Subject: Viridian Note 00014
X-UIDL: 9f257fe7e8ce0551ad5cc12117ed79ff
Key concepts: MIT Media Lab, Remembrance Agents, just-in-
time information; context-aware applications; history-rich
digital objects; link criticism
Attention Conservation Notice: it's a way-cool, thought-
provoking rap about some digital vaporware that doesn't
actually exist in the marketplace
Links: http://www.media.mit.edu/~rhodes/RA
http://www.bespoke.org/viridian/
http://www.thehub.com.au/~mitch/V-Notes/ViridianIndex.html
http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades/links.html
Entries in the "Big Mike" Viridian Design Contest:
http://www.pinknoiz.com/graphics/bigmike.gif
http://www.spaceways.de/BigMike/Mike.html
From: wex@media.mit.edu^* (Alan Wexelblat)
X-NSA: radar terrorist supercomputer Qaddafi SEAL Team 6
Regarding Note 00012 and the link to:
http://www.media.mit.edu/~rhodes/RA
I figure I should comment on this one, since Brad Rhodes
works in the office next to me. RA is the Remembrance
Agent, an implementation of a class of software agents
with interesting ideas/properties.
The Remembrance Agent works as a form of computerized
associative memory, a non-conventional information
retrieval agent. The Remembrance Agent is long-lived,
background-operating, and watches your current context.
One of our Media Lab sponsors, British Telecom, has
adapted it to work on PCs with Microsoft Word. In the
version on the Web, it's an Emacs editor buffer in which
you might be reading email, writing a paper, or whatever.
The principle is the same.
As you work, the Remembrace Agent watches your context
and uses keywords extracted from that context (the current
paragraph, the last page you read, etc.) to make queries
against a database of information you've given it. This
database could be your personal email files, the Science
Citation Index, the CIA World Fact Book, etc. If there
are any interesting hits from these queries, a small
summary of them (usually 1 line) is shown in a separate
window.
You can ignore this window and keep working, or if
something catches your eye, you can click on it to get the
full text of the Remembrance hit.
Another Remembrance Agent (not yet publicly released)
is called Margin Notes. It operates as a Web proxy
server. It annotates Web pages for you on the fly with
potentially appropriate hits from your databases. These
annotations are contained in small boxes placed on the
right of the Web page, simulating the effect of "notes in
the margin" of a paper-based book.
Key phrases to remember for this work and other work
in our group (including my own Footprints tools) are:
just-in-time information; context-aware applications;
history-rich digital objects.
My own work on digital interaction history relates to
the "Avoid the Timeless, Embrace Decay" idea. In a digital
context, I believe it's erroneous to state that "History
Accumulates." Draw your own connections.
(((bruces remarks: thank you, I will. In the next
century it will be a self-evident truism that cyberspace
rots. Software decays in an unconventional, nonphysical
way, but it definitely decays and the social, commercial
and technical consequences will become more and more
painful and obvious with each passing year. Tools that
emphasize software decay and digital historicality are of
intense Viridian interest. A software agent that
partially automates human historical awareness would be a
particular Viridian darling == if it were ever out of
beta.)))
Alan Wexelblat MIT Media Lab - Intelligent Agents Group
http://wex.www.media.mit.edu/people/wex/
Topic 18 of 42 [cultures]: Viridian List
Response 13 of 136: Stacey Vura (stacey) * Mon, Nov 16, 1998 (16:09) * 2 lines
man, that is an impossible amount to scroll through while telnetting.
(I mean physically imposible)
Topic 18 of 42 [cultures]: Viridian List
Response 14 of 136: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Mon, Nov 16, 1998 (21:06) * 2 lines
have you read read | more ?
Topic 18 of 42 [cultures]: Viridian List
Response 15 of 136: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Mon, Nov 16, 1998 (21:07) * 3 lines
Or r | more
That will pause every screen.
Topic 18 of 42 [cultures]: Viridian List
Response 16 of 136: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Wed, Nov 18, 1998 (10:59) * 149 lines
From bruces@well.com Thu Nov 12 08:12:29 1998
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 08:12:29 -0600 (CST)
To: Viridian List
From: Bruce Sterling
Reply-To:
Errors-To:
Subject: Viridian Note 00015
X-UIDL: 4e34d4cc61a1d77f6bc2483a49033e88
Key concepts: Weather Violence, permanent corporate
brands, air conditioned clothes, genetic bamboo,
reflective algae, orbiting solar mirrors, floating
aircraft hubs
Attention Conservation Notice: This is highly
imaginative, wacky sci-fi speculation. It serenely
ignores real-world problems in technical development, such
as start-up costs, return on investment, technological
lock-in, lawsuits, labor unions, and corporate dominance
of the political process. It offers no hard evidence to
back its wild claims; there's not so much as a single
cocktail-napkin calculation here. Maybe it's
irresponsible, but I dote on this kind of thinking, I find
it spiritually refreshing.
Links: http://www.well.com/user/mgoldh/
Entries in the "Big Mike" Viridian Design Contest:
http://www.pinknoiz.com/graphics/bigmike.gif
http://www.spaceways.de/BigMike/Mike.html
http://weber.u.washington.edu/~r1ddl3r/bigmike.html
From: mgoldh@well.com* (Michael Goldhaber)
Dear Viridian CEO Bruce,
The whole thing is a terrific idea, I certainly hope it
keeps going.
A few points.
The term "Global Warming" needs improvement.
"Global warming" sounds much too comfortable. The
core demographic of Viridian old people might imagine
themselves spared the need to move to Florida. It's not
mere "warming." It would be better described as "Global
Storming" or perhaps "Violent Weather Crime." In this
vein, explicit examples of "Criminal Weather Violence"
might help.
One small item from the 11/03/98 New York Times: the
dense atmospheric smoke from burning rain forests causes
more powerful, positively charged lightning, instead of
the usual negatively charged variety. This violent
lightning can result in more forest fires, hence more
smoke. This might create a chain reaction of accelerating
Weather Violence. Why get all excited about phantoms
like the failure of Social Security in 2030, when all us
30-60 year olds have the exciting prospect of genuine
calamity?
Why favor evanescent design instead of Permanent Good
Things? Corporations believe their brands to be eternal,
and like nothing better than the idea of having their
brand-name in the landscape forever. Permanent Good
Things would definitely have cachet. A diamond is
forever, as is a Coach bag, and a Brand X something-or-
other. You could count on leaving this brand-named gizmo
to your grandchildren because it will keep working so well
and use such a tiny amount of energy! Evanescent things
require energy to make, and then are gone. Not so cool!
Banning the production of dumb books, as an earlier
comment suggested, has zero appeal. Converting forest
biomass to books is a damn sight better than burning the
forest, because it sequesters CO2. Burning books, even
ones you don't like, would be very bad. Likewise,
plastics are a better use of fossil hydrocarbons than
fuel.
Here are some suitably far-out Viridian tech
suggestions.
Genetically engineer bamboo and grow it on-site as
walls and supports. Fast-growing vines for roofs.
Bioluminescent leaves for light at night. Direct
photosynthetic conversion of sunlight into usable energy
Sunlight is converted into infrared that is then
trapped on our overheating planet. Increasing the
earth's reflectance can diminish that problem. Engineer
a fast-growing floating alga that would produce white foam
over large sections of ocean, for instance. This alga
would likely block life-giving light from the ocean depths
and starve many surface seabirds, but those might be the
least of our problems.
You might filter the sun's rays somewhere between
earth and sun. A number of sun-shields, each a mere
hundred miles in circumference, placed in solar orbit
might do the trick. The eventual goal is human ability
to control global climate deliberately. Climate control
may seen absurd, but climate control is also of course the
implicit goal of the Kyoto Accord and Rio treaties. It's
probably easier to award government contracts for giant
orbital mirrorshades than it is to get everyone to burn
less.
The most fecund Viridian approaches find ways to
gratify our desires with less fuel use. As we are now
delighted to carry phones with us, walkman gadgets,
portable computers and all the rest, let us go one simple
step further and air-condition our clothes. This
obviates the need for fuel to heat and cool large volumes
of space. Furthermore, everyone can enjoy their favorite
temperature without conflict.
That leaves lighting and especially transportation as
our fuel hogs. The former principle of "Just-in-time
production" must be augmented by the proposed Viridian
principle of "Where-You-Are production." Make what you
want, on the fly, from cheap materials at hand, using
general-purpose tools powered by imported recipes and
software.
We want efficient, elegant means of travel. Aircraft
burn most of their fuel during take-off and landing
procedures. One way to finesse this is to accelerate and
decelerate planes through electromagnetic methods that
allow energy recovery upon landing.
Or, today's land-based aircraft hub system could be
replaced with giant high-altitude (hub) balloons. High-
altitude transport craft would dock at these balloons,
passengers then moving to specialized departing planes for
descent. Giant floating hubs would be far more
entertaining than today's mundane airports, especially if
they themselves moved, perhaps in a circular route above
the landscape. The high-altitude hub crew would of
course absorb many x-rays and gamma rays from cosmic
radiation. A good reason to cut back on travel.
Thanks for your attention, more later.
Michael H. Goldhaber (mgoldh@well.com)
Topic 18 of 42 [cultures]: Viridian List
Response 17 of 136: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Wed, Nov 18, 1998 (11:01) * 254 lines
From bruces@well.com Tue Nov 17 21:49:29 1998
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 21:49:29 -0600 (CST)
To: Viridian List
From: Bruce Sterling
Reply-To:
Errors-To:
Subject: Viridian Note 00016: Bio-Refineries
X-UIDL: 4d65d811e93d7dd67d981dca5310f761
Key concepts: bio-refineries, ethanol fuel, genetic
technology, microorganisms, cellulose, garbage, CO2
Attention Conservation Notice: it's somewhat technical;
there are speculative elements added; it's hard to
prettify a report about big rusty factories eating garbage
Links: none
Entries in the "Big Mike" Viridian Design Contest:
http://www.pinknoiz.com/graphics/bigmike.gif
http://www.spaceways.de/BigMike/Mike.html
http://weber.u.washington.edu/~r1ddl3r/bigmike.html
http://powerbase-alpha.com/bigmike
From: dhlight@mcs.net^^^* (David Light)
David Light remarks: I thought a reminder of cheerful
biotech trends was in order. The interesting thing about
this recent New York Times ethanol article (as opposed to
the 100 others I've skimmed over the last 20 years) is
that serious things are being financed with (mostly)
private capital at a time when oil prices are in the
basement.
"Plant Will Make Fuel Oil From Agricultural Garbage"
By MATTHEW L. WALD
(((bruces remarks: I have cut the living daylights out of
Mr Wald's fine article and added a number of comments of
my own.)))
"ENNINGS, Louisiana. The plant was opened in 1977
to refine crude oil into gasoline, but when that proved
unprofitable, it was converted in 1981 to run on
molasses, and then in 1987, on grain. Bankruptcy
followed."
(((The bankruptcy of *all* oil refineries is on the 21st
century's agenda. We might replace them through clever
design, or we might simply run out of oil, but oil
refineries are goners either way. It's wise to consider
alternative uses for all this refinery hardware.)))
"Now, with rust on its tanks and pipes and grass
growing through the gravel on its paths, construction
workers are converting it yet again, to make fuel alcohol
from agricultural garbage. (...) The new owners of the
plant here, BC International Corp., with a subsidy from
the U.S. Energy Department and help from a genetically
engineered, patented bacterium, hope they are on the cusp
of a new era."
(((Staggering back from the brink of the grave, a
rust-eaten, Gothic, Cajun oil refinery becomes home of
gene-spliced voodoo gumbo. It's a new era all right --
the Dawn of the Dead.)))
"'It is a bio-refinery,' said Stephen Gatto,
president and chief executive of the company. (...)
"'The input costs are close to zero,' said Dan
Reicher, assistant secretary of energy. 'In some cases
they are less than zero, because people are paying to get
rid of these materials.'"
(((The economics of "less than zero" costs have a
nice Internet IPO feel to them == "We're selling dollars
for ninety cents each, and making it up on market
share!")))
"And if it works, he said, the technology could also
reduce the accumulation of gases in the atmosphere that
are thought to cause climate change, and could lower smog.
(((It'll be a sign of intellectual life in American
journalism when this "thought to cause" phraseology
finally vanishes. Yes, the climate is changing, and yes,
gases are doing it. Cigarettes cause cancer. Politicians
have sex. Let's move on.)))
"The plant here in this south-central Louisiana town
will run on bagasse, a part of the sugar cane plant
usually considered useless, as well as on rice hulls, a
currently useless part of the rice plant. Later, it may
digest sawdust as well."
(((The American sugar industry is notorious for its
price supports. Rice hulls and sawdust, however... as
feedstock for a value-adding process, those are hard to
beat. There are few nations on earth untroubled by rice
hulls or sawdust. Or both.)))
"Around the country, energy experts have their eyes on
clippings from suburban lawns, prairie grasses and other
woody materials, as fuel for the new process. (...) In
the current generation of ethanol plants, the fuel is the
corn kernel; plants using the new technology could digest
the cob and the stalk as well. (...)"
(((We should definitely keep a wary eye out for any
entity that digests corn, plus its cobs, plus its
stalks.)))
"These materials are made of cellulose, which
contains large amounts of sugar, the basic ingredient
required for alcohol production. But the sugar in
cellulose is in a chemical form that traditional
fermentation processes, which use yeast, cannot digest.
(...) BC's plant uses a bacterium, KO11, also used in the
pharmaceutical industry, to break down the sugars.
"The natural bacterium on which KO11 is based likes
to eat sugars and produces a chemical called acetic acid.
But then came gene splicing. Dr. Lonnie Ingram, a
microbiologist at the University of Florida's Institute
of Food and Agricultural Sciences, borrowed four genes
from another organism, Zymomonas mobilis, to make the
bacterium produce alcohol instead.
"Around the country, researchers are working with Z.
mobilis to find other approaches, but BC International's
will be the first commercial plant to make ethanol from
woody material. The plant will take about 18 months to
build and will cost $90 million, including $11 million
from the Energy Department.
"Existing ethanol plants do little to save energy or
reduce carbon build-up in the atmosphere. They can use up
to seven gallons of oil or its energy equivalent to
produce eight gallons of ethanol, experts say. The energy
is used by the coal in power plants and diesel fuel in
tractors that plant, fertilize and harvest the corn, and
in petroleum-based fertilizer. But using waste for fuel ==
especially waste that might otherwise be burned and in the
process dump carbon dioxide back into the air == could
allow production of seven gallons of ethanol from one
gallon of oil."
(((Biomass is an attractive technology, especially
for continental superpowers with plenty of spare real
estate, but these hidden carbon subsidies are troubling.
Cheap oil can make fake "alternatives" look better than
they are, lowering costs but spewing CO2. Smart germs are
no panacea. There are probably many ways to use cheap
commercial bacteria profitably, while creating CO2
pollution even worse than cheap crude oil.)))
"And whatever the feedstock, whether trees or
grasses, using it makes room for new growth, which will
draw carbon back out of the atmosphere. This would be
true, backers point out, wherever ethanol from cellulose
might catch on, in this country or abroad, especially the
Third World, where demand for motor fuel is rising."
(...)
(((Third Worlders have a healthy skepticism for
clever technologies that are said to be a bonanza for poor
people, even though they never quite work out in the
daily life of rich people.)))
"The plant here, on the banks of the Mermentau River,
is designed to produce 20 million gallons a year (...)
Several others using cellulose are planned around the
country. One company, Masada Resource, of Birmingham,
Ala., says it will break ground next year on a plant in
Middletown, N.Y., that will use the cellulose in
household garbage. In that case, sales of ethanol will not
turn a profit but will help offset the cost of garbage
disposal, in a region where a large landfill is scheduled
to close soon. It will not use KO11, but a different
proprietary process for rendering the cellulose into
digestible form."
(...)
(((This article has many fine specifics, but contains
one mysterious oversight. The subject under study here is
a bug that makes booze out of sawdust. This is a
troubling prospect. Once Cajun bootleggers swipe a few
thimblefulls of stray K011 out of the plant, we can expect
a swamplands moonshine bonanza the likes of which the
world has never seen.)))
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
*******************************************************
WHY GENETICALLY RETROFITTED REFINERIES ARE NOT VIRIDIAN
*******************************************************
They cost 90 million dollars each.
American sugar cane is a boondoggle.
Ethanol projects are not new and have a bad track record.
It's hard to make agricultural waste and rotting organic
garbage seem sexy.
Ethanol in fuel is a piecemeal improvement in the existent
refinery/gas station/ internal combustion complex.
Has K011 been properly "designed for evil"? How are we
supposed to police new germs? Through patent and
copyright law? That's not much help in the thriving black
markets for illegal drugs or pirate software.
The abuse potential for illegal stills that eat sawdust
and lawn clippings would seem to be pretty extreme.
Brewer's yeasts turn up in the heart of federal prisons;
even prisoner-of-war camps have illegal stills.
Prohibition wars leave police forces reeling and riddled
with corruption. This is a brand-new drug technology, and
a potential security nightmare.
***************************************************
WHY GENETICALLY RETROFITTED REFINERIES ARE VIRIDIAN
***************************************************
They might realistically improve the CO2 situation.
They embrace decay.
They eat what they kill: it's thrifty to re-use
abandoned oil refinery stock, especially since we'll
eventually be stuck with all that hardware anyway.
Incremental improvements may not be glamorous, but they
are by no means to be despised. If ethanol works without
requiring glamour, we can save our time and attention for
promoting something else.
A working, profit-making genetic bio-refinery would open
the door to *custom-designed* genetic bio-refineries.
These could be highly novel and unusual structures with a
revolutionary impact on the chemical and refining
industries generally. To see daylight, though, they need
a money-making app in the contemporary world.
FORMATTING NOTE: Peter Denning (pjd@cne.gmu.edu^^) has
pointed out that it would be easier to ignore Viridian
Notes if they came with titles. We will be titling the
Notes henceforth, and will probably go back and
retrospectively title the earlier ones. Bruce S
Topic 18 of 42 [cultures]: Viridian List
Response 18 of 136: Stacey Vura (stacey) * Wed, Nov 18, 1998 (17:58) * 4 lines
arrggh!
stop posting the huge ones Paul!
just gimme the URL!
(Thanks for the info though!)
Topic 18 of 42 [cultures]: Viridian List
Response 19 of 136: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Thu, Nov 19, 1998 (08:56) * 2 lines
Since when can't you handle a huge one?
Topic 18 of 42 [cultures]: Viridian List
Response 20 of 136: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Thu, Nov 19, 1998 (12:58) * 183 lines
From bruces@well.com Wed Nov 18 15:32:29 1998
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1998 15:32:29 -0600 (CST)
To: Viridian List
From: Bruce Sterling
Reply-To:
Errors-To:
Subject: Viridian Note 00017: Viridian Aphorisms
X-UIDL: e267adef767aa80bbc2df207633fec85
Key concepts: aphorisms, slogans; Viridian Ranking
Attention Conservation Notice: Though aphorisms are
laudably small in bandwidth, they can occupy shocking
amounts of attention, perhaps haunting you for life.
Links: http://www.bespoke.org/viridian/
(See Note 00011 for details on the"Big Mike" Viridian
Design Contest. See Note 00002 for details on the
Viridian Ranking System.)
Source: Most of these aphorisms come from THE VIKING BOOK
OF APHORISMS by W. H. Auden and Louis Kronenberger, first
assembled in 1962.
Entries in the "Big Mike" Viridian Design Contest:
http://www.pinknoiz.com/graphics/bigmike.gif
http://www.spaceways.de/BigMike/Mike.html
http://weber.u.washington.edu/~r1ddl3r/bigmike.html
http://powerbase-alpha.com/bigmike
http://rampages.onramp.net/~jzero/
http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades
http://www.57thstreet.com/viridian/
******************
VIRIDIAN APHORISMS
******************
(((bruces remarks: we Viridians won't have time to
accumulate our own wisdom of the ages, but we can
certainly take the wisdom already to hand and put our own
vivifying spin on it. "An epoch doesn't so much reinvent
itself as reimagine its heritage" -- STERLING)))
It takes time to ruin a world, but time is all it takes.
FONTENELLE
A historian is a prophet in reverse. SCHEGEL
Persistent prophesy is a familiar way of assuring the
event. GISSING
Our ignorance of history makes us vilify our own age.
FLAUBERT
Historical textbooks always seem to make three claims
about the era they are dealing with: it was a period of
change; it was essentially a transitional epoch; and the
middle classes went on rising. EAGLETON
Each generation criticizes the unconscious assumptions
made by its parents. It may assent to them, but it brings
them out in the open. WHITEHEAD
The historian must have some conception of how men who are
not historians behave. FORSTER
Progress is the mother of problems. CHESTERTON
The obscurest epoch is today. STEVENSON
>From such crooked wood as that which man is made of,
nothing straight can be fashioned. KANT
Every luxury must be paid for, and everything is a luxury,
starting with being in the world. PAVESE
Long years must pass before the truths we have made for
ourselves become our very flesh. VALERY
To know oneself is to foresee oneself; to foresee oneself
amounts to playing a part. VALERY
How many of our daydreams would darken into nightmares,
were there any danger of their coming true. LOGAN
PEARSALL SMITH
Among all human constructions the only ones that avoid the
dissolving hands of time are castles in the air. DE
ROBERTO
(((More to come. People who send us a good Viridian
aphorism will earn a chevron. bruces)))
****************
VIRIDIAN RANKING
****************
The Viridian Ranking System has been hand-created
with a vintage fountain pen and fine art paper.
Scars, flaws, and imperfections add character and
are an inherent part of the product.
jon@lasser.org^^^**
rsewell@cix.compulink.co.uk^^^**
jim@smallworks.com^^^^^^^^*
dhlight@mcs.net^^^^^*
rinesi@espacio.com.ar^^*
SeJ@aol.com^^*
steffen@eskimo.com^^*
wex@media.mit.edu^^*
whiz@ricochet.net^^*
LangiG@parl.gc.ca^*
weasel@gothic.net^*
hinne@spaceways.de*
jzero@onramp.net*
mgoldh@well.com*
pinknoiz@pinknoiz.com*
r1ddl3r@bp13.u.washington.edu*
richardd@reeseco.com*
tux@powerbase-alpha.com*
jonl@well.com^^^^^
Ian.Griffin@Corp.Sun.COM^^^^
Cooper409@aol.com^^^
cthomas@10fold.com^^^
tor@araneum.dk^^^
bobmorris@mediaone.net^^
bperry@shore.net^^
geert@xs4all.nl^^
pacoid@fringeware.com^^
pjd@cne.gmu.edu^^
rdm@test.legislate.com^^
robot@ultimax.com^^
tbyfield@panix.com^^
thack@design-inst.nl^^
TuckerV@frogdesign.com^^
ASKornheiser@prodigy.net^
Basilisk@mcione.com^
ccraig@ucsd.edu^
c.ted.ballou@intel.com^
dave@va.com.au^
dc@technomedia.com^
dlandry@rohan.sdsu.edu^
gagin@inter.net.ru^
gail@well.com^
ggg@well.com^
gordy@nytimes.com^
infinite@beaming.com^
jrc@well.com^
kallen@physics.ucsd.edu^
kaiser@acm.org^
katie@wtp.net^
kirk@mcelhearn.com^
klilly@neog.com^
Matt@MediaServ.com^
mann@cse.unsw.edu.au^
melcher@unix.nets.com^
merlan@visa.com^
mwiik@brysonweb.com^
nehrlich@sfis.com^
philg@martigny.ai.mit.edu^
quest@inetarena.com^
roger@bayarea.net^
rthieme@thiemeworks.com^
sblack@library.berkeley.edu^
shassinger@dev.tivoli.com^
steven@iisl.co.uk^
sdhurley@ican.net^
StJude@aol.com^
tdav@wam.umd.edu^
tenev@digbody.dux.ru^
udhay@pobox.com^
viridian@access.spring.net^
WarrenE@aol.com^
whh@uclink4.berkeley.edu^
Topic 18 of 42 [cultures]: Viridian List
Response 21 of 136: Tim Guenther (TIM) * Thu, Nov 19, 1998 (13:01) * 1 lines
I think that you ought to open a new conference for this viridian list stuff. It's taking this one over.
Topic 18 of 42 [cultures]: Viridian List
Response 22 of 136: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Thu, Nov 19, 1998 (13:02) * 2 lines
Well we could unlink it from cultures, where it now lives.
Topic 18 of 42 [cultures]: Viridian List
Response 23 of 136: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Sun, Nov 22, 1998 (08:06) * 99 lines
From bruces@well.com Sat Nov 21 17:27:19 1998
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1998 17:27:19 -0600 (CST)
To: Viridian List
From: Bruce Sterling
Reply-To:
Errors-To:
Subject: Viridian Note 00018: the Viridian Model Family
X-UIDL: 3ffe4a80ccfc9ea6f689e63e3b526b0f
Key concepts: propaganda, self-referentiality, model
family
Attention Conservation Notice: Propaganda theory, and
pretty good theory, too. Lacks specifics.
Links: http://www.bespoke.org/viridian/
Entries in the "Big Mike" Viridian Design Contest:
http://www.pinknoiz.com/graphics/bigmike.gif
http://www.spaceways.de/BigMike/Mike.html
http://weber.u.washington.edu/~r1ddl3r/bigmike.html
http://powerbase-alpha.com/bigmike
http://rampages.onramp.net/~jzero/
http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades
http://www.57thstreet.com/viridian/
http://www.ioc.net/~bini/bigmike.htm
From: steffen@eskimo.com^^^** (Alex Steffen)
Bruce:
Big Mike is cool. I'm personally eager to have a
microbe mascot gracing the many consumer products of which
I have need.
However, to be serious about propaganda, we need
an Everyman-Hero figure, and, especially, a Model Family.
I once did a college paper analyzing common propaganda
motifs regarding lifestyle and culture. The "model family"
is a major propaganda motif because it works. People are
absolutely dying to be told what their lives ought to be
like.
This comment is not meant to asset my own moral or
intellectual superiority. It's human nature. We learn by
modeling the behavior of others, not just in childhood,
but throughout our lives. In the absence of strong models
in our direct experience, media supplies them.
There's an interesting intensification of this process
going on in contemporary culture, for three reasons.
First, we have many more fundamental choices than our
recent ancestors, in the cultural, career and consumer
worlds. It's harder to make up our minds.
Second, our systems of aesthetic judgement and moral
instruction have broken down. Who sets the standards for
artistic beauty? In 1900 you probably could have named
ten people in charge of the job.
Third, there is intense propaganda competition
between companies providing lifestyle accoutrements. They
compete so intensely to advertise their way into our
worldview that the concept of a noncommercialized human
life has disappeared completely.
In short, people are starved for a vision of the good
life. Viridianism could give this to them, flat out.
However, we live in an age of irony. A frontal, 20th-
century-style propaganda assault (like those used by the
Nazis, Stalin and Henry Ford) won't work. We can't simply
proclaim products to be cool. People have to be let in on
the joke, allowed to realize that they are participating
in a social mores change movement.
What's cool about Viridian luxury is not just that
it's more beautiful, fun and classy than the way that mere
proles live. Not is it about the heady rush of self-love
you get by being a good eco-citizen Earthling.
Viridianism about understanding sustainable design,
fashion trends, and propaganda as a participant as well as
a consumer. You become both subject and observer, in a
healthily ironic and self-referential way.
So the Viridian Model Family, unlike the model family
of the New Deal agricultural agitprop films, is not merely
the symbolic vanguard of a better way of life. They
understand how odd and amusing this concept must be. They
crack jokes to the camera as we learn how to live our
self-aware, hedonistic eco-lifestyle. We respond in real
time and craft the script as we go.
Alex Steffen (steffen@eskimo.com)
(((bruces remarks: Point taken. So who are these people,
and what do they look like? How do they feel, and what do
they mean?)))
Topic 18 of 42 [cultures]: Viridian List
Response 24 of 136: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Wed, Nov 25, 1998 (06:54) * 156 lines
From bruces@well.com Tue Nov 24 11:55:28 1998
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 11:55:28 -0600 (CST)
To: Viridian List
From: Bruce Sterling
Reply-To:
Errors-To:
Subject: Viridian Note 00019: Viridian Domains of
X-UIDL: fb4db095c088336c75e3174e33235b90
Interest
Key concepts: Viridian categories, Viridian internal
politics, automoderating groupware, anarchy, symbols,
Burning Man, Los Alamos National Laboratory Urban Security
Project, disaster response, art projects
Attention Conservation Notice: Mark Beam, who was the
host for the first Viridian speech at the Yerba Buena
Center for the Arts in San Francisco, is getting a few
various matters off his chest here. Some knowledge of the
San Francisco art scene might aid reader comprehension.
>From infinite@beaming.com^* (Mark Beam)
Links:
http:www.burningman.com
http://geont1.langov/urbansecurity.htm
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/story/16077.html
http://www.beaming.com
Entries in the "Big Mike" Viridian Design Contest:
http://www.pinknoiz.com/graphics/bigmike.gif
http://www.spaceways.de/BigMike/Mike.html
http://weber.u.washington.edu/~r1ddl3r/bigmike.html
http://powerbase-alpha.com/bigmike
http://rampages.onramp.net/~jzero/
http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades
http://www.57thstreet.com/viridian/
http://www.ioc.net/~bini/bigmike.htm
Mark Beam writes:
((and bruces comments in triple parentheses))):
As the proud host for the formal physical launch of
the Viridian Movement and the eloquent proclamation
documented in Note 00001, I offer these first
observations.
Viridian postings should be categorized for future
reference. Viridians with certain disciplinary expertise
should gather items of wisdom within a particular domain.
A disciple of economics, of energy, of networks, a
minister of propaganda, etc., could supplement the ideas
arising from the list by adding a more comprehensive
approach.. Here design becomes crucial, political and
dangerous.
(((Absolutely, brother.)))
Key junctures that link Viridians together could grow
future self-organizing limbs. To do so without some form
of human delegation may be possible, but would seem to
require initial filtering, sophisticated object oriented
databases and search engines.
(((Even more absolutely! Bring on the all-wise
automoderating robot! While you're at it, let's run it
for public office.)))
Disciples or ministers, recorders etc. would not
entitled to any political capital within the movement,
other than true Viridian currency == Viridian reputation
capital. This top down approach would be balanced by
having Viridians assigning emphasis/aesthetic guidance in
the particular areas both in the formation of categories
and in discovery by example (bottom-up).
(((It sounds so plausible, poetic, and beautiful, doesn't
it? )))
Regarding visually effective design principles
criticized in Note 00005, I am reminded of Larry Harvey's
two basic principles of spontaneous human organizationm
established over years of experiments in the Nevada
desert. 1) Distribute people randomly, and they will
spontaneously generate some order, first by forming
circles...not squares or triangles... but circles around a
point of interest. 2) Points of interest (attention) are
created by a) Movement of axis in space- i.e. hold
something up high, (a mobile?), or b) Movement of space
around axis- (i.e. a mobile?).
What Viridian icon do we hold up high or put in
motion?
(((How about Larry Harvey himself? But wait a minute
== I've actually met this "self-organizing anarchist"
Larry Harvey, and as the Pope-Emperor of the Burning Man
festival, Larry works harder at organization than anybody
I've ever met.)))
What does it mean to hold something up high, or to
put something in motion in Viridian terms? What does
this mean in other less networked, but high CO2 emitting
countries? Our visual icon should have global appeal.
Existing infrastructure to leverage: The Los Alamos
National Laboratory has created the Urban Security
Project, using centralized computer systems to help cities
respond to earthquakes, chemical or biological attacks,
and other unforeseen disasters.
(((Now you're talking! We need to rent one of those Urban
Security babies and put it in charge of the mailing
list.)))
The researchers are currently looking at what happens
in these emergency situations to transportation, energy
distribution, weather, infrastructure, water distribution,
ecosystems, economy, geology and demographics.
(((See, it's got the problem all broken-down into
convenient Viridian categories already!)))
The program is designed to help cities anticipate
problems in their emergency response systems and make
changes to improve their overall readiness.
(((Security systems like this are of intense Viridian
interest. What are "cities," if not the people in the
cities? Systems of this sort should be promulgated
worldwide and made publicly available as a matter of
course. Every environmental hazard in one's own
environment should be made visible to you at the click of
a web button. Not only that, but you should be allowed an
honest and immediate look at how they handle these
problems in *other* cities.)))
Finally, this reminds me of a concept for an art
project I've developed. It consists of a Dow Jones-style
tickertape machine, which scrolls genuine corporate
symbols, followed by a different sort of symbolic
tally...for instance,. down three trees (symbol for
certain quantity of dead trees), up two solar powers (sun
symbol). This scheme symbolizes the true economic measure
of "growth" in terms of environmental destruction.
Perhaps this could be Viridianized to reflect CO2
emissions/remissions.
Mark Beam (infinite@beaming.com^*)
"Where a society is defined by its boundaries, a culture
is defined by its horizon == a phenomenon of vision." J.
CARSE
Topic 18 of 42 [cultures]: Viridian List
Response 25 of 136: Udhay Shankar N (udhay) * Thu, Nov 26, 1998 (03:07) * 1 lines
Are all the people on the list at fringeware here as well ?
Topic 18 of 42 [cultures]: Viridian List
Response 26 of 136: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Sat, Nov 28, 1998 (17:19) * 3 lines
No, Uday, I think they are spread around the country. Thanks for
checking in, hope you check back!
Topic 18 of 42 [cultures]: Viridian List
Response 27 of 136: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Tue, Dec 1, 1998 (00:49) * 136 lines
From bruces@well.com Mon Nov 30 21:35:30 1998
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 21:35:30 -0600 (CST)
To: Viridian List
From: Bruce Sterling
Reply-To:
Errors-To:
Subject: Viridian Note 00021: The World Is Becoming
X-UIDL: 644167522b02ca5741290a1ca28b0c2f
Uninsurable, Part 1
Key concepts: Weather violence, insurance costs
Attention Conservation Notice: Grimly accurate, can
cause feelings of despair; comes in multiple parts; is
mostly about insurance, one of the world's dullest topics
Links: http://www.munichre.com/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/warnings/waterworld
Entries in the "Big Mike" Viridian Design Contest:
http://www.pinknoiz.com/graphics/bigmike.gif
http://www.spaceways.de/BigMike/Mike.html
http://weber.u.washington.edu/~r1ddl3r/bigmike.html
http://powerbase-alpha.com/bigmike
http://rampages.onramp.net/~jzero/
http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades
http://www.57thstreet.com/viridian/
http://www.ioc.net/~bini/bigmike.htm
http://www.pcnet.com/~thallad/mike.htm
The "Big Mike" contest will end in one week.
Source: Associated Press wire service,
Austin American Statesman page A7.
Saturday, November 28, 1998
"World's Weather Losses Will Set Record This Year"
"Much damage is human-inflicted, report says, citing
deforestation as key factor"
by Donna Abu-Nasr, Associated Press
"WASHINGTON == Violent weather has cost the world a record
$89 billion this year, more money than was lost from
weather-related disasters in all of the 1980s, and
researchers in a study released Friday blame human
meddling for much of it.
"Preliminary estimates put losses from storms,
floods, droughts and fires for the first 11 months of the
year 48 percent higher than the previous one-year record
of more than $60 billion in 1996.
"This year's damage was also far ahead of the $55
billion in losses for the entire decade of the 1980s.
Even when adjusted for inflation, that decade's losses, at
$82.7 billion, still fall short of the first 11 months of
this year.
"In addition to the material losses, the report said,
the disasters have killed an estimated 32,000 people and
displaced 300 million == more than the population of the
United States.
"The study is based on estimates from the Worldwatch
Institute, an environmental research group, and Munich Re,
a reinsurer based in Frankfurt, Germany, that writes
policies to protect insurance companies from the risk of
massive claims that might put them out of business.
"The report says a combination of deforestation and
climate change has caused this year's most severe
disasters, among them Hurricane Mitch, the flooding of
China's Yangtze River and Bangladesh's most extensive
flood of the century. (...) The most severe 1998
disasters listed in the report include Hurricane Mitch,
the deadliest Atlantic storm in 200 years, which has
caused more than 10,000 deaths in Honduras, Nicaragua,
Guatemala and El Salvador, and caused damage estimated at
$4 billion in Honduras and $1 billion in Nicaragua. (...)
Central American nations have experienced some of the
highest rates of deforestation in the world, losing from 2
percent to 4 percent of their remaining forest cover each
year, said the study.
"The costliest disaster of 1998, according to the
report, was the flooding of the Yangtze River in the
summer. It killed more than 3,000 people, dislocated
about 230 million people, and incurred $30 billion in
losses. (...)
"Figures include infrastructure losses and crops but
not long-term effects such as increased health costs and
environmental damage. Prices in 1998 dollars."
Bruce Sterling remarks:
This is, needless to say, a remarkably grim report.
The year is not yet over, but the evil weather of 1998 has
already caused more global havoc than was created in the
entire 1980s. Worse yet, it's a fifty percent jump from a
mere two years ago. The trend for two years hence, and
ten years hence, is anything but reassuring.
Still, it's pleasant to have some stark facts and
figures on the subject of just how badly off we are. "A
decade's worth of weather damage in a single year" --
that is a useful and provocative soundbite.
This is not armageddon. We will not be suddenly
rendered extinct because of our misdeeds with C02. Thirty-
two thousand dead people are a remarkably modest number of
dead, considering that the planet boasts about 6 billion
people now. Even a country with the limited
organizational resources of China lost a mere 3,000 lives
when floods displaced a full 230,000,000. Even $89 billion
dollars is a modest sum compared to the wealth destruction
entailed in the Asian financial crisis.
But flooding is expensive. Hence the concentrated
interest of Munich Re, the German insurance group. Munich
Re were first brought to my attention by David Light
(dhlight@mcs.net^^^^^*). Munich Re, also known as
Munchener Ruck, would seem to be a remarkably interesting
enterprise, for an insurance firm.
In the next Viridian Note, we will examine some of
Munich Re's analytical tools, and the company's expert
conclusions on the subject of global warming. Then we
will speculate on what this means and how it feels.
Bruce Sterling (bruces@well.com)
Topic 18 of 42 [cultures]: Viridian List
Response 28 of 136: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Thu, Dec 3, 1998 (07:06) * 270 lines
From bruces@well.com Wed Dec 2 21:39:25 1998
Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 21:39:25 -0600 (CST)
To: Viridian List
From: Bruce Sterling
Reply-To:
Errors-To:
Subject: Viridian Note 00022: The World Is Becoming
X-UIDL: 74334706074459f5132b0d56c78f5e99
Uninsurable, Part 2
Key concepts: Weather violence, insurance costs
Attention Conservation Notice: Highly speculative; is
over 1,600 words long; is still about insurance, which is
still one of the dullest topics in the world
Links: http://www.munichre.com/
Entries in the "Big Mike" Viridian Design Contest:
http://www.pinknoiz.com/viridian/logos.html
http://www.spaceways.de/BigMike/Mike.html
http://weber.u.washington.edu/~r1ddl3r/bigmike.html
http://powerbase-alpha.com/bigmike
http://rampages.onramp.net/~jzero/
http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades
http://www.57thstreet.com/viridian/
http://www.ioc.net/~bini/bigmike.htm
http://www.pcnet.com/~thallad/mike.htm
As we were stating earlier in Viridian Note 00021, the
German insurance company "Munich Re" is in the business of
assessing weather violence.
I'll let The Times of London address some of
MunichRe's financial conclusions:
Source: The Times of London, November 9, 1998
"Climate disaster map pinpoints 'no-go' areas for
insurers
By Nick Nuttall, Environment Correspondent in Buenos Aires
"Vast areas of the world are becoming uninsurable as
global warming trigg
