Author Archives: Christopher Rumple

The Awakening

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Batik Studio, Dukuh Village, Yogyakarta

The awakening of human potential. We beings of thought. We beings of passion. We beings of creation. Now, and since the beginning we have the capacity to peer into the darkness and hope. The smirk that sparks the revolution. We can march to the beat we chose.  We will never again create limits for ourselves, age, children, debt and so on. We worker bees. We visionaries. We united beings for a better today that is what we are. The age of the Entrepreneur is upon us and we are filled with plights for much more than money. We rather die than ignore the beating in our chest. Woe to the darkness for this will be bright. Come now, join hand in hand. We will march and we will sing. For those that have been benighted will no longer be found. Opportunities are abounding and much work is ahead of us. The storm in bleak, but we will forge a new path for others to follow. Unite my brothers and sisters! Let’s toil for each other, let us band together for value does not exists in paper, but within our hearts. Be wild you wild thing! Let your mind guide and your heart drive. Now to arms, not against our fellow man, but to the darkness of fear!

Possibility

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Crouched, curled, listing over a computer keyboard I was. It’s actually so old of a laptop it’s almost a typewriter. Well that is how is serves me and this day and age all you need is a screen and internet. Once you are connected to the cloud all of your computing can be done elsewhere. Hurray…. But I don’t care for the said subject for I noticed something before me… this door.

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The scene of this door holds me. Perplexes me. So I took pictures. I even tried to jar it opened, to which a worker asked me – in English because for some reason in Indonesia no one wants to speak Bahasa Indonesia with you and thus you never become proficient at a second language, aahh the horror… –, ‘what are you looking for?’ He inquired.

“The quickest way to the Goblin King.”

Looks of confusion flashed across this gentleman’s face. I wanted him to open the door. I wanted to step through. I wanted to find Dinosaurs. I wanted to fight ninjas and save babies!

Curiosity is such a driver!

Would you literally step through the door?

Would life be too busy for you to be curious or even to notice? Well, here be curious. Step through and see what you want.

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In two weeks’ time I will show you what I found.

The Spark

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Here’s a dream. This dream spins. It twirls in the wind. It is made of plastic and bamboo. It’s a make shift wind wheel! (Hyperbole! I think not. The principles are sound!) This dream made of trash is powered by nuclear energy. Pray tell, how does that happen? Fusion in the core of the sun produces photons, these photons take 100 years to escape the sun. Then a little under 8 minutes to traverse the space between. They heat the surface of a spinning globe to create wind. Put a blade on a pin and face it into the wind. If it spins, you are harnessing fusion energy that was produced 100+ years ago. Wow! Out of this world, right?

But Dreams come and go like the wind because life gets too hard.

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Walaybola, Morotai, Indonesia

I happen upon a little girl in a seaport town while prospecting for wind resource in the area. My partners and I sat while some folks graciously cooked us fish. I noticed the little girl some distance away playing with something that resembled a wind turbine. It was almost as if she wanted to show us it. But threw it done in frustration for it failed to spin. The girl disappeared. So I walked over to find the pieces thrown about. I made a slight alteration to the would be turbine blade. I placed it into the ground.

My only hope is that she saw this when she came back. And was inspired so that she be possessed with conviction: the desire to peer into the unknown for others and not turn away. Delusions of grandeur if you will, but big things have crazy beginnings.

(This is my dream, to inspire others to aspire. Thank you little girl for giving me the opportunity.)

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Dreamers are the painters of reality.

The Sun

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How many flags have been flown for god, for country, for ambition? What drives us for more: to see lands untold, to find love, to speak with a stranger, to last beyond our years? Oh, how many that have already existed! We few that still live! What a gift! No paper, no words, can  truly describe to another what sight a sunrise is to feel. Share your time with a friend while the beauty of a sunrise kisses you!

(Sunrise on Mt. Rinjani , Lombok Indonesia: elevation 12,224’)

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(View from Rinjani’s summit of the crater lake and new volcano)

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(Sunset on the crater rim)

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(Hi! Meet Reno – a guide in a trekking company on Lombok. This man hikes to the summit of Mt. Rinjani twice a week for a living. He deserves this shirt.)

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Be like Reno, be bear chested!

To infinty and carbon-neutrality!

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infinity

Photo taken by Pikatan Tahta Prabhu Diwangkara. Mt. Gede Java, Indonesia

After hours of peering into the wonder of infinity, on top of an ancient volcanic mountain, you begin to yearn for a crispy black marshmallow. Your toil of rubbing sticks together has beget a bright fire, but now another query of wonder is upon you: ” why was there smoke before the fire?” Thinking back you discover that the heat from the friction of rubbing sticks releases gasses, which ignite from the heat and surrounding midnight air. Eureka! The wood itself does not burn. It has been pyrolyzed.

 

The video is of a gasifier that does this action, but captures most of the gases before they are burned.The feed-stock is charcoal in the above video, which is heated inside the downdraft gasifier until it releases moisture, gases, ash and some tar. The aim is to capture CO and H2; these gases then can be used for direct combustion (as see in the video) or can be used for electrical power production.

 

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Fernando and Christoni — undergraduates at the Agricultural Institute of Bogor — check  for concentrations level of CO and H2. i.e. seeing if it catches a flame.

 

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Corn cob waste that has been densified into a briquette and then carbonized. It is essentially charcoal and ready to be burned.

 

Into the Sky

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One wrong move and we all could fall into the sky. The endless concrete tundra cracks under the ridged wane of life. And these ridged things will never dance in the wind, but twirling hope still flies above. Breathe! Breathe! Fill your lungs with it! Let it beseech you with maddening charm! Dare to peer into the lonely night with a fiery dream. Be brave in your lust for passion. Do not be lost in the world. Look down at your feet and then at the sky, this is where you are. And what you hold in your hand is a whisper, breathe life into and friends will find you.

Time

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(Disclaimer: racy language in recording.)

We want to be driven, driven mad by desire, just as wild as a dervish with purpose – a purpose that pushes us to corners unknown, to create; this is our true happiness. The richness of purpose drives people to better the world. They are not happy because they have money. They are happy because they can create marching ripples of interest anew. Everyone accepts money for their limited time. “Thank you sir for giving me this coloured piece of paper that has been dirtied many a time. I will now make the coffee drink you requested of me, with resentment of course because I am younger and full of entitlement. Meanwhile, please delight in this week’s old newspaper.” To abuse your opportunity is a disrespect unto thyself. Now, you will have to waste more of your own precious time to overcome that ill-fated gesture. Next time, be sure to vote in such a way that gives rise to the purpose you see fit. Then the time you spend will be well spent on others.

Domestication

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Is it, true that we are 60% bananas? (A statistic hanging in the Smithsonian of Natural History.) How can this be!?! I am not peel-able: I do not sprout from a bush or a tree! I have feet, not roots!

If this be true than Facebook comprises of 60% bananas or the notion that six tenths times banana plus sugar and spice would yield human woman…! But, if I eat a banana and shit it out, will I always be 60% banana? Have we always shared 60% of our genome? What if, a banana ate a person!?!

What do we have in common with a banana anyway? A green banana is not ripe. A green person wants a trash can. A yellow banana needs to be eaten. A yellow person needs a better liver. How fascinating is a 40% difference in our blueprint would yield arms and legs! (What complexity there is in the genome.)

I am not 60% banana nor is a banana sharing any percent of a human. What we have in common is the time we have spent together! Though we will never have a friendship with a banana, we do, however, have a relationship. Now that is something that will drive you bananas.

Bananas exist to be eaten, to be thrown, to be tossed by Mario, to be blended, to be forgotten, to be planted … to be sold at Walmart. Our effect on bananas also has an effect on us. E.g. When we throw a banana it pushes back on our muscles to which our mind is intimately connected.