This is something I’d meant to post a really long time ago but got distracted by having to, well, do stuff. We’ve got a pretty normal looking kettle, and when you fill it up it feels like you fill it for a pretty normal amount of time, but I was interested to see how much we were actually putting into it (I was reading Sustainable energy without the hot air at the time, so it all makes sense).

It turns out that we were putting about three times as much water as we needed to to make two mugs of tea. What this little experiment did show was that one of the jars that tomato paste comes in is just right for two mugs of tea, so the jar lives by the kettle now.

My trip to RMIT is all on now, and it all hinges about gettign the correct forms filled in and sent to the right people, but with very little guidance, and an 11 hour time difference at play it’s tricky, I should be going some time in January, and the couple of weeks to get my head around the city, and all the prime coffee.

I was teaching a UEL again today, this time I wasn’t Josh’s little bitch, preping his students for his full on assault while he parties at weddings in LA, it was my show, and despite the usual pre-terror, it all came together (i think).  We bashed into a bit of LUA scripting for ecotect, and the scripts we covered are living on the ceca wiki now.

Given that the term  doesn’t start at RMIT until the 3rd of March, i’ve finally got a chance to get all the litte bits tied up that i’ve had on my task list for years and years. all the little stuff, like doing the image credits on my degree dissertation, and designing my dad’s house that i really ought to have done ages ago, but have been dragging my heels. I’ve also got  an absolutely massive pile of books that i’ve been buying from amazon and then not finishing to much through.

so it’s all about trying to resolve my work life balance to the point where there is much more life involves from now on!

I’m feeling a bit virtuous at the moment, I’ve just fixed my digital thermometer after I burned through the cable in a fit of retardedness.
I haven’t checked that it still gives the right temperature, but it looks about right.
If anyone’s interested, it’s a digital thermometer from Ikea, and it costs about a fiver, perfect for roasting meat, or checking the temperature of the water you pour onto your coffee. (yes I do that, what a gimp)

my self watering setup seems to have worked, and the tomatoes have had a bit of a growth spurt while i was away in germany.

mint and rocket next!

I really need to find tht camera charger so I can stop taking pictures with my webcam.

I’ve been talking  about this to anyone who will listen for ages now!

I have an enormous bay window in my living room that gets blasted by the sun between about 5am and 1pm everyday. it seems a shame to waste all that energy on the two ropey plants that came with my flat, so I’ve got myself a grow bag and some seeds and I’m growing tomatoes. I’ll keep a tomato update going over the summer as they progress.

I think there is  probably room for another 2 bags in there, so I’ll grow a few mint plants, in one, but I’m still searching for ideas for the other one.

This  takes the idea of local food to a whole new level!

CATEGORY	GLOBAL HECTARES
FOOD	1
MOBILITY	0.7
SHELTER	1.1
GOODS/SERVICES	1
TOTAL FOOTPRINT	3.8
IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 5.3 GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON. WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 1.8 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON. IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 2.1 PLANETS.

that doesn’t fill me with optimism!
this is supposed to be the best carbon footprinty thingy around, and although I’m well below the national average, I’m still almost double the goal of 1.8, thank goodness there are poor people in third world counties that don’t use their full quota!

if you want to try it, it’s here

the plan is to branch out from here, so we’ll see were it goes.

if you want to get to any of the old content then it’s still here