Subject: Viridian Note 00051: Viridian Commentary Key concepts: pedal-powered buses, hurricane names, wind- up browsers, table-of-contents Viridian Notes 00025-00050, party invitation to Bruce Sterling's house Attention Conservation Notice: It rambles a lot, but at least you get invited to a nice party with free beer. Entries in the Viridian Teakettle Design Contest: http://www.stewarts.org/users/stewarts/teakettl.html http://www.dnai.com/~catnhat/teapots.htm http://www.interlog.com/~shamann/ This contest ends March 20, 01999. From: tor@araneum.dk^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^* Subject: Pedal-powered bus Subj: All ABOARD THE PEDALBUS -WORLDWIDE COLLABORATION Date: Tuesday, January 26, 1999 10:26:49 AM Bagelhole1 (http://bagelhole.hypermart.net/), under construction, calls for collaborators, globally, to share ideas as to the best ways (design, mediums, etc) we can think of to build a bus for about 50 people, that is a hybrid, run both by pedal power and electrical (generated by the pedal power and the turbine on top), equipped with sail. There would be a driver who steers, changes gears, and brakes. Music, perhaps, to inspire the pedal/passengers, maybe made from bamboo partially. All passengers ride/pedal for free, of course. Electric kicks in, when there are not enough pedal/riders. Every city could have such a bus to bring attention to people to aid in soliciting low-tech, homemade style ideas for self-sustainability, thinking in terms of small neighborhoods, in mutual co-operation with each other, as a way to really kick off community contingency preparation, globally. This needs to be done very quickly. So please heed, if you hear the call. bagelhole1@aol.com (((bruces remarks: I rather like this nutty, innocent scheme, as long as we can make sure that these giant urban rickshaws are restricted to highly-developed countries, and powered exclusively by rich, well-educated, overweight people.))) From: cascio@well.com^^ (Jamais Cascio) Subject: Weather Violence Terminology From the Rachel (rachel.org) newsletter #634: "We favor the idea, floated early last year, to stop naming hurricanes after individual humans and start naming them after oil companies. In place of Hurricane Alice or Hurricane Hugo, we would have Hurricane Mobil and Hurricane Exxon. A headline like 'Exxon Kills 10,000, Leaves 50,000 Homeless' would have a certain salutary ring of truth to it." (((bruces remarks: Yes, of course, but.... "Shell" would get off lightly due to the alphabetical listings, while the new "Amoco/British Petroleum" hybrid would catch more than its fair share of abuse.))) From wex@media.mit.edu^^^^^^^^^** (Dr. Alan Wexelblat) Subject: Wind-Up Browsers for Ten Dollars These people don't know it, but they are Viridian... To: mas-students@media.mit.edu From: Joe Jacobson Subject: Windup Browsers Seminar Seminar - MAS 968 (H level) Fridays 10-12, E15-468H Design of Information Appliances for the Third World: Windup Browsers The WIND-UP Browser seminar will be geared towards designing and building an information appliance for developing nations. The sole constraints are that 1] It must change the world 2] It must have a manufacturing cost of $10. Week 1: Introduction to the Problem Assignment: Map of literacy and access to information around the globe Week 2: Introduction to low cost information technologies Full survey of everything in existence from displays to radio receivers to hand-crank generators that could be cobbled together to make a $10 device. Week 3: In class design session of self contained reader Week 4: presentation of self contained reader. Week 5: Economic models - how can third world peoples supplement their income: Contract programming, inventing etc. over the web. Week 6: In class design and presentation of an economic model for supplemental income. Brainstorm on how to build 1 Billion wind-up browsers. Week 7: In class design of linked information device Week 8: Presentation of linked information device Week 9: Final project. (((bruces remarks: Here's another stirring step-forward for the philosophy that wants every Saharan Tuareg to carry his own solar-powered satdish and boombox. A ten- dollar browser will change the world, all right == it'll change the world to a place that will gladly pay ten *million* dollars for any device that will *eliminate* web browsers, in say, a five-mile radius.))) From: pdo@metamajik.com^* (Paul D. Ouderkirk) Subject: Re: Correction to Viridian Note 00045 Bruce Sterling wrote: " The US Armed Forces can no longer fully command their own dedicated industrial base == they're forced to use common off-the-shelf stuff now, the poor wretches even have to run battleships on Windows 95...." If you're referring to that Navy ship that "crashed" during testing several months ago, it was running a mix of Unix and NT systems. NT at least pretends (and pretends is the operative word here) to be a mission-critical OS, where Windows 95 certainly has no place anywhere that lives are on the line. Later, Paul. (((bruces remarks: I should cure myself of this freewheeling poetic license when I know that there are programmers reading this list. Okay, I formally retract that sad blunder: "the poor wretches even have to run their various weapons platforms on a mission-critical OS mix of UNIX and Windows NT"....))) *********************** Table of Contents 25-50 *********************** Viridian Notes 00026: Viridian Aphorisms 00027: Viridian Graphics 00028: Viridian Gardening 00029: The Interfund 00030: The View From Ecotopia 00031: Self-destructive Jungles 00032: The Viridian Refueling Project 00033: Viridian Aesthetics: Andy Goldsworthy 00034: Researching Andy Goldsworthy 00035: Viridian Aesthetics: Landscape Transformation 00036: Offshore Wind Power 00037: Viridian Commentary 00038: Viridian Aphorisms 00039: Starck's New Catalog 00040: German Politics 00041: The Viridian Product Catalog 00042: the Viridian Alcohol Cellphone 00043: the Viridian Electrical Meter 00044: The Viridian Service Station 00045: Twentieth-century Thinking 00046: German Bankers Love German Greens 00047: Viridian Imaginary Products Exhibition 00048: Viridian Aphorisms 00049: Submerging Carbon 00050: Wired Urban Forests ***************** PARTY INVITATION. ***************** In totally informal conjunction with the annual South By SouthWest Multimedia Festival, my wife Nancy and I are throwing another Open House Party on the evening of March 16th, Tuesday, starting, say, 7:30 pm or so. If you're on the Viridian List, please consider this your formal invitation to attend. Bring anybody you trust. There will be cold beer. And (even more astonishing and provocative) there will be cigarettes. If you've never been to my house before (once memorably described by TIME magazine as "the leafy tranquillity of Sterling's well-appointed Austin, Texas home"), send email and I'll ship you the directions and a phone number. Mind you, the SXSW Multimedia Party we threw last time was not half shabby. These digital-arts people are definitely a self-starting crowd. No Charades or Twister was required to break the ice, and a good time was had by all. Bruce Sterling (bruces@well.com)