J R McCann Architecture: April 2011

Printer Ink - Sorry How Much?

Its only when I started to realise how much I took printer ink for guaranteed, especially the price! Clearly if it wasn’t for the invention of printers and ink for them architecture would take a lot longer to produce final portfolios for review. But why on earth is it so expensive?

Ink cartridges are made out of a small amount of plastic, and have a chip which enables it to communicate with the printer. Also the manufacturers add a few stickers to help you identify the cartridges. The ink itself is also relatively cheap, being made from pigments and a splash of water to top up the cartridge. So when looked closer it’s hard to see why on earth they are so pricey for what they are.

Thankfully to combat this there are places where you can purchase alternative cartridges (non-branded) or refillable cartridges can be purchased to lower overall costs. However these are a bit unreliable at times. When buying four or five new cartridges for your printer more than you would expect it would be cheaper just to buy a brand new printer. But from personal experience maybe not because you have to buy the USB transfer cable separately. Bit of a scam I think!

None the less I still printed sheets for my folio and will continue to because they are very necessary and handy for architects. Just hopefully something will be done to change it. Nice to see that Kodak are advertising how bad there pricing is!

Photos were taken from Kodak Adverts (GoogleImages).....more can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DGJMVeC-Yc

The Problem With The Indian Premier League

The IPL is one of cricket’s most exciting club competition providing masses of entertainment, energy and star players. These days, Test Cricket is starting to fade into the background with the shorter Twenty 20 version of the game starting to take dominance, not with the older generation though.

Twenty20 is loved worldwide for its big hits, fiery atmospheres, large crowds and guaranteed entertainment for spectators. This is due to it being shorter and therefore grips a larger audience tighter than 5 day Test matches ever could.

The IPL is an Indian league consisting of 10 professional franchises such as the Delhi Daredevils, Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings. Each franchise has an owner who bids for players. The more money they have the better players they can buy to strengthen their teams. Similar to the NFL draft but with whole teams and is re-auctioned every year. The IPL was the first ever sporting competition to be broadcast live entirely on YouTube, due to broadcasting conditions. However four years after the competition was first set up, it can now be seen on ITV4 in the UK and on several other channels around the world.

This competition has carried a lot of controversy and unfortunate events with it from the outset, from staging it in South Africa in 2009 due to electoral violence and crisis in India at the time, to players choosing to play for money rather than their country which I feel is a terrible attitude to take. Also the chairman has always received a lot of criticism from other board members due to again money reasons.

I feel the IPL is a great spectacle however for a sport which is supposed to be very traditional is having too much money being thrown at it, hence the controversy and the dislike from older members of society. I think the concept should be re –considered and a half way house be constructed in its place.

"Royal Challengers Bangalore" their bought team

Players Love The Competition Despite Money??

Thousands of People Come To The Matches

"6's" Aren't Rare In This Format of Cricket

All pictures are taken from GoogleImages

Lanzarote 2011

After the stresses of Semester 2 thankfully the Easter holidays came along and so did the family holiday to the new location of Costa Teguise on the Canary Island of Lanzarote. The 7 days in the glorious sunshine were a welcome change to the dull, quiet atmosphere of the CAD Suite.

Not only was the weather very generous, but witnessing a new culture was a delight. The architecture was very different and similar all over the island. The locals were all incredibly friendly, including the taxi driver “Hola Amigo” or “Fernando Alonso” as we liked to call him – terrible driver. To clear things up, we had the same driver three times…very spooky! The sealife of Lanzarote was not only fresh and tasty but also stunning, for 3 days we went snorkelling in a man-made lagoon which would become enclosed by the tide. You could paddle up to your ankles and have shoals of decent sized fish swimming around your ankles. A truly unique experience to people used to the cold and kelp delights of the North Sea of Ireland.

As the holiday was all-inclusive, that meant breakfast…buffet, lunch…buffet, dinner…buffet, pool bar…buffet. That also applied for drinks…any drinks! So that kept us all stuffed and refreshed. Shame that only lasted a week in paradise.

As I mentioned earlier, the architecture was very different to that of the UK and was all very similar to each other in terms of style and aesthetic appearance. This is due to legal law. Cesar Manrique who is a local artist and architect thought that after the construction of Grand Hotel in Arrecife which stand 14 stories high that all residential builds should be no more than 2 stories high and commercial buildings no more than 7 stories high. Also all buildings will be painted white and any timbers should be brown, blue or green.

Our hotel, Lanzarote Bay was wonderful. Very clean, tidy, very friendly staff and the volume of food they kept churning out was incredible with great variety. I would definitely recommend it to everyone. Really hope to get to go again!