Uncategorized Archives - Page 11 of 13 - The Blog of Ian Robinson

February 23, 2012April 4, 2012

Mike Farris: Trouble

Warning. Don’t watch this video if you have a weak heart. You might die…

I first saw Mike Farris at the Strawberry Music Festival. The guy has that sort of voice that rips your heart out. That’s one hell of a strange analogy, but by god…. just listen to this:

Really, the video speaks for itself. Listening to Mike doesn’t even make you feel inspired. It makes you want to shrink down into an groveling Samurai in front of the Emperor style bow and proclaim “glory to the master of all great noises.” YES!

Anyways, I hope you like this guy too. Best of luck to you champ.

February 17, 2012March 22, 2012

Jack White – Love Interruption

Jack White continues to be the author of my life’s soundtrack. Everything he touches turns to gold constantly morphing with new exotic sounds and arrangements. His music carries a omnipotent soul slicing theme and I’m constantly left awestruck with his work. He is a deep inspiration to me. His new song Love Interruption is no exception:

February 13, 2012

Long Term Travel: Get a Little Dirty

When I left the USA bound for the Southern Hemisphere in late 2009, my goal was to develop a greater understanding of where things come from; especially food. Most of my life had been spent in the suburbs of Northern Nevada either working in an office or building houses/home remodels. It troubled me that I had spent my life eating food (grains, meats and veggies/fruits) that had come from a place that I knew nothing about. I feel deeply insecure about being so reliant on something that I have no control over. If I’m honest, I had next to no understanding of the processes needed to produce food! I needed to learn more about the world in order to understand my role, I needed to get dirty.

So I flew to Australia and got a harvest job out in the orchards around Stanthorpe, Australia. My first gig was cutting broccoli from the ground and placing it on a tractor that carried a conveyor belt which hung out over the enormous veggie patches. I would awake at 5:30 with the rising sun and work until late in the evening, bending over and cutting broccoli all… day… long… It was backbreaking work. We worked barefoot because it was simply the best way. After about 2 weeks I was exhausted, my feet were rotting from from the moisture and the repetitive work.

Luckily, for the first time in my life, I was fired. Apparently, I wasn’t harvesting fast enough. Honestly, I think it’s because my heart wasn’t in it. Vegetable harvesting is brutal.

My next job was harvesting apples. This was far less harrowing than the broccoli but it was none-the-less very demanding physically and even more taxing mentally. The repetitious nature of picking thousands of apples a day, day after day, 5-6 days a week was very challenging. The skin on my fingers split, I got blisters on my feet, my sweat drenched shirts would fall to pieces visibly every day. I couldn’t buy sacrificial shirts fast enough to keep up with the degradation.

I learned a good amount about vegetables and fruit, I took a vacation and went about understanding where meat comes from. My friend and I found station hand jobs at a super isolated cattle station in the middle of Outback Australia. Just like the fruit picking and the vegetable harvesting, we’d awake with the rising sun and work until the sunset. There was lots of filthy diesel engine work, welding, fence repair and horse work involved. I learned so much, and each day I’d come back to the ranch house a filthy mess. Showers never felt so good.

The value of all this experience is incalculable. Not only did I learn about how food is produced, I gained a fundamental respect for farmers. I learned to weld, build fences, harvest vast areas and I got the fundamentals for what it takes to provide enough food for hundreds of people. The world would be a better place if everyone had a more fundamental understanding of what it takes to provide for their subsistence. I recommend you do something to produce your own food. Everyone should get a little dirty.

February 10, 2012March 23, 2012

The Hidden Beauty of CAPTCHAs

I’m constantly blow away with the complexity of this new world… enter Luis von Ahn:

What a tremendous accomplishment. While we are hesitantly authenticating ourselves as human beings, we are simultaneously developing the power to digitize difficult to read books at an unheard of rate. This is how fast the new smart economy is going to develop. Attention will become a new source of productivity and wealth.

Tiny little fractions of peoples attentions can be harvested from these enormous fields of data to produce real value. If these fractionsattention can be harnessed to digitize books. Don’t you think you can get some incredible value out of your attention?

I urge you to turn off your TV and look into something amazing.

Thanks for reading, please leave a comment if you think this video is inspiring.

February 2, 2012

Think About Building Your Webite Like Building Your Home

When you build a home, you want it to be great for you while you live there.

Building Websites is Like Building Houses

You want your home:

to look clean and tidy
to have lots of natural light (natural beauty)
to be something to show to your friends
to be productive place when you are there
to be a place where you enjoy your time
to be close to the things you enjoy

These desires for a home translate directly to your desires for a website.

You want your website:

to look clean and tidy
to get natural attention from search engines
to be something to show to your friends
to be a productive place
to be a place where you enjoy your time
to be linked into websites of things you enjoy

When you move on, you can give it to your kids, or sell it to the next person. The second party will be happy to take it off your hands, and you will be happy to let go of it and move onto your next big project.

This is why high value websites are called web properties.

January 23, 2012

A Guide to Getting on Your Feet Quick while on an Australian Working Holiday Visa

Touch down in Australia with a decent sum of money.

I landed in Australia with about $6,000 AUD. This small sum dried up really quickly. Everything costs an arm and a leg. From the taxis, to the phone calls, to the cheapest kebab places; everything hemorrhages your money in Australia. Though I could have gotten by with $4,000 AUD, it would have been a challenge and I recommend $5,000 AUD or more.

Buy a Camper-van or a Station-wagon you can sleep comfortably in.

You can find decent deals on backpacker boards. $2,500 to $6,000 will get you a set of keys from a departing backpacker. You can find better deals the farther you go outside of the cities. For example: in the middle of Sydney you will find more sharks looking to offload junky vans on unknowing travelers. In remote areas you can find a deal on the old family station-wagon that the family is offloading because they got a new car.

This might sound like homeless living to anyone who hasn’t lived in Australia, but living on the road is part of the Australian way. There are plenty of free spots to park and sleep along the road. Some provide showers, fresh water and often a push button electric BBQ. You will be at home in your camper van with other travelers doing the same as you, as well as wit the “grey nomads.” These are the retired Australians traveling around the country in their camper-vans.

Take good care of your vehicle and sell it at the end of your trip for the same you bought it for. Spending more on your home on wheels isn’t a bad idea.

Get an Australian Bank Account

Many jobs will want to direct deposit money for you. This is ideal for you anyways because it allows you to stay mobile.

Westpac is the biggest bank in Australia. You can start a no fee checking account:

Bring your passport and 2 other forms of ID
Bring proof of address – Either that or just get a receipt from a hostel with your name, the hostels address and the date (make sure it is the date you are in the bank getting the account). You can make a fake proof of address easily, just type something up with that information.

Westpac you can pull your money out for free if you bank with Westpac partners. Check here to see if your country is partners.

Get your Australian Tax File Number (TFN)

Do this as soon as possible. Click HERE to get started.

YOU ARE AN AUSTRALIAN RESIDENT FOR TAX PURPOSES – Remember this when filling out paperwork for employers.

Set up a Super Annuation Fund

Super is the government mandated savings system for Australians. Your employer is responsible for paying you wages plus 9% to your superannuation fund. The benefit is that you get this money back when you leave Australia. I got $1,000 back 3 months after I landed in Hawaii. That cash was really helpful for the transition to my new home!

Get a phone. I recommend prepaid cell phone sim card and a functional cell phone

Being able to make calls and send texts will be important while you move around Australia. Remember: “your network is your net worth”. Be good to everyone you meet, Australia is a huge country yet a small community. Lots of people know eachother. While looking for cattle station work, we met some Irish friends in Mt. Isa, QLD. We separated ways for 8 months and met again in Perth, WA. This Irish friend helped my friend get a job as a diesel mechanic making $36 an hour (and my friend had no experience as a diesel mechanic). Knowing people will get you a job far faster than any other attribute.

I prefer prepaid cards because I hardly used my phone for a month when I got heavy into the fruit picking. Often times the orchards are far from town and your phone doesn’t work anyways.

Make a promise not to drink or smoking until you get a job and good income. The prices are so high in Australia that that kind of bad behavior can screw you over.

It’s all too common that backpackers arrive in Australia and spend all their money immediately on booze and smoke. Then the fools have to struggle to get back on their feet. Australian booze is super expensive. Expect to pay $14 for a 6 pack of beer or $46 dollars for a bottle of whiskey. Pouches of tobacco cost nearly $20. Wine is less expensive but is still a waste of resources.

Heed this advice: Australia is a great place to quit drinking and smoking

While looking for work, do something that is free and exciting.

Surfing, kayaking, fishing, horse riding, free diving, hiking are all options that will save your ass. Plus you might get lucky and meet someone that can help you get a good gig.

Set a goal and stick to it

When I landed in Australia in February I set the goal to save $8,000 before I departed for South Africa in May. Even though I didn’t quite get there (spent a bit to much time surfing), the goal really helped me through some of the more miserable days of fruit picking.<

Read this for a bit of motivation. 4hourblog.com

Get these chores behind you and you will be ready to be employed in Australia. I struggled with working and doing all these things for months. Hopefully this will save you some work. 😛

January 21, 2012

Costs of Affluenza

Is our generation still suffering from affluenza?

Being motivated is great, but where are you going? Do you want an enormous house and fancy foreign cars? Do you want a bunch of enviable objects (remote control helicopters, super yachts parked in your back yard dock…)? Are you willing to pay the price?

In order to build that big house, loads of trees need to be cut down, the steel and glass fabrication requires heaps of fuel and raw materials, the paint needs to be synthesized, and the concrete needs to be produced.

Those fancy foreign things needs to be shipped from fancy foreign places.

Every-time you order something and go about acquiring it, you are incurring these unseen environmental costs.

Working for these things means you are choosing to incur these costs.

It’s important that we recognize the costs of the things we want.

Check out this NASA video.

January 20, 2012