Steve Michel's Journal of Lateral Modernism********************** Vol. IX No.10 October 2008

Web Positivity

by Steve Michel
On the internet, real solutions being tabled worldwide to tackle some of the thorniest problems facing humanity today. One of the greatest misconceptions being perceived through the lens of mainstream media is that problems and only problems face us: from a faltering economy to global warming. The technology/business section pages of national newspaper are replete superficial doom and gloom reports, mergers, buyouts and advertising gimmicks. But explore the vast reaches of the world wide web and be astonished at the proposals, innovations and solutions actually being built and delivered today. Here are but a few getting attention.

The surprising business case for LEED certified buildings. It comes as no surprise that the most prominently advertised feature of green buildings is, of course, better energy efficiency. Most business case proposals for LEED certified construction is the energy savings payback. But dig deeper into the literature and find that more than the 33%+ energy savings are the actual increased profit available to building owners ad users through productivity growth afforded by LEED through better Indoor Environmental quality. Items such as better ventilation, daylighting quality and low chemical emissions from construction materials all contribute to better workplaces and classrooms with lower absenteeism and user performance satisfaction. In retail, better energy efficient daylighting has been proven in case studies to increase sales by 36%!

Incredible Sahara Forest Project to Generate Fresh Water, Solar Power and Crops in African Desert.
Treehuger has daily features of amazing new green technologies and the Sahara Forst Project is one of the best. This amazing proposal by - Michael Pawlyn of Exploration Architecture, previously of Grimshaw and the lead architect on the iconic Eden Project; an engineer - Bill Watts of Max Fordham & Partners, an engineering firm was featured on treehugger.com recently and deserves our notice. In short it an for profit facility on the Sahara coastline that uses the desert's plentiful solar energy to generate power and at the same time produces freshwater and greenhouse farm yields continuously. It is a synergy of renewable energy technologies: Concentrated Solar Power, steam driven power generator turbines and fresh water irrigation farming. All are integrated and self-sustaining- the by-product of one process driving another. CSP, using the suns rays, produces steam from which the condensed freshwater, produced by a turbine, irrigates farm fields and trees. Also saltwater greenhouse farms condense water avoiding the costs of expensive osmosis desalination. Visit the sites and see this cutting edge technology about to take off. Already rich oil countries have expressed interest and many European countries are investigating CSP and Solar electricity generation in North Africa to hedge their dependency on Russia's oil.

Monolithic domes: concrete dome construction.
What caught my eye about this dome construction method, was headlines about houses that survive tornadoes,hurricanes and forest fires. Like Buckminster Fuller's domes, monolithic domes enclose a half-spherical volumes but differ in their construction techniques. Fuller domes are topologies built of interlocked pentagonal framework whereas monolithic domes are concrete sprayed on a dome shaped with an air inflated bladder. The method is quite simple and results in a fireproof enclosure shaped to withstand hurricane winds.

Dr.Ron Eglash: a mathematician's design theories. "Developing an STS perspective on design" Ron Eglash was featured on TED.com lecturing on the Africa's seminal contributions to the field of Mathematics, fractals and design. The lecture series features some of the world's notable thinkers and theorists science, sociology and urbanism. Ron Eglash has written books on the subject of African fractals and proposes some startling theories on the relation between culture, technology, politics. His example on Robert Moses' urban planning shows how politicization can influence design. He is also involved with education not only as Associate Professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute but in his educational technologies research. He found in reality what I had only imagined in fiction.

Fiction: Algebra Gang

Part 1: by Steve Michel

"Stack the equations in order." JB said into his mic. The others checked his moves on their screens whiteboard. JB and the two other's laptops were locked in through a VPN on the school library wifi.
Thousands of miles away, FooY, from the FuManchu website, looked on. "JB you gonna crack that one. Just make sure the equation is valid." FooY's mandarin came over the translator software sounding like oxford english. "Six seconds."
"Ok here's my augmented matrix." Kay said with some hesitance. Her grid appeared on the others' whiteboard like some ghost apparition materializing in the foggy white of the laptop screens. "JB you got the same?" Kay looked towards them sitting only a few feet away in dimmly lit library.
"Nine seconds." FooY was a blip on the corner of their laptop screens.

"I said in order first: x the y and the z, and first number column zero."
"Fifteen seconds." Fooy's strobing avatar bounced in the screen corners.
"Look Kay, you jammin this wrong." Big Gee nudged her with his elbow. "Old hat, check this. Girl you do that in two moves. Just add minus five to the last row."
"Twenty seconds." FooY blip seemed to blink faster.
"Shut the fuck up Gee. Put zeros below your leading ones." Virtual private networks wasn't one of JB favorite methods but it allowed him to access BigGee's computer to adjust his matrix. "Watch your own steps." His fingers worked feverously on the keyboard "How we doing FooY?"
"Thirty seconds.
"Ok I got the first two rows in reduced form. Two more." Kay tried not to look at the clock. She was the gang's sharpest mind when it came to polynomials. Matrices were a different game.
"Come on, finish it." BigGee said slamming fist on his laptop keyboard.
"Ok Done." JB tapped the eenter' key. The four equation matrix whirled like a casino slot display. He pushed up his round 'Lennon' glasses sitting precariously on his nose. "Time?"
"Thirty five seconds. Not bad." Fooy's avatar, some buddist monk with flaming hair, floated down from the corner of the displays. "My grandmother in her grave can do that in half time." It might have been a compliment coming from Fooy. Rumor on the math circuit had it his grandmother could.
to be continued next month

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