Pablo Garuda

Green development policy wiki

2009-12-22T11:47:07Z

After the exasperation of Copenhagen, and the vast amounts of hot air produced by political leaders to ensure our planet heats up 4 degrees, it should be obvious that we can't wait for them to act. We must act. See the post Green development policy wiki for one critical need.

Flash killed my laptop battery

2009-12-21T23:22:57Z

My latest post in the Appropedia LJ community:

Lean code: Avoid Flash

I'll be doing more of this sort of blogging (Linux/green/development oriented) over there in future.

Doubts about Village Phone

2009-12-20T07:04:47Z

You may have heard the story about the village phone network by the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, giving access to information and markets, empowering people and giving them opportunities.

But there are doubts about this story: Village Phone: another great story under the microscope from The GiveWell Blog (hat tip to Alanna Shaikh).

I'm surprised and saddened - though of course the final verdict isn't in yet.

More thoughts at What to fund in development.

Rambling about accents

2009-12-18T12:16:07Z

When I was in Guatemala, I was talking with an American friend and she didn't catch a word I said at first. "Oh, fourteen! Wow, it's the accent." Then she imitated my accent, and it was an amazing impression - of the Simpsons when they have Australian accents. It wasn't a bad attempt, and I could definitely hear some similarities, but it sounded to me like some other British colony, founded with a higher proportion of Cockneys. But I was struck by how she and the Simpsons came up with exactly the same sound. But then, when I've been away from Australia for a long time and then hear one for the first time, it sounds strong, and different to what I remember. Maybe that's a glimpse into what all you foreigners are hearing. I love it when the Simpsons do Rupert Murdoch, btw. And on accents, this impressed me - an actress and comedian called Amy Walker:
All good I think,, and her two Australian accents are just about convincing. Much better than most imitations you see on screen. The second is over the top, but if you travel far enough outside of the cities, you might meet people who talk like that. Come to think of it my country relatives talk a bit like that...

Wikipedia makes me proud to be human

2009-12-18T05:15:50Z

I love this post by Curt Beckmann, my friend and colleague, to the Appropedia Blog: Wikipedia makes me proud to be human

It's true. For all our faults, we humans have done something amazing at Wikipedia. Sure, the folks on staff there deserve a bit of credit, but it's the millions contributors like you and me that built that phenomenal resource. And fast. And it ain't exactly done yet. I just took a look at the English Wikipedia statistics page again. Eleven million registered users. Not bad. Three million articles. A whopping 350M page edits. If the average edit takes a minute (gee, that seems short to me) then that's at least 6M hours of work! All done free for the rest of us to make use of. And of course that's just in English; I figure we oughta multiply by ten for all the other languages (and yeah, that seems low also). Equally amazing to me is that even the organizing structures and policies were all built organically by volunteers. The approach has been "let's try to find policies that will work." And, one way or another, 11M registered users (plus a bunch of anonymous users and some bots) managed to figure out how to work together, for free, to build something functional and useful.

So, yes, I marvel at the remarkable edifice that is Wikipedia, and I think it says something about what humans are capable of. And yet, I've only made a few small edits there. Instead, Wikipedia's success motivated me to create my own wiki around how we humans can work together in practical ways to make lives better. ( "WinWinWiki" got as big as 14 pages before I joined Chris and Lonny here at Appropedia, which had more pages, maybe even 100.) Appropedia's hard problem is that much of the information we value often resides nonverbally in people's heads and not on some web page. Find the words to describe how to select the best local dirt for your earthen blocks takes some cleverness. Consider something as "simple" as rainwater harvesting. Wikipedia has a nice overview page on the topic, but they don't provide enough information to build your own system. Appropedia has a portal focused on rainwater harvesting, with lots of links to practical articles on actually doing some rainwater harvesting. No doubt there are still unanswered questions, or regional variations that could be added. Some of that info is hiding on the web somewhere, but some might be in your head. Or in someone's head who (gasp!) doesn't spend much time on the internet, or perhaps doesn''t have regular access (at least for a couple of years).

Appropedia faces a lot of the same challenges that Wikipedia did, and some different ones as well, but there's one challenge Appropedia won't face. When Wikipedia was first getting started, many said it was impossible. "Who's going to spend the time? How can content quality be maintained? How will disputes be settled? If you let just any unregistered Schmo edit, it'll be a spammer''s paradise. Yada yada, it'll never work." But of course it has worked, amazingly well. (Here's a nice self referential article about that, and, for balance, a discussion of criticisms. I just love that.) And since Wikipedia has been-there-done-that, the notion that Appropedia is impossible seems rather naive or even far-fetched. The question is not "if" like-minded humans can build a large open library of practical and sustainable solutions, but "how" or "when". I find that profoundly inspiring.

It's why I'm here. Oh, and I have a 6-year-0ld son. He needs to understand what's possible for humans to do by working together. When he's my age ("39"), he'll have another two billion people to share the planet with. Maybe you can help me show him what we can do together?

I still think "WinWinWiki" is a cool name.

Appropedia on LiveJournal

2009-12-13T15:40:37Z

Appropedia now has an active community page on LiveJournal - join or watch us there, and check the updates - often snippets of content from Appropedia, for your interest, and application, and for sharing. You can post there as well.

Looking forward to your ideas and feedback!

How do you build a wiki community?

2009-12-01T20:50:10Z

Appropedia gets 2500 visitors per day. But only a couple of dozen editors are active on the wiki in a given week. How do we engage more?

As the site improves, it will draw more in, but that's missing the point... why aren't people seeing the potential? What does it mean to sell the sizzle? Why do we here so much praise

I have to say that it aggravates me to see sites hyped, marketed, even funded, that have almost nothing. But as ever-pragmatic engineers and scientists, we may have gone too far the other way. Perhaps more important is a lack of active, ongoing community engagement. Some places where we've put much energy into attempts at engagement have yielded almost nothing, and at the same time we neglected people who had actually edited and created pages. (Lesson: most people just don't edit wikis.) Things that we thought would spring up (e.g. a newsletter team) have not, and the pump will have to be primed.

I'm still working on Appropedia many hours a day, and there is a small community of hardworking people putting in a lot of energy. Much of that energy is putting more content on the site, some of it excellent. I rather like Principles of development, these fantastic wetlands pages and I like the idea of pages like Principles of clothes washing and washing machine design, even if that model of wiki page still has to be developed.

We hear a lot of enthusiasm for what we're doing. But you can't eat enthusiasm, and inactive enthusiasm doesn't build the site. Some changes in focus needed.

Permaculture wiki - popular idea but...

2009-11-20T19:42:50Z

Appropedia has been about appropriate technology from the beginning, in the sense of sustainable, context-sensitive development, technology and living. This is also what permaculture is about, and we've had permaculture-oriented pages from the beginning, too.

Now, put Permaculture Wiki into a search engine and you'll find that a lot of people have talked about this, agreed to do something, and sometimes started an actual wiki. But... the hard part is going from "your wiki is now installed" to having a site bursting with accessible and usable permaculture knowledge. The motives are great... but this isn't going anywhere, folks!
I've started a page to invite collaboration: Permaculture wiki. Check it out, and since it's a wiki you can even edit the page. Please share the link with all your green, hippie, leftie, eco-geek, compassionate-conservative and otherwise forward-thinking friends.

Free alternatives to Windows

2009-10-26T18:38:17Z

If you're wondering about Win 7, whether to shell out your money or just stay with XP or Vista, and maybe hearing the stories about installation problems... check out this comparison of Windows and Ubuntu Linux systems.

You see, if you wait a few days (till October 29) you can download a slick version of Linux, brand new Ubuntu 9.10, for free. In many ways it's superior to Windows.

Installing should be easy, but as with Windows, there can be a few challenges. For this reason I'd suggest getting together with some friends, including a geek or two in there, and do it together. Maybe even look up the Linux Users Group in your city. Make sure you know how to get access to useful stuff like Skype and video codecs (not in there by default because it's not open source software). And once you've got the hang of it, Linux is actually much, much easier to install and update.

At a glance:

Microsoft: W7 2-3GB, no extra programs to do anything. Susceptible to viruses and malware - pay extra for antivirus & anti-spyware or install free versions.

Ubuntu: 700MB, run from CD or install to disk. Lots of programs to satisfy many users. Highly secure, and free!

Lubuntu: 300MB, run from CD or install to disk. Lots of programs to satisfy many users, an Ubuntu variant with a lean-coded interface, great for speed and for older computers. Highly secure, and free!

I'll be downloading and trying out Lubuntu when I have time in November. I'm impressed by LXDE (the "desktop" that Lubuntu uses) - it's not quite as pretty now, in its early stages of development, but then I like functional more than pretty.

And note there are plenty of other Linux options out there - in fact I'd recommend you download a couple, burn them to LiveCD, try them on your computer and see which you like best.

Dual boot: If you do need Windows for some reason (specialist software, or advanced photo-editing) you can still install Linux. Install Windows first, back everything up, then insert the Linux LiveCD and follow instructions to set up dual boot. Then you've got Linux for secure web browsing and stability, and Windows whenever you need it.

I've had problems with Linux, as I had with Windows, but by and large I'm happier with Linux, and happy to support something created by a community based on a philosophy of openness.

John Howard's economic solution?

2009-10-21T02:19:44Z

An email from my brother, back in Australia where the economy is going strong.

When he refers below to "the libs," that's actually our conservative party, who were in power under the very cleverly populist John Howard, from 1996 to 2007:

And a poll today (in the Terrorgraph!*) found that most people believe we would have done much worse in the Great Financial Crush if the libs were in. Their solution would have been to give billions to big business, run a scare campaign about black people + halve everyone's wages.

Not far off, I suspect.

*Terrorgraph = Telegraph, Sydney's News Corporation newspaper. As in the T-shirt, "Is that true, or did you read it in the Telegraph?"

Obsession and religion

2009-10-20T10:31:14Z

There's a Japanese porn star called Miyabi who's supposed to be coming to Indonesia to star in a non-porn Indonesian film, about an Indonesian guy who's obsessed with her and tries to kidnap her.

If they meant to attract attention, they were very smart. Self-appointed defenders of Islam are getting very upset, and saying she's not allowed to come, though they're probably buying her DVDs and watching them in private like everyone else.

An intelligent conservative

2009-10-19T09:57:31Z

It's easy to read someone that you agree with, and nod as one's prejudices are confirmed. For that reason i'd rather read an intelligent conservative that challenges me to think than a liberal who tells me I'm right.

An example is this interview with "old-school supply-sider Bruce Bartlett": Reaganomics is dead (long live Reaganomics). He doesn't take the orthodox line, acknowledges that Keynes got it at least partly right, and makes some general criticisms of the way people think about economics and crises, which if anything are more critical of the right wing than the left. I'm no economist, but he's talking way more sense than the kinds of people I'm used to seeing on Fox. (Which I admit, is not saying much - he probably deserves better praise than that.)

I found this quote funny.

As Larry Summers [Obama's chief economic adviser] once put it, we don't have a VAT [Value Added Tax] because liberals think it's regressive and conservatives think it's a money machine. We'll get a VAT when liberals figure out it's a money machine and conservatives figure out it's regressive.

The GST (Australia's name for a VAT) certainly seems to be a money machine in Australia.

Another interesting comment:

The mistake of the left is to assume you can raise rates on the rich and they won't react. They'll put more effort into tax avoidance and evasion. That won't do anyone any good except tax lawyers.

I've heard this argument, along with an argument that the maximum tax rate to avoid this is 30%. Sounds reasonable, but not sure if it's actually true - I've only heard the right-wing side of the argument, and one thoughtful rebuttal by a leftie. That left me slightly agnostic about the idea, but with the feeling that there's a significant degree of truth in there.

Harmony in Sarawak, Malaysia

2009-09-22T17:27:02Z

Traveling in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo, with my good friend David. His approach to travel is to find a friend who knows a place and its language, and travel with them - so I've become his guide for Indonesia and Malaysia.

Waiting for a flight, I spoke to someone nearby, and she was shocked that I could speak Malay. "Boleh cakap Sarawak!" she said to her sister, then "Boleh cakap Melayu!" Interesting that she refered to her own language as "Sarawak" before saying "Malay" - but of course they do have their regional differences. It seems that not a lot of foreigners learn Malaysian. Even my very Indonesian version of Malay impresses people sometimes, though I speak very slowly to allow for the accent difference, and as I try with limited success to work out which bits to modify. It's fun.

It turned out she was returning home for "Hari Raya" (Big Day), the day after the fasting month ends. She invited David and I us to join her family on that day, so we did. When we turned up on the day, her brother and mother looked at us strangely (their faces saying "Who on earth are these people?") but when we introduced ourselves as friends they instantly relaxed and warmly welcomed us in, offering us food and drink, while we and other visitors sat, and while the youngest son played a first person shoot-em-up game on a laptop.

The day is also known as Aidul Fitri, an important Muslim occasion where people visit friends and family, in a ritual of asking and granting forgiveness. While we were there, several other visitors came and clasped hands in turn with everyone present. Now, it was interesting to see the other family who were there - the mother was introduced as a close friend of our friend's mother. They were Chinese, they were not Muslim (I asked), and yet they were an important part of the celebration of this Muslim family's holy day. Not to mention that our hosts also welcomed these two foreigners who they assumed to be Christian - and when we said we had no religion, they didn't try to convert us.

We talked history and politics a little. What did they think of Brooke, the "White Raja" who colonized Sarawak? Before him there were headhunters in Sarawak, said the father, and If it weren't for him, there might still be headhunters. They didn't like the Iraq war (no surprise there). They asked my opinion of Obama - they seemed pretty happy with him. I've been seeing that a lot, in people from various countries.

Her mother was a great cook. I got to try a nice Sarawak layer cake - better than the shop-bought version. But my favorite was the Sarawak curry with glutinous rice cakes - I've asked for the recipe. (It ranks up there with Sarawak Laksa, a coconut based spicy noodle soup that I discovered here, an interesting variation on the Singapore Laksa I'm used to in Sydney, and just as good.)

David & I were both touched by our experience.

"God loves you and I have a wonderful plan for your life..."

2009-09-20T17:47:43Z

I saw an evangelist in Sydney once, by the steps of the Town Hall, with a large speaker. The only time I ever saw someone preach there.

He was just getting started, informing us that God loved us and would be sending us to hell, when he was interrupted by mounted police clopping past. He started again, but a loose police horse came galloping back in the other direction, followed by the other police horses (these ones with riders still in the saddles) in pursuit.

He started again with his message of love and hell, but shortly afterwards exuberant, shouting Koreans began to appear around the corner of Woolworths. The trickle became a flood, with hundreds and possibly thousands of jubilant Koreans shouting "Kor-e-a! Kor-e-a!" This was 2002, and Korea had just scored their latest success in the FIFA World Cup - possibly the match where they got into the semi-final). Very well-behaved by the standards of football fans, but louder than any one preacher, even with his loudspeaker.

I looked over at the Town Hall steps. The preacher had packed up and went home.

It was awesome.

Homeopathy and honesty

2009-08-25T20:01:52Z

Edzard Ernst, the first Professor of Complementary Medicine in the United Kingdom, talking about homeopathy and the ethics of pharmacists selling homeopathic products:

"My plea is simply for honesty. Let people buy what they want, but tell them the truth about what they are buying. These treatments are biologically implausible and the clinical tests have shown they don't do anything at all in human beings. The argument that this information is not relevant or important for customers is quite simply ridiculous," he says. "If they are unable to stick to their ethical code, then they should change their code and be clear that it is alright to put profits before patients." - Pharmacists urged to 'tell the truth' about homeopathic remedies, The Guardian.

It does seem pretty clearly settled now that homeopathy doesn't work. It's worth noting though that some products marked as homeopathic actually have been known to contain active ingredients, and I wonder whether they might sometimes work. (Wikipedia notes poisoning cases from homeopathic remedies - not quite the desired effects, but they show that low levels of dilution have been used at times.)

Years ago, my dog had a plea allergy, and a fellow dog-owner, and health shop manager, suggested homeopathic drops that he said worked for many people's dogs. Worth a shot, I thought. And I was convinced that they worked - my poor mutt was scratching much less, I thought. At the time I had no idea what homeopathy really meant, let alone that the science would come down conclusively against homeopathy years later. I hindsight, either the itching improved coincidentally, or I imagined the improvement, or there really was some active ingredient that did something. That last option now seems like a long shot.

China and selective history lessons

2009-08-09T13:55:53Z

I'm very familiar with the idea of Japanese and Chinese textbooks filled with half-truths and distortions. The Japanese textbooks hide their aggression in the 1930s and 40s, and the Chinese dwell on Japanese atrocities, presumably leaving out anything dark in their own past. And these are valid points - it's disturbing that the Japanese haven't faced their past in the same way as Germany has; and I certainly wouldn't expect to get a balanced view of history from in an authoritarian state. (I know the versions of history taught to schoolchildren in Indonesia, especially under Suharto, was deeply biased.)

But let's have a look at who is wagging the finger here. What are our history books like? What did we in the West learn about China when we were at school? I for one had no idea that Western nations colonized China just a century ago, forced an opium trade that the Chinese rulers didn't want, and then stood aside when the Japanese attacked and slaughtered. I for one knew little or nothing about these things.

No wonder many Chinese people don't like Westerners who try to tell them what is right and wrong. Yes I have an opinion on Tibet and the Falun Gong (not that I like the Falun Gong as an organization and movement, but I believe in rights for people I disagree with too). But I'll be a heck of a lot more careful before expressing these opinions, and make sure I'm well informed.

Thank you to the French traveler, residing in Beijing, who shared this insight with me.

Benign foolishness, malignant stupidity

2009-08-07T17:11:00Z

We all have our areas of foolishness, but some are more dangerous than others. To me, horoscopes and tarot cards look like foolishness, but they don't do massive harm. A clairvoyant may even be a good counsellor, and a tarot card may provoke a person to think more than they otherwise would, because of their openness to it. On the whole I see them as negative, but I know the human tendency to see patterns where they don't exist, and I don't try to convert my mystical friends.

Beliefs in a religion that you would kill or die for are more blatantly Bad, yet still have many adherents. It was the Europeans who led the way in this particular form of evil in the middle ages and through he Reformation - which is important to remember when we think about those movements within Islam that pursue violence today. Islam today is actually much more enlightened than the Christianity of several centuries ago (that's faint praise) in that there is a large mass of Muslims who abhor the extremists, and believe in harmony between religions.

Then there are those religions that encourage dysfunctional behavior - less blatantly evil, but cruel and harmful in their impacts nonetheless. Telling people who are attracted to the same sex that this is not an avenue for them causes much sadness, and encouraging celibacy as a "higher" calling potentially increases the risk of "celibates" finding twisted and selfish outlets for their sexuality, in particular the abuse of children.

I know I have my own beliefs that cause harm as well. I consider it essential to my own growth that my beliefs - intellectual, personal, relational, about myself and others - are open to change.

The Church of Marx

Then there are Marxists - a confusing breed, just as perplexing in their own way as the adherents of oppressive religions, and just as inclined to select the arguments and versions of history that support their beliefs.

I had a fascinating argument with a pamphleteering Marxist in Sydney a couple of years ago. He was from the International Committee of the Fourth International if I remember right - he was Trotskyite, in any case - and wanted to use positive words that we all approve of, like democracy, in places where they didn't belong. The conversation as I remember it:

Do you believe in influencing through the democratic system?
We believe in democracy, but not this bourgeois democracy.
Hmm. So you'd gain power through a violent and bloody revolution?
Yes, there'd be some sort of violent struggle - we can only overthrow this sham democracy by force, not through a rigged process. But then we would institute a true workers' democracy.
I see, and can everyone vote in this democracy, or only party members?
(Showing some discomfort) Only party members, of course...
Ah, so you don't believe in democracy.
(Looking unhappy with the direction this is taking) But any worker could join the party...
I believe in free markets as the dominant organizing mechanism in a democracy. Can I join your party and vote?
Well, no, obviously you have to subscribe to blah blah...
Ah, so you don't believe in democracy!
(Frustation levels increasing.) No, that's not true...

Here's another belief that I don't get: that Stalin was bad (okay, I agree with that part) and Trotsky was good. If the Soviet leadership had stayed true, everything would have been great.

So... you're telling me that we have a system in which only a few have a say, and we the vanguard gain power by force, then rule in the name of people, who do not have a voice unless they subscribe to views that we approve. Then for Stalin to do what he did is somehow an aberration? I'm sorry, it looks to me like the natural course of events - where power is gained by violence and not quickly transformed into an actual democracy (where all have a voice without discrimination) then in the absence of any concept of democratic legitimacy, the strong and wily will gain power. To naively suggest otherwise is to leave things open for a long term repressive dictatorship, and this is exactly what happened in quite a few countries around the world in the 20th century, with the result of tens of millions of deaths, hundreds of millions living without personal freedom, economies that frankly sucked, and much more suffering besides.

That's all stating the obvious... and yet the beliefs prevail. Is this what I think it is - a dangerous and malignant foolishness - or am I missing something?

Keeping Americans on their toes

2009-07-24T07:54:50Z

Conversation at a party in Northern California this year:

Her: Which part of England are you from?
Me: The very Southern part.
Her: Which part is that?
Me: The part near Singapore.
Her: (confused look).

To be fair, it was about 1 a.m., she'd probably had a glass or two of something, and my accent confuses a lot of people.

Deadline approaches for relicensing wikis

2009-07-09T08:14:35Z

This could be important to you if you operate a wiki, or have any contact with someone who does.

I'm contacting wiki operators who use the GFDL license, who may not be aware of the latest news on GFDL and Creative Commons. The message is:

I hope you're switching from GFDL to CC-BY-SA, the same as Wikipedia, other Wikimedia sites, Appropedia and many other wikis. There's only 22 days left till the end-of-July deadline.

You as the wiki's operator can make the call, and just change it over as soon as you make the decision.

Let me know if you have questions.

I've just gone through Green wiki and development wiki page, found a number of wikis that are still under the GFDL, and sent emails to each, or left messages for the operators on their talk pages.

Perhaps we could share the work of going through WikiIndex and/or AboutUs and finding more wikis that are still under GFDL.

Who's in? How do we divide the effort? I'm interested in those wikis on serious topics (on green topics or history, say, rather than a video game).

Pass the word along, please - tweet, blog, and email to everyone who needs to know.

Indonesian mystical demonstrations

2009-06-18T05:46:27Z

In 1996 I was in East Java when the father of my host family had a visitor doing tricks. I can't remember the tricks, but at the time I thought they were pretty good. The my host told me the guy could make electricity come out of his hand - did I want to feel it? So the conjurer went out into the dirt street and he chose a place to stand on a section of concrete, and put our hands together at the fingertips. For a moment, nothing, then what felt like a strong electrical pulse through one of my fingers, and I pulled away in shock. I was asked if I wanted to do it again, but once was enough.

I knew that these things could allegedly be done through dark forces (though I'd never seen it myself), so I asked if he did it with tricks or with demons (setan). The guy doing the tricks didn't answer, but my host told me "tricks" (and later told another foreigner setan.) All this time I've wondered how he did it - I couldn't see any devices on his hand, so I was mystified. But I've seen amazing things done by magicians like David Copperfield, so .

Today I chanced across this video, which shows something very similar. There's people reacting like this mystic has given them a serious electric shock, and I believe that, from what I felt - the interesting question is how he does it. Since he's claiming it's mystical powers, rather than just entertainment, he definitely deserves to be tested, and if he's a fraud then publicly exposed and shamed.

If you like you can skip ahead to the testing of his powers (not very rigorous though) starting at 6:55:

This response is the most complete and helpful comment I found, and it refers to a brief comment by James Randi,* where he talks about "a small battery-powered device worn on the body that develops very high voltage at very low amperage, that can be directed from the body of the performer to anything that’s at a lower potential than he is."

Unfortunately the video link Randi gives no longer works, and I can't find anything that shows in detail how this device works. If you know more or have a video, please share!

* If you don't know James Randi, you should - he does great work exposing charlatans and helping people think more critically about supernatural claims.)

A green collaboration of one - for now

2009-06-16T15:22:18Z

I just blogged on the Appropedia blog, about a notable sustainability site run by Peter Campbell from Melbourne - Green wiki #3: Greenlivingpedia.

One interesting thing about Greenlivingpedia is that a wiki is a collaborative platform, but here it's almost all the work of one person. And this one person has created the 5th most active green wiki on the web that I could find - more active than Wikia's green wiki, for example. One person can use a wiki very effectively to create a useful resource, if they're knowledgeable and committed.

Now, Peter could have used some other platform that doesn't allow editing, but a wiki gives some key advantages:

It's easy to edit, and all changes are recorded.
Contributions are possible - okay, they haven't come in a flood, but others (including me) have contributed here and there.
Conversations are tied to the topics. Forum sites may attract more activity, but I like the fact that the permanent resource page is the focus, rather than ever changing discussion topics.
The next passionate contributor may turn up tomorrow - and start contributing immediately.

See this wiki at Greenlivingpedia.org.

Tiananmen protestors, McDonaldsism-Leninism, and China's path forward

2009-06-09T08:39:03Z

I often appreciate the political and historical comments of a good friend, David Bofinger - scientist and budding sci-fi writer. David's the guy that goes to talks in Sydney and asks the most insightful and difficult questions, and I've become a more critical thinker thanks to his influence. I'm sure many of the speakers wish he hadn't turned up.

Here is a recent email from David, posted with his permission, where he is responding to comments of another friend, and the article China's race to supremacy (AC Grayling, The Guardian, 28 May 2009):

One of the comments is that China is authoritarian not totalitarian which is half true at least. There's an extent to which it's totalitarian in that there are all those government-owned or PLA-owned businesses but I'm not sure how we should interpret them, maybe just as capitalist intrusions in the government. Others have described China as "McDonaldsism-Leninism" i.e. capitalism in an authoritarian state. Thirty years ago "totalitarian" might have been a fair description of China (Great Leap Forward, etc.) but now I think it isn't.

I don't think the failure of the Tiananmen protests made the fall of the Wall possible. If anything it made it harder: if they'd succeeded it would have helped.

I hope China will turn to democracy before it gets so powerful we get a new existential-threat-period of confrontation like 1890s-1945 or 1940s to 1991 or so. I don't see why it can't happen. It might be driven by internet-infected youth?

> While I share the admiration for those Chinese who protested in 1989, I'm of the opinion that
> it probably would have been a disaster if they had won.

I suspect it would have been an economic setback. Whenever the political revolution happens it will drag China down for a while. That's a price that's going to be paid some day, I'm sceptical there's any benefit to paying a continuous price in human rights, etc., in order to delay the economic price.

> I never saw a plan from them to deal with the vast rural poverty

There were influential members of the government who favoured moving toward democracy. Presumably coming up with policies like this would have been their responsibility, not that of the students and do-gooders protesting in Tiananmen. Would a democratic government have been less able at this than the Zhong Nan Hai?

> and doing what the Russians did would likely have led to similar outcomes.

Selling everything to gangsters was indeed unwise. That wasn't obligatory, it's just that the people in charge didn't try to stop it happening. And that's because the people in charge were Yeltsin and his friends, who were dishonest even when they were sober. I doubt I know enough about China to say what would have happened but my uninformed guess would be lots of corruption but less actual gangsterism.

> It may sound odd, but I simply cannot see an alternative to the Chinese Communist Party that
> actually has a plan that isn't just democratic sloganeering and repetition of western liberal
> platitudes. You can't just install democracy and sing Kumbaya.

I don't think government planning has to stop just because the country is a democracy. A successor state would inherit the PRC's apparatus. If it didn't for some reason then yes, China's screwed, but Tiananmen was at least partially a revolution from the top so I don't see that as likely.

Note this is not my work, so the CC license doesn't apply - but ask and David will probably be fine with reuse, as long as adapted arguments aren't represented as his.

"What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else"

2009-05-11T18:48:01Z

Geoff Colvin in his book Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else, talks about the kind of work that leads to success:

Deliberate practice is characterized by several elements, each worth examining. It is activity designed specifically to improve performance, often with a teacher's help; it can be repeated a lot; feedback on results is continuously available; it's highly demanding mentally, whether the activity is purely intellectual, such as chess or business-related activities, or heavily physical, such as sports; and it isn't much fun.

That's quoted by Sue M. Halpern in Making It (New York Review of Books), a pondering on the life and success of Warren Buffett and a critical view of Outliers by Malcom Gladwell.

Core strength, back strength, happiness

2009-05-04T19:39:41Z

Being fit and healthy is important to me, but something that I haven't worked on consistently. Core and back strengthening are especially important - I have a computer-based lifestyle, and a long back that's prone to problems.

Recently I've been doing exercises:

A sit up routine of sorts, every 2-3 days in theory. (More sporadic in practice, but I do notice the strength in my abdomen and the protection that gives my back.)
Back exercises. "Alternating superman" is great for the lower back, which is my biggest weakness. It can actually be a bad thing if done without the abdominals held very strong firm, but I learnt this under the instruction of a very good yoga teacher/physiotherapist:
- They need to be done carefully, to not let the lower back arch and pinch. I press my hips into the floor, and keep the abs held firm and in, which makes the exercise harder work (and I think much more effective at working the lower back muscles). This works for me, but seek advice from a qualified physio or instructor to make sure you're safe.
- I notice my shoulders want to hunch as well, so I keep them rolled outwards away from the ears as well (a common refrain of Simon, my yoga teacher, during classes).

I aim to work each muscle group every few days. As I understand it, leaving a period of 2 to 7 days between working a muscle group hard gives the muscles time to grow. I aim for about 5 days - no need to work harder than what I need for optimal results. But the main thing is just to do something, so I base it just on approximate timing, and when I find a good opportunity to exercise.

bdominals can be done more often, as a longer period means more bulk, and bulk is certainly not an aim for stomach muscles - 3 times a week is ideal.

Those are the main ones, but there are various other exercises which give a bit of help to both. Lots of yoga positions are good for both abdomen and back. Push ups help strengthen the core, I think. Walking is great for the back (if your posture is good, anyway), and I do a lot of that - it's my default mode of transport.

Of course, if I did yoga several times a week, this would all be taken care of. The reality is I don't always make time, and there's also benefits from doing more focused strength exercises (mostly bodyweight - I don't go to a gym) which can be performed in a very short time. When you're coming from a low base, it's amazing what a few minutes of hard exercise will do - and it might only be 10 minutes, if I start after I've been walking, and end by doing a couple of minutes of gentle stretches as a cool down (largely yoga movements, for me). I've even been known to do squats or dips while waiting at the bus stop - but that's me, with my general disregard for what passers-by might think.

A big change I've made is choosing what I spend time on, rather than letting it be dictated by what comes into my inbox or shows up on my screen. I can't do every good thing, so I choose what I will and won't do, and make sure I have time for myself. As a result I'm getting out more, being more active, thinking about doing things I've been putting off for years (learn to surf?), and it feels good.

Prompted by Tools for hands on Mel Chua's blog.

Mexico!

2009-04-20T19:54:25Z

San Cristobal de la Casas, in Chiapas, in the south of Mexico. Nice town - quite modern compared to most of the places I saw in Central America. I'm wondering whether Mexico is more developed mainly because it hasn't had to deal with civil wars in recent decades.

I'm staying with Kjell Kuhne, who founded Hospitality Club with his brother back in 2000 (several years before CouchSurfing started). Great guy, and it's interesting talking with him about sustainability and appropriate technology. Turns out he recently went to a national Mexican convention on appropriate technology - I'll be going over that material with him tonight, and talking about how to make connections between this knowledge and these people and Appropedia's appropriate technology base.

Finding street food without meat is a challenge though.