Monday, 3 December 2007
The cynic in me says let’s check back in a year and see if Brad Pitt’s initiative to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast residences in innovative, affordable, and green ways still has traction, and has produced as planned.
BTW, the GBH was standing in a tree today. Not far above the water, but still. Standing on a branch.
Tuesday, 27 November 2007
I have just passing contact with various aspects of Southeastern historic archaeology, but it seems to me if I were to brush up on domestic residential complexes, I would learn more about cisterns. Yet, I’ve never seen a modern house with a cistern in these parts (although I’m sure there must be at least a few out there). Despite the current precipitation record, it hasn’t stopped raining around here, so we must instead have undergone a revolution in how we obtain water—and switched to deep, drilled wells, and community water systems (also relying on drilled wells).
I listen mostly to NPR streaming on WUNC, and I am now hearing a friendly voice in the station’s cut-in telling me how to catch in a bucket the water that flows out of my showerhead while I’m waiting for it to get hot, so I can use that water productively.
The last time I did that consistently was when I visited rural Alaska years and years ago, where the tundra meant a water truck brought water (no buried pipes) and the honey wagon came by for the other “product.”
Even in Oaxaca, where the water truck is called the pipa, we didn’t catch the shower water, although I always wondered why. Maybe ’cause that water was pretty cheap (from our standard of living, but not, of course, for all), relatively speaking? After all, we purchased drinking water separately from the pipa water….
The other piece of our typical household water system that bypasses conservation measures, of course, is the ignored greywater, but I’ve already ranted a bit about that….
Air quality is of concern, without a doubt, but water is the show-stopper. Remember all those Roman aqueducts? The oases here and there across the globe? The explorers’ stories that recorded where the springs and “sweetwater” were to be found? The terraces and irrigation and flood control structures? Water is where it’s at in human survival. I’ve examined environmental concerns from every angle, and I come back to this….
So, although Google announced they’re investing in developing renewable energy sources (they started their philanthropy aimed at improving peoples’ health, and then saw that affordable, renewable energy underlies that problem), I keep thinking potable water, and water for living and food, is a poorly addressed limited non-renewable commodity. Or something….
cistern
—tank for storing water: also, reservoir, container, butt (in the sense of a cask, a container for wine, ale, or water, possibly etymologically related to “bottle”)
…from Latin cisterna, from cista ‘box.’
Saturday, 24 November 2007
Winterish weather is finally upon us. We enjoyed a fine walk in midday sun (errands—cruising DVDs at Movies Worth Seeing, and a quick visit to our county library branch), although temps were only barely in the mid-50s. Lots of folks were out managing leaves, or left evidence of same (leafless lawns, tall bags of organic matter by the curb).
I was surprised to find this glorious clematis surviving the cold, perfectly highlighted by the sun’s oblique winter angle, but I think that’s just my ignorance of the broad range of tolerance clematis has….
PS The WSJ reports that Nicholas Negroponte’s program One Laptop Per Child has had 45,000 buyers since sales opened on 12 November, and that they’ve extended the buying period through the end of the year. My guess is that the orders won’t top 100K at this rate, since almost half the sales came the first day. The story gives background I haven’t seen elsewhere about other inexpensive laptops in development by other manufacturers. I don’t know if that is good or bad.
Monday, 19 November 2007
Close up of central design in 5×7 foot micromosaic of Venice’s Piazza San Marco, by E. Cerato, dated 1907. Detail is achieved by the shapes and arrangement of tiny pieces of glass called tesserae, which are cut from thin, opaque rods of glass.
It’s amazing what you can do if you devote the time it takes to get the job done. So, quit procrastinating!
Sunday, 18 November 2007
Central detail, Window with Hudson River Landscape from Rochroane by Louis Comfort Tiffany/Tiffany Studios, 1905; commissioned by Melchior S. Beltzhoover for the music room of his mansion (apparently demolished in 1978 after much of the artwork etc. had been removed) in Irvington-On-Hudson, New York. [Full view, but tiny image, although this one’s a bit larger.] I guess the music room had been relegated to a side of the house with an inferior view, of the driveway or stables….
One Laptop Per Child—OLPC. Here’s the link.
Today’s my day for a disquisition on this. We ordered ours today.
In short, Nicholas Negroponte has put together a team that has invented a versatile, easy-to-use, smallish laptop intended to improve and extend learning possibilities for kids (and teachers, parents, and families) around the globe. When you click the purchase button, you get one for you (which, perhaps, can be donated in this country) and pay for one for “a child in need” for $400 plus shipping (just under $425 total). And the OLPC Foundation is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Cha-ching: tax deduction.
We all, as members of humanity, need to find ways to give to our fellow human beings. Giving can take many forms (EG, food, money, a listening ear). And the fellow human beings may be known to you, or be strangers you will never meet.
JCB and I try and spread our giving around, and vary it year by year, as well as philosophically.
I wanted to do the OLPC ’cause I think putting possibility in the hands of others is a wonderful thing, and possibility can take many forms.
We had already sealed the deal when I watched this one-hour video (highly recommended) presentation made to Google people—although I’m a bit squeamish that the identifiable individuals in the first three/four rows are all male…. I now understand better how the laptop works (using so little power, so efficiently, with an open system, so users can use it to invent and create and dream, to not need updates, armed with an anti-theft system, etc.) [link to text on this].
I was really sold that we had done a good thing when I listened to the opening section of the Google video when the presenter, Ivan Krstic, discussed how people learn (I know, that’s the anthropologist in me). OLPC’s goal is to change how kids learn, improve it and take it beyond the normal formal learning system (teacher in front of students directing the learning experience in classroom in building), in which learning is no longer mostly curiosity-driven (Krstic’s term), but mostly conducted by the teacher.
OLPC’s idea is to open up opportunity. Now. By reinforcing peer learning, allowing kids to follow their own curiosity. Laptops might help, assisted by the conventional classroom learning experience.
Then I became REALLY CONVINCED that this was a wise allocation of our giving resources.
’Nuff preaching. Your move.
After all, this is T-giving week….
Saturday, 17 November 2007
We learned many new vocabulary words at the Corning Museum of Glass, which I should have expected but didn’t.
Some words describe the glass objects, or parts of them. Others derive from the manufacturing process. All of them are not in the vocabularies of most of us. Take these two words: goblet and prunt. You are most likely familiar with the first and probably not with the second.
Technically, a goblet is a bowl on a stem supported by a foot.
Prunts are dabs or blobs of glass attached to the stem. They are both decorative, and sometimes embellished with a stamp, and can help improve the drinker’s grip.
This goblet (sorry, I didn’t photo the identification tag, but I suspect, hmm, maybe German?) has green prunts that have been stamped with a knobbly texture.
These goblets are fairly large, would have been relatively costly for most households, held alcoholic beverages, and may have been passed among diners—all the more reason for increasing the likelihood of safe passage by enhancing the grip.
Friday, 16 November 2007
What threshold of scariness is it that we now have a terabyte drive among our “gear”?
Actual capacity: 931.39 GB
FYI: A terabyte is one trillion (short scale) bytes, or 1000 gigabytes.
[cough, cough]
Thursday, 15 November 2007
Melancholia by Narcissus Quagliata, made in 1981–1982. The backlight is terribly uneven both in this photo and when I viewed it, yet I still found this image compelling, although I can’t quite put my finger on the reason why. To me, the man seems disingenuous and somewhat arrogant, rather than reflective and thoughtful, as the Corning Museum’s guide to the collections suggests.
Released from the patterns imposed by travel, I have cast about for a topic for today’s entry. The photo part was easy; I have a huge backlog from our travels over the last month; a plethora of photos is one characteristic of our travel patterns….
Meanwhile, let me note that overnight we got a good rain, although it’s been and continues to be so windy that the air must be sucking the moisture right back up out of the soil and vegetation. Still, rain is rain, right? I’ve yet to encounter the news story alleging that last weekend’s prayers at the statehouse and elsewhere have paid off, but I’m sure it’s being written or edited or posted right now…. Oops, I spoke too soon.
Into the mix, I’ve got to note that one Cobb County residence managed to waste use a whopping, and actually I mean mega-whopping 14,700 gallons per day on average in September, for a staggering 440,000 for the whole month. BTW, the average Atlanta residential client uses a mere (and still reducible) 183 gallons per day.
Okay, I have to report I still haven’t ordered the XO laptop, with the second one for charity. Have you? It’s still on my to-do list….
The other day John Hawks posted a blog entry with a link to this amazing graphic display of data by the notable Hans Rosling, and called the Trendalyzer project. The graphics program isn’t yet released, but I’ll wait around for it….
You also might want to check out this web page (thank you, KW), and generate a donation of rice to the United Nations World Food Programme with a vocabulary self-test. The WFP page says they’ve received over one billion grains of rice from freerice.com—enough to feed 50K people for one day. (I suspect the vocabulary is drawn more from British English than American.)
So, let’s get the rice statistic higher and the water use statistic lower, okay?
Does this entry have too many links? Maybe I got carried away….
Friday, 9 November 2007
Today we cruised through an area in Ohio where Amish farmers continue the old labor-intensive ways. I had to search my memory for the name of these harvest constructions of corn stalks bound together to dry in the field. First I could only think of shucks, but that’s the name of the dried husks, sometimes used to wrap tamales. The word is similar, hence my confusion. It’s shocks.
Sunday, 4 November 2007
…in which a young drummer, having posted his first YouTube video adventure (and first video, period), seriously starts checking the view count!
