Let them eat lead (paint)!

Apparently, charities are having a tough time sorting through donated toys to find out which ones have been recalled. Why bother? They're just giving them to poor kids, and when it comes to measuring the value of a person to society, poor kids are in the low end. Why not just let them choke on small loose parts coated with lead?

Long time no post

I've gotten razzed by a lurker recently about not posting for nearly 2 weeks, so I figured it's time to drop a quick update.

In the past couple of weeks, I've changed my capstone project twice (and then changed it back). I've also bitched to administration at the departmental, college, and university levels, as well as to a handful of related organizations (the Council of Graduate Students (COGS), the Graduate and Professional Student Association (GAPSA), the Board of Regents) about unresolved issues in my department and the College of Design (CDes). The Dean of the college tried to cow me by invoking the abstraction of "the profession," and it was insinuated that I was "not going to be anyone's favorite person." Those responses, I think, are rooted in a misapprehension of my intentions. I'm not interested in these people being my friends - I'm interested in them doing their jobs.

Yesterday (Tues) I had a meeting with the Dean and the Director of Technology for CDes. My Director of Graduate Studies (DGS) was also there, as was one other LA student. The outcome? Well, the wireless situation in our studio will be resolved by the College at its own expense, since the organization that manages the campus network doesn't give a flying shit about students, and isn't interested in doing anything to provide service prior to upgrading the entire campus network. Nice, that. I wish I could just defer my coursework for several months too. I believe the word "assclowns" is appropriate here.

A huge issue in our department (and somewhat at the college level as well) is the poor dissemination of information from administration to students. Obviously, it's a two-way street - they need to make info available, and we need to take responsibility for accessing the info. The problem is that there is no clearly defined route for information dispersal. Amongst their methods are such elements as: a blog that I can't find, dozens of emails about everything from internships in Florida to guest speakers, signs posted in the computer lab indicating which printers are currently unavailable, the CDes lab web site, bulletin boards, and student mailboxes. My proposal was that each studio have a "studio rep" who meets with their department head on a regular basis (LA already has this - can guess who the rep is for my studio?), and that that person not only brings up concerns from studio ("the trash doesn't get emptied," and "mice ate my project") but also receives information from the department head and disperses it to their studio-mates. It gives that person more responsibility, but I think it's a good compromise.

And as a person who loves responsibility, I am happy to take on that in addition to now being our department's rep to the COGS and our newly-appointed student rep to the University's technology committee. Yeah, I got that one too. The COGS thing shouldn't be too bad - a couple hours once a month for a meeting that includes free food. The technology committee thing? Who knows - but looks good on a resume, right? "Please give me a job. I like to bitch about stuff and then get put on committees."

Is there a word that describes the experience or sensation of becoming what you most despise, or for the fear of becoming that thing?

If it wasn't for red tape, we'd have no tape at all

The wireless signal in our new (and awsom!!!11) studio is pretty weak, and cuts out occasionally. I sent an email to the department head to see if it would be possible for the IT folks to add an access point so that we'd have a better signal. Here is the response he received:

I'm afraid I can't offer an immediate fix. The university's NTS department runs the networks (wired and wireless). They are proposing a campus-wide upgrade for the wireless network on campus which they hope to get approval from the regents in October for the necessary funding. Until then, I don't think that they will be willing to add any additional wireless access points. I'll check, though.

Why am I not surprised?

Finally, my laziness pays off!

I just got an email from the University that tells me:

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) is forecasting an Air Pollution Health Advisory for the Twin Cities metro area from Sunday July 22 through Thursday July 25.

It goes on to discuss some details of the advisory, including those most likely to be affected:

Sensitive groups include those with respiratory problems such as asthma (and cardiovascular problems if it is a fine particle event) as well as senior citizens, children and physically active adults. (emphasis added)

I am vindicated in my rejection of exercise!

More quality TV

A while back I noted the quality programming available on The Learning Channel. Remember "The Man Whose Arms Exploded" and "When Sleep Goes Bad"? I figured out their programming philosophy based on those programs and tonight's line-up: "I Eat 33,000 Calories a Day," "World's Heaviest Man," and "Help! I'm a Hoarder!" I'm pretty sure that philosophy can be paraphrased as: "Sensational exploitation of people whose lives are miserable."

I have some ideas for them:
...."Isolated From Reality. A documentary examination of home-schooled kids."
...."Edward Rubberhands. A Pennsylvania family shares a genetic disorder that gives them rubbery skin and stretchable bones."
...."Circus Freaks, Nothing But Circus Freaks. You get the idea."
...."I Can't Stop Masturbating! Profiles of people with painfully chafed genitalia."
...."Manimal. Looks at the case of a man with a cat growing out of his torso."
...."Miscarriages, Miscarriages, Miscarriages! A woman who has had over two dozen miscarriages discusses her continued attempts to reproduce."
...."Satan Incarnate: The Secret Life of Dick Cheney. Geraldo Rivera leads an exclusive investigation into the Dark Lord's secret underground lair. (Asbestos suit advisory)"

Okay, that last one doesn't quite fit in with the aforementioned credo, but maybe we should include people who make others miserable?

Break out your shades, cuz the future is blazin'

The other night I saw this show - well, part of it - on the Science Channel called "2057." Actually, it was three shows. There was one about "The Body" (which I didn't see) and one about "The World" (which I also didn't see) and one about "The City" (which I saw in part). I was intrigued by this concept of the future of the city. Given my studies in landscape architecture and my leaning toward urban design, I wonder what the future of the city holds. So I thought, This should be interesting.

Do I need to say at this point that I was disappointed? Apparently the city of the future is defined entirely by technology. I did learn a few things from the 20 minutes or so that I watched.

1) In 50 years, everyone will have a personal holographic pet that follows them around and apparently keeps children safe via its GPS module. Or something. It didn't make a lot of sense at the time, and makes even less now that I see it written down.

2) In 50 years, bipedal robotic assistants will be common. They will exhibit basic human form (a torso, head, two arms, and two legs). Everyone will have one, and old people will still cherish their 35-year-old models of these devices. Really? Given the rate at which technology becomes obsolete in the year 2007, I'm finding it hard to believe that a dusty old manbot from 2020 will still be around 37 years later. Also, which would we restrict them to the limited humanoid form? Why not give them 4 or 6 legs, so they'll be more stable? And throw on 6 or 8 arms, to increase their capacity to carry our groceries.

3) In 50 years, some fogey will build his grandson a souped up holographic cartoon shark buddy, and then run away from home (but leave his archaic robot friend behind). The kid will proceed to hook up grampa's 50-year-old laptop to the 2057 version of the internet (which, by the way, will be EVERYWHERE), and put his new pal into the city-wide internet, where it will swim from one gigantic holo-billboard to another. With it, unbeknownst to the annoying brat, it will carry an ancient computer virus that will cause the entire urban network to crash. (This reveals a couple of things: again, it appears that within the next 10 years or so, technology will stop being obsolete, and backwards-compatibility will extend so far into the past as to make obsolescence ... obsolete. With any luck, they'll be able to read those 5-1/4" floppies I've got in the bottom of my desk drawer.)

4) In the ensuing chaos, traffic jams will reappear for the first time in 40 years, because automated cars and networked roads and GPS satellites will make sure that the traffic is always flowing smoothly (up to that point, at least), and there will never be any technical glitches that cause that system to fail. Thankfully, this seamless flow of traffic has also eliminated traffic accidents and related fatalities, and, as previously noted, there are never any major malfunctions in the system. Looks like Microsoft will be losing the contract on that one. (Note to self: Invest accordingly.)

5) The police force will oversee all manner of things, including the city-wide network. In the ultimate irony, the kid who brings down the city (in a performance reminiscent of Jeff Goldblum's character in Independence Day) turns out to be the son of the Chief Inspector of Integrated City Network, or whatever title this apparent police state will bestow on the person in charge.

There was no talk of the actual city of the future. Will suburbia continue to dominate the urban landscape of the industrialized world? Will multi-nodal cities spring up around present metropolises? Where will people work, relative to where they live? Will the concepts of New Urbanism finally be implemented in an effective way, or will we continue to see contemporary suburbia dressed up in ever-fancier tuxedos? Will "urban sprawl" - however you define it - be curtailed? What about poverty and race? Will segregation of the poor, blacks, and poor blacks continue to be de rigeur? What about environmental and ecological issues? How will cities of the future address the problems associated with massive impervious surfaces and the urban heat island effect? Will green space be recognized as a valuable sociocultural and physical component of the city, and will metropolitan areas be planned accordingly? Will urban planning itself become a more holistic and proactive discipline?

What about the fact that the vast majority of the world's population is (and will continue to be) located at the meeting point of water and land? What effect will rising sea levels have? What about climate change? Signs point to more frequent and severe tropical storms. Will New Orleans be remembered as the first of many coastal cities destroyed by storms?

And we havent' even looked at developing countries. What of the inconceivably massive slums that accompany so many major cities worldwide? How will continued population growth and urbanization in the developing world affect the quality of life in Bombay and its ilk?

Apparently, these are not questions that matter. Apparently, in 50 years, the city will continue to be defined as it matters to middle- and upper-class Caucasian Americans, and how technology will make their lives easier and safer.

I guess I shouldn't have expected much from a show on the Science Channel.

City planning and democracy

I'm reading an article by Paul Davidoff, published in 1965 in the Journal of the American Institute of Planners. It's called "Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning." Davidoff argues that minorities in particular, and citizen groups in particular, need a means of expressing their needs to planning commissions so that their interests are taken into account in the planning process. He notes that the government (at whatever level, but often federally funded) is traditionally the only organization involved in planning, and that it tends to plan based on what is deemed best for "those people," rather than soliciting their input in the process to find out what they really need. He recounts:

For example, last year a Federal official complained to a meeting of planning professors that the academic planners were not giving enough support to Federal programs. He assumed that every planner should be on the side of the Federal renewal program. [B]ut such support should not be expected as a matter of loyalty. In a democratic system opposition to a public agency should be just as normal and appropriate as support. The agency, despite the face that it is concerned with planning, may be serving undesired ends.

The nerve! I guess you'd have to expect that sort of unpatriotic tripe from some socialist hippie academic in the 60s!

Student apologizes for Holocaust

In light of the state of Virginia apologizing for slavery, and the fact that the movie 300 has upset modern Iranians (because of its portrayal of ancient Persians as "barbaric"), I've realized that I need to apologize to members of the Jewish community for the Holocaust. Yes, I know that my German ancestors (and ancestrices) left that country long before either World War. But who knows? Maybe some of their relatives were involved in the Nazi party at some level. At the very least, they had the gall to exist in Germany during the War, so one can only imagine what manner of horrors might have happened within 100 or so miles of them.

So, here it is: I formally apologize to all Jews for the Holocaust. I hope that makes things better.

I probably ought to apologize for the Crusades while I'm at it, despite the fact that I'm no longer a Catholic. I mean, better safe than offensive, right?

I'll have to get started on a comprehensive catalog of the horrors done by the British Empire (for the British part of my heritage) and anything else the Germans might have done in, oh, the past 10,000 years. I wonder if that includes the Germanic tribes that invaded the British Isles ... oh, shit. I now need to apologize to myself. Fuck.

Then again, how many of you owe me an apology for your ancestors' actions against mine? Money would be nice, too. It would really alleviate my mental anguish.

I'm waiting....