Thursday, November 30, 2017

Mungubariki

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Mungubariki says his farm used to look quite different from how it looks today. There were no trees, nothing to hang on to the soil when it rained. Up on Mt. Kilimanjaro the glacier was melting partly due to de-forestation in this region.

"Without knowledge of the importance of trees. people just think of today but not tomorrow. "Plant with Purpose" is changing that. What farming families do today is for future generations."


As environmental restoration is embraced, lives and land are changing in Tanzania. Birds are returning to habitats, streams are flowing again, and people have a better understanding of their role as stewards of God's creation.

"God cares about the environment, and we have a responsibility to protect it."

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Rural poverty

American farmers have their challenges, but American society has resources to work with that not every nation has. "Plant with Purpose" works to provide tools and resources that the rural poor around the world can use to lift themselves out of poverty.



Productive land and accessible water are essential. When the environment becomes degraded (example: loss of trees, land becoming desert, rain run-off), the land may stop creating a living and families may have to separate to find work.

"Plant with Purpose" links sustainable farming with environmental restoration for long-term results. Their partnering farmers heal the land, grow more food, and earn income.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Save the farm

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Over 250,000 small-medium American farms went away from 1992-2012, while 35,000 very large (industrial) farms started up. "Multigenerational family farms are shrinking. And big farms are getting bigger . . . For the resiliency of the food system and of rural communities, we need more agriculture of the middle.”

photo: beginningfarmers.org

Polyface Farm is multi-generational: Joel Salatin's mother, Joel & Theresa, his son and wife, and his grandchildren. Part of their mission is to help smaller farmers figure out a way to profit enough to support themselves.

When Joel inherits the farm from his mom, he'll face a shocking inheritance tax - as much as $500,000. Beginning farmers have land to buy or lease. If they choose the "industrial farm" model, they may be trapped in a vicious cycle of debt for buildings, seed, and chemicals.

Shop at a farmers market to support small and medium size farms. Farmers there can sell directly to customers, side-stepping the chain of middlemen and improving their chances to keep on doing what they love.

Friday, November 24, 2017

AI at Walmart

A cross between a Roomba and, say, a Tesla, would give you . . a self-driving floor scrubber (according to this article).

"Walmart has quietly begun testing an advanced, autonomous floor scrubber . . . " Maybe we don't think of Walmart as being out in front of innovation, but they look ahead and try new things. That no doubt helped them become what they are today, America's largest private-sector employer.


"Walmart has said it wants to automate tasks that are “repeatable, predictable and manual,” giving its people more time to focus on higher-value work like customer service and selling."

Thursday, November 23, 2017

Happy boost

Gratitude is a good choice . . for so many reasons. Happy Thanksgiving!

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

1st Thanksgiving

Those pilgrims who famously shared a feast with 90 Indian neighbors back in 1621 considered their little community protected by God to be an instrument of purpose, not a recipient of privilege.

They also saw Squanto as God's special instrument of purpose. Coincidence or chance isn't good enough to explain his extraordinary story.

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Farmers market

Some of us love farmers markets, as this author does - the freshness, the beauty, the interaction with the farmers who produce the food. 

"Farmers markets facilitate personal connections and bonds of mutual benefits between farmers, shoppers, and communities. By cutting out middlemen, farmers receive more of our food dollars and shoppers receive the freshest and most flavorful food in their area and local economies prosper."


Why aren't super markets the same? According to this article, it's because they are inside the industrial food system, highly regulated by the federal government.

Unlike fruits and vegetables grown and sold to your local grocery stores, fruits and veggies sold at farmers’ markets are often unregulated and even exempted from food safety regulations,” points out SafeFruitsandVegetables. The relative lack of regulation accounts for not only the lower prices but the greater variety of produce, meats, and grains."

Think of farmer Joel Salatin and his beautiful farm.

Monday, November 20, 2017

Engage

It's possible to disagree with people, hold it back, and hide behind a wall of non-communication that you build to keep them out of your space. You may call it "tolerance," but it's phony.

If you're willing to civilly engage with someone on the level of values, it's a step toward love.

"You and I can’t interact fully with each other without interacting on the level of what we believe. If our beliefs clash, let them clash: At least we’re connecting with each other on a human level . . ."
Tolerance (in the usual contemporary sense) may be a counterfeit virtue. It contributes to disconnection and carefully camouflaged disrespect. 
Notice the word "permissive" in this definition. It's true tolerance when you permit others to believe differently on some point. Of course you "permit" them. They have God-given free will. That doesn't mean you isolate yourselves by slapping a phony agreement on the issue.
Students on college campuses - and everyone - should continue the process of growing up by thinking through issues and learning to respectfully engage with others on the level of beliefs and values. 

Friday, November 17, 2017

Tesla & Lutz

Monday-Wednesday this week, I posted about the predictions of Bob Lutz. His article has gone viral because it's a prediction of doom for the car industry - from a man who loves cars and spent decades as an industry exec. 

Last March Bob had more to say about the coming end of human-driven cars:

"As much as one side of me deplores it because I love to drive, when you look at the skills of the average driver, and the reaction times, and the incidence of alcohol and drug use as a factor in accidents, and the amount of national productive time that’s wasted in traffic jams, it is time to find a different solution."

About Tesla:

"[Musk] has no technology that’s not available to anybody else. It’s lithium-ion cobalt batteries. Every carmaker on the planet has electric vehicles in the works with a 200-300-mile range.

"Raising capital is not going to help, because fundamentally the business equation on electric cars is wrong. They cost more to build than what the public is willing to pay. That’s the bottom line.
"The one advantage [Musk] has is that the Model S is a gorgeous car. It’s one of the best-looking full-size sedans ever. . . They are unarguably a ton of fun to drive. The Tesla Model S? The one with ‘ridiculous mode’? Zero to 60 in like 2.2 seconds? That’s got to be like a shot off an aircraft carrier."
Regarding Tesla Model S, I agree with Bob Lutz that it's gorgeous. He's correct that it's a ton of fun. Its acceleration really is "like a shot off an aircraft carrier." 
Yes, I test drove a Model S this week.

Thursday, November 16, 2017

Cruise

That General Motors investment of $1 billion mentioned in yesterday's post . . was used to acquire the start-up "Cruise." Cruise has been testing their autonomous technology with employees under real conditions in Arizona, Michigan and California, but New York City is their target for 2018.



The levels of autonomous (self-driving) technology are these:

Level 1 - driver is in complete control, with aids such as cruise control
Level 2 - car can manage speed and steering as the driver chooses
Level 3 - car monitors the environment and drives itself when driver chooses
Level 4 - "cars will generally do the driving for you," but human must be available
Level 5 - car drives itself under all conditions with no human intervention

"Audi claims that the new A8 is the first production car to achieve Level 3 autonomy"

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Boring but safe

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Looks like self-driving, autonomous cars are inevitable. Both Ford and GM have each invested one billion dollars in their self-driving car projects, not to mention vast sums invested by Google, Uber, Tesla, others. Almost nobody doubts that it's going to happen.

Bob Lutz says that a tipping point is going to arrive when 20-30% of all vehicles on the road are fully autonomous. "Fully autonomous" is Level 5 self-driving technology, the ultimate - you can go to sleep in the car.


photo: autonews.com

At that point he thinks that governments will start mandating self-driving cars for safety. But there will be a transition period. "Everyone will have five years to get their [human driven] car off the road or sell it for scrap or trade it on a module."

Then, on public roads, there will only be modules. Nobody will be passing anybody because all modules will be traveling at the same (fast) speed. "That is the death knell for companies such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi. That kind of performance is not going to count anymore."

"Automotive sport — using the cars for fun — will survive, just not on public highways. . . It will be the well-to-do, to the amazement of all their friends, who still know how to drive and who will teach their kids how to drive. It is going to be an elitist thing, though there might be public tracks, like public golf courses, where you sign up for a certain car and you go over and have fun for a few hours."

"Automotive News is doomed. Car and Driver is done; Road & Track is done. . .The era of the human-driven automobile, its repair facilities, its dealerships, the media surrounding it — all will be gone in 20 years."

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Max 20 years

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Safety has been a big driver of the self-driving movement from the beginning. Last Friday NPR reported that lives will be saved when driverless cars become commercially available. 

Most accidents are caused by human error, which is why (according to Bob Lutz) "In 15 to 20 years — at the latest — human-driven vehicles will be legislated off the highways." It will be illegal to drive a car down the highway. How will we travel then? Standardized modules.

"The end state will be the fully autonomous module with no capability for the driver to exercise command. You will call for it, it will arrive at your location, you'll get in, input your destination and go to the freeway.


"On the freeway, it will merge seamlessly into a stream of other modules traveling at 120, 150 mph. The speed doesn't matter. You have a blending of rail-type with individual transportation.
"Then, as you approach your exit, your module will enter deceleration lanes, exit and go to your final destination. You will be billed for the transportation. You will enter your credit card number or your thumbprint or whatever it will be then. The module will take off and go to its collection point, ready for the next person to call." 
From this article
(cont'd tomorrow - end of performance cars?)

Monday, November 13, 2017

End of auto era

Electric cars & self-driving cars: I've been posting about those "disruptive" innovations for years. Everyone knows the industry is changing, but radical change may be coming faster that we thought.

Bob Lutz, whose credibility comes from a long career in executive positions with General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, etc., says sadly that:

"[W]e are approaching the end of the automotive era."

What "end" does he mean? No more driver control and no more gas-engine cars. "The era of the human-driven automobile, its repair facilities, its dealerships, the media surrounding it — all will be gone in 20 years."

This week: what he thinks will come after the end of car-world as we know it

(Btw, there are lots of comments to the article, most denying Lutz's prediction.  But a few commenters agree with Lutz, claiming that it's only rural, elderly car lovers who deny it - harsh. Lutz thinks everybody in the industry sees the end coming but few want to talk about it.)

(cont'd tomorrow)

Friday, November 10, 2017

Thursday, November 9, 2017

Beautiful building 1

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Beauty is hard to define. But beauty is universally recognized across different cultures. When we try to create beauty, whether we're artists or not, we can come close enough that most people will recognize it.


The photo below is London housing designed in the "brutal" style. While it apparently appeals to certain people, the man who said it's more beautiful than St. Paul's Cathedral . . is wrong.


London’s Brutalist “Alexandra Road” development

St. Paul's Cathedral

Human beings want to come home to something comforting & interesting, something that lifts the heart, that welcomes them home. We don't need to come home to St. Paul's Cathedral - but a "brutal" home? No.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Ugly building 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Elite, contemporary architecture (like yesterday's photos) has been called "realistic" because, as no one would dispute, life can sometimes really feel tedious, dreary, meaningless.  And the buildings inspire some of those feelings.


dreary and heavy


just creepy (click on picture to get the full effect)

So far I have not been able to identify the incredibly creepy building above. Does it seem appropriate for its location in this neighborhood? Emphatically not. 

Some beautiful architecture coming up tomorrow and Friday.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Monday, November 6, 2017

Self esteem

If you think the ideas in this video sound like heresy, maybe you haven't thought it through yet.

Friday, November 3, 2017

Farm food

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Their earliest food study was at Virginia Tech. The food sciences lab found that Polyface food has high counts of polyunsaturated fats. Their chickens have far less bacteria than those that are USDA-approved & chlorine-bathed.

Nutrients in their eggs were measured in another study by Mother Earth News. Eggs in cartons from the stores have 48 micrograms of folic acid, compared to Polyface eggs coming in at 1038.

Joel Salatin says, "what happens in the farm ecosystem creates what happens on the plate."

"I have the incredible privilege of being a visceral participant, of touching Creation as a healer. That is such a blessing. I heal the land, therefore I am."


photo: inlander.com

Thursday, November 2, 2017

New farm

Last week I posted 4x about Joel Salatin and Polyface Farms. Below Joel tells how his farm was transformed from bare rock and 16' gullies - which yielded enough to keep his family in poverty - to a transformed farm which now supports four generations, and inspires farmers and wanna-be-farmers.



As a boy, he ate concord grapes from his grandfather's lush garden in Indiana. Then his parents in 1961 bought the cheap farm in Virginia, which over the past 200 years had lost 3-5' of topsoil.

Expert advice told them to plant corn, borrow money for chemicals and silos, the factory farm model. But his parents took the opposite path, using "nature's template to harness the patterns and the beauty." As he puts it, nature is not an enemy, but a loving partner to caress instead of coerce.

Polyface Farms is today abundant in diversity of life, in productivity. The soil used to have 1% organic matter, today it has 8% organic matter. The food products, soil, biomass, all have been case studies of state schools.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Hot Bread

Hot Bread Kitchen is both a bakery and an on-the-job baking school in New York City. They specialize in training immigrant and low-income women for a culinary career.


Helping the immigrant to become productive in her new home is an American value.