Author Archives: Arjen Lentz

Open Source Ecology

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http://opensourceecology.org/

This is so awesome. Beyond RepRap, big open source hardware. Tractors, brick presses, etc. You can build them locally for a fraction of the cost of regular machinery, and then also use locally available materials (like rubble on your building site to make more bricks).

If you’re technically capable and looking for a local business opportunity – start building some of this stuff, and offer your services in the neighborhood. You’ll be able operate cheaper and provide things that others cannot compete with. Total win.

It’s real. There are materials lists, full costing, etc.
And do check out the videos!

Another article on the GVCS (Global Village Construction Set):
Farmers build green machines using open source technology

Linux now Good for Video Recording and Editing

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I used to use a Mac (OS-X) for video editing, format conversion and the like. But as I was preparing an old MiniDV camcorder to record a talk tomorrow, it appears that on my Ubuntu Linux I now have everything I need. Rock!

The functional recipe is:

  • Old JVC camcorder with firewire (IEEE 1494) cable to laptop;
  • Ubuntu GNU/Linux 11.04 (aka Natty Narwhal);
  • Kino recorder app;
  • OpenShot edit/export app.

I didn’t have to read any manuals or mess around, it “just works”. Using this setup I’m actually able to record directly on the laptop (rather than recording to a miniDV tape then copy it for editing), this is a great advantage as otherwise you’re always restricted by the capacity of the tape. The laptop’s harddisk is not going to run out of space these days.

Mutual Weirdness

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“We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird,
and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours,
we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.”

― Dr. Seuss

Not Apathy – How to make Social Proof work

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Note this horrendous accident: Hit-run case shocks China – and the world

A two-year-old girl who was struck by a vehicle in a hit-and-run accident in China was ignored by more than a dozen passers-by as she lay critically injured on the road.

[…]

It is not until seven minutes later that a street cleaner, later identified as 58-year-old Chen Xianmei, comes to the girl’s aid and lifts her from the road, calling for help.

Terrible. The mechanism involved is called “social proof” in social psychology: If a human doesn’t know what to do in a certain situation, they subconsciously check what people around them are doing – in general, following what they do works well in a society.

However, it can also backfire – and we most commonly hear about such cases in relation to accidents, assaults and murders – and in the past it’s been said that big cities or humanity in general have gone apathetic towards things and therefore don’t respond – but that’s not correct.

What happens is that the people you look around at don’t know what to do either and are themselves checking around them, consequentially you get a collective bad judgement: they don’t see others act, and conclude that it mustn’t be the thing to do.

So how has the “apathy hypothesis” been proven wrong? Social Psychology professor Robert Cialdini was himself in a car accident. He pointed at and addressed a specific person in the crowd “you, with the blue jacket, call an ambulance”, “you, with the red shirt, check on the driver in the other car.” And then lots of other people also did other useful things. Social proof did its positive thing.

When you understand this, you realise that even just calling out “please help me” generically may not work. You must address a specific individual. A valuable and possibly life-saving lesson.

Of course in the case of this accident it required a bystander to break the negative effect. But it’s very important to realise that it’s not apathy that causes the problem.