Humans, Machines, 2004.

Unexpectedly free from millenium buggery headaches on New Years Day 2000, we still had to wait another full year until the 21st Century truly started. Unsurprisingly 21C still hasn’t arrived, but there were at least a few signs during 2004 that we’re getting ready to loosen our grip on last century’s bad habits. And so, offered like the still-juicy offspring of a vending machine and a summer fruit platter – here’s the annual Technoscape round-up of those signs. Or at least the toys that best pointed to the strobe light at the end of the tunnel. Another page of ideas and tech_oddities to impress or confuse people at countdown parties with.

Best Way To Cross A Desert
By kite-board obviously. Try www.earthflyer.com to taste-test the incredible dirk2.jpgjourney of documentary maker Dirk Gion. In October 04, he he travelled the 3000km from Adelaide to Darwin at speeds of up to 50kmh on a mountain board with a kite attached, covering distances of up to 400km a day!

Aimed at proving the kite-powered skateboard could be used to travel long distances, the trip is to be followed up eventually by an attempt to go ‘around the world in 80 days’ using a combination of wind powered skateboards and boats! If you have a spare 80 days, email Dirk as he admits the ocean crossings would be ‘technically difficult’ and is looking for companions.

Best Hobbit
Having run out of Frodo episodes, this year’s award goes to the hobbit-like species of human that lived with pygmy elephants and Komodo dragons on a remote Indonesian island 13,000 years ago, growing no larger than a a three-year-old modern child. Their fossilised skeletons were discovered in 2004, which alongside last year’s Spanish discovery of skeletal remains of the last probable common ancestor to humans and apes, must be somewhat worrying to anti-evolutionist bible thumpers. Not that it’s stopping the US education system debate about whether young brains should be fed exclusively Noah’s ark or evolutionary biology.

Best Universal Whistling Machine
Only one nominee, but Marc Bohlen is a deserved victor for his U.V.M. which boasts a machine interpreted whistling composition in return to any whistle, whistled to it. Built as part of an exploration into ‘pre-language languages’ and human-machine interface design, Marc proposes his U.V.M. could also point the way to future human-animal communication. Actually that seems a bit too 1960s to be getting a 21C award, what with all the inter-species float-tank gurus of the time ( google Dr John Lily ). And the animal-translator novelty has already lost its sheen – google meowlingual or try www.bowlingual-dog-translator.com. Roll the red carpet instead this year, for www.whistlingrecords.com, featuring over 100 MP3s from whistlers around the world, discographies, album covers and vintage training records for parakeets and canaries.

Best iPod Hackery
Goes to 1 x Phillip M. Torrone, for one of his many hacks or for his promotion of hacks ( you choose ). At his site www.flashenabled.com you’ll find out how to put powerpoint on your ipod, change the graphics or ‘do not disconnect’ icon, how to transfer music when it’s locked for some reason, how to deliver ‘podcasts’ or netradio shows to your ipod, or how to make your own ‘podcasts’, and my personal favourite which already seems like it’ll be so twentieth century in a few eyeblinks – how to play movies on an ipod. This involves cycling through many still images per second to give the movie illusion. See also www.ipodhacks.com & the ‘new signature ipods’ here : www.liebography.com/ipod.htm. ( The Metallica ipod pre-loaded with therapy audio for voyages of self-discovery sounds particularly good )

Best Digital Lifestyle Interruption Machine
Although the Pentagon Terrorist’s War on Terror, and the Iraqi debacle surely rank high, ‘Peak Oil’ gets the nod for it’s succinct warning that collectively we humans need to shift from our very unsustainable path if to avoid the perils of overpopulation, accelerated species extinction and climate change. Oil consumption threads through and feeds the entire global economy, and so running any growth graphs against the idea that we are running out of cheaply accessible oil, or are about to reach a ‘peak in global oil production’ has very serious implications. Even a brief read over the following sites will affirm the scale of change needed for us to finally step properly into 21C.
www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Introduction.html
www.energybulletin.net/primer.php
http://members.home.nl/peakoil/

Most Predictable Movie Announcement
Everybodies favourite German Cannibal was sentenced to eight and a half years jail, in January of this year, for killing and eating a man he had met over the internet. Or more precisely, for killing and eating a man who had responded to his advertisement online – which explicitly stated a person willing to become food, was desired. The cannibal lawyer’s argument that it was a form of mercy killing, because the victim had given his consent to be killed and eaten, spared the cannibal a murder conviction. Facing 8 ‘manslaughter’ years in prison, Armin Meiwes has already begun writing an autobiography, and more than the book publishing industry wants a slice too – famous German director Rosa von Praunheim has started work on a film about the cannibal – ‘Your Heart in My Brain’. File under documentary or romance?

Smartest Bicycle Remix
That’d have to go to www.bikesagainstbush.com for making a wireless Internet enabled bicycle outfitted with a custom-designed printing device, which allowed them to print text messages sent from web users directly onto the streets of Manhattan in water-soluble chalk. This was meant to be used during the Republican National Convention being held in NYC just before the election, however was quickly snapped up by the NYPD, who are still in possession of the inventor’s computer, cell phone, bicycle, and invention until a court case resolves the issue. All that remains then is the video online, to glimpse the genius cuteness of this idea in motion.

Best Electronic Voting Box
And the winner is…… Gahanna, Ohio!! Ohio, U.S. election followers may recall, was one of the key states that the election hinged on. In the Gahanna precinct of Ohio, the electronic ballot box results delivered 4,258 votes for George Bush and 260 for John Kerry. An impressive result, especially considering the 638 voters counted at the polling centre. In the 2004 US election, the majority of voter irregularities were to do with states with electronic ballot boxes. Most of the key states used electronic ballot boxes. The companies who manufacture the ballot boxes are heavy Republican supporters. Those needing more conspiracy in their diet will salivate over the Greg Palast article here www.tompaine.com/articles/kerry_won.php and will find the following sites help maintain satisfactory bowel functioning:
http://blackboxvoting.org, www.stolenelection2004.com, http://stolenelection.blogspot.com, www.redefeatbush.com

Best Software
Audio : Ableton Live : Fluid, versatile performance and processes accessed via a stunningly effective interface.
Video: VDMX : Fluid, versatile performance and processes accessed via a well thought out interface.
News: To caffeinate your computer try any ‘RSS newsreader’ ( see http://blogspace.com/rss/readers & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(protocol)
File-Sharing: Bit-Torrent Clients embrace peer to peer in a very 21C way. Wait for them to combine with RSS and IM and watch the 21C roll in. ( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bittorrent )

Best Already in 21C-mode Website
Take a bow, www.worldchanging.com, for your engaging, insightful and positive minded, forward thinking news and articles about how we are actually going to engineer a sustainable 21C out of the options possible. Their simple premise? “That the tools, models and ideas for building a better future lie all around us. That plenty of people are working on tools for change, but the fields in which they work remain unconnected. That the motive, means and opportunity for profound positive change are already present. That another world is not just possible, it’s here. We only need to put the pieces together.”

by Sean Healy, December 20, 2004 0 comments

Harnessing Web Feeds : A Quick Guide to RSS/XML

(Published in Metro magazine, Australia – Nov 2004 )

Information hunter-gatherers the globe over are abuzz about the benefits and potential of RSS. Media junkies, news hounds, webtrawlers, writers, bloggers and DIY publishers alike, are almost evangelical in their praise for the web syndication format known as RSS or “Really Simple Syndication”. At it’s most simple RSS allows you to keep track of many information sources in the one place. Think of it as a web syndication protocol that allows easy automatic notification of news. Importantly though, you choose what is news – whether it’s the BBC site, a new post on your friend’s blog, some item you want to watch on ebay, the weather guide or writings by your favourite author or film reviewer. Whenever any of these are updated, the news will come to you. Given you’re already reading the technical back pages of a thick media magazine, you know you want it. Even better – RSS can be easily implemented on your own site.

The Mechanics of RSS
It’s worth prying under the bonnet of this automated news delivery system a little, before unveiling it’s features and applications, for despite it’s simplicity, RSS offers a glimpse of where media delivery is headed – and is understood better with it’s distribution architecture under your belt. Not to worry though, we’ll be serving you custom news feeds in no time.

Firstly, RSS is based upon XML ( eXtensible Mark-Up Language ), which is similar to the HTML (hyper-text mark-up langauge ) used to make webpages, except XML is designed to describe data and focus on what that data is, and HTML is designed to display data and focus on how it looks. That means it’s a meta-language of sorts, and this stored information about a site can be accessed by other applications such as RSS ‘Newsreaders’.

Newsreaders (also known as an RSS aggregators or feed readers), automatically check at determined intervals through a list of RSS enabled websites picked by the user. If any of the chosen sites have updated since the last check, the Newsreader will download a headline and brief description of the updates and present these within a single interface. The benefit and convenience for the user is having these fresh summaries all in one place, automatically delivered as soon as published, rather than having to wander through to each of the sites to browse their news. If a site has no updates you wont receive any news, and won’t need to bother visiting. A wider range of news can be easily skimmed, and with a click, the news you prefer most can be followed through to the full story at it’s website.

Such news delivery represents a subtle but evolutionary step in the media environment, part of an inevitable shift towards highly customised, personal news services. At the time of writing, RSS coders are busy promoting and refining the first generation of ‘podcasting’ software – essentially an automatically delivered audio news or music service. Using RSS podcasters can simply post regular audio files online, and their audiences will automatically be notified about the new files. The podcast software streamlines the process of downloading the audio first to your computer and then to your ipod ( hence the coined ‘podcast’) or portable audio player of choice. Of course video can only follow, and the small file size of RSS can be great for keeping up to date with websites via mobile phones, but let’s deal with computer text & RSS for now.

Saving Time With NewsReaders
It’s nice to occasionally remember that the machines we once thought of as time-saving devices, can actually be put to use for that purpose. For anyone whose business or pleasure requires a lot of online reading, RSS Newsreaders will save you large amounts of time. In theory. In practice, all those hours saved by not having to search for news or check for updated pages, can often be swallowed up by the additional news sites and fascinating news items that now seem available. At any rate, auto-delivery = good. Here’s where you get yourself a Newsreader and get news delivered in 2 easy steps.

Step 1 : Choose A Newsreader for Your Platform
Mac – Netnewswire ( http://ranchero.com/software/netnewswire ) is one of the most popular Mac Newsreaders, combining a smooth interface with lots of features – including the ability to post messages to your website about any news items you wish to comment on from the reader.
PC – Radio Userland ( http://radio.userland.com ) is mac & pc. RSS Reader (www.rssreader.com ) is PC only.
Linux – Try aKregator ( http://akregator.sourceforge.net )

OR Via The Web : In place of a desktop client, Bloglines ( www.bloglines.com ) allows your news to be compiled via a single webpage.

Step 2: Subscribe to News Feeds
If you started reading this piece with the niggling feeling you’d somehow known about RSS before, it’s probably because you’ve surfed past a million little RSS or XML buttons dotting the bottom of webpages. Clicking on one of those will take you to a page of code. This is the code which describes a webpage ( rather than says how to display it), and the address of this page is what you need to give your newsreader. This can be done either by copying the URL from this page of code – or by copying the link address from the RSS or XML buttons themselves, then after finding a ‘subscribe’ or ‘new channel’ or ‘new feed’ button in your newsreader, pasting the URL there. Do this to ten sites, and your newsreader will check those ten addresses periodically for updates and display the headlines and introductory sentences for any news. Once you get the swing of it, you’ll soon get a hankering for more RSS sites. Help is on hand at the end of the article, in the form of RSS directories.

Making Your Own RSS Feed
If you are wishing to let people know about updates to your website, it’s possible you are already using some blogging software such as movabletype.org or a content management system or some fancy database. In those cases, RSS publishing functionality is probably already built in, and can be harnessed by reading some manuals online – ie your RSS meta-data is probably already there, you just need to find the address for it, and learn the process to customise it. If not using such web-publishing software, RSS coding is easier than HTML to learn ( try here – www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/rss-feed.shtml) and simple RSS Feed software is available ( http://softwaregarden.com/products/listgarden ) for simplifying that process. Aside from integrating RSS into your own site, and notifying others of your updates, RSS can also be used to integrate constantly updated headlines from other news sources into your site.

RSS Resources
Daypop (www.daypop.com ) – A search engine for RSS-based news.
Feedster: ( www.feedster.com ) A search engine for public RSS feeds that can also provide the results of a search as an ongoing RSS feed.
Submitting : www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55 – Lists the top 55 Submission sites to let search engines know about your RSS Feed.
Finding Feeds: www.syndic8.com & www.blogstreet.com/rssdiscovery.html
News Is Free ( http://newsisfree.com ) – A Web-based news reader, which also does some third-party scraping – this means it can generate RSS data for sites which do not have it.

Jean Poole is a Melbourne based writer who enjoys exploring real-time audiovisual performance technology. Some words, AV snippets & his RSS Feed can be found here

by Sean Healy, November 20, 2004 0 comments

ResFest 2004

Like the backwards dancing midgets on checkerboard tiles say: “Eeet ees happening a-ga-i-in.” Resfest is back in town, with another pixel-punching program of screen melt & cinematic surprise. Pick of the bunch may be the Shynola animation rarities, though Jonathan Glazer’s collection might be worth it for his surfing horses alone ( finding even a pic of it online might sell you ). Unsurprisingly, there’s a stack of the best music-videos around, a lot of short films, and an emphasis on tweaked digital design. The Australian shorts section is very strong, but from a diverse and stellar looking bunch – the mesmerising ‘We Have Decided Not To Die’ stands tall, just for it’s sheer ambition. Responsible for this is Daniel Askill of the Collider design & film group in Sydney. Speak, Daniel-son:

What surprised about overseas reaction to ‘We Have Decided Not To Die’ ?
After it moving quite slowly in Aus. the initial overseas reaction (particularly at Clemont Ferrand where it won it’s first major prize) was very exciting. I guess in particular the fact that people seemed to really understand and appreciate the project. After that first bit of recognition in France the film really just seemed to take on a life of it’s own and has since screened at countless festivals. It has been quite overwhelming. The guys at Res have been particularly supportive – our first screening with them in LA in particular was a real success and secured a lot of the relationships with the production companies I am now working with in Europe and the States.

Which element of the film was the biggest thorn to execute?
Sending your little brother through a 3 metre high sheet of sugar glass in his underpants after he has just recovered from a stroke is never going to be easy I guess, not to mention dropping your girlfriend on her back from suspension wires into a swimming pool for 2 days straight.

What film-tools ( both high and low budget ) excite you?
I can’t seem to let go of high frame rate slow motion (usually using photosonics cameras…I just finished work on an UNKLE video where we shot a huge fire ball at 1000 frames per second…it can be very beautiful)…but lately I seem to have been doing a lot with re-animated digital stills.. which is basically free as long as you have a digital camera…we just finished a mini epic for France TeIecom with the technique, I guess both of these are about seeing time in a way we can’t with our own eyes… but they are just techniques at the end of the day.

What do you think are some emerging ‘short film aesthetics’ best avoided?
Anything goes I guess. I would never try and dictate what someone else may or may not want to make. I think any approach/aesthetic etc is legitimate as long as there is an integrity in it.

What did you dislike about the Cremaster Cycle series?
Well maybe I’m the wrong person to ask because I really like it. Whether you like it or not, it is great that this kind of work is starting to make it’s way into the public consciousness.. it just really begins opening up the possibilities for what a film can be… and what the general public’s expectations of a filmed experience is.

As graphic design & film-making continue to merge, we should expect a more visually lateral cinema. Where is it?
Well it’s in the Cremaster Cycle, it’s in Res Fest, it’s in the movies of all the music vid directors who are making features now: Gondry, Jonze, Glazer…I mean it’s in the bloody Matrix, Moulin Rouge, the short films my little brother Lorin is making at COFA …to be honest it is everywhere at the moment and I think it still has a long way to go, I think it is just going to get stronger.

Try some Collider film clips on for size : www.collider.com.au
RESFEST 2004 dates: Dec 3-7 ACMI, Melb, Dec 9-12 ( Dendy Opera Quays & Syd Opera House )
Timetable Info & pix : www.acmi.net.au/resfest2004.jsp

Resfest 2005
Resfest 2003

by Sean Healy, November 20, 2004 0 comments

Soft Sampler Wrestling : Kompakt Vs Intakt

Nirvana’s first album was their best, hip-hop used to be innovative and no software sounds as good as the hardware it emulates – all arguments mostly irrelevant in the face of today’s software samplers. Soft synth and hardware synth nuts may validly argue for hours, but when it comes to software samplers, the sound quality is there, the processes have been streamlined and artists are jumping ship to the convenience of software. Kontakt by Native Instruments is revered as the finest, but Native also produce the decent samplers : Kompakt & Intakt ( see www.native-instruments.com )

Kompakt
Pitched as a pro-quality sampler, Kompakt essentially allows the loading or kom_pakt.jpgcreation of sample instruments for triggering or sequencing, with
a range of sound shaping and filtering available. Like most Native Instrument software the sound quality is grand, and the one-window interface keeps things simple for quick execution of ideas – but the mac interface seems to suffer slightly from being ported from PC. Kompakt also claims to support all popular sampler formats, helping make the transition to software for existing hardware sampler fiends.

A rack style interface allows up to 8 simultaneous instruments to be loaded at once, allowing custom combination instruments for performance. These might include instruments from the library such as a house organ, a weird robot loop, violins, african percussion etc. Each instrument can be adjusted using volume or panning LFOs, filter envelopes, reverb, chorus, delay or master filtering. A modulation section also allows three adjustable envelopes and four LFOs. While not nearly as comprehensive as their flagship Kontakt, Kompakt is still a solid and effective workhorse.

Also Features:
*more than 200 instruments ( 2gb of samples from East West and Zero-G! )
*Eightpart multitimbral, 256 voice polyphonic
*Integrated file browser with drag & drop
*Professional sound quality with advanced 32bit processing
*Powerful filter offers six types, including lowpass, highpass, and bandpass

Import and Compatibility : AKAI S-1000/S-3000, EXS24, EXSP24, HALion, Gigasampler, SampleCell, KONTAKT, BATTERY, SoundFont2, LM4, AIFF and WAV up to 32 Bit and 192 kHz

Interfaces : MAC: VST 2.0, ASIO, Audio Units, Core Audio, RTAS (Mac OS X only) SoundManagerOMS
WIN: VST 2.0, DXi II, ASIO, Coming soon: RTAS (under Win XP), MME, Direct Sound

Kompakt Requirements: US$229 : Mac OS 9.2 or higher, G3 500 MHz, 256 MB RAM, 2.2 GB free hard disc space
Windows XP/2000/ME/98, Pentium III/ Athlon 500 MHz, 256 MB RAM, 2.2 GB free hard disc space

Intakt
On the sampler flipside, Intakt offers a versatile package as a dedicated rhythmic loop player and manipulator. Again it comes with massive libary – 1.2Gb of loops from breakbeat, percussion to house, drum n bass etc. Aside from the beatslicing inherent in it’s loop mangling, and the similar range of effects and modulation to Kompakt, Intakt provides 3 different modes for working – each with it’s own special capacities:

1. Sampler
Sampler mode plays audio files back like a classic sampler – load up a sample int_akt.jpgfrom the built in browser window, and it is easily drag and dropped onto whatever range of keys you wish – on the onscreen keyboard. This sample can now be played instantly as a musical ‘melody’ using either a midi keyboard or conveniently – the keys on your keyboard also. Combined with the range of effects, filters and envelopes, interesting territory can emerge to play in very quickly.

2.Beat Machine
In this mode, Intakt can automatically slice the audio into individual slices, allowing parameters, playback direction, effects and modulation to be set for each slice. The whole loop can then be played back as an entire loop – or played back by slice using your keyboard or midi keyboard, allowing all sorts of fragmented mayhem or breaking an existing loop down into a new drum kit. A random slice mode plays the loop back continuously – but from random slice-points within the loop, again – mayhem. A midi file can be exported allowing manipulation in host sequencers. The Beat Machine can also directly open REX files which already contain marker information.

3.Time Machine
Enabling high quality time stretching and compression, this mode can adapt sounds from any source to suit whatever key or tempo your song requires.

INTAKT ships with mega-loops, and also imports WAV, AIFF, REX1 and REX2 files, AKAI S-1000/S-3000, EXS, BATTERY, LM4 and KONTAKT instruments. It also features:

*up to 128 stereo voices, professional sound quality with 32 bit processing, up to 96 kHz sample rate support
*Easy synchronization of loops to MIDI tempo
*Integrated effects: Group filter including low-pass, high-pass, band-reject or band-pass modes, global filter, lo-fi, distortion, delay
*Modulation section with AHDSR envelope, two individual LFOs, envelope follower and a DBD pitch envelope
*Fast rearrangement of the slice order directly in INTAKT
*Integrated keyboard for triggering multiple samples, sample mapping and fast selection of groups, plus latch function (holds a key down automatically)
*Keyboard quantize for live application triggers loops right on beat and in time (from 1/1 to 1/64 triplets)

Import and Compatibility
Kontakt, REX, AKAI S-1000/S-3000, SF2, EXS24, EXS24P, EXS24mkII, BATTERY, SDII, LM4, AIFF and WAV from 8 to 32 bits with 44.1 96 kHz

Interfaces
MAC: VST, Audio Units, Core Audio, RTAS
WIN: VST, RTAS (nur Win XP), DXi, ASIO, Direct Sound

Intakt Requirements: US$229
Minimum: Mac OS 10.2.6 or higher, G3 500 MHz, 256 MB RAM
Minimum: Windows XP, Pentium III/ Athlon 400 MHz, 256 MB RAM

by Sean Healy, November 20, 2004 0 comments

Energy – 21C Style : GENI & The GRID

While there’d be a different US President in power today if the world had votes, those who wish a better world are working away regardless. Recognising the importance of oil and energy within global politics and quality of life, the Global Energy Network Institute continues to push for a global interconnected electricity grid powered by renewable energy. Say Geni – ‘Two billion people on this planet have no electricity. How can we make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological damage or disadvantage to anyone?’. Ambitious Australian GENI rep and author of ‘Cosmic Accounting’ Mal Green, drops some alternative futures into the mix:

Drawing attention to the actual energy costs of products seems useful, but actually implementing ‘energy’ as the core of monetary system seems problematic. How do you envisage merging the ‘accounting systems of nature and human society’ in your lifetime?
All that is required is for there to be set up computerised interconnected personal energy accounts. As soon as people ‘own’ energy accounts with a balance of energy that can be depositied into and drawn upon, and when people can transfer their energy credit from themselves to another, then the Cosmic Accounting system begins, and none of this has to interfere with the current economic money accounting system at present. For this to work there will need to be the cooperation of the electricity grid. The administering authority of the grid would have to oversee and monitor that your energy credit (of electricity) has been released onto the grid, that then allows the receiver entitlement to recieve that quantity of energy deposited into their energy account. You might see at this point electricity can become a currency (‘electrical current currency’). Who owns and controls the electricity grid will have bearing on this. In Queensland the state owns the electricity grid. In other states of Australia corporations own the electricity grid. The technology to do all this already exists, is becoming better and cheaper and is doable in my lifetime. Indeed it is doable in the next few, say, eight years.

What are the benefits of networking the electricity grid?
Globally networking the grid allows an integrated world real-wealth wealth-transfer/exchange system (aka Cosmic Accounting). Also there are physical benefits, where electricity generators can match their outputs to loads better, for loads vary over different times through the day, and times vary over distance. Also global grid means that it would literally be possible to send harvested solar sunshine energy from the daytime side of the world to the nighttime side of the world, or at least one/quarter way around the world. It is technically possible at present to economically transmit electricity 7,000 kilometres. Therfore it would be possible to send solar energy from a sunny afternoon in the Sahara to power the evening lights of Turkey, for example. Therefore an interconnected grid can provide (renewable) energy security. And remember that is where we are heading – to power the whole world with renewable energy! GENI stands for these two things – global grid, plus feeding that grid with renewable energy – the two go hand in hand.

What is the progress on the 10m community solar dish in SA?
I’ve just returned from Whyalla and the people of the TAFE college there are giving more and more effort toward realising and building this solar dish. The current state of play is taking the preliminary drawings of the solar dish, as provided by the inventor, Professor Stephen Kaneff, and making detailed engineering drawings of the dish, from which actual fabrication of the dish can occur. The engineering lecturer in metals fabrication, Bevan Austin, at the above TAFE college has taken this effort on. A hopeful finish date for building the dish is mid June of next year.

The Australian Government could support large-scale solar energy development with a large grant of money toward building a 200 solar dish power station in Whyalla. $25 million would be an appropriate level of support – which is about one third of the cost of this solar power station. That amount of money would go a huge way toward helping to make this whole project attractive, and is not such a huge sum of money for a (rich) Federal Government. Furthermore, it is appropriate to support an industry like this in its infancy, one that can take a big step toward developing and ensuring Australia’s clean energy future.

A ‘timeline for everyone to become a billionaire’?
I will continue to stand by the person who was my inspiration, R. Buckminster Fuller who contended that it would be engineeringly possible to make the transistion to a ‘world that works for everyone’ in a ten year period.

by Sean Healy, November 20, 2004 0 comments