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)

Beautiful building 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

These architecture posts have been based on this article. The authors truly hate ugly architecture. They say:

"People trammeled in on all sides by ugliness are often unhappy without even knowing why."

New Orleans buildings are examples of beautiful spaces, a balance of simple and complex, "adorned with colorful shutters and intricate iron galleries, and decorated with flowers and tropical plants. And it’s those complex elements that give the place life."

"[M]ake the world more beautiful when it’s in your power to do so . . "

Next week . . the end of the auto era

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)

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

"Architects are terrified of producing so much as a fluted column, because they believe their peers will think they are stupid, nostalgic, and unsophisticated. As a result, they produce structures that are as inscrutable and irrational as possible, so that people will think they are clever."

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)

Ugly building 1

"[C]ontemporary architecture gives most regular humans the heebie-jeebies," says this article ("Why You Hate Contemporary Architecture"). In case you wonder what the authors are talking about, here are some examples, built in about the last 60 years:

"If it doesn’t make you feel desperately, crushingly alone, it’s probably not a piece of prize-winning contemporary architecture."

This style is called Brutalism. But the NYT says this building is a "playful" sort of Brutalism. I'd say it's more like "soul-numbing."

(cont'd tomorrow)

Self esteem

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

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

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)

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.

Sola fide

Today is commemorated as the day that German monk Martin Luther nailed his "95 theses" to the church door. The details may possibly be garbled, but there's no doubt that Luther shook up the Christian church. 

From his study of the Bible, he was convinced that the church had corrupted its message. For instance, "indulgences" were sold by the church with the promise of salvation through contribution to the building of a cathedral. Luther discovered that the Bible promised salvation through sola fide - faith in Christ alone, not money.

His conscience demanded that he fight the corruption. He was called before the pope and the emperor, and told to take it back or suffer the consequences. Here's his reply:

"Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen."

(from Wikipedia)

1st servant

Vishal Mangalwadi says that another way the Reformation changed society was that it made democratic government workable.

Ancient Rome and Greece had examples of democracy, but they resulted over time in mob rule and tyrants. In contrast, Indian Prime Minister Nehru in 1947 called himself the "First Servant" of the Indian people, "pledged to their service and their betterment." It was the result of studying the Bible's
political thought in Britain.

"Tyrants had good reasons to fear the Bible for it presented a God who delivered the Hebrews from the slavery of pharaoh." Jesus taught that "The Son of Man [himself] came not to be served, but to serve."

Educate all

A 16th century European movement called the Protestant Reformation will be recognized this weekend on Reformation Sunday. On or about October 31, 1517, the German monk Martin Luther nailed "95 theses" to the door of his church to call its leadership back to Bible principles.

The Reformation became a pivot point of change in western civilization. Education, for example, was taken from the exclusive right of elites and put into the hands of common people. Why? Because the Bible says that God wants every person to know the truth.

Pigness of Pigs

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Polyface Farm has not applied a chemical since the family bought it in 1961, says Joel Salatin. Mimicking the pattern of nature, fertilizer and sanitation are supplied by the animals instead of by chemicals and antibiotics. 

The farm is open to visitors and cameras every day, and he claims they have no disease problems like those that plague industrial farms. Cows are moved to fresh pasture every day, chickens follow cows by 3 days, then turkeys. Pasture receives the time it needs to re-grow.

"It’s all a symbiotic, multi-speciated synergistic relationship-dense production model that yields far more per acre than industrial models. And it’s all aromatically and aesthetically romantic." That means it smells good and looks good. We were there last summer, and it's beautiful.

"On our farm we have cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, rabbits, ducks, lambs, fruit, honeybees, forests--it's breathtaking choreography, always dancing," p. 119 of The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs.

Grass farmer

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Sometimes farmer Joel (Monday and Tuesday posts) calls himself a grass farmer. He sees it this way:

Sunshine drives the energy of our planet. It's captured in photosynthesis by plants, especially grass, which sequesters carbon into the soil. Herbivores trim the grass, fertilize it, and trample that biomass into the ground where it undergoes biological decay and becomes fertile soil.

Herbivores processing grass like this on Joel's farm produce 4x more annual biomass per acre than does the rest of the Shenandoah Valley. More biomass pulls more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and has more soil building capacity. Cows beautifully do what they were made to do-- nurture the Earth.

Here is Joel's TED Talk.


(cont'd tomorrow)

Industrial farm

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

In the U.S., most of our meat is provided by "industrial" farms. They're huge animal factories designed to grow thousands of animals as efficiently and cheaply as possible. That's all. And we've done it; we provide amazingly cheap and plentiful food to feed ourselves and to ship around the world.

But there are problems. Maybe a chicken should not be grown like a widget is assembled in a dark factory. Tens of thousands of chickens, confined and concentrated for economy of scale, may have their beaks cut off because they injure each other.

By contrast, farmer Joel Salatin (yesterday's post) likes to mimic the pattern of nature. His hundreds of chickens are moved every day to follow the herds of cattle. They use their beaks and feet to "sanitize" the pasture, scattering manure and eating bugs. It's their perfect employment.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Beautiful farm

There's a  beautiful farm in the Shenandoah Valley of northern Virginia. The passionate farmer, Joel Salatin, is known all over the world because his message resonates with almost everybody who loves nature, farming, or food. Also because he has oodles of personality and has written twelve books.

Polyface Farm is "the farm of  many faces". They grow chickens, pigs, turkeys, cows, all the animals doing what they naturally do - rather than the typical industrial farm, which is a mono-culture of corn or chickens or something else.



(cont'd tomorrow)

Ev's lose $

Despite all the excitement about electric vehicles (EV's), they still don't make money for their manufacturers. Not Chevy, not Tesla.

"GM . . loses about $9,000 on every Chevrolet Bolt electric car it sells."

"Tesla had record sales of its EVs last year -- and still lost $675 million on $7 billion in sales. "

M Tafoya

Katherine Luther (yesterday's post) put in long hours and hard work to earn a return on her investments. Michelle Tafoya did that, but 500 years later and in a much different field of work. You've probably seen her on NBC's Sunday Night Football.

She shares her secret to success here:

Kate creates

Vishal Mangalwadi is an Indian Christian intellectual/author/speaker, who teaches some surprising history in the video below. 

Everyone knows the name of Martin Luther, the 16th century German monk who taught the Bible and ignited the Protestant Reformation. But I was surprised to learn in this video that his wife Katherine was an entrepreneur, working to creating value while putting those Bible principles to work.



She and Martin were given a building, which she turned into student rentals. To feed those students she started growing vegetables, then farm animals. With the profits, she bought more property and turned the creek running through it into a fish pond.  

Hard work and imagination - still in use by 21st century business owners.

Clean village

An Indian government official claimed in 2010 that his country's cities are the dirtiest in the world. "Come, Clean India" is the campaign aimed at improving things by 2019.

But Mawlynnong is out of the mainstream because it's been declared the "cleanest village in Asia" by Discover India magazine. It's a legendary source of pride for the region, an example held up by Prime Minister Modi as a model to aspire to.

"Cleanliness is deeply ingrained into living a good life here; it's just what you do." Children sweep the streets and empty rubbish bins. Everyone has cleaning duties with extra weekend projects, and town gardeners beautify the public paths.

In the words of mom and homemaker Sara Karrymba, "We are Christians from more than 100 years back, and cleaning is learned from our elders. We pass on these skills, from me to my children and from them to their children." The cleanliness tradition may have started about 130 years ago during an outbreak of cholera.

"She says, "My kids know it's different here." And there's more . . the village is 100% literate.

Chess village

Can a game change a life?

Fifty years ago, alcohol and gambling dominated leisure time in the northern India village of Marottichal. A villager, Unnikrishnan, opened his own teashop and started teaching his customers how to play a game he learned in a nearby town. The game was chess - and it went viral.

"Miraculously, the game’s popularity flourished while drinking and gambling declined."

“Chess improves concentration, builds character and creates community . . . We don’t watch television here; we play chess and talk to each other.” 😇

They figure at least one person per household plays chess. 

SpaceX customer

This week SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket (in California) to deploy ten satellites in low orbit for its customer, Iridium. The webcast is in real time and takes about 96 minutes to show the whole launch, the return of the first stage, and then the release of all ten satellites.

Falcon 9's principal integration engineer addresses fuel loading, the one-second launch window, the tower next to the rocket.

Below is a short video within that webcast. Iridium's CEO explains that their 66 satellites enable communication around the globe, making connections in remote and dangerous locations for first-responders in emergencies, and anywhere no other connection is possible. They transmit data for machines, ocean buoys, refrigerators -- the internet of things.

Longevity

There are more people in the world than ever. At the same time, the average level of both health and prosperity have increased:

"Despite what we hear on the news and from many authorities, the great story of our era is that we are witnessing the greatest improvement in global living standards ever to take place. Poverty, malnutrition, illiteracy, child labor and infant mortality are falling faster than at any other time in human history. . . A child born today is more likely to reach retirement age than his forbears were to live to their fifth birthday."

About boys

For decades more girls than boys have gone to college, and men are seriously outnumbered by women in grad school. Maybe some attention should be directed toward helping boys succeed in school.

Rohingya

If 400,000 destitute people came across our US borders, we'd feel it. Charities, government units, media, all would be in an uproar. 

But we have resources we could mobilize. Many more resources than, say, Bangladesh - which is where 400,000 destitute refugees have in fact come. They fled from their homes in Myanmar (Burma) in SE Asia, south of China and east of India.

The Atlantic has amazing pictures that for sure put a face on the problem.

A better place

A 65-year-old self-described "country boy" made news  in rural MN. Looking out a window, he saw a girl making her way across his field. She turned out to be the girl whose face he'd seen online and on posters, a girl who had been kidnapped.

After 29 days of captivity, she had escaped that morning. He helped her and called the police. He not only helped her, but gave her the $7000 reward given to him for information leading to her return.

"What no one expected was the kindness and generosity that came straight from Earl’s heart today.," wrote Chief Wyffels [Alexandria MN]  in a post on the department's Facebook page. "He believes that young lady that came running towards him that September day is the real hero and without hesitation, Earl handed the reward over to her, followed by a big hug. Thank you Earl, it is people like you that make this world a better place."

Sure is.

Blue Origin

Just fyi, SpaceX is not the only private company putting re-usable rockets into space. Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder, also founded Blue Origin for that purpose. In fact, their rocket booster was the first to ever go into space and return safely to earth (November 23, 2015).

"In March 2017, it was announced that Blue Origin acquired their first paying launch customer for orbital satellite launches."

BFR

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Elon Musk says it's vital to figure out how to fund this very expensive enterprise of making humanity into a "multi-planetary species." He thinks they have a plan that will provide the money.

It's a progression through a sequence of rockets. Right now SpaceX uses its Falcon 9 to deliver cargo up to the International Space Station (ISS) for its customer, NASA. Next, the Falcon Heavy will take crew to the ISS for NASA, and then make trips to the moon to establish a base there.

Finally, another much bigger rocket will take the place of both of those. Til they find a good name, they're calling it the "BFR." You saw in Tuesday's post that it will not only go to the moon and to Mars, but also make commercial flights right here on earth, flying above the atmosphere.

There's much, much more to the plan on this video. One amazing thing they've learned after 16 successful landings of the Falcon 9 in a row . . is how to make a perfect propulsion landing. It's gotten so precise that Elon says the rocket doesn't need landing legs anymore. Incredible. They must have this landing skill perfected to take colonists to Mars.

Multi-planetary

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

"Fundamentally, the future is vastly more exciting and interesting if we're a multi-planet species than if we are not. You want to be inspired by things. You want to wake up in the morning and think, things are going to be great.  It's about believing in the future, that the future will be better than the past. And I can't think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars," Elon Musk speaking at the International Astronautical Congress a week ago

Decades ago, NASA was making dreams come true. Not so much anymore. Today, the inspiration comes from Elon. He inspires because he actually believes we can go to Mars, and because he (and his company SpaceX) are going to figure it out - and do it.



(cont'd tomorrow - Elon explains how they're going to get this done)

Less than 1 hr

News maker Elon Musk has another big idea. The rocket being designed for travel to Mars will also be used to . . revolutionize travel around Earth itself.

At a maximum speed of 27,000 km/h, any long distance destination will be reached in less than an hour. Watch the 2-minute animated video.