Dave B Miller

With tomorrow being July 4th, anniversary of America’s declaration of independence from Great Britain, I figure it’s time to talk about the (hopefully) coming revolution.  Sorry Ray, not talking about the Technological Singularity, that’s not my department, at least not right now.

The future is coming.  That’s kind of a truism, but it had to be said.  The atmosphere warms, the icecaps melt, and I’m doing my part to accelerate it (flying to Portland now) and to arrest it (working on cognitive engineering to encourage conservation of resources).

I’ve been living at Stanford for a week now, and while it’s pretty spread out—Escondido village is quite a hike from main campus, and main campus is a ways from downtown Palo Alto—it’s much denser than, say, Buffalo, where everything is a fifteen-minute drive.  say it again, fifteen-minute drive.  That’s a problem.  I like walking.  I like biking (more for its own sake than for transportation, but I’m getting into the whole bike commuting thing, but it’s not ideal to use a race bike as a commuter, as I’m too paranoid (justifiably so!) to lock it up outside.  I do like driving too, for its own sake, but not for commuting.  Trains and buses are good too, but I’d rather be able to walk or bike than wait for the bus or train, or –gasp- plane, which is what I’m doing now.

So, what of this revolution?  My take is that in the future, we will be living smaller, richer lives.  That’s why I’m into product and service and experience design, and how all this comes together is pretty simple: less stuff, less space, more connections.

My cousins live in a medium sized house, 30min walk from Stanford, 10 min walk to the Caltrain and shopping district, and have a pretty good relationship with their neighbors (good thing, after the backyard fire).  My parents live in a relatively large house, a 10-15 minute walk to where I went to school, a 5-10 minute drive to the hospital (5 minutes by Stingray), and a 5 minute walk to my grandparents house, with a pool in the back.  My aunt and uncle (in Buffalo) live 30-50 minute drive from everything, in a very large house.  They regret the decision to be exurban pioneers.

Before I headed west, friends had a great party in Brooklyn.  They have a decent sized one bedroom apartment, a back deck, a roof deck for the common use of the building, and a big grill.  with the IDSANYC core crew, we all had a blast.  Time with friends is way more enjoyable than time with Stuff.  The trend towards increasing atomization is starting to crack with the economic downturn and rising transportation (energy) costs, so hopefully we’re going to end up having smaller lives in the future, current infrastructure being an impediment.

The product design part of this is I hope the future of the industry is towards less crap and more Quality.  Read Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance to understand Quality.  Or find an old Mercedes-Benz.  Well, even the modern ones are pretty decent.  If you go into the local best buy, there are a million products, all of which seem pretty cheap and don’t last.  Even a prosumer level camera (Nikon D80) doesn’t have the same gestalt Quality-ness of a late 60s Nikkormat, but it’s close.  All the point-and shoot jobs can go by the wayside for a real SLR.

Extending this further, we’re facing some real problems as a society, and unfortunately have to make some hard choices, mostly because individuals don’t see the choices as a problem.  Not to single out family unduly, but they are convenient.  My cousins live in a nice townhouse—3 floors, 2 car garage, 3 bedrooms (one converted to an office), close to the light rail, pool, etc.  Nice.  But they want a bigger house, because they grew up in bigger houses and two-child families.  It might be good for them to have a bigger place, but it’s not necessarily better for the planet (and by extension, them, as residents of this rock).

What I’m proposing to think about, is how to make life more fulfilling and happier, with less stuff and less space.  People were happier before there was as much stuff (especially cheap and disposable stuff) as there is now, maybe there was something to that life.

Toasting one slice of bread at a time operates as a gesture of generosity.  He would toast a slice of bread for his wife, then a slice for himself.

If you have a two-slot toaster, you're more likely to toast two slices of bread, based on the research of Brian Wansink of Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab, and therefore eat two slices of bread.  If you have a one-slot toaster, you have to think about toasting that second slice of bread after toasting the first, and therefore are less likely to mindlessly eat a second slice.

Watching the election from India, I couldn't help but be swept up a little in the hoopla of the big change.  But now I'm starting to feel a bit betrayed.  Obama's choices for cabinet positions and his choice of Rick Warren to give the benediction at the inauguration range from being mildly irritating to continuing Washington business as usual, which in the current situation is practically suicidal.

First up, Rick Warren is an olive branch to the conservative Christians, and an insult to every intellectual and equal-rights advocate.  The man supported Prop. 8 in California, has made public statements claiming same-sex marriage to be barely above polygamy, and whose presence makes a statement to the world that while America has started to deal with racial issues, there is no stomach to deal with human rights at this time.  The other part of this which incenses me is what part of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause doesn't Obama understand?  there shouldn't be any religious part of the inauguration (nor should "in god we trust" be on the money, nor should there be chaplains on the military payroll, nor should there be any prayer in congress... but I digress).  This is an insult to the secular nature of the republic, and to all of those who espouse secular values and don't want to see the separation of church and state whittled down any more.  Just because it has been a part of inaugurations before doesn't make it right or good or just.

As for the Cabinet posts, I can accept Hillary Clinton taking the most important job in the world, and his energy secretary pick of Steven Chu (Nobel laureate, green energy advocate) seems fair enough, but Tom Vilsack is too close to the Corn lobby for comfort.  While he has publicly come out in favor of reducing farm subsidies, I don't think he'll be so likely to do it, or to the extent necessary.  While reforming the department into a more holistic "department of Food" as Michael Pollan suggested on WNYC's Brian Lehrer show seems rather difficult, the agriculture department needs to throw itself free from the farm and processed food lobbies (and of course avoid moving too far the other direction), in order to get America on track.  All of these siloed departments really need to work together to forge a path towards that utopia we need to imagine, otherwise we won't get anywhere: Agriculture needs to work with Health and Human Services to improve nutrition; Agriculture should work with State to avoid undercutting developing countries' economies by subsidizing American production of commodity crops which undercut production in other areas of the world.  And for good measure, there should be an overarching environmental directorate to keep all of these fiefdoms in line.  Without the future, the present has no value.

by the way, Charlie Rose is on WNET-13 (PBS) at 6AM in the New York area.  Education during trainer time!

The roads in India are a major barrier to development.  On the way from the airport the first morning (about 4AM), I learned that there are wonderful highways here, but they don't really get you to where you have to go.  They just end, in dirt/gravel roads which would make the infamous roads of Bike and Build look like the Autobahn.  The potholes here look like they were made by Durandal runway cratering missiles, and they'll do a number on your car if you're not careful.  there are speed humps in the middle of the highway, so people can cross.  a four lane highway with level crossings makes no sense--a bridge over wouldn't be that hard, relatively speaking, and in some places they have tunnels for pedestrians and presumably animals...

Cows (holy to hindus) do indeed roam free.  in Bangalore they just sit in the road and do what they will.  in the rural areas, there are many more of them, and they even graze on the highway median, under the supervision of their owners.  Nothing like a herd of cows blocking the highway.  or even men at work sweeping.  sweeping!

road rules are somewhere between flaunted and nonexistent.  In Bangalore it's a free-for-all, with auto-rickshaws, scooters, motorcycles and cars jockeying for position, avoiding the potholes and trying to make the few lights.  where there are no traffic signals or policemen, there are no apparent rules.  In rural areas, there are streams of obviously overloaded trucks, plus auto-rickshaws, etc. all going at it on even more potholed roads.  And there are tractors and animals.  Not everyone seems to understand that you're supposed to go with traffic on the highway--we had a few close calls with tractors and cars going the wrong way on the highway.  And as opposed to the West where people going the wrong way is either a drunken mistake or an exhibition of psychopathology, the tractor driver didn't look to perturbed when we went zipping by at 100km/h.

our driver, Kumar, is ready for the world rally championship.  dealing with the bad roads, traffic, and animals, he drove at speeds any sane person besides Walter Rohrl would consider excessive.  Actually I think even a WRC winner would consider the speed Kumar was driving to be somewhere north of "insano".  the Kumar-Mobile, below.

Last night we watched The Hunting Party, a film about journalistic impartiality.  I had my own brush with that, stopping to take pictures of a road crew in rural India composed of young girls.  For a pittance, they scrub the road and move rocks with their bare hands.  that's right, scrub with brushes like I would use to scrub the tile in the bathroom. 

I didn't really know what to say or do, besides crouching down to their level to snap photos and get back to our van before the boss man got angry.  I don't know how much they get paid, but it can't be much--and it's backbreaking labor with primitive tools.  Seeing this kind of poverty is hard, but that's party of the reason I came to India--to see it as it is.

At Devbah Island, the intrepid, khaki clad nature guide took a liking to me and called me over when some fishermen came by

The next night, he took me to their village to see them haul in the catch and see how they live.  In the pitch darkness, we walked along the beach to where the boats were lined up on the sand.  By the light of the oil lamps, these men unloaded the day's catch

their boats certainly don't have fish finders, or for that matter fancy anything.  But I can vouch for the quality and freshness of the catch--every night at the bbq they had grilled fish.  it was excellent.

they pack the fish in ice as soon as they get it to shore--they have a hut with an icemaker and coolers

their village is actually more spread out and larger than I thought it was.  there were several small temples, which my guide enthusiastically showed me, and exhorted me to take pictures. 

These folk may be considered pretty poor by western standards, but they work hard, bring in a good catch, and keep themselves afloat.  The town life sounded pretty rich in terms of the noise coming from houses at 10PM, lights on, TVs flickering--it's the way of the world out in rural India.