Do uber geekiness and a Carfree ride make your 103 MW OR facility all better?

Today Google (GOOG) announced their newest creation. The three wheeled uber-geek ride they intend to use to expand the Street View service into carfree or car-inaccessable areas starting in the UK. And while fietspad world wide remain very much in the dark when it comes to online mapping software, it seems to me just that more green-wash on their increadible appitite.

Don’t get me wrong, we both know it takes serious amounts of power to return sub-second query results on a repository the size and bredth of theirs. And what footpath frequeting pedestrian or cyclist wouldn’t love to look at the passage of his way from the frame of his iPhone? Still it seems that pictures from bikes are plentiful all over the world.

It amazes me what useless things we can accomplish when profit motive is assigned to the project. And the good ones are jokes?

I just read a tweet which went “Business, Entrepreneurs, Scientists and Engineers MUST lead us out of our Environmental Challenges.” As you might expect I’m going to have to take exception to this statement and I’m going to do it here since it will most certainly take me many more than 140 characters.

It’s pretty important to understand what “our Environmental Challenges” are when we consider possible solutions. There are a daunting number of them, but almost all of them come back to two essential causes if we exclude the dynamic nature of any environmental system. That is to say, when we take responsibility for the impact our behaviors have levied on these systems.

First, and foremost, consumptive behaviors are often responsible for a great deal of impact on any environmental system. That is, many of us consume way more than we need to and thus have a much larger footprint than is arguably necessary. What’s worse, most of us live our lives within a framework of consumptive behavior. The aforementioned framework is largely the product of business, enterprise, science and design.

For instance, we drive on road ways because this is the transportation infrastructure we collectively inherit when we become members of society. More often than not great efforts are made to keep drastic paradigm shifts at bay in an effort to preserve the functionality of the dominant social framework. General Motors doesn’t import or make Twike style vehicles even though this unconventional alternative mode of transportation has been around and functional for a long time. The National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration has prevented use of these vehicles on public roads in the past. The greater bulk of transportation engineering has been focused on building bigger and fancier vehicles rather than more efficient solutions forever and a day. Even the construction of transportation infrastructure systems has been squarely aimed at expanding the capacity (and thus the footprint) since asphalt was first laid down to connect two points on a map.

Second I contend then that there is an institutional inertia at work here that will make it nearly impossible for “business, entrepreneurs, scientists and engineers” to address anything other than their primary concerns. How then should they lead us anywhere other than exactly where we’re already headed?

Don’t get me wrong, it would be wonderful if someone from any of these disciples would stand up and point the way. But why should they? In fact, if they did would we bother to follow? Science has been validating the realities of these environmental challenges for years. They’ve been pointing out that unless key behaviors are addressed and changed the impacts of these behaviors will persist, accumulate, and eventually result in social and environmental catastrophe. Yet society remains content operating well within the mandates of existing social frameworks and makes no meaningful attempts to alter these constructs.

Nope, in this case there’s no one who will sign up to be the universal scapegoat, mandate the behavioral changes necessary and thus garner the blame that comes with these wholesale alternations in our level of expectation. The tweeter in this case is asking for an extraordinary martyr from a pool of individuals who have no interest in an impending crucifixion. So is it any wonder that no one has yet stepped forward to take personal responsibility for the environmental sins of a whole species?

Here’s an interesting alternative, take as much personal responsibility for *your* environmental footprint as you can handle. Individual consideration of individual impact allows you to make all the right choices or at least the choices you’re ready to make. The principle is pretty straight forward just stop ignoring your individual complacency and happily look for the better way.

I think there are some very important problems that don’t get worked on naturally. That is the market does not drive the scientists, the communicators, the thinkers, the governments to do the right things. And only by paying attention to these things, and having brilliant people who care, and draw other people in can we make as much progress as we need to.

I in particular enjoyed the above quote from BillG’s February TED presentation. I think his socially unconventional approach to problem solving, if studied, might yield a patterned framework that could be applied to many situations to good end.

Highly recommend the presentation, its worth your time.

A recent thread on the carfree list I subscribe to stirred up some discourse and thought. The thread was started with the following post by IanEnvironmental.

In response to those who think that cycling is not possible for many people…. with criterion for cycling includes flat landscapes, good weather and fit, healthy people who are not too old or too young – or so many assume.

I have seen people who do not fit the criteria so many have using cycling for shopping and visiting friends in their community. These include:
A person with severe learning difficulties on a tractor like quadricycle (four-wheeled cycle)

A man who can only walk with the aid of crutches using a tricycle to get to the shops

A blind man cycling on a tandem

A man with one arm cycling on a standard bicycle

Other less able-bodied people are discovering that they can continue to use bicycles for mobility by upgrading to an e-bike, or fitting a small petrol engine.

Young children are already towed in carts behind bikes, ride in cargo bicycles or have their own seats on a bicycle in front and/or behind and adult

Most of Copenhagen’s cyclists continue to cycle through the snow, the Japanese cycle in extremely humid conditions, and people in Africa cycle in high temperatures.

The human body does adapt and what at first appears to be terrain unsuitable for cycling soon becomes relatively easy to cycle.

We should not be agreeing that groups of people, with various abilities or of certain ages, or living in certain climates or on hilly terrain cannot cycle. We should be saying that they can – with a bit of enlightenment, the right equipment and a bit of training.

Yes, these groups CAN cycle and they Do cycle – perhaps not where you are, but where people have tried, they have found that they CAN! Others CAN, but won’t – or don’t know they can… — IanEnvironmental

First, let me say that I agree with IanEnvironmental completely. There are plenty of people worldwide who, at first glance, may appear to lack the ability to cycle yet manage the job day-in and day-out.

Second, let me offer up the observation that it’s not usually the above folks who quash the idea of a shift in transportation so readily. In fact, many of these people view their human powered transportation option as a method to achieve greater freedoms and expanded opportunities. Rather, in my experience, its people who are entirely capable of riding a bicycle, but who lack the motivation which routinely suggest that this mode of travel is “impossible”. And while out right denials of the mode are routinely rare when talking to an avowed cyclist (I just rode where and you wouldn’t want to hurt my feelings, right?) the excuses for straddling the saddle and moving one’s self around are exceptionally abundant.

More often than not these ideas come from a preconceived notion of what is and what is not convenient rather than any limitation of possibility. I would suggest that there are very few adults that recall the freedom that their bikes gave them as children. They understand the liberty that their car offers because they use this mode regularly and any change in that arrangement appears to them difficult. Unlike water, humans choose to take the path that appears to offer the least resistance (regardless of the reality of the situation).

I believe that there are only a couple of possibilities here that will help essentially lazy people choose the more efficient and workable solution and even then adoption won’t be universal. The first is the limiter of physical impossibility. If, for instance, the cost of driving exceeds anyone’s ability to pay then necessity will drive people to adopt a new mode. The bicycle becomes a candidate for widespread adoption in this case. It’s got everything most people are looking for at the cut throat rate of sweat equity. And not very much sweat either.

Changing the criteria of evaluation can have a positive effect on adoptive trends. This recent article

It’s about 3:00 PM Sunday afternoon and I’m presently sitting in a very comfy seat aboard the Coast Starlight Amtrak train headed home. I’ve spent a majority of the day with my little netbook working on some process documentation for my job. Periodically taking breaks to look out the window and the rapidly greening spring or to write. I needed to sync a version of a file I had saved on Mesh earlier this week so, as I’ve done periodically since I started this particular venture two weeks ago, I hooked up my phone and got on the network. The Internets must love me.

While I’ve got it all set up and running and we’re running between metropolitan areas of northern Oregon (3G, yeah baby!) I figured I’d update this here blog with a few thoughts regarding this trip.

Bus Travel

Busses are not designed for tall people. This becomes immediately apparent to you if you happen to be one of these people. Leaving from Ellensburg late at night the bus was not very full of people. I started the 1,100 mile journey to Grand Junction seated near the front of the bus heading south through the wet darkness of south central Washington, but I could, because of the lack of riders spread out. All that changed when I changed busses in Oregon. The next leg of the ride was jam packed with people and while the seats are comfortable, I’m much too tall to realize this potential comfort.

It didn’t matter how I sat in my seat, my knees knocked against the seat in front of me. By Idaho my knees were bruised. Utah there was some swelling. And by Colorado, my arrival was at 2:00 AM, I was stiff and having trouble sleeping. Other than that however, the bus was a real bargain and an adventure to boot.

I made new friends and had a great time. There were, from time to time, some creepy folks who tended to the rear of the coach, but mostly everyone was just like you or me … only on the bus.

Connectivity was great! Mostly 3G with periods of EDGE and only a very few outages which meant that while I was getting my butt carted through various and sundry states I was also able to get plenty of work done.

Train Travel

Shortly after I arrived in Colorado the knee thing had me looking for an alternative for the return trip. At least, I figured, I can get up and walk around if the seats are crammed one against the other on Amtrak. Lucky me, they’re not. There’s like a soccer field separating the seat rows on the big western train coaches. That black clad knob on the left is my knee, I could almost lift up my booted feet and stretch them straight before me while seated and not touch the seat ahead of me. This is coach mind you!

Even better the seats really recline. Sleeping was not a problem either night.

Connectivity hasn’t been an issue either. The train coaches are wired for 120 Volt AC (two sockets per row) and I’ve only been in the dark twice that I know of since leaving Grand Junction Friday afternoon. Maybe a little more EDGE than 3G, but all in all I’m getting what I need to get my work and recreation done.

The train takes a little longer to get me where I’m going, but it does so in a style that I couldn’t achieve any other way. Plus the ratio of creepy people to folks-you-wouldn’t-mind-talking-to has been much improved. If Microsoft, Acer, AT&T or Samsung wanted to improve their image on the national theater they would send out more people like me to simply ride around on the train demonstrating these great technologies in action. They’ve gotten this one on the house I suppose.

Getting Sick

Pretty much sucks where ever you happen to be or whatever you happen to be up to. I got sick on this trip and it, somewhat predictably, sucked. First, huge thanks to my parents who took care of me during the 48 hour fever like I was still a child. Being sick would have sucked even more had they not helped me out. I felt like hell for a considerably annoying period of time and I was angry at myself for coming down with the bug right in the middle of when I should have been having a ball. Hell the party was scheduled after all.

Working from Main Street Bagels

Alright, it wasn’t the only place I worked from while I was in the Grand Valley, but it was where I went to most often. I met other tele-workers while I was there and these were people who also tended to frequent the place if that’s any indication of the quality of service which has been achieved at Main Street Bagels. Thanks in particular to Adrian who made me feel like a “regular” right from the start.

So summary, bus is ok, train is way better. Eat bagels and drink coffee at Main Street Bagels if you can. And above all, avoid getting sick. If you can’t, realize that it’s nice to have parents that will take care of your graying, sad, and sorry case despite all the boogers and phlem.

My lunch time occupation today is to complete the garden design for the read of the house. And who can blame me for taking the time I’d normally spend eating to think a little about where my next meal might be coming from. Besides the sun is out and the air is warming up, after I spend a little time here I plan on getting out into the beds to work on building a solar/cold frame to help get my greens going and maybe spend some time working on the vertical supports for tomatoes and the like. Lots to do, and daily I can feel spring working its way into our lives.

The irrigation system (low volume drip system from Rainbird) will be going in soon after I lift the solarization covers from the beds. This will require some digging if I want to make care of the surrounding lawn possible. Digging that I’m not necessarily looking forward to that’s for certain.

I just completed a bed lay out (which will employ the Square Foot Gardening method devised by Mel Bartholomew). For this outline I plan on layering some acetate sheets over the top so that I can scrawl in what and when for each block. Maybe I’ll even get the affair enlarged and sealed so that it acts like a big white board dedicated to the endeavor. The good news is that the planning is starting to pay off. That makes me a happy, sane gardener who may actually enjoy, literally, the fruits of his labor.

I’m really starting to wish that I had a soil thermometer because it would really be nice to understand where my beds are at these days. I’ve been researching the link between germination times and soil temperature and you can see that for any particular garden crop there is an optimum planting soil temperature. If the soil is too cold you’ll experience zero to no growth and if it’s too high the germination times will likewise be exacerbated. Knowing this about the plants does no me no good if I don’t know what my soil temperatures are or if I lack any sort of trending data which will help me optimize plantings. Without this I’m merely scattering seeds and hoping for results.

So a soil thermometer is another something for me to shop for I suppose. And I’m almost tempted to buy one and try planting some number of beds randomly (as a control to test the effectiveness of the soil thermometer on crop yields) and the rest waiting until the recommended soil temperature is met before planting, but maybe I’m over thinking that a little too much?

Introduction

We here in central Washington can arguably say that the ground hog was wrong this year because we’re starting to experience spring-like weather in-between the periodic temper tantrums of winter as it is dragged kicking and screaming into recent history. This means that the fire I keep warm under my bicycle touring pot is once again stocked and the pot is now boiling over with plans and potential.

I’ve been inspired to investigate some of the new technologies and services that are appearing at various places on the web. One of these, “crowdsourcing”, could provide bicycle tourists the world over with access to a temporary and much needed labor pool. Imagine for instance you’re somewhere between here and there and you realize, miles into a multi-month tour across some continent or other that you need a part FedExed to the next village post haste. You could call Mom, but what if she’s on a tour of her own? Now what do you do? There’s only so much longer that you can continue to limp along with those pig iron rims and it sure would be better than cheese and crackers if someone would take care of getting the replacement pair to the inn you’re now camped out in before your pocketbook is completely drained.

I’ve been testing Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to see if this might provide me with the labor I need to fix some of these kinds of problems as the crop up on longer tours. I’ve started to build a little resource pool of worker credit with the intent of learning what it might take to get a complete stranger to help me complete routine tasks all the way to bail me out if and when the situation calls for it.

Many of the worker tasks I’ve found and been qualified to complete at Amazon’s Mechanical Turk have been online, but occasionally there’s one that will require more than just a mouse hand and an internet connection to complete. Today for instance I accepted and completed a task to:

• Print a document out twice
• Go around town posting the 16 sheets of the document up in public places
• Take a photo of at least one of them
• And post that photo somewhere the Requestor could see it

It was a pretty straight forward task although the pay is a bit low. Actually, what people are willing to offer for the work they want done doesn’t really make it competitive, but I imagine that this might change over time.

So what is “Turking” and Should I be Offended?

First you should not be offended, even if you happen to be of Turkish descent. There’s nothing derogatory or inflammatory in the statement that would hint at malignant intent. In fact, it’s a oblique reference to the Mechanical Turk; which was an invention of a fellow named Wolfgang von Kempelen in the mid-1700s. The device was billed as a box that contained an expert chess player, but which at first glance appeared to be an automaton of exceptional artificial intelligence.

The idea behind “turking” is that you can use technology to complete tasks that humans are best suited to. Amazon has taken it a step further by making it possible to access large resource pools of qualified humans via a croudsourced model.

I first ran across this idea while reading a novelette by Tobias Buckell called Stoasti-city which is part of a shared creation SF project of many up and coming writers. In the story croudsourced tasks drive the city of Detroit toward a new awakening and the effect is quite profound. Better it all seems to happen on technology and by way of networks that are already in place today. The story itself is an exciting exploration of the framework that I’m sure you’ll enjoy as much as I did.

The reality of turked out networks isn’t quite as grand in implementation today as it is in Toby’s imagination of the future. There are a lot of people trying to get you test or contribute to their projects by way of a mouse and a modem. Step one, go to this web site. Step two, say something about my thing, step three do another thing, et cetera.

What am I willing to do and for how much?

Seems like a pretty easy question to ask yourself before you start asking complete strangers to run all over town for you for what can be arguably tiny amounts of money. How much time should I expect my task to be completed it? How will I find the right person to do what I need at the right time? Other questions abound, but they are all potentially answerable. I figured I’d start to root out the associated answers but acting as the turk for a while.

Last night for instance I accepted a HIT (Human Intelligence Task) that had a considerably more restrictive time limit than was necessary to complete the task. Someone wanted 20 trivia questions, their associated answers, and three plausible answers delivered in 60 minutes all on a single theme. I tried, but the time expired when I had only 13 completed. I never got to submit the task and the requestor lost out on my contribution efforts because the assigned timeline was too restrictive. Lesson learned, give your turk at least the time it might take you to complete the task or maybe a little more.

I’ve passed over other HITs as well because what was being asked of the turk was either very time intensive, the contract did not come with a reasonable compensation, or both. For instance, there have been several article writing contracts that have popped up on in my queue which offered merely a dollar or two in compensation, but would have required an hour or two of my time. I’m not desperate so why bother? Lesson two learned, ensure you’re not too cheap when you ask for complex or time consuming tasks to be completed.

Finally, there are some tasks that appear to have been around since the dawn of time. I’ve passed over these because, frankly, they are boring. I mean like mind numbingly boring. And because there are some tasks that I can accept which are interesting or which represent the potential for a good time these are merely a speed bump on my way to turking success. Lesson three; if you need something done that you wouldn’t want to do yourself because it might turn the contents of your cranium to mush you either need to sweeten the contract with really silly amounts of money or expect that no one will ever complete your task (including you).

Today’s Turk

Today I was paid (albeit just a little) to ride my bike around town putting up posters for someone’s art project. The first thing I want to point out here is that finally someone *paid* me to ride my bike. I mean can you believe it? So what if my sponsorship was only a $1.50 minus paper and ink, I was still paid baby! Yeah! W00t! Daddy got paid to ride his bike!

Ok, just needed to get that out of my system. I apologize to those of you who make vastly larger sums of money anytime you sit astride a saddle and turn a crank. Lance Armstrong, know that if ever our bike riding incomes are compared I will lie and tell them that I made a whole pot of gold. Your bottom line is safe with me, buddy.

The reason I did what I did had nothing to do with the money. This was an experiment in the interest of science! Imagine if you will a situation you could find yourself in should you be capable of putting together a long duration tour across some vast amounts of land astride a bicycle. Maybe you’re helping to pay the bills while you’re on the road by stopping over in various places speaking on the topic of your tour (as it progresses) and presenting digital images of the places you’ve visited to modest crowds at college campuses across the country.

So it occurs to me, wouldn’t it be great if there were posters hung all over these campuses preparing the crowds for your impending visit? You could wait until you arrive there, end up looking around for a printer, and then stumble around an unfamiliar campus trying to find the best places to hang your poster to get said crowd ready for your visit. All the while waiting and camping relatively stationary for a time while the excitement builds.

Or, you could try to turk the task from the road. Days or even weeks before you arrive at your destination.

I accepted the HIT today because I wanted to see what it might actually take, how much time it might cost etc to get something like this done. Even better this is an interesting HIT because I was able to ride around on my bike, poking my head into shops, asking for permission to hang a flyer in the window, riding around campus finding all the bulletin boards, and visiting coffee shops and talking with strangers (while sampling their beans).

Future Turking Experiments

I plan on continuing to build a modest pool of resources by working as a turk when time and availability of interesting jobs allow. Once I’ve built a reasonable reserve I will reinvest the money I’ve earned (plus potential augmentation capital) back into the system to see if I can get people to do some of the following tasks:

• Complete minor or low resource tasks from anywhere
• Complete major or higher resource tasks from anywhere
• Complete minor or low resource tasks from specific locations
• Complete major or high resource tasks from specific locations
• Complete tasks on a timeline
• Use integrated services (such as PayPal) to achieve tasks that exceed the services which can be provided via the MTurk system (e.g. go to a specific location after receiving money from me to buy a thing then send it along. The money would to buy the thing and the shipping would have to be conveyed via PayPal in this instance, but compensation for the task would run through MTurk).
• Help me complete larger scale practical jokes

Perhaps not this year, but at some point in my future I intend to take this show on the road. From time to time I will know that I will need a support resource that I can reasonable count on to get things done for me in my absence. This system has the potential to meet such a role requirement, if I can figure out how best to use it.

I was really hoping to hear two things today at the National Clean Energy Project : Building the New Economy online summit:

• That the lowest hanging fruit on the energy independence tree *is* unquestionably the American home. Improving the efficiency of the American home should be a primary concern of anyone interested in achieving national energy independence. Legislation and incentives need to be offered directly back to the American citizen to accomplish this task universally.
• De-coupling and localized point-source generation need to become the second major part of this dialogue. The days of very large corporations generating very large collections of energy may not be over, but the American people need to the liberty to create human-scale power generation projects. Small is beautiful.

Both of these sentiments were voiced by President Clinton. For this I am grateful. Carbon-caps, using natural gas as a large scale transition fuel, smart-grid technology, and Wal-mart’s efficiency improvements are all nice, but they don’t have an immediate or palpable effect on me or my family.

American’s really need to reach back a little bit in time and realize that they’re part of what ever community they happen to live within. These communities are the basis for a Local Sufficiency movement that could be in the best interests of its constituent membership.

Three days in a row, that’s how many. We’re starting to experience a pattern of weather that’s not, if memory serves, unlike something they call “spring”. Blue sky, warmer temperatures, little growing things poking their little growing heads from underneath last year’s layer of dead stuff. There’s still that undeniable nip to endure when the sun hides behind the horizon, but there’s the very distinct possibility that we’re now headed toward warmer days. All together now, sigh with general relief, winter may be in its death throes.

This year I’m getting back to a saner/healthier kind of living (or at least that’s the resolve). That means many things. I’ve begun to prepare my garden beds so they’ll be ready to host the vegetables I’ll soon plant in them. The house has had an initial “spring cleaning” run-down. Projects, indoors and out, are being addressed as time and resources allow. It also means that it’s time to get Scout out of storage and back on the road again.

Some of the leather looks pretty rough and the paint job has started to show its age, but the bike remains essentially sound. I have a short list of modifications I’d like to make sooner than later:

• I almost never use the drop-outs on my handle bars. Not even when forced to ride directly into gale force, hurricane winds. For that reason I’ve been considering switching to a Nitto Albatross CrMo.
• This would necessitate a general change in the breaking leavers and shifters I currently employ. This time around I think I’m going to stick with simple systems. No more indexed shifters, back to the fraction shifters. Nice compact break leavers are being shopped for as well.
• This year new fenders are a necessity. Ok, not really. But I really want a new pair. I’ll be looking for something that will fit and, as an added benefit, look really groovy. Maybe something in a nice clear maple with a red-ish stain?
• The cantilever breaks on this old girl have seen better days. For cantilever breaks they are extremely compact which means finding replacement parts may be difficult. This may mean I get to spend a really long time sitting with steel wool and a tooth brush, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.
• I’d really like to look into a better way to carry my laptop around. Maybe this will be a bag I have to buy, or maybe I can fabricate it for myself? Ideas are still in a very fluid state.
• Last but not least, I need a new lock. I lost my key to the old one when we moved to central Washington and so I’ve got a very heavy piece of steel floating around inside my seat bag that serves no immediate purpose. Chuck the old, find something new (and lighter).

Finally, while Scout is an excellent utility bicycle for getting around town and even taking short (camping) tours up into the hills it’s not really designed for hauling large loads. Once Scout is made road worthy again I’ll continue to look for and/or design a cargo bicycle for myself. Also the human powered expedition vehicle (HPEV) has not been shelved. I’m getting there only it’s taking me more time than initially anticipated. There’s always something else to take care of.

Seattle Metro Bus

One of my favorite mailing lists just got a letter which I really enjoyed. Seems that there are some regional endeavors to help people live car-free/car-light and this city-by-city approach should really help people leverage the experience of the neighbors who may have good methods for dealing with specific challenges in those areas.

Living car-free/car-light in Seattle for instance meant that I had to routinely deal with crowded bike racks whenever I needed to cross Lake Washington. Routinely there was a queue that formed in the morning at several of the west side bus stops. There were several options for bike riders who wanted to get to the east side.

• Wait in line, eventually you’ll get a bike slot
• Buy and ride a folding commuter bike and carry a copy of the Metro policy which allows you access to the inside of the bus with a folded bike
• Ride around the north end of the Lake
• Ride across the I-90 bridge
• Ride a “dead-head” or “EB” bus to the arm-pit of Redmond

All of these options worked for me at various points in time, however, it took me years of riding over the bridge, or around the bridge, to come up with that brief list of options and for me to understand how each might affect the rest of my day.

Each region, each city, has its own challenges and if you’ve just moved, for instance, welcome back to square one.

I wonder what it would take to get something like this for every major metropolitan area and its surrounding region in the US? What would happen if people started exchanging information about getting what they needed from their local and regional transit authorities as well as the tribal knowledge that’s so important to success in this kind of social endeavor? Maybe a regional, state and national scorecard on how citizens are actually becoming oil independent? Some great possibilities.