Also a big thanks to the English Martyrs School whom had put a smashing show upstairs.

The evening buzzed along as the Measure by Measure team kicked of their summer of activities with screen printing, paining, projection and a flurry of activities.

We are now really looking forward to watching as this develops over the coming months and seeing what people have to say about the new relationship between education and visual arts at The City Gallery.

We hope to see you all workshop users, parents, educators, artists, punters of all varieties not only engaging at the gallery but following it up here online.

Because here you can see how it develops and see what the workshops have been doing. You can also discuss how it works, whether you think education benefits from the input of the arts, or that this is a white elephant chased by a tottering government.

To pin my colours to the mast, I think education, and the usefulness of art generally have been overlooked for too long and some sense of their social responsibility is essential in the 21^st century. And I think the great challenge is to compromise that to the great 19^th and 20^th century romantic vision of art as perfectly useless and not to be compromised by the viscidities of ordinary life.

So it was a great opening, and I enjoyed seeing all there, and I hope to see more of you all in the coming months and throughout the duration of Meaure by Meaure’s project.

Starting plugging for the MbM celebration on 18 August already. Food, festivities and family frolics at the gallery to celebrate what has happened over the summer and show case MbM’s work. You are all cordially invited to this so we hope to see you on August, if not sooner. And hear from you on the blog long before…

Hugo

[caption id="attachment_56" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Bryan of MbM in action"][/caption] ]]> http://melindaschwakhofer.wordpress.com/?p=1573 Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:19:46 +0000 Schwakhofer http://melindaschwakhofer.wordpress.com/?p=1573 I procrastinate for various reasons and there are different issues depending on what I am putting off. I know why I procrastinate when I need to do something like vacuum the house or organize paperwork. Sheer boredom and lack of interest.

When I was in college I had a conversation with a friend about waiting until the deadline to turn in a paper or application. That has to do with control. Until I actually submit whatever it is, I have control over it; I can still make changes to it or fantasize about what grade I'll get or if I'll get the job, but once it's turned in, there's no going back. That's what it is about for me anyhow. I still see a deadline as the time it gets turned in. It's a stretch for me to turn something in a few days in advance. Maybe I also like the thrill of working to a deadline!

There's another more sinister procrastination that happens to me though. When I am working on a new piece of art like I've never made before or on a new technique, I can get paralysed with an insidious, grabs-me-by-the-wrists procrastination.

I feel like I have to figure it all out in my head and make it come out the right way before I can begin the work. So it will come out perfect. Which is nuts. Because a) there is no such thing as perfection, and b) it is the trial and error, the very imperfect process which creates the work. Duh! Why do I keep forgetting that?

I think this is one of those lessons that keeps circling back around from time to time.

These past few days, I'm working on my final entry into the Festival of Quilts and have been doing everything but working on my final entry into the Festival of Quilts.

Last week, I came face to beak with my inner critic. I sat with my bogged down, wrists-tied feeling and became aware of a big black, clawed, sharp-beaked bird sitting on my right shoulder. This guy actually looks a bit goofy, but note the sharp claws and beak.

Earlier this week, I was dithering around and not working and I consciously picked him up from my right shoulder, plucking his claws out of my skin and set him down in the corner of the room and said, 'You can watch, but if I hear one peep out of you, I'll put you in a cage and out a cloth over it. You'll have to go to sleep like a canary".

And I was able to get on with my work.

Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way, suggests that an artist draw or make their Inner Critic and put it in their studio. I think it's a really good idea. It gets that destructive voice out from the depths of the subconscious and into the light of day. Somehow that lessens the power it can have over our creative process.

Right now, I am taking a break after a three hour stretch of work in which I've figured out how to make the border on my Manhattan Angel quilt.

I've been wanting to work in 3D some more and I think my next project will be my inner (now outer) critic.

"The maxim 'Nothing but perfection' may be spelled 'Paralysis'" buddhabuddhabuddha- Winston Churchill

Are you allowed to go out whenever you want?  Shopping, Work, Dates???

What's the problem with having your one and only sister in your life?

If there is a problem, then what, if anything, did I ever do to deserve this?

Please explain?

Why are you and the other students not allowed to have family and friends in your life but Geis is?

How can his ex-wives be blamed every time?  How is it everyone else's fault except his?  

(Did you know that is a sure sign of an abuser....when everything is blamed on everyone else and there is no responsibility taken for their own actions)

How can a GOOD father prevent a mother from seeing their own child??? 

(When I feel my baby move inside me.....I can't fathom the father of my child causing me that pain)

If his family was so abusive to him, then why is he allowed to go to baseball games with his sister, father and son? Why would he want to?

(I will write a separate blog on Domestic Violence and show you the cycle....I'm sure you wil notice it is exactly the same as this guy is doing.....remember?.....I used to be the Child Advocate for a domestic violence shelter.....I've studied this stuff inside out for years)  (and I'll also write some info on Child Sexual Abuse and the effects it has on children and also other people involved....I'm also quite knowledgeable in that area as well.....after all.....I did work with victims of sexual assault.....children and adults....both men and women.......but anyways...back to the point in this blog......: )

some more questions:

Is this guy a famous acting coach? 

I know a couple acting coach's from friends that have taken classes....and they have actually been in shows and acting since a few months after they have been in NY....you remember one....he got you the job at Bubba Gump Shrimp.....his acting coach didn't make him cut off any friends or family....or give him endless amounts of money without results.....so how come this guy is still making you do that? 

Do you have any head shots to send to places for acting?  Yes...headshots....producers that hire actresses as beautiful as you would like some headshots.  If you don't have any, I know some photographers that do them....and have been quite successful, and you don't have to continuously pay them money to keep your head shots...they become yours....so do you have any?

Are you allowed to travel whenever and wherever you would like?

Are you allowed to go to weddings, birthdays, baby showers or funerals?

Are you allowed to date men/women in NY?  Someone that might take you out to dinner, go to a museum or movie and then maybe out for a night cap....and then gives you a cab ride home with no strings attached?

Are you allowed to visit old friends whenever you want?

Are you allowed to wear the clothes you want, your hair and makeup how you want to and when you want to?

Do you want to leave?

Do you want to live a more beautiful life?

Are you afraid to leave???  I can relate the feeling...I dated a sociopath once....it's pretty fucking scary.

I left...and now I am with a wonderful man about to start a beautiful family....and  you are the one and only aunt....I would like you to be a part of it.....would you like to?

We are here for you whenever you decide you are ready.....and with no strings attached.....I love you sis.

These two pots are part of a series of "Anti-pots" I worked on last semester, addressing the question - how much clay can one take away and still call a pot a pot?

It was great fun cutting up these pots after they had gotten to that nice leatherhard stage of drying.

These both still look like pots, even though they aren't going to hold any water....

Nice dust catchers, as my mamma would call them. They will hold a candle and spill out light in an interesting way.  Putting the one with the strips missing on a revolving tray and watching it turn around and around is an entertaining little experience.

The instructor for the class is going on sabbatical and has asked me to teach the pottery classes while he is gone next year.  This is a great joy.

Progress for sure! It certainly goes faster with help. The base block wall is completed, minus the capstones.

The corners are set with Mortar Mix, to ensure they remain stable.

The second level of block terracing is set and beginning to rise.

And the Brian's started in on the Creek Bed yesterday as well. This has been really exciting to see take shape. The one disappointment thus far has been the size of the rocks. We ordered what is referred to as "one-man's", which should have been largish boulders about the size your arms could hug with fingertips touching. These are a wee bit small. Well, some are really small. As in the size of a baseball. And yes, we paid for them. I was really hoping the rocks would look bigger in scale along the walls of the cut-out cove, but what can you do after 9-tons get dumped in your yard?? They still work fine and lucky for us we got the same rock-type as the stacked retaining rockery out front (which was done poorly with rocks that were too big and not keyed correctly), so we can simply use the smaller ones to fill in the large gaps in there.

Mostly, I am amazed how nimbly this huge machine picks up each rock and places it just so atop the others. It was really cool to watch. Araiya was pretty stoked all day to sit in the back window and soak in all the action.

Day 5 should hopefully be equally as productive. The goal is to get the Brian's part of the work all done and get their machinery out, leaving us to finish up smaller details like the stairs and spreading pea gravel. Saturday we should begin putting the deck back on. I am very eager for that to happen and to be able to begin planting stuff in the garden. I'm impressed how the pace has picked up and it leaves me encouraged to see this project come to fruition.

The weak sunlight is cutting through the shutters when Jao wakes the next morning.  He doesn't wake because he wants to.  He wakes because someone is pounding on his door and it rattles in the frame every time the fist strikes wood.

Jao groans.  Normally he runs at night, wakes just as the fish merchants are rolling out their wares and the fires are being it in the streets.  Last night was no exception.

Two things Jao knows: No one he wants to talk to would knock on his door and no one who wants to talk to him would come to visit early in the morning.  Whoever is knocking is either his landlady, a client or bad news.

"Hyabusa?  Hey, Hyabusa Jao?"

It's Ao Gosuke, a man so slimy you can almost see the trail he leaves wherever he goes.  Can't miss that nasally, whining voice.  Jao pulls the covers back over his head.

“Go away.”

"Hey, Jao, I heard about last night.  That's some crazyass shit, man.  Everybody heard about it."

Everybody?

As a general rule, assassins like to work quietly.  It's more convenient for everyone.  So if everybody heard about last night, there's going to be a problem and they day's going to get a lot worse than too little sleep and Gosuke's greasy face first thing in the morning.  Jao starts listening.

"Poor little thing that got taken down to Heron House, eh?  Heard she was engaged and well, you know how it is, eh, with girls.  Dunno if there'll be a marriage now, eh."

Well, everybody on Muromachi street saw that happen.  Jao relaxes a little.  Then Gosuke says, "Good thing she's handy with a knife, eh?"

Jao sits up in bed.

"What did you hear, Gosuke?"

Gosuke's triumphant little laugh from the other side of the door is more like a wheeze.

"Well it looks like the girl's papa was a steel merchant and needed to know blades to deal in them.  Seems he doesn't have a son, so he passed all his knowledge on to his daughter."

Jao thinks about the blow to the samurai's back, a good strike, right between the ribs, which is not an easy one to do.  He should have suspected something.

Jao swears softly to himself and Gosuke chuckles on the far side of the door.  “What happened?"

"She killed Tanizaki's lover, eh?  The one he kept at Heron House.  Did a good job of it too.  Nice and neat.  But that's not it."

Here it comes, Jao thinks, waiting.

"She said someone came into the room and assassinated Tanizaki.  She got a good look at your face, Jao."

"Whatever," he answers, falling backward onto his mattress.  He wasn't wearing his real face anyway.

Gosuke laugh-wheezes again.  "And she saw you change it."

Shiiit.

"Kazematsuri wants to see you."

I bet he does.

*

Going to see Kazematsuri is not like getting groceries.  You don't just tie up your sandals and grab your cash and a sun hat.  For starters, it's usually more painful than that.

Kazematsuri is a high ranking member of the Good Men.  If it helps to frame him in the regular hierarchy of noblemen, you could think of him as the Daimyo's counsellor.  That means he's about as close to the top of the Good Men as Jao ever wants to get.  He's the one who handles the contracts and the clients and when things go awry, he handles the clean up too.  The sort of work no one ever really retires from, and not the sort of work where one is likely to reach an age to start thinking about retirement.  No doubt it helps that Kazematsuri is obviously and demonstrably insane.

Rumour has it that he might be a bastard brother of the actual Daimyo, Lord Hidomatsuri.  Maybe maybe not.  What is true is that Kazematsuri doesn't like it when people make mistakes in the course of their work.

For example:  Jao knew a guy who knew a guy used to work with black powder.  A big, impressive way to assassinate someone, ideal for making a statement, but not necessarily an accurate way to deal death to an enemy.  Anyway, in the course of a job, this guy accidentally offed not only his target, but the target's wife.  This turned out to be a  bit of a problem as she was the contractor.

No one seems to know exactly what happened to the black powder assassin, but the rumour was that Kazematsuri had him flayed and then left him exposed on the high-tide markers a the beach.  But that was before Jao's time.

Anyway, Kazematsuri is known as a pretty straight-forward, no nonsense type of guy.  He runs the show and makes a lot of enemies and so he doesn't really like people to know where he lives.  Jao gets out of bed and pulls on pants and a shirt and slides open his door.

Gosuke is waiting in the hallway. He's just a little shorter than Jao with sharp little eyes and greasy hair that leaves a slick on his forehead.   He's holding a little bottle of something that could just as easily be poison as it is sleeping draught but Jao has known Gosuke for years and knows he's a damn coward.  He'd never personally poison Jao.  Well, not intentionally.

Jao takes the bottle.  “Kazematsuri?” he asks.

“Course, Jao.”  Gosuke says, hands fluttering as he talks.  “I'd never make you take this stuff but it's business, you know how it goes.”

Jao nods.  He cracks the wax seal with his thumb and downs the contents.  Sweet, sticky, he knows the drug well enough.  He's just got time to think, I'd better sit down, before he drops like a stone in the hall.

*May not be 100% true.  Snide remarks are less welcome than, say, fawning praise**.

**Which is less welcome than, say, constructive criticism.  But that's a lot to ask for before 8 a.m.

• Artesian water comes from an underground aquifer. The aquifer is a confined, pressurized chamber below the surface of the earth that has no porthole to the surface. As a result, the water does not come into contact with air, a feature that prevents bacterial growth. The EPA considers this water the purest because of the layers of porous rock and clay that confine it and keep it pure underground. Delicious Organics offers natural artesian water.

• Mineral water comes from an underground source too. Containing at least 250 parts per million of dissolved solid minerals naturally, they cannot be added to the water.
• Spring water also comes from an underground source. The difference is that spring water finds its way to the surface through a fracture or fissure in the earth's surface. With spring water, there is always a porthole to the surface.
• Distilled water is boiled and evaporated. It has no minerals in it and the very structure of the cell of each water molecule is also stripped away; depending upon how it is treated, it may contain chemicals like nickel and aluminum. It is not fit for human consumption.
• Drinking water is typically tap water from a municipal water system that has been filtered through a process of reverse osmosis in an attempt to remove contaminants.
• Tap Water is chlorinated and has added fluoride and other chemicals added through processing. It is not fit for human consumption. There are links between ingesting chlorinated water and cancer. Some bottled waters actually include tap water in the mix so be careful which water you are drinking to make sure you are getting what you think you are drinking. If drinking your tap water, make sure to get a good filter that will catch chlorine, fluoride and other added chemicals. This will make the water taste better and be better for our bodies. And make sure to change your filter on schedule so that you are drinking clean water.
• Well Water is underground water that man has drilled a hole to tap.

I disagree. Some folks are naturally slow writers. Others are not. Nora Roberts writes half a dozen books a year without any noticeable difference in quality. Some might say "that's because she's Nora," which is true. But really, it's because Nora is just naturally a fast writer. That's her Natural pace.

If your natural pace is fast, then trying to write slow is going to make for bad writing. I personally fall on the somewhat fast side. When I am "cranking the pages out"--and my "cranking" pace isn't that fast. Maybe 6-8 pages a day (handwritten). Anyway, when I'm writing fast, I'm writing better, because I'm spending so much time deep in the story. If it's not on the surface of my brain, telling me what to write down next, it's burbling merrily in the swamp of my subconscious fermenting up something good for the next day. And if I keep my slogging 6-8 pages per day going steadily, I can finish one of my massive fantasy romances in about 4 months. Maybe 5 if it's Really massive. And I can take some time off to let it rest before I go back for revisions to whack it down to size (my usual revision need). One pass, in which I do everything at once, is generally all I require. (I'm kind of an all-at-once writer too. Forget this layering business in multiple passes.)

Other writers need time for multiple drafts. That's their natural process. They actually LIKE revisions. (Not me. Blech!) And while they're not slowly creeping through a book at a page-a-day pace, they need a lot of time because they go through the manuscript 5 or 6 times. Other writers have a natural process that involves fooling around for three or four months, then writing the book in a mad, frenzied dash over the last six weeks before deadline. They try and try to pace themselves, to start early and write sensibly, and after more than half a dozen books all written the same way, have resigned themselves to the fact that this is their natural pace.

See, that's the thing. Yes, there are some people who would probably benefit from having more time to write a book. I don't know who they are, haven't been able to pick them out just by reading their books--they've all been pretty good reads to me. But that doesn't mean everybody needs more time to write. It doesn't necessarily mean that an author who has a year in which to write a book will actually use the entire year to write it, either.

If you're a writer, do you think your natural pace is fast, or slow? If you're a reader, what do you think? Does slow mean better? Or does it matter to you?

Though a big disappointment and failure, the previous project had changed my view on a lot of stuff especially processes and documentation. I had always considered micro-level documentation as an avoidable overhead and never believed in process. If you think like me, may be your opinion will change if you know my story.

A project without any proper documentation (scope, requirements, design, project plan.... the list goes on). A very aggressive deadline. Here is where I landed into the project at the end of 2 months. Was anyone scared if the client will go bad? Nobody was. Fast forward >> Client denies the scope. Squeezes in double the original requirements into the scope. You know what happened in the end? He made us work for 6 months and coolly paid for just the original 3 months.

We were screwed big time just for the lack of process and documentation. You know.. I learned it.

via swissmiss

The wall is slowly rising. What a painstakingly precise and labor intensive process. And Matt has been going at this entirely by himself. Stack Block. Fill holes with gravel. Shovel drain rock backfill. One. Scoop. At. A. Time. Shovel down backfill. Rake. Level. Compact- back and forth. Lay out Geogrid. Next layer. And it looks really darn good.

There is a long way to go. Today he has two guys out there helping him. We need to catch up so we can get the Brian's back in to excavate the next level of terracing for the second block wall and dig out the creek bed. Hope to report even more progress tomorrow!

Isto costuma acontecer porque a abordagem de desenvolvimento delas simplesmente não está adaptada à manutenção. Ela foi otimizada para um cenário (completamente fictício, diga-se de passagem) onde não há vida após a entrega do sistema, onde os clientes não mudam de idéia e onde não acontecem requisições de mudança depois que o software está pronto.

Não importa quanto alguém se dedique à tarefa. Ninguém consegue fazer a água da cascata cair para cima.

A abordagem oposta, obviamente, é otimizar para a manutenção, isto é, estar pronto para começar pequeno, mudar sempre que necessário, consertar o software aos poucos e torcer para que um dia ele não precise mais de conserto. A proposta Ágil começou com experiências neste sentido, tomando emprestado da filosofia release early, release often e preferindo usar o próprio software para comunicação entre os clientes e a equipe de desenvolvimento ao invés de documentos e diagramas. Num certo sentido, equipes ágeis tomam a manutenção como modo de operação normal no lugar do desenvolvimento puro. Preferem desenvolver uma solução completa e usável para um problema pequeno rapidamente para que possam dar as boas vindas à manutenção o mais cedo possível. Enquanto os clientes não tem uma peça real de sofware para usar e experimentar, suas sugestões são só um pouco melhor do que especulação.

Esta não é uma idéia tão louca no fim das contas. Pensando bem, da segunda linha de código para a frente tudo é manutenção.

Don’t get me wrong, I do not like The F-Word, but it is worth watching it occasionally for a few cheap laughs. You know the bit I mean: when Gordon tells you how to make his pea and lettuce soup in just one minute, all in words of just one syllable. Riotous! We are somehow meant to see Gordon’s failure to use any adjectives at all as the signature of his virility, “full of balls, energy, and really great food,” as the Channel-4 tag-line puts it. (Full of balls? Sure is. . .) And the gender stereotypes peddled in Gordon’s brisk how-tos are just as strange and crass as those associated with Nigella. Man does not describe. Oh no. Describing words redundant, and unmanly. Man only know how to use imperative. Imperative style of cooking instructions works best with short, firm words. More difficult with two syllables. Very hard to make the word “mushrooms” sound manly. “Mushrooms” does not sound like manly decree. Man quickly mutters “mushrooms” then gets on with real business of shouting Real Man Words. “WHISK! TOSS! STIR!” etc. If Nigella’s mellifluous, adjectival style is supposed to be read in direct relation to her cleavage, then the F-Word’s use of the imperative might be seen as the culinary equivalent of a wanking circle, with wee Gordon in the centre, braying out commands (Shaft! Girth! Beat! Etc)

Gordon.

But I bring the F-word to your attention because of a particular moment in Tuesday’s show. The redoubtable Janet Street Porter appeared on set, fresh from her carefully stage-managed experience of rearing and slaughtering two veal calves. The viewer had already been treated to the money-shot of the poor beasts’ deaths, and what we clearly needed now was Janet to preach at us about our lamentable food-buying habits. We must never buy cheap meat again. No we mustn’t. Instead, we should feast only on luxury meat products humanely reared by media luminaries. While dispensing her new-found farming wisdom, Janet was dressed in a formless top, machine-knit in a vibrant shade of puce. It was a truly hideous garment (sorry, Janet).

“I suppose you knit that yourself?” said Gordon, inferring that Janet’s experience of slaughtering “her boys” had turned her all rustic, or something.
“No I fooking didn’t, Gordon,” retorted Janet, “this is a designer item.”

puce

Now, I know that I’m more sensitive than your average jane to anti-knitting slurs, but this was about so much more than knitting. Janet enthused about how raising the calves, and watching the process of their lives and deaths, had completely transformed her perception of meat. She now knew what was involved with what she put on her plate. And everyone should think about how the meat they eat is raised and killed. Apart from the patronising attitude, and the unavoidable questions Janet did not address about cost, class, and the ethics of raising a niche luxury product like veal, this is sort of fair enough. Yes, Janet. We should all think about process, and production. But, the problem is, that she hadn’t really engaged with process at all. She had merely played a game to camera: a game with a neatly plotted narrative arc, with contrived hooks and encounters, with a particular rhetorical language (that of reluctant maternity—quite bizarre) and with moments of typically ‘direct’ and ‘irreverant’ Street-Porter-like entertainment. “’Oh no, it’s pooing again’, moans Janet,” to quote The F-Word website. Janet had engaged about as much with the slow processes and difficult realities of farming as she had with the making of her sweater, and her quick retort about the obvious superiority of ‘designer’ to ‘hand-made’ spoke volumes.

So is it just me, or does so much of this currently popular moralising about process (particularly as it concerns food) have an incredibly hollow ring? It is just far too easy for Gordon, Janet and their like to preach to the middle classes about the importance of the means of producing edible luxuries, before nipping out to snap up, promote, or sell other commodities with little thought about the process of their making—or the livelihoods of their makers, for that matter.

But one place where such discussions of process are neither hollow or easy is in Richard Sennett’s excellent new book, The Craftsman. If you haven’t read it yet, you definitely should. In a series of radical, lyrical essays, this venerable sociologist makes the case for a reassessment of the idea of work itself. The making of things for use or beauty are never, he argues, a matter of individual brilliance, the romantic imagination, or isolated talent. Rather, for him, excellence lies somewhere between the eye and hand, in material practices and processes, and the slow engagement with them over time. Sennett’s notion of craft is something equally applicable to the design of a mobile-phone or a line of linux code, as much as a Stradivari violin , or a particular recipe for Poulet a la d’Albufera. For him, all these ‘crafts’ involve the same struggle with tools and processes, the same issues of encountering and solving problems, of developing and refining skill and focus, of learning how repetition itself can be creative, and of coming to know the singular pleasure of doing something well for its own sake. It is a book of tremendous breadth and sweep but which is also rich in details. In fact, for me, Sennett’s singularity, both as a writer and a public intellectual, is found in such details: in the bumper that really bothers him in the parking garage of a post-modern building; in his discussion of the symbolic values of bricks; in his thoughtful self-awareness of being an outsider as he watches a group of healthcare professionals transfixed by the image of a troublesome large intestine. And any man who can begin a sentence with the words “consider, for instance, an irregular tomato” and from that opening build an argument about the how an idea of virtue inheres in thing-ness, is OK by me.

Epinglier (pin making) Diderot, Encyclopedie (1762)

Lurking around the back of Sennett’s thesis is a familiar argument about the de-humanising effects of the modern and post-modern division of labour. He is quite explicit about his fondness for the all-encompassing curiosity of the mid-eighteenth century, or the undifferentiated artisanal labour of the medieval workshop. Not for him Adam Smith’s efficiently produced pins. This practical resistance to the division of labour—and the division of knowledge too, perhaps—is something he clearly applies to his own intellectual craft-work. He writes about the way children treat the spaces and equipment of playgrounds just as articulately as he does about Martin Heidegger.

Sennett’s thoughts about process have multiple and resonant contexts for me. For example, his remarks about being-in-the-thing came to my mind very strongly, when I read Mandy’s account of the pleasure of the rhythm of knitting her swallowtail shawl:

“We might think, as did Adam Smith describing industrial labour, of routine as mindless, that a person doing something over and over goes missing mentally; we might equate routine and boredom. For people who develop sophisticated hand skills, it’s nothing like this. Doing something over and over is stimulating when organised as looking ahead. The substance of the routine may change, metapmorhose, improve, but the emptional payoff is one’s experience of doing it again. There’s nothing strange about this experience. We all know it; it is rhythm. Built into the contractions of the human heart, the skilled crafsman has extended rhythm to the hand and eye." (p. 175)

. . .and his section on mess chimes very strongly with Felix’s and Kirsty's Messy Tuesdays posts:

"To arrive at that goal [that of being fit-for-purpose] the work process has to do something distasteful to the tidy mind, which is to dwell temporarily in mess—wrong moves, false starts, dead ends. Indeed, the probing craftsman does more than encounter mess; he or she creates it as a means of understanding working procedures." (p.161)

And what Sennett has to say about the importance of modesty, and the awareness of one’s own inadequacies, while engaging with material processes is very moot too. Perhaps this is something for Janet and Gordon to bear in mind.

*You can hear Richard Sennett talking with Laurie Taylor and Grayson Perry about craftsmanship, and process in this episode of Thinking Allowed.

Dulu saya hanya mengkoleksi tulisan-tulisan para praktikus HHO yang ada di luar indonesia, kebanyakkan mereka memang dengan senang hati membagi ilmu dan pengalamanya untuk umat manusia :-) salut!, saya suka sekali dengan cara berpikir mereka untuk share knowledge & experiences.

Okay, sekarang kembali pada aktifitas yang sedang saya lakukan, sekarang saya sedang berusaha mewujudkan rencana saya untuk membuat sebuah HHO cell yang bisa digunakan untuk "booster" mobil tua saya. Karena saya sekarang jauh dari peradaban (karena posisi sekarang sedang ada di tengah hutan, disuatu project pembangunan kilang), maka material yang akan saya gunakan pun menjadi "ala-kadarnya".

HHO cell yang akan saya buat terbuat dari :

1. Teko/ceret air yang terbuat dari LDPE/HDPE, barang ini banyak tersedia di toko-toko kelontong atau supermarket, bahkan di tengah hutan seperti kotabumi ini pun saya bisa mendapatkan nya. Harganya murah, cuman Rp. 12.000,-
2. Anode saya rencanakan terbuat dari sisa/bekas tube instrumentasi di kilang, material anode ini terbuat dari SS 316L (stenless steel food grade), nah, kalau material yang seperti ini sepertinya akan cukup susah dicari, harganya pun tidak murah. Beruntung saya mendapatkan dari kumpulan "scrap" yang ada di belakang kantor project.
3. Katode saya rencanakan terbuat dari sisa/bekas "pipe line" di kilang, material katode ini terbuat dari SS 304 (grade nya lebih rendah dari SS 316L). Material seperti ini cukup banyak dan bisa di jumpai di toko-toko daerah asem reges, daerah glodok, bila anda berdomisili di jakarta. Harganya tidak murah tapi juga tidak terlalu mahal. Sekali lagi, beruntung saya mendapatkan secara "gratis" di halaman belakang kantor project.
4. Baut & mur, saya harus beli untuk yang ini dan material nya harus SS juga, tidak boleh CS. Harganya gak mahal kok, 1 set paling cuman Rp. 5.000,-
5. Lem besi dan lem PVC (biasa digunakan untuk pipa paralon).
6. Selang, one way valve, & tempat minum (yang digunakan) untuk pemisah antara fuel cell nantinya dengan jalur combution chamber supaya bila ada "flashback", ledakan ataupun kebakaran bisa terhindarkan.

Oh iya, untuk memberikan sedikit pemahaman proses tentang bagaimana cara kerja dari fuel cell HHO ini, ada baiknya anda sekalian tahu bahwa yang terjadi adalah sebagai berikut :

• Untuk membangkitkan atau meng ekstrak H2O menjadi HHO, fuel cell membutuhkan energi listrik untuk proses "electrolysis", proses yang terjadi : 2 H2O -> 2H2 + O2
• Hasil dari electrolysis tersebut dikirimkan ke combution chamber untuk menghasilkan tenaga ledakan bersama-sama premium (bensin) & udara dengan proses sebagai berikut : 2H2 + O2 -> 2H2O

Baiklah, sekarang saya akan mencoba mendeskripsikan dari awal, langkah-langkah pembuatan "fuel cell HHO" dari barang-barang bekas ini, :

> Mengumpulkan scrap SS dari tumpukkan scrap di lapangan.

> Mulai dengan menekuk pipa tube yang akan digunakan sebagai 'anode'.

> Anode di tekuk seperti bentuk 'per' secara manual (ala kadarnya)

> Calon fuel cell dengan casing terbuat dari teko/ceret air.

Sebenarnya saya masih bingung, bagaimana bentuk katode yang baik, apakah sebuah pipa SS 302 yang di letakan di tengah-tengah coil anode ? atau sebuah plat SS 304 yang diletakan di sekitar coil anode ? apa pun nanti yang akan saya gunakan dan bagaimana caranya ?, akan saya teruskan pada 'postingan' "Brown Gas - HHO (004)"

So here is my theory , we should focus all our energies on the process i.e. the activities that are in our control. Anything else is not worth worrying as we cannot do anything to influence it. There is such thing called luck !! And it works best when you let nature take its course !!

So don't worry be happy !!

Abs the optimist !!
www.mmffoundation.com

Hey Everyone. A little shout out about an upcoming event for Product Managers and Product Marketers, and product people in general. I'm helping organize the first ever Product Camp here in Toronto.

The home page for ProductCamp Toronto is here.

Staging this will of course be a group effort, and a few of the early enthusiasts are Chris Gurney, Chris Hebert, Lee Garrison and the Toronto Product Management Association.

The exact date and location are not 100% confirmed, but we're targeted a Saturday in October (after Thanksgiving and before Halloween), in a downtown Toronto location if possible.

If you want to help sponsor the event, please contact Lee.

If you want to speak or attend, go to the ProductCamp Toronto page and register etc.

We'll be leveraging the insight gained by two previous similar camps: ProductCamp Austin, and the infamously named, P-Camp in Silicon Valley.

Will post updates on the blog once things are firmed up.

Saeed

P.S. Please vote for our blog in the Computer Weekly IT Blog awards. Read more here.

This is the place I got to after I write something big, the place where I used to panic about never writing again.  Ha ha!  I've got inter-project blues!  I wish I'd realized that this morning, I could have spent the day doing stuff instead of sitting around staring at things wondering why my brain's not working.

Enough of this shit.  I'm off to karate.

For a while when you're drowsy, you feel light and just sort of float over and around obstacles your internal editor has set up. Ideas that were timid a few hours before suddenly have the courage to show themselves to you. You've got something else that you must do, but suddenly, there they are. Trying to limit the time you have--Just a few more minutes!--makes it harder to refuse them. These ideas have patiently waited until it's safe for them to share their brilliance with you, and you're going to abandon them so you can go snore? Come on, buddy, do you think the cliches aren't true? Writing is hard. And if being screwed up isn't what made you want to be a writer, the writing process will sure as hell finish the job. I know you think you're the most innovative writer of this blah blah blah, but hey, there are traditions that must be respected here.

At 2:15 a.m., on my fourth journey out of bed, I said to myself, This is all I can do. Thank you, ideas, for your courage. But it doesn't matter anymore. I must sleep. I have to work in the morning. The floating sensation was gone. I became aware of my body, which felt heavier than ever as I trudged through the darkened house to bed.

I don't want to write another word ever again, I thought. Then I dreamed, although I can't remember the details. When I woke, the heavy feeling remained as I got myself ready and drove to work. Somewhere along the way I remembered that I still needed to come up with a different title for the piece I'd been working on.

I suddenly had that feeling you get when you know someone is looking at you but you don't know where they are. I knew it must have been the idea of the perfect title, peering at me from one of the air vents. It was surely waiting until I tried to make a left turn from the center lane across oncoming traffic. That would be the moment it would emerge and tell me why I just couldn't live without it.