On sustainability, and content recommendation systems

I Sumbleuponed (grammatically atrocious, but an important distinction must be made between this and the actual act of stumbling upon a thing of one's own accord) this page somewhat less than a week ago, and at the time I mentally filed it away for future reading, my attention span at the time being insufficient for more than a paragraph at a time, give or take. My first impression - of course - was "holy crap that's a for-real hobbit hole!", and subsequently "You can build that for three thousand pounds? Sign me up!". There's something incredibly compelling to me about building one's own house. That I could do it for what amounts to about a year's worth of my present rent is enough to make me begin thinking in earnest about the feasibility of such an undertaking. I have engineer friends (albeit electrical), I have friends of friends who are engineers, heck my sister is in first year engineering at Queens. I used to think, before my abysmal work ethic caught up with me, that I would someday be an engineer. Whether or not that was some silly idea about obligations to a profession that runs in the family I can no longer say. Of course, I must say that while I am reasonably well-traveled that I haven't a very concrete notion of where I would like to settle down and build such a house. Of course, for something like 5000-6000 dollars, maybe it wouldn't have to be permanent. I could assuredly find another individual in this world who would pay back my costs in exchange for the ability to live in a friggin' HOBBIT HOLE if I did want to move.

This aside, I wonder just how sustainable such a dwelling really is on a large scale. In much the same way that a family might move to a rural location to be "closer to nature", and yet have their ecological impact increase (because everywhere is now driving distance away, and rural service delivery does not benefit from the same economies of scale that are possible in urban areas), I fear that the density (or lack thereof) of permaculture housing may prove troublesome for overall efficiency. Consider the amount of lumber, for example, that is required for heating and cooking by wood stove. For one house, a local woods might never be harvested at a rate faster than it can regenerate. Start adding houses, though, and you've got a problem. Maybe I'm overestimating wood use, and your forests will be fine as long as you're not pumping out triremes. Maybe. Even so, the low-density approach still seems misguided. Even a village or small town made up of individually efficient low-impact homes is missing out on potential gains from the aforementioned economies of scale. My thoughts on the merits of urban density as embodied in the design philosophy of arcologies have, of course, been established.

Apropos of Stumbleupon, I thought I might comment (albeit belatedly) on it and other crowd-sourced/automated discovery systems, in this instance last.fm. One of my housemates and I had pledged to listen to a lot of new music (I have been in a pretty heavy Coheed and Cambria rut of late). It works fantastically when you're looking for, say, Canadian indie bands...but search for artists/bands similar to Co&Ca, or Imogen Heap...and, I dunno, you get maybe one or two real hits in the whole search (The Dear Hunter and A Fine Frenzy, if you want to know). The problem, I think, is that it's very easy in some cases to say "well, Arkells are for people who like Joel Plaskett and Sloan", whereas if you're looking at artists who are either alone or dominant in their niche, well, the only place to go is down. Unfortunately, the quality you're looking for isn't really related to the niche/genre, so much as the creative energy and spunk that make the more unique artists stand out. Were it only so easy to articulate that sort of connection. I could try something like "these guys are to narrative prog/emo as Imogen Heap is to self-produced female vocalists" but I don't even think this statement remotely approaches the truth. Search engines (even the really good ones) are just not very good when you're looking for "people who are as unique in their approach to their music as X". No surprises there, but when that's what you're looking for, well, I guess it's dissapointing that for all our technological advance there is just no substitute for crazy random happenstance and the human ear.

...maybe I'll have to wait until the cyborg ear?

-Loud!

Where the Great will play nice with the Small, and vice-versa

Utopia or Bust!

I recall writing some time ago on my first impressions of Bioshock that Rapture was the kind of place I would build if I had oodles of money, and the miraculous ability to operate construction machinery under several hundred atmospheres of pressure (perhaps not in so many words, but you get the point). Learning more about ecocities and arcology theory is therefore an empowering experience for me, because I cannot help but feel that this is the first step on the path to something I can at present only dream of. The very existence of Arcosanti – though it is still under construction – is proof that the ideal city does not have to wait forever on the drawing board. It CAN happen, and it seems that it is, in fact, happening!

I should make it clear at this point that my ideal city doesn't have to be built under kilometers of ocean, nor must it be built in the art deco style. Building a city to withstand crushing pressures and extreme cold, when far more hospitable areas are available is clearly a failure of basic logic. In addition, the ideal city is not elitist or isolationist, it should be as open, as permeable as possible. In fact, the ideal city would be an Anti-Rapture, an accessible city built to emphasize the values of trust and cooperation. This is not solely because of my leftist politics, or any fear that an objectivist society would be reduced to a pile of gibbering mutants (I know what fiction is), but because I think it is the natural order of a condensed metropolis. The object is to create a city in which the alleys are not to be feared, in which people live and function in close proximity, in which culture flourishes. That kind of society is not a possibility if we maintain our present mindset, and it is not possible if we embrace hardline individualism. Our differences cannot simply be tolerated, as we are taught now, they most certainly cannot be what make us so goddamn special! Above all, differences cannot be allowed to disappear into the malaise of a samey society. Difference must be preserved as catalysts for synergistic relationships, or in non-bullshittese, reasons for people to interact positively. This requires a fundamental reorganization of priorities, for example: when opposing viewpoints are debated, the object should not be victory in particular, what should be sought is a) the best answer, regardless of partisanship, and b) general enrichment of all parties through discussion. Is this hokey? Of COURSE it is! Unfortunately for the people gagging right now, It's a natural development once one realizes that partisanship is bad for progress.

Ecocities makes the case that values can be encoded in architecture, but I think this should be taken one step farther. I think the values should be encoded in the design process. “But how can the values be in the final product if they aren't there in the plans?” you ask, “your statement is redundant!”, you cry. I mean to say that rather than the city embodying any one vision of how the ideals of society are to be encoded, the very process should be as open and friendly to diverse opinion as the city is to be. I say this for two reasons: 1) I want to have input when building Utopia, 2) I don't want to hog all the input, because to do so would doom any project from the outset. I don't want anyone like me to avoid this project because they are made to believe that the design is set in stone. I know it would drive me off if it were! Since I am assuming democracy as the de facto system of government, what better way to ensconce it within the very walls and windows of a city than by allowing, nay mandating that everyone be allowed due influence (namely no more and no less than anyone else, within reason. Architects and Engineers do get extra say, for example, but ONLY in matters where their expertise applies)?

In the spirit of this hypothetical project, I now open the floor to anyone with a comment: what values would you want to see built into the Ideal City, and how?

I'll start off by saying that perhaps using rounded edges and spaces in lieu of corners and rectangles would likely promote a more collaborative attitude (I believe this has been demonstrated in round vs rectangular/adversarial legislatures. Also, the museum of Civilization in Hull has no corners and is a very serene looking building, n'est-ce pas?)

-LOUD!

My parents apparently played the Clash at their wedding...

A Riot Of My Own!

Joe Strummer is awesome. I have a great esteem for his work, be it as part of the Clash, or backed by the Mescaleros. Until recently, however, I didn't really know much about the man himself; so when I saw a review of a documentary called Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten a few days ago in the Citizen (and it was a very positive review), I decided I ought to go see the bigger picture, appropriately enough by seeing a big (motion) picture. I talked to a couple of people, all of whose names began with “J” (I realized this about halfway through the process)...but only the one who is known as Gold (way to wreck the symmetry with that big' ol “G”, man) was able to come. So off we rolled to the Bytown cinema to see what this Strummer dude was all about.

In short, the film rocked, in a way that all doc, mock, and most of all rockumentaries should. You have a sort of standard setup, with interviews with a who's who of music celebrities and old friends and acquaintances backing up the chronological account of [subject name here], but this is an above-average treatment. The interviews are uncluttered, with nothing so obtrusive as studio backdrops/lighting and post-processed name-tag displays. Only a fire in the foreground, and a night sky in the background. Campfires are in a way the backbone of the film, which has many scenes of people sitting around a scrap-metal hearth somewhere in or near a city. People gather around the fires to sing, give interviews, and listen to the radio, over which can be heard London Calling, Strummer's half-hour BBC show. You wonder if the campfires are about urban poverty, and how Strummer's message still resonates with outcasts (the fires do look kinda like hobo fires, it must be said), but that's not the end of it. The campfires have a universal resonance, and it's not about wealth or lack thereof or race or creed or anything like that. It's human to human connection, catalyzed by fire and good company. The campfires are linked to Strummer maybe three-quarters of the way through the film, and when they are these scenes really fall into place. It's a fantastic feeling, and I know I left the theatre wanting friends and a fire to sit around.

The film's soundtrack is also superb. It's not all Clash and Mescaleros, other artists' songs - from “Blitzkrieg Bop” to “Day-O” (“Daylight come and we want to go home”, etc) - pop up from time to time, and at the beginning or end the gravelly tones of Strummer's voice are heard, giving the name, title, and often a little commentary on the track. These play over shots of a radio recording booth interior, where an unseen Strummer is presumed to be recording his show. The songs of the Clash and the Mescaleros are brilliant as always, and it's a kick to hear everything from London Calling to Rock the Casbah to Johnny Appleseed and Techno D-Day blasted over the big theatre speakers. Truly awesome is the opening sequence, in which Strummer is seen belting out the lyrics to White Riot in an otherwise empty soundscape. Seconds pass, and then a wall of sound crashes into the scene like a tidal wave onto a club med full of idiot tourists and their cameras, and it feels as if the Clash are in the room (specifically, playing inside your head). It's a perfect contrast to the lead-out of the movie, in which a much older Strummer intones (again in a grainy radio voice second only to Johnny Cash's) his belief that people can change anything they want. The anger seems to have evaporated with time, but none of the conviction has budged a millimetre.

In an AWESOME coincidence, Rock the Casbah played on 88.5 in the car just (and I mean JUST) as we drove away from the Bytown. It was epic!

Our College-y?

I have come under fire from some suburban readers for my probably now notorious anti-suburb views. I feel a little bad, as I know I a) don't even have a particularly bad commute from my ugly corner of Bank Street, and b) because I don't mean to tell my friends that they are bad people because they don't feel like paying far too much money to live closer to downtown. That being said, I've come across a most magnificent vindication of my views in the book Ecocities, which I found in the public library while I was supposed to be researching other stuff (generally when my best finds are made). I'm reading it here and there, so progress is slow, but I'm enjoying what I've read so far. The book details what the author (and I, but he's better at explaining it than I am) think cities should look like, and MUST function like if life on this planet is to be saved from humans. It's a condemnation of our subservience to the automobile, and a celebration of the social, cultural, and ecological city as it could be, and I love it!

The number one rule of an ecologically friendly city is: use all three dimensions! This is generally known as “building an arcology” and less formally known as “awesome!”. This reduces the overall footprint of your city, and it means that more stuff will share walls and ceilings with other stuff, and THAT means you save on heating and insulation, and those are just fringe benefits! You don't have to use cars when a city is small enough to walk comfortably from end to end! Going downstairs is going to work, going out on the town means going to the roof next door, where there will be a rooftop bar. And terrarium. And Jacuzzi. And Waterfall, oh yes. Arcologies aren't just for after the collapse of the biosphere, and you don't need to put a dome over it or build it underground (you can do those things for extra credit, though!). No cars mean no accident fatalities, that means more money in your pockets, more bicycles, more cool paths, no parking lots of ugly asphalt...it means paradise, ladies and gentlemen.

The more I think about this, the more I realize how disgusting the future according to GM was, when they were promising giant freeways connecting the globe, and spreading cities out for more comfortable living. It's a disgusting practice, and it would have meant the end of nature, it would have been the ultimate expression of Western civilizations campaign to destroy nature out of our fear of it. We need to get ourselves compressed, because one day the oil is going to run out, and if we haven't done anything to prepare ourselves WE ARE GOING TO DIE. I mean it: we are going to have no cheap energy to build a new economy if the present one collapses and we're not ready for it. We are not going to be able to move people, food, or anything. We are going to get sick, and we are going to starve, and we are going to make war on our neighbors over canned food and dog biscuits...we're going to suffer if we don't get our act together and start living in sustainable cities. You hear me, suburbanites? Defend your rampant appropriation of our best arable land at your peril!

Seriously, this isn't snobbery, this is life and death. The upside is that I think I know what I might want to do with myself, once I get an education.

Utopia or bust!

-Loud!