Loop and chill
May 19, 2008 | Arts & Culture | Nature & Environment
One-hour hand-recorded 54MB mp3 of Ocean Beach waves, San Francisco, 2008-05-14. Loop and chill. A gift, via Jessamyn.
Permalink | Comments (0)
Fragile - Handle With Care
March 11, 2008 | Nature & Environment
Left: All the water in the world (1.4087 billion cubic kilometres of it) including sea water, ice, lakes, rivers, ground water, clouds, etc. Right: All the air in the atmosphere (5140 trillion tonnes of it) gathered into a ball at sea-level density. Shown on the same scale as the Earth. Details.
Permalink | Comments (0)
Copying Makes Evolution Possible
March 4, 2008 | Arts & Culture | Nature & Environment | People & Society
Susan Blackmore in Wired:
The whole idea of a meme is that it's information that is copied with variation and selection. So any idea that is copied from person to person is a meme. But an idea that you think up for yourself and is not expressed is not a meme. The emphasis has to be on copying, because that's what makes evolution possible.
[Some memes] succeed because they're good for us or they're true or beautiful or useful and we select them for those reasons. Some other memes succeed, in spite of not being beautiful or true or useful, by using tricks. So religions, for example, have some value, but by and large they're false ideas that use tricks to get into people's heads -- threats of hell, promises of heaven, the allure of being a good person or of God loving you. There are also memes that trick you into thinking that you're going to get popular or that you're going to get rich or that you're going to get a bigger penis, whatever it is. [Ed: ambiguous 'it.']
Wired asks, What will [the future] look like?
Well, it will look like humans are just a minor thing on this planet with masses (of) silicon-based machinery using us to drag stuff out of the ground to build more machines.
As Kottke said of this quote, Good times.
Permalink | Comments (0)
Yo! This is not cool. WTF.
August 24, 2007 | Life | Nature & Environment
I woke up about 40 minutes after falling asleep, hearing what I thought was a big moth banging against the window screen trying to get in. It went on long enough that I grabbed my flashlight to see what it was. When I turned it on, something whizzed by my head, and I realized the moth was already in the bedroom, and it was trying to get out.
So I got up and put my glasses on and hit the flashlight again to go find the lightswitch, when, lo and behold, the thing flew by me and I realized, it's a bat!!. Uh, okay. I bolted out the door to the hallway, and turned on the hall light.
So now I'm standing there, naked, dazed and confused, in the middle of some decent REM sleep, trying to figure out what to do. Do I have to deal with this now? I'm tired, can I deal with this in the morning? Well, first, let's verify it's a bat, and not just a really big moth.
So I open the door just a bit, and flip the lightswitch on, and a big grey bat comes dive-bombing at the door, which I slam shut. Yo! This is not cool. WTF.
So, I'm thinking, where's my sleeping bag? I don't think it's in the bedroom. It's not in the spare bedroom, but hey, there's the futon Kathryn moved over here when Rob and Sarah lived here last fall. I can sleep there. Kinda cold, nice to have a blanket or something. So I head downstairs to find the sleeping bag. Not in the closets. Basement maybe? I'm down there rooting around and can't find it. Ugg.
Well, maybe I can catch the bat and get it out of here and just go back to bed. And then I realize I'll be chasing after this thing barefoot in my birthday suit, and that just seems crazy. Too many bad things could happen. I just want it to go away, a particular instance of my pacifist "tuck into a fetal position, roll out of the way, and hope for the best" approach to physical conflict.
So I go back upstairs to the bedroom hallway. I listen closely. Maybe it has left? Then, schnit, squeal, bang into the screen. Nope, it's still flailing. I'm going to sleep in the spare bedroom. In some sort of weird bat-mind theorizing, I leave the bedroom and hallway lights on, figuring he wants to get out, and he'll be less likely to head for the bottom of the door if it's light on the other side.
I find the winter comforter, and pull it onto the futon, and bunch some of it up at the head for a pillow, and crash sometime after midnight.
I wake up and don't want to get up. Eventually I get up and listen at the door. Nothing. I peek inside. No apparent danger. I quickly put on sweats and a t-shirt, and get out of there. I spend an hour wondering about my approach to the search. I eat a banana. I check email. I check my morning blogs. I call Kathryn. Finally, I get my Tilly hat, my leather garden gloves, and my capture implements: a 3 gallon paint bucket, and an 11 x 17 sheet of photo-mount backing board.
I carefully head into the bedroom, searching on the floor, walls, and ceiling. Nothing. Corners? Under the bed? On the slats up under the bottom of the bed? Behind the curtains? Behind the pillows on the floor? In the closet? I can't find him. Maybe he really did find his way out under the air conditioner, the likely way he got in. I tape up the A/C slot, and hope he really got out, leaving my bucket and backing board handy in case I need them tonight.
It all feels like a weird dream, kind of like the fiction I wrote in 2002. But amplified, since it was, in fact, real. Six or eight hours from now we'll be headed to bed. I wonder what will happen....
Permalink | Comments (0)
Katie Hutchison Studio
July 28, 2007 | Arts & Culture | Nature & Environment
An architect in Salem MA blogs:
Inspired by the simplicity of New England vernacular buildings and landscapes, Katie Hutchison Studio composes and promotes meaningful architecture and design.
Some great stuff there.
Primer: A Recipe for Architectural Charm
Design snapshot: Vineyard elemental outdoor fireplace
Current project: West Tisbury House.
Permalink | Comments (0)
Bacterial Toxin in the Genetically Modified Corn
April 12, 2007 | Nature & Environment | Science
Hans-Hinrich Kaatz: The bacterial toxin in the genetically modified corn may have ‘altered the surface of the bee’s intestines, sufficiently weakening the bees to allow the parasites to gain entry.
—Spiegel Online via WorldChanging via Hypsographic Gleanings
Permalink | Comments (0)
The Difference Snow Makes
December 24, 2006 | Nature & Environment
Great photo comparison of the Denver airport with and without 36" of snow.
Permalink | Comments (0)
The World Standard in Studless Winter Tyres
November 7, 2006 | Business & Commerce | Life | Nature & Environment
Glen said, "The ultimate winter weapon is still the Hakk 2's with studs, but if you don't want to run the studs with the noise and the rolling resistance and everything, then the RSi is what people are talking about." Better than the Hakk 2's? "Without the studs; With the studs, Hakk 2's are what you want." Got it. "This is a good tyre, it's quiet—people say it's really quiet—and it replaces the Nokia Q, which was around for ten years, and people liked that tyre quite a lot." How much? "Let me go work it out." [3 minutes of tyre store being] "$109 mounted and balanced." Okay, sold.
Now I just have to get there at 7:15 some morning to be in the first batch of customers. Otherwise it's an all-day affair.
Permalink | Comments (0)
Autumn Beauty
October 17, 2006 | Life | Nature & Environment
Saturday was a stunning late-fall New Hampshire day. We went for another 14-mile bike ride on the rail trail.
Bridge Over the Water
The ride includes several bridges over the Mascoma River, vehicle gates, dark forest, traveling past open green fields, under an Interstate highway, next to the Mascoma Lake for quite a while, through steep rock walls, and past rambling ramshackle mill buildings. It's a real gem of a community resource. Two more photos over at Flickr.
Kathryn On the Trail
When naming, always include the most important element no matter its prominence in the photograph.
Permalink | Comments (1)
Jellyfish the Size of Small Cars
October 6, 2006 | Nature & Environment
Pink Tentacle: Jellyfish invasion in full swing
Thousands of the giant jellyfish, which can grow up to 2 meters (6 ft 7 in) in diameter and weigh up to 200 kg (440 lb), become caught in fixed fishing nets each year.
Includes an amazing photo that I'm too lazy to steal borrow and post here.
Permalink | Comments (0)
Autumn
September 25, 2006 | Life | Nature & Environment
Yesterday I stood on the deck and watched the wind blow the leaves off the weak trees. Some of the remaining leaves are turning color, and the nights are crisp and cool. In two weekends my nephew will visit for annual apple picking. The driveway is covered with pine needles. My neighbor mowed the field last week. I need to stake the driveway for snow plowing.
The last time I looked it was July and I was at a concert. Then I blinked and I was at another one with a new friend. Then I blinked again and now it's the end of the summer, autumn is really here, and winter's around the corner. Wow.
Permalink | Comments (0)
Detroit, Motor City
September 18, 2006 | Life | Nature & Environment | Travel
Arrived at Detroit airport yesterday and called the hotel. "How do I get to you?"
"Okay, you take the south exit of the airport, get onto route blah, go 8.8 miles and take exit blahblah,...." I interrupted: "I'm not renting a car. Is there any public transportation?"
"Oh. Well, I think there are cabs somewhere near the Ground Transportation area." All-righty then. This is the first airport I've ever been to that didn't have a $15 bus that stopped at all the major hotels. Into the cab I got. Half an hour and $36 later I arrived at the hotel.
At the front desk after checking in I asked, "Is there an Appleby's or Chilli's or something around here to eat?" This was Sunday at 8:00 PM, I wasn't looking for a fancy wine list.
"Sure," he says. "Go out of the driveway, take a right. Go to the end of the street, take a left. Go 3 miles and there's a bunch like that right there." I said, "I didn't rent a car—is there anything within walking distance?"
"Oh. Hmm. Well; not sure. Just past that Best Buy I think there's something."
Cue Laurie Anderson: Hey Pal! How do I get to town from here? And he said: Well just take a right where they're going to build that new shopping mall, go straight past where they're going to put in the freeway, take a left at what's going to be the new sports center, and keep going until you hit the place where they're thinking of building that drive-in bank. You can't miss it.
Anyway, here's a guy who knows the restaurants three miles away but doesn't know what's next door?
And then I realized, hello, Notio, you are in Dearborn, MI, on Mercury Drive, just off of Ford Road, about 0.2 miles from the Ford world headquarters. No wonder there's no public transport. And hey, didya notice? There aren't any sidewalks either!
Welcome to Motor City.
Permalink | Comments (0)
Hot
August 2, 2006 | Life | Nature & Environment
At 5:10 AM it's 79 degrees. Wha? Forecast is for 97 degrees and thunderstorms, read: air as thick and close and humid as you can imagine. Welcome to August.
This morning's wake-up fun was to attempt killing a bee's nest under a deck chair. They say to do this at night or early morning, "when the bees are at rest." I think what they mean is, "when it's cool outside and the bees are too sluggish to move." I slowly turned the deck chair on its side and bees immediately started crawling out, blowing my carefully choreographed plan. I started wildly spraying them and the nest before one escaped and circled around the mist and came after me. I think I got him in the face while I was running for the door. Unharmed, today. Requires another attempt tomorrow.
Permalink | Comments (3)
Morning Earwigs
July 30, 2006 | Life | Nature & Environment
Earwigs are disgusting in many ways, but they're especially disgusting when, on a Sunday morning, up a bit earlier than you might prefer, and slightly hung-over, you find a pack of them nibbling away happily inside the wrapper of your virtually untouched Scharffen Berger chocolate bar. Besides the waste of fine chocolate, the shock and sudden reaction made my head hurt. Might be time for an early-morning nap.
Permalink | Comments (1)
Rainy Ghost of the Golden Age
July 22, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Life | Nature & Environment
An impromptu music video I shot this afternoon....
Rainy Ghost of the Golden Age (YouTube, 4:35)
A mood hit and I grabbed the camera and restarted the song. The video compression makes it hard to tell how hard it was raining, and hard to see the ghost. But watch carefully and pay attention, and you might catch a glimpse.
Permalink | Comments (0)
E-Prime
July 17, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Nature & Environment | People & Society
From The Sourcebook of Magic, pg 351ff:
Alfred Korzybski (1933/1994) warned that the "is" of identity and the "is" of predication present two dangerous linguistic and semantic constructions that map false-to-fact conclusions. The first has to do with identity—how we identify a thing or what we identify with. The second has to do with attribution—how we project our "stuff" onto others and things without realizing it.
E-Prime empowers people to not fall into the "is" traps of language. E-Prime refers to English-primed of the "to be" verb family of passive verbs (is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been).
Writing, thinking, and speaking in E-Prime contributes to "consciousness of abstracting" so that as we make our maps of the world we recognize how they differ from the world. E-Prime enables us to think and speak with more clarity and precision by getting us to take first-person.
Permalink | Comments (0)
Examples of Categories
July 11, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Life | Nature & Environment | People & Society | Products & Opportunites | Science | Software | Technology
Art: Leonard Cohen and Sonny Rollins on live TV. (Thanks Jon.)
Commerce: Do Patents Encourage or Stifle Innovation?
Culture: On media elitism and the "derivative" myth
Technology: On playing with my Holux GPS unit...
Cool: Velcro Being Pulled Apart
Permalink | Comments (0)
We Must Disenthrall Ourselves
July 9, 2006 | Governance | Nature & Environment | People & Society
There's a good interview with Al Gore in the July 13 issue of Rolling Stone. Some quotes:
I believe there is a hunger in the country to be part of a larger vision that changes the way we relate to the environment and the economy. Right now we are borrowing huge amounts of money from China to buy huge amounts of oil from the most unstable region of the world, and to bring it here and burn it in ways that destroy the habitability of the planet. That is nuts! We have to change every aspect of that.
But the debate over oil reserves misses the point. We have more than enough oil, not to mention coal, to completely destroy the habitability of the planet. The real constraint on oil and coal is not supply, but global warming. There's a saying: "The Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stones."
As Lincoln said in the darkest days of America's darkest passage: "We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country." Our biggest challenge, our biggest foe, is thrall. The word sounds ancient, but it means anything that imprisons our thinking and prevents us from seeing the reality of our situation. We're in thrall to oil. We've got to break out of it. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we will save our planet.
I like Al Gore as a vocal citizen, devoid of political consultants and triangulation. A true leader, a public servant, an honest man.
Permalink | Comments (0)
One Possible Explanation for Obesity
May 18, 2006 | Life | Nature & Environment | People & Society
I woke up this morning wondering why human muscle mass is such an attractive feature in our culture today. That is, why are fit people with defined muscles "more attractive" than couch potatoes.
My mind leaped to the idea that this taps into a primitive part of our brain that says, "If times get tough, and we have to resort to cannibalism, you want to have the right friends." Uh, okay mind, that's interesting. Then via inversion I speculated that perhaps the rise of obesity in America can be attributed to a deep-rooted fear of cannibalism. After all, who would want to eat the lumpy gristle that constitutes the body of most Americans? If it turns out that someday we're roaming the streets looking for a nice gluteus maximus to tuck into for supper a lot of people are going to be pretty safely off limits. Similarly, perhaps the popularity of garlic in blue-state cuisine is an attempt to minimize the off-chance danger of vampires.
I wonder if all this very interesting morning thought has to do with the proposals I have to write today, and the lawyer's cliché that "you eat what you kill." In any case, Good Morning!
Permalink | Comments (3)
Flying Carpet
May 14, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Nature & Environment | Products & Opportunites
Great idea:
This project consists of an aerial view of the Sacramento River that is woven into a carpet for the floor of a pedestrian bridge connecting the terminal to the parking garage. This image represents approximately 50 miles of the Sacramento River starting just outside of Colusa, California and ending about 6 miles south of Chico.
This is a beautiful way to connect people with the beauty of nature in a manner and location they don't expect. I wonder if this was expensive or really hard to do? I have seen architectural magazines with advertisements for putting your own photographs onto laminated ("formica") countertops. And I think you can have your own wallpaper made. So this completes the interior design customization palette.
Of course, better to just get yourself outside, but still.
Permalink | Comments (1)
Glory Be
May 5, 2006 | Life | Nature & Environment
It is really springtime here in New England. Last night the bard owls, the peepers, the moon, the stars. Slept with the windows open. This morning, streaming sunshine, activity in the woods, birds galore, happy cat. I sat on the deck for over an hour entraining. It would be a fantastico day to take off for mental health, but unfortunately I already did that once this week – on an oppressive gray pouring rainy day no less – so my boss doesn't think it's a good idea today. Too bad though, it's glorious outdoors.
Permalink | Comments (2)
Who Knew? [episode MMMDCLLXXXVIII]
May 3, 2006 | Nature & Environment | Products & Opportunites
Yesterday the mailpeople delivered a random new item to my box: The Produce News, "National News Weekly for the Produce Industry Since 1897." Headlines include "Industry groups release lettuce safety guidelines," "At Gourmet Garage, the centerpiece is produce" (here's a photo I took there in December 2000), and "Idaho-Eastern Oregon Onion Committee unveils new logo, campaign."
This newspaper is 104 pages! Advertisements for everything related to produce, including "The #1 Executive Search Firm in Produce." What a country!
Anyway, I browsed it over a late breakfast (turkey burger with Cabot cheddar, cantaloupe, banana, water, vanilla ice creme with chocolate sauce, cinnamon Altoid). Found an interesting product called the Mosquito Patch that uses a transdermal patch to deliver 300mg of B1 (thiamine). Apparently research beginning in 1969 showed that most biting insects dislike the smell of B1.
Insect season is almost here – choose your weapons!
Permalink | Comments (2)
Once in a while you get shown the light...
April 17, 2006 | Life | Nature & Environment
...in the strangest of places if you look at it right.
The earth is not handed down to you from your parents, it is on loan to you from your children.
—Message printed on Ruth's check.
Permalink | Comments (0)
Let's Just Dwell On It
April 12, 2006 | Governance | Nature & Environment | People & Society
Here's a good analysis from Bill Arkin at the Washington Post:
A war with Iran started purposefully or by accident, will be a mess. What is happening now though is not just an administration prudently preparing for the unfortunate against an aggressive and crazed state, it is also aggressive and crazed, driven by groupthink and a closed circle of bears.
The public needs to know first, that this planning includes preemptive plans that the President could approve and implement with 12 hours notice. Congress should take notice of the fact that there is a real war plan -- CONPLAN 8022 -- and it could be implemented tomorrow.
Second, the public needs to know that the train has left the station on bigger war planning, that a ground war -- despite the Post claim yesterday that a land invasion "is not contemplated" -- is also being prepared. It is a real war plan; I've heard CONPLAN 1025.
Economic collapse is the only thing that will stop the US from being such a bully. The problem with accelerating this scenario is that it affects all of us directly. If we nuke Iran then, as Billmon says, "we’d truly be through the looking glass."
When I was a nomadic Deadhead in the '80's I thought I was learning about sound and music and tribes and love and dancing and joy and groupmind and ecstasy and interconnectedness and Dionysius. Instead, maybe the key skills learned were how to live out of a car and scrounge by in a barter economy on a few dollars a day, traveling from city to city. Could be useful later this year. (Don't tell my clients.)
Permalink | Comments (4)
Speculative Is Not a Synonym For Untrue
April 11, 2006 | Governance | Nature & Environment | People & Society
Billmon conducts a thought experiment.
Maybe it's just me, but I've been at least a little bit surprised by the relatively muted reaction to the news that the Cheney Administration and its Pentagon underlings are racing to put the finishing touches on plans for attacking Iran – plans which may include the first wartime use of nuclear weapons since Nagasaki.
I mean, what exactly does it take to get a rise out of the media industrial complex these days? A nuclear first strike against a major Middle Eastern oil producer doesn't ring the bell?
3,400 words of truth.
Permalink | Comments (3)
Nuclear Weaponeers
April 9, 2006 | Nature & Environment | People & Society
Hopefully this article is disinformation for state negotiations. If it's not, then we're in for a game-changer:
The lack of reliable intelligence leaves military planners, given the goal of totally destroying the sites, little choice but to consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons. “Every other option, in the view of the nuclear weaponeers, would leave a gap,” the former senior intelligence official said. “ ‘Decisive’ is the key word of the Air Force’s planning. It’s a tough decision. But we made it in Japan.”
He went on, “Nuclear planners go through extensive training and learn the technical details of damage and fallout—we’re talking about mushroom clouds, radiation, mass casualties, and contamination over years. This is not an underground nuclear test, where all you see is the earth raised a little bit. These politicians don’t have a clue, and whenever anybody tries to get it out”—remove the nuclear option—“they’re shouted down.”
The subject of discussion: Planning for war with Iran. God help us.
Permalink | Comments (1)
Flu Simulation
April 6, 2006 | Nature & Environment | People & Society | Science
Real modeling, from rocket scientist guys:
Simulation of a pandemic flu outbreak in the continental United States, initially introduced by the arrival of 10 infected individuals in Los Angeles.... Without vaccination, antiviral drugs, or other mitigation strategies, the entire nation becomes infected within a few months. Depending on the reproductive number R0, effective intervention strategies including vaccination and targeted antiviral prophylaxis can be successful without resorting to economically damaging measures like school closure, quarantine, and work or travel restrictions. This large-scale agent-based simulation involves 280 million people, and uses demographic and worker flow data at the Census tract level, as well as long-range travel statistics, to describe the geographic movement of people.
There's a quicktime movie that visualizes the spread.
Permalink | Comments (0)
N-Dimensional Web 2.0
April 5, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Business & Commerce | Life | Nature & Environment | People & Society | Products & Opportunites | Science | Site Maintenance | Software | Technology | Travel
Many people are trying to define "Web 2.0" – what it is, what it means, how to build Web 2.0 apps, what makes a company a Web 2.0 company, etc. All of those efforts fall short, because Web 2.0 is n-dimensional. Web 2.0 is "reflecting more complex multivariable situations.1"
Today I learned of a new dimension to Web 2.0. Chris2 invited me to join a beta of CollectiveX, a new Web 2.0-ish social widget. To invite someone you have to set a temporary password, and when they log in they change it to whatever they want. Chris set my password to "ratdoggy." Ha! Now that's a good one. This made me laugh out loud, and when I told Meg3 she lost it too. What's so funny?
Well, it creates a strong but secret connection between the title of a recent post I wrote – wherein "maybe too much information" was offered4 – and an unrelated client task. Chris' password was an acknowledgment that he read the post. Maybe even he liked it. And he certainly knew it would make me think of that post in the middle of the workday. But in any case "ratdoggy" is not in frequent usage (Google: "Did you mean: ratdog?") and his reference expanded its sphere of influence.
Which is like a link, just not a web hyperlink. It was a link from one mind to another, from one blog post to a work moment, from a concert review to a social software login, from my original post written on a couch in the lobby of a cinderblock hotel in Charlestown to my colleague's laughter at the password in an office building in Hanover, from all that to this post which you are reading now. Links, links, links, everywhere you look. Which makes me smile.
And that seems to be the common element of a Web 2.0 app – that it makes you smile, somehow, in some way that maybe you never have before.
1) An Introduction to Chemometrics. A report given as Session F of Educational Symposium No. 17, The Use of Statistical Methods in Formulating and Testing of Rubber at the 130th Meeting of the ACS Rubber Division by Brian A. Rock, Ph.D. in October, 1985.
2) Blog updated according to a complex precision timing schedule involving the highway, the moon, the clouds, and the stars.
3) I did not invoice for this minute of laughter, nor did the client utilize any official company time or resources in reaction to the laughter event.
4) Plausible Story, personal communication.
Now, how many new links can you find in the above footnotes?
Permalink | Comments (5)
April Snow
April 5, 2006 | Life | Nature & Environment
Looking northeast out the kitchen door this morning. A beautiful tangle. Wet snow on shadowy branches. Blue sky, but cloudy. Moving shards of sunlight dart around the view. Looking into the woods, but can't see that far. Trees at odd angles, falling over but not yet dead. They'll never stand straight again – should we leave them to grow sideways, or cut them down and clear the space? There's a wounded beauty in scenes like this. Very nice for a view, but challenging if pervasive.
Permalink | Comments (0)
Beautiful Photos
March 25, 2006 | Nature & Environment | Travel
Of China. Amazing.
Permalink | Comments (2)
Not So Much To Release The Sorrow As To Embrace It
March 17, 2006 | Business & Commerce | Life | Nature & Environment | People & Society
Dave Pollard posts a letter from organizational development consultant Roger Harrison, "A Time For Letting Go" – parting thoughts on the occasion of his retirement. Via Jon Husband.
Permalink | Comments (0)
Oil Barrels Price Translation
March 16, 2006 | Business & Commerce | Nature & Environment | People & Society
This is freakin' awesome!
A web browser plug-in that converts all prices from U.S. dollars into the equivalent value in barrels of crude oil. When a user loads a webpage, the script inserts converted prices into the page. as the cost of oil fluctuates on the commodities exchange, prices rise & fall in real-time. 'OilStandard' illustrates a potential future when oil will replace gold as the standard by which we trade all other goods & currencies.
Via information aesthetics and Meg Maker (email).
Permalink | Comments (0)
Crashing in Bolivia
February 15, 2006 | Life | Nature & Environment | People & Society
My college buddy Allan Karl has a hair-raising tale of his motorcycle accident in Bolivia, and getting his sorry butt back to the States.
In a state somewhere between awake and sleep three hours had passed. The rain, thunder and lightning added dramatic effect to my sprawled body with my left leg in a cardboard box splint as I laid in the Tica Tica medical clinic. Still no ambulance. In a town with one telephone, one restaurant and no motel I wondered if I'd ever get out of Tica Tica.
Many amazing photos - if nothing else you should scan the site for the photos. And if you have time to read about medical treatment in the middle of nowhere, you are in for some good reading.
Permalink | Comments (3)
Interview with Christopher Alexander
February 9, 2006 | Arts & Culture | Nature & Environment | People & Society
Christopher Alexander's recent work, The Nature of Order, is a 2,000 page, four-volume masterpiece that lays out a holistic view of how space, and especially built space, impacts our humanity. I summarize, as Vice President Dick Cheney once said, Big Time.
The Phenomenon of Life: The Nature of Order, Book 1
The Process of Creating Life: The Nature of Order, Book 2
The Luminous Ground: The Nature of Order, Book 4
A Vision of a Living World: The Nature of Order, Book 3
I have been browsing these books for over four years, and I'm still not ready to actually read them, because I'm concerned that they will be so engrossing that I will have to drop everything in obsessive consumption. Like all of Alexander's works, they have a very high reverie quotient, and it takes long, enjoyable afternoons and evenings to move through the spreads.
Kenneth Baker, a SF Chronicle art critic, reviews the books and then interviews Alexander at home in England.
Reading the first book of Christopher Alexander's four-volume magnum opus "The Nature of Order" reduced me to silence. I went about my business for weeks afterward, unable to tell anyone how exciting and dismaying I found the ideas it contains.
The succeeding volumes as they appeared hammered home my conclusion that I would have to reckon professionally and publicly with this work and its author, whom I had met already once or twice.
This sort of philosophical crisis happens seldom, probably too seldom, to critics. It happened to me because Alexander, a practicing architect who taught at UC Berkeley for 35 years, explained more to me about the world I see, and the potential place of the arts in it, than anyone else has.
For best results, read Alexander subtracting all literalism. This quote from the interview, for instance, can be applied to architecture, as well as many other aspects of life:
"If you start something, you must have a vision of the thing which arises from your instinct about preserving and enhancing what is there. ... If you're working correctly, the feeling doesn't wander about. If you have a feeling-vision of the thing -- a painting, a building, a garden, a piece of a neighborhood -- as long as you're very firmly anchored in your knowledge of that thing, and you can see it with your eyes closed, you can keep correcting your actions. ... It's not a question of holding onto every little detail, but of holding onto the feeling."
Baker's pieces are a fine overview to the work, and I highly recommend the books as part of any practice of long-term reflection on large-scale systems.
As an aside, for a guy who has devoted his life to the impact of space on consciousness, patternlanguage.com and natureoforder.com are two of the worst websites on the entire Internet. It's like they totally missed the fact that the web is a spatial medium. There's a lot of information there, but good luck navigating it. Somebody send him a copy of Weinberger's book.
Permalink | Comments (2)
Making Oil Consumption Tangible
February 6, 2006 | Business & Commerce | Nature & Environment | People & Society
I heard a story the other night - unconfirmed, so this is just hearsay really - that during the winter months, each morning at 6 AM three oil tanker trucks pull into our local institution of higher learning and unload their contents into the the steam heating plant holding tanks. Every day! Three of those big oil rigs you see on the highway! That is some oil consumption bubba.
Permalink | Comments (2)
Or Perhaps Implied Comment
November 21, 2005 | Arts & Culture | Nature & Environment | People & Society | Science
My local paper had an interesting collection of stories on their "Close-Up: Science" page today. I pass them along without comment.
Oral histories show another side of leading scientists
Reviews the Caltech Archives Oral History Project. A storehouse of interviews with giants of American science and engineering, started in 1978, now encompassing 227 bound volumes, with 53 online, and several more in process.Fit muscles, fit brain?
Daily light exercise appears to reduce oxidation in the brain. Oxidation causes damage to lipids and DNA via free radicals. I'm radically simplifying, no doubt, but it appears oxidation bad; exercise good.Study: Trees beat the heat
Southern-dwelling trees and shrubs moved rapidly north 55 million years ago to survive during a period of global warming. "Rapidly" means they moved about 1,000 miles in 10,000 years.Study: No psychological damage from Navajos' use of peyote
Repeated use of peyote produces no psychological problems or adverse effects. In fact regular (monthly) users had better moods and a greater sense of psychological well-being. A series of test involving spatial skills and strategic reasoning showed no difference between users and non-users.
Permalink | Comments (0)
The City of New Orleans
August 31, 2005 | Nature & Environment | People & Society
Lynne and I had a lot fun in New orleans in October 2000 for the DMA convention. Lots of memories. It also marked my switch to digital cameras, a huge paradigm shift that improved my creative abilities. Now, here's the very sad reality in that once-great city:
- New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper has switched to a weblog format, an excellent decision.
- Photos from Nola.com.
- Live video stream from WDSU.
Like the eventual earthquake and destruction of California along the San Andreas fault, New Orleans has held the kinetic potential of elimination ever since it was built 20 feet below sea level. Will the water drain? No, the water will rise until levees are plugged/fixed and the water is pumped out. I think today is the day we realize that this is going to take a long time, if we can even afford it. As Dave Winer said, this is beyond spin. That might be a good long-term societal change, if it sticks.
Riding on the City of New Orleans, Illinois Central Monday morning rail Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders, Three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail. All along the southbound odyssey The train pulls out at Kankakee Rolls along past houses, farms and fields. Passin' trains that have no names, Freight yards full of old black men And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles.
CHORUS: Good morning America how are you? Don't you know me I'm your native son, I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans, I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.
Dealin' card games with the old men in the club car. Penny a point ain't no one keepin' score. Pass the paper bag that holds the bottle Feel the wheels rumblin' 'neath the floor. And the sons of pullman porters And the sons of engineers Ride their father's magic carpets made of steel. Mothers with their babes asleep, Are rockin' to the gentle beat And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel.
CHORUS
Nighttime on The City of New Orleans, Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee. Half way home, we'll be there by morning Through the Mississippi darkness Rolling down to the sea. And all the towns and people seem To fade into a bad dream And the steel rails still ain't heard the news. The conductor sings his song again, The passengers will please refrain This train's got the disappearing railroad blues.
Good night, America, how are you? Don't you know me I'm your native son, I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans, I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.
-- The City of New Orleans, by Steve Goodman
Probably the saddest thing heard so far, from the Mayor, on the WDSU video stream this morning: "The looting situation is going to take care of itself due to the rising water levels."
Permalink | Comments (849)
Good Planets Are Hard to Find
August 30, 2005 | Nature & Environment | Science
Fantastic movie of Earth from the Mercury-bound Messenger spacecraft.
Comprising 358 frames taken over 24 hours, the movie follows Earth through one complete rotation. The spacecraft was 40,761 miles (65,598 kilometers) above South America when the camera started rolling on Aug. 2. It was 270,847 miles (435,885 kilometers) away from Earth – farther than the Moon’s orbit – when it snapped the last image on Aug. 3.
via Chris Corrigan.
Permalink | Comments (0)
Summer of Rainbows
August 23, 2005 | Life | Nature & Environment
Last night we sat down to supper and Lynne suddenly said, "Oh my God! Where's the camera!?" My view out the two windows showed only a gray sky, but from her angle it was a different story.
Running to the deck we saw an amazing double rainbow, easily the brightest, clearest, and most complete we've ever seen.
She snapped a couple of quick pictures standing in the rain, which I have quickly stitched together here with only minimal processing (Photoshop > Auto Color). Although the photos weren't captured for reproduction, I think you get a sense of the majesty of the thing. It was truly amazing, like standing inside a prism.
This marks the third rainbow Lynne has seen this summer, plus the sundog we saw a few weekends ago in the mid-afternoon southern sky. Beauty abounds.
Permalink | Comments (0)
Seasonality
March 21, 2005 | Nature & Environment | Products & Opportunites | Science
Here is yet another fantastic software application from a small (one-person) firm. Seasonality from Gaucho Software is a $25 desktop weather application.
Who cares, you say. After all, weather.com does that for free. But weather.com is slow, and filled with annoying chartjunk and ads. You have to load lots of pages (read, advertisements) to get the info you want.
Seasonality is a small, tight, targeted application designed for users – not for advertisers. It has a four-day forecast, sunrise and sunset, and radar maps. Best of all it has temperature and windspeed graphs looking back from one day to one year. You can set multiple locations and see them at a glance. The UI is clean and obvious. It's a really nice 1.0 release. I'll play with the 30-day free trial for a couple of days, but on first glance I'm almost certain to buy it. Congratulations to Gaucho!
Permalink
Opportunity: VW-branded biodiesel
November 8, 2004 | Business & Commerce | Nature & Environment | Products & Opportunites | Science
Here's an example of an important new product opportunity.
Volkswagen has a turbo diesel engine called the TDI. It's available in the US and Canada in their Golf, Beetle, Jetta, Passat, and Tourag cars. It runs on diesel fuel, and depending on the model gets up to 50 mpg. It's also really fun to drive; diesel creates very high torque at low RPMs, so it's quick off the line and sporty. The best part is this: Without modification, it can run on biodiesel fuel. (official industry trade group, Hawaiian producer, Veggie Van, make your own) For instance, you can run used McDonald's fryer grease, or vegetable oil. These are extreme examples - biodiesel is a term that can mean a lot of different types of fuel, but they're all renewable, in the sense that they're grown, or recycled, or whatever. They're not fossil fuels.
Another piece to the puzzle: Volkswagen is having a rough time right now. Profits are down, and they're stretched thin between making "people's cars" and reaching into the high-end $70,000 luxury car market. They have a difficult labor-cost structure, and they've had some quality problems. They need an image change, representing not just a new slogan, but a new focus.
What VW should do is hire me to lead an effort that would introduce VW-branded biodiesel into the market. This might take the form of VW filling stations, a co-branding effort with an existing fuel marketer, or simply "greasing the skids" and moving this idea forward in the industry. This would be a complex product development project. A fuel supply must be ramped up, a distribution chain must be created or tapped into, a brand created, advertising, word-of-mouth, etc.
And the results: Volkswagen would own the mindshare of "locally grown fuel." Or, "normal cars, renewable fuels." Or, "German cars, fueled by American corn." Etc. You get the idea. This could spark a major interest in VW TDI cars. The only other mass-produced consumer diesel is the Mercedes.
VW is in the perfect position to capitalize on the immediate need for new fuels. In Europe, the TDI engine is the best-selling engine, and is available in five configurations. They've got the production capacity to ramp up and own this market. Further, these new fueling stations can be the link to all sorts of other services. Think "Apple Store for your VW."
This would be a positive development in the world, and I'd be happy to contribute my talents.
Permalink
Get Yer Folliage
October 12, 2004 | Nature & Environment
Colorful times in northern New England. (Compare to July 15.) But it also means that it's getting colder, and winter is coming. After Toronto, I have to learn how to burn a brush pile. More new-homeowner excitement!
Permalink
Sunday Evening 8 PM
July 18, 2004 | Nature & Environment
Front yard, looking South.
The mist is rolling in, the weekend almost ended.
Music wafting in the background, a busy week ahead.
Permalink | Comments (1)
Snow, and more snow
January 9, 2003 | Nature & Environment
Since we're getting even more snow today, and every day this week, it seems appropriate to point to this list of Inuit words for snow. Thanks Halley!
