Wow, it's not every day that you realize your true position in life! I've just been informed by bartender Morgan that I am "mythical" -- which turns out to mean that I'm known (by the staff) as the "Sierra Guy" -- at the Miracle of Science bar & grill here in Cambridge, MA! I'm sure that has rather a lot to do with my enduring preference for Sierra Nevada Pale Ale beer;-) Yes, it's quite tasty, as I first discovered at the Empire Tap Room in Palo Alto, CA back in the pre-dot-communist 1990's. Here in New England there are few places better than the Miracle to partake...
Showing posts with label P. Show all posts
Showing posts with label P. Show all posts
29 December 2008
Sierra Guy ~ My Mythical Moniker at the Miracle!
Wow, it's not every day that you realize your true position in life! I've just been informed by bartender Morgan that I am "mythical" -- which turns out to mean that I'm known (by the staff) as the "Sierra Guy" -- at the Miracle of Science bar & grill here in Cambridge, MA! I'm sure that has rather a lot to do with my enduring preference for Sierra Nevada Pale Ale beer;-) Yes, it's quite tasty, as I first discovered at the Empire Tap Room in Palo Alto, CA back in the pre-dot-communist 1990's. Here in New England there are few places better than the Miracle to partake...
02 February 2008
Improv Everywhere's Frozen Grand Central :-)
Paul (via Brian) from GeekPress spotlights this great art performance -- Frozen Grand Central -- where hundreds of people froze for five minutes in the middle of New York's train station...
MIT 2020 ~ Imagining Institute as LEED Campus
I came to MIT as a freshman from sunny suburban California in the mid-1980s. At the Institute I discovered Project Athena, a campus-wide computing network which gave me and thousands of fellow students access to high-end workstations, online email, instant messages, networked files, served applications, and more, all functionality we today would call the Internet & Web.
In other words, we saw the future first.
Project Athena made MIT a predictive microcosm, a living lab, a place where my classmates and I experienced everyday artifacts ten years before the rest of humanity. But only in the narrow domain of information and computing, alas. Because, by contrast, the physical environment of the Institute was (and remains) an aesthetic embarrassment and environmental anachronism, an ugly concrete jungle, electrically inefficient and thermally porous, ill-maintained and locally-optimized, kluged together, and worse. Even small details tell all -- despite over a century of closed-loop temperature feedback control systems, my dormroom heater was open-loop and had two settings: On & Off. Although our motto is Mens et Manus, we at MIT have not practiced what we preach about energy and innovation.
Things are improving, however, so I'm increasingly optimistic. The new MIT Sloan expansion project is supposed to be the first really integrated design effort and promises to become a top-tier LEED Building. Plus there's growing interest in Greening MIT, in Walking the Talk on campus, and in addressing global climate and energy challenges more generally.
But beyond good intentions, new technical inventions, and LEED Buildings, what we really need are complex, scalable solutions of enormous magnitudes. We need LEED Cities, and even LEED Countries, and ultimately we need to become a LEED Civilization on a vital planet Earth.
That's all rather much for us to tackle alone or at once, but we can commit to things closer to home: let us make MIT a pioneering LEED Campus by 2020, a microcosm of urbanized humanity to-come, and a beacon of inspiration for how we might craft a vital, prosperous, sustainable future. This would mean inter-connecting things which are usually seen as separate silos: renewing our physical plant, transforming operating practices, empowering students and leveraging extracurricular activities, orchestrating inspiring educational initiatives, and building institutions to shape and deliver the deep research agendae embodying the principles & practices we seek more widely.
In the upcoming dozen years, let us band together, rally resources, and act coherently to pursue a five-fold path:
(1) Research -- Recognizing that truly integrative solutions are needed, including especially innovations in the applied social sciences, let us commit to raising $100-200 Million to create an Institute for Systems Strategy & Innovation (ISSI) at MIT to pursue a global research agenda embracing energy & environment, cities & society, and the dynamics of individual & organizational change. To properly study complex systems, such an ISSI would enable both thinking-and-doing: both collecting systems data through a globally distributed Innovation Observatory Network (ION) and practicing solutions for-real on actual systems, including our own MIT urban campus as Living Lab.
(2) Education -- To educate and inspire new generations of MIT students to both imagine and enact constructive change, let's create Institute-wide elective class offerings in Systems Strategy & Innovation and other emergent domains. Let's scale-up financial support for systems-oriented degree-programs and also minors in energy, environment, and more.
(3) Extracurriculars -- Since so many solutions have emerged from interested grassroots student initiative, let's leverage this by financing a $5-15 Million per annum exploratory research fund and seed grant mechanism to float tangible exploratory projects, perhaps largely managed by and for students.
(4) Infrastructure -- Let's envision an future campus with a truly integrative design and plan, where we cut across infrastructural and aesthetic and social silos, and instead weave together a really great, livable, economic, and vibrant environment. This means crafting a master-plan which will emerge over time to spotlight key needs, including building new capacity, for instance, expanding the MIT Co-Gen facility, as well as systematically retrofitting one to three buildings per year, and crafting the institutional ability to scale and replicate doing these things.
(5) Operations -- We can and must aim for greatness in execution at the Institute, setting and delivering on bold overall operating goals: for instance, let's systematically reduce emissions and waste; cutting 1-3% out of each annual energy budget, on a per-capita basis; deploy metering & feedback sub-systems to enable individual incentives & behavior modification; shoot for a carbon-neutral MIT Sloan by 2015 and a carbon-neutral campus-wide by 2020, and more.
Bold, but not impossible.
The MIT of 2020 should be a microcosm of what we want our planet to become.
In other words, we saw the future first.
Project Athena made MIT a predictive microcosm, a living lab, a place where my classmates and I experienced everyday artifacts ten years before the rest of humanity. But only in the narrow domain of information and computing, alas. Because, by contrast, the physical environment of the Institute was (and remains) an aesthetic embarrassment and environmental anachronism, an ugly concrete jungle, electrically inefficient and thermally porous, ill-maintained and locally-optimized, kluged together, and worse. Even small details tell all -- despite over a century of closed-loop temperature feedback control systems, my dormroom heater was open-loop and had two settings: On & Off. Although our motto is Mens et Manus, we at MIT have not practiced what we preach about energy and innovation.
Things are improving, however, so I'm increasingly optimistic. The new MIT Sloan expansion project is supposed to be the first really integrated design effort and promises to become a top-tier LEED Building. Plus there's growing interest in Greening MIT, in Walking the Talk on campus, and in addressing global climate and energy challenges more generally.
But beyond good intentions, new technical inventions, and LEED Buildings, what we really need are complex, scalable solutions of enormous magnitudes. We need LEED Cities, and even LEED Countries, and ultimately we need to become a LEED Civilization on a vital planet Earth.
That's all rather much for us to tackle alone or at once, but we can commit to things closer to home: let us make MIT a pioneering LEED Campus by 2020, a microcosm of urbanized humanity to-come, and a beacon of inspiration for how we might craft a vital, prosperous, sustainable future. This would mean inter-connecting things which are usually seen as separate silos: renewing our physical plant, transforming operating practices, empowering students and leveraging extracurricular activities, orchestrating inspiring educational initiatives, and building institutions to shape and deliver the deep research agendae embodying the principles & practices we seek more widely.
In the upcoming dozen years, let us band together, rally resources, and act coherently to pursue a five-fold path:
(1) Research -- Recognizing that truly integrative solutions are needed, including especially innovations in the applied social sciences, let us commit to raising $100-200 Million to create an Institute for Systems Strategy & Innovation (ISSI) at MIT to pursue a global research agenda embracing energy & environment, cities & society, and the dynamics of individual & organizational change. To properly study complex systems, such an ISSI would enable both thinking-and-doing: both collecting systems data through a globally distributed Innovation Observatory Network (ION) and practicing solutions for-real on actual systems, including our own MIT urban campus as Living Lab.
(2) Education -- To educate and inspire new generations of MIT students to both imagine and enact constructive change, let's create Institute-wide elective class offerings in Systems Strategy & Innovation and other emergent domains. Let's scale-up financial support for systems-oriented degree-programs and also minors in energy, environment, and more.
(3) Extracurriculars -- Since so many solutions have emerged from interested grassroots student initiative, let's leverage this by financing a $5-15 Million per annum exploratory research fund and seed grant mechanism to float tangible exploratory projects, perhaps largely managed by and for students.
(4) Infrastructure -- Let's envision an future campus with a truly integrative design and plan, where we cut across infrastructural and aesthetic and social silos, and instead weave together a really great, livable, economic, and vibrant environment. This means crafting a master-plan which will emerge over time to spotlight key needs, including building new capacity, for instance, expanding the MIT Co-Gen facility, as well as systematically retrofitting one to three buildings per year, and crafting the institutional ability to scale and replicate doing these things.
(5) Operations -- We can and must aim for greatness in execution at the Institute, setting and delivering on bold overall operating goals: for instance, let's systematically reduce emissions and waste; cutting 1-3% out of each annual energy budget, on a per-capita basis; deploy metering & feedback sub-systems to enable individual incentives & behavior modification; shoot for a carbon-neutral MIT Sloan by 2015 and a carbon-neutral campus-wide by 2020, and more.
Bold, but not impossible.
The MIT of 2020 should be a microcosm of what we want our planet to become.
21 January 2008
19 January 2008
13 January 2008
Robin Williams, Genius Comic ;-)
I saw both Dead Poets Society and Good Morning Vietnam clips (and more) just now on the Charlie Rose interview and was reminded once again of the comic genius of Robin Williams. Are you a Poet? "The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?" Designing fashion in Vietnam? "If you're going to fight, clash!"
If you're a Scot, don't be offended. If four-letter w*rds offend, don't watch. This is his priceless description of the Invention of Golf...
If you're a Scot, don't be offended. If four-letter w*rds offend, don't watch. This is his priceless description of the Invention of Golf...
12 January 2008
Tallest Buildings. Where are the Greenscrapers?
As you can see dynamically on Skyscraperpage.com, there are lots of tall buildings built, planned, under construction (and destroyed). But where are the greenscrapers? 
Robot Doors, Electric Glass, Digital Lighting
For reasons of energy conservation, security, and pure aesthetics, I believe robot doors will be an essential fixture of the future...
Also, electric glass will be everywhere, not merely ultra-hip bathrooms...
Finally, digital lighting will pervade all our spaces...
Also, electric glass will be everywhere, not merely ultra-hip bathrooms...
Finally, digital lighting will pervade all our spaces...
Seamless Art, Electric Attire, Computational Couture
Seamless v.3 happens January 30, 2008 at the Museum of Science in Boston, MA. Art. Technology. Beauty. Seamless. 
10 January 2008
Nano Car, Macro Consequences...
Robin Chase, co-founder of Zipcar and GoLoco.org, fears the congestive and ecological consequences of more vehicles in the same amount of space. Add 40% more cars and... pray she says about the TATA low-cost Nano car.
Instead she argues for more sustainable and viable solutions for transportation, things which influence people's behavior through incentives, including congestion pricing, market-rate parking, car sharing, and more, as her solutions-over-time graphic illustrates...
Instead she argues for more sustainable and viable solutions for transportation, things which influence people's behavior through incentives, including congestion pricing, market-rate parking, car sharing, and more, as her solutions-over-time graphic illustrates...
09 January 2008
Jeff Blander of HST & Bienmoyo on HighTechFever
I interviewed Harvard-MIT Health Science & Technology educator Jeff Blander today on my HighTechFever TV show. Jeff is collaborating with Utkan Demirci to create HST.939 Designing & Sustaining Technology Innovation for Global Health Practice. He also co-directs Bienmoyo, a non-profit foundation for health innovations, together with Philip Kong and Vikram Kumar.
07 January 2008
McDonough's Greenscraper
William McDonough, ecological architect and co-author of Cradle to Cradle, crafted this Tower of Tomorrow for Fortune (see also the inhabitat Treescraper article)...
Zero City, Masdar in Abu Dhabi
inhabitat describes Norman Foster's Green Desert Utopia, the Foster + Partners design for Masdar in Abu Dhabi, which aims to be a zero-waste and zero-CO2 city (see also the Masdar Initiative)...
06 January 2008
Aerion Supersonic Executive Jet
The new Aerion supersonic executive jet promises to bring Concorde-like speeds to the needs of modern capitalists. I want one. See article in Economist entitled Winging It.
03 January 2008
Sirocco Skybar in Bangkok
My German friend Patrick Paulisch just returned from Asia travels and sent links to his favorite locales in Hong Kong, Macau, and especially this very spectacular Sirocco Skybar in Bangkok... 
31 December 2007
Running on Oobleck! Vibrating Oobleck!
The right mix of cornstarch and water becomes a non-newtonian fluid. Like a solid under stress, like a liquid otherwise! It also behaves in a stunningly bizarre fashion when vibrated at various frequencies!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.svg.png)
