I recently began reading “Bicycle Diaries” by David Byrne. The book is basically a meditation on culture, politics, art and life in general, explored via Byrne’s travels through the world’s cities via bike. As I’m sure Byrne intended, his writing reminds me of the act of riding itself. Not the type of competitive riding, where you dress up in tight-fitting clothes and ride in a peloton. No, the type of cycling that frees you to explore, to spend hours riding inefficient routes through cities and towns. The kind of riding that gives you a whole new sense of place. Byrne hits upon truth that has been essential to me since I first grabbed a set of handle bars and put my feet to pedals. Bicycles are fantastic, beautiful and empowering machines–life would be less good without them.
Washington, DC, where I live, is in the midst of a bicycle renaissance. I hate to use the word, but it’s awesome to see. Chunky red and yellow City Bikes ply recently painted bike lanes from Arlington to Capital Hill to Georgetown. And everyone, or almost everyone, is riding. Old people, young people, businessmen in suits and women in heels are indulging in the pure joy and freedom of hopping on a bike and pedaling the streets and trails of the city and suburbs.
Bicycles and cyclists are causing a small revolution in the region. City and transportation planners are integrating bikes into their plans. Walk out of any Metro from Anacostia to Arlington and you’re likely to see a half full rack of red bikes. Who would have thought fifteen years ago that such a simple technology would hold so many answers to the regions transportation woes?
I know I’m a bit of an idealist when it comes to cycling. Even I don’t expect bicycles to solve the problems associated with suburban sprawl and traffic congestion. However, by getting butts on bikes we’re making strides. We’re sending a message about our priorities, and maybe we’re even doing a little something to stem the rising tide of obesity in the nation’s capital. Or maybe we’re just giving more people the means to engage life on their own terms and not to be tied down to bus schedules or the high price of gasoline.
I’ve noticed that recently Corvidae Corvus has been dominated by posts about technology and do-it-yourself/maker topics. I guess that’s indicative of where my head has been at lately. But it is Spring (a little early, but nonetheless…), and it’s hard not to notice all the changes budding out–even here in urban DC.
We’re lucky enough to sit on the edge of Rock Creek Park. Across our back alley our neighbors are the fox family, who we occasionally hear and see late at night yapping to each other down the length of the alley. No doubt, out hunting rats and other vermin for their nightly meal. The wild goings on in our alley differ markedly from those in other parts of the District. Last night, I woke to the plaintive questioning of a barred owl, “Who-cooks-for-you? who-cooks-for-you?”
For an urban dweller, I have unusual access to forested tracts. But even in parts of the city without direct access, nature abounds. Recognizing it is a matter of looking with a different kind of gaze. And also, I would argue, recognizing nature when you don’t necessarily think you’re looking at it. The falcon waiting on the ledge of a building to pick off an unsuspecting pigeon, or even the tree sprouting out from the Metro overpass are examples of nature adapting to and reclaiming the urban landscape.
Stories of raccoons and coyotes rummaging through trash cans are not at all uncommon. But the common Norway rat that we city folk see running along a wall or run over by a bus represent a little bit of the wild in our cities. The lessons of nature don’t just occur in the forested rural lands, or even in suburban back yards. Survival, growth and beauty are sometimes all the more evident for the stark contrast of the city. It’s worth taking a walk along the river or through an alley to see some unexpected scenes.
Below, I quote from a piece by Rick Curtis, Director of Princeton University’s Outdoor Action program. Mr. Curtis is writing here specifically about observation in the forest–particularly about tracking. But his advice holds even in the most congested urban area:
The most important part of nature observation is relaxation. Observation and stalking require you to slow down and settle yourself. It is akin to a moving form of meditation. Animals can sense when you are agitated, anxious or fearful and will disappear. When you settle yourself, you can move among animals without them sensing your presence. You must press yourself to use all of your senses all of the time or they will become atrophied.
I. Varied Sensory Awareness
Vary your vision. Pay intermittent attention to your environment. Shift your focus. If you pay rapt attention to one thing, it will dull your senses (“highway hypnosis”). You will learn more if you are paying intermittent attention. Flash back and forth through your various senses, vision, hearing, smell, touch, and taste.
II. Wide Angle (Splatter) Vision vs. Pinpoint Vision
We tend to use focal vision about 95% of the time and wide-angle vision only 5%. Animals use the reverse (5% and 95%). To use wide-angle vision you want to take in all the information from your peripheral vision constantly then focus down when needed. Concentrate on the entire picture, mentally blocking out information to focus down.
The primary thing that gives you away (or an animal) is movement. Focused vision doesn’t pick up movement whereas wide-angle vision makes the eye reactive to movement. When you notice movement then focus down to that object. And once focused, keep tracking that animal visually very closely so that you don’t loose it. Keep this process in mind! This is how the animals look for you. Anything that is out of the natural order, movement, shadow, or noise attracts their attention and they focus on it.
At night using wide-angle vision utilizes all the peripheral areas of the eye which are more sensitive to low levels of light. This improves night travel and seeing animals. It will allow you to notice nighttime animal movement. Flashlights cause focal vision which restrict your sensitivity to movement. At night a wind will blow things in one rhythm. Anything moving contrary to that rhythm, check it out with focal vision.
III. Automatic Vision
When you are looking at something you scan “take a picture” then scan, “take a picture” etc. as you look across a landscape. When you look across that landscape again you tend to “take the same pictures” or focus on the same spots. The Blind Spots (dead air space) are the ones you miss. Over time the number of automatic snap shots decreases until you only see a few out of the whole scene. Eventually you really don’t see it at all. You must consciously fight dead air space all the time. Each time you look at a scene again look at it as something new. Also, don’t just look at solid objects (e.g. a tree); look through the spaces of the tree, between the branches. There may be a deer behind that tree that you will see if you look through it rather than looking at it.
IV. Focused Hearing
We have tremendous peripheral hearing with our ears on the sides of our heads, but poor focused hearing. Since we can’t move our ears as many animals can, we don’t have directional hearing. But we can increase our hearing by 10x by cupping our hands, thumbs up, behind our ears, with the elbows out. This creates a parabolic reflector which gathers the sound in to our ears. This technique is paramount in locating animals and finding out what lies ahead of you.
It takes about 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of edible beef. That’s a lot of food going to feed a cow that will arguably become less food. People don’t eat grass, but it can still be argued that a lot more food could be grown on the land (or a lot of trees, or switchgrass…) that it takes to feed a single cow. But what if we could produce a pound of meat and leave the grain to feed people, or the trees to filter polluted air, or the switchgrass to create new clean-burning fuels? This afternoon on the Kojo Nnambi Show, on WAMU, Mark Post, Professor of Vascular Physiology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, and Michael Specter, a staff writer for the The New Yorker, and author of Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives, talked about new developments that may eventually allow scientists to grow meat in sterile laboratories–no animals harmed.
The piece is interesting mostly because at the same time that it conjures slightly grotesque science gone awry images of cuts of beef hanging from wires and tubes in sterile, climate controlled laboratories, it also forces us to confront some deeply held misconceptions about genetic modification, organic foods and the nature of nature itself. It forces conversations–somewhat uncomfortable conversations in fact–about technology and nature, ecology and genetic manipulation, natural and processed foods, vegetarian/vegan ethics and making meat in a test tube that doesn’t harm animals, emotion and reason, as well as a host of other topics. It poses questions that increasingly a becoming a lot harder to answer.
I appreciated Michael Specter’s ability to be the guy I so badly wanted to hate, but who became the guy instead who forced me to confront some basic prejudices and to really assess my values at a core level. Am I more concerned about ecology or some idealized, pastoral sense of nature and purity? Does the ability to feed people, even if it’s by growing meat in a test-tube, trump my desire for supporting locally-raised, sustainable, back to the land husbandry? Does my repulsion at the over-processed, candy-coated, hydrogenated foods I find in my supermarket cloud my vision when it comes to how we produce and deliver calories and nutrients to starving people?
In the end, being forced into an uncomfortable position, having to honestly confront values to which we may believed ourselves inextricably tied is an important exercise. We’re not often really asked to do that.
This video from the Laboritori de Fabricacio in Barcelona’s Disseny HUB museum shows the present and future potential of on-demand 3D printing. In this future, everyone becomes a designer to suit their own specific needs, the means of production is at everyone’s fingertips, and every mug has the perfect handle…
German maker Thorsten Wilms wanted to add a nice headlight to his new bike, but a couple of cables got in the way of a clean installation. He ordered a new clamp to compensate for the cables, but it ended up positioning the business end in the opposite direction. So he did what everyone with access to FreeCAD and shapeways.com should do: he redesigned the part to position it in the proper direction and printed a copy using a similar material. [via bikehacks]
Well here you have it: the wonks at the New America Foundation have officially caught the do-it-yourself (DIY) bug. Thanks to publications and websites like MAKE magazine and Instructables.com the DIY ethic is increasingly attracting mainstream attention. Across the country, and around the world, groups of really smart people are forming to think about and make really cool stuff–like the Capitol Region’s own HacDC. And now the Beltway intelligentsia are starting to take note of the profound social and economic effect the DIY movement will have on the future. I also happen to believe that the DIY movement holds incredible potential for informing educational reform–but that is a discussion for another time.
New technologies are making it easier than ever to turn an idea into a reality. 3D printers, open-source software, hackable products, and collaborative communities have turned traditional tinkering into a full-scale “maker movement” that allows – and encourages – everyone to tap into their inner entrepreneur. Can this movement usher in a new age of innovation? Will hackers have a profound impact on the economy? And if so, are we prepared for it?
The agenda is packed with more really smart people talking about really interesting things. I’ll be attending, and if you’re anywhere near Washington, DC on the 29th you should check it out, too.
Last night President Obama and his family, in the presence of a few hundred guests, lit the National Christmas Tree. The twenty-six foot Colorado blue spruce replaced the tree that had stood on the Elipse since 1978. The old tree was blown down by high winds earlier this year. The new National Christmas Tree comes to DC by way of a northern New Jersey Nursery, and will stand on the Elipse until Time and Nature (or an act of Congress) determines its eventual return to the earth.
Next Tuesday, House Speaker John Boehner will light the Capitol Christmas Tree. The sixty-five foot tall, 118 year old Sierra white fir from Stanislaus National Forest, made the 3,000 mile journey to Washington, DC on the back of a big diesel truck. After the 2011-2012 holiday season it will likely be chipped up and spread as mulch in any number of the Capitol’s exquisite gardens.
Yes, In 2011 we still chop down century-old trees and ship them thousands of miles by truck to stand for a few weeks as a symbol of our National dedication to good will toward others and peace on earth.
In the last posting I told you about School for Tomorrow’s recycling and composting programs. Here are my plans for the tumbler (executed mostly by students). And Matt’s plans for the base.
WAMU’s Kojo Nnambi has been running an occasional series on the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed. In this series he examines a number of different aspects of the Bay’s ecology and some innovative strategies for protecting the Bay and its resources:
The Bounty of the Chesapeake Bay– Chef Barton Seaver and other guests talk about how the local food movement and area chefs are being rallied to promote local foods from the Chesapeake, and how this can help watermen earn greater profit and protect some of the Bay’s most endangered species.
Invasive Species: Our Region’s Newest Invaders– Officials from national and local departments discuss the history of invasive species in the U.S. and our region, including the nearly $100 billion price-tag for fighting them.
The Chesapeake from Above–Cameron Davidson photographs the Chesapeake Bay from helicopters and planes. Over three decades his aerial shots show the beauty of the bay and the thousands of miles of marshes, rivers, and tributaries, as well as the changes that have taken place.
Chesapeake and Coastal Cooking– Believe it or not, Chesapeake cooking involves much more than boiling a few blue crabs. John Shields — chef, cookbook author, public television host, and “culinary ambassador” of the Chesapeake Bay talks about cooking with native ingredients. He also discusses how sourcing ingredients locally is better for our bodies and the local economy.
This is a great series for teachers or anyone else interested in the health of the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed.
Last week we spent two days on the water with groups of students. Actually, we spent one day on the water and one day in the water.
On Wednesday, a group of students spent the morning at the Meadowside Nature Center, in Rock Creek Regional Park. Down at the creek students used pipes, bottles, stones, mud and sticks to explore and understand the physical properties of water. Yes, all the plastic came home with us at the end of the day.
Nature centers throughout the region offer excellent opportunities for students to learn about local ecology. The education team at Meadowside was incredibly flexible and willing to let SFT students and teachers explore the creek in unorthodox, but respectful ways.
On Friday students spent the whole day on the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers thanks to an educational program run by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Aboard the Susquehanna Andy, the Foundation’s educator, and our captain Eric explained the three major types of pollution affecting the Bay and its tributaries: nutrient, sediment and toxic chemicals. Students sampled the water to measure things such as levels of dissolved oxygen and pH levels.
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation conducts many one-day and overnight programs for students and educators to help them understand the threats to our water system. Through these excellent and affordable programs students begin to see the connections between their everyday activities and the health of our ecological systems.
The book is basically a meditation on culture, politics, art and life in general, explored via Byrne’s travels through the world’s cities via bike. As I’m sure Byrne intended, his writing reminds me of the act of riding itself. Not the type of competitive riding, where you dress up in tight-fitting clothes and ride in a peloton. No, the type of cycling that frees you to explore, to spend hours riding inefficient routes through cities and towns. The kind of riding that gives you a whole new sense of place. Byrne hits upon truth that has been essential to me since I first grabbed a set of handle bars and put my feet to pedals. Bicycles are fantastic, beautiful and empowering machines–life would be less good without them.
Washington, DC, where I live, is in the midst of a bicycle renaissance. I hate to use the word, but it’s awesome to see. Chunky red and yellow City Bikes ply recently painted bike lanes from Arlington to Capital Hill to Georgetown. And everyone, or almost everyone, is riding. Old people, young people, businessmen in suits and women in heels are indulging in the pure joy and freedom of hopping on a bike and pedaling the streets and trails of the city and suburbs.
