I Wonder WhyI Wonder Why I WonderWhy I Wonder Why

Happy Christmas!

2008-12-22T17:08:00.003-05:00

Enjoy my playlist of Christmas videos via YouTube. There are 23 in the list, about an hour and a half of a holiday spirit uplift. Or, just pick and chose a video using the arrows to skim through the list.

... and a Happy New Year to all!

Hopefully I'll be more diligent and forthcoming with posts in 2009.

Optimistic Urgency

2008-04-08T20:41:00.012-04:00

African Proverb:

If you want to go quickly,
go alone.
If you want to go far,
go together.

How do we go far, quickly, when facing a global change in climate conditions?

This is the question raised by Al Gore in his new presentation just posted at the TED website and embedded here below.

The We Campaign, a grassroots organization is addressing this very issue. I present the following letter they provide:

Dear Friend,

Global climate warming is an urgent, but solvable problem. That’s why I’ve joined the We Campaign, a powerful nonpartisan movement of concerned citizens that was founded by Nobel Prize Laureate and former Vice President Al Gore. We're already a million strong -- and growing each day.

Will you join, too? Visit this site to learn more and add your voice: http://www.wecansolveit.org/.

The We Campaign is working to ensure that elected leaders make the climate crisis a priority. Visit: http://www.wecansolveit.org/. Here, you can learn about solutions to global climate warming, take action steps and even find events happening in your community. Although it’s not too late, global climate warming is very serious and there is no time to lose. So please don’t wait any longer to get involved – sign up today: http://www.wecansolveit.org/.

Together, we can solve the climate crisis.

But we must find a sense of urgency.

I wonder why is this not a top issue in the presidential campaign here in the U.S. (the world's largest polluter)?

Science has made it's statement with the UN IPCC report. The Alliance for Climate Protection is working with the We Campaign. Why haven't U.S. presidential candidates agreed to participate in a larger Science Debate 2008? This debate needs a national forum/audience/movement and leadership.

Is there a pattern emerging from this post and the last three posts? I hope so.

A More Perfect Union

2008-04-02T15:52:00.007-04:00

Back on March 18, 2008, "We The People" were presented with a speech by U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate Barack Obama at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It may not win your allegiance, but it spoke in a profound and presidential manner of the fundamental issues facing our country and the example we should be "in Order to form a more perfect Union" under The Constitution.

I wonder why it took the mass media and American politics to inspire a discussion of a common sense of purpose for the U.S. Presidential campaign agenda. Senator Obama exemplified it best when he said,

I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one.

I wonder why ...

Sir Arthur C. Clarke

2008-03-21T11:26:00.008-04:00

Sir Arthur C. Clarke passed away last week. Like for so many others, he was a great inspiration for me. In the video below, celebrating his 90th birthday, he quotes Rudyard Kipling:

If I have given you delight
by aught that I have done.
Let me lie quiet in that night
which shall be yours anon;
And for the little, little span
the dead are borne in mind,
seek not to question other than,
the books I leave behind.

[transcript]

His life and work reminds me of my favorite Kipling poem:

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master,
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two ... just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

May Sir Clarke's wishes one day soon be fulfilled for his posterity!

"How do you remain relevant in a world that is fragmenting?"

2008-03-08T12:40:00.001-05:00

This is a quote by Chris Anderson (Wired Magazine) in an interview with Charlie Rose this week.

The video is posted here below:

So, in a fragmented world, what happens to our educational systems? Do teachers become specialized freelancers with web-based presentations and courseware? Their success depends on their production value/presentation charisma and relevance.

Universities are becoming multi-national entities (NY Times article, registration required). The OpenCourseWare Consortium promotes the sharing of course content online, free to anyone with an Internet connection.

Can this happen with K-12 education? Consider the website Free High School Science Texts. Imagine a motivated student using one of these texts, an OpenCourseWare class, and then taking the AP Exam and SAT subject test. Who needs a physical school? They're college bound. Maybe online.

Just wondering how to stay relevant.

Am I in the MATRIX?

2008-03-05T17:27:00.004-05:00

I visited New York City last week. It was good to be back. I felt more alive. This city seems to force a vibrancy upon you.

Then I began to wonder, am I just delusional? Did I really see celebrities such as Courtney Cox and Jeniffer Aniston? Who were these random people around me talking, laughing about? Strangers acted as if they knew me (agents?! LOL). The activity in the city can be mind numbing, too. But I just read my book when I had the chance.

Of course, if I had ventured into Grand Central Terminal I would have really wondered about my sanity. (See the video below)

Ahhh, it's all just a training program!

Happiness

2007-11-01T16:23:00.001-04:00

Matthieu Ricard's TED Talk on the Habits of Happiness from February 2004 was just posted online.

Less than six months earlier I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Ricard and Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche at The Dwight School, where I taught technology. They spoke over lunch to a small group of around 20 faculty, staff, and students about many things. Then they came to the tech lab and were interviewed for the student newspaper, so I had a second chance encounter.

Part of their mission was seeking funds to build an elementary school in Tibet (for just five thousand American dollars!). They told how the only path into Tibet with this money is through Nepal, hiking on foot across the Himalayas, and to pay a gang of thieves who controlled one mountain pass a fee to act as protectors from other robbers they would encounter.

I posted biographies on a hallway bulletin board to encourage student attendance at their visit and included information about the Mind & Life Institute.

I wonder why this man and his visit in New York affected me so? His talk reminds me of a poem I wrote years ago, now posted online here.

Jubilee Act

2007-10-17T21:42:00.000-04:00

ONE.org has excellent background information on their website for encouraging grassroots action. A video promoting the ONE mission is below.

I wonder why it takes efforts by groups like ONE to get people, like me, motivated to civic participation.

Jubilee Act for Responsible Lending and Expanded Debt Cancellation of 2007 (Introduced in House - HR 2634 IH)

I received an email campaign to contact my Congressional Representative about the Jubilee Act and encourage them to vote for the legislation. Of course, there was a relating of all the benefits this act will bring. And there was even supporting evidence of similar legislation having great success. But, as often occurs with most political activism, nothing from the Jubilee Act itself was ever presented. Then again, how many Congressional Representatives read all of the legislation on which they vote?

So I tracked down the Jubilee Act through the Library of Congress and Thomas (with the help of Google). Then I read the legislation, checked the sponsors and actions taken, and became better informed about this issue and what my government is proposing to do. Some key points of the Jubilee Act are as follows:

Many low-income countries have been struggling under the burden of international debts for many years.
Since 1996, when the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) was created, more than 30 nations have seen some form of debt relief totaling approximately $80,000,000,000. (3) Congress has demonstrated its support for bilateral and multilateral debt relief through the enactment of comprehensive debt relief initiatives for heavily indebted low-income countries.
In 2005, the United States and other G-8 nations reached an agreement to provide cancellation of 100 percent of the debts owed by eligible poor nations to Paris Club members, the IMF, the World Bank, and the African Development Bank. The Inter-American Development Bank reached an agreement in early 2007 to provide similar treatment.
The 2005 agreement led to the creation of the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI). As of April 2007, 22 nations have seen the majority of their debts to the IMF, World Bank, and African Development Bank cancelled under the terms of the MDRI. In March 2007, the Inter-American Development Bank announced it would provide full debt cancellation to 5 Latin American countries on MDRI terms.
Resources released by debt relief efforts to date are reaching the poor. Cameroon is using the $29,800,000 of savings it will gain from the MDRI in 2006 for national poverty reduction priorities, including infrastructure, social sector and governance reforms. Uganda is using its $57,900,000 savings in 2006 on improving energy infrastructure to try to ease acute electricity shortages, as well as primary education, malaria control, healthcare and water infrastructure (specifically targeting the poor and under-served villages). Zambia is using its savings of $23,800,000 under the MDRI in 2006 to increase spending on agricultural projects, such as smallholder irrigation and livestock disease control, as well as to eliminate fees for healthcare in rural areas.
While debt cancellation has a record of success, there remains an unfinished agenda on international debt. There are a number of challenges to the effective implementation of existing commitments, and broader debt cancellation is needed if the global community is to reach the Millennium Development Goals.
2007 is an important year to address the unfinished agenda on international debt as the global Jubilee debt campaign has declared 2007 a `Sabbath year', 7 years after the historic Jubilee 2000 campaign. 2007 is also the halfway point to the deadline set by the world's governments to reach the Millennium Development Goals.
A critical issue which needs to be addressed on debt is the way that non-concessional lenders stand to gain financially from lending to poor countries that have benefited from debt relief without having paid for past debt relief or facing the prospect of paying for the future relief of unsustainable and irresponsible new lending. In these cases, the gains of debt relief for poor debtor countries are at risk of being eroded. This takes the form of new lending to countries that have received debt cancellation from countries including China, as well as the threat posed by so-called `vulture funds'.
The United States has been a leader in supporting debt relief efforts to date and should continue to work to improve and expand initiatives in this area.

Hole in the Sun

2007-09-30T17:04:00.000-04:00

OK, this is getting weird. There are holes all over space.

This one, seen as the large dark area in the photo below, is in the Sun. It's related to fluctuations in the magnetic field of the Sun. Any connection to that hole in universe in the last post? Scientists would say no.

I wonder why there aren't any connections between gravitational fluctuations in the Universe and magnetic fluctuations in a star or planetary body (and gravitational fluctuations there, also)?

This photo was brought to my attention through the Astronomy Picture of the Day(APOD) website.

Credit: SOHO - EIT Consortium, ESA, NASA

Hole-y Universe, Batman!

2007-09-08T15:43:00.000-04:00

Two weeks ago, in a paper in the Astrophysical Journal, astronomers announced they had found an Enourmous Hole in the Universe. Apparently there are many voids in space empty of matter, but none close to this size.

"What we've found is not normal, based on either observational studies or on computer simulations of the large-scale evolution of the Universe," said astronomer Liliya R. Williams of the University of Minnesota. They worked with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory using the Very Large Array (seen in background banner above) and the WAMP satellite to measure cosmic microwave background radiation. With this data, NASA scientists have created a map of the universe (see images below)

This conjures up the story line from the movie Time Bandits. A group of assistants to The Supreme Being had a map of the Universe in order to repair the tears, or voids, that occurred in the fabric of space/time. But they decided to parlay the map into riches by traveling through these voids, and thus through time, to then plunder and pillage. The movie is directed by Terry Gilliam of Monty Python fame, and the film features many of the Python players.

So, I wonder why there are voids in space. Are they tears in the fabric of space/time or wormholes? Then what about this enormous hole? Perhaps it takes more than seven days to create the Universe and The Supreme Being is still at work.

CREDIT: Rudnick et al., NRAO/AUI/NSF, NASA

Left: A 25-degree region of the Cosmic Microwave Background emission around the region of the WMAP cold spot (circled). The colors represent very small variations (parts in 100,000) around the average temperature of 2.7 degrees above absolute zero, with blue colors being colder. Data are from NASA's WMAP satellite.
Right: A heavily smoothed portion of the NRAO Very Large Array Sky Survey (NVSS) showing the blended emission from radio galaxies along each path. Blue colors represent brightnesses approximately 20% below the average.

Technorati Profile

Multi-Touch Interfaces

2007-07-11T22:07:00.001-04:00

I wonder why there hasn't been an emphasis to get these devices into K-12 schools? Imagine what elementary school kids could do/learn with this type of surface. How about high school students manipulating minerals, molecules, compounds, cells, drafting projects, and so much more?

Below are three videos. The first is a CNET video that has an interesting beginning and demonstration of possible applications. The second is a Popular Mechanics presentation of the Microsoft coffee table product. The third is Jeff Han's TED Talk from 2006 -- Can't wait to work with this technology!

CNET video

Teamwork

2007-06-14T12:53:00.000-04:00

I wonder why we humans have trouble with teamwork?

Perhaps some of us are crocodiles, some are lions, and some are water buffalo.

By the way, there were no good animals and evil animals, no winners or losers, just another day in a South African preserve. And the calf got to finish that day, perhaps.

Feeling Overwhelmed?

2007-06-10T19:06:00.000-04:00

I wonder why nobody told me my picture was being taken? I would have smiled.

Feeling overwhelmed today, I looked up one of my new favorite astronomy photos -- an image taken by the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn. It is of Earth, the blue dot between two rings of Saturn. An enlargement in the upper left corner allows you to see the Moon, too.

Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA

For another visualization on astronomical scale watch the video below:

So my anxiety and worries are lightened in this perspective. They aren't that big. And we are lucky to be alive in an amazing universe.

Urbanization, Innovation and Development

2007-05-28T13:04:00.003-04:00

I wonder why I am so drawn to city life?

When younger the outdoors, hiking and camping in the mountains, the wilderness called.

It turns out a lot of people are choosing city life. The world is becoming more urbanized.

There is a terrific mapping project by The Earth Institute at Columbia University on this very subject. Some maps integrate population data with ecosystems. Others relate population density to urban area boundaries.

The data comes from the Global Rural Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP). Run by the Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center which, along with organizations like The Earth Institute, is participating in the growing field of geo-referencing techniques and is producing maps including The Gridded Population of the World(GPWv3). The GPW data sets are available for download (as raw data, a *.pdf, or Excel spreadsheets) in order to create new geo-referenced maps and applications (example map on right).

Now, isn't all of this urbanization a bad thing for developing nations, ecosystems, humanity in general? Apparently not, at least according to a very convincing presentation by Stewart Brand in his 2007 TED Talk below:

Global Desertification: Building a Science for Dryland Development

2007-05-11T22:23:00.000-04:00

Well speaking of ... another RSS feed, from Science magazine, posted an article today titled, Global Desertification: Building a Science for Dryland Development.

The site is subscription based, so you only get an abstract of the article by following the link provided. It is an academic science article, therefore the reading is a bit dry and certainly less captivating than the Greening the Desert video.

But it turns out that the U.N has a Drylands Development Center, part of the United Nations Development Program with which Geoff Lawton has been associated. The "UNDP's Drylands Development Centre specializes in assisting countries to fight poverty and encourage development in the drier parts of the world. The Centre is located in Nairobi, Kenya."
(all quotes are from the provided links to the UNDP website as of May 2007)

There are six areas of focus for the UNDP:

Frameworks and Strategies for Sustainable Development -- "Tailored strategies for sustainable development are country-based and country-owned systems, which provide coordinated sets of participatory and continually improving component processes, at national and local levels. A strategy must evolve into an iterative learning system starting with the development of a shared vision to make progress towards sustainable development."
Water Governance -- "Water plays a pivotal role for sustainable development, including poverty reduction. The use and abuse of and competition for increasingly precious water resources have intensified dramatically over the past decades, reaching a point where water shortages, water quality degradation and aquatic ecosystem destruction are seriously affecting prospects for economic and social development, political stability, as well as ecosystem integrity."
Sustainable Energy -- "Energy is central to sustainable development and poverty reduction efforts. It affects all aspects of development -- social, economic, and environmental -- including livelihoods, access to water, agricultural productivity, health, population levels, education, and gender-related issues."
Sustainable Land Management -- The Drylands Development Center
Biodiversity -- "The poor, especially in rural areas, depend on biodiversity for food, fuel, shelter, medicines and livelihoods. Biodiversity also provides the critical 'ecosystem services' on which development depends, including air and water purification, soil conservation, disease control, and reduced vulnerability to natural disasters such as floods, droughts and landslides."
Chemicals Managment -- "The Sound Management of Chemicals (SMC) is integral to sustainable development. It is a precondition for healthy environments for human settlement and physical well being, including with respect to provision of safe drinking water, air and food, and ecosystem health, which underpins biodiversity."

Each of these programs of development affect and are effected by climate change. These areas of focus are also applicable to less arid regions, even wetlands and wealthy regions in the world. It's a wonder developed nations don't focus on the economic benefits this may produce.

For more academic papers visit the Drylands Research Published Articles Page.

I wonder why it's all connected in our web of life?

Greening the Desert

2007-05-10T21:21:00.000-04:00

The evening news today reported over 200 wildfires in Florida. It's dry here.

Not desert dry, though. Through an RSS feed from WorldChanging.com, an educational video about Permaculture was presented by Geoff Lawton of the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia.

Through deliberate landscape design of a garden that is agriculturally congruent with the ecosystem, and therefore self-sustainable, a ten acre plot in the desert of Jordan is transformed. It really is a re-thinking of landscape design and sustainable ecosystems. Watch the genesis of the garden in the video below:

I wonder why permaculture isn't more widely practiced?

Subtropical Storm Andrea and Wildfires

2007-05-09T23:44:00.000-04:00

These images present an troubling contrast.

Marked in red are wildfires, clearly leaving gray trails of smoke to the southwest. The smoke was so bad in north central Florida on May 8, when this image was recorded by NASA’s Terra satellite, that my eyes were watering and burning and my clothes all smelled like barbecue.

The garage still smells of smoke.

Rainfall levels are reported to be a foot below normal. And the wind, not a good day for a bike ride with high winds and smoke, but I went anyway.

Yet off shore in the Atlantic, creating all that wind fanning the wildfires, is Subtropical Storm Andrea, the first named storm of the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season. Dark clouds made a brief appearance here in Florida, but no rain.

In a strange manner, there is a need for tropical storms and even hurricanes, if just to relieve this drought and quell the wildfires. And with the appearance of Andrea well before the beginning of hurricane season, we may be in for a wet and wild summer/fall. Or not. Which would be just as bad.

NASA images courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC.