Get digging

A Microserf had an entry on his blog where he realised that our whole economy is now driven by something other than gold. Not quite true, not quite false. Here's my take, based on simple stuff learned in Ted Trainer's elective 'Ecosystems and Human Habitation' in second year at UNSW. In 1990; it's not like science is hiding this information from anyone. People like John Winston Howard should be made to study, and pass, this course. At gunpoint. With me holding the gun.

Read on, and try not to get too depressed:

Money, and wealth, still comes from digging stuff out of the ground. It has since prehistory; it doesn't look like it will stop anytime soon.

Up until recently, that stuff was gold, by and large, or any other metals. It probably still is a large component on a global scale. My guess is that by far the largest component of diggable stuff is oil.

Despite all the claims of paper or digital economies, we still base all economic calculations back to three things - the value of the US$, the value of a barrel of oil, the value of an ounce of gold. There is no 'value of a Gb of data' yet, despite a Gb being worth a lot, say for pr0n (no, really, think about it!) or a movie (and the DRM); a Gb of spam is actually worth a negative value. This would be the main reason why data is not a tradable commodity, and likely never will be - 99.999% of it is crap.

Think about what events would really cause economic collapse: running out of oil and / or metals.

Running out of oil is really no big problem - there are other sources of energy. Running out of metals is a big problem though: we can still get energy from trees / sunlight / animals, but without metals we have no transport, communications or weaponry (to defend ourselves from any animals who might see us as a source of energy). Put simply: Stone Age and the resultant minor economic downturn ;-)

Running out of oil might happen in our lifetime; running out of metals will take longer but will happen. Earth's resources are large, but not infinite. Eventually, we will reach a point where there won't be enough metals to allow us to find new sources of metals - asteroids, the Moon, Mercury. For some metals (especially non-radioactive steel) we are close to that point already. Non-radioactive steel currently allows us to build airliners and spacecraft; without it we can't make accurate radiation counters - vital to the maintenance and manufacture of airliners and spacecraft.

Ponder that for a moment - there will come a time, and soon, where we won't be able to make airliners or spacecraft anymore. We'll be stuck, here, on Earth. Using up all the oil, then all the metals, and then... we won't have to worry about economics anymore; only about whether our flint knife will protect us from that grizzly bear runing towards us.

Economics will always be about digging stuff up. Data won't save you from a bear, or from peak oil.

Good luck, have a nice life.

Suddenly Serious

David Hicks has been imprisoned, and likely tortured for about 5 years now.

Thanks to the policies and wisdom of Our Glorious Protector and Father The Right Deplorable Git John "Little Johnnie" Howard, David isn't going to get a fair trial inder Australian law, he isn't even going to get a fair trial under US law, or indeed the law of ANY country.

It's likely he'll die there, eventually, as it's pretty clear that the US & Australian governments are shitting their pants over what he'll say if released, and the likely backlash.

Amnesty is trying to do something about it, and you can too. Remember to be polite, because polite is the only language smarmy gits like Howard understand. It's quite OK for them to use torture, keep people in cages, wage unjust wars, but we actually can't call them 'little Hitlers who aren't worth spitting on as it would be a waste of good spit' to their faces, because they think that kind of behaviour is rude.

Dream job: Custom-made Planet Designer

I've always though my dream career was hard to define, and for good reason: I've just discovered it doesn't exist, except in the fiction of Douglas Adams.

I want Slartibartfast's job.


This is my first little test output from the latest version of Terragen, a marvelous terrain & atmosphere rendering program. It has little in the way of bells and whistles - an austere interface, suitably technical variables, sparse (at present) documentation, and drop-dead gorgeous output! The galleries on the Terragen website, particularly the v2.0 galleries, have some images which defy belief. Can a digital image look that good? Yep.

I've always loved a great landscape photo - as much as Missaisle loves her macro lens - and the more clouds, mist and crepuscular rays the better.

Asuming I don't spend my entire summer break in the delightful company of Missaisle, I might get a chance to have a play with Terragen 2.0 a bit more...

Now how much was an AthlonX2-939 +4800 again? Or should I wait for post-Vista performance & prices to stabilise, and the Athon Quads to appear? Decisions, decisions!

For those who were expecting a rant about architectural education: it got shoved into draft. I might finish it. Maybe.

Expect the unexpected

Don't expect any sense out of me for a while.
I'm in love.

We met online a whole 2 weeks ago, and met in RealLife(tm) on the weekend. We get on rather well.

On the morning train

I caught the inter-city express today; it occasionally stops at Meadowbank, so it's fun to get a comfy seat and air conditioning for the 30-min ride to the Big City.

I sat on the western side of the carriage, listening to Enya's 'Amarantine'. Looking out the window the sky seemed a brighter blue than normal, with big happy-looking clouds. Facing west, of course means facing where she lives, and I got to sit and wonder if she could see that cloud too.

As the train goes south past Rhodes and Concord, there's a section with a clear view all the way up to the mountains, and I coud see they were shrouded in clouds and mist. That's her favourite weather, and I could see it! So exciting! I had to repeat the song 'It's in the rain' for that!

I could see the clouds she was wrapped up in, and I think I was almost jealous of those clouds; but it also meant that I could see the clouds that she could see at the same time! I never knew such little things as simply knowing that it is possible for her to see the same cloud as me could be so much fun, and make me want blush, grin, laugh and cry all at the same time. I've been like that a fair bit this week.

I feel like the past week has been a dream; one I don't want to ever end.

This makes me think of you

You go to my head till I'm losing my mind
Your beautiful words stretch me out on a blanket of sky
I don't want to come down
No I don't want to come down
Just want to stay lost in your eyes

You go to my head, I dream I am loved
You're flowing through me like a river of poetry
I don't want to come down
No I don't want to come down
Just want to stay lost in your eyes

So keep feeding the fire, I can't get any higher
Till the night burns with the fire of a thousand stars
You go to my head and I know I'm alive
You could waken the dead with your beautiful mind
I don't want to come down
No I don't want to come down
Just want to stay lost in your eyes

I don't want to come down
No I don't want to come down
Just want to stay lost in your eyes
Just want to stay lost in your eyes

- 'Head', by Kirsty Maccoll

I'm floating too!

On Tapestry and the Meaning of Life

The image above means so much to me at the moment. It's a grab from the film 'Kiki's Delivery Service' by Hayao Miyazaki; a film which usually means a fair bit to me anyway, but a bit more at the moment.


This pic is of my tapestry - the one single tapestry I have kept, in the small frame, and a larger work based on the smaller one. The next photo shows what I have done just this evening.


I'm suddenly doing tapestry again, after a break of... too long.

One of the things I had forgotten about tapestry is the way it clears your mind, especially when blocking in nice big areas with one colour. The big grey area I did tonight put me into one of those states of mind where you start free-associating things; you can practically feel something happening within you, something good.

Several things occurred to me as Thoughts of Interest:

1. Why I like tapestry, and have done for a very long time, yet have very little to actually show for it. Tapestry for me has not exactly been a lifelong passion, and I'm not exactly prolific. It's been more something that has simply been there, a latent skill as such, since about 3rd grade, when I learned it. I think something to do with it being not something boys really did; there is no way in the world I would have ever told anyone at high school I enjoyed tapestry.

2. Why I don't have any tapestries left. A mystery wrapped in an enigma. Closer to solution now than ever before though.

3. Art/craft is something I need to do more of.

4. More stuff swirling around. Good things. Some bits are fading now, 2 hours later, like a dream, but I know how to get them again.

This is fun.