20XI2009 Dubai

one of the challenges that designers face is how to help without being perceived as the help.

the move to san francisco has been a study in centricity. how many places, groups, people feel that they are the centre of the world. who is right? in an way each are as each are indeed the center of their own little world. the boon and bane of my existence is that i see so much all over the world that nothing seems centered at all. there are times that i truly envy those whose world is so small that they are so sure that they already know all the answers to all the questions that will ever be asked.

every day i feel that there are more questions that need to be asked. questions waiting to bubble up to find their way to daylight. biding their time. my head swims at times. most of the time actually. the thing that then brings me back is a word or gesture by a random person. a reminder that we are all one race. here and now. occupying a fragile blue gem that needs us all to never stop asking questions and searching for better answers.

change is constant. the context is always variable.

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/archives/2009/01/a_design_manife.html

by Bruce Nussbaum. it is a good read.

http://www.mazneb.org/

the recs that will be presented to the governor. interesting.

an African Minister stated ‘i want a CEO of NGOs’ they are running around doing anything they want with people who are paid far more than my staff. if we could only harness them for the national good, rather for their personal gratification.’

it reminds me of the great advice from another African leader at WEF Davos 2007 who said ‘stop giving us aid; help us help ourselves!’

this is a plea that really resonated with me. the big question is, then what should be done….

wires. i really have a growing dislike for wires. two large canvas bags are full of wires at home. legacy of an industry which loved to differentiate. a waste of oil and minerals…and my patience. i pine for the day when those lab fantasies of our devices of all sizes can recharge on almost any surface by induction. it will come. soon please.

By a majority verdict, a British jury found five protestors who shut down the Kingsnorth coal-fired power plant had a “lawful excuse” to close the plant to prevent greater damage from global warming. Greenpeace activists, protesting the contribution of coal-electric power plants to climate change, scaled a chimney and painted the word “Gordon” on the chimney before they were forced down (“Gordon” is a reference to British prime minister Gordon Brown). The protest shut down the power plant temporarily and the graffiti cost about $62,000 to remove. The jury verdict in favor of the protestors illustrates how a U.S. jury might respond to similar protests.

The jury verdict in favor of the protestors illustrates how a U.S. jury might respond t………….

http://www.globalclimatelaw.com/2008/09/articles/climate-change-litigation/british-jury-in-kingsnorth-case-finds-in-favor-of-climate-change-protestors/

interesting line which i have been hearing recently. and painfully true.

it is hard to imagine how long the trip was. i simply can’t remember. really. departure from Portland, Maine on Saturday early afternoon and then two days later i arrive in Melbourne, Australia. the Portland airport is quite simply – quaint. it has a few gate. mine had rocking chairs to while away the hours as you waited. my plane was cancelled. so i thankfully, after an incredibly stressful ten minutes, was rebooked onto another flight on another airline. United thru Chicago. that sounded just fine. however, i landed at ‘F’ and needed to be at ‘B’ in order to meet my next plane. so, the rubber band propelled jet wound up and left Portland heading west. i couldn’t stand up in it. the 90 minutes seemed an eternity on paper. i had 10 minutes to spare by the time i actually got to my ‘B’ gate.

flying in America is simply not nice. no matter how you slice it, economy class sucks. i was in a seat which had no padding, so after 30 minutes my back end was sore. there is so little room between each seat that it is simply IMPOSSIBLE to open a laptop and work. the flight from ORD to LAX was essentially wasted. i did get to watch between the heads a tiny screen which was playing a movie featuring Kevin Costner which essentially was produced to encourage Americans to vote. it made the time pass. but what a waste of four hours of my life.

arriving in LAX was similar. why is it that big airports in the west are held together by duct tape? i had to get from terminal somethingorother to terminal 2. that was easy enough once someone could tell me which bus to get on. but again, the 120 minute interval between flights evaporated. made it to the gate with 15 minutes to spare. i really hate travel stress. this was my first Air New Zealand flight. the lounge was okay. better by far than united or american airlines. just long enough to have a beer and then go to the gate. the 777 is configured so that the business class is up front and economy the rest of the plane. every seat in business has access to the aisle. they are also flat beds which flip. they are all new, so i perhaps expected more. it as just fine. why can’t an airline really come up with a good seat/bed? the flight to Auckland was essentially a night flight. i ate and went to sleep. sort of. i find that sleepig at 38000 feet is simply not restful. our bodies need more oxygen to recoup than they can suck out of the air. sunrise over New Zealand was spectacular.

landed in Auckland. found my new gate. flew the final four hours on a 747-400 in the nose seat. it is fun to be able to see out. finally able to get a few hours of work. arrived Melbourne. i love the immigration system here. EVERYONE gets their bag x-rayed. no ‘profiling’ or anything like that. we all get our bags zapped. fair an square.

22 hours of flights. yuck.

my daughter asked me ‘why are the train tracks so smooth in Switzerland?’ she didn’t wait for my answer and continued with ‘in England they sway back and forth’.

it is a good question…..why is it that we allow the very infrastructure which enables a society to survive to crumble a bit every day without seeming to care?