Nihilistic Neighborliness

PHOTO: Ken Duffy

Don't get me wrong. I have two small children and care deeply about the future. Then comes Saturday, and we're out of milk. Time to get in the minivan and drive to WholeFoodsWildOatsTraderJoesFreshMarket and buy some organic cow juice.

There! I have done it.

I've just doomed my progeny by procuring breakfast essentials for Saturday morning cartoon-watchers!

The folks at Worldchanging.com are seriously challenging me, and our communities, by pushing against the greenest of our most well-intentioned green-consumerism, by declaring: "But there is a danger in thinking that all we have to do is design better substitutes for the products we already consume, and then convince people to buy them."

"Neighborliness, Innovation and Sustainability"
by Alex Steffen | April 7, 2008 9:51 AM

clipped from www.worldchanging.com It's an attractive fantasy -- instead of diving a Hummer, living in a McMansion and shopping at the Gap, I can drive a Prius, live in an EcoMansion and shop at Gaiam -- but it's still playing make-believe, because the systems that support and enable those choices are themselves unsustainable. Highways are destructive, even when full of hybrids; sprawl is unsustainable, even when the individual houses are green; we don't even know what sustainable clothing would look like, much less how to make conventional retail green. No, if we're going to avert ecological destruction, we need to to not only do things differently, we need to do different things. We need to work to build dense, walkable neighborhoods composed of green buildings served by bike infrastructure and transit and green infrastructure, suffused with good design choices and smart technologies that let us live in a different set of relationships with our stuff, the materials we use and the energy that powers our lives.

Poppin' and Lockin' and Rappin'

An old MTV clip from '85 starring a very young Alfonso Ribeiro, sent to me by High School buddy, and master breakdancer, Jarrell McAlister.

I want to get a hold of this simply for the complex information graphics demonstrating how to execute moves like the Moonwalk and The Reverse Centipede.

clipped from www.youtube.com

The Melancholia of Social Networking

IMAGE: Melencolia I by Albrecht Dürer.

Even with the quantifiable explosion of social networking services--and the perceived multitude of ways to connect to other people--the feeling of isolation and disconnectedness continues to pervade our modern culture.

The disturbing results continue to be an increase in both depression and suicide.

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention reports that an average of 19 million Americans suffer from depression. Of these suffers, over 30,000 will take there own lives, with almost 20,000 of these suicides are aged 15 to 34-years-old.

Every day, approximately 80 Americans take their own life, and 1,500 more attempt to do so.

Depression has, of course, many causes: economics, family history, neurobiology and microchemistry, physical or emotional trauma.

However, the most profound source seems to be a person's interpersonal relationship with their surroundings and the people around them.

More than half (55%) of all online American youths ages 12-17 use online social networking sites, according to a 2007 national survey of teenagers conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. So why is suicide among young people rising?

From Sense of belonging a key to suicide prevention
Wed Apr 2, 2008 3:13pm EDT

clipped from www.reuters.com NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The rate of suicide among young people is triple what it was 50 years ago, and while it remains exceedingly rare for college students to kill themselves, it is always a tragedy -- and always preventable, according to a New York psychiatrist and authority on suicide. Helping people who feel isolated to connect or reconnect with others is also important, he added. "Connection and a feeling of social belonging is I think the most important initial step in preventing suicide," Kahn said. "Once the person feels that sense of trust in belong to the community, they may be more receptive to suggestions that they seek help, if they haven't sought it already." They can also look to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (http://www.afsp.org/), the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/), and the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention (http://mentalhealth.samhsa.gov/suicideprevention/fivews.asp) for information.

April Fool! The Purpose of Pranks

Pranks. The good, the bad and the downright dangerous--from American fraternities to New Guinea initiations--pranks initiate their subjects into the larger group. If they survive!

clipped from www.nytimes.com Psychologists have studied pranks for years, often in the context of harassment, bullying and all manner of malicious exclusion and prejudice. Yet practical jokes are far more commonly an effort to bring a person into a group, anthropologists have found — an integral part of rituals around the world intended to temper success with humility. And recent research suggests that the experience of being duped can stir self-reflection in a way few other experiences can, functioning as a check on arrogance or obliviousness. What Hoffman called the good prank, which humorously satirizes human fears or failings, is found in a wide variety of initiation rites and coming-of-age rituals. In a paper published last year, three psychologists argued that the sensation of being duped — anger, self-blame, bitterness — was such a singular cocktail that it forced an uncomfortable kind of self-awareness. How much of a dupe am I? Where are my blind spots?

The Art of Healing

How better aesthetics in hospitals can make for happier—and healthier—patients by Virginia Postrel

clipped from www.theatlantic.com But why assume good medicine must come with bad design? Most hotel guests care more about reliable reservations than about crisp duvet covers. That doesn’t mean they want ugly rooms, though. Given the choice, they’ll go for the hotel that offers the best of both. When Starwood Hotels, which owns the Westin, Sheraton, and W brands, upgraded its rooms in the late 1990s, the rest of the hotel industry followed. Under similar competitive pressure, medical facilities react the same way. When Baby Boomer women started choosing hotel-like birthing centers over hospital delivery rooms, hospitals quickly wised up. Now even rural hospitals offer well-designed labor-delivery-recovery suites. “People do shop, and they will actually sometimes change an obstetrician because they want a certain hospital experience,” says Malkin. Much of the time, however, patients don’t know they can do better.

Red Army Choir Does Lynyrd Skynyrd

From Nellie Durand (wife of double-whammy greatest living Elvis and Brett Farve fan)...

clipped from blog.wired.com What do you get when you take a Finnish rock group that calls itself Leningrad Cowboys, back them up with the Red Army Choir, and put them in front of a stadium full of screaming Russian teenagers to sing Lynyrd Skynyrd's Sweet Home Alabama? Thanks to this YouTube clip (via Russia Blog), the answer to that burning question is now just a click away.

Apple developing full-fledged digital lifestyle fitness companion

Link via Mark Ott:

clipped from www.appleinsider.com A series of patent filings discovered by AppleInsider this week provides an overview of four distinct components that will comprise the system, including an iTunes-like software application, hardware-based heart rate and physiological sensors, a rewards tracker, and a component to facilitate synchronous group activities. "The lifestyle companion system also can interview the user about non-health related topics, e.g., spirituality/religion, identity (e.g., sense of belonging), relationships, career, financial condition, environment, hobbies, interests, other personal information, and goals regarding the same," Apple wrote in one of the filings.

Podcast for Christopher Fuller @ VizThink

Using Design Visuals To Communicate Ideas: A Podcast from Vizthink '08 by Jeff Parks

clipped from www.boxesandarrows.com In late January I had the pleasure of attending the VizThink conference in San Francisco. As an Information Architect I wanted to learn how to use different ideas around design to assist me with “big IA” and “little IA” projects. The folks kind enough to join me in this conversation include: Christopher Fuller Griot’s Eye Daniel Rose Bell Canada Ken and Rebecca Hope Motive8 Infographics Noah Iliinsky Complex Diagrams Listen to podcast >>

The Wisdom of Designing Cradle to Cradle

Gavin Blake in Australia, suggests viewing this video from TED 2005. William McDough quotes Kevin Kelly, "There is no end game, there is only The Infinite Game."

Architect and designer William McDonough asks what our buildings and products would look like if designers took into account "All children, all species, for all time." A tireless proponent of absolute sustainability (with a deadpan sense of humor), he explains his philosophy of "cradle to cradle" design, which bridge the needs of ecology and economics. He also shares some of his most inspiring work, including the world's largest green roof (at the Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan), and the entire sustainable cities he's designing in China.

SXSW Interactive 2008 Sketchnotes

Rohdesign is the site of designer Mike Rohde, who writes about design, sketching, writing, mobile computing, technology, travel, cycling, books, music and more.

via Lee Potts of Visual Being.

clipped from www.rohdesign.com SXSW Interactive 2008 Sketchnotes are up! I've just completed scanning, tuning and uploading 34 pages of sketchnotes I captured in my pocket Moleskine sketchbook at SXSW Interactive earlier this week. With the SEED Conference sketchnotes being pretty popular, I'm curious to see how these SXSW sketchnotes are received. While sketchnotes capture concentrated concepts for each session well, I think they're even better at awakening ideas stored in the minds of session attendees. Speakers Featured Here are the speakers featured in the SXSW Interactive Sketchnotes: Naz Hamid, Veronica Belmont, Casey McKinnon, Ryan King, Glenda Bautista, Ariel Waldman, John Gruber, Michael Lopp, Jim Coudal, Dan Rubin, Didier Hilhorst, Eris Stassi, Lea Alcantara (sorry for the Leah misspell in the notes!), Ben Brown and Frank Warren.