floods

Floods in Castlemaine

by with No Comment DisastersPersonal

Australia has been devastated this last few months. The flooding has been on a massive scale affecting most of the east side of the country in one way or another. QLD has been most badly affected but NSW and VIC have also taken a pounding close to home Castlemaine has been affected. We spent last Sunday preserving fruits to donate to the guys that had their homes flooded in Castlemaine. Part of the growing ambundance project. Below is a video showing the the water. It is incredible after all the drought all the resiviors around castlemaine are now full. However the flooding has caused significant flooding and personal disasters.

ml_king

Little heard speeches of Martin Luther King

by with No Comment Behind the News

I have been listening to a podcast episode on Democracy Now where they played two speeches from Martin Luther King.

Nearly 48 years ago Martin Luther King (wikpedia page) delivered his optimistic and hopeful “I have a dream speech“. I’ve heard part of that speech before but never any others. The podcast played two other remarkable speeches from Martin Luther King. The speech “Beyond Vietnam” is still very relavant today. The second “I have been to the mountain top” is from a man who know his time on this earth is limited.

“Beyond Vietnam”

Exactly 1 year prior to his assasination he made a speech “Beyond Vietnam”
calling the U.S. government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today”. He also spoke about international aid “true compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar….it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring”. It was slammed in the media and Time Magazine called the speech “Demagogic Slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi” and time The Washington Post declared that King had “diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people.”

“I Have Been to the Mountain Top”

In April 3, 1968 he made a speech called “I Have Been to the Mountain Top”. Towards the end of the speech he talks about the time he was stabbed and almost died. In hospital he received many letters of support and out of all the messages he received there was one that he’ll never forget. The excerpt below is from the end of that speech starting with that letter. In the speech he seems to foresee his own early death.
The next day he was shot dead.
Continue Reading

coins-225x300

Banks need no money to lend you money

by with No Comment Behind the NewsDisastersEconomics

I went to my bank to get some money to by my new car the other day. I needed $4000. They told me that officially I needed to give 24 hours notice for cash withdrawl over $2,000 however they had enough today so they could give me my $4000. Now my bank is probably a bit smaller than ANZ but I found this quite startling. It got me wondering about how much money banks have in reserve.

A note about Reserve banking . Banks don't need $100
dollars to lend you $100.The US has a requirement that
the banks have to at least own equity worth 10% of the
total loans outstanding. So if Citibank only actually
owned $10 then the sum of all the loans they could
make could not exceed $100.

So I did a little investigation and what I found (with a quick look on wikipedia) concearned me somewhat. I knew that the US had a 10% requirement I didn’t know though that the UK and Australia does not require any reserve requirement whatsoever. So they can make money loaning money they don’t have. I wish I could do that. A tabe showing the reserve requirements by country can be found here wikipedia.

castlemaine06-254x300

Castlemaine Goldrush

by with No Comment entrepreneurshipPersonal

Background

Established during the gold rush of 1851
The Home of the Castlemaine XXXX beer

Hot Rod centre of Australia

Robert O’Hara Burke – leader of the Burke and Wills expedition, was stationed in Castlemaine as police superintendent from 1858 to 1859.

Frank McEncroe – creator of the Chiko Roll which is a sausage in batter on a stick

Climate

600 mm of rain a year (approx) which is similar to that of Cambridge (where I grew up) but less than Sheffield (1000mm per year). It is much warmer and sunnier than both though.

Videos about Castlemaine and the surrounding area

The easy gold is long gone but there is still goldmining going on in Maldon 12km away from castlemaine at the Maldon gold project

below is a video from a guy who has been doing a bit of gold mining on his property

Some brit has saved me the trouble of videoing the Castlemeain and Maldon

THeres also the Maldon Folk festival

Just down the Road is Newstead below is a video of race they had there in 2006 on lawn mowers

skype_logo

Guitar Lessons by Skype

by with No Comment MathsMusicPersonal

To keep my music fresh I have been wanting to improve my guitar technique with some guitar lessons. My last guitar teacher moved further away which meant I found it too difficult to get to his new location. For this reason I started my search looking for lessons very close to my home or work . I couldn’t find any teachers that were really close that would have been suitable and it lead me to an innovative solution to my problem.

Lessons by Skype

I have found a new teacher from Sydney called EMZ who gives lessons worldwide Via Skype.

I have to admit I had my doubts about how effective using a webcam would be. The teacher did offer a free trial first and once I took up the trial it worked pretty well. I have now had 3 lessons and my teacher is great (I am currently learning “Play Misty for Me” theme to the film “Play Misty for Me” – I think I’m gonna have to hire it)

It is so convenient just skype him at the allotted time and pay him by payPal.

I think skype is going to revolutionize guitar lessons watch this space.

My teachers website is http://www.emzonlineguitar.com/index.html
Below is a video of him

iphone

iphone synths and sampler tunes

by with No Comment MusicTechnology

I have been dying for a decent sampler on the iphone (I tried beatmapper) but all of the apps have disappointed until now. This thing is just sooo good!

It is called nanostudio it costs money but it really is breathtaking

This is the muts nuts. I can create tracks on the way to work! I  have created a bunch of tunes my favourite a couple are below. The interface is so slick.

Virgin Outbound (recorded whilst waiting for a flight to sydney)

Theres something going on outside recorded using the iphone mic for vocal samples. It is track 3 on my new concept albumn.