User:BrentSimpson/One Beatty Parade Blog

Blog by Brent for the Permaculture design course.

RSS feed.

Inkscape for base maps
It's great to see a few people using Inkscape for their mapping projects. Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. The great thing about vector graphics is that they scale up without any loss in quality and that Wikieducator supports the display of the SVG file format. Theres a great list of tutorials available here: http://inkscapetutorials.wordpress.com/ for using Inkscape and I also located this collection of svg clip art for mapping that may be of some use. Countrymike 21:29, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Permaculture on Wikipedia
Have been finding this to be a great article, very well written introduction: Permaculture.

Also want to look more at List of useful plants

Making note here of Holmgrens 12 design principles for permaculture for reference:


 * 1) observe and interact
 * 2) catch and store energy
 * 3) obtain a yield
 * 4) apply self-regulation and accept feedback
 * 5) use and value renewable resources and services
 * 6) produce no waste
 * 7) design from patterns to details
 * 8) integrate rather than segregate
 * 9) use small and slow solutions
 * 10) use and value diversity
 * 11) use edges and value the marginal
 * 12) creatively use and respond to change

Has made me realize how inefficient my own place really is ... will attempt some more detailed observation this weekend.

Countrymike 06:54, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Cool Brent, I agree, the WP article is really good. As is the expance of teh Permaculture network online! The principles are a really good starting point, but as Benny pointed out, we need to tease them out a bit to help people make the associations you have already clicked for yourself... I wonder if we should be working it up a little in Wikibooks... time is a factor for me too, but my experience with Wikibooks has been pretty good - if we start there it may grow. Interesting to note how content development like this relates to Permaculture principles.. --Leighblackall 20:24, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Intro
Because I couldn't face the idea of creating yet another blogger blog I've decided to use a space off of my WikiEducator user page to blog for this course. I'll wrap my posts in the tags to try create an RSS feed for the blog. It might be nice if we could aggregate all the distance learners blogs somewhere -- perhaps on the Wiki even.

About me though ... My name is Brent Simpson and I live on Waiheke Island in New Zealand. I know very little about permaculture, although there is a lot of talk about sustainability where I live, and work is being done on progressing the idea of renewable energy sources (solar/wind) for the island as well as the planting of fruit trees in the regional park. We are also quite well known in New Zealand for the stellar efforts of an organisation on the island called the Waste Resource Trust whose goal is "to educate and inform residents, visitors, schools, community groups and local businesses on issues surrounding recycling and waste management on Waiheke Island and to offer advice and practical solutions."

While I am hoping to learn something from following this course I may not be able to contribute as much as I would like to, but I will be making suggestions to Leigh and the Otago Polytech crew on how to improve the course for future distance learning offerings. I'm more of an eLearning technical specialist than a gardener .. thats for sure -- but I have for the first time in my life started a garden at my place @ One Beatty Parade which was very rewarding but perhaps not as productive as it might have been with a bit more information and planning.

You can leave any comments for this blog on the Talk page

Countrymike 21:12, 25 February 2008 (UTC)