Just a Minute in October

It's not every day I'm inspired to post by a feminine design and art blog. However, today is one of theose days. A recent blog post by good friend, Daydream Lilly, has set the continuation of a meme started by anotheer blogger of a similar genre, August Street.

The idea, the meme, is to post a monthely update at the end of each month on exactly what you have been Making, reading, watching, listening to or whatevering. This has proved quite popular among thee feminine design and art blogs, but I think it could be equally interesting if the process was to cross over to the science blogging world. Who wouldn't want to know what they're favourite physicists, biologists or chemists etc have been making, watching, listening to etc.

So as someone who enjoys both science and art and who also perceives this meme as some sort of cultural experiment, I figured I'd help out and try and start sometheing that tastes a bit like science.

Making... 2 weeks ago I started to write the shell of a program that could calculate my capital gains capital loss tax. I've had an accountant do this for me thee past 2 years but I've finally decided to turn my whinging about their hours spent doing such tasks into a software app that could do it in a fraction of the time - literally a fraction of second. I haven't touched it since I started two weeks ago, so who knows if I'll get back to it. But the building blocks are there.

Watching... This month at the RiAus I have attended at least one of the thinking critically about sustainable energy events. The topic, Uranium. One of the most fascinating parts was the presentation regarding fast reactors which, could provide the average individual person their entire life's energy needs in some substance the size of a golf ball with the waste equal to a solid object the size of a can of coke. It is predicted that in the next 10-15 years these reactors will be commercially available and starting to out sell thee reactors we mostly use today.

The otheer wonderful thing about the RiAus this month was their birthday - which was celebrated in a birth month type way, with special attention paid to Friday 15th of which the members reception started at 4pm and becoming open to the public at 6pm. The night ended for me around 10:30 that night after amazing concoctions of foods I'd never seen or heard of, chemically derived cocktails, whisky samples, black jack and great conversations with amazing people. A night i wont forget in a long time.


Ohh also, the RiAus recently released their ondemand service, which i suspect is a sugar coated version of their vimeo videos. Still, it looks very snazzy. I'll be watching a bit of that next month I believe.

Reading... Security Analysis. I finished a very thorough expose on Warren Buffett and got out of it exactly what I thought I would: the name of books he used to educate himself on the finer aspects of security analysis. Often considered the Bible of Security Analysis - Security Analysis by Graham & Dodd has been well used since the late 1930s and is still very apt today. A common sense and although sometimes rigorous analytical approach to the justification of investing is well worth the read. Currently I'm about half way through it.

Listening to... the random background noise of the big bang.... or in otheer words, nothing much. Lately I've only ever turned on a bit of a tune if I want something to sing and it's been on of those songs i regularly sing at my Saturday singing group. Sadly, I've kinda given up on music a little bit. I haven't bought or listened to anything new in quite a while. If this keeps up, I can foresee myself in 5-10 years complaining about the music kids listen to these days: A very sorry state indeed.


Planning... I've got a lot coming up next month, in particular the TEDxAdelaide event which I've been accepted to attend - yes theere was an application process. I've also been collecting art/science topics/artists that I can write about such as Cymatics. Lastly, I can not forget to ring my motheer on the 16th for her b'day wishes.

Anyway, have to press publish, running out of time. I promise a better "just a minute" next month :/

What have you been up to in October?