Field Notes

From Mike Davis’s crucial book (2006)

shape of the city:
“the cities of the future, rather than being made out of glass and steel as envisioned by earlier generations of Urbanists, are instead largely constructed out of crude brick, straw, recycled plastic, cement blocks, and scrap wood. Instead of cities of light soaring toward heaven, much of the twenty-first-century urban world squats in squalor, surrounded by pollution, excrement, and decay.”

informal workers:

“a billion people currently live in slums and more than a billion people are informal workers, struggling for survival…the entire future growth of humanity will occur in cities, overwhelmingly poor cities, and the majority of it in slums.”

"The informal sector generates jobs not by elaborating new divisions of labour, but by fragmenting existing work, and thus subdividing incomes." 

Benefits of density:

“Urban density can translate into great efficiencies in land, energy and resource use, while democratic public spaces and cultural institutions likewise provide qualitatively higher standards of enjoyment than individualized consumption and commodified leisure.”

I have been doing a lot of thinking  about Where We Live Now. The places between city and country, inner cities, suburban landscapes there are many versions of “here”, the classic city of our imagination is really that an imaginary place. No one can close their eyes and visualize their city or town with out seeing the “downtown”, the classic city center around which most cities radiate, but these city centers are just a very small part of the city we live in.

There are numerous ideologies and interest groups vying for  control of the future of where we live now, the developers, the speculators, businesses such as Wal-Mart, Costco, Home Depot, ecologists, neighborhood activist, governments. Each of these see where we live now differently, if where we live now is to succeed and to be a viable community we need to synthesize the disparate visions and work together. Community implies cooperation and harmony, finding ways to bring the different visions together is a great challenge, our politicians don’t seem up to the task.  We need new modes, new eyes, and a new appreciation of where we live now. The beauty and aesthetics of the in between places, the awareness of what is close, our neighbors, businesses, families, wild life, all these need consideration.

Planning is necessary,  local government is good at designing building codes, street safety and some transportation planning but where we live now transcends boundaries, the in-between places are seldom planned well and no group or government is taking responsibility for the WHOLE.

Sources:

 Where We Live Now: an annotated reader edited by Matthew Stadler

 Suddenly.Org

(image via: animatedGIF)

With the Bush Administration being all cooperative and polite with the new President, in the public view, I wish I could be a fly on the wall and hear the talk between the two men when they were alone.   Look at the eyes in the picture below.

I imagine the photo could be could be compared to Rorschach Test, we see in it what we want to see; it being the eyes of the two Presidents to the left. Or maybe one is a president on the left and the other is a President on the way out. Ha!

Continued »

Google explains the current efforts by an industry coalition to free up a large part of the wireless spectrum. The FCC is currently looking at the spectrum that has been used by analog TV, in February 2009 this spectrum will be available for different uses.

From the Free The Airwaves Web Site:

Remember that fuzzy static between channels on the old TVs? Today more than three-quarters of those radio airwaves, or “white space” spectrum, are completely unused. This vast public resource could offer a revolution in wireless services of all kinds, including universal wireless Internet. The FCC will soon decide whether to open this unused spectrum for general usage, and your voice matters — a lot. So if you agree that freeing the white spaces represents a vote for the future of the Internet, please sign our petition and help spread the word about this campaign.

This is a very democratic initiative, it will need mass support from the public to succeed. There is no good reason why this spectrum should be given to or leased to a small group of businesses. Traditionally this has been a space a set aside for the public good and this initiative could continue that tradition.

It deserves your support.

In this video an English computer hacker, Gary McKinnon discusses his search for information in US government computers for evidence that the government has proof of UFOs. 

The gentleman seems intelligent and sane, he claims he has seen proof that secret government groups have alien technology. Crack pot ideas from a cracker. He seems very reasonable, he could be a con man, either way the story is very interesting. He is facing a 60 year sentence for breaking into and damaging government computer systems. He claims no damage was done and the US is trying to save face. Mr McKinnon’s lawyers  claim he could be sent to Guantanamo Bay if he is treated as a terrorist.

Near the end of the interview he offers advice to PC users on securing their computers. His top advice is do not use blank admin passwords. Finding PCs with blank passwords was his way in. McKinnons hacking was done in between February 2001 and March 2002; security has improved since then. We hope.

Thanks to Dean for the link to this interview.

More information:

• BBC Profile: Gary McKinnon
• Facing 60 years in US prison after hacking into Pentagon
• Free Gary McKinnon 

Deepak Chopra offers his thoughts on the global economic crisis. This is  video on Seesmic.com . A video based social media site. Chopra discusses the different types of wealth and there sources. He has optimistic point of view that sees opportunity in the current situation. We will see great opportunity and the possibility of great creativity.

Link