Extremely Drug Resistant Tuberculosis
This site launched yesterday and is worth exploring. XDR-TB stands for Extremely Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis. There is an overview slideshow of XDR-TB victims around the world that features the photographs of James Nachtwey. The website was designed by Dean Kamen of Radical Media. Nachtway was a TED Prize winner a couple years ago and is an amazing photographer. His TED wish was to be able to reach more people using his skills as a photographer to document the World's problems.

National Investments

I find what unfolded over the last week quite ironic. When it comes to
discussing healthcare, something all Americans need and want, the
Republicans think nationalizing the service is unthinkable. But when
it comes to insurance, bad debt, and bad mortgages... things we don't
really "want" (even when they're healthy) somehow the Republicans have
found a way to justify these massive, multi-decade national
investments. Not that I'm disagreeing with the decision but isn't
healthcare kind of an important investment too?

China's Hidden Export: Air Pollution

China's Hidden Export: Air Pollution

The run up to the Beijing Olympics was full of photos and news reports of Beijing's legendary smog. Almost any distance shot comes automatically with a smog-induced atmospheric view. The reports talked about concern over the affect of the air pollution on athlete performance. Well I'm starting to wonder, with everything that China is making and exporting over there, How soon before they start exporting their air pollution all the way to California?

The Bay Area has been environmentally concious for a long time. But I can't help thinking that some of this came easy. When it comes to air pollution, we of course have rules designed to minimize power plant and factory emmissions but we are also blessed with a steady stream of fresh air off the Pacific.

I went to school in the 80s in upstate New York. Acid Rain was a common topic of interest at that time. Lakes were dying because the coal induced pollution was raising the PH of the lakes to a level where they could no longer support life. It was particularly dramatic in the beautiful Adirondack Mountains. The Adirondacks are one of the larger wilderness areas on the East Coast and yet they were being heavily affected by the output of far away industries. At the time, NYPIRG, the New York Public Interest Research Group was spending a lot of time on the issue. They determined that industries based in Ohio were partially to blame. Ohio's coal, tire and steel industries were releasing a tremendous amount of sulfur into the atmosphere. Once in the air, the pollution would move east with the weather. Eventually it would rain and the sulfur would mix with the water to create sulfur dioxide: "acid rain". It became an eye opener to many that actions in one state would have most of their impact felt in the next state.

When I first moved to San Francisco, I remember thinking how lucky we were to live on the Pacific coast with regards to air quality. There's no Ohio sitting next to us spewing sulfur into the air. But now I'm starting to wonder. It might not be next to us but China is a lot bigger than Ohio and putting a lot more up into the air.

How bad does it have to get before California, the most ecologicaly-minded state in the US, gets on the pollution watch list. Of course LA is already legendary for its smog. But smog in LA is a very local phenomenon. It is a combination of locally generated pollution, weather and geography. The hills surrounding much of the city give the smog no easy exit so the problem is both contained and concentrated.

According to this article, China is now opening up two new coal-fired power plants a week. Coal represents one of our biggest challenges with respect to global warming. It is possible the dirtiest carbon-based fuel but the only one the countries like the US and China have a large supply of. With oil prices skyrocketing, the temptation to burn even more coal will continue to grow. How long before our beloved cool Pacific breezes start to feel a bit warmer and take on a brownish tint?

A Thousand Drums in China

A Thousand Drums in China

2008 to be precise. If there's one image that I will remember from the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremonies it will be this one (photo by Michael Macor of the San Francisco Chronicle). 2008 individual drummers in perfect synchronization. What made it even more amazing is to see them drumming independently one second and then in absolute sync the next. The effect was all the more apparent when the lights were out and each drum lit up as it was hit. You could see all these drummers with separate heart beats playing independently and then, with some invisible order, they were all in sync. I can't think of a more potent symbol of today's China... 1.4 billion people who are more and more independent yet willing to march in perfect step when the government asks. Amazing and scary.

The Science of Gods and Variables

The Science of Gods and Variables

It occurred to me that there is a similarity between the number of variables in scientific models and the number of gods worshiped by people of faith. It seems like the trend over the millenia has been to reduce the number of variables and gods respectively. In the case of variables, the goal is zero while in the case of gods worshiped the trend has been towards one. But it makes me wonder if the ultimate trend for both is zero.

The evolution of science starts with a world where almost everything in human experience is a mystery. Over time, as cause and effect are discovered, the mysteries are removed. As science becomes formalized, scientists sought to broaden their knowledge by coming up with new theories for how the universe works and testing those hypotheses through experiments and measurement. Early in an area of study, there are multiple variables. But as theories are refined, more and more of the equation becomes known resulting in fewer variables. Theories on the cutting edge of how the universe works try to unify all the known forces into a single, elegant equation. There are still variables that are not fully understood but fewer than there were a decade ago.

Computer modeling follows a similar but inverse path. Predicting the weather is done by running complex models. Early models were simpler due to the limits of both understanding and computer power. Simpler models have more external variables in that fewer of the contributing forces are being factored into the equation. Over time, our understanding and processing power have increased and this has allowed us to reduce these external variables by incorporating them into the models.

This sounds very similar to the history of religion. To early humans, everything is a mystery. Cause and effect is beyond understanding and so, to compensate, gods are created that "cause" certain things to happen. With so many mysteries in the world, many gods are created, each responsible for one or more effects. One god is the sun, giver of light, another god brings the rains and yet another brings abundant or scarce harvests.

I don't know when the religions of the world peaked in numbers of gods worshipped. Poly-theistic religions remain to this day. But eventually a turning point was reached and religions decided that there were too many gods. This resulted in a slow but steady trend towards worshipping fewer gods. Religions that worshipped multiple gods were seen as engaging in "idol worship".

Catholicism tried to sit on the poly-theistic/mono-theistic fence by introducing the concept of the holy trinity: essentially saying that their one God is simulataneously made up of the father, the son and a very fire-like holy spirit.

Islam took a firm, mono-theistic stance with the Koran saying, "there is no God but God". Islam was laying down the law... that's it, there's only one.

Sir Richard Dawkins made this trend humorously clear in a speach I heard him give on problems of discrimination against atheists in the US. With all the focus we put on a candidate's faith here, an atheist, even if he/she was an amazing statesman, could never be elected president. Dawkins then made an interesting point. The general history of religion has been towards worshipping fewer and fewer gods until we reached the current situation where Islam, Judaism and Christianity all worship one god. "Atheism is not that different", Dawkins said, "we just go one god further."

I don't know if the two trends are linked. But it would seem natural that as science has illuminated more and more of the World's mysteries it would impact religious beliefs. As the sun is revealed to be a ball of burning gas, it makes less sense to keep telling everyone that it is a god. Perhaps the current debates over things like evolution are because some of the more extreme faith-based leaders worry about what comes after "1" when you are counting down.

The Death and Future of Paper

The Death and Future of Paper

I first heard about this William Powers article, "Hamlet's Blackberry: Why Paper is Eternal" in an NPR story on the radio. The article celebrates the wonders of paper and fears its undoing by cold and cruel digital media devices like ebooks. Its ironic that I heard the piece on the radio since radio once faced the same types of arguments that are being made for paper relative to an encroaching new technology called TV.

Kirsten Reach wrote a nice summary of Power's article in the online version of the Kenyon Review, a traditional, paper-based literary journal. Her review is both sympathetic and fortunate. Fortunate because the original article is 75 pages long. Sympathetic I expect because of the paper legacy of the Kenyon Review. I wrote a comment which has not yet been accepted. I'm not sure if its because my comments were among the only in support of a future where both paper books and ebooks could co-exist. Here's what I tried to post.

"The most compelling argument I've heard for the evolution of paper towards digital/re-usable media is the environment. The amount of resources (wood, water, chemicals, etc.) we use for paper has an enormous negative impact on the environment. A significant percentage of the paper we use is paper we use for a only few minutes and then throw away.

So many arguments for or against a new technology hinge on an all or nothing world. But as is hinted in the radio example, older technologies don't have to go away for new ones to be valuable. I agree with Power's assertions that paper will be with us for many more years. He makes a great case for where paper is a valuable and ideal media. But that doesn't mean there might be a few places where an electronic book or medium might be good while also being much better for the environment. Many people who work in the corporate world have to read multiple reports... industry reports, sales reports, business plans, etc.. Most of these are printed, read or scanned quickly and then thrown out or put on a shelf never to be touched again. Couldn't some of these be consumed on an ebook for the benefit of the environment? Carrying 4 or 5 reports in an ebook format will leave extra room in your backpack for that paper copy of "Ulysses" you've been meaning to read all these years.

I love reading the Sunday New York Times. But I feel guilty about getting all that paper knowing I won't read it all. There is now a healthy movement across many cities in the US to replace plastic and paper bags at the supermarket with reusable bags. I feel good every time I do it and know that I'm reducing my environmental footprint.

If we all used less paper for our "disposable" content, there would be plenty of paper left for more permanent and important uses. As Powers also notes, there is plenty of content out there for paper, ebooks and computer screens to all be busy and useful for a long time to come."

Mississippi River TypeMap

Mississippi River TypeMap

This is the latest map in my "Typography of Place" series... a map of the cities and towns that lie along the Mississippi River. For a larger, readable image, you can view it here on my Flickr site.

The last two maps I did in this series (Silk Road and the Aleutian Islands) were very horizontal. So I wanted to try one with a vertical format. One of the things I am trying to achieve in these maps is to have the words that make up the maps read as a sort of free-form poem. In this one, I think that comes across strong since you can "read" it from the river's source in the top left to the mouth in the bottom right.

I have not color coded the place names on this map as I did in my Aleutian Islands Map but the same theme is present with many towns having Native American names (including the river itself). French names are also quite prevalent as you travel down the river. Then there is the intriguing sequence of Egyptian-inspired names that includes Memphis, Thebes, Angola, and Cairo.

I assembled the map from a general map of the river. After re-drawing the path of the river, I added all the towns and cities by referencing a live page from Yahoo! Maps. I originally placed the cities on the appropriate left or right bank of the river so my base would be geographically accurate. But I know as I was building it that I was going to re-orient the towns so that they were all centered on the middle of the river to emphasize the meandering path the river takes.