... is software is infrastructure is culture is ...

Dammit, dammit, dammit!!!! I didn't say you could charge me for that water heater until the thermostat needed to be cranked all the way to 400 degrees farenheit with a reserve capacity of a half gallon and pin holes to spare!

This is the autocracy of the infrastructure. Gas, electric... dare I say Hydrogen with a Capital and hegemonic 'H' accompanied by a rambunctious desire to afford the same technology that includes a warranty which won't expire before I actually get a return on my capital investment... including tax.

This is the way of culture today. The wired culture carved before us from the remanants of the cyber world between the ears and between the handsets. The electric space of some modulated pulse that pounds our ears and pins the ears back with the squelch of ownership.

But somebody's got to do it. The ownership of the infrastructure has to exist. Co-exist within the ephemera of the culture that got the guy down the street with the interest and the time on his hands to do for the bunch that wanted it and group them all together with the neat stuff he'd introduced to them.

Like all good things the buts and wherefores and howevers crop up eventually and the group, seeing that someone else could get newer, cheaper and better 'stuff', ultimately decides that to hire their man's nephew at a reduced price to do the same job is better. They form the competition that is intended to put their well meaning friend to task on price and service or push him over the edge in an attempt to get something better out of the deal from someone who cares. Of course, in there as well is the actual reduction in price of the equipment the nephew works on. Eventually, unless the infrastructure is special enough to remain costly or forced by regulation into some form of uniqueness serving the public good, the profitability of fixing is outweighed by the price of just chucking it all and replacing it. Perhaps the reason brownfields are now undergoing economic renewal is not because our decision makers are environmentalists, but because the practical financial reality is that the intrinsic value of land is its proximity to infrastructure. The fact that industrial users did not salt enough money away to afford reclamation and that now the public trust must pay for or seek long term partnerships with business for win win solutions in reclamation shows the shortsightedness of the profit motive. As lands became marginalized by pollution and less attractive to use their monetary value diminishes and, in wind swept trailer park fashion, business moves on leaving the mess behind for someone else. This is where infill economics must eventually come into play and why it takes so long for reclamation to take hold. It's the same reason homeowners don't often renovate an entire household all at once but, instead, move from room to room over the course of a lifetime. Cash flow is everything.

In there somewhere there is a lot of talk about the cycle of technology and its long-term usability and then someone who notices sees that a regulatory environment would protect culture, ownership and language (language being a cultural phenomenon, apparently) along with lesser issues such as public access and in the final stages, buy in at all levels to ensure cultural equilibrium.

The technology and its infrastructure become key to culture. Shifts within the original technical infrastructure become the deepening hooks of entrenchment and de facto indicators of infrastructure value.

Culture today is both broadened by technology and saved from upsetting influence largely by those infrastructures that are corporately owned and which receive broad-based market share.

Today's ISP game has moved from ISP supplied web portals to specialized content managers whose role in connectivity is to provide the user experience context. One of those contexts is entertainment and another is access to information.

But wait. A portal and its content co-exist as software programming and content programming, the two being unbreakably linked together. This inseparable relationship in the wireless era makes software, infrastrature and culture all one in the same. The key to it all seems to be who pays for it, who steals it and who just sits there and soaks it all up.

-- tim

the future is realtime ontologies

The not so distant future holds many wonderous changes and interesting surprises. And none of this news is particularly new or insightful. For anyone with a positive outlook the future is always going to be bright and interesting.

So much for preamble.

I am particularly interested in seeing the future forget the past. I know that sounds strange, but there are some real problems with the benchmark performance objectives inherent in any kind of tracking mechanism that might arise under the single identity future.

Sounds like the backdrop for a science fiction novel, doesn't it?

Well, indeed, with the continued maturation of Tim Berners-Lee's Semantic Web focusing on life sciences there can be no doubt that both human performance objectives and the wide availability of curriculum will see the standardization of an ontological framework that births new disciplines in real time.

As the "knee of the curve" is rounded with advanced materials science and rapid discovery of uses for new science (to name but two areas) language must also evolve to embrace new relationships.

Imagine, as the time between new discoveries and their useful inclusion into daily life gets shorter, how the relationship to the parent discipline that raised it matures. Competition demands that you know how your own node is evolving and whether it is safe to venture out on its tender branches in the hope that its usefulness demands the care and feeding required to make a trunk of its life.

So, to quote the oft quoted... from Bartleby.com

Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920.

1. The Road Not Taken

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;	5
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,	10
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.	15
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.	20

Christmas in Capital Gains

Have a wonderful Christmas full of good cheer and merriment.

... and may charity reap the gain most capital to your heart...

Sincerely,
Tim

clean air is dependent on the value you expect to get so you'll part with your money

The worldwide conservation ethic can only be had through the market
penetration of products that promote value to consumers. In order that
the market be ready so that companies can profit by a situation in which
there is real or perceived consumer need for conservation energy pricing
must increase. Pricing will be influenced in one of two ways. Either a
real shortage of energy supply will exist resulting in price
fluctuations outside even the most tumultuous historical averages or
government will be forced to reduce subsidies to force pricing to scale
higher against a ready and "cheap" supply so that conservation becomes a
consumer and corporate target.

all candidates meeting in northumberland county on environment

 

meeting will question whether Canadian nuclear fuel export industry should thrive

the long long arm of the blog

One of my current favorite writers is Cory Doctorow, who, I suspect, is seeing someone quite famous from the television series "Enterprise". This would seem in keeping with Cory's geek roots and sci-fi sensibilities.

Cory, a self-professed "committed infovore" now calls London, England his home after having bounced around North America for a few years.

From his 12 year attempt to get published, and near-instant recognition as the winner Year 2000 John W. Campbell Award for best new writer, Cory has continued to forge his name on the bleeding edge of net-culture and technology. He is a savant with interesting ideas about the social justice implications of technology adoption, and though this is the way I would phrase his involvement from my perspective because I share many of his sentiments intimately, this may not be the way he bills himself.

Having invested himself in the Creative Commons licensing with the blessing of his publisher TOR, Cory has springboarded ahead as a writer, gaining popularity by making his work available online to new readers leveraging both his journalistic work on the popular blog Boing Boing he helped found (250,000 hits monthly), and his position as Outreach Coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Cory is in huge demand internationally and has spoken widely on a variety of subjects relating to culture, technology, and, obviously, science fiction.

You will find Cory's name popping up at you in a lot of different places on the Internet. His relationship to blogging and blog technology and information is unparalleled.

Maintaining web logs or "Blogging" and the use of RSS feeds to syndicate the content contained in these sometimes intensely personal collections of expression has outstripped the expectations and longevity of the orginators of the Really Simple Syndication (RSS) developers along with many in the web development field.

Collaboration and learning are fast becoming a major part of the field where once proprietary or time intensive blog tools have moved into the realm of the affordable and easy-to-use. Expanded features have also changed blogs into mobile, versatile, accessible tools complete with access priviledge and ownership controls that enable users and managers to collect and secure data.

So, if you're sold on the blog phenomenon, know that it isn't new. It's simply going through a process of maturation that brings enterprise-grade toolsets down to the level of the individual. For a quick backgrounder on what a blog is the link below gives a great high-level overview and some easy to follow instructions for getting started.

Start Your Blog Learning Here

http://blog.blogware.com/help/

Photoblogging Turns Mobile Phone Into Instant Photo Album

http://www.photojunkie.ca/archives/2004/06/07/random_bytes.php
You're not going to find that this site specifically shows you how to create a blog photo album, but it gives you an idea of what can be done with photoblogging. The Blogware link above can show you where to find the tools to turn your blog into a one-stop family-album shop, with easy tools and instructions.



-- end of sales pitch --

Bravo goes on a 'Manhunt'

Hi,

Tim Pozza has sent you the following article from Digital Spy.

"Bravo goes on a 'Manhunt'"
US cable channel Bravo goes looking for America's "most gorgeous male model" in new show.

In addition, he/she has attached the following message:
I have put some serious thought into entering this beauty pageant, however, my therapist says I have to become a Swan before I will have the psychological will power to stand around looking great, what with the weight and all.

Spare tyre people are beginning to look a LOT more attractive to me. I can reflect on the obesity factor as a symptom of inexpensive mobility fuel and farm factory practice. But I doubt my vanity will ever turn me into a vegitarian.

If that is a mixed message, you can decide who and what you are without any of my help.

Ta,
tim



For more on this story, go to http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/article/ds14662.html


-----------------------
Sign up for the DS Mailer at http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/mailer/, and get the latest headlines delivered to your desktop every morning.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk
Your number one source for digital media and entertainment news!

industry in environment is information

Society of Environmental Journalists

Deadline for conference registration and fellowship applications is July 6th, 2004.

Let me know if you end up participating in one way or another. This looks to be something the 1,300 members of the organization will get a lot out of, especially as the Canadian federal election will be over and the US national coming up.

clean mobility fuel has nothing to do with al queda

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=580&e=1&u=/nm/20040531/bs_nm/markets_oil_dc

In about 5 years the Al Queda militants will claim victory over oil.

They will claim the divinity of their cause because companies worldwide will have hastened a move to clean fuel with less dependence on oil by that time.

Be assured that Al Queda and the philosophy they twist will have had nothing at all to do with any beneficial change.

There is sure to be a lot of back slapping in those camps though.

This is always the way half-wits treat hindsight or a fortunate turn of events; as if they own providence and have somehow pushed it along with wrong-headed words and deeds. Suddenly an unexpected outcome is included among the greatest of justifications for the 'cause'.

If it happens that as oil dependency declines and Al Queda gets bigger and somehow rises in your esteem know that you have been duped. And if you catch someone dreaming that it is so -- that Al Queda should somehow be credited with erasing the brown cloud over the world? Don't bother to martyr them. Don't give an inch. Don't honor the thought with more than the silent derision it deserves.

energy economy to fall in step with mobile phone and cable subscription

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- please forward to appropriate media
Wednesday, May 05, 2004

********************************************************************
MIT Technology Review: Mismatch Boosts Solar Efficiency
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/rnb_042704.asp?trk=nl
********************************************************************


The time for an inverter program and fast track electricity generating contracts to individuals has come says an energy research partnership in small town Ontario.

Solar developments have been known about for some time, but until now an article that concisely explained it other than in research abstracts hasn't been seen reviewed by a technical journal.

Our inverter program will serve decentralization very well in conjunction with federal and provincial efficiency incentives and fast track contract agreements.

These efforts, however, are largely undermined by concentrated ownership models that create a bureaucracy inhibiting individual partnership in the energy economy.

"Go big or go home does not apply in the 100 year charette proposals the federal government and sustainability experts have been trying to put forward," said Mr. Pozza, principal researcher with the Energy Transition Partnership, a small energy research brain trust in small town Ontario.

"We see the future of power as simple as paying a network fee to both produce and access power," said Mr. Pozza.

He went on to say his organization had identified key areas that could help communities retain their rural economies and keep urban sprawl from gobbling up arable land.

"Part of it has to do with the distribution of dependency," he said. "In the large scale model central ownership can reach only so far to the margins with an infrastructure that spokes out from a generating station. It gets pretty complex, but it really boils down to the degree of separation you have to where power is produced. Something I like to call 'energy convergence close to the margins'."

Mr. Pozza said under a decentralized model medium sized electricity generators and distribution managers (depending on the local mix of ownership) also become hubs that store energy on site from intermittent generating sources by network connected customer/generators.

"When generation reaches a saturation point of about 30 per cent of all buildings in a community we see the beginning to an end of an energy
economy that spawns a multitude of subscription agreements while energy convergence continues into mobility fuels," he said.

Mr. Pozza said he wanted to make it clear that energy convergence with respect to mobility fuels would follow the same history as the mobile phone and cable television markets.

"As mobility fuels increase their electrical potential," he said, "it will be concentrated ownership that will begin a regulatory wrangle intended to break a deadlock. And it will be consumers that will have to pay the price for it in feature rich energy services that don't serve the core principals of a public utility."

"In decentralized ethanol and direct current production we see urban sprawl halted, saving arable land by making local people locally dependent," he said.

With appropriate crops to make ethanol and stimulating local economies these efforts a widespread decentralization will avoid many of the difficulties associated with thinking locally and acting globally," Mr. Pozza said. This global approach to local agriculture and energy production creates a concentration of another kind," he said. "On pesticides, herbicides and, increasingly, on fertilizers to prevent soil depletion there can be no more dangerous effort than to bind food and fuel so centrally.

We believe that the sliding scale of energy input to energy output where the relationship between fertilization and crop quality is concerned is where the rubber meets the road.

Mr. Pozza joked that next his research firm would be making recommendations that would see building code altered all across Canada to invoke sustainability within a renewable energy economy model.

"Yeah," he said. "Next, I'm going to tell every provincial government official I can get my hands on that municipal bylaws should prohibit grid style developments because the roof alignment of homes in such development doesn't promote energy efficiency. I haven't got a hope in hell."


- 30 -


For more information please contact Tim Pozza of The Energy Transition Partnership.




--
tim

Sustainability Northumberland
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ecoNorth/
http://www.ontario-sea.org/

Northumberland County Freecycle Network
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/northumberlandFreecycle/

-- see also --
http://www.freecycle.org/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OttawaFreecycle/

-- subscribe with blank email to --
ecoNorth-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
northumberlandFreecycle-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

social justice in technology adoption will cost more as compressed hydrogen from electrolysis shuts out fuel producers

Yes, we are still waiting on the decision with respect to onboard fuel processing.

However, the debate will rage until roughly 2009 at which point ethanol production will have ramped up within North America making it easy for the red herring developments to be dropped so that you will know where to put your money in the stock market. Otherwise, hold onto your hard earned bucks until your individual investments in automaking and fuel begin to dry up. Then you'll know who the winners have been slated to be.

Smart money is on a hybrid liquid ethanol tank alongside a compressed hydrogen tank and intelligent feed laws that would allow for the massive development of solar electric within the developed world.

But in order to envision this you would have to subtract the interest that fuel producers have in remaining part of the mix and the enormous importance government tax revenues from mobility fuel have on the economy.

You would also have to make people who don't already own cars and solar panels pay through the nose for electricity because of the huge demand personal home electrolysers would have on the grid should compressed hydrogen tanks become the norm. As a result consumers will have to pay extra for a compressed hydrogen tank in the future because it would only be these consumers who would be able to choose an off grid solution by purchasing solar electric panels as an investment in a family's future fuel needs. Enlightened feed laws won't happen until government is sure it can secure revenue from the sale of mobility fuels. This will take a very long time, especially in Canada where municipal budgets will soon be tied to mobility fuel taxes. Fuel companies, as a result, will never allow themselves to die. Along with that, enabling technologies will be sujugated to high broad-based taxes, regulatory barriers, and open hostility.

Good luck people of earth. You will need it. Iceland should be your home, but you wouldn't know what to do with it as you fight over the spoils. *wink

I'm going back to my home planet where we eat pancakes every morning smothered in maple syrup surrounded by lean sausages and accompanied by endless rounds of strong Columbian coffee and Florida fresh squeezed orange juice.

Have fun on earth while you are able. Do come visit me sometime.




Scientific American Frontiers
http://www.pbs.org/saf/1403/video/watchonline.htm

i come from France

Will the real winner please stand up

zero emission efforts reveal delay tactic designed to keep control of market

General Motors has been bleeding money all over Europe. Last year the flood of losses totaled $900 M.

These facts are not surprising as European consumers have shown more backbone on environmental issues than their counterparts in North America and even in emerging markets in China and India.

Automakers are feeling the pinch as they face an unstable market, a fact that forced Daimler-Chrysler recently to sell off its losing Japanese division and head for home where, it says, it will refocus the enterprise on its core values of providing car buyers with top-knotch quality in its products.

Automakers are still trying to figure out which engine and car body designs will allow them to retain control of the vast manufacturing empires that supply parts for their vehicles. But perhaps more telling is how their decisions today will affect the control automakers have on the revenues generated in the used car market. This is the primary reason that automakers are soft selling hydrogen vehicles that have been ready in the form you see them today for several years in favor of pushing the benefits of the hybrid/electric vehicle.

The delays are part of a national security and corporate control effort aimed at keeping allies close and enemies closer. This is seen in the pending US government decision on the type of fuel and its delivery system for worldwide use. Without standards made in the US and entrenched by global automakers it isn't likely any change will be made without US approval.

In Oshawa, Ontario General Motors is building a new paint shop where it intends to dig in an fight it out with the union as employees of the neighboring plant will be under contract to one of GM's suppliers and not directly tied to GM. This tactic is a labor cost saving mechanism GM is known to have used in the past.

Unfortunately, GM has not placed value in the new paint shop on the development of carbon fiber technology or fuel cell dielectric plate production in a vacuum deposition environment. GM only stands to save on labor by circumventing automation agreements with the union and placing its trust in its immediate grasp of supply chain management.

The link attached to the headline above is to the General Motors Marathon project ending in Europe early June. True to the spirit of the Recreational or Sport categorization of the automobile the 10,000 km test will showcase the viability of a hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicle. In this case the hydrogen is in the form of liquid hydrogen, known to be a net energy loser.

Two years ago the NeCar direct methanol fuel cell car successfully toured Europe on a 6,800 km demonstration trip. The car was fuelled with methanol on board the vehicle.

Next month actor and renewable energy advocate Dennis Weaver will launch a California to Vancouver drive of various energy efficient cars.

fuel cell portable power application begins market acceptance

Pure yydrogen fuel cells will be preceeded by direct methanol (natural gas derivitive) portable power. Already close to market readiness are laptop computer direct methanol batteries. A 10-hour recharge is expected to cost under $1. The battery itself is expected to enter the market at approximately the same price as popular NiMh models.

For now the educational opportunities with respect to various portable fuel cell applications are being made available through various kits now on store shelves.

http://www.fuelcellmarkets.com/article_default_view.fcm?articleid=3441&subsite=1102

sustainable mobility in Canada is controlled by fuel and vehicle design

The following link leads directly to the reason why wheat and barley straw is the recommended crop for bio-ethanol.


http://www.tc.gc.ca/roadsafety/tp/tp14179/menu.htm

Legalization of this substance would open a floodgate of varieties designed to maximize psychotropic properties.

Not legalizing the substance but, instead, using the plant as a feedstock for fermentable biomass creates the environment for an underground economy of illegal drugs indistinguishable from the plants grown for fuel and other byproducts.

Because this substance approached a legal limbo and fell back to earth without a satisfactory resolution for industry the likelihood that carbon fibre and ethanol/hydrogen fuel production will be decentralized is significantly lessened.

Sustainability within rural economies dependent on decentralized ownership of biomass crop lands and the production and processing end is at threat as 'weaker' crops that do not perform as well or in as many ways to serve the mobility fuel and automaker industries are ignored in favor of legislative barriers rather than cultural ones.

hair today gone tomorrow

* * *

When he saw himself in the street the second time Harry's head swam with a lopsided Zen and he felt swollen where his thoughts normally ticked along in time with his pumping legs.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a horn sounding snapped Harry's attention forward where momentum had pulled his eyes to the side up the road and to the left.

Crash.

Harry catapulted 15 feet ahead into the street while the remains of his expensive 36-speed electric-assist bicycle crunched to a halt in a heap of twisted wreckage.

A millisecond before an envelope of oblivion dropped the overload of pain from his awareness, Harry snapped a mental picture of himself walking away while the thought, "I'll never ride again," flashed through him like an aurora gone wild.

Nothingness.

* * *

And then there was light.

Harry awoke as if from a dream that both he and it weren't really interested in putting away. Awareness came almost as a disappointment where consciousness merely left him throbbing without his knowing whether it was the brighness of the light that caused it or something gnawing at his toes.

It just felt wrong, as though everything had been 'rewired' to place confusion above suspicion and normalcy on probation.

...

* * *

For more about Harry... you'll have to wait.

careers in biotech

http://www.bhrc.ca/biotecareers/Career_Paths/sales_and_marketing.html

how the world will stay mobile

Environment Minister David Anderson and Iogen Corporation VP Jeff Passmore posing at the Globe 2002 Conference held in Vancouver.

Also in attendance was Sir Stuart-Moody, former head of Royal Dutch Shell and now Chairman of the Office of Gas and Electric Management (Ofgem) in Great Britain, the regulatory body for energy. The head of Shell Canada was seen also.


http://www.windsorworkshop.ca/downloads/Passmore.pdf


Recommended:

Fueling the Future

[Wesleyville: Wind to Wheels]

This is what I am up to next week. Look to the news for the issue of
sustainability within the energy economy to arise before or during the
Canadian federal election.


Wesleyville: Wind To Wheels
A return to the PUC and stimulating the rural economy in Northumberland

Thursday, May 20, 2004, 5-8 p.m.

Port Hope Public Library
31 Queen Street

Featuring:

Wind Expert Paul Gipe, Acting Executive Director of the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association.



-- worry about potential unless everyone has it --