Books

So, one of my New Resolutions is to Blog more frequently. During the last year I wrote a few blog topics and didn't post. I'm part way through one on Fly-Fishing for Trout in New Zealand. This one however is on 'Books'. I reckon I must have about 1,000 books, thats 32 per shelf across 6 shelves per case across 3 cases, then I reckon about the same number of books stacked on the floor on tops of the shelved books, under beds, in boxes. I'm waiting for the day on of those news magazine programs turns up to do a story on the piles of books. You can try counting them in the photograph.

The books tend to simply accumulate, most get read, many get partially read, some get read more than once, some get used frequently, and others gather dust. Some recent work on the bathroom saw a lot of dust. So now I'm reorganising the books - Do I sell some, give them away (to charity), or keep them to gather more dust? To add to the books there's magazines, periodicals and journals. A number of years ago I sorted through many books and took some to a second hand dealer, and watched as he tallied up the value, 50 cents here, a dollar there, some I think managed several dollars. And again over the years, the collection builds again.

Having a few hobbies and interests is probably part of the issue, the collection spans topics such as; the Second World War, Astronomy, Fitness/Health/Cycling, Bushwalking, Technical Books from University days on Optics, Mathematics, History and Philosophy of Science, Fly Fishing, Model Trains, History of Australia. I'm sitting here wondering how to catalogue them all - pen and paper and start a list, maybe photograph the shelves at least that way I can be comfortable doing the transcribing. Maybe get a bar code reader and get the ISBN number. A cheap hand held USB scanner is less than $100, a hand held bluetooth scanner though is closer to $1000.00.

Do I really need all these books, one book, 'Discovering Astronomy' by 'Robert Chapman' ( no relation), published 1978, I have it dated inside as 1979. I liked it, although the Amazon reviews are not so kind, on the other hand I understood it, unfortunately I've had to mark it for disposal, it was a good starter for Astronomy in its day and still some interesting stuff in there.

Maybe I can split the books into charitable donations and saleable. I think at least 1 in 3 books will have to go, and all except a few periodicals and journals. Fortunately some organisations now publish as 'pdf'.

A lot of these books have my moniker and a date inside, some people like this others hate it. I like to think a book can come back to me if loaned and that the user can be reminded of who loaned the book. If you ever come across one you should drop me a line.

And then, there is all the IT books.

My Economic Theory No.1

So, another 6 months and I'd better make a blog post. So, looking for work again. Maybe I should focus on that – it can often be an interesting time. I need to balance all my projects against looking for work, or maybe this time – starting a business. Whilst I'm not really into self-help therapies I do from time-to-time delve into the self-motivational stuff. A book I've just started to read is titled “Never Get a Real Job” by 'Scott Gerber'- the title appealed to me, I sometimes think I've never had a real job, and the when I've had them – I'm bored to tears. So far half way through – not really anything new to me – I think Scott has pitched the book at young start-outs. So far he's made the point – it's not easy, and don't expect success to come quickly, and if you're lucky – you wont starve or live on the street.

His motivation I think is that for most people the concept of real jobs is a figment of imagination. When I was starting in the work force, back in the mid 1980's it was becoming accepted that most people will have multiple career paths, probably changing their career upto 3 times. I think Scott is trying to make the point that people will need to regularly re-invent their career. This is as trategy I can accept, unfortunately I think many people can't see this, especially people who are still stuck in real jobs, and cannot see a way forward other than their garden path.

The changing economies of the modern western world are obviously in a bit of turmoil, so can they carry their populations forward, or was the old paradigm the correct paradigm.

Solar Eclipse 2010 - July 11th

Up early to watch the total solar eclipse - on a live web stream, the only one I could find. It's in Japanese and obviously from a Japanese expedition - Wakayama University. They made it to totality but then the feed appeared to fail. The location was somewhere in the South Pacific. Another Solar Eclipse I've managed to miss the opportunity of seeing in location. I did quick survey of locations I should have gone to and found a small island called Mangaia in the Cook Islands, I bet I could have caught a few bone fish as well - next time maybe. If I win lotto maybe it'll be Frazer Island. Anyway, here are the first pictures I've found on the web, from Mangaia http://www.spaceweather.com/submissions/large_image_popup.php?image_name=Constantinos-Emmanouilidis-Prominences_1278875772.jpg

Still nothing in the Australian news. The extra time in the FIFA World Cup is one headline and a body on a beach is another headline. The Rosetta flyby does get a mention.

Long Time Between Posts

Some bloggers have no trouble generating material. I expect the best approach is to bang out whatever. I have a few started and not finished I might still dig them out and post them. I was inspired today, I don't know why. A bit of cold and wet start - not working means there's no pressure to get out there. I do have lots to blog about, lots of projects in pipeline:

- Getting my video astro video camera going. I need to finish building a box of electronics so I can keep everything in one place instead of devices spilling all over the outdoor furniture and cables going in all directions. There'll be some progress on this real soon. The latest blocker was almost blinding myself when a hand dremel threw a tiny piece of plastic into my eye. A visit to the opthalmic surgeon revealed two in-grown eyelashes that he promptly removed. After a few days, last night I eventually located a tiny particle of plastic, probably smaller than 0.5mm drifting about in my eye and managed to remove it - very carefully. So (probably) no more cutting into plastic boxes until I get a pair prescription safety glasses in a few days.

- I'm getting into TikiWiki had a bit of false start about a year ago. But now I'm working on a site for 7mm profile modelling and I think I'll try turning the Sydney City Skywatchers website into a TikiWiki site.

-I'm a building a NSW 'R' Coach in 7mm, this has stalled but should restart soon. I want to log the process in the Wiki.

Oh - and I need to find a job.

Earth Hour - I just don't get it

I'm loathe to say - it's that time of year again.  I think the popularisation of Science is a great objective, there should be more done and more often.  For a few years now there has been an event called 'Earth Hour'.  If you don't know of it, what essentially happens is that people are asked to turn off lights for an hour.  The event itself originated in Sydney, Australia.  The event became national and then international and I think in concept it is a good idea.  However the organisation that runs it wasn't the first.  A bit of research would uncover I think Sydney Observatory attempting with some success to get Sydney City buildings to turn out their illumination and then in latter years some amateur functions managing the same.

In essence though 'Earth Hour' is simply a Green marketing event, a feel good exorcism of Green and energy wasting demons.  Like the concept of World Peace the participants cry 'If only it could be every day - then the world would be a better place'.  Soon a lot of energy will be wasted promoting this event and the event itself will cause much wastage of energy as people are encouraged to go out and organise events for 'Earth Hour'.  I can only think that the act of turning off lights is a visible signal that something is happening or maybe it's just the imprint that a neurotic Grandmother or Grandfather has had or some poor kid - who now inflicts the neurosis on us.  Then nothing more is heard for another year - and someone in the meantime is getting fat.  All that is achieved is a glowing, energy wasting example of viral marketing.

The outcome of Earth Hour is that people feel OK over wasting energy.  I think this year they've managed to run it outside daylight saving and twilight.

The Quest for Power

Over the last twelve months my astronomy has been more of a course in electronics - something that in my university days I saw as nuisance and relevant only to the propeller heads in Elec. Eng. Add to that total and complete colour blindness and I'm sure you'll agree it was probably fairly pointless putting a bunch of resistors and capacitors in front of me. I was and am, much happier at a larger component level.

In the quest for significant amateur astronomy the old telescope was disposed of for a you beaut computer controlled model - a Celestron CPC8. All sorts of back-end gear was added - a filter wheel, temperature compensated focuser, field rotator (just to complicate it). Of course everything is powered and it all can be computer controlled. So everything needs power. All the electronic components use DC power and one objective was to be portable. After a few shake-down runs success looked achievable - soon however some gremlins started to show. The heavy duty marine GEL battery still capable of powering an electric outboard on a small boat - couldn't cope with the draw of most of the gear - OUCH1

So the solution is to use a Laboratory Power Supply, at least when within range of a residential power supply. Still this meant acquiring or building a distribution box for the 12V supply. This was completed with a lot of burnt fingers, cursing and trepidation. All this was fine for 12V requirements, and of course there is the few components that require odd voltages and need a step down DC-DC transformer - simple to say , however fraught with difficulties. The most significant issue is that the excess power needs to be shed and disposed of, and this is done by converting it to heat - well this is simply the outcome. The bigger the voltage drop the more heat. The problem this creates is that the electronics to handle the DC shift are compact, the cooling heat sink fins can be large. Correspondingly the housing box goes from small to large. Anyway the bottom line is a complete redesign but I should achieve a reduction in long cables thus removing another risk factor of something that trip up the scope in the middle of a run.

So I'm still out of action and almost back to step 1 but about to make a come back.

The Reality of Light Pollution revealed.

Here’s a quick blog, some of the detail may be lost to the fog of my mind but the conclusion is important. I’ll try to work on developing this over the next few days – before work catches up with me.

The great advantage of a few days (okay a couple of weeks ) off work – it is finally possible to catch up with unfinished projects and start a few more that can stay unfinished until – Easter I guess! It is also a chance to gather a few thoughts together. My compatriots in SOLIS (Sydney Outdoor Lighting Society) have been busy collecting and collating bits if information on the scourge of ‘Light Pollution’ . Still however, the idea that loose and extraneous photons could be a form of pollution is probably a long way off understood. When SOLIS was first formed in 1988 (that long ago) we took the fight upto City Hall (Sydney City Council). Often the response to SOLIS was one of ‘incredulity’, from the people who understood the issue especially the street lighting distributors - they tried to blind us with ‘engineering logic’ which doesn’t stack up to real science. When The City of Sydney was in full swing for 2000 Olympics many building projects had lighting components. By this time lighting was required to shown as a separate Development Application – SOLIS would like to think that this was our achievement.

It is an interesting parallel to identify extraneous lighting as pollution. Often these parallels are drawn to the CFC issues and the hole in the Ozone layer of the 70s & 80s, as well as current parallels to wastage of energy such as inefficient light bulbs. Everyone thinks the problem is about light that goes up into the atmosphere maybe even on a voyage into Outer Space. The problem is really about light coming back into us, the light is returning from out there! And that’s the rub – light travels in straight lines, when the noise level that is the random signal swamps the real object signal – the object is lost to our sight. Think about it.