Month: August 2014

Published Date 8/16/14 11:05 PM

The 5 levels of gentrification

1 – a poor area has a new transport link to mainstream society, interesting/creative people move in for the cheap rents and the real indigenous culture.

2 – the first enterprises open, islands in the indigenous normal, a second wave of interesting people arrive and create a community around these spaces as well as colonising the indigenous business that are shifting to there spending/focus.

3 – the area is at its hight of interesting, being a healthy fusion of the old and the new, the first wave of business become the foundation. This fusion of the old and the new lasts for a while.

4 – a dulling wave of more affluent people start to arrive, new exploitative business open and push the remaining indigences business out by raising rents. The original social enterprise creative business either have to commercialise or close.

5 – the indigenous community can no longer afford to function in there home and start to be pushed out by rent increases and alienation. The conservative affluent start to force the creative areas to quieten and conform to their norms quickly/slowly killing creativity in the area. Property prices rise agen in reaction to this.

Gentrification is complete, the area is now in the mainstream. Rinse and repeat.

For the comady version of this post

Published Date 8/12/14 12:47 AM

This vibrant and healthy subculture is under considerable threat from gentrification being pushed by the neon-liberal agenda. Boaters with out moorings are largely liberation, which means they are a pushover for sustained bureaucracy, they will fight as individuals and drop away one by one sulking like children or retreating to the drugged periphery to bitch. As long as the change is slow and forcefully they have little power to resist – if the is a big push against them they can combine for a short time and push back as they are competent people, but this will soon falter as they gain ground against the bureaucrats.

How will this community survive the next 5-10 years is a real question that needs answers.

Published Date 8/9/14 11:28 AM

Was asked to speck out basic solar for this boat. They don’t use a lot of electricity so a small set-up would help keep there battery’s topped up and healthy and they could add more latter if needed.  

As it has so much free roof space might as well go for framed panels as they are cheaper. Would need to check the panel size and space around the mushroom vents and find a way to get the cable into the boat to the battery box.

Depending on the cable run, for a short run to the battery’s I would recommend this basic simple 12v set

http://www.bimblesolar.com/offgrid/12v/12v-165w-20amppt

For longer cable runs this one might be better.

http://www.bimblesolar.com/offgrid/24v/24v-165w-10amppt

The advantage of 24v is less voltage drop from long cables the disadvantage is complexity, you are mixing 12v and 24v so could be messy if fixing things with out experience.

You would need to make some custom cables and connectors and secure the run from the panel to the battery box. http://www.bimblesolar.com/extras/6mmcable this cable will allow you to add more panels with out re-wiring.