Ideas – Page 2 – john paganetti

Potential

I’ve been thinking about potential recently. Potential is something that’s immediately apparent and attractive to most people, and gets them thinking. Look at people’s reactions to an unfinished room, or an open-ended vacation. People love potential. They buy products that will let them take advantage of any situation that may come along, they buy movies and books about people who have cast aside their straight lives to see where life may take them.

But what I’m thinking about today is how potential is useless without action. Specifically, I could have a backpack that contains everything I would ever need, but it completely lacks value if it is not used. There is a point where further preparation is futile, and all that matters is action. I’m scared of getting hung up on that point, going over a checklist instead of diving in headfirst. I need to remember that potential is nice, but it isn’t the point.

Selfishness

When I think about my future plans, I’m usually flip-flopping between two distinctly different options.

a) Build a small house in the country that can completely support itself.

b) Stay in the suburbs, or move to a city, and try to influence things there.

I usually end up going in circles if I think about this for too long.
In the country, it’s easy to create something in the image of an ideal. But in urban areas, there is so much more to work with. But people are set in their ways, you’ll always be fighting against the current. Change is the one constant feature of culture. You’ll be stepping on people’s toes instead of letting them choose to make a change. You’re asking too much of people – most can’t make that change. You need to go to them. At least those who came would be committed. They’d also be disconnected from the rest of the world. What is the value in that? Isn’t there value in living well and being happy? Isn’t there value in helping other people? I don’t know.

I’m hoping I’ll have a better grasp of this by the end of this summer.

The Subjective Web

I’ve been reading a lot of gloom and doom posts regarding the internet. I’m not sure what internet these people are on, but it’s not mine. The internet is redefining its purpose in our lives, and this is scaring some people. I think some of these people may be from the old internet – before and during the bubble. That is a little before my time, but during my time on the net, it has still changed a good deal. We have to change with it.

In a post about the results of releasing a book in print and online (for free) at the same time, Chris Kelty writes, “The Internet is dead.” Ok, that’s a bit out of context, but what he does mean is that anything on the internet is not instantly special anymore. Yes, there was a time when something gained a certain amount of prestige and attention for being on the web, but that time has long past. But that doesn’t mean the internet has nothing to offer books. I only read Kelty’s post because it was quoted on a blog about an upcoming book. That gift of exposure is something huge that the internet has to offer us. Things posted online do not automatically garner attention, but they have the potential to. I certainly would have never heard about either book (Siva’s or Kelty’s) without their respective websites. This post (or any blog post for that matter) is a perfect example of that potential: I don’t expect many people to read it, but they could…which actually brings me to my next point.

Read Write Web posted about how the social web is changing things. Except that isn’t how they’re phrasing it – the title of the article is “The Unforeseen Consequences of the Social Web.” They share Kelty’s sentiments that the internet is getting crowded, pointing to the popularity of some social sites. They also talk about privacy issues with the social web. I remember hearing a lot of this when facebook created their news feed. No new information was shared – people had access to exactly the same information as they had before, but it became more visible. The same problem is true of the social web: tweets are inherently public, but the social web makes it so they could gain attention quickly, and often create mirrors of that information elsewhere (that you cannot control).

All of these problems seem to stem from the same thing: what people expect from the web, and what they actually get. In the first case, Kelty was surprised to find that popularity of a work on the internet takes as much effort as popularity in the ‘real world.’ This does not mean the internet has failed him. In the second, people are upset about their lack of privacy on the web. This does not mean the internet is too intrusive. What this does mean is that people need to reevaluate their relationship with the web, and better understand what it is, and what it is not. The web can be a lot of things, but treating it like something it is not will always let you down.

Little Log Cabin

I really like Tumbleweed Tiny Houses. Apparently a lot of other people do too – since they launched, they’ve added a lot of other designs, and redesigned the website (not to mention an appearance on Oprah). I imagine that someday I’ll probably build a small house, very much like those. In fact, it’s what I think about whenever it’s cold out, or cold in a room. I imagine my small house with a nice wood stove inside, keeping everything very comfortably warm.

I like wood stoves too. I just recently learned how they work, and it’s very clever. There is even recent advances in wood stove technology! Today, you can get a stove with a catalytic converter, and it is supposed to create an incredibly efficient burn. I’ve also seen a few that incorporate little sterling engines in them, to power fans that move more air through a stove so a larger room is heated quicker. That is a little like my campfire powered patio idea.

I imagine a small fire pit built into a outdoor patio, with a little sterling engine to power a pump which would move oil through piping under the patio and seating, heating up the whole area. Concrete is an easy option for all of the ground and seating materials, but I’m sure there is a better option.

Heating, in general, seems like a fairly easy problem to tackle. At the moment, we’re doing it very wrong. A furnace is a terribly inefficient method of heating a house: heat is a byproduct of the process, but also the main purpose of the machine. The energy of a furnace should be put to work. This makes me think of the heating system in the bus. The engine up front serves to move the vehicle, and the coolant from the engine travels back to the veggie tank, which increases the viscosity so it is a viable fuel, which keeps the engine running on a cheaper smarter fuel. And if it is cold, we divert some of that coolant to the heaters. All of it serves a primary purpose other than heating, yet can still be used for heat.

More Super Awesome Ideas

I made a post a long while ago with things I’d like to see made. While I’m still waiting for cellphone away messages, I learned about Freenet, which is essentially the second idea I described. I’ve been meaning to play around with it, but I haven’t really had the time. Still, good to know it exists.

New ideas!

These are very mobile-computing based. Netbooks have gained popularity as of late, and I’m a little confused as to why. They’re alright, but for all they do you’re better off carrying a decent smart phone around (I’ve been eyeing Nokia’s N85). I think there are considerable advantages to this approach, and with a few addons, a smart phone could outperform netbooks.

The first is a very simple idea, which would make smart phones more usable for mobile computing. Imagine a small keyboard, with an empty slot where the calc pad usually is. Plug your phone into that slot, and you now have a large keyboard to use to type things (like actual documents, not SMSs). Since keyboards require very little actual space, underneath the keys can be a small bank of batteries that will charge the phone while it is plugged in. Since this battery bank is larger than the phone, I would imagine this setup would have an incredibly long battery life (days of activity, weeks of standby) before you had to recharge it all. It would also be easy to throw a couple ports on this, just to make the package complete. Most smart phones support video out in some capacity, so building that into this device would make hooking up to a monitor or TV easier. And a USB port of two for that misc gadget that needs charging or whatnot. There you go – everything a netbook does and more. Slip your phone back in your pocket when you don’t need all that crap.

Next is a sort of toned down version of that last idea, just to achieve full keyboard functionality. Anywhere with a computer, you can usually find a USB keyboard (I never see PS2 anymore). A small bluetooth dongle that would attach to the USB cord of a keyboard, and allow it to interface with your phone would be pretty slick. Just pop it on, sync it with your phone, and you’ve got a full-size input device. And all you have to carry around is something smaller than a thumbdrive.

I would buy either of these things if they were made. Someone please make them.

Communitas

On Thursday a lot of my classes didn’t really have too much to do, and several let us out early. So I found myself with some time to waste before my next class. Usually, I’d nap, but it wasn’t really enough time to enjoy a nap, and I didn’t really feel like it. I dropped by the office of the professor of my next class – he had mentioned something on Tuesday that had sparked my interest. He told us about Peter Goldmark (the guy who invented the LP) and a project he attempted later in his life. He started something called the New Rural Society, with the intent of replacing cities with small rural communities connected by new technologies. I had googled it and not found much (I did find more later), so I asked him if there was anything else he could tell me about it.

The project was started in the late 60s, and launched in the early 70s, but didn’t have much support. The idea was to have rural communities connected by telecommunication, using technology that was available at that time in new ways. Businesses and government agencies could have employees working remotely across the country, in smaller, sustainable towns. There were two test sites that had any real development: somewhere in Montana (my professor didn’t remember where exactly) and Windham County, CT. He actually worked with Fairfield University on a lot of this project, and there are records of the New Rural Society on file there.

He also told me a story of a project someone created in the 60s down in Appalachia concerning libraries. Libraries are usually large centralized structures that improve depending on the size of the community they belong to. Appalachia was very poor and sparse, and could not support decent libraries in each community, but it had an incredible infrastructure of train tracks because of the mining industry. So someone made a library on a railcar, and moved it from community to community, harnessing the power of all of the small communities combined to make a decent, mobile, library. He also made an interesting sidenote, “…and they wonder why people watch TV instead of reading books. TV comes to them!”

Before I left he gave me a book, called Communitas, which seems to be right in the vein of what we were talking about. I’ve only been able to read the introduction so far, but it seems to be questioning the fundamental problems with urban society (instead of thinking about how to improve transportation for commuters, thinking about why people need to commute).

These are all things I’m going to be posting a lot more about.

Co-op College

Ok, maybe that isn’t a good description of this idea. When googling “coop college” I found that most people take this to mean some sort of internship with a corporation, where students can learn the ropes of the “real world.” That is not what I mean.

I was talking to Ned recntly about colleges, and he remarked about what incredibly odd places they are. People pay and go there to learn (and do other things). There is no real economic model, and they only work with an outside support system.

The thing is, they don’t need to be that way. Imagine a college commune, or something of the sort. Tuition is free, and there is a sustainable economic model. Everyone works, everyone learns.

I’m imagining Freshman doing a majority of unskilled labor – keeping things running on a day to day basis. Each year above freshman could teach (or help teach) the year below.

I like this idea a lot, since it fits so snug with my previous commune ideas. I’m going to keep this stewing.

Myth and the Information Age

Myth has its roots in poor access to information. There are loads of myths from ancient times, though as time goes on, the myths get fewer and fewer. In fact, there is a inverse correlation between the amount of recorded information and the amount of myths circulating. Looking at the history of the United States, there were many myths and folktales in the colonies, and as time went on and newspapers grew and people began to write, they became fewer. In the West, there was a strong frontier myth until the West became Urbanized.

But today, we’re looking at an unprecedented amount of information. The internet has made it so that anyone can contribute to the available pool of information, and anyone else can easily access it. What will happen to myth? We know more about celebrity and events than we ever have before in history. As hard as the National Enquirer tries, its not easy to make credible things up.

Myth’s best chance seems to be the purposeful dissemination of bad information, but the internet has already dealt with that. I’ve seen many many cases of “Breaking News” that over the course of a day is quickly revealed as fake. When everyone who reads a story can easily check its validity, it is near impossible to pass any wooden nickels. The future won’t have any cowboys, or Paul Bunyan, or Johnny Appleseed.

I think what I’m getting at is the death of private life. We volunteer so much information that private life no longer exists. I’m certainly guilty of this. But there is loads of talk of that elsewhere, so I’ll stick to myth. It seems that someone would have to go out of their way to create any myth. Artists who don’t give interviews are good examples here. I think I’ll miss myth.

Low Income Intentional Communities

In my sociology of gender class, we were talking about how welfare effects low income single mothers. In the course of this discussion, my professor brought up the national poverty line. To qualify for welfare, you have to have an income below the set line. In 2008 for a family of 4 it is $21,200.

This got me thinking. I had to figure out what the average cost of feeding a person for a day was, for the Tour. With an incredibly basic meal that can be flexible enough to be not boring day after day, I found a person can live off $2/day. That is eating: Oatmeal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, and pasta for dinner. All you need to make any of these meals is water and a stove. Basic, but everything you need.

Going off that assumption, it would cost $2920 to feed a family of 4 for a year. At $8/hr (min wage in many states soon), that comes out to 365 hours, or about 46 days a year. For the entire family. Of course, the poverty level is about $18,000 higher than that, and most people work more than two months out of the year – so where does all that other money go?

The problem is in the infrastructure. Rent and utilities cost a lot, and other basic amenities. How can we get rid of those costs? This is where my infatuation with intentional communities (communes) comes in. Dividing the cost of the infrastructure among many people, and making it completely self-sustaining could eliminate infrastructure costs within a generation. If this completely sustainable environment could house three generations, then it could exist in perpetuity with the only costs being food, taxes, and luxuries.

This situation works for all economic classes within the U.S., and is a far more attractive lifestyle that what is currently the norm. And there is nothing mandating working only two months a year, it is possible to work the same number of hours currently worked, and increase the quality of life dramatically.

The problem, of course, is that this only works if everyone doesn’t do it. For widespread adoption, a different model is required. The only real hurdle is the initial investment. But I fully intend to game the system and pull this off for as long as I can. The more people who work with me, the easier it is.