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The visual art and architecture of native Oceania, includes media such as sculpture, pottery, rock art, masks and personal decoration. In these societies, art and architecture have usually been closely connected, for example, storehouses and meetinghouses have been decorated with elaborate carvings, and so they are presented together here.

Up until the 16th and 17th centuries when European societies happened upon the scene, Oceanic cultures maintained a number of different forms of Neolithic technology. The only exception was in the northwest of New Guinea, where the tribes living around Geelvink Bay (Teluk Cenderawasih) imported very small quantities of metal from the Indonesians of the Moluccas (Maluku). The art of forging was zealously guarded, like a cult secret; some tools were traded but only in amounts far too small to have made much impact on normal working conditions.

Throughout the rest of Melanesia and in Polynesia and Micronesia, the basic tool remained the stone blade, which was hafted as an adze or an axe, and at times interchangeably as both. Tridacna shell was occasionally used as blades in those parts of Oceania where stone was in short supply, including Micronesia and the Solomon Islands. When obsidian became available, it was chipped into blades for use as both weapons and tools. Other working materials included bamboo and bivalve shells, which allow extremely sharp edges. Some fine cutting and engraving was done with unhafted boar tusks or with hafted shark and rodent teeth. Animal bones served as gouges, awls, and needles. All these tools were employed in working wood, which with very rare exceptions was the main medium used throughout Oceania.

Clay was also employed, mainly for sculptures, for some of the smaller musical instruments (whistles), and for pottery in Melanesia and New Guinea. The creation of pottery vessels was almost exclusively women’s work, apart from in only a few areas in New Guinea and the northern Solomons. A typical method involved spiral coiling of rolls of clay. The decorating of the pot was the work of men.

Some working of shell and turtle shell was done with simple drilling and abrading equipment. The carving of stone, although obviously providing far more difficult and time-consuming problems than wood, was undertaken remarkably often and occurred throughout the Pacific Islands; hammering, pecking, and polishing were the main methods. Even such a hard a material as greenstone was mastered by sanding with abrasives.

Paint and painting were thought to animate sculpture, sometimes literally, in religiosymbolic terms, as paint was considered to have magical, vivifying powers. Paints were generally ochres, with other vegetable-derived pigments. Water was the usual medium, on occasion supplemented with sap. Brushes were created from the fibrous ends of chewed or frayed sticks, small feather bundles, pieces of wood, and sometimes the most elementary applicator of all, the finger. Apart from sculpture, the surfaces used for painting were rock faces, bark, and tapa (cloth made from felted bark). Rock painting was most common in Australia, where panels of bark were also used. In Melanesia, paintings were made mainly on sago-palm leaves and sheets of tapa cloth. In Polynesia the women created great amounts of tapa, which they then decorated with abstract designs using vegetable dyes. Some of the techniques they employed included painting, stenciling with leaf templates, rubbing over relief-design tables, stamping, and printing with carved bamboo rollers.

The only areas where weaving was practiced were the Caroline Islands, the Polynesian outlying islands east of the Solomon Islands, a small number of the Santa Cruz Islands, parts of Vanuatu, the Saint Matthias Group (northwest of New Ireland), and several places on the northern coast of Irian Jaya. Spinning was unknown; instead of yarn or thread, strips of banana fibre were used on a simple backstrap loom. Weaving was a woman’s craft in the Caroline and Saint Matthias islands but was practiced by men elsewhere. A form of “finger weaving,” as in net making, was used by Maori women in creating textiles from flax fibres.

The architecture of the Pacific Islands was varied and occasionally large in scale. Buildings reflected the structure and preoccupations of the societies that constructed them, with a great deal of symbolic detail. Technically, most structures in Oceania were no more than simple assemblages of poles held together with cane lashings; only in the Caroline Islands were complex methods of joining and pegging known.

Oceanic artists’ quest for media was consummately opportunistic; they regarded almost anything from the lavish natural world that surrounded them as potentially usable. The ocean yielded shells of all kinds, particularly conus, cowrie, and nassa shells. Birds gave down, beaks, and plumes (those of the birds of paradise were especially prized); animals provided teeth, tusks, and skins; insects supplied wonderfully brilliant wing cases. The vegetable world was drawn upon for flowers, leaves, and fibres. The gathering of such materials into single objects was rare in Polynesia and Micronesia, but the practice was typical of Australian and Melanesian styles, and contributed brilliantly to their more spectacular effects. The most basic medium of all was the human body, which received both removable and permanent decorations, including scarification, enhanced by treatment to raise keloid welts in New Guinea, and tattooing with needles and pigments elsewhere.

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Ok, so you have just had your brand new grid-connected solar panels connected by your local accredited solar power installer.

Now, remember the first meeting you had with the sales consultant at the kitchen table. Do you recall talking about your prior energy use in the home, and what habits you ought to alter if you decided to get solar? If you answered yes, then you probably organised your solar quote through mysolarprice.com.au, as we only engage solar companies that we are certain will educate the consumer about their typical power use and give them a good understanding of what power output the system is capable of. Some ‘fly-by-night’ solar panel companies who have only recently arrived on the scene have misled the public in the performance capacity of their grid connected systems. This has led to some mistrust and confusion in the Solar arena. Mysolarprice.com.au knows of these companies, and will not deal with the solar installers found to be giving misleading information or involved in any dishonest sales tactics.

Have you forgotten these power saving tips the solar consultant gave you? If so, don’t worry, as we provide here the TOP 15 tips for reducing your power consumption to get the most out of your tariff feed, whether that be Net Tariff feed or Gross Tariff feed. Some homes with larger systems from 2kw (2 kilowatts) or more may not have to change their electricity usage at all and will still be in positive territory, that is, able to get a surplus or credit for their power. This depends on the home, roof type, shade, number of people in the home, appliance usage, and most importantly the behaviour in the home or in other words how they interact with their home. Some families work during the day and turn their standby power off, whilst doing their washing and household chores at night time. Whereas some people have an air-conditioned home office which uses a massive amount of power during the day and which does almost nothing at night. How does this make a difference you may ask? If you are in a state like Queensland which has a “Net Tariff Feed” this is extremely important. This basically means you get the balance of the power you send to the grid from the amount of power youuse during the day but not at night, because solar panels don’d generate power at night time. Therefore, if you are using a lot of power during daytime when your solar power system is working the hardest, you are competing or cancelling it out with the amount of power you are feeding back to the grid, or “Net” Feed. If however, you are not there during the day and turn off all your appliances at the wall to eliminate inactive and active standby but only leave the essential items on like the fridge, you will be streets ahead of the rest and get more of a “net” balance which means one thing: more $$$$$$ in your pocket!

These top 15 energy saving tips range from modifying the building material of the building, to being more energy efficient, to minor behavioural modifications like turning off the lights when you leave the room. This list will be in the order of the simplest minor behaviour modifications to bigger structural changes to the building material.

TOP FIFTEEN POWER-SAVING TIPS

1.Turn the lights off when you vacate a room. This is especially important if you have energy-guzzling old-fashioned incandescent lights or worse, halogen lights. I have seen people leave on 4 x tastic 500w heat lamps on in the bathroom all day. That’s an incredible 2KW or 2000 watts of power being consumed for no reason.

2.Let in natural light to the internal space. This will reduce the need for lights during the day.

3.Replace your incandescent light bulbs and halogens with CFL’s (Compact Fluorescent Lamps) or LED’s. They use only approx. a quarter or less power than the standard 75watt incandescent or 60watt halogen, and will last far longer than the standard incandescents or halogens.

4.Use Sensor CFL spotlights for outdoors, instead of the old energy-inefficient spotlights of yesterday.

5.Turn off all standby power. This is probably the best tip I can give you for reducing your daily electricity consumption. A typical dwelling generally operates at around 10-15% standby power, so if you have a quarterly bill of $400 that means $40-$60 of that account is standby power -which does nothing! It may not seem like much but that’s around $120-$240 a year just for not turning appliances off at the wall. An easy way to control your standby is to buy a proper standby power board.

6.Choose energy-efficient appliances. This doesn’t necessarily mean throwing out your 5-year-old fridge because it only has 2 stars, and spending $2,500 on one that is 4 star. It means if you are presented with an option of buying a new appliance, then make sure it has the highest star rating available. So if you have the money and the choice is over a 2 star 50 inch plasma TV or a 5 star 50 inch Led TV you should get the LED.

7.Turn off any second or third fridges not being used. I have found in energy audits that a great number of people have a spare chest freezer or 20-year-old rusting fridge with splitting seals in a hot basement. This will account for a great chunk of the electricity bill. Often I’ll open the door and there is nothing even in there, so the fridge is running -and working overtime- for no reason.

8.Turn off your computer screens and speakers when not in use. This is so easy, but most people I come across forget to do this. If you have a Sub-Woofer with a separate power supply be sure to turn that off also when not in use.

9.Draft Sealing in Winter. If you are using electric heating in winter, be sure to cover any drafts, otherwise you are merely wasting money.

10.Use ceiling fans or pedestal fans instead of air-conditioning. Air-conditioning can be one of the most expensive appliances to run in summer. If are going to use air-conditioning in summer, make sure that the room is well-sealed, the windows are covered and you have insulation in the ceiling.

11.Air-Conditioning Tips for Summer.

- Buy the correct sized air-conditioner for your room -not house, unless it’s ducted. If buying ducted make sure it can be zoned.
- Buy an energy efficient inverter air-conditioner with a high star rating for cooling and heating.
- Set the thermostat between 18-21 degrees. Every degree celsius higher that you set the a/c increases its consumption by 10%
- Re-circulate cool air from the inside rather than drawing hot air from outside. If the compressor is outside make sure its not sitting exposed in the western sun.
- Ensure the windows have both internal and external shading.

12.Air-Conditioning Tips for Winter.

- Set the thermostat to 23-26 degrees
- Wear warmer clothes to insulate your body so you need less mechanical heating
- Insulate your house as with Air-Conditioning in Summer Tips.
- Because hot air rises, a ceiling fan can be turned to the lowest setting -in reverse- as this actually pushes the warm air down towards the house’s occupants
- Avoid electric radiator heaters and electric fan heaters as they are massively expensive.
You are better using reverse cycle air conditioning because it’s a great deal cheaper (most people don’t know this).

13.Insulation. Reflective foil type insulation is better in sub-tropical climates such as Brisbane experiences, whereas thicker, bulky insulation such as wool/fibreglass or polyester is better suited to more temperate climates such as Toowoomba.

14.Windows. There are plenty of things you can do to insulate your windows to stop the heat entering the dwelling during summer, and keep it in in winter. In summer it’s important to keep direct solar radiation off the east and west windows by vertical screening, and keep it off north facing windows with big eaves or horizontal shading. This is so you can allow the sun in in winter when it’s lower in the sky. These are principles known as solar passive design.

15.Hot Water. If your house has an electric hot water system and you have it on the wrong tariff this can be the greater part of your bill. Generally, your hot water should be on an off-peak tariff depending on your location and retail provider. The hot water bill is normally a quarter of a electricity bill if the system is electric. If it is a newer heat pump it will be much less. The most efficient water heating device is Solar Hot Water, with a natural gas boost.

These are just a few of the generic energy-saving tips I have come across while doing household energy audits which I find many people need help with. If you can reduce the daily consumption it’s going to make it a lot easier to:
1. Keep your bills down, and
2. Make it easier for the Solar Panels to work and provide you with a bonus or credit on your next bill.

One other thing I haven’t mentioned is panel care. Your panels should be kept free of dirt and grime, as even dust on the panels can significantly reduce the panel’s performance by up to 30% or more. I will look at the process of solar panel maintenance in my next article.

If you require any further energy saving tips or solar power saving tips, then Mysolarprice.com.au can help. We provide all the solar panel infomation necessary to make a well-informed solar purchasing decision.

Mysolarprice.com.au specialise in solar power brisbane solar hot water brisbane and solar pool heating brisbane

The iPhone has several applications available for it and more are being made and added to the application store all the time. Just about anybody can make an application for the iPhone and put it in the app store; all that anyone has to do is present the app to Apple for screening and approval.

One practical application is be the red laser which comes available with the Apple iPhone. The red laser lets people to scan a product and immediately see the available prices of that specific item online. Alongside the online comparison shopping that the barcode scanner provides, the red laser also has a number of other quite useful features. For instance, you can scan a movie noticed while walking around a shopping mall and the red laser will locate a copy of it online and will also allow you to have the entire movie sent to your TiVo.

The red laser is also able to add items to your shopping list. For example, when somebody is about to discard their deodorant, they can scan it and it will be added onto their shopping list so as to remind them to purchase it next kitchen shopping trip.

One can use the red laser to scan almost anything and find information that is relevant to their interests. You can try using it on a book and the red laser will be able to locate a copy of it in a nearby library. It is able to do this due to its highly developed integration with the world’s biggest library catalogue -WorldCat. The red laser is also able to look for a copy of any book scanned and find all the online retailers which hold it in stock.

Other than discovering prices and locating products, the red laser will also let you to scan food. If anybody is allergic to any ingredient, one can scan a food item and then reveal the allergen info. Instead of trying to scan the whole list of ingredients in the packaging, red laser will show you a list of all the ingredients within the product and show you the most common allergens within it. On top of all that, red laser will also help you eat in a healthier way by providing the full nutritive contents within the product.

Red Laser has several other useful features -you may be surprised at the numerous products you can scan and find helpful information on. This is most definitely an application worth purchasing.

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If you ask anyone who’s knowledgeable about stone cladding, they’re most likely to tell you one thing over everything else: it’s the bee’s knees. Really, a bunch of rocks and stone never looked so good. If you’re planning at building your own dream home, you’ll want to consider including stone cladding in the final design of your house.

Far from looking like your typical bunch of rocks stacked on top of each other, the majority of constructions that use stone cladding look very aesthetically pleasing, not to mention reliable and extremely easy to build. Stacked stone examples are far and wide and can be found in a multitude of places. Take for example a certain country retreat in the Daylesford Hills in Victoria, where they opted to use stacked stone instead of the usual sandstone walling. The architect ended up choosing Craft Stone European Castle Stone Golden Sand as the alternative.

What resulted from this was a far more pleasant design and they avoided additional footings, by using timber frame & fibre cement as a substrate. This was used in an outdoor portion – a rock wall if you will – so it’s something that will easily catch the attention of passersby .

But of course, usage is in no way limited to outdoor sections of a house. Indoor use is also permitted, and when it comes to cases like these, its benefits can be experienced in all manner of ways, whether it ends up in the kitchen or in the living room.

A stacked stone fireplace can take advantage of such an architectural marvel, where a timber frame clad with fibre cement sheet can be used to construct a stone gas log fireplace. A 12mm Standard mortar joint can be used to fit the Craft Stone Stacked Ledgestone Merlot for the construction. The best part is the whole thing can take a day to construct which brings to light the amazing cost and labor saving incentives that this could potentially bring to the table. Face it – less construction time means less labour costs, and fewer expenses in general.

With clear benefits like those mentioned above, it’s no wonder this method is becoming more and more popular. Add the fact that resulting designs can compliment just about anything, and suddenly it’s not so hard to comprehend why people say it’s the perfect design feature. Stone cladding is what dream homes are made of!

For more information about stone cladding, stacked stone and rock wall building options, please contact Craftstone Australia.

Lighting is an important element of any room. It takes a great deal of effort and research to choose the right night lights, as it can make or break a room. Decorative lights liven up a space, regardless of how boring the furniture is. Lighting also plays an essential in setting the ambience in a room. Where you place these lights should also be planned well, as misplaced lighting can ruin the mood in a room.

Interior design has greatly evolved throughout the years, as decorative pieces and furniture have come to employ a more contemporary feel to them. With the development of interior design trends came the evolution of lighting. Designer night lights are now one of the most important aspects of any interior design project. Choosing designer lights that announce a statement fulfills the aesthetic and functional side of the designing process. Whether you want classic designs or modern ones, there is definitely a lighting piece that will suit your needs and preferences.

Adding a lampshade or two in a bedroom can make an amazing difference. Drop lights are also pleasant additions to the living room or the dining room and string lights are increasingly becoming a necessity when decorating. There are so many unique choices for night lights these days that it can be quite overwhelming to choose. Decorative lights add an interesting feel to the room and depending on the kind of light you choose, it can set the overall theme of the room. More modern designs include LED colour change lights, large drop lights and metallic lighting fixtures. irregardless of what your interior design theme is, you can find a lighting fixture that will complement it. This even extends to the gardens and ponds with outdoor lighting.

A lot of the modern lights these days are also more cost-efficient as they don’t consume too much electricity as before. It is preffered to decide on one center light and add several accent lights so that you are able to dim the lighting in the room should you want to. Warm lighting can greatly influence the ambience in the room, as it is a lot more comfortable than white lights.

Chandeliers have also greatly evolved through the decades. From elaborate tear drop chandeliers, they now come in a variety of different designs and colours. Dark wrought iron chandeliers offer more minimalistic options for homes, as they are not as extravagant as traditional chandeliers but can be as beautiful in feel and lighting. Decorative night lights are most certainly a great investment, as they can improve the aesthetic value of any home.

Because packaging helps to control the immediate environment of a food product, it is beneficial in creating conditions that prolong the storage life of a food. Packaging materials that are normally used for foods may be classified as flexible (paper, thin laminates, and plastic film), semi-rigid (aluminum foil, laminates, paperboard, and thermoformed plastic), and rigid (metal, glass, and thick plastic). Plastic materials are widely used in food packaging because they are relatively inexpensive, lightweight, and easy to form into desired shapes.

The selective permeability of polymer-based materials to gases, for example carbon dioxide and oxygen, as well as sun and moisture, has led to the invention of modified-atmosphere packaging. If the barrier materials are carefully chosen, a packaging material can continue a modified atmosphere inside the package and thus extend the shelf life of the food product.

Dehydrated foods must be kept away from moisture during storage. Packaging materials such as polyvinyl chloride, polyvinylidene chloride, and polypropylene offer low moisture permeability. Similarly, packaging materials with low gas permeability are utilized for fatty foods in order to minimize oxidation. Because fresh fruits and vegetables respire, they need packaging materials, such as polyethylene, that have high permeability to gases.

Smart packages offer properties that meet the unique requirements of certain edibles. For example, packages produced with oxygen-absorbing elements remove oxygen from the interior of the package, thus protecting oxygen-sensitive products from oxidation. Temperature-sensitive films exhibit an abrupt change in gas permeability when they are subjected to an environment above or below a set constant. These films change from a crystalline structure to an amorphous structure at a set temperature, causing the gas permeability to change substantially.

If you are looking for shrink packaging film and shrink wrap equipment, talk to Redblade. Redblade are the experts in plastic packaging and Cryrovac film.