Sunday, September 11, 2011

First of all, let's take a moment to think back 10 years.  Where were you and how did you feel?

Three English friends are at the next table, drinking and smoking and debating whether we should take apart the modern world and return to hunting and gathering.

"Amongst other grand strategies for making the world work and taking care of everybody is the design science revolution of providing ever more effective tools and services with ever less, real resource investment per each unit of end performance. For instance, a communications satellite, weighing only one-quarter of a ton is now out-performing the transoceanic communication capabilities of 175 thousand tons of copper cable" World Game by R. Buckminster Fuller-How It Came About, April 1968


This transatlantic cable was laid on the ocean floor between Heart's Content Newfoundland and Foilhommerum Bay, Valentia Island, Ireland.  Before the cable, it took a minimum of 10 days to carry a message by ship.  With the cable, a message and response could be sent and received in minutes.  Europe and America were connected.  Consider the power of the modern satellite.


Technology can be great!  We can do more with less.


Yesterday afternoon I traveled by bus to the Centro Historico.  Home of all the Spanish government buildings.  Tens of thousands of people.  Police on motorcycles.  The weather is sunny and cool.  Long pants and a long shirt are the norm.  I saw the enormous crowd and went towards where the natives (who are 99+% of the crowd) were going.  I found a food mall.  People shout at you to convince you to stay and eat at their stall.  I chose a woman with a mouth full of gold teeth and food that looked gorgeous.  For 7 soles ("so-lays"), equivalent to 3 dollars, I got a hot bowl of soup with crab and onions and fresh fish and corn and peppers.  Eating next to me were policemen and young working men from the neighborhood.  7 soles is a lot, and I got only a bowl of soup!  I was sad.  I finished my soup and looked to the woman to pay her.  She brought me the main course, a heaping pile of ceviche ("say vee chay"), raw fresh fish cooked by lime juice.  No heat involved.  The acid of the lime cooks the fish.  Fried calamari, potato, seaweed, a fritter.  I drank a teaspoon of the water.  More to follow?