Why do socieities collapse?
I came across Jared Diamond’s online lecture about his book Collapse while searching for his book online for my Masters thesis. The lecture is an excellent summary about why societies collapse due to ecological destruction. Diamond links ecological collapse to total social, economic and cultural collapse. His book Collapse was a best-seller and for good reason. It not only highlights our need to understand our ecological systems, but also how our social and economic systems support an ignorance to the destruction of our ecological systems, which ultimately underpin our whole society.
My Video Resume
After my previous post you’ve probably all been waiting for my own video resume. Well, after compiling a summary of my awards, work experience and creative arts portfolio I have a finished my video resume. The video resume is meant to be a supplement to my paper resume. The video resume does a much better job at displaying the creativity and innovation from which I work than a paper resume. Additionally, it shows a bit of my personality, including my vision and passion for municipal planning. The intended audience is future employers, mainly in regard to municipal planning related jobs.
To view my video resume go to:
http://www.jon.schmidty.ca/videoresume
How far is your commute? 90km bicycle commuter in Manitoba
I just got finished reading a CBC article about a man who commutes 90km one way by bicycle! Lacking free time to increase his bicycling training he began considering cycling the 90km from Portage la Prairie to his work in Winnipeg. The article states that he began doing this last year once a week and now has bumped it up to twice a week now. This is outstanding! I wonder if he’s calculated how much gas and car emissions he’s saved already. Though one obvious question for this guy would be why he lives so far away from his workplace. It seems that the environment isn’t his first concern if he’s been living that far away from his work for so long. Then again he’s a social worker and perhaps requires the many miles between him and his work.
The story does beg a good question for those people who train long hours in either running or cycling and maintain a day job: ‘Why drive 10-30km back and forth from work and then go for a 30-40km training session when you get home from work? Last summer I was doing some heavy duty running training and I’d wake up at 6am – go out for a 10km run and then jump in my car at 7:30am and drive 35km to work. Granted the distances aren’t the same, but a 35km bike ride is about the training equivalent of 10km run in terms of conditioning. If I woke up and just cycled to work immediately I would’ve been there at the same time and saved the car. The only catch was that I would’ve had to do it again in the evening or catch a car pool to transit and leave my bike at work. In short, bicycles are extremely efficient machines and if our workplaces continue to develop facilities for bike commuters the issue of distance really isn’t the problem. The greater problem with bike commuting is weather and traffic. The man in the article, Mike Caslor, states that once he hits the city he becomes much more weary of traffic because bikes and cars simply don’t get along very well in the city. Someday we will all have to get along, but until then cyclists will rarely trust motorists and motorists will still wonder why someone would get sweaty peddling a bike when you can drive a car.
Wildlife Video
The below video is actually a series of individually taken photos from a wildlife camera project I was working in. The still photos are taken from a motion-sensed camera. The cameras used for this montage were all monochrome cameras. The wind in certain areas was so prevalent that the cameras took pictures every second for sometimes hours. It was due to this phenomenon that the amazing cloud formations at the beginning of the montage were made possible. Essentially this is a summary of every still image taken during four months of data collection. I found it particularly enjoyable to put it together and add some music to spice it up.
On the techy side it wasn’t too difficult. Adobe Premiere allows you to bring in a series of still images if they are numbered stills in a sequence. So all I had to do was go into Adobe Bridge and batch rename the files so that they were all in a sequence. I could then bring them into Premiere as a video sequence and manipulate the speed of sequence and cut and splice. Because I wanted every single still image in the sequence and tried to keep it to 10 minutes the video moves rather quickly. Enjoy 
Go West Young Man!
Yesterday I received my acceptance to University of Calgary’s Masters of Environmental Design (Planning) program. This is the last piece of the puzzle for the move out West. Now everything is in place, Darlene has a job, we have a place to live and I have my acceptance to school. It is quite amazing how all things have fallen into place. We feel unbelievably blessed by God’s grace, but we also know that being away from friends and family will have its own challenges. As we move out west you can track our trip across the country at www.jonanddarlene.schmidty.ca
Final Animation Assignment completed
So I had the vision of doing a short canoe animation for my final 3D modeling assignment and I finally completed it about a week ago. You can now view it in the graphic arts section of this site. Most of the video was done in AutoDesk Viz 2007. After that I integrated some still images and a bit of photoshop work. I also integrated some video that I took in my bedroom using a digital camera, a bed sheet, a paddle and my hat. Following the video footage I had to use the choma key function in Ulead’s Video Editor to extract the bed sheet background and place me in the canoe I had created. The project was tons of fun, but very time consuming. To make it totally professional I would’ve needed another 100 hours or so. Anyways, it was fun to integrate a Bruce Cockburn track on canoeing with some video of me canoeing and all the while overlayed on top of the 3D modeling work I did in VIZ. Enjoy
Our Home and Native Land…
Honestly, I don’t know how to respond to the Caledonia stand-off involving members of Six Nations. I wish I could go down there and stand alongside the members of Six Nations and say ‘Despite all the racism you may be feeling, I’ll stand with you.’ But the voices gather: ‘I’m too busy. I have to go to work. I’m moving in a few days. I’m busy.” or “It’s not my battle. They can stand on their own, why would they need me?” or “Well, even the elected officials from the Band Council aren’t backing the standoff. I don’t know enough about the issue to make a stand either way.”
I think what infuriates me most is the lack of understanding in the public and even the media to print quotes such as this “However, the Henning brothers told CBC.ca they have clear title to the land.” The members from Six Nations ALSO believe they have clear title to the land, hence the standoff. The members from Six Nations don’t really care if the Henning brothers think they have clear title to the land. They believe it is a nation to nation issue, that is between Canada and Six Nations. If I stole something and then sold it to someone the person I sold it to would be holding that item illegally, regardless of whether the transaction between him and I was legit. At least that’s my infantile understanding of our laws and the issue at stake here. Developers who would like to build and make a profit on land under dispute between the Federal Government and First Nations groups in Canada should be very very cautious. They shouldn’t claim ‘They simply want to do business and don’t want to be political’ – a line that reveals their ignorance and desire for only profits. Being a developer in Canada is developing on land that we took,stole,confiscated or otherwise from the Aboriginal people of Canada. It is an inherent political exercise and it always has been. We desperately need greater understanding on the issues. We need to talk more, interact more and listen much much more.
Along that note above, I had a wonderful time touring Stoney Point/Kettle Point F.N. last Friday with Darlene’s Western University ‘Teaching Aboriginal Students’ class. It was very interesting to tour the school and see how the community is developing their young children to be their very best, to be proud of their heritage and to gently balance both the traditional and the modern. I wouldn’t be surprised if some amazing Aboriginal leaders come from the Kettle Point education system in the future. Granted, they will have to overcome a hoard of racism and barriers within our larger society. Grab your hammer, let’s break down the walls. Or better yet, grab a piece of the floor and sit and listen to an elder for an afternoon.
Go West Young Man!
Yesterday I received my acceptance to University of Calgary’s Masters of Environmental Design (Planning) program. This is the last piece of the puzzle for the move out West. Now everything is in place, Darlene has a job, we have a place to live and I have my acceptance to school. It is quite amazing how all things have fallen into place. We feel unbelievably blessed by God’s grace, but we also know that being away from friends and family will have its own challenges. As we move out west you can track our trip across the country at www.jonanddarlene.schmidty.ca
Undergraduate Thesis Time!
Well I have finally reached the last term of my undergraduate career. The end of my life as a student in formal education is quickly coming to a close. My final semester is going to be filled with reading reports, researching, and scratching my head on the subject of abandoned military radar bases in northern Ontario. My thesis project, which comprises two of my five courses this term, is focused on an historical look at the investigations into the Mid-Canada Line Radar Sites clean-up. There are sixteen remaining radar bases in Ontario and my thesis will focus on how the clean-up order for these sixteen sites has changed over time. At first glance through the literature it appears that multi-site multi-decade clean-up projects can lack a consistency and a concrete vision of what is most important to minimize risks to human health and the environment, but of course this needs cited proofs and examples. I’m looking forward to getting into this final project. If you are interested in some history of the Mid-Canada Radar Line Larry Wilson has an extensive page with photos, maps and stories.
Wetland Field Trip!!!!
This term I am taking Geography 405 – Wetlands, and our major assignment is a group project where we have to evaluate whether a wetland should be deemed ‘provincially significant’ or not. Yesterday our group went out to our wetland to do some field study at our Cedar swamp just north of St. Agatha. I have posted some pictures of our wetland on the left. Hope you enjoy the pictures of our cedar swamp, including ferns, sedges, wildflowers and much more. One of the excitements of our wetland was when we scared a few grouse/partridge out of some cover. Happy wetland travels!
Here’s some wetland links
Ducks Unlimited USA
Ducks Unlimited CAN
Official website of Jonathan R. Schmidt