I realize that the fleet of space shuttles has now been retired, but in case you ever wanted to learn how to fly a space shuttle, all you need to do is learn to use these dashboard controls. (this is a 360 degree image) Speaking of space shuttles, check out this gorgeous photo a space shuttle launch.
When someone from another country does something impressive, Americans are well-
trained to be threatened. We are teaming with ressentiment. Here's an example from the July 18, 2011 edition of Time Magazine. Notice the photo on the right. It is an image of a brand new extremely long bridge, the longest sea bridge in the entire world. It is more than 26 miles long. It's extremely impressive. It is something that reminds me that the Chinese people have excelled in many ways.
But notice the text under the photo. Especially notice the line: "The Jiaozhou Bay Bridge is yet another Chinese nose thumbing."
Where does this writer get the idea that the Chinese have built the world's longest bridge to make the United States look bad? I hear this attitude all the time, exemplified by statements like this: "America is the world's greatest country." Despite the fact, of course, that there is much room for improvement in modern day United States.
Many of these comments I hear uttered by Americans are aimed at the Chinese; for many Americans, anything impressive done by Chinese people is a threat to America. More disturbing, I fear that this ressentiment of outsiders builds into paranoia about outsiders and fuels the "need" for exhorbitant and irresponsible warmongering by the United States. I remember that in the months prior to 9/11, there was intense building hostility aimed at the Chinese. Then we got distracted by the Middle East. It seems that Americans intensely need an enemy, and that if they don't actually have one, they invent one. That is a destructive technique most of our politicians use to maintain power and obeisance of the governed.
I'd recommend that Americans, especially those involved with the American media industry, work harder to keep their ressentiment in check. Time should have reacted to this amazing bridge by saying something like: "That's amazing engineering and construction! Well done, Chinese people." I'm afraid, though, that this attitude of being happy for the successes of others has become thoroughly un-American.
At this TED talk, Peter Singer explains how robots are increasingly replacing soldiers, but they are turning war into entertainment akin to video games, encouraging "war porn" videos, creating "cubicle warriors," and painting us as cold-hearted aggressors to the rest of the world. And it's about to get a lot worse, when armed autonomous systems come online. Singer argues that many ethics issues are lagging far behind the dangers of widely implementing these robot technologies. He also suggests that the problem is not in the machines themselves, but in the fact that we appear to be "wired for war."
I have worked with architects, engineers and contractors for nearly 20 years, managing the design and construction of all manner of facilities. As more than 18 of those years were in the public sector (15+ federal - military, 3+ municipal), function over form was unfortunately a primary design consideration. Where form did come into play, it was usually a more decorative stone face instead of some brick. Too often, I was working with budgets set down four to five or more years earlier, and in some cases with unchangeable scopes of work - the military construction (MILCON) program is rather rigid in that respect to ensure what is authorized is built (getting permission and funding for one thing but building another is verbotten). You can imagine that the crystal ball gets a little foggy out that far. And, by the time you get the funding to design and build, the budgets are usually too little to do what is needed, requiring creative scope cutting to get the most product for the buck. And that is why almost no federal, and very few municipal buildings are anything other than sterile designs that serve a functional and nearly never a visual need. So you can probably see why architect Thomas Heatherwick, and his firm Heatherwick Studio are such a treat for me. His designs are visually stunning, incredibly creative and are slap-the-forehead wake-ups to what we should be able to do at no more cost than traditional design. I was amazed at the very innovative solution to a common construction requirement (no spoiler...it's at the 4 minute point in the video), and even more amazed at the focus of his talk: the British contribution to the 2010 Shanghai Expo, the Seed Cathedral. Imagine deliberately designing a building with 60,000 penetrations...and then making it work.
Thirty years ago, give or take, I read Lucifer's Hammer (by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle) for the first time. Published in 1977, it has a few dated elements, but apart from those, it holds its own in my mind. The novel describes a near future after a comet hits the Earth. I enjoyed it, but one very small reference stcuk in my head. One of the characters has a library (that he preserves from the anarchy) and the one book he takes as currency to the outpost central to the novel is "Volume Two of The Way Things Work." Google "The Way Things Work" now, and you'll likely find mostly hits on David Macaulay's illustrated book. Nice...and informative, but not the one Niven and Pournelle were talking about. I searched for years, pre-internet, before finding my copy. It's an eighth edition of the one originally published in 1963 by Simon and Schuster; subtitled "An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Technology." It's a single volume, not two, and although also dated (vacuum tubes), it is still an enormous, condensed wealth of knowledge. I'm not an end-of-the-world type person, but I have several survival books of this nature (Back to Basics, The American Boys' Handybook, etc.) for my children and descendants...just in case. Not in case of the end of the world, but in case they get stranded or what have you. Driving around to look in on various construction projects today, I listened to a few TED videos and one, very short by TED 18 minute standards, conveyed in four minutes one of the more amazing ideas I've seen at TED, host of hundreds of amazing ideas. Marcin Jakubowski, a Polish American with a PhD in fusion physics, founded Open Source Ecology, "home of the Global Village Construction Set, developing community-based solutions for re-inventing local production" after starting a farm. I'll let him describe what he's done: I'm adding this to my various "Way Things Work" works. It's free, brilliant, full of maker ideals, and can deliver affordable technology to the world. Maybe I'll even be able to contribute.
