Eric Norris
Eng 1010
11/30/09
Guerrilla Gardening
Guerrilla gardening is a really cool concept. People going around to places that have been once forgot so they can make it a little bit more taken care of. It’s really interesting to see the reaction that people give you because quite frankly most of them don’t care that you’re planting a new tree, or that you’re throwing seed bombs. In fact most people that see you do any type of guerrilla gardening will help out!
I had a little bit of a hard time finding where to place my seed bomb at first so I went off the beaten trail that I usually take every single day and went on a new path to find a new home for the seed bomb. I walked around for almost an hour and couldn’t find a single spot that I could put this seed bomb where the seeds would flourish. So I went to my car and drove home to my apartment. I had put the seed bomb in my pocket and when I was walking up to my door I realized where I could put it! Right next the stairs going up to my door was a little patch of unused dirt. There was no grass, no plants, and no foliage of any kind in it. So I decided that this is where my seed bomb would be placed.
Finding this little patch of unused dirt made me realize how much I over look everything when I go anywhere, even if I live there. So from now on I think that I will pay a little bit more attention to my surroundings and appreciate the small things even if it is just a flower. Since then I have noticed more empty spots around my complex and am thinking about doing some more guerrilla gardening on my own.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Eutopia
Eric Norris
Eng 1010
11-23-2009
Eutopia
“A place of thought”
In thinking of how my form of a eutopia would be I found it hard to actually make any of my ideas tangible, in fact they are far from it. With that said there are ways to make it one more stepping stone closer to having a eutopia. I like the idea of have a city approach to this. With a city you can build everything in close proximity to each other having any necessity close at hand and foot. Instead of just building outward in a circle around the heart of the city we could also build upwards. Make the higher portions of the building places for people to live and have the lower part of the building for shops and grocery stores. With the town being so compact this would rule out having to even use cars or any kind automobile. Besides it would be useless to have a car in the city because it wouldn’t fit. The walkways and paths would be smallish and have an old Greece feel to it.
Transportation is a key focus for this eutopia, riding bikes will be promoted a whole lot more than driving an inefficient car. With people riding bikes and walking more than driving their lazy butts everywhere they would be more physically fit and potentially not nearly as obese. If people want to travel a long distance there will still be the option of boats and planes, and cars. Trains will be utilized more than they are currently are but with a bigger, better system of railways to more locations. When it comes to shipping freight and supplies to cities I think the best way would be by boat, then by train to the nearest town. When it gets off the train then it can go on a truck to its final destination. With this chain it will cut back the amount of big trucks that are on the road making it a safer and roomier place to drive.
You can’t have a city without power so it would have several different ways that it would get this power. All of the buildings would have solar panels on the top to get and store energy during the day. An issue with solar power though is that they have to be properly oriented to store a lot of power, generating roughly 100 watts per hour per panel these alone cannot power an entire city. So a secondary form of power that would be used would be hydropower. It is a power source that is renewable and constantly there. With this combination my city will be lit up for quite some time!
Making people follow the law has always been a hard pressed task for ages. There has never been one time in history that every person in any given town has followed the law. So there will be a police force to protect and enforce the law. I know that even with a police force that nothing would change, but that’s also why if you break the law there will be a heftier penalty. I think that fines should be a lot higher along with bail, for anything even if it is just a simple misdemeanor. As for the people that do go to jail, they will all go in to the same maximum security prison out on an island so there is no escape.
This world cannot be perfect and will always have its flaws, but we can make it a better place by doing little things at a time. By taking small steps we are reaching a brighter more efficient tomorrow. This is more attainable than we all think, as long as we put forward some work and care.
Eng 1010
11-23-2009
Eutopia
“A place of thought”
In thinking of how my form of a eutopia would be I found it hard to actually make any of my ideas tangible, in fact they are far from it. With that said there are ways to make it one more stepping stone closer to having a eutopia. I like the idea of have a city approach to this. With a city you can build everything in close proximity to each other having any necessity close at hand and foot. Instead of just building outward in a circle around the heart of the city we could also build upwards. Make the higher portions of the building places for people to live and have the lower part of the building for shops and grocery stores. With the town being so compact this would rule out having to even use cars or any kind automobile. Besides it would be useless to have a car in the city because it wouldn’t fit. The walkways and paths would be smallish and have an old Greece feel to it.
Transportation is a key focus for this eutopia, riding bikes will be promoted a whole lot more than driving an inefficient car. With people riding bikes and walking more than driving their lazy butts everywhere they would be more physically fit and potentially not nearly as obese. If people want to travel a long distance there will still be the option of boats and planes, and cars. Trains will be utilized more than they are currently are but with a bigger, better system of railways to more locations. When it comes to shipping freight and supplies to cities I think the best way would be by boat, then by train to the nearest town. When it gets off the train then it can go on a truck to its final destination. With this chain it will cut back the amount of big trucks that are on the road making it a safer and roomier place to drive.
You can’t have a city without power so it would have several different ways that it would get this power. All of the buildings would have solar panels on the top to get and store energy during the day. An issue with solar power though is that they have to be properly oriented to store a lot of power, generating roughly 100 watts per hour per panel these alone cannot power an entire city. So a secondary form of power that would be used would be hydropower. It is a power source that is renewable and constantly there. With this combination my city will be lit up for quite some time!
Making people follow the law has always been a hard pressed task for ages. There has never been one time in history that every person in any given town has followed the law. So there will be a police force to protect and enforce the law. I know that even with a police force that nothing would change, but that’s also why if you break the law there will be a heftier penalty. I think that fines should be a lot higher along with bail, for anything even if it is just a simple misdemeanor. As for the people that do go to jail, they will all go in to the same maximum security prison out on an island so there is no escape.
This world cannot be perfect and will always have its flaws, but we can make it a better place by doing little things at a time. By taking small steps we are reaching a brighter more efficient tomorrow. This is more attainable than we all think, as long as we put forward some work and care.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Time Machine
When I get the chance to use the time machine, I would probably go forward in time rather than back. I'd like to go to December 20, 2012 at 11:50 P.M. A reason that I'd like to go forward in time to this date is because I want to see what happens ten minutes before the 21st when the Mayan calendar ends. I'm interested in how everyone will react to the "end of the world" as so many people speculate. Take Y2K for example; people freaked out because something BIG was suppose to happen to everyones computer, yet nothing happened at all, except for maybe a spike on internet usage at 12:00 a.m. I would almost bet that the world would go crazy and crime will peak to numbers unimaginable. However I would come back to the present time one minute before it was the 21st, because i don't want to know what happens in the future, that would change my whole outlook on life itself. I think that's where I would want to go.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)