Colinos's Blog – April 2010 Archive (9)

So I'm a skilled person, having recognised qualifications in say, accountancy, procurement, or engineering. I'm really psyched about development work, but I have a busy life so I can only devote say, four hours a week to project. What could I do with that time?

Imagine a webpage devoted to say, building a school. This could be split into parts and smaller parts and smaller parts - until you get to individual working units fairly small in size (say 1-4 hours). Any one person…

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http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9966867-54.html

Ethanol is already part of our automotive fuel mix, and could replace our current fuel system relatively easily. Ethanol is produced by various biological processes and is currently made mainly from corn and sugar cane. The the project's green credentials and sustainability are obvious (think carbon capture), unfortunately, these production processes have a…

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So my research project last year was about bringing light to a small village in India. I didn't actually complete it but I made some progress.

You see the problem in India is not so much power availability as security. It's available at obscure hours and very unpredictably. This makes working at night particularly difficult, and can effect such simple tasks as cooking, using the toilet, or studying. My problem was to create some appropriate technology that would improve safety…

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My meal of the future will be the only 'meal' of my day. Diminishing land availability and Increasing crop efficiency has meant that most of my food comes from the local algae farm in the form of processed dietary supplement bars. But once a day I will be able to enjoy a 'real' meal - a misnomer because meat is too expensive for all but royalty and exotic fruit is no longer available now that rising oil prices have extinguished foreign trade. No, by and large I have one meal of pasta with maybe… Continue

I, Colinos, do hereby swear not to be so lame when it comes to making a difference.



It's very easy isn't it, to make excuses not to make a difference. I found myself staring at this assignment for a few minutes, just thinking, well I could just lie.... no-one would know right? But I would know and that's what counts! So I promise one of either of two things:



I will participate in my churches soup run, thereby increasing the food security of the local homeless,



I… Continue

Food availability here is not essentially a problem. But that's not what food security is, is it? I don't know the facts and figures, but if there were some catastrophe that prevented international trade with the rest of the world, our food security could take a steep nose-dive. We would certainly lose out on more luxury items: chocolate, hot drinks, exotic fruits (even bananas!). These could be grown intensively using greenhouses and such, but given such a shortage, would we not be using ALL… Continue

So in ten years time... <insert awesome killer plan here>.



So I vaguely recall some famous guy at some point some where saying something about the best made plans of mice and men? My biggest flaw is that I plan too much! But anyway this is something like my hopes...



Having worked in engineering for a number of years now, I will be running my own business, in manufacturing and robotics. My company will have a strong corporate social responsibility profile, and I will be… Continue

While some might consider it disadvantageous to select a deceased man as a mentor, this man has quite a following, and it's that mentality and attitude that I have chosen to shadow. Practical Action, based on Schumacher's principles of appropriate technology as outlined in his book 'small is beautiful', promotes the use of technologies, sociologies and resource availabilities local to an area. They… Continue

Innovation (often) comes from constraint (If you’ve got very few

resources, you’re forced to be very creative in using and reusing them.)



If Archimedes Hadn't been commissioned to investigate the purity of the King's crown, would we have Archimedes principle?



Sometimes it helps to look at things from a perspective of having no resources; by giving myself less money to shop with each week, I become better at eating less, making food… Continue