The Barnes Family

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design—it’s a community and a conference, held in Monterey each year. Their tag line is “ideas worth spreading”, and they publish videos of many of the short (under 20 minute) talks from the conference each year. This one is about music, and shows some work from MIT’s Media Lab that makes music much more accessible to everyone.

I came across this (thanks, Stephanie!) this afternoon: it’s a group of people who get together to explore home-made musical instruments, many of them combinations of mechanical and electrical or electronic components. Some of them are played in conventional ways, some make music under computer control, and some combine multiple techniques. 

What’s nice about this is that it describes a group of people who get together to share their ideas, and to have a good time together. It’s a long way from a conventional concert, but just as rewarding, and perhaps more so.

There’s a lot going on in electronic music—tonight the Stanford Laptop Orchestra (that’s right) is playing and I’m hoping to go. There’s also a group in the Bay Area that get together regularly to learn about electronics, computing and music. A week ago I went to a talk at UC Santa Cruz that presented some algorithmic music—I’ll try to post separately about that.

Between San Francisco and Santa Cruz, on the Pacific coast, lies the Ana Nuevo State Natural Reserve. It’s home to a big colony of elephant seals—in fact the largest colony in the world. Every few years we go out there to see them—it’s different at each season of the year, and this year we went out to see them in early February. The weather was cold and grey, but it didn’t rain (except for a few moments, perhaps), and we were able to have a great view of the different parts of the colony. It’s important to book, because you can only go near the animals as part of a guided tour, which keeps everyone safe, and limits the disruption to the seals.

They are really big—especially the males, which seem mountain-like. The males compete for rank in the colony, and develop deep scarring around their chests, and in some cases all around to their backs. The dominant male in a colony is kept busy chasing off all the other males.

There’s a lighthouse, with a now derelict keeper’s cottage on a low island facing out to sea. It must have been very inconvenient, with no direct access by land, and now it’s automated and the cottage is no longer used.

The gallery is here.

When we were living in England, I followed the Volvo circumnavigation race - big powerful boats doing up to 500 miles in 24 hours under sail. They visited Portsmouth, and we went down to see them and take some pictures. This boat is the Brazilian entry, who came third in the Portsmouth race, but I was supporting ABN Amro One - a European entry, but skippered by New Zealander Mike Sanderson, the ultimate winner of the race. I have infinite respect for these sailors - this is extreme sport taken to the ultimate, with a months-long race in the hottest, coldest, toughest conditions anywhere.

I’ve also put up a few pictures from the UK - Horseshoe Lake. This is one of the many gravel pits in England that have been flooded and are now used for sailing, fishing etc. We used to go to Horseshoe Lake to sail, but on this occasion I think we just pottered around and enjoyed the very tame birds that were hopping around on the bank.

Finally some pictures from San Francisco: the De Young museum in Golden Gate Park, designed by the Swiss firm of architects Herzog and de Meuron. I learned about them from an exhibition at the New Tate museum in London, where there was an extensive display that described their process, including a lot of the work they did in designing the De Young museum.

A bit of a rush job - it’s challenging to get all the pictures edited, organized and posted, and I think some of my edits might not have made it through to the posted jpegs, but here they are anyway. The main page is here.

Over time I’ll try to get in and edit some of the notes so you know where they are from and so on, but I have at least organized them into sub-galleries, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find your way around.

One of the best things we did was a trip to Akaroa, and a swim with the local Hector’s Dolphins in the wild. These are the smallest dolphins in the world, and endangered. The Akaroa Harbour is a sanctuary for them. Here’s the site for the company we went with - their pictures are better than mine! Akaroa was a French colony, and retains some of the French character in the street names, for example. Also some great cooking!

Have fun!

tim

Jeremy and I went on February 6th, and Marina and Caelean joined us on the 16th. We spent our time in Christchurch, where I have a school friend who was kind enough to have us to stay for part of the time and to help us get oriented. We rented a house in Diamond Harbour, about 45 minutes from the center of town, and across from the main port of Lyttleton.

More to come, including some pictures as I get organized.

We’re just enjoying a few days in Seattle - visiting the Public Market, the first Starbucks store, and today trips to Bainbridge Island for lunch, and the Boeing factory north of Seattle. Typical Seattle weather, I gather - lots of cloud, some rain, but today a bit of sun. The trip to Bainbridge Island was especially beautiful - I’ll post some pictures in a while.

At the Boeing factory we saw the production lines for the 747, the 777, and the new 787 Dreamliner, which will fly later this year. Despite being 50% lighter than a 777, the 787 is only 20% more fuel-efficient, which was a surprise to me. Still a big step forward, based mainly on much greater use of composites (carbon fiber etc.).Our plan for tomorrow is to see the Seattle Center - the Experience Music Project and the Pacific Science Center, and of course the Space Needle.

Alas, my car was destroyed by a rear-ender in Los Gatos a couple of weeks ago. I think the driver was changing lane and didn’t see the line of traffic in front. The collision was strong enough to push me into four more cars, but I think mine was the only one to be a total loss. Fortunately no-one seems to have suffered any real injuries, although I had a stiff neck for a while. Apart from the loss of a car of which I was rather fond, the biggest issue is the time and cost of finding a replacement.

I’ve settled on an Acura RDX as a replacement: it’s a small SUV like thing that drives like a car, but is a bit higher and has good space and practicality. The practicality will finally allow me to tow a small boat, as well as taking lots of tools and wood etc. in its boot.

It has a voice operated control system that has trouble with my accent - I say things like “navigate to home” and it replies “air conditioning off” or “fan level six”. I just hope it’s not running Windows.

This image is from the launch of the car - mine is a pearl white - rather like my first 944 Turbo.

I’ve always enjoyed woodwork - ever since I was introduced to it at school, building simple things like a pencil case and a tray. True craftsmanship is a discipline I find hard, however, so I’ve tended to find quick and efficient ways to make things. I enjoy the puzzle-solving aspect of design as well.

These are two recent pieces - a shoe rack for the front door (we tend not to wear shoes inside), and a long, low bookcase that’s also big enough to store records.

They are built from 3/4″ birch ply - reasonably good quality at $40 / sheet, but tricky to cut without splitting. I use mitred joints for the look - without dowels or biscuits these were the very devil to glue up - and double thickness for the carcass to create a strong outline. The shelves of the shoe rack are 1/4″ marine ply (oukoume), and everything is finished in clear lacquer.

Lacquer turns out to be a very easy finish to apply - brush it on and it dries almost instantly. Use steel wool (very fine - 0000 grade) to polish the surface and keep on adding coats until you’ve had enough.

The downside of lacquer is that it is easily damaged by water - not a good surface if people are going to put damp glasses down, as I have already sadly discovered. At least with a DIY piece I don’t feel bad about sanding it down and putting on more lacquer.

I’ve added a “Blogroll” - this is a standard wordpress feature that puts favourite links in the sidebar. These are just a few of the sites I enjoy. You can find more on the Favourites page (from the links at the top of the screen).

 I’ve also added a set of random images from the gallery at the bottom of the sidebar. Clicking on one will take you to the full sized image in the gallery.