The Amish are funny. Apparently they aren't so anti-technology as you'd think. They'll use gas engines to cut blocks of ice for their non-electric refrigerators, and they'll buy half-millon dollar CNC machines to manufacture tools that run on compressed air so that farmers don't have to use electricity. Check out this article for more unexpected amish tales.
One of the main points raised by the article is that the Amish are a great example of the DIY and Maker cultures that are getting oh so popular lately. The author and other bloggers really admire the amish for their approach to community-sustanence and off-the-grid living.
Indeed, young urbanites seem to be on a path of convergence with the amish; just look into stories about urban foraging, or running a self-sustaining farm in a brooklyn backyard. And just look at Steampunk!
This got me thinking about how future generations are going to adapt to technology. Already I've been noticing a strong anti-technology trend amongst some of my friends, a trend that baffles older generations who expect us youngins to have our laptops and iPhones genetically morphed unto our bodies at all times.
For instance, my recent alma mater, SAIC, forces all students to buy a subsidized MacBook Pro when they enroll at the school. On a study trip last summer, a lot of the students, myself included, chose to leave our laptops at home for the six week trip. We needed the time away from the internet and its distractions, while our professors were shocked that we made this choice voluntarily.
There's this idea that we're becoming ever more dependent on technology, the youth in particular, that we're heading towards the technological singularity. Yet somehow most of the people I know and see on a daily basis are moving in the opposite direction. Most of the people I know don't own a TV, and most of the people I know don't own a car. Indeed, most of the people I know don't constitute a fair slice of American culture, but they do make up what I consider to be part of the trend-setting culture of America.
A lot has been said about artists and their role as cultural path-breakers, and a lot of it's probably bullshit, but there's some truth in there. Look at gentrification. Look at style, look at music. If artist isn't the best descriptor, then lets just settle on young, creative types. These young, creative types aren't rushing to embrace the latest gadget, and they might love myspace but admitting to that is a big no-no these days. And at this point, I bet few of my peers do actually love myspace or facebook. Most seem to hate them and many have abandoned the sites all together.
The trends I'm noticing might also rise from the fact that twenty-somethings like myself are already behind the curve. Maybe we're shunning technology because we can't keep up. One side effect of exponential technology advancements will be that generation gaps widen and become more apparent at smaller increments. For instance, facebook debuted when I was a freshman in college, so it never played a role in my high school social life; neither did text messaging. Hence I've already noticed something akin to a generation gap between myself and kids just two years younger than me in the way they use technology. It scares me. And this process can only increase in the future.
Thus it seems possible that a new subculture is looming, one that takes off-the-grid to it's extreme, a new back to nature movement like the hippies had perhaps. The growth of the Evangelical movement and religious fundamentalism in America could also be exemplary of just such a backlash.
Do I think we'll really all move to the woods? probably not, although I'm hopeful. Do I think we wont be so quick to adapt to new technology as 'adults' think? It'll at least be grudgingly so, kinda like the amish.
Artists and the Amish Hacker
Proof I don't really live here/nobody knows who Darwin is.
Living in an urban, yuppie, hipster enclave like the northside of Chicago has downsides (duh). For instance, sometimes I find myself so out of touch with real America that I'm truly embarassed. Reading that less than 40% of Americans believe in evolution is one of those moments. Furthermore, almost half of Americans don't know who Darwin is. Wow. Happy Birthday Darwin? Gallup Poll
Honestly, I'm shocked by these numbers. And I'm embarassed because I just don't know anyone in the majority. How can I be so out of touch?
Blue Holes (and I'm not talking about Smurfette)
Blue holes originally formed as caves during the last ice age. The caves formed in a typical Karst environment- limestone areas where sinkholes and cenotes are common. As the ice age ended, ocean levels rose from the melting ice, the caves flooded and were left completely submerged. At some point the ceiling collapsed, leaving enormous blue holes in the ocean.
This is the most famous blue hole, found in Belize, and it's almost 400 feet deep. Must be kind of spooky to be in a boat over the shallower water then motor over the edge of the hole into much deeper water. Sort of like an aquatic version of a fear of heights. It'd freak me out, at least.
Images via neatorama.
See more at Environmental Graffiti, via Dark Roasted Blend. And yes, I mostly posted this for the smurfette joke.
Wyoming's gonna get us afterall
Earthquake swarms hit Yellowstone, foreshadowing eruption?
My mom's a rational person, but she's more than a bit paranoid about the Yellowstone Super Volcano. Today she told me to be ready to get back to the house at any moment, so we can start driving south! Not that really I blame her, I mean if this thing blows it'd be bad news for just about everyone west of the Mississippi, and probably knock all of America back a few millennia. If you're not familiar, the Yellowstone Super Volcano is many levels of magnitude larger than even the current largest active volcano, Mauna Loa. The caldera of the volcano is almost as large as the park itself, i.e. a good chunk of Wyoming is actually a volcano. The Yellowstone caldera seems to erupt like clockwork every 600,000 years (at least the last three eruptions fall on this time-line), and now the volcano is some 40,000 years over-due for a good continent-razing blast. Lava from the last eruption can be found from Washington to Louisiana.
It turns out USGS monitors show the caldera and yellowstone itself are rising several inches a year, at a rate much higher that any seen in the hundred or so years that the USGS has been keeping track of the area. The speculation is that pressure is building at an accelerating rate. It's not that I'm going to miss Wyoming much, but, you know, Colorado's not so bad.
The Sound of Space
There's no sound in space, you say? There's nothing to transmit sound, you say? Well you're (sort of) right, but that hasn't stopped people from listening. For instance, professors at the University of Iowa have posted sound recordings made by satellites and other spacecraft, recordings of everything from lightning on Saturn to the sound of the solar winds. Space is filled with all sorts of radiation, everything from radio waves to visible light and so on, and these recordings are made by translating these waves into audio.
Minimalist composer Terry Riley has even composed a string quartet performance based on these recordings, called Sun Rings
This dreadfully academic video explains the composition and some of the recordings. I'd skip ahead to about half way, or just skip it all together and just listen to these really beautiful sounds from Jupiter, via Nasa.
Caspian Sea Monster
Now that I'm both unemployed and out of school, I figured I should devote my time and this space to my hobby of amassing neat but completely useless e-junk.
So first up, this amazing, eerie soviet video of ekranoplans; ground effect planes/ships that fly just a few meters above the water, taking advantage of the ground effects that occur when a plane flies lower than its own wingspan. The video has a great drone soundtrack too, I can't stop watching it.
These things are some of the biggest planes ever built. The largest, dubbed the Caspian Sea Monster, was longer than a football field, could move over 1000 tonnes of cargo, and crossed the Caspian at speeds over 250mph. The soviets kept the project secret, so you can imagine the poor fishermen who undoubtedly found themselves in the path of these speeding behemoths. Keep in mind they never flew more than a few meters above the water.
The project ended sometime in the mid-nineties, and you can see a couple of abandoned ekranoplans in google earth at 42°52′50″N, 47°39′57″E
Commercial interest in ekranoplans continues, and several private companies apparently produce or plan to produce ekranoplans in the future. Interestingly, ekranoplans are considered a ship rather than a plane by international maritime regulations.
Ground effect is a complex phenomenon that involves the air underneath the wing and its relationship to the ground. If a plane has a wing span of twenty meters, then ground effect takes over when the plane flies lower than twenty meters. In regular aircraft, the effect allows for smooth landings, creating a pillow of air that dampens turbulence. It also reduces drag, so if you can fly low enough, you'll be able to fly further and faster using less fuel. And of course you'll be flying under enemy radar.
On the other end of the aviation spectrum, just last week WhiteKnightTwo flew for the first time in the California desert. This high altitude aircraft will launch SpaceShipTwo, the private spaceship that will carry space tourists into low Earth orbit. Check out Mojave Skies for a write up of last weeks test flight.
pic from Alan Radecki at Mojave Skies
The following is a series of paths that could be traced between North Platte, NE and St. Cloud, MN, following the rules of Feynman Diagrams.
North platte Oneil Vermillion St. James Litchfield St. Cloud
North Platte Oneil Plankinton Madison Litchfield St. Cloud
North platte Oneil Vermillion St. James Slayton Litchfield St. Cloud
North platte Oneil Vermillion St. James Slayton Pipestone Madison Litchfield / St. Cloud
North platte Oneil Vermillion St. James Slayton Pipestone Plankinton Madison Litchfield St. Cloud
North Platte Oneil Plankinton Pipestone Madison Litchfield St. Cloud
North Platte Oneil Plankinton Pipestone Slayton St. James Litchfield St. Cloud
North Platte Oneil Vermillion Slayton Pipestone Madison Litchfield St. Cloud
North Platte Oneil Vermillion Slayton Pipestone Plankinton Madison Litchfield St. Cloud
North Platte Oneil Plankinton Pipestone Slayton Vermillion St. James Litchfield St. Cloud
North Platte Oneil Plankinton Madison Pipestone Slayton Vermillion St. James Litchfield St. Cloud
Ways and Means
Chicago street artist Solve was murdered a couple days ago. Although I never met Solve, he lived (and was killed) just a few blocks from where I live, we probably knew many of the same people in the arts community, we probably even went to the same parties. These aren't, however, the reasons why his death hit me in such a profound way. It's because I knew his art so well. His work, like a few other prolific street artists in Chicago, followed me everywhere I went. It became familiar; I looked for it subconsciously wherever I went, and I often looked for it consciously too. It enhanced my life, made me smile, and made this already interesting city even more complex and beautiful.
Street art, graffiti, whatever, anything from tags all the way up to stuff like Solve's clandestine video installation on the blue line, these works take private property and make it public. It reclaims something lonely and gives it to the community. When I see a great piece of street art, it becomes mine, I own it, and I possess it in a way that studio art never allows. 
It also sucks because apparently Solve was super nice guy, and his name was really his message- solve. Solve the problems our community faces.
photo by Joyful Morgana
We're computerizing and we just don't need you anymore
Well, to my surprise, the reading went rather well. The not-so-cheap cheap beer helped, certainly, but I think I'm actually getting the hang of performing in front of crowds. Seemed like most of the people in attendance were teachers (probably because one of the other writers performing was a teacher at columbia), but still, when SAIC hosts readings, we're lucky if even one faculty member shows up. Furthermore, everyone I spoke with was friendly and down to earth, except for the one fellow SAIC student, who was the most awkward, withdrawn artist type in the place, and she told me my work "paired object with emotion" and then quickly meeked her way out of the room. Oh artspeak, blessed artspeak; anyone care to decipher what 'pairing object with emotion' actually means? Cause I haven't a clue.
Our living room looks like some sort of meth lab gone wrong; we've got blenders, fans, tarps, tubs of murky water, shredded paper, sawdust and cement dust, a few dozen beer cans... more on this later.
Here's a picture I took last fall. The sepia bugs me but not enough to change it or anything. Just visualize it color-balanced.
Somehow
I completely forgot that I'm giving a reading tonight at Manhattan's Bar in the south loop. I guess it's part of Columbia's grad writing program, or at least organized by one of their students. I don't know how, but I almost missed it completely, I just woke up in the middle of the night and realized it was today. I'm not exactly prepared...
