TED Community » Mark Blofield
About Me
Keeping it short and sweet....
1. 10 1/2 years working in industrial electrotech,
2. 12 years adult technical education (Electrical, Electronic, Industrial Control and Computing Technology - from Trade to Associate Diploma levels).
3. Entrepreneur - started a company in 1995 to deliver local affordable Internet access to my area. Sold the operation in 2008 due to health issues.
- Location:
- Australia, Lithgow
- Gender:
- Male
More About Me
I'm passionate about
My family.
Music - play guitar personally.
History, science and technology, social issues, following and getting annoyed by politics.
Thinking, learning - I am intellectually insatiable - feed me!
People don't know that I'm good at
Keeping secrets!
..............(I'm not actually ;) )
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A reply on Conversation: Can we think without any presumptions?
For example, I despise ideologies (the "isms"), they all lead to dogma and create mental imprisonment.
Classic example is politics where someone cannot execute the obvious solution because it goes against their ideology. "Left wing" or "right wing", how did ornithology invade politics?!?!?
No wonder politics is full of the absurd!
So, the collective thinking is as bad, or maybe worse than what occurs in individuals
Judges, who are professionally required to practice impartiality, are often able to be characterized by the history of their cases. No one can think without presumption.
Past experience will always colour current thought, no matter how hard to try to prevent it, as that very effort will create influence of its own.
A reply on Conversation: Can we think without any presumptions?
Macca's full name was John McKinney. Others around that era were Dave Boyling, Gary Shirt and Sid Whalan.
We're probably hijacking thread with this, so I'll keep the "Lithgow muso" history to a that.. We should probably reconnect via email.
Also the thread has gone off on a tangent somewhat with the neuro-feedback topic, but that is very much related, so I'll add the following:
The guitar is an instrument that is very "intimate" with the player (not the only one). Beethoven remarked on the instrument, as it was both portable and polyphonic, but he didn't play it as far as I know.
The intimacy comes with the ability to play between tones by bending notes (you are not bound to discrete "steps" as you are on a piano), and also the variations of tone and harmonics available by subtle techniques on both hands. It is infinite variation.
This is why it has moved from restrictive "integer based" classical to the newer forms of music from blues, jazz and others.
As such, you can reach a point where the instrument virtually becomes an extension of you, and the ultimate in expression. It transcends "hitting the groove". As you say, flow. You don't think about the neurofeedback on your fingers, but what is in your thoughts can instantly become sound.
Adding electronics can enhance this, but it can also detract.
Hendrix, probably the greatest example of flow.
He couldn't read music, didn't practice ("That's why I make so many mistakes, man") and experimented instead.
He actually added the amplifier as a part of the instrument, not just something that makes the instrument louder. He only had simple electronics, but, as has John Phillips said, you could watch him like a hawk, but still not work out how he was doing it.
Pure flow!
A reply on Conversation: We will NOT find an alternative to energy dense, easily transportable conventional oil in time to sustain indefinate economic growth.
Factual figures from a proposed upgrade to Mt Piper Power Station: A$2 Billion budget (2008) to 600MW upgrade to an existing power station. Then it will cost $162,240,000 (current price) extra in coal per year just to fuel that increase. That is only an UPGRADE to existing infrastructure!
Based on the Andasol parabolic trough thermal system in Spain, a brand new installation would be just under $5 Billion at PROTOTYPE prices including the heat storage for 24 hour operation. A roll-out of 12 units (50MW/unit is what the costings are based on) of thermal solar will reduce costs with economies of scale, as it is duplication, over and over.
Solar is mostly a one off cost, and if the initial capital is amortized over an appropriate period, it can be priced to compete on the market and will surpass the competition, as maintenance costs are also lower (far less moving mechanics - no belts, hoppers, ball/ roller mills, etc.)
Just over a century ago, "horseless carriages" were a "fringe activity", Lord Kelvin said that there was nothing new left to invent, powered flight was a pipe dream, etc, then a couple of bicycle mechanics .. well you know the story.
As Ian Fleming said, Never say never again.
Check out this TED talk.... http://www.ted.com/talks/bertrand_piccard_s_solar_powered_adventure.html
"So, you see that this airplane is more a symbol. I don't think it will transport 200 people in the next years. But when Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic, the payload was also just sufficient for one person and some fuel. And 20 years later there were 200 people in every airplane crossing the Atlantic."
NASA and others are working on getting biofuels from algae, Solar to hydrogen, etc.
There are infinite possibilities once we free ourselves from paradigms.
A reply on Conversation: We will NOT find an alternative to energy dense, easily transportable conventional oil in time to sustain indefinate economic growth.
Creating momentary happiness can be achieved in dire situations, and is often done to help make the situation more bearable.
If you actually travel to places where people are on the poverty line, you may find, as I have, that they are very generous and high spirited. And yes they smile.
Of course you'll see the smiles fade when the situation becomes more dire, but often, even then, they'll try to raise their spirits.
It is part of our survival mechanism.
A reply on Conversation: We will NOT find an alternative to energy dense, easily transportable conventional oil in time to sustain indefinate economic growth.
First there is the obvious, the battery swap out that has been talked about for ages. Well, it is a reality and coupled with a scheme where you do not own the battery, but rent it, it keeps the cost of the vehicle down. See.... http://www.ted.com/talks/shai_agassi_on_electric_cars.html
Another on the horizon is the sludge battery. This technology has been worked on over the last decade or so.
Basically, the anode, cathode and electrolyte are all tiny particles suspended in a liquified sludge, This is passed through a unit, which extracts the energy for use, It is also recharged in a similar process.
So to recharge the car quickly, you pump out the discharged sludge and pump in the charged sludge just like you do fuel on a car now. The discharged sludge is then recharged for later use.
MIT looked very promising with "Cambridge Crude" a couple of years ago, but it was then acquired as a subsidiary to another battery company which went under, so I am not sure where it is up to. It was apparently scalable and high density.
The US DOD are working on a lower density, cheaper model of the same thing, from memory it is not Lithium based as Cambridge Crude was.
So, it can be used to pump or tanker electric energy just like any other liquid.
A comment on Conversation: Can we think without any presumptions?
A father employs his son in a business, but does not want to create a "boss's son" scenario, where he shows favour and results in disgruntling other employees. Often, in real life, this ends up with the father being harder on his son than the others, and he has not nullified the impact of the family relationship, but reversed it.
We are not as in control as we may think!
A reply on Conversation: Can we think without any presumptions?
Agree with what you're saying. The further it goes, the more it seems that this area of study is closing the gap to string theory, as the concepts appear to merge, but then again why shouldn't they, as the science of working out exactly what we are is a subset of what energy and matter are.
More and more Mysteries and Mayhem!
A comment on Conversation: Can we think without any presumptions?
The TED talk that Mitch referred to was about movement and the brain developed to control mevement, but in doing so needed to filter the "noise" in feedback signals in the body's nervous system to acquire any accuracy and coordination.
The Bruce Lee example is probably the greatest display of human coordinated movement that I have ever seen. Playing ping pong is difficult enough, but to use a nun-chuck, which is not only cylindrical in shape, but articulated (i.e. two pieces joined by a flexible chain or cord), is ridiculously difficult as the body has little feedback ("feel") from the loose part of the nun-chuk which is the bit that strikes the ball.
To do what Bruce Lee does in that video, not only being able to hit the ball, but do so as accurately as someone using a standard ping pong paddle, is truly incredible. I'd like to see anyone attempt to duplicate it.
Given the content of the TED Talk, I bet the speaker would have given anything to have had the opportunity to study whatever magic was happening in Bruce's nervous system!
If you watch the talk, you will understand the reference. http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_wolpert_the_real_reason_for_brains.html
A reply on Conversation: We will NOT find an alternative to energy dense, easily transportable conventional oil in time to sustain indefinate economic growth.
"Today humanity uses the equivalent of 1.5 planets to provide the resources we use and absorb our waste. This means it now takes the Earth one year and six months to regenerate what we use in a year." - http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/world_footprint/
People do not understand the concept because when they look around they do not readily see the problem.
I'd like a dollar for every time I've heard on discussion panels, etc, the preposterous notion that development fixes the pollution problem, because the people end up in clean cities.
This is stated by people that live in the "nice" parts of cities, work in the pretty CBD,etc.
Yep, it looks squeaky clean and hunky dory, but when you look in poor areas, like impoverished villages and squatter cities, you can see the dirt and squalor that people endure. So the false logic follows that if they were to be elevated to a life as rich as ours, then they'd live in squeaky clean cities too! This is also applied to the poorer neighnourhoods in our cities!
The illusion is created by "out of sight, out o mind". The dirt and waste from our environment has been moved by such services as garbage collection services and street sweepers, and moved somewhere else. Somehow, they don't notice the industrial areas, etc.
It is just like sweeping the dirt under the carpet.
However, any study will show the opposite to be true. Those in affluent societies consume far more per capita of every resource and produce far more "dirt" than the poor do, and the rates rise with income.
Landfills hide waste, but it is common for regulators to not allow residential areas to be built on previous landfills. They are zoned as "toxic" for a reason!
We need to reduce consumption and start treating "waste" as resources.
Semantics are funny. A new term, "mining landfills" arose because "recycling" has become associated with frugality, and we like to think we are richer and richer!
A reply on Conversation: We will NOT find an alternative to energy dense, easily transportable conventional oil in time to sustain indefinate economic growth.
Mike, the BlueGen methane fuel cell was developed in Melbourne a few years back, but at around $30k it hasn't caught on here, (you could go off-grid with PV for half that here) so now it's manufactured in Germany, under the Australian license.
Thing is, I hate it when I see our stuff going overseas like that. We should make it here and export. Unfortunately, a lot of Australian business is way too short sighted. If you can dig it up and sell it for a quick buck, go for it, anything else.... "looks too hard, mate."
When China stops buying our dirt and rocks, that short-sightedness will turn around and bight us where the sun don't shine!.
Over-dependence on commodities is just too many eggs in one basket, for mine! An older bloke I knew used to say, "If they want our iron ore, then they can buy it...... after we've turned into a refrigerator, washing machine, or a car, or a......"
Even a manager of a US chemical manufacturer (can't remember who), who is an Australian and was "back home" recently, addressed this exact issue. He said that his company was keen to invest here in manufacturing. Better a US company than nothing, but I really wish that we could change the local mentality.
I like the German "Mittelstand" concept, local entrepreneurial ownership integrated into local communities, which is said to have attributed to Germany's recent resilience. Check this our... http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2012/s3430858.htm
That somewhat "old model", has a lot going for it. It may not create the same economical highs, but it can minimize the lows, and the contagion of more global models, whilst maintaining stronger communities. If industry is locally owned, it will more likely be sustained if profitable. I've seen externally owned operations close and wreck communities, even though they were still profitable, because there was something more profitable elsewhere