Home Sweet Home: The simple life, 21st century style

The family home has probably never been changing more than it is now. Even in the postwar boom, the lifestyle was basically an extension of the former way of life with more gadgets. Now, the gadgets are running the world and they’re also dictating the lifestyle. In the past, something like contents insurance meant clothes, a few appliances, and some valuables. Now, the “appliances” are home businesses, often working around the world.

The lifestyle change has been more than physical. It’s mental. There’s now a second generation growing up which has no idea what the lifestyle of the 1990s was all about. A world without Facebook? Impossible. A world without iPhones, forget it.

The employment market is also in the melting pot. As the New Economy takes shape, it’s making less sense by the second to keep people in offices and commuting mindlessly back and forth. It’s not only wasteful, it’s expensive, using up time most people can use to make money, not spend it.

This is only the very early beginning of a total reworking of society into something far more rational and less habituated than its ancestry. Even the “traditional” working hours, 9-5, are a version of the old agricultural working house, sunrise to sunset. A bit obsolete, if you happen to be working in four different time zones from home.

The internet is the cradle of the new society, barely an infant in terms of even foreseeable future technology. Mobile devices are just getting started, and smart homes are rapidly taking the place of “four walls”. Medical and scientific devices, which are driving a lot of other technology, are doing the same thing. It’s worth noting that somebody tried to make a Star Trek tricorder, technology set 400 years in the future, and found they could do it easily.

The future is rarely obvious, but it’s always predictable in one sense- It takes the line of least resistance. In this case, the line of least resistance is technology, and a lot of it, getting simpler and cheaper. The mobile phone started as a gimmick, and has wound up as an “office in your pocket”, simply because that was the easiest way to create mobile communications technology. Why carry around an IT department, when you can do it all remotely?

Home, therefore, is now a communications hub, social plug-in, entertainment nexus, business centre, you name it. It’s no longer the suburban dream, but part of an extremely mobile, interlaced series of networks. Even the family car has become a sort of mobile office/ service, able to do business, shopping and even admin work on the move.

With this has come the change in employment from employees to contractors. More people are self-employed now than ever before, and the process is accelerating as outsourcers snap up professionals and skilled workers. Home for these people is work and work is home. Typically, home insurance is as likely to be insuring a home office or other service as well as the standard home fittings and features.

It’s still home, but home has got a lot bigger.

Fishermen’s Boats

Every holiday season, fishermen are renting their boats to visitors. These boats will take visitors to reach Pantai Pasir Putih (White Sand Beach) from Pantai Barat Pangandaran (West Pangandaran Beach), West Java, Indonesia. It’s a great way for increasing their income.

Amaryllis Buds

Amaryllis flower is my late mom's favorite. We still have these plants in the front yard. As it's seldom flowering; I always capture every flowering moment of these flowers, since their buds stage.

My entry for The Weekend in Black and White this week.

Door Bell

Most of the many types of bell on the market can be installed in a couple of hours. Try to avoid the ones which play a symphony; their charm wears thin rapidly. Units that have adjustable volume are handy if you are often in the garden.

Buy a bell that comprises a bell unit, push-button assembly and batteries. Keep a supply of batteries on hand! If wire is supplied, check that it is long enough to reach from the front door to where you want the bell installed. You can run the wire on top of the skirting; at its base; tucked down behind the carpet; under the floor.

Bring the wire up to the bell unit alongside a convenient architrave. Don’t install a bell close to sources of heat or steam.

When marking the position of push-button; drill 10 mm holes through the jamb in two directions so that wiring can reach the inside in an unobtrusive place.

For Video Games Fans

Have you caught the latest gaming online? My nephew is a big fan of mmorpg. If you are also a big fan of video games, you’ll love this website. To get the various hottest game review videos; check out the website first! It can be your best guidance to choose your would- be favorite video games! 

Lighting Improvements

Lighting, like heating, consumes energy. A little common sense can go a long way in helping minimize electricity bills.

1.Dusty and dirty light globes can reduce lighting efficiency by half, to say nothing of the added eye strain they inflict. Cleaning them regularly will make a remarkable difference.

2.Fluorescent lights use a third to a quarter of the power of a conventional bulb. Down lights and spot lights are attractive but fairly inefficient forms of lighting.

Have you ever heard of shoji lighting?
This lighting solution is practical, efficient and very striking to look at. Fluorescent tubes are ugly and give out a bright light that’s inappropriate in some rooms. Here, their glare is softened and their overall appearance dramatized by the use of a false ceiling constructed of Perspex and supported by an egg crate-style timber frame.

This style of lighting has more applications than simply the ceiling. You could build two identical timber frames and sandwich the Perspex between them. Used vertically, this would make an interesting room divider.