A.C. Flory's Blog, page 73

Unknown view – anyone know where this is?

I had another good day today and rewarded myself with a jigsaw puzzle. This is what I saw when I finished:

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I thought it was a fantasy graphic until I looked closer and saw that it was a real view. As far as I can tell, the word ‘Aussicht’ just means view or outlook. There is no indication of where the outlook might be, and it’s driving me crazy. Does anyone recognize this view or the outlook itself?

cheers

Meeks

Backstory, World building & Motivation

[image error]As a reader, one problem I’ve always had with plot driven stories is that the motivation behind pivotal events is often paper thin. The author wants Character X to do something or be somewhere because the rest of the plot depends on it. A flimsy excuse is offered, and the story moves on, usually without me. I’m fussy, no apologies.

Well, imagine my dismay when I found that I was in precisely the same situation with book two of Vokhtah.

Essays on America: The Game

I’m taking the unprecedented step of reblogging a post from a complete stranger, because it is so chilling.

The stranger is Peter Ironswood, and his essay is about the 1% who are so powerful, they could be demigods in our supposedly enlightened world.

This is a must read.

petersironwood

The Game

Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

The Game has no rules. Not really. I suppose you could say that the one rule is that there are no rules. 

Not everyone can play The Game. So, that might count as a rule about entering and leaving The Game.

To Enter the Game, you need to be a Player. 

And, to Leave the Game, you need to die. (You can’t “quit.”)

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels.com

Those are the two rules about whether you can play, but there are no rules within The Game. 

But how does one become a Player? 

Fame is not enough. Wealth is not enough. Good looks, or sharp wits, or intelligence, or encyclopedic knowledge, or special talents? No, that is not enough. 

What is important is that you have Power and that you will execute your Power without regard to…

View original post 1,178 more words

Generating power at night, the flip side to solar

[image error]Nuclear energy has been in the news lately, and its proponents have once again cited the intermittent nature of renewables as a compelling reason to embrace nuclear. They say that only nuclear can wean us off fossil fuels fast enough given the imminent climate crisis.

My argument has always been that renewable technology is still in its infancy and that the sector will explode with new tech in the near future. This post is about one such possible ‘new tech’ – thermoelectric generation.

I can’t explain the science, but I can say that this new direction in power generation would work at night, while solar is unavailable. You can read the complete article here:

https://newatlas.com/energy/thermoelectric-generator-renewable-energy-cold-space/

The amount of power generated was miniscule, but this experiment sought only to prove that the principle was sound. Scaling up the process and making it robust enough for commercial applications will take a while, but then so does setting up a nuclear power plant.

My money’s on the new tech rather than the old.

cheers

Meeks

 

American politics, Australian echo

[image error]The structure of US politics is very different to what we know in Australia, but I read something today that really struck a chord:

‘If a party stands for nothing but reelection, it indeed stands for nothing.‘

That quote comes from a joint editorial published in The Washington Post. It was written by three Republican contenders for the Presidential nomination. They put aside their own personal ambitions and political differences, to protest what they see as the sabotaging of democracy in America.

For Australians who are not familiar with the American system, candidates within each political party compete publicly with each other to determine who will be the best candidate to fight the actual presidential election. Usually this is done via state primaries.

But not this time. Four US states have cancelled their primaries on the basis that Donald Trump ‘will’ win in a landslide so why waste the money? But it’s not about the money. Each of those states will vote for Trump to be the presidential candidate without consulting any of the voters in that state. As primaries are a core step in the US electoral process, this is a massive departure from normal democracy.

You can, and should, read the entire post by Jill Dennison to understand how truly disruptive this development is:

https://jilldennison.com/2019/09/14/three-republicans-speak-up/

Sadly, the Australian experience of politics has been echoing that of the US since the sacking of Kevin Rudd in 2010. Our political system is very different, but almost everything that’s happened in the last decade has been about one party or the other giving democracy the finger in order to be re-elected.

Rudd sacked in favour of Gillard
Gillard sacked in favour of Rudd
Tony Abbot sacked in favour of Malcolm Turnbull
Turnbull sacked in favour of Scott Morrison

To be fair, in the Australia system, parties choose who will lead them into an election. Parties also have the right to choose someone else to lead them, even in the middle of an election cycle, so the revolving door of Prime Ministers is ‘legal’:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_Australia

But is the letter of the law abusing the spirit of the law?

Much of the nitty gritty of Australian politics is ruled by convention rather than laws laid down by the Constitution. As such, our Prime Minister is important to the voting public, but isn’t actually granted special status in the Constitution. That said, convention or perhaps the rule of common courtesy has meant that once elected, a sitting Prime Minister is not ousted by his own party [note: I’m no historian so I’d welcome clarification of this].

When Kevin Rudd was replaced by Julia Gillard – to win the looming election – many voters who liked Rudd and voted him in, felt they had been robbed. In the interests of honesty, I have to say that I’m one of them. Whatever the constitution may say, the Prime Minister who leads his [or her] party into an election is seen by the electorate as having their vote. Ousting that leader may be legal, but it takes something fundamental away from voters. And it undermines the concept of 1 person, 1 vote. Of course that concept has been undermined in a great many other ways, but this post is about the machinations within parties.

Personality politics is not a good thing, in my humble opinion, but once a political party is voted in because of the popularity of its chosen ‘face’, that face should remain until voted out in the next election. The only exception to that is if the ‘face’ commits an actual crime. In the wake of all this political turmoil, both major parties have created rules of their own that prohibit the sacking of a sitting Prime Minister. It should be noted, however, that these new rules apply only to the party concerned. The constitution has not been amended.

Constitution aside, I believe that having a revolving door of Prime Minsters for the sake of political expediency – i.e. just to get re-elected – is cynical and undermines democracy. More importantly, it raises the perception of popularity above the facts of policy.

Sadly, this seems to be the way Western democracy is headed. I hope I don’t live to see democracy wither and die completely.

Meeks

Bathing in a bucket…

And no, this is not research for some scene in a story. This was me, after I discovered that we had no hot water…

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…not. I wasn’t smiling at all.

As usual, Murphy’s Law was working overtime in Warrandyte this morning. For starters, it’s been damn cold the last couple of days, cold, rainy and overcast. The worst possible weather for my solar hotwater system.

Me: Not a problem. The instant, gas hot water booster will kick in…any second now…hello?“

Except that the instant, gas hot water booster did not kick in. Went out to check, and I see a cryptic machine message blinking in red on the display. Panic? No, ring the manufacturer.

“Have you tried to reset the system?”

Me: “Um…no. How?”

I now know how to reset the system but…it didn’t work, did it?

“Let me check the plumbers in your area. I’ll get back to you shortly.”

Me: still waiting…

In the meantime, I had to go out so a clean up of some sort was absolutely necessary.

Me: cold shower? Not on your nelly…that water is effing freezing!

Thank god the kettle still works. Boiled up about 2 litres of water. Poured it into a bucket in the shower. Added a bit of cold…and got to work.

In case there are any time and motion experts out there, I can now say with absolute certainty that it is possible to bathe in a bucket. Not pleasant, but doable. Start at the top and finish with the feet.

And on that note, I’ll quit while I’m a head.

Meeks

How to unblock a toilet…with a mop

Okay, this is not one of my usual how-to posts, but I’m so proud of myself I just had to crow a little.

Blender 2.8 for Absolute Beginners [1]

There are a lot of excellent video tutorials out there, but…none of them allow you watch in slow motion. That means you have to stop, rewind, play, rinse and repeat, until you see that one, teeny thing that a beginner doesn’t know and the presenter takes for granted.

As an absolute beginner myself, I’m writing this series of posts to save other absolute beginners from the hours of frustration and research that went into learning the teeny things everyone else takes for granted. Each post will be step-by-step with screenshots, and I welcome comments that point out things I’ve missed or taken for granted. So, let’s begin!

What is Blender 2.8?

Blender 2.8 is open source, 3D graphics software.

Translation: Blender 2.8 is a free app that produces models of ‘things’ that can be viewed from all angles – i.e. in 3D.

Where can you download Blender 2.8?

You can download the app from here:

https://www.blender.org/download/releases/2-80/

As with all software downloaded from the internet, you should save the file to your computer and scan it with your anti-virus software before installing it.

Getting Started

Once Blender 2.8 is installed, this is what you will see:

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The colourful bit in the middle is like a temporary shortcut menu. Common functions are on the left, and recently used files are on the right. Left click on the dark grey grid in the background to make it disappear.

You will now be looking at the Layout workspace. It contains all the tools and options you will need to create and edit a 3D model. As a beginner, this is where you will spend most of your time.

Before starting to explore the workspace, however, I need to address the elephant in the room – Blender keyboard shortcuts.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Most software programs allow the use of keyboard shortcuts – e.g. Ctrl C for Copy and Ctrl V for Paste [in Microsoft Office programs] – but these shortcuts are an added extra for those who already know the software and want to work faster. In Blender, this process is reversed – i.e. shortcuts first and menus second.

Even as recently as Blender version 2.79, the menus were all over the place, and learning how to find functions in them required as much memory as learning how to use the shortcuts themselves. I started with 2.79. It was hard, very hard.

Enter Blender 2.8. The core functions remain the same, but the interface and the menu system have been rationalized from the ground up, making the learning process much easier. Navigation functions are grouped together as are the creating and editing functions you will use the most. Better still, when you can’t find/remember a less used function, there is a fairly logical and consistent way of finding it. And finally, if all else fails, you can press F3 on the keyboard and search for the function by name.

I had to smile as I wrote about F3. Search is a core function in any software, yet even in 2.8, it’s accessed by a keyboard shortcut and requires you to remember which key it is hidden behind! Blender 2.8 may have emancipated the menu, but shortcuts are still more…equal.

Posing…with attitude. :D

I think I’m coming down with something, so I’ve done precious little all day. But sitting doing nothing does have its advantages. I finally managed to rig my little man, and that meant I could pose him.

In-bloody-credible!

Apologies for the flurry of posts, but the diamonds are jumping out at me this week. Even if you don’t like ballet, please watch this:

Ignore the hype and just watch what the human body, and spirit, can do.

Meeks