Brian’s asking for comments to help build a presentation tonight. I’m cutting it awfully close to the wire (the presentation starts in just over an hour) but hopefully another trackback will help…
What is most significant about the emergence of blogs and/or wikis?
The biggest thing about these self-publishing tools is that they’re self-publishing, natch. You don’t need to be a geek to be able to publish to the ‘net anymore – and this stuff has the potential to “fix” the web, which was supposed to be a dynamic network of linked content published by individuals, but got co-opted into a variation of the TV broadcast model, with users sitting in front of glowing screens receiving the content that The Man wants to feed them (picture a scene from Max Headroom or something). Instead, we can effectively publish our own content, with whatever authority we can muster. Individuals are just as able as companies (large and small) – as an example, this blog currently has a Google rank of 6, which is higher ranked than some companies. That would have been impossible without easy and effective self-publishing tools.
In your mind, what is most misunderstood (or little understood) about these tools?
That they make you interesting. 😉 They don’t. It’s just a tool to help publish content. Just because you have a blog, doesn’t mean anyone cares. On the flipside, however, if you are even remotely interesting (or at least not completely boring), I can guarantee that no matter how narrow your area of interest, there are others online searching out blogs about it…
Are blogs and wikis evolving into something else?
Blogs and wikis (and mashups, and other stuff) are all just baby steps. To what? I have no idea. I have a hunch that Gibson may have been onto something (for good or bad) with his concepts of pervasive online communities. These types of things become possible once the tools evolve a little.
What are the implications of these publishing tools on ideas, public opinion and free speech?
Well, I can answer this from personal (recent) experience. It’s really easy to say something stupid. And thanks to the wonders of RSS, people find out about it in a hurry. And it’s not undoable (there is no Delete key on the internet). It’s not a bad thing, just something to keep in mind before posting your innermost ramblings and stuff like that…
What are a few of your essential blog reads or wiki communities?
Abject Learning, of course 😉 Actually, I’m currently subscribed to 115 “edublogs” (loosely defined), most of which I consider essential reading. (OPML for these feeds) Won’t name names on who gets the coveted 5-Star rating in Blogbridge (yet)…
Anything else?
Just that his whole read/write web thing is pretty cool. I seriously doubt I’d be as effective at making connections between emerging concepts/projects/people as I am with access to the “blogosphere” (gack). Just relax, Neo. There is no blog.
Brian’s asking for comments to help build a presentation tonight. I’m cutting it awfully close to the wire (the presentation starts in just over an hour) but hopefully another trackback will help…
What is most significant about the emergence of blogs and/or wikis?
The biggest thing about these self-publishing tools is that they’re self-publishing, natch. You don’t need to be a geek to be able to publish to the ‘net anymore – and this stuff has the potential to “fix” the web, which was supposed to be a dynamic network of linked content published by individuals, but got co-opted into a variation of the TV broadcast model, with users sitting in front of glowing screens receiving the content that The Man wants to feed them (picture a scene from Max Headroom or something). Instead, we can effectively publish our own content, with whatever authority we can muster. Individuals are just as able as companies (large and small) – as an example, this blog currently has a Google rank of 6, which is higher ranked than some companies. That would have been impossible without easy and effective self-publishing tools.
In your mind, what is most misunderstood (or little understood) about these tools?
That they make you interesting. 😉 They don’t. It’s just a tool to help publish content. Just because you have a blog, doesn’t mean anyone cares. On the flipside, however, if you are even remotely interesting (or at least not completely boring), I can guarantee that no matter how narrow your area of interest, there are others online searching out blogs about it…
Are blogs and wikis evolving into something else?
Blogs and wikis (and mashups, and other stuff) are all just baby steps. To what? I have no idea. I have a hunch that Gibson may have been onto something (for good or bad) with his concepts of pervasive online communities. These types of things become possible once the tools evolve a little.
What are the implications of these publishing tools on ideas, public opinion and free speech?
Well, I can answer this from personal (recent) experience. It’s really easy to say something stupid. And thanks to the wonders of RSS, people find out about it in a hurry. And it’s not undoable (there is no Delete key on the internet). It’s not a bad thing, just something to keep in mind before posting your innermost ramblings and stuff like that…
What are a few of your essential blog reads or wiki communities?
Abject Learning, of course 😉 Actually, I’m currently subscribed to 115 “edublogs” (loosely defined), most of which I consider essential reading. (OPML for these feeds) Won’t name names on who gets the coveted 5-Star rating in Blogbridge (yet)…
Anything else?
Just that his whole read/write web thing is pretty cool. I seriously doubt I’d be as effective at making connections between emerging concepts/projects/people as I am with access to the “blogosphere” (gack). Just relax, Neo. There is no blog.
This blog is published under a creative commons license (specifically, the non-commercial use, with attribution license) – chosen to let folks rip/mix/burn whatever they found useful. I really believe that type of sharing is important.
Regardless, I was a bit surprised to find this obvious homage to my blog design (well, to K2 and my tweaks), which closely mimics my blog’s current appearance – right down to recycling each and every one many of my blog banner images (which have been removed since I posted this).
My initial reaction was a quick “dude, that’s so not cool. use the design, but at least come up with your own banner images!” But, what’s being done is completely within the bounds of the CC license – attribution is being given, and it’s a non-commerical endeavor. So, I decided to let it slide. It’s understandable – the license I use allows it, and I even provide a full colophon listing the various off-the-shelf bits that twiddle to make up this blog.
So, while the CC license is a Very Good Thing™ for fostering reuse, it can also be a bit of a mixed blessing. It’s really weird – I’m totally fine with people doing pretty much whatever they want with the text, as long as they’re clear about not blatantly ripping me off. But seeing the images on some else’s blog just felt strange, and not in a good way.
What does that say about images vs. text? What does that say about my relationship with the banner images? They are all taken by myself, at various stages in life (one from the beach we got married on, one from the hospital room Evan was born in, etc…), at various locations in my travels (Hawaii from NMC2005, more photos of San Francisco than are warranted on a blog by a Calgarian, etc…). Each one means something special to me. To see them on someone else’s blog, where they are essentially stripped of that meaning and are being used simply because they’re pretty pictures, just doesn’t feel right.
This blog is published under a creative commons license (specifically, the non-commercial use, with attribution license) – chosen to let folks rip/mix/burn whatever they found useful. I really believe that type of sharing is important.
Regardless, I was a bit surprised to find this obvious homage to my blog design (well, to K2 and my tweaks), which closely mimics my blog’s current appearance – right down to recycling each and every one many of my blog banner images (which have been removed since I posted this).
My initial reaction was a quick “dude, that’s so not cool. use the design, but at least come up with your own banner images!” But, what’s being done is completely within the bounds of the CC license – attribution is being given, and it’s a non-commerical endeavor. So, I decided to let it slide. It’s understandable – the license I use allows it, and I even provide a full colophon listing the various off-the-shelf bits that twiddle to make up this blog.
So, while the CC license is a Very Good Thing™ for fostering reuse, it can also be a bit of a mixed blessing. It’s really weird – I’m totally fine with people doing pretty much whatever they want with the text, as long as they’re clear about not blatantly ripping me off. But seeing the images on some else’s blog just felt strange, and not in a good way.
What does that say about images vs. text? What does that say about my relationship with the banner images? They are all taken by myself, at various stages in life (one from the beach we got married on, one from the hospital room Evan was born in, etc…), at various locations in my travels (Hawaii from NMC2005, more photos of San Francisco than are warranted on a blog by a Calgarian, etc…). Each one means something special to me. To see them on someone else’s blog, where they are essentially stripped of that meaning and are being used simply because they’re pretty pictures, just doesn’t feel right.
On the way from the hotel to the restaurant for supper tonight, Tim took Josh and I on a short walking tour of what I called “art bars” – two very cool bars/clubs that were one part bar, one part art gallery. Very interesting stuff.
Then, to Osha (a Thai restaurant, coincidentally themed inside with elephants everywhere) for supper with the Pachydermers. I’d been crashing since about 10am, after working with Josh to stem the flow of negative Whuffie created by some miscommunication. (we got the Pachyderm authoring app up and running after an intense round of forensic analysis to find out wtf happened – then got to deal with a different but recurring problem, as described in the previous post)
At this point, I was so tired that I don’t think I could have successfully rubbed two neurons together to save my life. And everyone begins animatedly talking about the latest books they’ve read (I haven’t had any time to read fiction – or non-fiction, for that matter), or books they read as kids (I can hardly remember anything that long ago, nevermind what books I read), etc… I slowly withdrew into the corner of the table, nodding and following maybe 10% of the conversations as they swirled around me. The few comments I’m able to make are totally superficial, or seem to disappear into the background noise of the restaurant. I’m not contributing at all to the conversation, and am having trouble keeping up as a simple lurker, feeling decidedly provincial. And extremely uncultured. Not quite bumpkinesque, but I can see it from here. Truly humbling.
The saving grace is that these are all Truly Nice People. It’s nothing they’re doing – I’m just coming up short today. The irony is that once I get back to my quiet room at the hotel, and sitting in front of a keyboard, I’m almost able to maintain a stream of thought, and to construct something that appears like a coherent sentence.
OK. Now to crash, and hopefully sleep. Perhaps I’ll feel less braindead after more than 3 hours of sleep…
On the way from the hotel to the restaurant for supper tonight, Tim took Josh and I on a short walking tour of what I called “art bars” – two very cool bars/clubs that were one part bar, one part art gallery. Very interesting stuff.
Then, to Osha (a Thai restaurant, coincidentally themed inside with elephants everywhere) for supper with the Pachydermers. I’d been crashing since about 10am, after working with Josh to stem the flow of negative Whuffie created by some miscommunication. (we got the Pachyderm authoring app up and running after an intense round of forensic analysis to find out wtf happened – then got to deal with a different but recurring problem, as described in the previous post)
At this point, I was so tired that I don’t think I could have successfully rubbed two neurons together to save my life. And everyone begins animatedly talking about the latest books they’ve read (I haven’t had any time to read fiction – or non-fiction, for that matter), or books they read as kids (I can hardly remember anything that long ago, nevermind what books I read), etc… I slowly withdrew into the corner of the table, nodding and following maybe 10% of the conversations as they swirled around me. The few comments I’m able to make are totally superficial, or seem to disappear into the background noise of the restaurant. I’m not contributing at all to the conversation, and am having trouble keeping up as a simple lurker, feeling decidedly provincial. And extremely uncultured. Not quite bumpkinesque, but I can see it from here. Truly humbling.
The saving grace is that these are all Truly Nice People. It’s nothing they’re doing – I’m just coming up short today. The irony is that once I get back to my quiet room at the hotel, and sitting in front of a keyboard, I’m almost able to maintain a stream of thought, and to construct something that appears like a coherent sentence.
OK. Now to crash, and hopefully sleep. Perhaps I’ll feel less braindead after more than 3 hours of sleep…
I grabbed a copy of Joomla the other day, to play around with another option for a CMS to use for projects at the Learning Commons. Some early thoughts:
- The admin UI seems very well done – but man, is there a lot of stuff in there. Not sure I’d want to unleash that interface on a novice user, or even a casual Office warrior. I’m sure it makes more sense as you get used to it, but it’s even more jarring than Drupal, and much more complicated than WordPress (likely necessarily so, since it does so much more than WordPress, but seems like it should be on par with Drupal).
- Seems like a very odd definition of “Open Source” in the Joomla community. Likely some historical context to make it meaningful, but of the several Joomla community sites that I’ve visited for modules and templates, they all seem to require logins to download stuff, and several require paid subscriptions – some quite steep – just to get access to something that I thought was GPL. Bizarre…
- The content publishing process seems much more complicated than Drupal or WordPress. How do you determine which chunks of content make it to the front page, in what location? The admin interface provides a lot of bells and doodads to control that, but it’s not immediately obvious how to control the flow of content.
- It’s got a really nice level of granularity for permissions. Admins, publishers, editors, managers, writers, etc… All with their own sets of restrictions. People with access to the admin UI can publish content immediately, while “lesser” users need to have stuff approved before it shows up.
- The URL structure is pretty much semantically meaningless. URLs take the form of
/content/view/14/2/ – and that’s with the “search engine friendly” option turned on – it’s even worse without that. There’s a spot for a “Title Alias” – but it doesn’t seem to get used as the Post Slug does in WordPress, or the Path does in Drupal. Maybe there’s another bit to twiddle for that to kick in…
- The pervasive rich text editor / WYSIWYG dealie is pretty nice.
- Joomla feels like a robust, mature CMS. Things like content checkin/checkout, staledating, moderation, etc. appear to be done quite nicely.
- What’s up with Joomla’s RSS Feeds feature? It’s borked. Right now, it just gives a list of feeds, and you have to click on each one to get a list of items. It should give a merged list of items, ala Drupal or FeedOnFeeds or SuprGlu or etc…
- Installing templates and modules – hasn’t worked for me so far. Not sure what the exact process is. Doesn’t seem to work if you just drop files into the templates or modules directories. The provided Upload/Install feature fails for me, too. I’m sure it works, but I haven’t tripped over the piece of documentation describing the installation process.
I’ll have more thoughts over the next few days – I’m setting up an instance for a demo on Friday. Right now, Drupal feels more “fluid” but Joomla feels more “newspaper-ish”. If that makes sense.
Here’s a handful of screenshots of various stages of the content publishing process:
I grabbed a copy of Joomla the other day, to play around with another option for a CMS to use for projects at the Learning Commons. Some early thoughts:
- The admin UI seems very well done – but man, is there a lot of stuff in there. Not sure I’d want to unleash that interface on a novice user, or even a casual Office warrior. I’m sure it makes more sense as you get used to it, but it’s even more jarring than Drupal, and much more complicated than WordPress (likely necessarily so, since it does so much more than WordPress, but seems like it should be on par with Drupal).
- Seems like a very odd definition of “Open Source” in the Joomla community. Likely some historical context to make it meaningful, but of the several Joomla community sites that I’ve visited for modules and templates, they all seem to require logins to download stuff, and several require paid subscriptions – some quite steep – just to get access to something that I thought was GPL. Bizarre…
- The content publishing process seems much more complicated than Drupal or WordPress. How do you determine which chunks of content make it to the front page, in what location? The admin interface provides a lot of bells and doodads to control that, but it’s not immediately obvious how to control the flow of content.
- It’s got a really nice level of granularity for permissions. Admins, publishers, editors, managers, writers, etc… All with their own sets of restrictions. People with access to the admin UI can publish content immediately, while “lesser” users need to have stuff approved before it shows up.
- The URL structure is pretty much semantically meaningless. URLs take the form of
/content/view/14/2/ – and that’s with the “search engine friendly” option turned on – it’s even worse without that. There’s a spot for a “Title Alias” – but it doesn’t seem to get used as the Post Slug does in WordPress, or the Path does in Drupal. Maybe there’s another bit to twiddle for that to kick in…
- The pervasive rich text editor / WYSIWYG dealie is pretty nice.
- Joomla feels like a robust, mature CMS. Things like content checkin/checkout, staledating, moderation, etc. appear to be done quite nicely.
- What’s up with Joomla’s RSS Feeds feature? It’s borked. Right now, it just gives a list of feeds, and you have to click on each one to get a list of items. It should give a merged list of items, ala Drupal or FeedOnFeeds or SuprGlu or etc…
- Installing templates and modules – hasn’t worked for me so far. Not sure what the exact process is. Doesn’t seem to work if you just drop files into the templates or modules directories. The provided Upload/Install feature fails for me, too. I’m sure it works, but I haven’t tripped over the piece of documentation describing the installation process.
I’ll have more thoughts over the next few days – I’m setting up an instance for a demo on Friday. Right now, Drupal feels more “fluid” but Joomla feels more “newspaper-ish”. If that makes sense.
Here’s a handful of screenshots of various stages of the content publishing process:
Stephen Downes posted a link to a Salon article on Community-based economy.
It strikes me that moving away from a market-driven economy (in whatever form that may take) would solve or at least alleviate many of the things that bug me about Modern Life. The omnipresent advertising. The insane bubble-and-burst stock market. TV being so dumbed down as to make the vast majority of it useless, or IQ-decreasing, or worse. The need to “monetize” everything. The resistance to making difficult yet necessary decisions (like, say, avoiding the Peak Oil crisis, for example).
How about a bottom-up, open-source-modelled community-based economy? It’s sure piqued my interest… Now, how to move large portions of North America toward that model?
Stephen Downes posted a link to a Salon article on Community-based economy.
It strikes me that moving away from a market-driven economy (in whatever form that may take) would solve or at least alleviate many of the things that bug me about Modern Life. The omnipresent advertising. The insane bubble-and-burst stock market. TV being so dumbed down as to make the vast majority of it useless, or IQ-decreasing, or worse. The need to “monetize” everything. The resistance to making difficult yet necessary decisions (like, say, avoiding the Peak Oil crisis, for example).
How about a bottom-up, open-source-modelled community-based economy? It’s sure piqued my interest… Now, how to move large portions of North America toward that model?
On this day, in 1918, marked the end of The Great War. The War To End All Wars. Later, to be known simply as “World War 1”. My grandfather served in that war, and luckily survived both the war and the flu pandemic that it quickly spread with returning soldiers. I had family serve in WWII as well, and thankfully all returned home safely. Millions of others (on both sides) were not so lucky.
As much as I abhor war, sometimes it is absolutely necessary to prevent (or stop) oppression or genocide.
I was never tested by being called to serve. Sometimes I wonder how I would have reacted if I were called into action. The closest I came was watching “Band of Brothers“, or playing Medal of Honor. Now, I’m likely too old to be called if a global intervention is required. I pray that my son will not have to face that as he gets older.
I found this photo of some Canadian soldiers marching with a tank at Vimy Ridge, which by all accounts was literally hell on earth. Over 3,500 Canadian soldiers lost their lives taking the Ridge, using a “creeping barrage” with a solid line of artillery fire being laid down immediately in front of their position as they advanced. The German Sixth Army suffered over 20,000 casualties. The craters left by this barrage are still visible today. The French had lost 150,000 lives trying to take the Ridge 2 years earlier. It was one of Germany’s strongest footholds in France.
To those that served to protect freedom, all I can say is a meagre thanks, and hope that I don’t lose the perspective that your sacrifices deserve.
Update: Tim Bray wrote a post on Remembrance, with a link to a Dutch website about the Great War – with lots of incredible colour photographs. It’s somehow surreal seeing colour photographs from that era, but they are amazing.
Update: Just found a great page describing the background of the poem “On Flanders Fields”, by John McCrae, including a handwritten copy of the poem by the author.
On this day, in 1918, marked the end of The Great War. The War To End All Wars. Later, to be known simply as “World War 1”. My grandfather served in that war, and luckily survived both the war and the flu pandemic that it quickly spread with returning soldiers. I had family serve in WWII as well, and thankfully all returned home safely. Millions of others (on both sides) were not so lucky.
As much as I abhor war, sometimes it is absolutely necessary to prevent (or stop) oppression or genocide.
I was never tested by being called to serve. Sometimes I wonder how I would have reacted if I were called into action. The closest I came was watching “Band of Brothers“, or playing Medal of Honor. Now, I’m likely too old to be called if a global intervention is required. I pray that my son will not have to face that as he gets older.
I found this photo of some Canadian soldiers marching with a tank at Vimy Ridge, which by all accounts was literally hell on earth. Over 3,500 Canadian soldiers lost their lives taking the Ridge, using a “creeping barrage” with a solid line of artillery fire being laid down immediately in front of their position as they advanced. The German Sixth Army suffered over 20,000 casualties. The craters left by this barrage are still visible today. The French had lost 150,000 lives trying to take the Ridge 2 years earlier. It was one of Germany’s strongest footholds in France.
To those that served to protect freedom, all I can say is a meagre thanks, and hope that I don’t lose the perspective that your sacrifices deserve.
Update: Tim Bray wrote a post on Remembrance, with a link to a Dutch website about the Great War – with lots of incredible colour photographs. It’s somehow surreal seeing colour photographs from that era, but they are amazing.
Update: Just found a great page describing the background of the poem “On Flanders Fields”, by John McCrae, including a handwritten copy of the poem by the author.
After my thinking out loud about Peak Oil, I’ve been doing some more thinking about it (as have others). The changes required to prevent The End Of Oil are so drastic and large-scale that I really don’t see that happening. The oil is going to run out (or become so expensive that only Bill Gates can drive his 2033 Prius) and there’s just nothing that can be done to prevent that. Cue an image of what the “haves” were doing in Mad Max – they weren’t filmed, but SOMEONE had access to the oil.
So, the issue then becomes more about adapting, and preparing to be effective in the post-oil world. I think that the people that are conserving are doing Good Things™, but they aren’t preventing the exhaustion of the oil supply – they are preparing themselves to survive in a world with (less | no) oil.
Looking at the issue as a Post Peak Oil Survivalism movement makes it much more conceivable. Individuals preparing to adapt to a changing environment – we do that every day. If there’s no way to prevent it, we should at least start to deal with it. This is more about preventing the spiral down into the Thunderdome than about saving a doomed resource.
I was completely blown away by the amount and level of feedback I got to that last Oil entry. Wow. Although that was far from a well-thought-out piece of effective writing, it’s probably the one thing I’m most proud of in this whole blog. It marked the point where I started turning my own rudder away from the looming iceberg.
After my thinking out loud about Peak Oil, I’ve been doing some more thinking about it (as have others). The changes required to prevent The End Of Oil are so drastic and large-scale that I really don’t see that happening. The oil is going to run out (or become so expensive that only Bill Gates can drive his 2033 Prius) and there’s just nothing that can be done to prevent that. Cue an image of what the “haves” were doing in Mad Max – they weren’t filmed, but SOMEONE had access to the oil.
So, the issue then becomes more about adapting, and preparing to be effective in the post-oil world. I think that the people that are conserving are doing Good Things™, but they aren’t preventing the exhaustion of the oil supply – they are preparing themselves to survive in a world with (less | no) oil.
Looking at the issue as a Post Peak Oil Survivalism movement makes it much more conceivable. Individuals preparing to adapt to a changing environment – we do that every day. If there’s no way to prevent it, we should at least start to deal with it. This is more about preventing the spiral down into the Thunderdome than about saving a doomed resource.
I was completely blown away by the amount and level of feedback I got to that last Oil entry. Wow. Although that was far from a well-thought-out piece of effective writing, it’s probably the one thing I’m most proud of in this whole blog. It marked the point where I started turning my own rudder away from the looming iceberg.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the last few months. I just wanted to write some of this down to help me form some slightly more concrete ideas. What follows is likely not the most coherent thing ever written – it’s meant to serve as a starting point for me to come back to later…
With the price of oil spiking, and the known reservoirs being depleted, we obviously need to move away from a total dependence on a non-renewable resource. That’s a total no brainer. But, there doesn’t seem to be a solid or effective movement towards that end. There are a few areas where progress is being made – the Prius, the solar/wind power initiatives, for example. But, there isn’t any large-scale movement away from petroleum. If anything, people are looking for subsidies to maintain their dependence on an increasingly scarce (and therefore increasingly expensive) resource. Gasoline prices skyrocket. Natural gas is through the roof. The cost of a barrel of oil is 6 times what it was not too long ago. And the solution? At least in Alberta, the provincial government is just cutting everyone cheques to help defray the cost of petroleum, since the government is literally rolling in cash as a result of petroleum taxes. And, other countries manufacture wars, and entire campaigns, to maintain their ready access to cheap oil. Addicted like a crack baby.
I’ve also been doing some thinking about my own personal reliance on petroleum. I’m a suburban-dwelling, SUV-driving (but I commute using public transit, so that helps), natural-gas-heating-and-cooking ecological disaster. My house likely contains several barrels of oil. The carpet is synthetic – I walk on oil. The TV is encased in oil. Clothes are spun from it. Pillows stuffed with it. Walls painted with it. Food stored in it. House heated with it. Food cooked by burning it. Think nothing of packing up the family and burning half a tank to spend some time in the mountains. Or hopping on a plane and burning off several barrels of oil to go to meetings far away.
As a mental exercise, I try to imagine how much prehistoric biomass went into the stuff that makes up my home. How many tonnes of jurassic algae went into my gas tank. How many dinosaurs per 100km does it get?
It’s one thing to say we need to switch away from a petroleum based economy – it’s quite another to think of what I could do to replace these items. Try walking through a department store – the majority of items there are made from (or with) petroleum. We’d have to revert to methods of manufacturing resurrected from the 1800s and early 1900s. Things would take longer to manufacture. They might be more expensive. They might not last as long. But, they would likely be healthier to be around. I’m positive we’ll be a healthier lot once the oil runs out, without off-gassing carpets, and other petroleum byproducts seeping into our systems every day.
One thing that keeps popping into my head – the real value of petroluem for power is its ability to be used “off grid”. It’s portable, storable, and easy to take with you. The only industry that truly needs a portable, storable power supply is the military. So, why wouldn’t they be funding more research into renewable energy, so they could reserve the remaining petroleum for themselves? Take a fraction of the funding for the military industrial complex, and dedicate that to finding a sustainable and renewable power supply for the rest of the world. Just about everything else could be redesigned to run on some form of rechargeable electrical power. Electric cars. Even planes could be run on some form of electical power.
The other handy thing about switching to electrical power is the abstraction from the source of the energy. Unlike natural gas, which is a pretty concrete thing, an electric grid could be fed by solar, wind, tidal, or geothermal sources.
The C-Train (the commuter train system in Calgary) apparently uses 40% of the total electricity demand of a city of 1 million people. But, a few years ago, they switched the source of electricity for the trains to be fed by a wind farm south of the city. The entire train system switched over to a renewable energy supply, without modifying the grid, or the trains.
Even a switch to nuclear power as an energy source, which has the promise to provide essentially unlimited power with no pollution if executed properly, doesn’t solve the dependency on petroleum for manufacturing goods. We need to find a replacement for plastics and the like before we can really affect change.
I’m just thinking out loud here, but I want to go walk around Heritage Park again to see how they did stuff before the total and utter dependence on petroleum kicked in. I’m walking around with a lot of suburban petroleum-dependant guilt here, and am having trouble seeing a way to get the monkey off my back.
For some very interesting reading about the petroleum dependency, check out Clusterfuck Nation by Jim Kunstler. It’s sure got my head spinning about this… His take on Calgary as a microcosm of the North American Tragedy is pretty eye-opening (but he did get at least one fact wrong – there aren’t any Target stores in Calgary 😉 )
Starting to have flashbacks to The Last Chase – time to break the car down into parts and store it beneath the floor in the garage…
Update: slightly corrected (although incompletely) the “how many dinosaurs are in a tank of gas” thing – although I like the ring of that, so I left a bit of it in 🙂 Michelle Lamberson, who was a geologist in a previous life, let me know that petroleum comes mostly from marine biomass (algae…) rather than dinosaurs.
Update: I’ve just created a wiki page to share resources on sustainable energy, including a link to the Institute for Sustainable Energy, Environment and Economy at the University of Calgary.
Update: And, perhaps, we should reserve plastics for medical applications? I can’t imagine a modern hospital functioning without plastic. Maybe the catch is we’re all hung up on “modern” – lose that requirement, and it’s easy to shake the dependence on petro-crack.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the last few months. I just wanted to write some of this down to help me form some slightly more concrete ideas. What follows is likely not the most coherent thing ever written – it’s meant to serve as a starting point for me to come back to later…
With the price of oil spiking, and the known reservoirs being depleted, we obviously need to move away from a total dependence on a non-renewable resource. That’s a total no brainer. But, there doesn’t seem to be a solid or effective movement towards that end. There are a few areas where progress is being made – the Prius, the solar/wind power initiatives, for example. But, there isn’t any large-scale movement away from petroleum. If anything, people are looking for subsidies to maintain their dependence on an increasingly scarce (and therefore increasingly expensive) resource. Gasoline prices skyrocket. Natural gas is through the roof. The cost of a barrel of oil is 6 times what it was not too long ago. And the solution? At least in Alberta, the provincial government is just cutting everyone cheques to help defray the cost of petroleum, since the government is literally rolling in cash as a result of petroleum taxes. And, other countries manufacture wars, and entire campaigns, to maintain their ready access to cheap oil. Addicted like a crack baby.
I’ve also been doing some thinking about my own personal reliance on petroleum. I’m a suburban-dwelling, SUV-driving (but I commute using public transit, so that helps), natural-gas-heating-and-cooking ecological disaster. My house likely contains several barrels of oil. The carpet is synthetic – I walk on oil. The TV is encased in oil. Clothes are spun from it. Pillows stuffed with it. Walls painted with it. Food stored in it. House heated with it. Food cooked by burning it. Think nothing of packing up the family and burning half a tank to spend some time in the mountains. Or hopping on a plane and burning off several barrels of oil to go to meetings far away.
As a mental exercise, I try to imagine how much prehistoric biomass went into the stuff that makes up my home. How many tonnes of jurassic algae went into my gas tank. How many dinosaurs per 100km does it get?
It’s one thing to say we need to switch away from a petroleum based economy – it’s quite another to think of what I could do to replace these items. Try walking through a department store – the majority of items there are made from (or with) petroleum. We’d have to revert to methods of manufacturing resurrected from the 1800s and early 1900s. Things would take longer to manufacture. They might be more expensive. They might not last as long. But, they would likely be healthier to be around. I’m positive we’ll be a healthier lot once the oil runs out, without off-gassing carpets, and other petroleum byproducts seeping into our systems every day.
One thing that keeps popping into my head – the real value of petroluem for power is its ability to be used “off grid”. It’s portable, storable, and easy to take with you. The only industry that truly needs a portable, storable power supply is the military. So, why wouldn’t they be funding more research into renewable energy, so they could reserve the remaining petroleum for themselves? Take a fraction of the funding for the military industrial complex, and dedicate that to finding a sustainable and renewable power supply for the rest of the world. Just about everything else could be redesigned to run on some form of rechargeable electrical power. Electric cars. Even planes could be run on some form of electical power.
The other handy thing about switching to electrical power is the abstraction from the source of the energy. Unlike natural gas, which is a pretty concrete thing, an electric grid could be fed by solar, wind, tidal, or geothermal sources.
The C-Train (the commuter train system in Calgary) apparently uses 40% of the total electricity demand of a city of 1 million people. But, a few years ago, they switched the source of electricity for the trains to be fed by a wind farm south of the city. The entire train system switched over to a renewable energy supply, without modifying the grid, or the trains.
Even a switch to nuclear power as an energy source, which has the promise to provide essentially unlimited power with no pollution if executed properly, doesn’t solve the dependency on petroleum for manufacturing goods. We need to find a replacement for plastics and the like before we can really affect change.
I’m just thinking out loud here, but I want to go walk around Heritage Park again to see how they did stuff before the total and utter dependence on petroleum kicked in. I’m walking around with a lot of suburban petroleum-dependant guilt here, and am having trouble seeing a way to get the monkey off my back.
For some very interesting reading about the petroleum dependency, check out Clusterfuck Nation by Jim Kunstler. It’s sure got my head spinning about this… His take on Calgary as a microcosm of the North American Tragedy is pretty eye-opening (but he did get at least one fact wrong – there aren’t any Target stores in Calgary 😉 )
Starting to have flashbacks to The Last Chase – time to break the car down into parts and store it beneath the floor in the garage…
Update: slightly corrected (although incompletely) the “how many dinosaurs are in a tank of gas” thing – although I like the ring of that, so I left a bit of it in 🙂 Michelle Lamberson, who was a geologist in a previous life, let me know that petroleum comes mostly from marine biomass (algae…) rather than dinosaurs.
Update: I’ve just created a wiki page to share resources on sustainable energy, including a link to the Institute for Sustainable Energy, Environment and Economy at the University of Calgary.
Update: And, perhaps, we should reserve plastics for medical applications? I can’t imagine a modern hospital functioning without plastic. Maybe the catch is we’re all hung up on “modern” – lose that requirement, and it’s easy to shake the dependence on petro-crack.
I ranted recently about how having advertising on my blog made me feel dirty. After saying that, it’s been kind of bugging me, especially since someone whom I deeply respect provides marketing and branding creative for companies.
I’ve been thinking about it, and the part that made me feel dirty was because I had changed the rules of my blog. I’ve always considered it to be nothing more than just my own personal outboard brain – a core dump indexed by Google. Changing the nature of the beast to become a “monetizing engine” would have subtly altered what/how/when I posted. Perhaps not right away, and perhaps not even visibly (to anyone but myself – hey, another circular reference – if it’s primarily for me, wtf do I care what anyone else thinks? 🙂 ) but it would have altered it enough to become less useful to me. I would have started writing for accumulation of Google Juice™, rather than just documenting thoughts and actions.
Anyway, I just wanted to think out loud about this for a bit. Marketing and branding are important activities. It’s advertising for advertising’s sake that sucks out loud. The need to drive up ratings to sell more (or higher priced) ads is what makes TV and radio suck so badly. It’s what infested the ‘net with punch-the-monkey popups. Intelligent and creative marketing and branding shouldn’t have to be a zero sum game – it shouldn’t detract value from an experience in order to derive value for a company.
Maybe the whole iTunes/iPod video store, with high quality first-run TV shows available for a nominal fee without advertising, will act as a catalyst to help us emphasize and reward creativity rather than continuing on with a business model based on pandering to the lowest common denomenators of society.
There endeth the sermon 🙂
I ranted recently about how having advertising on my blog made me feel dirty. After saying that, it’s been kind of bugging me, especially since someone whom I deeply respect provides marketing and branding creative for companies.
I’ve been thinking about it, and the part that made me feel dirty was because I had changed the rules of my blog. I’ve always considered it to be nothing more than just my own personal outboard brain – a core dump indexed by Google. Changing the nature of the beast to become a “monetizing engine” would have subtly altered what/how/when I posted. Perhaps not right away, and perhaps not even visibly (to anyone but myself – hey, another circular reference – if it’s primarily for me, wtf do I care what anyone else thinks? 🙂 ) but it would have altered it enough to become less useful to me. I would have started writing for accumulation of Google Juice™, rather than just documenting thoughts and actions.
Anyway, I just wanted to think out loud about this for a bit. Marketing and branding are important activities. It’s advertising for advertising’s sake that sucks out loud. The need to drive up ratings to sell more (or higher priced) ads is what makes TV and radio suck so badly. It’s what infested the ‘net with punch-the-monkey popups. Intelligent and creative marketing and branding shouldn’t have to be a zero sum game – it shouldn’t detract value from an experience in order to derive value for a company.
Maybe the whole iTunes/iPod video store, with high quality first-run TV shows available for a nominal fee without advertising, will act as a catalyst to help us emphasize and reward creativity rather than continuing on with a business model based on pandering to the lowest common denomenators of society.
There endeth the sermon 🙂
