Sleepless in Seattle

Well I wouldn't exactly say that it was a sleepless night, I was staying at the W and their beds are amazing.

I'm in Seattle for a design kickoff meeting for a new high rise residence that will hopefully define sustainable living for the Seattle area. The primary purpose of the trip was to attend an ecodesign charrette, to flesh out the overall intent for the building as a whole. It may sound easy, fun, treehuggerish, but truth be told it can be difficult to shed your normal modes of thinking to push beyond and normal and acceptable to explore new regions, but it is what I live for.

On Seattle, what can I say, it was wet they say they see the sun here, a lot in fact, something about a well kept secret, but sure as heck didn't see it. I've spent a year in England, days in the rain at camp, braved four rain seasons in LA (hey it's LA, rain is a big deal), but it was Seattle that finally broke me: I now own an umbrella. It was this blowing localized rain, it seemed as if on one block it was raining, not the next, and the following it was coming down horizontal. After walking around for almost an hour in the rain, taking shelter in one of many Starbucks which seem to adorn every corner, I caved, walked into a Walgreens and bought an umbrella for $15.

I have to say my umbrella skills in the wind are pretty good, I only had it invert on me once, I didn't poke out anyone else's eye, though nearly my own and I skillfully lifted it up and over fellow walkers with the finesse of a master.

Seattle may have won this battle, but I shall return again, the war is far from over.

Why what you're eating could be killing you...

Or, how big pharmaceutical is turning being fat into a disease.

All I have to say is WOW. I mean I know that Coppertone created the hype and cultural buzz to be tanned, effectively pushing everyone into the sun, and now they sell sunscreen... I mean true they created their own market, but at least it was kinda over 20-30 years and things did really change... we did kinda put a big hole in the Ozone and made things worse.... but turning fat into a disease just so you can come up with a pill to cure it? C'mon.

Reference, the October Issue of Wired Magazine: The Thin Pill. Aight, now I can believe that some cases of obesity are related to true disorders, just as much as cases of extreme (read sickly) thinness are, and require appropriate treatment. But the idea of telling 84 Million people that they're fat because of a disease and that there's a little pill that can fix it is just... well crazy.

What happened to a balanced diet, and exercise? Oh that's right, the USDA has been feeding us the wrong pyramid for the last 20 odd years. Now that it's been 'fixed' why can't we return to the same idea, and hit across the broad spectrum of health.

Personally, I'd like to see tax breaks for exercise programs (especially for kids) HMO's and PPO's providing helping cover the cost of going to the gym, and moving to preventative health measures rather than reactive measures like the Thin Pill.

Movie Review: Death of a President

Director: Gabriel Range
Producing Studio: Universal Studios
Trailer
IGN.com review

I went into this film, not quite sure what to expect. I'd picked up the buzz about it from an article run on CBC.ca (the CBC.ca search server is down atm, will add the link later if I can.) during the Toronto Film Festival. The buzz/controversy of the film was generated since it involves the hypothetical assassination of a sitting president.

Just think about this for a second: This film depicts the assassination of President George W. Bush. I've lived in the US for the last four years, and I don't think I've even heard anyone even utter the idea of wishing Bush any ill will, they may complain, but no one's actually said I wish the guy wasn't around (in the corporeal sense).

The film is presented as a fictional documentary, something you might expect to see on the History Channel or Discovery, as we have seen in the wake of 9/11. The performances by the entirely unknown cast is completely believable, as is the mixture of real and fictional footage of the president, and rioters.

In spite of the fine performances, and the complete believability of the presentation, I felt that ultimately the film failed to deliver anything relevant or poignant worthy of the assassination of a sitting president. The only real shock in the film is the assassination of the president, the emotions it can draw out from you.

In spite of what you may think, this film was not an attack on the president, and actually casts him in a very favorable light. It was of course an attack on his policies and the discontent we have seen resonant across the country.

Personally, I wouldn't say that my political views come even close to being in alignment with those of the president, and it would seem, that we will find out in just over the next week whether this holds true for the rest of the country. Even though I don't agree with his policies, it ends there, I don't wish him as a man any ill will. He was duly elected by the people of the United States of America, and he is carrying out his duty as he best sees fit. For me, if as a film maker you are going to entertain the idea of assassinating Mr. Bush, you need to follow through on your delivery. The interviews, which follow several key players involved with the night in question and also the subsequent investigation follow a fairly predictable path, and lead to what is almost a foregone conclusion.

In the end, for all the buzz and shock this movie inspired, it failed to deliver. Wait for the DVD, add it to netflix somewhere near the bottom, and only if you get more than one movie a month.

Power

I remember one summer sitting at home (I wasn't working at the time) enjoying the lazy days of summer. It was hot out, and humid. I think I'd lazily rolled out of bed around 10ish, plugged in checked the e-mail and headed upstairs to watch some TV, at least for a bit, I mean hey it's summer, and my last real summer before I started working so I was allowed not to think. Eventually the stomach started to rumble so I headed for the fridge, to see what I could forage. No sooner had I stood up, but the screen when black and house went silent. The power went out. So I thought to myself: "All right, I can handle this, I'll go get a book read for a bit. Wait and see if it comes back on." I settled back into my chair and began to read. My book wasn't particularly engaging and I tired of it quickly. I searched my options: go outside (it was raining), sleep (it was broad daylight, and I had just go up.) find something else to read. My mood was more than a bit restless, and so I opted to head into town, maybe hang out with some friends, socialize you know interact.

I could see the garage well enough (ut had windows) and cooling walked up to the garage door opener and pressed the button. Nothing happened. I pressed the button again. Still nothing happened. I looked up at the opener and cursed under my breath, everything looked ok, it was plugged in and.... oh wait the power is out. Even my car, with it's own delightful independent power source was trapped inside. I had to rustle around the garage to find an implement suitable to releasing the override before I could even begin my journey.

It may be a silly story, but it proves a simple, and not always obvious point: We need power; we need it and we are dependent on it.

How many times has the power gone out in your office and you've had to try to figure out what constructive activity you can undertake with no computer, printer, minimal light, and likely no phone. Even our phone numbers are now stored electronically (thank you outlook). At night or during hot or cold seasons we are at the mercy of the electrons. At we cower in corners, or huddle together for warmth. Even looking something as simple as a meal can be a challenge, especially if you have an electric stove. Prolonged power outages can be devastating, economically and in terms of human lives: think back to the Ice Storm '98. What if the 2003 North American black out had lasted days or worse occurred in the middle of winter?

Power, energy is an undeniable part of our way of life; it is necessary for our governments to function, our economies to run, for us to carry out our day to day life. It is integral to our survival as we know it.

Power and it's generation are key factors in an sustainable future and must be addressed.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/energy/rise_nuclear.html

Sustainability in the Media

To be honest, I thought that all the buzz surround sustainability, global warming and the like would have died out by now in media, but for once I'm quite happy I'm wrong. It seems that any where I look now, especially in the professional journals floating around our office sustainability, global warm and the environment are becoming reoccurring themes. The September issue of Scientific American was dedicated to global warming, and sustainability, with articles focusing on a multitude of issues.

All I can say is I hope the attention holds, if not in the mainstream media, but in the scientific and industry journals to keep people thinking about it. It is beyond time to force the issue. An ad from the Environmental Defense recently aired on network TV which hit the point home with some dramatic affect.

I'll keep my eye out for more articles of note and post them here.

.......Bleep...............Bleep..........Bleep.....Bleep.....Bleep.....Bleep.....

Ladies and gentlemen we have a pulse!

Yes Reach Ix is back. I have to admit, I never realized the work that goes into a blog! Well here's another shot at it....

Enjoy!

The Ultimate Come back: Woolly Mammoths to Roam the Earth again!

In a continuing effort to outdo the maker, a recent Times article claims that humans may attempt to bring the woolly mammoths back from the dead after 27,000 years in hybernation.

Communicating the Message

I recently came across an article on BBC.com titled "Media attacked for: Climate Porn". I'll be honest here, I'm not sure if it was the climate or the porn that caught my attention. In any event I read the article on a released report: Warm Words: How are we telling the climate story and can we tell it better? by Gill Ereaut and Nat Segnit. I think I read it twice and still couldn't make make heads nor tails of what the author of the article was trying to communicate.

The gist of the article was that the report was looking at how the climate discourse was playing out in mainstream media in the UK. The article goes on to say that the report found that many media outlets, especially the tabloids in the UK were taking an alarmist approach to sell papers or raise awareness depending on which side you're on. What I was not able to work out was whether the report was trying to say that the state of communication on the environment (in particular global warming) was a mess, ineffective and that we should all just go home and forget about it. A bit baffled by this (both my apparent lack of reading comprehension and what the article was trying to say), I set out in search of the actual report to see if I could make a bit more sense of the whole situation. Well, when I found the website for the Institute for Public Policy Research yesterday, I discovered that I was actually one day early; the report was set to be published today.

I was able to take a first past on the full report tonight, and have to say I'm not exactly sure what the BBC reporter was driving at. The report is very accessible, not very lengthy, or technical and I recommend if you have a few minutes to take a read over it. I haven't had enough time to digest it to give my complete thoughts on it, but this I will say: It has been my observation, which is highlighted by this report, that the "green movement" has struggled with communicating the sustainable message. It seems that those in the movement go around wringing their hands saying "Why doesn't everybody get it?!". It's kind of like how in college that physics professor of 20 years experience, shouted back at the class "What do you mean you don't get it, it's right there on the board, it's so simple." A quote from the report's executive summary puts it perfectly:

More generally, the challenge is to make climate-friendly behaviours feel normal, natural, right and ours to large numbers of people who are currently unengaged, and on whose emotional radar the issue does not figure.

One of the major hurtles is just what the above quote describes: making sustainable living normal, a part of everyday life; making sustainability a way of thinking. I think this is one of the major points that can be drawn from this article, but I'm still stewing on this one and I'll have to let you know what I cook up.

It's the Environment, Stupid.: Carbon Trading 101

Linking in here with It's the Environment, Stupid: Carbon Trading 101 for a little intro on carbon trading.

Carbon, specifically carbon from coal is something we should be very concerned about and I not really talking about "here" I'm talking about "over there". In this particular case "over there" is China. A recent LA Times article indicated that a growing about of pollution from China is reaching North American borders. The EPA estimates that on certain days of the year, up to 25% of the particulate matter in the LA skies can be traced back to China, yes I (they) said China. As a sim in LA I can tell you that we're doing a very good job of polluting our atmosphere on our own and don't need any help from a forgein power (I can hear the conspiracy theorists talking now...). But seriously, this goes back to my introductory post on sustainability. Particularly the following section:

Sustainability affects every level of organization; this really only reinforces the first point but emphasizes the impact regional events can have on a nation or global scale and visa versa. The most important part of this point is the impact it has on the human psyche: what they are doing over there affects me sitting over here so I should care about what they are doing over there.

We should be very concerned and interested in China's activities, and I'm not talking about where they're putting their tanks, I'm talking about how they are treating our environment.

One concept that we (North Americans) seem to fail to grasp is that people elsewhere on the planet aspire to reach the same level of prosperity we enjoy (if by different means, or methods and even in different forms). The fact still remains that people on this planet want to prosper on their own cultural/social terms. In many ways I was taken back (and horrified) when I was in South Africa and discovered how much people look to the America as a yard stick to base one's standard of living.

So consider this, should resources be expended to influence developing nations to try and convince them to do as we say and not as we do, or should we rather look to ourselves to improve the role model that so many in the world emulate?

Global Cooling?!

While recently cruising the net I came across the latest for global cooling. Here's the pitch: To counter act all the CO2 we've been pumping to the atmosphere to heat up the planet, we're going to pump massive amounts of sulphate into the atmosphere to cool it down.

Does any one else miss the logic here?!

In yet another grand scheme to solve the symptom and not the problem, Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen has proposed a band aid solution to global warming: pump massive amounts of sulphate into the stratosphere. Simply put the sulphate particulates will act as tiny mirrors and reflect more of the sun's solar rays back into the space, increasing our planet's reflectance or albedo. By reflecting the sun's rays back into space we'll effectively reduce the amount of energy (heat) reaching the planet. The logic being: efforts to reduce the levels of CO2 production have been pitiful slow (no objection here) so we need a solution to stop the planets temperature rising. Any adverse affects of the sulphate can be dealt with since the sulphate will dissipate within a few years.

Let's review: We are currently pumping huge amounts of one substance into the atmosphere, so while we debate to what extent this substance is affecting our climate we'll pump another substance into the atmosphere with unknown consequences, but wait it's ok we can control the second substance.

Am I the only one that think this is insane?! Ok, I get the rational behind it, I can even see how someone could come up with this idea. But where does anyone on this planet, Nobel Laureate or not, get off with the arrogance to think we could pull this off.

The inconvenient reality here is that this idea will more than likely be implemented, or some variation there of. The inconvenient truth is that we're likely more capability of finding a solution to the symptom in a reasonable amount of time, than pulling together the political clout to clamp down on the problem.

Creative Industrial Design

I recently caught wind of two good pieces of news: one Ryan and Vanessa are engaged, and two Ryan has started a collaborative design studio with some like minded design professionals. I recently toured their website to check out what they have to offer, and my hat is off to the crew over at Castor Canadensis. They've been getting a lot of national press coverage lately and had several rave reviews at the Toronto Interior Design show last February. Ryan's always had an eye for design in my humble opinion as a hobbyist art/design critic, and the results from Castor Canadensis are not exception.

I serious encourage you to check out design work of Castor Canadensis at www.castordesign.ca, not only is it a very cool website but it's also displays and exhibits their work elegantly. I for one will be putting in an order for the recycled tube light when I undertake some interior design for my own apartment later this year.

Kudos to the crew at Castor Canadensis, make sure you check them out!

Good News Alert!

In the quest to seek out and identify any good news that comes through the main stream media, I'll be issuing Good News Alerts periodically. So here's the first:

Stranger saves father, 2 sons from drowning

Movie Review: Miami Vice

Director: Michael Mann
Producing Studio: Universal Studios
Trailer
KCRW Review with Joe Morgenstern
IGN.com review

With Michael Mann at the helm being entertained is nearly a sure thing. I enjoyed Last of the Mohicans, Heat, The Insider, Robbery Homicide Division, and Collateral. And in spite of my initial hesitation after screening the reviews on imdb.com, I was pleased with his latest movie.

Most of the film was shot in the similar style as Collateral with some even more free cam shots especially during the final shoot out, which helps add to the feeling of confusion. As with Heat, and Collateral all the gun shot sounds are not your typical bang bang, but ring more true to sound tracks provided by the embedded reporters in Iraq.

One of the major complaints of the critics on imdb was that the movie had no plot and seemed to jump all over the place. This is completely untrue. The difference is that Mann doesn't spoon feed the audience as most Hollywood movies do, but rather asks the audience to become engaged in the movie and connect some of the dots.

The action sequences were part of the plot and they weren't so blown out of proportion or all consuming that the bits in between feel like filler. The one weakness of the film is getting the audience to buy into the relationship between Det. James 'Sonny' Crockett (Colin Farrell) and Isabella (Li Gong). The relationship is more or less thrust onto the viewer with little to no explanation, and if you don't buy into it you're left behind for the rest of the movie since it becomes a pivotal part of the plot. Mann raises the question of how deep is too deep for undercover, but never really gets around to tackling it head on, which may have been his intent. He also doesn't take the time to provide any explanation of how a young Asian woman became the right hand of an international Columbian drug cartel. This is a fatal flaw, but since he did introduce a female mob boss (an unusually character in Hollywood) it would have been nice if he'd given the audience a little more an explanation.

All in all this was an entertaining film, and if the trailer draws you in won't be disappointed (however don't expect an action packed thriller). If you enjoyed Collateral or Heat you shouldn't be disappointed by Miami Vice either, but not much would be lost in waiting for the rental.

Movie Reviews

"A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theatre admission and the babysitter were worth it."

-Alfred Hitchcock

Miami Vice (07/30/2006)

Smack Down

First apologies for the lack of posting... it's been a long and hectic two weeks. But we're back!

So I usually don't take much notice or really care about celebrity news, whose dating/marrying/devoicing/ who (and in this town believe, ignoring this news is an active effort, celebrity news usually makes it into the 6 o'clock reports!) but this is damn funny.

If you don't know who Lindsay Lohan is you're living in a hole and shouldn't be reading this blog, so just stop reading and scurry away now, but apparently she's been partying a bit too much, and her bosses (this time Morgan Creek films) aren't buying the "I'm feeling sick excuses" any more.

The SmokingGun.com has posted a letter from the head of Morgan Creek Productions, James G. Robinson that is a serious smack down for her recent actions. Enjoy and revel in the hilarity of it all.

The Smack Down

The Lost News

Have you forgot.....

What's happening with H5N1 Avian Flu? There use to be daily reports on watches on the spread of avian flu, the latest number of people killed, when it was going to reach North American, and how much we humans really are at risk. Searches of CNN.com yielded nothing, BBC.com was still running a very detailed section, and receives topic marks. Time.com had a blog entire from July 13th. What appeared to be the latest search result from MSNBC (07/07/06) was actually written in October of last year. Reuters.com probably had the most current news informing us that today (07/19/2006) the 42nd human died from H5N1 avian flu in Indonesia. The Associated Press only had one hit for the last seven days. I even tried foxnews.com, just for kicks; their most current was from June 23rd informing us that H5N1 had mutated for human transmission.
*Searches performed with "H5N1 Avian Flu" for all agencies.

How about New Orleans and the reconstruction after hurricane Katrina? Here's what they had to offer:
CNN.com - focused article on health care staff accused of killing patients
BBC.com - again top marks extensive in depth coverage.
Time.com - excerpt address the estimated miss use of $2B in Katrina funds.
MSNBC - decent with a questionable top result (at time of writing reports on Emmy Nominations for coverage during the disaster)
Reuters.com - respectable
Associated Press - respectable
Foxnews.com - laughable (top New Orleans news story at time of writing, you have to read this)
* Searches performed with "New Orleans" for all agencies

What else has fallen by the wayside? Iraq (momentarily); Darfur conflict in Sudan (anyone even remember this?) Rebuilding after the 2004 Tsunami? (200k plus were killed, remember?) Iran? North Korea (they were firing missiles not more than 2 weeks ago)? I'm ashamed that I can' remember more... what have you been allowed to forget?

More important... what's the latest good piece of news you can remember? Someone please tell me they have something better than this.

Welcome To Texas

Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) Car Rental Terminal

Adding to the no Travel List

Well up until about a week ago, my no travel list was fairly short: Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Nigeria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia, and the Congos (Democratic Republic, Republic). Considering there are 194 countries in the world, not too bad.

The events of the last week would have me adding Israel, Lebanon, and Syria to the list. Admittedly I didn't have any real plans to go to any of these places, and they were definitely towards the bottom of the list.

I don't know enough history to even begin to try and dissect this conflict, so I won't. What I've found interesting over the last week is the shift in media focus. If you picked up a paper today or cruised major media websites you'd find nary a hint of the nuclear issues with Iran, or escalating the missile/nuclear issues with North Korea. History will tell us which of these conflicts is the more important and where we should have focused our attention, but one does have to admire the medias ability to very quickly shift or divert our attention from one part of the world to another. And in reality there is very little that we can do about it. True, with the the Internet there is greater access to search out different points of view, or seek out news stories. The reality is that in general the media has the ability to saturate the market and shift our focus at will.

Will big media help me with two questions: 1) was this the plan all along? and more importantly 2) has anyone else in our governments noticed?

Neo-Green Defined

I was going to make this the Wikipedia definition of the day, but wasn't able to find it on Wikipedia... so instead I'm going to turn to a fellow blogger and let his blog do the talking.

Thanks a lot to Mark Caserta over at 3rblogging for putting it together so perfectly.

Read about Neo-green

Best to Start at the Beginning....

It's aways best to start at the beginning of any story, occasionally you'll start at the middle or the end, but it can be more confusing, and for this story it just doesn't plan work. Though this I guess really isn't so much a story as much it'll be a commentary, not formal enough to be a dissertation, and not to far from a pitch.

One of the main reasons I started this blog was get myself to start engaging in a discussion on sustainability, specifically sustainability in the built environment, but sustainability at large. Hopefully, I won't have to discuss this with myself but if I do, so be it. There will still be posts on passing interests, noteworthy, or just plain amusing stories, and then the nonsensical. This blog is after all about Reaching Ix.

Before we even start, it's best to understand what I mean when I say sustainable or sustainability. The June 25th Wikipedia of the day was Sustainability. I don't think this is the be all and end all of what sustainable is, but I also don'’t think I'’m far off and it's definitely a good starting point.

I'’ve presented here what in my view is the definition of sustainability. It will likely be refined with time, as I am introduced and explore new ideas and modes of thinking. It is a fluid process, a work continually in progress.

Wikipedia defines sustainability as:

a systemic concept, relating to the continuity of economic, social, institutional and environmental aspects of human society. It is intended to be a means of configuring civilization and human activity so that society, its members and its economies are able to meet their needs and express their greatest potential in the present, while preserving biodiversity and natural ecosystems, and planning and acting for the ability to maintain these ideals indefinitely. Sustainability affects every level of organization, from the local neighborhood to the entire planet.

The definition of sustainability offered up in the now famous Brundtland Report (full text of report found here) of 1987: "“Meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs."” is more succinct than the Wikipedia definition but I think it provides little to no frame of reference.

The Brundltand definition doesn'’t identify any of the major participates, it doesn'’t address the nature or scope of sustainability. There are several key phrases in the Wikipedia definition that I think are integral to an understanding of sustainability.

The Wikipedia definition identifies sustainability is a systemic concept; all parts are related and are affected by one another. You cannot change one part of the system without considering the affect it will have on the whole. This is important because thinking systemically or holistically is not built into our modes of thinking. As a result, a new mode of thinking, a new set of skills, in fact an entirely new thought process is required to think systemically and integrate sustainability into our society. For a few, this comes naturally, developed through interactions with the people and the world around us. For the vast majority of us it is learnt well after other modes of thinking have been developed, requiring us to unlearn our old practices before we can study to integrate the new.

Sustainability affects every level of organization; this really only reinforces the first point but emphasizes the impact regional events can have on a nation or global scale and visa versa. The most important part of this point is the impact it has on the human psyche: what they are doing over there affects me sitting over here so I should care about what they are doing over there.

Both definitions are in agreement that at the core sustainability is about providing for the needs of today without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This is all very well and good, but it is a very open ended task. Those of us sitting in the present are able to grasp the concept of future generations, but largely lack the perception to comprehend and understand those future generations. The task needs to be framed, and importantly the Wikipedia definition provides one: our society, its members and its economies.

The needs of these three items must be not only meet their current needs, but must have the capacity to “express their greatest potential”. At the same time the items to be preserved are clearly identified: biodiversity and natural ecosystems. It is in fact a very tall order but frames the magnitude of the task well, permitting few short cuts or simply solutions. For example, banning all unnecessary travel would be unacceptable, because it would compromise the ability of the members of todayÂ’s society to express their greatest potential.

Hopefully you're starting to get the idea here that I'm not talking about going back into the caves, or that we should all go and hug a tree. If I had to use a term to describe myself I'd use neo-green: I believe that the environmental threats we face today are very real, serious and require our immediate attention, however I also believe that extreme tractics are not only ineffective, but are an unreasonable burden for our society to bare.