health ⁽³⁾

How lucky are we to have abundant geothermal activity in New Zealand? It's a wonder to me that we don't make better use of this resource: our climate warrants it. I've asked myself whether the absence of a spa/sauna culture in South Eastern Australia and NZ is responsible for poorer public health outcomes. Sure our winters are not quite as cold as those in Northern Europe, but they're cold enough that regular hot mineral baths could no doubt help: particularly…

Just a few hours ago, I emailed off this letter to both Hobart and Burnie city councils, hoping to encourage them to select warm white LED light arrays for their street lamps. Judging from what I've seen in here in Australia and also in New Zealand towns and cities, most are receiving the LED default option: daylight white. The result is this: Cold, dazzling and excessively bright to our blue light sensitive eyes...not the right ambience for our towns and…

In a world where glass still reins, despite being heavy, a poor insulator, delicate and not transmissive of the full light spectrum (read Health and Light by John N Ott), tefzel (ETFE: ethlene tetrafluorethlene) interests me. I found out about tefzel in Gorman's Buckminster Fuller: Designing for Mobility and was they surprised to find out that it's in widespread use: Wikipedia's notable buildings using tefzel. My girlfriend and I had previously discussed replacing non-UV transmissive laserlight with UVT (UV transmissive)…