Samuel Freilich's Posts - Urgent Evoke2024-03-28T09:21:04ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilichhttp://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2209185452?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=27numkzpbgx9w&xn_auth=noEvoke Game Criticismtag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-05-17:4871302:BlogPost:1519852010-05-17T05:00:00.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
I came to Evoke in large part because I enjoy seeing interesting ideas. The intersection between game design and other disciplines of social analysis and manipulation is fascinating. That includes the use of social networking software and social psychology to make more addictive games (for example, Farmville), the use of games to enhance marketing and customer participation (Foursquare), or using games to persuade people to spend more effort on otherwise unappealing or frustrating tasks (The…
I came to Evoke in large part because I enjoy seeing interesting ideas. The intersection between game design and other disciplines of social analysis and manipulation is fascinating. That includes the use of social networking software and social psychology to make more addictive games (for example, Farmville), the use of games to enhance marketing and customer participation (Foursquare), or using games to persuade people to spend more effort on otherwise unappealing or frustrating tasks (The ESP Game, Evoke). I also wanted the experience of participating in an Alternate Reality Game (This Reality Game?) like Evoke. I'd missed the chance to play <span style="font-style: italic;">Superstruct</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">World Without Oil</span>, and I regretted the missed opportunity.<br/><br/>Evoke was an interesting experiment, and it produced some amazing results, but it seems to me that there were many major problems with the game design:<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold;">World Issues:</span> Alternate Reality Games are a form of collaborative story-telling. As such, there needs to be some basic agreement between the puppet masters (PMs, those running an ARG) and the players about what story the players are telling. Were the players telling the story of themselves working as undercover Evoke Agents in 2010? Themselves as Evoke Agents in 2020? (Post-2020, when knowledge of the existence of Evoke is public?) Are they imagining themselves as new recruits or as established members of Alchemy's team? Not all of those questions have to be answered, nor do players have to consider themselves strictly bound by answers given by the PMs for the game to work. <span style="font-style: italic;">World Without Oil</span> produced some really compelling narrative because players started on the same foundation (you are at this time, in these circumstances), and the players and PMs were synchronized to some degree.<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold;">Storytelling Issues:</span> In ARGs, player participation involves narrative, but how that narrative unfolds depends on the game. In some games, player choices may influence the PMs later actions as they lay out the story. In others, players discover hidden elements of a story that the PMs have laid out in advance. There's a lot about the world of Evoke that wasn't laid out in the comic chapters, but it seems to me that players were given little opportunity to create and/or discover that. PM-run characters (including Alchemy) did show up around the site to praise insightful questions or responses and award bonus points, but I didn't see much in the way of non-player characters and players interacting in a way that furthered the story. (Of course, maybe that was something I just missed.) I can see why Alchemy wouldn't want to weigh in for
fear of shutting down discussions with basically <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WordOfGod">Word of God</a>, but if Alchemy's around, why not Eureka and Quinn and Ember (and Cipher?). (The 2010 versions of those characters?) Why no game events in the real world that involved PM participation?<br/><br/>An ongoing theme in this criticism: There seemed to be a conceptual distance in the game between "the world of Evoke" and "our world". But the fundamental idea of this game is that the World of Evoke <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> our world.<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold;">Synergy Between Mechanics and Narrative:</span> There are a few ways that the mechanics (point system, achievements, badges, awarding of Evokations) work with the story. For one thing, what's done with the grant money awarded <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> part of the narrative. The choice of categories for the Power Points is also significant to the story, it tells us something about the values of Evoke (and Alchemy specifically). But points didn't seem to do much to allow players to influence the story or discover more about the story. Some Agents presented the network with challenges which PMs awarded with points (and PMs asked some Agents to create challenges?). Some of that counts. But I think more could have been done with that. How about calling on those with a lot of points in a particular category to design or lead challenges related to that category specifically? Maybe players with Vision get to influence the future course of the story, those with Spark get to challenge other players, those with Courage get the power to ret-con details to make the story better, those with Knowledge Share can nominate featured evidence, and so on and so forth.<br/><br style="font-weight: bold;"/><span style="font-weight: bold;">Not Collaborative Enough:</span> Players are encouraged to form teams to work on Evokations, and some collaboration on other projects was done on and off-site. However, it seems that the missions were all designed to be completed (or not) individually. A typical ARG pattern is to have group challenges that may be solved by an individual or a group. Players may race to be first, but ultimately the mechanics are collaborative. Some games deviate from that, but it seems odd to deviate from that in a game where the objective ("save the world") seems <span style="font-style: italic;">inherently</span> collaborative.<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold;">Balance and Pacing Issues:</span> The quantity of points assigned to the different missions seemed kind of arbitrary. Given that the original idea was (apparently) to have PMs review evidence and check off mission completion manually, it seems that the designers themselves underestimated the scale and complexity of the game in practice. If the objective was to ramp up from "learn/teach/imagine on the internet" to "get out in the real world and do stuff", the ramp was quite bumpy.<br/><br/>(To give some credit here: Accepting McGonigal's thesis that "motivating people to save the world" is a game design problem, it's not an easy game design problem. Probably not realistic to expect the first round of Evoke players to be establishing community gardens, achieving energy independence for their towns, and overthrowing dictatorial regimes.)<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold;">Writing:</span> The writing is not very good. I already complained that it rips off Heroes too much, and that Heroes is not well-written in the first place, but that bears repeating. If the idea was to leave a bunch of stories untold to encourage the audience to tell those stories, it doesn't seem to pull that off as well as some other ARGs with a similar structure.<br/><br/>The writing isn't just bad in a dramatic or literary sense, it's also weak in a rhetorical sense. My favorite <a href="http://urgentinvoke.com/">Evoke parody</a> got away with far too many "yes they actually said that" unchanged panels in their satirical alterations.<br/><br/>(One thing the story does well is leaving interesting unanswered questions (which makes the comparison to <span style="font-style: italic;">Heroes</span> even stronger): How did Quinn pull himself up by his bootstraps after the Mugabe regime seized his family's wealth? (And about his family history, there's probably more than one side to <span style="font-style: italic;">that</span> story.) Why is Eureka such a stickler for secrecy, and what's her beef with Citizen X? Why is Alchemy convinced the Evoke Network will fall apart without him, and why doesn't he do anything to fix that? (And why all the rationalizations for why he should be above the law?) Who is Alpha? What's on Citizen X's Dark Site? How did Cipher originally become obsessed with Evoke? What's the origin of Citizen X? (Links to particularly good examples of player storytelling on this topic are also welcomed.))<br/><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br/>Boldness of Execution < Boldness of Concept:</span> I think in terms of getting players to do stuff right now to change the world for the better, the missions could have been more ambitious. McGonigal talks about how the experience of "an Epic Win" is based on acing a task that seems, at first glance, impossible. Were there any missions that weren't completed fully, as described, by some players? If not, could harder missions be put in, prompting someone to accomplish something even more impressive that wouldn't have been accomplished otherwise? That <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> the objective here, right?<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold;">Money Where Your Mouth Is:</span> The Evokations! Travel to a conference in DC, or a mentorship, or seed funding of $1000 (not sure about that last, the FAQ mentions this but official rules don't). Not to say that's bad, but it certainly could be a lot more impressive. The World Bank is not exactly a cash-poor organization. How much would it cost for a self-sustaining grant to found a new NGO? Or, failing that, at least enough to support someone for a year or two?<br/><br/>So, suggestions for future seasons:<br/><ul>
<li>Make it clear what story players are telling (at least the "when and what circumstances").</li>
<li>Provide more opportunities for players to create and/or discover parts of the story. More interaction between NPCs (PMs) and players.</li>
<li>Make it clearer that what players do in the real world is the story. Facilitate that better, reward that more.</li>
<li>Connect the mechanics to the story better. "Get a high score" doesn't seem to be an objective that works great for ARGs. Have different sorts of achievements/points affect how players interact with the story.</li>
<li>Include collaborative objectives, where players win together or not at all.</li>
<li>Work on the difficulty curve.</li>
<li>Better, more surprising, more original writing. If it must borrow heavily, borrow from something better.</li>
<li>Show a bit more self-awareness about the arguments / opinions included in story content, especially if the sponsor is a big organization.</li>
<li>Challenge people a bit more. No, more than that.</li>
<li>Big challenges, big rewards.</li>
</ul>
Note that I am not a game designer. I'm really looking forward to whatever after-action report McGonigal files on this one. I want to know what the designers were thinking, which things turned out as expected, what went better or worse. She'll no doubt be able to take a better critical look than mine as well.<br/>Community Organizing Example: The Barefoot Collegetag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-05-16:4871302:BlogPost:1515492010-05-16T04:53:38.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
(Finishing a few missions before wrap-up.)<br></br><br></br><a href="http://www.barefootcollege.org/abo_approach.asp">The Barefoot College</a> in India is an interesting example of how to create synergy between indigenous knowledge and modern technology and ideas. Among other projects, they've been working on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfWYvz6tT3c">electrifying rural villages with solar power</a>.<br></br><br></br>Some key ideas they use in meeting this goal:<br></br><br></br>- For community improvement…
(Finishing a few missions before wrap-up.)<br/><br/><a href="http://www.barefootcollege.org/abo_approach.asp">The Barefoot College</a> in India is an interesting example of how to create synergy between indigenous knowledge and modern technology and ideas. Among other projects, they've been working on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfWYvz6tT3c">electrifying rural villages with solar power</a>.<br/><br/>Some key ideas they use in meeting this goal:<br/><br/>- For community improvement projects, import the necessary technical knowledge, and maybe the needed supplies, but not the people. Give locals the needed technical skills, and the necessary planning will be done in light of knowledge about the community.<br/><br/>- Make a distinction between education and literacy. Or, more generally, make a distinction between education in the academic and technical sense. Aim directly for teaching the technical skills needed as fast as possible. Sometimes it's better to figure out how to teach a skill right away given the student's current level of knowledge than to figure out what else you need to teach them first.<br/><br/>- Local knowledge is not exclusive. The Barefoot college specifically mentions the feminism of Ghandi, but the principle is more general. Train those marginalized by traditional social roles and you'll kill two birds with one stone, marginalized individuals may have just as much essential local knowledge, and giving them technical skills allows them to challenge traditional norms and take a more active role in the community.<br/>The Future of Evoketag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-05-08:4871302:BlogPost:1424022010-05-08T06:55:35.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
Challenges to tackle:<br></br><ul>
<li>Slavery, human trafficking, and labor conditions; the future of work<br></br></li>
<li>Political repression; fighting for freedoms and political power</li>
<li>Climate change</li>
</ul>
Where to focus:<br></br><ul>
<li>China</li>
<li>The Middle East</li>
</ul>
Who to encourage to play:<br></br><ul>
<li>Students</li>
<li>Politicians</li>
</ul>
How to change the game:<br></br><ul>
<li>Less ripping off Heroes. That show isn't even well-written to begin with.</li>
<li>Less rather…</li>
</ul>
Challenges to tackle:<br/><ul>
<li>Slavery, human trafficking, and labor conditions; the future of work<br/></li>
<li>Political repression; fighting for freedoms and political power</li>
<li>Climate change</li>
</ul>
Where to focus:<br/><ul>
<li>China</li>
<li>The Middle East</li>
</ul>
Who to encourage to play:<br/><ul>
<li>Students</li>
<li>Politicians</li>
</ul>
How to change the game:<br/><ul>
<li>Less ripping off Heroes. That show isn't even well-written to begin with.</li>
<li>Less rather arbitrary seeming point-systems (more less-arbitrary point systems?), more recognition of accomplishments.</li>
<li>Less typing, more doing things in the real world. Recognize those who take initiative, facilitate for those who just want to contribute a bit of time.</li>
<li>Did Evoke really have us feeling that we were on the edge of an Epic Win (in McGonigal's terms)? Did this game give reality more desirable properties?</li>
</ul>
Why would I come back:<br/><ul>
<li>As before, to see what happens.<br/></li>
</ul>Three Counter-Intuitive Principles of Trust-Buildingtag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-05-05:4871302:BlogPost:1390822010-05-05T05:54:34.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
Building and maintaining public trust is key if you want a coordinated disaster response effort. If people don't trust those responding to the disaster, they won't be cooperate, and may act in counter-productive ways. Without trust, coordination goes out the window.<br></br><br></br>The Nieman Guide to Covering Pandemics mentions a few interesting,…
Building and maintaining public trust is key if you want a coordinated disaster response effort. If people don't trust those responding to the disaster, they won't be cooperate, and may act in counter-productive ways. Without trust, coordination goes out the window.<br/><br/>The Nieman Guide to Covering Pandemics mentions a few interesting, <a href="http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/Microsites/NiemanGuideToCoveringPandemicFlu/CrisisCommunication/OutbreakCommunicationHowTheSourcesSeeTheStory.aspx#principles">counter-intuitive principles for building trust</a> in a crisis:<br/><br/>1. Admit the unknowns. Counter-intuitive because people trust those who seem to know what's going on. However, in situations where there are significant unknowns, the alternative to admitting unknowns to be evasive or to put forward guesses that may later turn out to be false. Either route destroys trust. Present an accurate assessment of what significant facts remain unknown, but also communicate what's being done to fill those gaps.<br/><br/>2. Don't over-reassure. Counter-intuitive because admitting how bad the situation is doesn't sound reassuring at first glance. However, there's no way to make someone panic faster than telling them everything
is all right when they can see it's not. Admitting the magnitude of the problem doesn't reassure that there is no problem, rather it reassures those feeling fear that they are not crazy and not alone, that the crisis at hand can be managed psychologically without resorting to denial.<br/><br/>3. More direct communication from core responders to the crisis. It might initially seem like communicating with the press diverts such people from more direct crisis response tasks. However, due to the effectiveness of direct communication for increasing trust, crisis response might be more effective if you get scientists and doctors (and so on) to the press conference, even if that takes them away from the hospital or the lab for a bit.<br/>Will There Be Indigenous Knowledge in the Future?tag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-04-28:4871302:BlogPost:1069792010-04-28T05:30:00.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
By that, I'm not asking whether the indigenous knowledge of today will be preserved decades into the future. Though that's an <a href="http://www.culturalsurvival.org/">interesting</a> <a href="http://rosettaproject.org/">question</a> in its own right.<br></br><br></br>But even given a radical reversal in the trend of communication and transportation costs, I don't see new groups becoming culturally isolated in the near future. Nor do I see the groups that are currently somewhat isolated remaining so.…
By that, I'm not asking whether the indigenous knowledge of today will be preserved decades into the future. Though that's an <a href="http://www.culturalsurvival.org/">interesting</a> <a href="http://rosettaproject.org/">question</a> in its own right.<br/><br/>But even given a radical reversal in the trend of communication and transportation costs, I don't see new groups becoming culturally isolated in the near future. Nor do I see the groups that are currently somewhat isolated remaining so. (And given a far-future scenario where civilization falls and the regions of the world are again isolated, <a href="http://tobyspeople.com/anthropik/2006/01/thesis-29-it-will-be-impossible-to-rebuild-civilization/index.html">who could accumulate the resources</a> to be the next colonizing group?) One of the strongest cultural barriers, that of groups not knowing of
one another's existence, is far more easily broken than reestablished. And if there are still secret tribes, they are few in number.<br/><br/>Isolation carries benefits, but also significant risks. Isolate yourself, and you guarantee that you'll only run into people with the means to overcome whatever barriers kept your group isolated and no reason to like you or your fellows.<br/><br/>So to answer what local secret I'd pass on, I say: "Local? <span style="font-style: italic;">Secret?</span> It's <span style="font-style: italic;">on my website!</span>"<br/><font size="1"><br/>(I suppose interstellar distances are still a significant enough
barrier to allow for cultural isolation, but I don't expect humans will<br/>
be crossing them within my lifetime. And I wouldn't count on extra-terrestrials showing up and making all of us "indigenous", or <a href="http://cryptogon.com/?p=14972">on them being kind to us</a> if they did. I don't count that as a likely scenario, and all bets are off in that case anyways.)</font><br/>No One Resilience Plan for Bostontag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-04-21:4871302:BlogPost:996692010-04-21T22:48:13.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
I'd expect that Boston is actually likely to be a fairly resilient city. On a port, access to a (now relatively healthy) waterway. On major rail routes. Moderately walkable. Decent public transit. Fairly strong civil and medical services. Not located in an area that's geologically active. Some concerns about flooding, but otherwise little concern about storm-related disasters.<br></br><br></br>I couldn't find a centralized summary of Boston's plan for resilience, but there seem to be a large number of…
I'd expect that Boston is actually likely to be a fairly resilient city. On a port, access to a (now relatively healthy) waterway. On major rail routes. Moderately walkable. Decent public transit. Fairly strong civil and medical services. Not located in an area that's geologically active. Some concerns about flooding, but otherwise little concern about storm-related disasters.<br/><br/>I couldn't find a centralized summary of Boston's plan for resilience, but there seem to be a large number of efforts or organizations that work towards that goal. Among them:<br/><ul>
<li><a href="http://www.cityofboston.gov/moep/">Boston's Office of Emergency Preparedness</a> (my suburb, Somerville, also has their Local Emergency Preparedness Committee, which is an inter-departmental committee connecting the <a href="http://www.somervillema.gov/Department.cfm?dept=FIRE">Fire Department</a> and the local <a href="http://www.somervillema.gov/section.cfm?org=HEALTH&page=685">Department of Health</a>)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=eopsagencylanding&L=3&L0=Home&L1=Public+Safety+Agencies&L2=Massachusetts+Emergency+Management+Agency&sid=Eeops">Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency</a> (and the <a href="http://www.fema.gov/">Federal Emergency Management Agency</a>, assuming they've gotten some new management)<br/></li>
<li><a href="http://www.mbta.com/">The MBTA</a> (both in providing economic resilience and having to respond to disasters, like <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/massdot/4435790264/">this example</a> from earlier this year)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/Transit/">Massachusetts Dept. of Transportation</a><br/></li>
<li><a href="http://www.crwa.org/">Charles River Watershed Association</a> (which I've mentioned in earlier weeks)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.gogreenstreets.org/">Green Streets Initiative</a> (thanks to another Evoke agent for <a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/the-ins-and-outs-of-bostons">mentioning</a> some of the below)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.bostonnatural.org/cgCouncil.htm">Community Gardeners Council</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.urbanecologycollaborative.org/uec/">Urban Ecology Collective</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.bostonredevelopmentauthority.org/bostonez/aboutus/aboutus.asp">Boston Empowerment Zone</a> (economic development also can add to resilience)<br/></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gbfb.org/">Greater Boston Food Bank</a><br/></li>
</ul>
Not to say that it's a bad idea for cities to summarize their goals in long-term resilience plans, but it's important to remember just how many systems are involved in keeping a city strong and resilient.<br/>Riot Responsetag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-04-16:4871302:BlogPost:945182010-04-16T16:46:30.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
Probably one of the most dangerous crises faced by cities in the near future will be resource riots, where a shortage of food or fuel. The world saw some of this already, in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80%932008_world_food_price_crisis">fuel and food price surge</a> leading up to the current economic collapse.<br></br><br></br>There are several sorts of information you'd want to keep track of in such an emergency:<br></br>1. Locations where roads are blocked, or where bus and train…
Probably one of the most dangerous crises faced by cities in the near future will be resource riots, where a shortage of food or fuel. The world saw some of this already, in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80%932008_world_food_price_crisis">fuel and food price surge</a> leading up to the current economic collapse.<br/><br/>There are several sorts of information you'd want to keep track of in such an emergency:<br/>1. Locations where roads are blocked, or where bus and train service is disrupted<br/>2. Locations where emergency resources are being distributed (food or fuel rations, for example)<br/>3. Locations where emergency resources are needed (by people who can't reach the above, including injured people)<br/>4. Locations where emergency services are disrupted (emergency rooms full, or hospitals with unreliable power and insufficient generator fuel, police stations beset by rioters)<br/>5. Locations where emergency services are reliable<br/>6. Locations of conflict (violence, arrests)<br/>7. Locations that are hazardous for other reasons (fires, etc.)<br/><br/>Actually, the above applies pretty well to all sorts of disaster situations.<br/><br/>The key difference in situations of political unrest is that the same tools used to maintain order can be used to disrupt order, so various groups (including governments) might be trying to disrupt communications at a time of political crisis. An interesting question is how a disaster response system could be made resilient against malicious actors.<br/><br/>The internet is fairly resistant to disruption, as the Iranian government found during the recent <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/443634">election protests</a>. Not that the internet is invulnerable to disruption when the ISPs are in state hands, it's just very hard to disrupt that sort of infrastructure for only some people/uses. The Iranian government could have made it difficult for anyone in the country to access the internet at all, but that would have been too costly to the economy and too disruptive to the functioning of the government itself. I'd be a bit more worried about the reliability of the cell-phone network in a political crisis.<br/><br/>Also, it's worth noting that as communication tools get better, the difference between tools useful for disaster response (real-time, local) and tools useful for journalism (rich, providing a broad context) shrinks. Consider crowd-sourced news sites like <a href="http://www.nowpublic.com/">NowPublic</a> and <a href="http://spot.us/">Spot.us</a>, disaster response tools like <a href="http://www.ushahidi.com/">Ushahidi</a> and <a href="http://www.sahanafoundation.org/">SAHANA</a>, and sites like <a href="http://www.flickr.com/">Flickr</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/">YouTube</a>, and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/">Twitter</a>. The ability to produce and obtain local, real-time information has never been higher, the question is how to sort out the wheat from the chaff, how to turn timely, local, brief (but possibly unreliable) bits of information into a detailed, comprehensive, accurate picture of what's going on at a given time. There's a good "save the world and make money" project for sure.<br/>Imagining in Questionstag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-04-15:4871302:BlogPost:937042010-04-15T19:30:00.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
Here's a program to <a href="http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/darfur-women-education/">educate women in Darfur</a>, a region living under dictatorship, suffering from resource shortages, torn by cultural conflict and war. What became of the graduates of this program ten years later?<br></br><br></br>Does their knowledge of nutrition give them better-nourished families? Are their families healthier as a result? Does the resulting spare money and time give them more time to think about ways to…
Here's a program to <a href="http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/darfur-women-education/">educate women in Darfur</a>, a region living under dictatorship, suffering from resource shortages, torn by cultural conflict and war. What became of the graduates of this program ten years later?<br/><br/>Does their knowledge of nutrition give them better-nourished families? Are their families healthier as a result? Does the resulting spare money and time give them more time to think about ways to improve their efficiency, <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/41/sternin.html">observe those who are doing well</a> and duplicate those solutions? Do the extra funds allow them to exploit economies of scale? Do they move to take advantage of better economic opportunities? Does that takes them closer to centers of political and economic power? Do they fight for democracy? For an end to military conflict back home? For political reform? Do some die for that cause?<br/><br/>Did they embrace feminism as a cause? Organize around women's issues? Mount a collective defense? Did they use nonviolent direct action? Did they take up arms? Did they fight for cultural/religious change from within? Did they denounce cultural or religious systems they were raised in? Did they lead their communities? To what ends? How does that impact the perception and enforcement of gender roles in those communities?<br/><br/>If education is a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivalry_%28economics%29">nonrival good</a> with positive economic impacts, how much value is produced when a substantial proportion of the population is no longer being denied education? How does that value manifest? Are more goods produced, more services provided? More art, more leisure, more knowledge? Faster entry into the "information economy"? How does the world economy change as a result?<br/><br/>What is the future of feminism, and how is that shaped by the developing world?<br/>Evaluating Women's Issues Charitytag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-04-15:4871302:BlogPost:936302010-04-15T17:51:42.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
It seems that charitable causes that attempt to help women fall into one or more of the following categories:<br></br><br></br>1. Give resources to women because women are disadvantaged in general ("affirmative action"). For example, see this <a href="http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/empowering-women-and-girls-through-running-walking/">running/walking based fitness program for women</a>, while they attempt to address a problem for women (isolation / depression / bad health), they don't argue that…
It seems that charitable causes that attempt to help women fall into one or more of the following categories:<br/><br/>1. Give resources to women because women are disadvantaged in general ("affirmative action"). For example, see this <a href="http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/empowering-women-and-girls-through-running-walking/">running/walking based fitness program for women</a>, while they attempt to address a problem for women (isolation / depression / bad health), they don't argue that such a problem affects women more or that such resources are better applied to women as opposed to men. The downside is the usual battle over affirmative action: Is allocating resources in that manner fair or justifiable in utilitarian terms? That last question is particularly pointed when asked in the context of <a href="http://www.the-spearhead.com/2010/01/14/amidst-haiti-disaster-womens-groups-seek-to-deny-relief-to-men/">disaster relief</a>.<br/><br/>2. Give resources to women because women are in a "unique position" to use those resources more efficiently. There are, however, both advantages and disadvantages to leveraging the strengths of women's position in a sexist society (e.g. closer connection to community/home because of lack of outside economic opportunities), you risk your solution being part of a lock-in that keeps the larger social/cultural system from changing.<br/><br/>3. Give resources to women to provide opportunities that women <span style="font-style: italic;">in particular</span> lack for social reasons. A good, common example is <a href="http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/darfur-women-education/"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">pr</span>oviding education to women</a> in areas where cultural or religious forces oppose women's education. The biggest risk of this approach is being unaware of the potential for backlash by the defenders of the status quo, including <a href="http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1971124,00.html">violence</a>.<br/><br/>4. Give resources to support direct feminist political or cultural action. The biggest possible downside is missing opportunities to do immediate good within the existing system.<br/><br/>I'd suggest asking the following questions about women's issues causes:<br/>1. Does it do more good than addressing the same problem from a gender-neutral standpoint?<br/>2. Does it do good in both the short and long term?<br/>3. Is it aware of and participating in larger cultural / political battles around the issues it addresses?<br/><br/>I encourage you to consider not just whether a particular cause supports women's issues, but how, and how effectively. Focus on the big stakes first: Education, economic opportunity, equality under the law.<br/>Child Marriage in Yemen and Elsewheretag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-04-12:4871302:BlogPost:904512010-04-12T19:29:50.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
Browsing the <a href="http://www.un.org/womenwatch/ungen/">WomenWatch</a> feed, I came across an article on the <a href="http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88589">ongoing battle over child marriage in Yemen</a>, and remembered that I'd seen some <a href="http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2010/04/08/child-marriage-sex-and-money-juliet-and-fawziya-ammodi/">excellent commentary</a> on that story recently. The post notes that child marriage is as much motivated by economic factors as…
Browsing the <a href="http://www.un.org/womenwatch/ungen/">WomenWatch</a> feed, I came across an article on the <a href="http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88589">ongoing battle over child marriage in Yemen</a>, and remembered that I'd seen some <a href="http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2010/04/08/child-marriage-sex-and-money-juliet-and-fawziya-ammodi/">excellent commentary</a> on that story recently. The post notes that child marriage is as much motivated by economic factors as cultural ones. Most parents are not marrying off daughters at an early age purely to benefit <span style="font-style: italic;">themselves</span>, but because they believe that doing so will lead to the daughters having a better future. Thus, if you want to fight the practice of child marriage, you'll get some mileage out of moving the focus to health issues (the risks of early pregnancy), and a lot more mileage out of creating alternate opportunities and limiting the factors that destroy those opportunities (armed conflict, etc.).<br/><br/>The prospect of fighting cultural or religious norms in pursuit of human rights makes some activists nervous, but such resistance is never as strong as it looks. As long as economic incentives more-or-less line up with tradition, people will express their resistance to change in cultural or religious terms. But that doesn't mean that most of those people are actually ideologues about the issue in question. You'll often find as many people fighting culture from within as true traditionalists.<br/><br/>This story got some significant attention in the global media in 2008 and 2009 (see <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/world/middleeast/29marriage.html">NYT article</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_ompypIwBM">video</a>), but the legal fight in Yemen is still ongoing. And while the focus is on Yemen, due to the legislation in progress, child marriage <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UamNBfI5P8o">is an issue worldwide</a>.<br/>It's As Much About Coordination as Currencytag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-04-08:4871302:BlogPost:850002010-04-08T03:30:00.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
Well, I looked into Kickstarter and I've been active with Kiva, and there's not much in the way of community currency movements in my area. I went looking for similar ventures and found a few interesting things.<br></br><br></br>First, there's <a href="http://microfundo.mymondomix.com/">Microfundo</a>, which applies the Kickstarter model of microfunding to music specifically. So does <a href="http://www.sellaband.com/pages/how_it_works">SellaBand</a>. <a href="http://spot.us/">Spot.us</a> uses a…
Well, I looked into Kickstarter and I've been active with Kiva, and there's not much in the way of community currency movements in my area. I went looking for similar ventures and found a few interesting things.<br/><br/>First, there's <a href="http://microfundo.mymondomix.com/">Microfundo</a>, which applies the Kickstarter model of microfunding to music specifically. So does <a href="http://www.sellaband.com/pages/how_it_works">SellaBand</a>. <a href="http://spot.us/">Spot.us</a> uses a similar approach to fund investigative journalism.<br/><br/>One site I was interested to hear mentioned in the same breath as Kickstarter was <a href="http://www.lotsahelpinghands.com/">Lotsa Helping Hands</a>, which has to do with organizing communities of support (e.g. for someone recovering from a medical emergency, or for an aging parent). That's not fundraising, but in cases where a significant amount of the cost comes from coordination (hiring someone because that's the most straightforward way to ensure that the work gets done), non-economic coordination can replace economic transactions. The biggest effect of information technology has been the drop in coordination costs, and I'd expect that in 2020, social network technology will be even more effective.<br/>No Money? Different Money?tag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-04-03:4871302:BlogPost:784332010-04-03T06:54:30.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
A key idea: The greatest paradox of modern society is the failure of labor-saving technology to free human beings from work.<br></br><br></br>Agent Ezra Ho has done <a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/abolish-money-evolve-humanity">an excellent job</a> blogging about The Zeitgeist Movement. Their idea is to abolish money by effectively <a href="http://www.thevenusproject.com/">ridding the world of scarcity</a>, having resource-management done by AI as opposed to distributed…
A key idea: The greatest paradox of modern society is the failure of labor-saving technology to free human beings from work.<br/><br/>Agent Ezra Ho has done <a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/abolish-money-evolve-humanity">an excellent job</a> blogging about The Zeitgeist Movement. Their idea is to abolish money by effectively <a href="http://www.thevenusproject.com/">ridding the world of scarcity</a>, having resource-management done by AI as opposed to distributed self-interest. Seems impossible, but one can't say that they lack in boldness of vision. (The <a href="http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/">Zeitgeist movies</a> are excellent food for thought and you should watch them.) The question of whether we could advance technology to the point where the most unpleasant jobs require no human intervention and make the rest at least easy and pleasant enough that <a href="http://wondermark.com/609/">someone wants to do them</a> is an interesting one.<br/><br/>I've also recently been investigating the work of <a href="http://wondermark.com/609/">Swarm USA</a>, and their plan, Freedom's Vision. In their mind, the key is replacing the debt-backed system of money with one where the money supply is again directly controlled by governments. I haven't dug through all their policy recommendations yet, but they seem to provide more detail in their transition plan than most that suggest, for example, switching back to the gold standard.<br/><br/>The debt-backed nature of money is probably the biggest problem for the modern monetary system. The inflation caused by the continual need to pay off interest-bearing loans will decrease the value of money at an exponentially increasing rate unless demand also increases exponentially. Unfortunately, the same labor-saving machines that allow production to keep up with inflation also push wages lower, which prevents demand from keeping up with production. The only solution is to convince people to take out loans to pay for things they need, then convince them to take out loans to pay for things they don't need, then convince them to take out loans to pay off the old loans. When this reaches a tipping point and a bunch of people default all at once, that leaves the government scrambling to prop up the financial system and avoid a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deflation">deflationary crisis</a>. But they can only do that by taking out more loans!<br/><br/>The biggest question is what money should be backed by, if not debt. Actually, the US Dollar is currently backed by a bit more than the fact that it's <span style="font-style: italic;">created</span> from debt. The fact that it's required to be accepted for payment of debt is worth something, even if you can't be sure there's more debt in existence than dollars. And the fact that US Dollars are required to pay US taxes is also a form of backing. That aside, the government could return to backing dollars with some sort of commodity, while gold is ever-popular, there may be better options.<br/>Comments on the Storytag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-04-01:4871302:BlogPost:757332010-04-01T07:31:52.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
So, quite a bit to comment on in the past few chapters: Citizen X turns out to be less ideological and more like a more anarchistic version of <a href="http://www.reddit.com/">Reddit</a>, with some members (including our would-be infiltrator, Cipher) still interested in the potential for anonymous citizen journalism. Cipher runs into the team in London and finds he's got an in with Eureka, who's really bad at secrecy (or maybe just has a thing for shaggy guys with beards). Interesting, given…
So, quite a bit to comment on in the past few chapters: Citizen X turns out to be less ideological and more like a more anarchistic version of <a href="http://www.reddit.com/">Reddit</a>, with some members (including our would-be infiltrator, Cipher) still interested in the potential for anonymous citizen journalism. Cipher runs into the team in London and finds he's got an in with Eureka, who's really bad at secrecy (or maybe just has a thing for shaggy guys with beards). Interesting, given that Eureka is the only member of the team <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> getting information from Citizen X in Chapter 1. Wonder if she share's Alchemy's disapproval of the organization.<br/><br/>Meanwhile, our glimpse into the future gets rather political: Capitalism has come to Cuba, just in time for a currency crisis to rock the country. The solution is more better capitalism, including the participation of expats (and ex-expats) who got their rightful property (or ill-gotten gains) seized by the previous regime.<br/><br/>Quinn's backstory seems interesting, he's <span style="font-style: italic;">also</span> from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwe">a country</a> that seized a bunch of property from white people and subsequently ran its currency into the ground. Kind of fits with this week's quest about turning points. Wonder what the other member's turning points were? We know that Ember is motivated by world-changing ideas, and that Eureka loves the opportunity to build stuff and utilize technology, but we don't know how either of them got to that point, or what prompted them to get involved in Evoke. Likewise for Cipher's interest in "shadow journalism". And Alchemy remains an enigma, as always.<br/>My Local Water Stewardstag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-04-01:4871302:BlogPost:753442010-04-01T02:17:22.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
Not far from where I live, the Charles River flows between Cambridge and Boston, out into Boston Harbor. Here's <a href="http://www.crwa.org/cr_history.html">an excellent example</a> of a water-system greatly affected by human intervention.<br></br><br></br>
The Greater Boston Area currently gets several benefits out of the Charles River Basin:<br></br>
<ul>
<li>Economic / recreational, the river basin is a popular center for sailing, the river has fish again, swimming is again possible on parts of the…</li>
</ul>
Not far from where I live, the Charles River flows between Cambridge and Boston, out into Boston Harbor. Here's <a href="http://www.crwa.org/cr_history.html">an excellent example</a> of a water-system greatly affected by human intervention.<br/><br/>
The Greater Boston Area currently gets several benefits out of the Charles River Basin:<br/>
<ul>
<li>Economic / recreational, the river basin is a popular center for sailing, the river has fish again, swimming is again possible on parts of the river<br/></li>
<li>The wetlands the river flows through provide a <a href="http://www.inlandnewstoday.com/story.php?s=13598">buffer against flooding</a>, as well as a haven for wildlife<br/></li>
<li>Drinking water (both directly pumped from the river and from aquifers in the watershed)</li>
</ul>
The slow-moving but reliable river was tapped as a source of power in the early industrial revolution, a keystone in the Boston area's early economy. Consequently, the already slow-moving water was slowed further, and the river became polluted from industrial runoff. The river percolates through many wetlands on its course to the ocean, and industrial pollution turned many of the wetlands from healthy ecosystems into dead and stinking swamps. In 1875, the government recommended that cleanup efforts on the downstream half of the Charles River basin be abandoned as infeasible.<br/><br/>Fortunately, that didn't happen. The landscape architect Charles Eliot came up with a bold plan for the river basin in the early 1900s. A dam was built to limit the backflow of ocean water into the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estuary">tidal estuary</a>. Eventually, the estuary itself was filled in with earth from some Boston hills and fortified with stone bulwarks. With this somewhat faster flow, the river thrived, for a time, until increased urban development (brought on, among other things, by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quabbin_Reservoir">improvements in water infrastructure</a>) again overwhelmed the capacity of the river. That prompted the founding of the <a href="http://www.crwa.org/">Charles River Watershed Association</a> in 1965, which has fought a largely successful (but ongoing and uphill) battle to clean up and preserve the river-system. Increased demand for water and sewage capacity, increased pollution runoff, and changes in climate all present challenges that threaten the usefulness of the watershed system as a whole.<br/><br/>Water-system management is nothing new. People have been working on this problem for a <span style="font-style: italic;">long</span> time. Sometimes it's better to look at those who were visionary decades ago, especially if their vision <span style="font-style: italic;">worked</span>.<br/>2020: Gone Swimmingtag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-03-31:4871302:BlogPost:751212010-03-31T22:39:19.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
Water Day 2020 was a day of recreation worldwide as billions gathered at rivers, lakes, beaches, and oases. Public celebrations of all sorts, with speeches and ceremony honoring the efforts of local water stewards and scientists. It's amazing to see people swimming in bodies of water expected to dry up years ago, or those considered unfit for humans last decade. Some are taking swimming lessons for the first time due to the occasion, those more experienced are lining up for races or other…
Water Day 2020 was a day of recreation worldwide as billions gathered at rivers, lakes, beaches, and oases. Public celebrations of all sorts, with speeches and ceremony honoring the efforts of local water stewards and scientists. It's amazing to see people swimming in bodies of water expected to dry up years ago, or those considered unfit for humans last decade. Some are taking swimming lessons for the first time due to the occasion, those more experienced are lining up for races or other competitions, still others are coordinating the volunteer efforts that will keep the water-systems in good shape for another decade.<br/><br/>Of course, recreation is not the most important use of water, but it's a good metric: If your water is safe enough to play in, it's probably (saltwater excepted) easy enough to make it safe to drink, clean enough to sustain a healthy ecosystem of fish and plants, and reliable enough for a lot of other uses. Just make sure to know (and steer clear of) the less-friendly varieties of local wildlife.<br/>Water Stewardshiptag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-03-31:4871302:BlogPost:717952010-03-31T05:14:26.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
The good news about water scarcity is that water isn't that scarce. Human use of water systems has far more to do with the water cycle and ecosystems than the use of non-renewable energy resources. Yes, there are ways to use energy to make marginal water systems more useful, and adding technology to retrieve water more easily and avoid dying of cholera makes for a good investment. But for the most part it's about having access to healthy water systems at all. The problem is mostly one of…
The good news about water scarcity is that water isn't that scarce. Human use of water systems has far more to do with the water cycle and ecosystems than the use of non-renewable energy resources. Yes, there are ways to use energy to make marginal water systems more useful, and adding technology to retrieve water more easily and avoid dying of cholera makes for a good investment. But for the most part it's about having access to healthy water systems at all. The problem is mostly one of externalities. How do you ensure that everyone gets their fair share, particularly given that only <span style="font-style: italic;">some</span> consumers of water care less about the long-term prospects of any <span style="font-style: italic;">particular</span> source of water (local residents as opposed to multinational corporations)? The use of water upstream or elsewhere on an aquifer is a concern, as are human effects on geography and climate on the reliability of water resources.<br/><br/>Thus, the innovators I'd like to highlight are the stewards of the <a href="http://www.waterkeeper.org/">Waterkeeper Alliance</a>. Managing externalities is what stewardship is all about, and doing so requires an interesting mix of science, politics, economics, and insight into local cultures and economies.<br/><br/>Solving the water crisis requires conservation, but not just in the "using less" sense. Preserving natural resources takes more than that.<br/>Don't Confuse Convenience and Efficiencytag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-03-24:4871302:BlogPost:605782010-03-24T06:36:59.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
Powering any device with a single source of energy will be even more of a losing proposition in the future than it is now. Rather, power grids should be powered by renewable energy best suited to local conditions, and the power should be distributed to devices. Not a very exciting answer. But it's simply the truth that there's very little overlap between "objects best-suited to work as consumer electronics" and "objects best-suited to generate electricity from natural sources of power". Sure,…
Powering any device with a single source of energy will be even more of a losing proposition in the future than it is now. Rather, power grids should be powered by renewable energy best suited to local conditions, and the power should be distributed to devices. Not a very exciting answer. But it's simply the truth that there's very little overlap between "objects best-suited to work as consumer electronics" and "objects best-suited to generate electricity from natural sources of power". Sure, you could rig up a clothesline to harvest power from the wind, but the big savings of the clothesline is the power you don't use in running a dryer, and the effort spent retrofitting clotheslines to work as makeshift generators will almost always <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EROEI">be better spent</a> building actual windmills.<br/><br/>I think there's a temptation to over-engineer solutions to energy problems. After all, "let's replace our power plants with other, more renewable power plants" isn't a very exciting answer. A mini power-plant in every pocket sounds more exciting. It may well be more convenient. But let's not mistake convenience for efficiency. I have yet to see a solution for <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/12/vampire.electronics/">vampire electronics</a> that is <span style="font-style: italic;">overall</span> more efficient than just building TVs where you have to actually flip a switch on the TV to turn it on. Efficient is clearly not what the market desires, and there's the rub. It's easier to mistake convenience for efficiency than to create an innovative consumer product that both increases efficiency and sells.<br/><br/>Furthermore, one of the big problems facing the world is that introducing complexity to solve problems <a href="http://tobyspeople.com/anthropik/2005/10/thesis-14-complexity-is-subject-to-diminishing-returns/">can create additional problems</a>. Adding additional complexity in an innovative way does not avert that problem.<br/><br/>So, how about "design a new way to <span style="font-style: italic;">not power</span> something you use every day"? Or "design a way to <span style="font-style: italic;">not use</span> something you power every day"?<br/>Post-Crisis Power is Much Like Todaytag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-03-23:4871302:BlogPost:575682010-03-23T05:20:59.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
Of all the major problems the world faces in the next decade, power seems to be the one least likely to be solved by radical new technology. Note that this is not a bad thing. We have great technologies for generating power from wind, water, and sunlight, with potential for significant (but incremental) technological improvement. More complex power sources, too: Geothermal heat, salinity gradients, nuclear fission (including fast breeder reactors and so on), maybe fusion. But seriously, if…
Of all the major problems the world faces in the next decade, power seems to be the one least likely to be solved by radical new technology. Note that this is not a bad thing. We have great technologies for generating power from wind, water, and sunlight, with potential for significant (but incremental) technological improvement. More complex power sources, too: Geothermal heat, salinity gradients, nuclear fission (including fast breeder reactors and so on), maybe fusion. But seriously, if there are major power problems requiring some significant investment in infrastructure, it will be way easier to train lots of new people to build and maintain windmills or solar farms than nuclear reactors.<br/><br/>If we are in the midst of a power crisis in 2020, celebrations are more likely to involve <span style="font-style: italic;">less</span> power use than power use from different sources. If we're mid-crisis, who knows where I'll be getting my power? Different energy sources will be available at different times, and the price of anything that can generate power will be way up. Maybe I'll be able to get (or build) and maintain a windmill or some PV cells, and maybe the weather will cooperate (or I'll have setup sufficient batteries). Maybe a friend will still have a car and a can of gas, and I can hook things up to the alternator. Most likely I'd get some friends to play instruments instead of plugging speakers into the wall. Party games replace movies, etc. In the midst of a power crisis, even if I have nifty gadgets to mitigate the lack of a reliable grid, I might not want to use much of that for things other than necessities. Then again, getting a bit of power to listen to radio or watch TV could be pretty good, assuming the station <span style="font-style: italic;">also</span> has sufficient power.<br/><br/>If 2020 is after a power crisis (navigated successfully), I'll power whatever electrical devices my celebration requires by plugging them into the wall. There might be a giant wind farm off of Cape Cod, the Nevada desert might be covered in solar panels, but that won't change the content of my celebration much. Friends will probably arrive by train and foot, not by individual vehicles (electric or otherwise), and that could well be the most significant change.<br/><br/>Admittedly, that's shaped by the fact that I live in an area with an existing power grid. Local generation and storage gives you more options, more potential to increase efficiency, the ability to spread out electricity generation from better spots and meet demand that varies between locations and over time. Local generation will be useful in spots so remote that the cost of connecting to a large-scale grid exceeds the benefit. I suspect that those areas are far fewer than areas where the cost of connecting to a large-scale grid exceeds the <span style="font-style: italic;">profitability</span>, but there's a reason why <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_electrification">rural electrification in the US was political</a>, not private, and why the solution was extending the power grid, not putting a windmill (or a diesel generator) on every farm. Much of that still applies.<br/>Tokyo One Chapter Too Early?tag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-03-22:4871302:BlogPost:548172010-03-22T05:34:48.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
While doing the Quest for this week, I chose Tokyo for the "place I've been" to discuss. What's the biggest problem Tokyo faces? Power, I figured. I knew Japan imported almost all of their oil, and that Tokyo was a densely-populated city that uses a lot of electricity. I also knew that Japan's per capita energy consumption was much lower than that of the US. But it occurred to me that might be the wrong measure, so I set out to do a bit of research.<br></br><br></br>I did some back-of-the-envelope…
While doing the Quest for this week, I chose Tokyo for the "place I've been" to discuss. What's the biggest problem Tokyo faces? Power, I figured. I knew Japan imported almost all of their oil, and that Tokyo was a densely-populated city that uses a lot of electricity. I also knew that Japan's per capita energy consumption was much lower than that of the US. But it occurred to me that might be the wrong measure, so I set out to do a bit of research.<br/><br/>I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations to figure out energy usage per <span style="font-style: italic;">area</span> (from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_consumption_per_capita">here</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_outlying_territories_by_total_area/">here</a>):<br/>US: 3,816,000,000 MW-hr/yr / 9,629,091 km^2 = 396 MW-hr/yr/km^2<br/>Japan: 974,200,000 MW-hr/yr / 377,930 km^2 = 2578 MW-hr/yr/km^2<br/><br/>Japan also is also a very (the most?) economically concentrated country (see 2008 World Bank figures <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29">here</a>):<br/>US: $14,204,322M GDP / 9,629,091 km^2 = $1.5M/km^2<br/>Japan: $4,909,272M GDP / 377,930 km^2 = $13.0M/km^2<br/><br/>(Would be interesting to see a ranking of countries by those figures.)<br/><br/>Given that Japan has a large high-tech sector and the third largest national economy in the world, one might expect an overtaxed power grid in Japan to be a problem for the <span style="font-style: italic;">world</span> economy.<br/><br/>Japan imports all of its coal, virtually all of its natural gas, and all but a fraction of a percent of its crude oil (<a href="http://flagcounter.com/factbook/us#economy">compare to the US</a>, which produces 44% of its own oil consumption and 89% of its natural gas consumption). Of the electricity produced in Japan, 28% comes from <a href="http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf79.html">nuclear power</a> and 12% from renewable (<a href="http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=electricity_in_the_united_states">compare to the US</a> with 20% and 9% respectively). Their nuclear power industry has also suffered from safety concerns and bad PR, such that the country's nuclear generation capacity has dropped over the past decade, though there are still hopes to get capacity up into the 40% range by the end of this decade (not surprising, if you want to maintain that kind of energy density).<br/>Peer Review of Missionstag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-03-20:4871302:BlogPost:494262010-03-20T05:00:00.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
One agent is trying to organize a project to pick out <a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/forum/topics/volunteer-for-an-evoke-peer">the best submissions</a> for past missions. If you think this is an interesting idea and you'd be willing to help, comment to that effect on that discussion. (The organizer also wants to pick out worse posts, which I care less about, since I don't expect those with the worst posts care if other people think less of them on account of that.)<br/>
One agent is trying to organize a project to pick out <a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/forum/topics/volunteer-for-an-evoke-peer">the best submissions</a> for past missions. If you think this is an interesting idea and you'd be willing to help, comment to that effect on that discussion. (The organizer also wants to pick out worse posts, which I care less about, since I don't expect those with the worst posts care if other people think less of them on account of that.)<br/>Off-Grid Hydrotag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-03-19:4871302:BlogPost:481442010-03-19T19:48:08.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
Here's an interesting off-grid power technology: A company called Bourne Energy has <a href="http://www.ecogeek.org/component/content/article/3091">created an off grid floating turbine</a>. Anchors across a stream, require little setup, can be carried on your back. More location-dependent than solar, but less time-dependent and more compact. The company evidently has a <a href="http://www.bourneenergy.com/futuremain.html#SPP">variety of designs</a> for quick-setup power from moving water.…
Here's an interesting off-grid power technology: A company called Bourne Energy has <a href="http://www.ecogeek.org/component/content/article/3091">created an off grid floating turbine</a>. Anchors across a stream, require little setup, can be carried on your back. More location-dependent than solar, but less time-dependent and more compact. The company evidently has a <a href="http://www.bourneenergy.com/futuremain.html#SPP">variety of designs</a> for quick-setup power from moving water. (Found this one via <a href="http://www.ecogeek.org/component/content/article/3091">EcoGeek</a>.)<br/>Evoke Network Happenings: Week 2tag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-03-17:4871302:BlogPost:396212010-03-17T00:57:06.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
There's a lot more to sift through this week, but I've picked out a few highlights:<br></br><ul>
<li><a href="http://evokemakers.wikia.com/wiki/EVOKE_Maker%27s_Guild_Wiki">The Makers Guild Wiki</a> is up, go there for exciting brainstorming opportunities!</li>
<li>Someone is running a <a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/minimus-evoke-the-rpg">tabletop RPG</a> based on Evoke.</li>
<li>People <a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/forum/topics/episode-2-mission-food">discuss</a> the…</li>
</ul>
There's a lot more to sift through this week, but I've picked out a few highlights:<br/><ul>
<li><a href="http://evokemakers.wikia.com/wiki/EVOKE_Maker%27s_Guild_Wiki">The Makers Guild Wiki</a> is up, go there for exciting brainstorming opportunities!</li>
<li>Someone is running a <a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/minimus-evoke-the-rpg">tabletop RPG</a> based on Evoke.</li>
<li>People <a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/forum/topics/episode-2-mission-food">discuss</a> the implausibility of a <span style="font-style: italic;">seemingly isolated</span> food crisis in Japan, tradeoffs between local self-sufficiency and specialization for global trade, and local versus global solutions to food security.</li>
<li>Some talk about <a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/forum/topics/is-anyone-else-familiar-with">TED Talks</a>. If you're not familiar with that, check it out immediately.</li>
<li>One agent notes the <a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/what-happened-to-the-african">absence of African players</a> from <a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/page/top-agents">the leaderboard</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/you-dont-need-to-know-the">Further discussion of Citizen X</a>, the World Bank, and conspiracy theories.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/connecting-the-people">How to connect to people</a> with expertise, a very relevant post for those playing this game.<br/></li>
<li>A post on <a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/public-speaking-newskill">public speaking</a>.</li>
<li>A rather <a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/the-kagulu-file-part-i">clever bit of storytelling</a> for one of the IMAGINE missions.<br/></li>
</ul>Connecting With a Local Farmtag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-03-16:4871302:BlogPost:380532010-03-16T04:49:02.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
I was sorting through my mail today, thinking about how I might complete this particular mission, when I came across a newsletter from the <a href="http://www.communityfarms.org/">Waltham Fields Community Farm</a>. I'd never received mail from that organization before (it took me a while to remember that I'd gone to a benefit concert supporting them a few months ago), so it was a startling moment of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity">synchronicity</a>.<br></br><br></br>Unfortunately,…
I was sorting through my mail today, thinking about how I might complete this particular mission, when I came across a newsletter from the <a href="http://www.communityfarms.org/">Waltham Fields Community Farm</a>. I'd never received mail from that organization before (it took me a while to remember that I'd gone to a benefit concert supporting them a few months ago), so it was a startling moment of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity">synchronicity</a>.<br/><br/>Unfortunately, their morning volunteer hours conflict with my work schedule, so I won't be able to go out there personally until Saturday volunteer hours start next month. However, I did a few things to strengthen my connection with that organization starting immediately:<br/>1. I made a donation to support their efforts.<br/>2. I read through their newsletter and added information about events to my calendar.<br/>3. I figured out <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&q=waltham+community+farm&fb=1&gl=us&hq=community+farm&hnear=waltham&cid=0,0,1174613127871274099&ei=gvGeS6K-IoH68AbXpb3cCw&ved=0CAcQnwIwAA&z=16&iwloc=A">where they were</a> in relation to me and how to get there (non-trivial for me since I use public transit). The farm is about an hour's trip by bus from where I live.<br/><br/>A few interesting things about the farm: <br/><br/><a href="http://communityfarms.org/index.php/about/article/community-farm-still-not-firmly-rooted/">The farm's property</a> was donated by Cornelia Warren to Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1921 (as of 1947, the Agricultural College of the University of Massachusetts Amherst) to be used for agricultural and educational purposes. The Waltham Fields Community Farm was established on some fallow acres of that parcel in 1995. In 2004 Budget Cuts at the Agricultural College meant financial challenges for WFCF. Simultaneously, the retirement of a local farmer gave WFCF some land more in their own control, but reduced the number of working farms in the municipality to a single player. So far, the organization has managed to pull through hard times, supported by charitable donations and supplemental volunteer labor.<br/><br/><a href="http://www.communityfarms.org/index.php/about">The farm's mission</a> involves not only access to food, but access to <span style="font-style: italic;">farming</span>, the ability to participate in the growing of one's food, to visit the farm setting, and to learn how one's food is grown. That's about getting people into farming as a profession, but they also seem to view the occasional participation of non-farmers as important (and not just because they need the extra hands). The farm both provides better options for those purchasing food (CSA shares) and better quality food for those relying on food assistance (donations of produce).<br/><br/>Reading a bit of the <a href="http://communityfarms.org/index.php/csa/csa-newsletters">weekly community newsletter</a> that comes with their CSA shares got me thinking about the consequences of entirely (or almost entirely) excluding farms from the social context of our food culture. It also got me thinking about the role sustainable agriculture could play in rebuilding American food culture.<br/>Food/Financial Insecurity in Bostontag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-03-13:4871302:BlogPost:338922010-03-13T00:15:38.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
Those looking to understand the state of food security in the Greater Boston Area have a wealth of data available to them: The Greater Boston Food Bank conducts a <a href="http://www.gbfb.org/aboutHunger/HungerStudy.cfm">detailed demographic survey</a> every four years. Probably the most important finding from the 2008 survey is the overall numbers:<br></br><br></br><span style="font-style: italic;">"394,300 unduplicated people receive food that was distributed to GBFB member agencies. This is a 23%…</span>
Those looking to understand the state of food security in the Greater Boston Area have a wealth of data available to them: The Greater Boston Food Bank conducts a <a href="http://www.gbfb.org/aboutHunger/HungerStudy.cfm">detailed demographic survey</a> every four years. Probably the most important finding from the 2008 survey is the overall numbers:<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic;">"394,300 unduplicated people receive food that was distributed to GBFB member agencies. This is a 23% increase from 2005 which is a consistent trend in what the hunger relief network has been seeing in the past four years and, in particular in the past 16 months with the worst economic recession experience in the US since the Great Depression. 74,300 unduplicated people are served on a weekly basis (a decrease of 11% from 2005)."</span><br/><br/>As they note in their summary, "This means that a little more than 8 percent of the eastern
Massachusetts population uses a food pantry, soup kitchen or shelter," at some point during the year.<br/><br/>Assuming that someone with food insecurity is as likely to seek help from a GBFB institution in 2009 as in 2005, that would imply that fewer people are suffering chronic food insecurity, but more are suffering from intermittent food security. And that last number may be deceptively low, since GBFB institutions have on average lowered the amount of service-hours they provide since 2005. That means those with intermittent food insecurity in 2009 were a bit more likely to miss being counted in the weekly numbers for GBFB on any given week.<br/><br/>Of those living at or below the poverty line in 2009, "85%... are reached through programs receiving food from GBFB," compared to 75% in 2005. That could mean better coverage of services for those in need, or that those below the poverty line are more likely to be experiencing food insecurity, or both.<br/><br/>A few interesting bits from the demographic data: Of those getting food aid 90% are US citizens (down from 94%, but it's worth noting that despite Boston-area municipalities' <a href="http://www.rwinters.com/council/sanctuary2006.htm">intentionally permissive policies</a> with regard to immigration enforcement, undocumented immigrants don't make a large portion of those seeking food aid), 27% are homeless (up from 16%, but still the image of soup kitchens as "for the homeless" is inaccurate), 42% have high school degrees, 14% have college degrees, 25% are employed.<br/><br/>It's worth noting that many (probably most) instances of food insecurity are really instances of financial insecurity. Of GBFB clients, "44% had to choose between food and heat, 34% had to choose between food and rent, [and] 37% had to choose between food and medical care." There may be some instances where there really is no food to be found (disruptions of food production in truly inaccessible areas, war or the like making distribution physically impossible), but for the most part it's just that people lack the money to pay for food (along with everything else that they need).<br/><br/>(Half of the US Government's military budget could <a href="http://www.borgenproject.org/Cost_of_Ending_Poverty.html">end world hunger and then some</a> without breaking a sweat. If half of the millionaires in the world collaborated, they could do the same (about 9M world millionaires, 4.5M times about $13k/yr. each is the $60B needed, $13k/yr. is pocket change for a millionaire).<br/><br/>Makes me wonder about the relative merits of socially-motivated food distribution systems (food banks and the like) versus financial assistance (food stamps and the like) which piggy-backs off of the existing mainstream food distribution system. Of course, that system also has its own advantages and disadvantages.<br/>Perspective on Citizen Xtag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-03-12:4871302:BlogPost:323022010-03-12T05:00:00.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
Agent Dragar <a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/citizen-x">adds to the speculation</a> on Citizen X. <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">Most of it makes sense, but he says one thing wildly in opposition to what we know:</span> He notes that it might be tempting to fall into black-and-white statements that don't quite mesh with reality. For example:<br></br><br></br><span style="font-style: italic;">"Where EVOKE desires transparency, Citizen X seeks…</span>
Agent Dragar <a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/citizen-x">adds to the speculation</a> on Citizen X. <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">Most of it makes sense, but he says one thing wildly in opposition to what we know:</span> He notes that it might be tempting to fall into black-and-white statements that don't quite mesh with reality. For example:<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic;">"Where EVOKE desires transparency, Citizen X seeks obfuscation."</span><br/><br/>Alchemy says: "We <span style="font-weight: bold;">like</span> our secrets... Secret is how we work." Evoke has its secret handsign, the symbols of Citizen X are (at least sometimes) overtly displayed (see the posters).<br/><br/>Alchemy calls Citizen X "irresponsible", not evil. And we have clear evidence that both Ember and Quinn (both Evoke Agents <span style="font-style: italic;">par excellence</span>) use Citizen X as a source of information. Ember also seems to be the least secretive: Her students know she's up to <span style="font-style: italic;">something</span>, and spelling out EVOKE and EMBER in the rooftop gardens is a bit obvious. (I suppose something has to keep the rumors going, Evoke's not much use if no one knows to call.)<br/><br/>Actually, we might reasonably conclude that Citizen X is <span style="font-style: italic;">more</span> desiring of transparency than Evoke, they leaked government memos, they want information on the Evoke Network (so they can leak that, too?). "We reveal". They expose. (Xpose?) Maybe they take transparency to extremes <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Transparent-Society-Technology-Between-Privacy/dp/0738201448">as an ideal</a>, maybe not.<br/><br/>Then again, they're also a secret organization. I wonder if they're lead by someone like Alchemy or organized in a more decentralized manner.<br/><br/>And why does Alchemy think they're "irresponsible"? Information can certainly be used irresponsibly, true or false, especially when there's no organizational structure to curtail malicious actors within the organization (much less exclude them). Think <a href="http://wikileaks.org/">WikiLeaks</a> but also think <a href="http://theyesmen.org/hijinks/dow">The Yes Men</a>... then cross both of those with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_%28group%29">Anonymous</a>. See why Alchemy might be concerned?<br/>Farmpunk Retrotag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-03-12:4871302:BlogPost:321682010-03-12T03:10:07.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
A while ago, I was doing a fair amount of reading on the global food system. I read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Banana-Fate-Fruit-Changed-World/dp/0452290082/" style="font-style: italic;">Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World</a>, a rather remarkable case-study on plant biology, ecology, marketing, big business, and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Shock-Doctrine-Rise-Disaster-Capitalism/dp/0805079831">shock doctrine</a> politics, with significant implications for global food…
A while ago, I was doing a fair amount of reading on the global food system. I read <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.amazon.com/Banana-Fate-Fruit-Changed-World/dp/0452290082/">Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World</a>, a rather remarkable case-study on plant biology, ecology, marketing, big business, and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Shock-Doctrine-Rise-Disaster-Capitalism/dp/0805079831">shock doctrine</a> politics, with significant implications for global food security. I read Raj Patel's <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.amazon.com/Stuffed-Starved-Hidden-Battle-System/dp/1933633492">Stuffed and Starved</a> and Michael Pollan's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Omnivores-Dilemma-Natural-History-Meals/dp/1594200823"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Omnivore's Dilemma</span></a>, which present excellent critiques of the economic and cultural drawbacks, respectively, of the modern global food system. (I <a href="http://l33tminion.livejournal.com/291570.html">wrote a long essay</a> summarizing some of the central points of those books, but I recommend putting those on your reading list, too.) In response to my apparent interest in the topic, my parents pointed out that my great-grandfather, David Greenberg, had co-authored a book on the subject: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/So-youre-going-buy-farm/dp/B0007E551I/"><span style="font-style: italic;">So You're Going to Buy a Farm</span></a>.<br/><br/>Reading <a href="http://www.dangerousminds.net/index.php/site/comments/japanese_youth_go_farmpunk/">that article about farmpunk</a> brought me back to that last book. What struck me most about the book was the cultural difference in attitudes towards farming. The book was strikingly like tech entrepreneurship self-help books of the 90s. Farming is a <span style="font-style: italic;">great</span> job, filled with boundless opportunity. Those with a strong back and a steady head can work hard and reap the rewards, all while enjoying great side-benefits. Farmers work outside, often in beautiful scenery. The work is hard, but you become strong, and you produce a high-quality, tangible product that benefits society. Farmers utilize the latest science. If you're clever, you can sometimes buy a great (but mismanaged or underutilized) property for a song, turn it around in a few years, and sell it for a substantial sum when you're ready for a change of jobs or ready to retire.<br/><br/>The modern American (first-world in general?) attitude towards farming is much less positive. Farming is dirty, boring, smelly, not technologically innovative, not financially lucrative. This isn't apropos of nothing: The economic factors of the modern global food system make all of those more-or-less true. Consolidation of food processors has pushed margins so thin that farmers have to maximize yield just to get by (and subsidies tend to ensure a lock-in at the "just barely making a living" point). Have a bad year and farmers have to take out loans to pay for seeds, which has them locked in further. Buy genetically-modified seeds for increased (but infertile) yield, and you're locked into paying for that, too, even if it turns out to be a bad idea in the long run. The only advantage of this "yield at all costs" approach is that the petroleum-intensive technologies minimize the number of days you work (but the work is boring and no guarantee your time off will be any more exciting).<br/><br/>I suspect this is a vicious cycle. The bad image of farming keeps innovators out, and the economic conditions that make modern farming so unpleasant are sustained.<br/><br/>I think that part of the promise of urban farming methods is cultural. If we want food security in the medium term, we need <span style="font-style: italic;">current</span> engineers, innovators, entrepreneurs, makers, scientists to become interested in food production. A lot of those people flock to the city: That's where the excitement is, great institutions of learning, like-minded people, business opportunities. Those innovators who <span style="font-style: italic;">start off</span> interested in farming might head to rural areas, but those are too few.<br/><br/>The good news is that we'll also need urban farming to solve the logistical / distribution / energy problems of <span style="font-style: italic;">getting</span> food to people in the city, so it's two birds with one stone.<br/><br/>I'll conclude this with some further book recommendations, my next selections to read on this topic: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Want-Do-Illegal-Stories/dp/0963810952/">Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal</a> by Joel Salatin (who has to be at the top of my list of "names to pay attention to" in food security, I'd also suggest his <a href="http://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Farm-Entrepreneurs-Enterprise/dp/0963810928/">You Can Farm</a> for more serious aspiring farmers/-punks) and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Feeding-People-Easy-Colin-Tudge/dp/8890196084">Feeding People Is Easy</a> by Colin Tudge (a great choice for those worried about seemingly-insurmountable problems at the intersection of food security and sustainability).<br/>Grocery Store OF THE FUTUREtag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-03-11:4871302:BlogPost:314202010-03-11T19:00:00.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
I met a strange traveler on the road today. Evidently, feeling unusually tired after a marathon blogging session, he had closed his eyes in 2010 and woken up in the WORLD OF THE FUTURE. After such a long nap, he was predictably quite hungry, so I invited him over for dinner. A bit of our conversation follows:<br></br><br></br>"This is delicious! What did you call <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_culinary_vegetables">that vegetable</a> again? And where did you get these?"<br></br><br></br>"The…
I met a strange traveler on the road today. Evidently, feeling unusually tired after a marathon blogging session, he had closed his eyes in 2010 and woken up in the WORLD OF THE FUTURE. After such a long nap, he was predictably quite hungry, so I invited him over for dinner. A bit of our conversation follows:<br/><br/>"This is delicious! What did you call <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_culinary_vegetables">that vegetable</a> again? And where did you get these?"<br/><br/>"The tomatoes are from my own garden, but the rest is from the supermarket."<br/><br/>"Really? I figured by 2020 those big stores would be reduced to empty lots. Their approach simply wasn't sustainable."<br/><br/>"There were <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarket">supermarkets</a> before just-in-time delivery systems and the more extreme food-processing innovations. There's still a need for some sort of delivery. Most people in the city don't have the free time to directly gather all the items they need for a meal. Still, I think you'll find things aren't quite as you remember. I'll show you around my local grocery store after dinner, you'll see what I mean."<br/><br/>Later, at the supermarket:<br/><br/>"This place is quite a bit smaller than it looks."<br/><br/>"About half of the building is storage. Non-perishables don't get delivered on such a regular basis anymore, so stores are back to storing a lot more food. Perishable items get delivered more regularly, from <a href="http://www.farmfresh.org/food/csa.php?zip=02215">a bunch of different sources</a>. If you hang around during the day, you'll see all sorts of delivery vehicles, too: Biodiesel powered trucks, bicycle carts, sometimes people trekking out from the train with overloaded hiker's backpacks. Still, different suppliers deliver different things, so I don't know exactly what vegetables are in unless I check the website in advance (though I have a better idea of what sorts of things are in season than I did ten years ago). I have my email notifications set up so they'll tell me when they get fresh eggs."<br/><br/>"The prices are higher than I remember, but not as high as I would have expected."<br/><br/>"It got unpleasantly expensive for a few years. After the Farming Subsidies Improvement Bill was passed, prices jumped... kind of ironic that the end of <a href="http://www.heritage.org/research/agriculture/bg2043.cfm">grain subsidies</a> meant farmers earning a decent living for the first time in a long time. Then there were the food processing layoffs and the trucker strikes. And since loss-leader staples to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Stuffed-Starved-Hidden-Battle-System/dp/1933633492/">sell marked-up corn concentrate</a> just didn't cut it anymore, they had no idea what to do. For a while, the store here was bartering with local farmers, taking payment in kind to keep their workers fed, accepting all sorts of scrip... now they're back to just US Dollars and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_currency">community currency</a>."<br/><br/>"How did they get things sorted out?"<br/><br/>"Better logistics. Actually, I can claim some of the credit for that. I helped a bunch of the stores and suppliers in my area install OpenSuper."<br/><br/>"Your project?"<br/><br/>"No, no, I can't take that much credit. I did submit a few patches, fixed a few bugs. Most of the work was done by an anonymous hacker, called themselves CeresAscendent. They claimed to be a rural farmer who <a href="http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkpython/">taught themselves Python</a> while recovering from an injury, evidently they'd been a victim in a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Food_riots">food riot</a>. Probably not from the States, English didn't seem to be their first language, but no one was able to track the person down. Drove Citizen X nuts."<br/><br/>"Citizen X?"<br/><br/>"Oh, that's a whole other long story, I'll tell you more about them later. Back to the topic at hand: It took a few months for the learning algorithm to work, but OpenSuper sorted out a delivery schedule that allows for pretty good coverage of store shelves. Great system. Lots of detail: Takes weather forecasts into account, predicting the affect on harvest times, will adjust things if fuel is in short supply. Even recommends wholesale and retail prices for the food, though of course stores just use those as a starting-point, they're still looking to gain a competitive advantage."<br/><br/>"There's a really long line at that counter, what are they selling there?"<br/><br/>"That's the nutritionist's counter. After the processed foods crash, there were a surprising number of people living on apples and cold canned fish. The stores had started to fill some blank slots on their shelves with more interesting local and seasonal vegetables, but there was a high degree of spoilage because people wouldn't buy if they didn't know what something was, much less what it went with and how to prepare it. One store hit on the bright idea of hiring a dedicated nutritional expert / meal planner, had them run seminars and give shoppers personalized advice. That worked, and pretty much everyone who could afford it copied the idea. It helped that even after every grocery store started hiring, that particular market was still flooded with people looking for jobs close to home. A lot of people with PhDs in food science and decades of work experience <a href="http://www.rense.com/general7/whyy.htm">making McDonald's fries smell more food-like</a> found themselves brushing off textbooks and getting back to culinary and nutritional basics."<br/><br/>"People still need that much help?"<br/><br/>"Nah, but they're used to it. Sarah's part of the community now, she's like everyone's grandmother... if everyone's grandmother knew <span style="font-style: italic;">a lot</span> of organic chemistry in addition to the generations of culinary wisdom."<br/><br/>[examining logos next to some of the price tags] "Greenpeace Certified Organic, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYWYU5V8JOo">Polyface Farms</a> Zero-Input Verified, Social Justice Org Highest Labor Standards, CXPAC No-Secrets Processed... looks like the independent <a href="http://www.ofairtradecoffee.com/page/1220005">food certifications</a> have really taken off!"<br/><br/>"Yeah, all the extra labeling is really helpful."<br/><br/>"Really? Seems like information overload to me."<br/><br/>"Technology, my friend, technology." [takes out a device that looks like an unusually flat smart-phone, makes a few gestures at it] "I've got this app, EcoSage. I can just take a picture here..." [points the phone in the direction of a price label, gives it a slight shake] "It reads all those certification labels, processes the information based on a database of ecological and social justice factors. Cross-references all that other information on the pricing label, too, makes inferences based on the source and type of product. For example, if I point it at these local tomatoes, here" [shows screen, the top of which reads 87.2] "On the other hand, if I point it at one of the luxury out-of-season items" [points it at a label reading "Avacados, Imported from Guatemala, $12.00 each", screen now reads 27.5] "That's mostly due to the shipping, I think" [gestures, looks at a more detailed chart on the screen] "Yup. This supplier had a much lower rating before. Some documents were leaked that revealed their labor practices <a href="http://www.freetheslaves.net/">basically amounted to slave labor</a>. Few people wanted to buy when that warning popped up on their screen, and only a dramatic reorganization, verified by independent NGOs, prevented them from being cut off by their buyers entirely."<br/><br/>"People really pay that much attention?"<br/><br/>"A lot of existing food regulations were loosened during the food crisis, <a href="http://www.mindfully.org/Farm/2003/Everything-Is-Illegal1esp03.htm">to encourage small farms</a> to develop in innovative ways. The idea was that better availability of information could handle the same problems previously handled by regulation, transparency instead of bureaucracy. But of course the media hyped up every food scare, so people got in the habit of checking their food sources very carefully."<br/><br/>The conversation continued on to other topics, and the errant time-traveler stayed at my place for a few weeks while getting his temporal footing. But then I found him gone, with just a thank-you note saying he'd headed off to the other side of the country. Evidently he'd received some sort of urgent call?<br/>NEWSKILL: Remember, Remembertag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-03-10:4871302:BlogPost:293912010-03-10T22:30:00.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
When mastering a new subject area or studying something complex, there's often no alternative to memorization: Using specific techniques to get vast quantities of information into persistent memory for fast recall (or at least quick relearning) later.<br></br><br></br>For memorizing tasks, I use a freeware program called <a href="http://ichi2.net/anki/">Anki</a>. The program is open-source, uses the effective spaced repetition techniques developed by Piotr Wozniak (the creator of…
When mastering a new subject area or studying something complex, there's often no alternative to memorization: Using specific techniques to get vast quantities of information into persistent memory for fast recall (or at least quick relearning) later.<br/><br/>For memorizing tasks, I use a freeware program called <a href="http://ichi2.net/anki/">Anki</a>. The program is open-source, uses the effective spaced repetition techniques developed by Piotr Wozniak (the creator of <a href="http://www.supermemo.com/">SuperMemo</a>), allows different sets of flashcards to be created from the same data (and edited without having to go through and find all the cards with the same information), synchronizes to a website so you can memorize from more than one machine or online, and makes it easy to manage multiple sets of data to memorize.<br/><br/>Spaced repetition aside, there are a number of other practical <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/happiness-in-world/200911/how-remember-things">tips for enhancing memory</a>.<br/><br/>Also, here's a more detailed article <a href="http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_wozniak">on the creation of SuperMemo</a>. Perhaps he also counts as an example of a social innovator, especially on the language learning front.<br/>Evoke Network Happenings: Week 1tag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-03-09:4871302:BlogPost:242042010-03-09T05:30:00.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
A few links worth spreading around:<br></br><br></br>First off, some Agents are starting Guilds that will act as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_practice">communities of practice</a> within the game. As an engineer, I'll gladly associate with the <a href="../blogs/makers-guild">Makers Guild</a>.<br></br><br></br>Would there be interest in starting a Hacker's Guild (for those whose building materials are of the more abstract, mathematical sort)? Or is there too much overlap between that and…
A few links worth spreading around:<br/><br/>First off, some Agents are starting Guilds that will act as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_practice">communities of practice</a> within the game. As an engineer, I'll gladly associate with the <a href="../blogs/makers-guild">Makers Guild</a>.<br/><br/>Would there be interest in starting a Hacker's Guild (for those whose building materials are of the more abstract, mathematical sort)? Or is there too much overlap between that and the above?<br/><br/>Guilds:<br/><a href="../blogs/makers-guild">Makers Guild</a><br/><a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/education-guild">Education Guild</a><br/><a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/evokes-first-guild">AWAKE</a><br/><a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/evoke-librarians">Evoke Librarians</a><br/><br/>A few other things worth looking at:<br/><a href="http://urgentevoke.wikia.com/wiki/Urgent_Evoke_Wiki">Urgent Evoke Wiki</a> (off-site)<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><br/><a href="http://www.avantgame.com/">Jane McGonigal's Site</a></span> (from the mind that brought us Evoke)<br/><a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/this-isnt-a-game">Why This Isn't a Game</a> (per se, that link is my nomination for Alchemy's Challenge)<br/><a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/forum/topics/evoke-1">E.V.O.K.E.?</a> (Emergency Volunteer Organization of Knowledge and Expertise?)<br/><a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/the-importance-of-trading">On Knowledge-Trading Zones</a> (how can feedback be more useful?)<br/><a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/newskill-mentoring-an">On Mentoring</a> (key if we want to keep game expanding beyond Week 1)<br/><br/>Agent Evokes:<br/><a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/playermade-game-invoke1%20">INVOKE1: The Profiteers</a><br/><a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/game1-play-power-evocation">GAME1: Evoke Powers</a><br/><br/>Alchemy's Challenges:<br/><a href="../../forum/topics/challenge-the-network-the-next">NEXTSTEP: Inspiration From the Network</a><br/><a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/forum/topics/challenge-the-network-a">NEWSKILL: Spread the Learning</a><br/><br/>The Central Story:<br/><a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/tokyo-tool-kit">Tokyo Tool Kit</a><br/><a href="http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/all-you-need-to-know-about">All You Need to Know About Citizen X</a> (though probably not actually all)<br/><br/>What are some of the coolest things you've found in and around the Evoke Network in Week 1?<br/>In Tentag:www.urgentevoke.com,2010-03-09:4871302:BlogPost:240822010-03-09T04:37:38.000ZSamuel Freilichhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profile/SamuelFreilich
I've improved my physical condition quite a bit over the last few years, so I expect by 2010 I'll be in great condition. If I need to get my hands dirty or cover lots of ground in a day, I'll be ready and able.<br></br><br></br>I'm still working on my foreign language skills, I've been studying Japanese since I studied away in Tokyo, so maybe I'll be <span style="font-style: italic;">in</span> Tokyo when Alchemy makes his call. I loved the city and want to go back, among other reasons that would allow…
I've improved my physical condition quite a bit over the last few years, so I expect by 2010 I'll be in great condition. If I need to get my hands dirty or cover lots of ground in a day, I'll be ready and able.<br/><br/>I'm still working on my foreign language skills, I've been studying Japanese since I studied away in Tokyo, so maybe I'll be <span style="font-style: italic;">in</span> Tokyo when Alchemy makes his call. I loved the city and want to go back, among other reasons that would allow me to pick up the language much faster. I've never been great at foreign languages, but learning Japanese is an interesting challenge.<br/><br/>I plan to keep honing my communication skills. I hope to be a better writer, able to argue more compellingly, able to understand other people more readily, even across cultural boundaries.<br/><br/>I'll continue reading, so in a decade I'll be better-informed, drawing from a wider base of ideas, better able to think creatively about the future.<br/><br/>Technically, I plan to still be at the top of my game. But I'll have to remember to take time to learn new bits of computer science / engineering / programming languages / technical frameworks, not just sharpen my skills with the tools I currently use. And maybe my career will take me in a direction that puts me in a better position to respond to an urgent Evoke.<br/>