Scott VanDenPlas

Last night, on the Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert proposed that we close the tainted food gap between China and the United States. He thinks we should fight back, and should do it young. So he introduced the “Crawl It Off” line of “Baby Food Formula” (please note that it is not real food, merely a formula).

I took it upon myself to make a 10 minute photoshop mock up of it, in case you want to print your own stickers and pretend to poison your young ones.

I just caught Michael Moore on Chris Matthew’s Hardball… he is encouraging people who are having a hard time with their insurance carriers to use his name to get things moving. He said to tell your insurance providers that you have spoken to Michael Moore, and that if they don’t help you and your sick child, that he is going to feature you in his next DVD. (Keep a look out on Michael Moore’s website for a new insurance card you can carry to demonstrate this in person)

And as Chris Matthew’s observed, nothing like good old blackmail.

Sometimes the largest solutions seems to have some of the smallest problems. Recently, a friend of mine and I have been talking about small wind installations. We have looked at the costs of developing a small vertical axis wind turbine system for installation in the countryside of Illinois. The largest expense in our system is not the turbine or the generator, those are actually fairly reasonably priced. The most unwieldy expense is in the inverter required in order to tie the system to the electrical grid. One device that doubles the cost of the system.

It makes me wonder, how many sustainable and renewable energy system options are held up by one problem?

The unique part of this problem is that ANY distributed renewable system that we come up with will continue to be limited by this problem. There are quick ways around it right now, such as powering DC systems in your home without feeding back into the electrical grid, or using a battery bank and going completely off grid. These solutions don’t address the problem head on, and for distributed renewable energy to become popular, they will have to be grid tied at some point in time.

Maybe we should start a collaborative design project and see if the Internet can solve this problem for us?

The second quarter numbers are in, and Manny Flores has raised a significant amount of money. He comes in 8th on the list, but every single person above him is an incumbent. He is completely dominating locally:

Manny Flores for Congress:

Beginning Cash On Hand: $0
Unitemized Contribs From Indivs: $27,487
Total Receipts (including unitemized): $478,029
Total Disbursements (including unitemized): $41,913
Current Cash On Hand: $436,117
Debts/Loans Owed By Cmte: $0

Contribution Number State

1. $426,846 532 IL
2. $5,700 6 CA CA
3. $2,500 2 OH OH
4. $2,300 2 IN IN

Maldonado For Congress:

Beginning Cash On Hand: $9,764
Unitemized Contribs From Indivs: $20,935
Total Receipts (including unitemized): $182,857
Total Disbursements (including unitemized): $25,861
Current Cash On Hand: $166,761
Debts/Loans Owed By Cmte: $0

Contribution Number State

1. $141,622 170 IL
2. $9,200 21 IN IN
3. $3,800 3 ID ID
4. $2,800 2 TX TX
5. $2,000 1 FL FL

Ricardo Munoz for Congress:

Beginning Cash On Hand: $1,200
Unitemized Contribs From Indivs: $9,595
Total Receipts (including unitemized): $309,506
Total Disbursements (including unitemized): $2,250
Current Cash On Hand: $308,456
Debts/Loans Owed By Cmte: $197,000

117 Hard Dollar Contribution From Indiv $99,200
12 Hard Dollar Contribution From PACs and Other Cmtes $3,711
1 Loans Made or Guaranteed by Cand $148,000

1. $92,100 110 IL
2. $4,850 3 CA

Check out the DailyKos summary.

Check out this talk at MoMo Amsterdam by Jaiku’s Jyri Engeström.

Jyri identifies the increasing number of sites on the Alexa top 100 based on user generated content as what he calls a “megatrend swiping over web services.” He lays out three topics that he covers in this talk:

1. The case for social objects. What is the motive and driver for actually interacting online?
2. Five principles for building services around them. He formulates working principals for how to create your own site. How do you create a compelling offering online?
3. His take on the next wave

He uses social networks as an example, and examines the tendency for social networks to flourish and die out (FireFly, SixDegrees, the floundering Friendster). Why do so many of these services fail? How do we predict which ones will actually sustain themselves?

He uses Russell Beatties public cancellation of his LinkedIn account as an example. LinkedIn, at that time, was merely another social network. It was a game to see how many contacts each person could rack up, and he who has the most contacts wins.

The sites that work are the sites that are built around social objects. For LinkedIn, this social object is now jobs. Flickr did it with photos. Delicious did it with bookmarks. Amazon did it with books. The focal point of MySpace is music.

So then the question becomes, how do you build a service around social objects? He answers this with a quick checklist:

1. What is your object? How is it defined? How quickly can you understand what this object is?
2. What are your verbs? How do people act upon those objects? Can you create a new verb?
3. How can people share the objects? Can I email a permalink?
4. What is the gift in the invitation? What does the person you invite get by joining?
5. Are you charging the publishers of the spectators? Basic service should be free, people will pay to establish their own space. Charge the publishers.

His answer on disruptive technology is good, but his answer on “what will be the next big thing?” is rather lacking. The preconditions of a disruptive innovations are if the solution is simpler, cheaper, or if it frees the user from inconvenience. He believes that microblogging is part of the “Mass Starbucksization of Nearly Everything.” Social objects to go. He also says that it is like blogging for people with nothing to say.

I can see the angle of microblogging. I previously viewed it as a blogging replacement, but I get a better picture of it now and where it could fit in holistically. It doesn’t have any of the intrinsic values of a normal blog, it has a much more reduced shelf life. It is disposable blogging.

Jyri leaves us with these questions for your own services:

Is it free?
Is it quick and easy?
is it cross-device and multi channel?
Is it everyday?

Does it bring people closer together?

2 months ago, I wrote about Intel’s counteractive response to the One Laptop Per Child program. In the face of the negative press around their actions, and more likely the positive press around the AMD 50 x 15 program (and in turn Negroponte’s project), Intel has taken a step toward collaborating on the OLPC project rather than trying to sink it.

The question is… why? The XO machine runs an AMD Geode processor and is in direct competition to the Intel Classmate. Intel has attempted to subvert the low cost laptop market by offering machines below cost. They have distributed anti-OLPC marketing rhetoric to Negroponte’s target countries. There has been a war of words between the chip maker and the OLPC project founders for at least 12 months.

Intel does support educational programs. They have put nearly a billion of their own dollars into educational initiatives around the world, and it makes them look completely asinine to oppose an innovative approach like OLPC. It is expected of them to support a program like this.

More importantly, Intel has lost this battle, but they do not want to lose the war. The XO is flat out better than the classmate. It has a stronger program, solves the correct problem in an efficient manner, and has a wide base of community support. The market for a cheap laptop is huge, but the profit margins on that market are very thin. The current XO machine and OLPC program only address a small fraction of that market, and evidence suggests that if this program is successful, a laptop made for older students could be in the near future. The XO has a predetermined expiration in a student’s educational lifetime. It is not made for teenagers and adults.

The success of a program like OLPC creates another market for them to expand into. OLPC is sowing the seeds of technology supported educational programs early on in a child’s life and will prove successful with it. What happens when that child goes on to more advanced education without that infrastructure? They are once again put in a compromised educational environment, ripe to be augmented with another cheap laptop solution. If Intel wants to capture this market, a feasibly larger market than the children’s machine market, then they certainly cannot be at odds with the OLPC program.

Intel is making a wise investment in their own future.

Intel graffiti picture by Brooke Novak.

What a cute commercial. From what I understand though, the proper ending should have been one baby stuffing the gas pump down another baby’s throat and pumping toxic sludge and ammonia into his stomach.

I read from the Tribune.

The massive BP oil refinery in Whiting, Ind., is planning to dump significantly more ammonia and industrial sludge into Lake Michigan, running counter to years of efforts to clean up the Great Lakes.

Indiana regulators exempted BP from state environmental laws to clear the way for a $3.8 billion expansion that will allow the company to refine heavier Canadian crude oil. They justified the move in part by noting the project will create 80 new jobs.

Under BP’s new state water permit, the refinery — already one of the largest polluters along the Great Lakes — can release 54 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more sludge into Lake Michigan each day. Ammonia promotes algae blooms that can kill fish, while sludge is full of concentrated heavy metals.

BP is now allowed to dump 4,925 pounds of industrial sludge into the lake PER DAY the very maximum amount allowed under federal guidelines. That is nearly 1.8 MILLION pounds of sludge per year, into my drinking water.

The request to dump more chemicals into the lake ran counter to a provision of the Clean Water Act that prohibits any downgrade in water quality near a pollution source even if discharge limits are met. To get around that rule, state regulators are allowing BP to install equipment that mixes its toxic waste with clean lake water about 200 feet offshore.

Actively diluting pollution this way by creating what is known as a mixing zone is banned in Lake Michigan under Indiana law. Regulators granted BP the first-ever exemption.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been pushing to eliminate mixing zones around the Great Lakes on the grounds that they threaten humans, fish and wildlife. Yet EPA officials did not object to Indiana’s decision, agreeing with the state that BP’s project would not harm the environment.

Ok, so not only is BP dumping an increased amount of ammonia and the maximum amount of industrial sludge allowed by law into the lake, but in order to do so, they are now exempt from Indiana environmental regulations? Is this that progressive environmentally friendly oil company I have been seeing commercials for? What next, you’re going to tell me that there actually is no human element?

Just got back from the latest tech cocktail, enjoyed most conversations, including an extended philosophy session with the ravenously beautiful Ron May. Saw a lot of old faces and an even greater number of new ones.

If I met you there, drop me an email.

When I was young, I remember my father telling me about Boy Named Sue. He loved the idea of that song. He had long been fascinated with machismo, and Johnny Cash gave him the perfect outlet.

Years later, I found out that the song had been originally penned by Shel Silverstein. Shel had an amazing comedic whit, and a great sense of irony. I’m not sure how my father would feel about the toughness of this song if he heard this sequel, Father of Boy Named Sue.

Yeah, I lef’ home when the kid was three.
It sure felt good to be fancy free
Tho I knew it wasn’t quite the fatherly thing to do.
But that kid kept screamin’ and throwin’ up
And pissin’ in his pants til I had enough
So just for revenge I went and named him Sue.

it was Gatlinberg in mid July
was gettin’ drunk but gettin’ by
Gettin’ old and going from bad to worse
When thru the door with an awful scream
Comes the ugliest queen I’ve ever seen
He says my name is Sue. How do you do?
Then he hits me with his purse.

Now this ain’t the way he tells the tale
But he scratched my face with his fingernails
And then he bit my thumb
and kicked me with his high-heeled shoe.
So I hit him in the nose, and he started to cry
And he threw some perfume in my eye
And it sure ain’t easy fightin with a boy named Sue.

So I hit him in the head with a caned-back chair
And he screamed, “Hey Dad,you mussed my hair!”
And he hit me in the navel and knocked out a piece of my lint.
He was spittin’ blood. I was spittin teeth.
And we crashed through the wall and out into the street
A-kickin and gougin’ in the mud and the blood

Then out of his garter he pulls a gun.
I’m about to get shot by my very own son.
He’s screamin’ about Sigmond Freud and lookin’ grim.
So I thought fast and I told him some stuff
How I named him Sue just to make him tough.
And I guess he bought it, cuz now I’m livin’ with him.

Yeah, he cooks and sews and cleans up the place.
He cuts my hair and shaves my face.
And irons my shirts better than a daughter could do.
And on the nights that I can’t score,
Well, I can’t tell you anymore.
Sure is a joy to have a boy named Sue.
Yeah, a son is fun,
But it’s a joy to have a boy named Sue.

What this song shows us is what Silverstein and Cash both knew. Johnny Cash was an icon, image, and salesman. The real Johnny Cash was tormented, addicted, and dark. Johnny Cash’s music is interesting to me, but his life long struggle with addiction and his ultimate path to Christianity is much more fascinating.

I’ve been told not to speak about religion in polite company, but I never really liked that rule and you will rarely find my company to be polite. I do not see a valuable lesson in Cash’s religion. He isn’t some prodigal son returning home. He is a man coping with addiction by giving up his own free will. I have never agreed with the 12 steps approach, and I don’t believe in a god. Cash gave up part of himself to keep his head above water and make his addiction manageable. I’m sure that even he would disagree with me if he were able to. He gave up an addiction to drugs to seek an addiction to absolution, and in each he gave up a part of his own autonomy and independence.

I prefer not to see anyone’s god in Johnny Cash. I see a man chasing redemption, not from god, but from the world. The thing about redemption is that it always seems as if there is something to be redeemed for. Who can’t identify with that?

A while back, I mentioned that I went to the Daley Urban Forum at UIC. The final panel of speakers included Sarah Dunn from UrbanLab. She spoke about a design project that she was working on called Growing Water.

In her presentation, she said that 20% of the Earth’s fresh water is in the great lakes. 95% of the United States’ water is located there. Less than 1% of the 1 billion gallons of water Chicagoans consume PER DAY is returned to the lakes. There is a subcontinental divide that creates 2 watersheds, splitting Illinois in half. Water flows from the middle of the state toward Lake Michigan. We have come up with interesting engineering feats to get around this watershed, including reversing the Chicago river and the Deep Tunnel project.

This project proposes that over the next 100 years, Chicago take up a massive effort to recycle water by using the watershed to funnel waste water through green pathways back toward the lake. The idea is to build a living system of eco-boulevards, adding on to the boulevards and parkway system that Chicago already has in the limited Emerald Necklace. These boulevards would be spaced every half mile or mile throughout the entire city, and would treat rain water and waste water via microorganisms, plants, and small invertebrates.

I don’t quite see how they expect to keep the eco-boulevards clean at this point. I think the largest issue we would have with this system is people dumping extremely toxic wastes into them. I love the idea though, and I love that there are people out there thinking of things like this. We’re reaching a point where clean fresh water is going to become a scarce resource, and Lake Michigan will continue to be one of Chicago’s greatest natural resources.

I wonder if UrbanLab is hiring?