell of the over-ripe fruit is what caused some to want the trees’ removed.  This is truly a nose-pinching smell akin to dog manure or worse. Pee-yuu!  Although the smelly fruit do present a distinctly unpleasant problem, those at the center who wanted to keep these old gingko trees prevailed... and the trees have remained unscathed.  I’m glad.  Ginkgos are a living link to the prehistoric past... having originated over two hundred million years ago.  Once common in North America and Europe, the ginkgos were wiped out during the ice age and disappeared from North America seven million years ago and from Europe three million years ago.  Ginkgos were thought to be extinct until 1691 when a German physician and botanist, Engelbert Kaempfer, found gingkos growing in Japan. Kaempfer may have found the “lost” tree, but it was Buddhist monks who most likely saved this living fossil from extinction.  From about 1100 AD, Buddhist monks in the mountains of south-east China cultivated gingko trees in the courtyards of their monasteries.  The gingko trees were valued for their medicinal uses, edible seeds, and perhaps their beauty.  In about 800 AD, the monks brought the gingko with them to Japan where many years later Kaempfer found it. Kaempfer was in Japan for two years (1690-1692) on a mission for the East‑India Company. When he wrote about his discovery in 1712 he called gingko trees "Amoenitatum exoticarum". At some point he brought gingko seeds to Holland.  It’s believed that one of the first gingkos to be “replanted” in Europe was at the Botanical Garden in Utrecht ... where it’s still growing today.  In 1754, a gingko was planted at Gordon, the English botanical school, and in1762 at Kew Botanical Gardens. From England, Holland, and Japan the gingko was gradually reintroduced to Europe and North America.  In 1784 a gingko was planted in William Hamilton’s garden in Philadelphia.  It then took about a hundred years for the ginkgo to become a popular street tree in east coast cities.  It was made more popular when famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright picked it as his favorite tree.  It’s now found in landscapes and cities across our country. Not only is the tree’s “lost and found” history quite interesting, it’s an extraordinary tree in other ways too.  Botanists relish the gingko.  What particularly excites botanists is that the gingko has sperm that have flagellae, making them mobile.  Among living seed plants the trait of flagellate sperm is only shared with cycads.  These swimming sperm are found inside the gingko pollen grains.  Gingko trees are dioecious with separate male and female trees.  The pollen is moved from male to female trees by the wind.  The female tree is pollinated in the spring when a pollen grain lands on one of its ovules.  However, actual fertilization of the ovule by the sperm doesn’t happen until the fruit matures, drops from the tree, and the stinky, fleshy seed coat rots away.  Gingko bilobas are the only living members of the Gingko family which once consisted of at least 18 members.  All these other family member were lost millions of years ago. Gingkos are felt to be the link between ferns and flowering seed bearing plants.   Unlike many other plants that have evolved in nature, the gingko has remained basically unchanged, probably thanks to the long cultivation by Buddhist monks.  Fossilized leaf material from270 million years ago is very much like the Ginkgo biloba of today.  That’s why Darwin called it a “living fossil”.  Botanists consider it a living wonder because it could be the oldest living seed plant in the world. Ginkgos are favored as a landscape and urban tree.  It’s a tough and durable tree with few insect pest or disease problems.  It’s also very resistant to pollution. It’s a hardy tree that does best in climates with wet winter weather and hot summers.  It does quite well in our region. The trees in Prosser are an example of their suitability for this area. The tree itself is not especially pretty when young, but it does have an interesting growth pattern. As a young tree, it’s pyramidal in shape with a strong central leader.  Branches along this main trunk are regular, ascending, and asymmetrical.  The interesting growth of the gingko is due to its branching pattern.  The tree develops a combination of long and short branches that grow at right angles to the trunk and larger branches.  Its irregular growth pattern is attributed to the tips of larger branches sometimes becoming slower growing, shorter type of branches and the shorter side shoots changing to the faster growing, larger branches.  The gingko’s unique bright-green leaves are produced alternately along longer branches and clustered at the tips of shorter side shoots. They’re two-lobed (“biloba”), fan-shaped, leathery, and smooth.  The veins fan out from the base of the leaf and aren’t cross-connected by smaller veins.  In the fall, the leaves turn a bright golden yellow and all drop off almost overnight with the first sign of cold weather.                           The tree eventually grows to a height of 50 to 90 feet tall and 30 to 40 feet wide with a thick trunk, 13 to 30 feet in diameter.  Male trees generally have more of a columnar form, where females will have a somewhat wider crown.  As the trees age, they develop a wonderful grey bark with deep furrows. Gingkos are a very durable tree.  Proof of that durability was found in Japan in 1945 after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.  Human life was lost, buildings were obliterated, and plants were scorched and killed... except some gingkos survived.  Several gingko trees around the epicenter of the blast on a temple-site survived and resprouted without any visible genetic deformation.  Amazingly, two of these surviving trees still grow in Hiroshima today and are considered “bearers of hope”. Remember that stinky fruit I mentioned earlier?  They look like yellow cherries and drop from the trees just prior to leaf fall.  It’s the fleshy outer covering that smells.  Inside a woody nut can be found. These nuts are a special food delicacy in China and Japan. Today’s use of gingko leaf extract in a variety of natural medicines stems from its use in traditional ancient Chinese medicine.   The Chinese have used it to help with a variety of ailments. It’s believed that gingko trees can live up to 3,000 years or more!  Gingko trees are honored trees in Asia where they have been seen as symbols of changelessness, unity, love, and hope and even possessing special miracle powers Garden Note: If you want to plant a gingko tree, you may want to get a male tree.  They don’t produce stinky fruit, just the female trees do. However, female trees won’t usually flower or fruit until they’re about 20 years old!

The famous German poet, Wolfgang von Goethe, described the plant's fascinating two-lobed leaves in a poem that appeared in his anthology West-Eastern Divanin 1815:

In my garden's care and favour
From the East this tree's leaf shows
Secret sense for us to savour
And uplifts the one who knows.

Is it but one being single
Which as same itself divides?
Are there two which choose to mingle
So that each as one now hides?

As the answer to such question
I have found a sense that's true:
Is it not my songs' suggestion
That I'm one and also two?

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Poems of the West and East
Verse Translation by John Whaley, Peter Lang, Berne, 1998, pp. 260-261

I feel this translation is better but I can't find who translated it: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ginkgo-biloba/

To my garden here translated,
Foliage of this eastern tree
Nourishes the initiated
With it’s meaning’s mystery.

Is its leaf one self divided,
Forked into a shape of strife?
Or have two of them decided
On a symbiotic life?

This I answer without trouble
And am qualified to know:
I am single, I am double,
And my poems tell you so.

Idea Log 13022011

十동방神기三

Meaning of the 13th Tarot Card

In the language of the Tarot, the number thirteen is represented in the Death card, which is symbolic of:

• Transition
• Change
• Inevitability

Death Tarot Card Meanings

Key Words for the Death Tarot Card Meanings Change Exposure Transition Termination Inevitability

Introduction to the Death Tarot Card Meanings:
All of us stop and shift in our seats when we come upon the grim reaper. Many of us equate death as an ending, like getting called out of the game of life. Thankfully, that is not what this card is about.

The Death card speaks of a major conclusion in an area of our lives. Often when this card shows up in a reading it means the querent has had, or will have a change that is monumental - an ending of circumstances that were dragging on for far too long and the only way to make a clean break is to have a sharp ending. The key point to remember here is that where there is an ending, there is also a beginning.

The Death card also exposes us to the inevitabilities in our lives. Everyone has heard the old adage "the only thing you can count on is death and taxes." The quote left out one other inevitable occurance: Change. We can alway count on change. No matter how long we've been at our jobs, how long we've been married, or how long we've lived in one location - fact of the matter is that everything changes. We may remain in the same house all of our lives, but our lives will always change. Life is in constant motion and this is the irony of the Death card. Death is never the end - it is simply a motion in a different direction.

Please note: The historical nature of the Tarot is steeped in allegory. As such, this occurance of this card rarely indicates actual physical death.

	Skull: Long seen as a symbol of humanity's mortality - the skull is a symbol that all things change and transition. Some cultures see the skull as the seat of the mind - the home of our thoughts. In this case, we can translate the skull to mean the death of unwanted thoughts.
.
	Sun: More irony with this card! The sun is a symbol of life and growth. The sun in this case serves as a symbolic reminder that where there is an ending, there is always a new beginning. The sun will rise again, and tomorrow is another day.
.
	Rose: A long-standing symbol of purity, promise, and beauty. In the case of the Death card, this rose represents the promise of new beginnings. We must also take the thorns into consideration - with the promise of new hope, we may have to endure a few stinging thorns (painful ordeals) along the way. Such is the way of life.
.
	Flag: When we consider the cards on which the flag is featured (Death, Sun & Judgment) we get a good concept of its symbol meanings. The flag is an announcement to change - something has shifted and a flag makes the world aware of this shift. It is a bright, bold obvious sign that a new day is dawning. This is not about subtle shifts - the flag is about "in-your-face" transformation; an event to announce to all who will hear.

 Taken from <http://www.whats-your-sign.com/number-thirteen.html>

Idea Log 06022011

Some days, everything works out well enough but still, we feel flat and feeble. Other days, we can be dealing with a lot of trouble yet still, there's a spring in our step. The difference is partly astrological, partly psychological. The part that's linked to attitude. If you're somehow glad to be alive, you won't much care if everything is not ideal. The astrological part is that sometimes Jupiter blesses you with great enthusiasm and suddenly you can see more reasons to smile.

-Toronto Star Horoscopes

Idea Log 05022011

Karl Jenkins & Adiemus-Palladio 1st Movement from Diamond Music> I'm in love with it! So totally dragging my sister to the TSO this spring!

My first discovery for today~ thanks to Toronto's New Classical 96.3FM, my faithful SONY phone and my solo 04:00 am bus rides to work...

 

My second discovery for today ~ Photographer: Sylvain Sonnet ~~ just discovered! One of his pictures had been used for an article in the Globe and Mail (Travel-FRANCE/ 04.Feb.2011) and I tried to look for it through the title of the article for such a long time but I just can't track the article but in fine print I saw the name 'SYLVAIN SONNET' and hence, I was able to find even more amazing pictures including the one I wanted that is the one below!

 

Banks of the Seine river view over the city from Notre Dame Cathedral

© Sylvain Sonnet/Hemis/Corbis

To witness the intensity and sublimity of Sylvain Sonnet's works go to:  http://corbis.co.in/searchresults.php?s=&rm=&rf=&mr=&loc=&col=&listRF=&orient=&view=&people=&pht=Sylvain+Sonnet&max=&p=1

For an even better experience put Karl Jenkin's Diamond Music <the youtube video at the head of this blog entry> on repeat and go through the images-- the experience is breathtaking! For me anyways.

 

Idea Log 29012011

Planets in astrology have a meaning different from the modern astronomical understanding of what a planet is. Before the age of telescopes, the night sky was thought to consist of two very similar components: fixed stars, which remained motionless in relation to each other, and wandering stars, (in ancient Greek: αστέρής πλανήται asteres planetai), which moved relative to the fixed stars over the course of the year.

To ancient astrologers, the planets represented the will of the gods and their direct influence upon human affairs. To modern astrologers the planets represent basic drives or impulses in the human psyche. These drives express themselves with different qualities through the twelve signs of the zodiac, and in different spheres of life through the twelve houses. How exactly the planets manifest themselves also depends on the aspects (or angles) that they form with each other in the sky as seen from Earth.

Modern astrologers differ on the source of the planets' power. Some hold that the planets exert their influence directly through gravitational or another unknown other power. Others hold that the planets have no direct influence in themselves, but are mirrors of basic organizing principles in the universe. In other words, the basic patterns of the universe repeat themselves everywhere, in fractal-like fashion, and "as above so below". Therefore, the patterns that the planets make in the sky reflect the ebb and flow of basic human impulses. The planets are also associated, especially in the Chinese tradition, with the basic forces of nature.

Listed below are the specific meanings and domains associated with the astrological planets since ancient times, with the main focus on the Western astrological tradition. The planets in Hindu astrology are known as the Navagraha or "nine realms". In Chinese astrology, the planets are associated with the life forces of yin and yang and the five elements, which play an important role in the Chinese form of geomancy known as Feng Shui.

Ruling planets of the astrological signs and houses: In Western astrology, the symbolism associated with the planets also relates to the zodiac signs and houses of the horoscope in their various rulerships. For instance, the description of Mars is masculine, impulsive, and active. Aries is ruled by Mars and has a similar description, representing an active, masculine archetype. Similarly, the first house is also ruled by Mars, and deals with a person's physical health and strength, and the manner in which they project themselves.

Table 1: Modern signs, houses and planetary associations

Sign	House	Domicile	Detriment	Exaltation	Fall	Planetary Joy
Aries	1st House	Mars	Venus	Sun	Saturn	Jupiter
Taurus	2nd House	Venus	Mars	Moon	N/A	Jupiter
Gemini	3rd House	Mercury	Jupiter	N/A	N/A	Venus
Cancer	4th House	Moon	Saturn	Jupiter	Mars	Mercury
Leo	5th House	Sun	Saturn	Neptune	N/A	Mars
Virgo	6th House	Mercury	Jupiter	Mercury	Venus	Saturn
Libra	7th House	Venus	Mars	Saturn	Sun	Moon
Scorpio	8th House	Mars	Venus	Uranus	Moon	Saturn
Sagittarius	9th House	Jupiter	Mercury	N/A	N/A	Sun
Capricorn	10th House	Saturn	Moon	Mars	Jupiter	Mars
Aquarius	11th House	Saturn	Sun	N/A	N/A	Mercury
Pisces	12th House	Jupiter	Mercury	Venus	Mercury	Moon

 

 

Idea Log 28012011

"Pluto & Neptune: Their orbits overlap, so one might worry that they'd collide but pluto's orbit is twisted, while Neptune's isn't and so, they never collide. The twisted Pluto must need to meet a straight- orderly Neptune then. Thanks to their mysterious order in the Solar System it's an extraordinary relationship"- This quote is from a Korean Drama where the guy is trying to console the girl about how she might be a complete mess and he might be this perfect guy but it doesn't mean they aren't meant for each other and how sometimes that is what it takes to make a relationship special. (I can't be sure which one. It  could be Love Marriage 연애결혼 ... I can totally remember the scene but I can't remember even the actors!!!)

 

Pluto's Relationship with Neptune: The Science behind it...

Despite Pluto's orbit appearing to cross that of Neptune when viewed from directly above, the two objects' orbits are aligned so that they can never collide or even approach closely. There are several reasons why.

At the simplest level, one can examine the two orbits and see that they do not intersect. When Pluto is closest to the Sun, and hence closest to Neptune's orbit as viewed from above, it is also the farthest above Neptune's path. Pluto's orbit passes about 8 AU above that of Neptune, preventing a collision. Pluto's ascending and descending nodes, the points at which its orbit crosses the ecliptic, are currently separated from Neptune's by over 21°.

However, this alone is not enough to protect Pluto; perturbations from the planets (especially Neptune) could alter aspects of Pluto's orbit (such as its orbital precession) over millions of years so that a collision could be possible. Some other mechanism or mechanisms must therefore be at work. The most significant of these is that Pluto lies in the 3:2 mean motion resonance with Neptune: for every three of Neptune's orbits around the Sun, Pluto makes two. The two objects then return to their initial positions and the cycle repeats, each cycle lasting about 500 years. This pattern is configured so that, in each 500-year cycle, the first time Pluto is near perihelion Neptune is over 50° behind Pluto. By Pluto's second perihelion, Neptune will have completed a further one and a half of its own orbits, and so will be a similar distance ahead of Pluto. Pluto and Neptune's minimum separation is over 17 AU. Pluto comes closer to Uranus (11 AU) than it does to Neptune.

The 3:2 resonance between the two bodies is highly stable, and is preserved over millions of years. This prevents their orbits from changing relative to one another; the cycle always repeats in the same way, and so the two bodies can never pass near to each other. Thus, even if Pluto's orbit were not highly inclined the two bodies could never collide.

Idea Log 27012011

THE MAN WHO SAVED THE TAJ MAHAL

“The Man Who Saved the Taj Mahal” is a documentary film about an extra-ordinary man who saved the Taj Mahal from Acid rain and pollution. It’s a rich story about one man who stands up and fights against overwhelming odds—a classic David vs. Goliath story.

Mr. Mehta thought: The Taj Mahal, one of the greatest symbols of LOVE has “Marble Cancer.” It must be saved. But how? The film is now compleated.

We travel with Mr. Mehta to Taj Mahal and hear his story of 14 long year’s legal battle with the Indian Government and the factories owners around Taj Mahal. He takes us back to his first visit. Through historical film footage and photographs of the Taj Mahal we see how the pollution and acid rain from nearby factories was killing one of the greatest wonders of the world.
We will juxtapose the arguments of Mehta’s to those of the poor laborers who had only been trying to earn in the factories. What were their objections? What were the problems faced? Who opposed him? How did he eventually win? What are the results so far? What does it feel like to have finished his long battle, and win?

We will travel with Mr. Mehta to the Supreme Court in New Delhi (one of the most beautiful buildings in India) to understand how he fought the polluters in the courts and why it took eleven long years to make the ruling that would finally bring this landmark case to a successful conclusion. We hope to interview the judges who were involved in this case to see what problems prevented them from making the ruling sooner.

We will talk to Mehta about his current work developing an international facility in the foothills of the Himalayas, teaching and training a new generation of public interest environmental lawyers and teachers. Mehta is a passionate and celebrated environmental advocate who has won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize and the coveted Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service (an award commonly known as the alternative Nobel Prize).

On the Earth Day in March 2000, President of the U.S. Bill Clinton came to see the Taj Mahal with his daughter Chelsea and said, “that pollution had managed "to do what 350 years of wars, invasions and natural disasters have failed to do. It has begun to mar the magnificent walls of the Taj Mahal… I understand this is called marble cancer by environmentalists. If this is what pollution can do to a stone, I fear to think of what it will do to our children." He added, “Today is the Earth Day -- but India is a land that has been worshipping its earth and environment for centuries. But it is now time to protect our earth because global warming is a reality." He said that a constant effort was needed to save it from degradation. "I am not asking India to overlook its economic concerns, but today we have the technology to make economic growth without eroding the environment."

http://www.bajajfilms.com/features/man_who_saved_taj_mahal/index.html

Idea Log 19012011

Egoism: A moral value is that which one believes and acts upon. The question arises, what are the moral values of a man?

We quote Rand's proof of her famous theorem "Egoism as rational moral value of identity" from Formal Objectivism:

(1) |- man(x) <==> animal(x) & rational(x)     [definition]

(2) |- man(y)       [hypothesis]

(3) |- y = y              [by Axiom of Identity]

(4) |- rational(y)                [by (1) and (2)]

(5) |- knows(y, y=y)	[by (3) and (4)]

(6) |- rational(y) & value(y, v) ==> v         [Rational Value Theorem]

(7) |- egoist(x) <==> value(x, x = x)          [definition of egoism]

(8) |- not(egoist(y)) ==> not(value(y, y = y)) [from (7) instantiating x = y]

(9) |- not(egoist(y)) ==> value(y, not(y = y))  [by not-propagation]

(10)|- not(egoist(y)) ==> not(y = y)          [by (9) and (6)] 

(11)|- not(egoist(y)) ==> false [by (10) and (3)]

(12)|- egoist(y)  [by (11) ad absurdum]

(13)|- man(y) ==> egoist(y) [by (2) and (12) by ==> introduction]

Note: the Rational Value Theorem asserts that whatever values a rational consciousness holds, they are true, because a consciousness which holds false values is not rational.

Observe that in step (7) egoism is defined as holding ones own identity as moral value. The Ayn Rand Institute explains the Objectivist moral values as follows:

Ethics
"Reason is man's only proper judge of values and his only proper guide to action. The proper standard of ethics is: man's survival qua man--i.e., that which is required by man's nature for his survival as a rational being (not his momentary physical survival as a mindless brute). Rationality is man's basic virtue, and his three fundamental values are: reason, purpose, self-esteem. Man--every man--is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life." Thus Objectivism rejects any form of altruism-- the claim that morality consists in living for others or for society.

Taken from: http://andrej.com/objectivism/#step1

Idea Log 22122010

大日本帝國 Dai Nippon Teikoku  

[Japan: My first Love... I was a weird 3 year old]

Currently reading:

'Japanese Manufacturing Techniques: Nine Hidden Lessons in Simplicity' by Richard Schonberger (published 1982)

"At the heart of Japanese manufacturing success are two overlapping strategies:

'just-in-time (JIT)' production and 'total quality control (TQC).' [from the jacket cover]

The Genesis of JIT/TQC [Pg. 3]

"With all of the recent journalistic attention given to Japanese industry, most of us know by now that Japan is small, crowded, and resource-poor. Nearly 125 million people inhabit the Japanese islands, whose land mass is about the same as Montana's. Montana is rich in natural resources, however, compared with few natural resources may keep explain Japanese resourcefulness. The Japanese make do with little and avoid waste. The modern Japanese system of factory management- the just-in-time approach, featuring hand-to-mouth management of materials, with total quality control-seems in character with their historical perchant to conserve. To the Japanese factory worker, JIT/TQC objectives seem reasonable, proper, and easy to accept, inasmuch as JIT/TQC attempts to control such costly sources of waste as:

• Idle inventories, which constitute waste of scarce material resources, and, indirectly, energy for basic material conversion and refining.
• Storage of idle inventories, which wastes limited space.
• Defective parts, subassemblies, and final products, which are a waste of materials/energy.

  

 [Toyota: My other love...I was a really weird kid] lol

Japan’s Manufacturing Techniques Taken from: http://asifjmir.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/japan%E2%80%99s-manufacturing-techniques/

Nations are built not with bricks and stones but with the capacity to create and apply knowledge. The result of knowledge creation and application in manufacturing and management practices is well demonstrated by Japan. Today we are witness to many industrialized economies that are strengthening their manufacturing activities simply by adopting these techniques.

The distinguishing characteristics associated with Japanese manufacturing techniques include an emphasis on designing and redesigning processes to optimize efficiency and a strong commitment to quality.

The manufacturing techniques that Japanese companies practice provide a competitive advantage and outstanding economic performance. The key for success is an understanding of the broad context of manufacturing culture, infrastructure and environment. These sound manufacturing and business techniques created and adopted by leading Japanese manufacturers have turned out to be the secret of their market leadership in many industries.

Following are a few of these concepts, which can help in managing any business set-up in a better way:

• Kaizen is one such technique, which in Japanese means ‘improve.’ This is commonly recognized as practices focusing on continuous improvement in manufacturing activities, business activities in general, and even life in general, depending on interpretation and usage. By improving standardized activities and processes, Kaizen helps in eliminating waste.
• Another management Japanese technique is the 5-S. It is a technique used to establish and maintain quality environment in an organization. It has five elements: Seiri (sorting out useful and frequently used materials and tools from unwanted and rarely used things); Seiton (keeping things in the right place systematically so that searching or movement time is minimized); Seiso (keeping everything around you clean and in a neat manner); Seiketsu (standardizing the above principles in everyday life) and Shitsuke (inculcating good habits and practicing them continuously). The 5-S practice helps everyone in the organization to live a better life.
• Kanban and ‘Just in Time’ are two other practices in inventory management practices that were pioneered by the Japanese automobile manufacturers, such as Toyota. Quality improvement, on the other hand, is the result of lower proportion of component scrap since the components spend less time in the supply chain.
• Poka-yoke is a process improvement focused on training of workers for mastering the increasingly complicated tasks to selectively redesign the tasks so they could be more easily and reliably mastered. It involves designing a foolproof process to eliminate the chance of errors.
• Jidoka is a practice by means of which an individual worker runs several machines simultaneously. Japan thus designs such machines that eliminate both error and the need for constant supervision.
• Muda is another technique that reduces wasteful activity in service processes. It ensures process efficiency and effectiveness.
• Mura curiously combines rigidity and flexibility and thus teaches service process improvement.
• Reducing Muri means reducing physical strain. In services process improvement, Muri applies to convoluted and unnecessary routings, physical transfer, and distances paper files may have to travel for a process to complete.
• Genchi Gembutsu means going to the actual scene (genchi) and confirming the actual scene (gembutsu). Observation of service processes at the point where it is actually delivered may unearth a host of problems such as lack of training, unnecessary steps, or a number of other areas that would benefit from small but significant process improvement ideas.

This is a glimpse of manufacturing techniques that Japan has so intellectually created and so profoundly practiced in its manufacturing systems that even with no natural resources, it has acquired the status of one of the most industrialized nations. Can we learn from Japan?

 Author: Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, Lectures, Line of Sight

Idea Log 21122010

Lunar Eclipse + Winter Solstice—First in 372 Years:

I SAW it! I SAW it! I SAW it!! @0330-0415.. it was such a clear night sky!

 

Andrew Fazekas

for National Geographic News

Updated December 20, 1020, 2:55 p.m. ET

In 2010, for the first time since 1638, a total lunar eclipse falls on the winter solstice—a stargazing event almost anyone in North America will be able to see tonight, weather permitting.

Occurring at 6:38 p.m. ET Tuesday, the 2010 winter solstice marks the official beginning of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. The shortest day of the year boasts the year's longest shadows and fewest daylight hours.

It's all due to the Northern Hemisphere being tilted farther from the sun than at any other point during the year. As a result, the sun follows its lowest arc of the year across the sky. (Get more winter solstice facts.)

In the early morning hours of the winter solstice day, many sky-watchers will see the first shadings of a total lunar eclipse.

The entire lunar eclipse will be best seen from North America and western South America. In most of Europe and Africa, the moon will dip below the horizon in mid-eclipse.

"Lunar eclipses are special, in a way, as the observer that is always in the city or too busy to get away can see this from his or her own backyard."

That assumes, of course, that you're in the right place at the right time

 

Idea Log 17112010

COD: A Biography of The Fish that changed the World by Mark Kurlansky

^^ Going back to my University of Toronto years this book happens to be a part of my more fonder memories as an undergrad. The subject of the book actually affected me in quite a profound manner. I wrote a first year book review on this book for my Geography- Environment, Food and People class. Who knew the Americas were discovered by explorers who were in search of a fish called COD. It is a wonderful book that gives evidence that one event can change the entire course of history. A lesson I will always cherish everytime I do something. I highly recommend this book!

Below is a sample review from Amazon from a reader:

55 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fishy Recipe for History and Evolution, August 27, 2002

This review is from: Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (Paperback)

There's a cartoon in Matt Groening, the nine types of professors. One is the single-minded type, as in "The country that controls magnesium controls the world!" His main drawback is that he could be right. Cod sort of reminds me of that. You may not have known how important or popular this particular fish was to most of our ancestors in Western civilization, but, according Kurlansky, Cod was practically like bread. It was easy to fish, there was a ton of it, and once Europeans learned the various ways of drying it (with cold and/or salt) all people could think about was trading this staple. Yes, Kurlansky's book is single-minded, and at times you might forget this is a fish tale. When the Vikings found America, what where they looking for? And how did they manage to sustain themselves through the long ocean voyage? The answers are of course, cod. Kurlansky also has a few outlandish things to say about another favorite topic of his, the Basque, who it appears had been regularly fishing for Cod in Newfoundland long before Columbus found America. They were really good at keeping a secret, you see. Fortunately, there's a serious, or, at least more socially acceptable side, to Kurlansky's fish story. The fishing trade really is threatened. You can no longer practically walk on Atlantic cod. Even Icelanders who found their entire economy changing from one of sustenance to a first world service economy, during the two world wars, have a difficult time protecting their dwindling stock. If Aldous Huxley's grandfather, Thomas, asserted in the 19th century that cod would never become extinct, it was only because he could not imagine the rapid technological changes which would turn fishing into harvesting, and the classic practice of drying fish into freezing it, on board the fishing boats themselves. Good bye bacalao, hello fishsticks. It's a sad tale as ways of life dwindle and change, and even the very essentials of human existence that have lasted for thousands of years go unheard of by the post-industrial society. But are we really evolving into something better? Kurlansky peppers his narrative with quotes from notables throughout the ages and interesting, if often archaic, recipes.

http://www.amazon.com/Cod-Biography-Fish-Changed-World/dp/0140275010

 

Idea Log 15112010

Renaissance and the architect

With the Renaissance and its emphasis on the individual and humanity rather than religion, and with all its attendant progress and achievements, a new chapter began. Buildings were ascribed to specific architects - Brunelleschi, Alberti, Michelangelo, Palladio - and the cult of the individual had begun.

There was still no dividing line between artist, architect and engineer, or any of the related vocations, and the appellation was often one of regional preference. At this stage, it was still possible for an artist to design a bridge as the level of structural calculations involved was within the scope of the generalist.

*refer to my old post about a generalist vs specialist

*we should strive to be "renaissance men"-"specialization is for insects"

 http://governmentgirl1943lp.typepad.com/blog/2010/09/idea-log-08092010.html#tp

Idea Log 14112010

The principle of sufficient reason states that anything that happens does so for a reason: no state of affairs can obtain, and no statement can be true unless there is sufficient reason why it should not be otherwise.

 

Formulation

• For every entity x, if x exists, then there is a sufficient explanation why x exists.
• For every event e, if e occurs, then there is a sufficient explanation why e occurs.
• For every proposition p, if p is true, then there is a sufficient explanation why p is true.

A sufficient explanation may be understood either in terms of reasons or causes for like many philosophers of the period, Leibniz did not carefully distinguish between the two. The resulting principle is very different, however, depending on which interpretation is given.

Idea Log 04112010

What Is The Savior Complex?

 The savior complex is a psychological construct which makes a person feel the need to save other people. This person has a strong tendency to seek people who desperately need help and to assist them, often sacrificing their own needs for these people.

There are many sides to a savior complex and it has many roots. One of its fundamental roots, in my experience, consists in a limiting belief the savior person has that goes something like this:

“If I always help people in need, I will get their love and approval, and have a happy life.”

This is of course, a nice sounding fairytale.

We Have a Problem

Often, in real life, a savior will have such an unassertive way of helping others that instead of becoming grateful, they get used to it and they expect it. They feel entitled to receive help from this person, simply because they need it and they’ve always got it.

On top of this, always putting other people’s needs first makes a savior not take care of their own needs. So while they may feel happy because they are helping others, at some level, they feel bitter and frustrated at the same time.

Reframing Nobility

Here’s where things get worse: many people with a savior complex I’ve met, although they realize at some point that they have a savior complex and it is not worth it for them, they will not try to combat it.

They’re not masochistic; they have another belief that even if being a savior will not get them the recognition they want and will not make them happy, it is the noble thing to do. They believe they are somehow better then others because they help people all the time without getting anything back.

Do you have any idea how dim-witted this is? There is nothing noble in sacrificing yourself for others while you are starving at a psychological level. If our ancestors would have willingly done so 50.000 years ago, our species would be extinct.

If you think you have a savior complex or at least something close to it, I believe the best thing you can do is to face up to the practical consequences in has in your life. Being a savior is neither noble nor practical.

Learn to give and to ask for what you want, to help and to be helped. This is the healthy way to use your people skills and to interact with others.

http://www.peopleskillsdecoded.com/savior-complex/

Idea Log 23102010

Papa Don't Preach by Tony Parsons in>>>

Here are just little snippets from this OCT2010 GQ article (pg.  111- 112):

"Fathers offer their sons hard-earned wisdom because they have seen and done it all before. But a boy only becomes a man when he has learnt from his own mistakes"....

....

..."What I tell my daughter will largely concern her dealings with boys. Because every father of a daughter is a poacher turned gamekeeper- we know boys because we are ex-boys ourselves. So I will tell her inside information. I will give her the power to stay in control, the technique to break hearts, to protect herself, to torment the little bastards who come calling.

Treat them mean, keep them keen, I will advise. Let them be the ones who are sitting by the phone. Never care about them more than they care about you. Trample their hearts in the dust, angel.

But it is different with a son. A man can never let a daughter go. But you let sons go. And you try to give them something to hold onto as they are going out the door."

 ....<the article is actually very long-- just the part about daughters>

 q(-_*)p