The Cyberpunk Gets Real

William Gibson is known by many as a prolific author of a particular science fiction called "cyberpunk." He presciently coined the term "cyberspace" well before the internet age.
More recently a nonfiction volume called Distrust that Particular Flavor hit the shelves, a compendium of Gibson's speeches, essays, magazine articles and other commissioned pieces. Gibson riffs about technology, world cultures, and civilization's march into modernity with titles such as "Disneyland with the Death Penalty" (about modern Singapore) and "Modern Boys and Mobile Girls" (about the peculiar techno-philia of the Japanese).
In "Time Machine Cuba" Gibson provides his take on doomsday. He came of age during the Cold War, and his fear of global calamity was stoked by a lineage of cautionary science fiction going back to HG Wells' The Time Machine.
HG Wells feared the potential for unwise leaders to abuse technology and to destroy us. Early on he recognized the terrible potential of warfare from the air, by Zeppelins laying waste to whole cities, and later validated by Hiroshima and Nagasaki. HG Wells wrote his own epitaph "I told you so. You damned fools."
Along with the rest of the world Gibson breathlessly watched events unfold during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The experience changed his attitude towards doomsday.
Regarding Wells' epitaph Gibson writes:
"I suspect that I began to distrust that particular flavor of italics when the world didn't end in October of 1962. My anxiety, and the world's, reached some absolute peak. And then declined, history moving on..."
Around the same time William Gibson was reading the Beat literature, and his worldview probably was becoming more nuanced, less earnest. He continues:
"And it may also have dawned on me, that history...is a species of speculative fiction itself, prone to changing interpretations and further discoveries."
I suppose that every age has its prevailing anxieties about doomsday. Heaven knows I frequently parcel out my personal thoughts to the spectors of climate change, fossil fuels depletion, global financial meltdown, ecological collapse.
Maybe I should follow Gibson's cue and remove the italics.
I like it when accomplished authors of fiction occasionally exit their creative trance states to lay bare their feelings. Kurt Vonnegut did it with his book Palm Sunday. I have to think it is good for them, too. At least it must feel good returning to the creative trance state.

His Bicycle Genius Changed the World, Twice

To bicycle aficionados the Tom Ritchey brand stands for a string of innovations that span several decades, all the way to the birth of mountain biking along the Northern California coast in the 1970's. Amidst the popular hero worshiping of people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates the story of Tom Ritchey carries for me special meaning. His bicycle genius changed the world, twice
Tim Lewis writes about Tom in his excellent new book, Land of Second Chances. Book excerpt: Tom Ritchey, The dot connector
Endowed with a blend of gumption, industriousness, creativity and riding prowess Ritchey and fellow pioneers Joe Breeze and Gary Fisher developed both the first successful mountain bike business and a scene to go with it. The rest is, as they say, history.
Since those heady days Tom and his company Ritchey Logic have consistently produced well-respected bicycles and bike components, and in the process made him wealthy. For many that would be enough, but not for Ritchey.
In 2005 difficulties in his personal life would lead Tom on an exploration, visiting the country of Rwanda while it was still reeling from the devastation wrought by the genocide of 1994. Amidst severe material deprivation and social upheaval, the Rwandans impressed Ritchey with their resilience and optimism. Their president, Paul Kagame, embodied this by declaring his intention to make Rwanda the world’s first “purpose-driven nation.”
Tom determined to help them and discovered a crucial connection between two of his passions: bicycles and coffee.
Thousands of Rwandans were struggling to improve their material well-being through the cultivation of coffee. But these farmers were failing, for a lack of adequate transportation for their crops. After picking the coffee cherries from their trees, most farmers faced a long, difficult slog getting their harvest to village washing stations before the cherries spoiled.
Ritchey came up with a plan to supply them with a bicycle he specifically designed for this purpose, able to haul 300 pounds of cargo over the rough, hilly rural roads...and cost each farmer about $100.

Since then Tom Ritchey's Project Rwanda has placed 2,000 "coffee bikes" throughout Rwanda. These "two-wheeled pack mules" are helping coffee farmers and their families to be more productive, and to rise above poverty for the first time in their generation. Project Rwanda has singled out the coffee grower as an initial target, but other farmers and service providers, such as couriers, taxis, police, healthcare workers and teachers all can benefit from owning a cargo bike.
Large corporate coffee buyers such as Starbucks and Costco are now doing business in Rwanda, which is signalling to other potential trading partners that Rwanda is recovering from the recent past.
Tom has used the remaining proceeds donated to Project Rwanda in support of an effort to promote bicycle racing and specifically with the elite Team Rwanda. A movie called Rising from the Ashes tells that story.

My friend David Southerland and me hanging with Tom Ritchey
at the 2014 North American Handmade Bicycle Show

Coffee, bikes, renewal...you gotta love it!

Bicycles, Turkey, Ritalin

New blog entry for Georgia Commute Options.

The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg

Conscious living is overrated. 

Charles Duhigg wants us to know that even those of us trying to guide our personal and professional affairs through informed decision-making are underestimating the iron fist of habit.

Do you eat when you are nervous?...reach for your phone when you feel that vibration in your pocket?...give a friend or family member a friendly verbal needling when they really need a hug?

Human habits seem intractable and inexplicable, as ingrained in our beings as the color of our hair. “They are so strong, in fact, that they cause our brains to cling to them at the exclusion of all else, including common sense,” Duhigg writes.

But it turns out our habits are quite malleable, that is if you understand how they work.

According to neurological studies all habits—no matter how large or small—have three components. There's a cue—a trigger for a particular behavior; a routine, which is the behavior itself; and a reward, which is how your brain decides whether to remember a habit for the future.

In this way a habit is essentially a computer program written on the blackboard of the brain’s basal ganglia. And, like many computer programs, they repeat themselves in a loop.

A habit loop awakes with a cue: A smartphone dings during a meeting. It starts a routine: The iPhone is discreetly examined. A Words with Friends opponent has made a move, and now it’s time to pounce. Then there is a reward: you crave the ding and the resulting rush of endorphins it promises when you vanquish your opponent

Duhigg notes how habit loops can explain how bad habits develop and introduces us to the concept of habit loop manipulation. By taking advantage of a quirk in the neurology of habits, we can create and change habits almost like flipping a switch.

Cue: feeling sad. You crave some relief from the loneliness. Routine: drink. Reward: forget the troubles. Duhigg writes about how effective Alcoholics Anonymous is at intervening in the mechanics of habit loops and battling addiction. Through habit loop manipulation, we can break the habits of the smoker, the nail-biter and the over eater.

Better yet, it can be used to create new routines of daily exercise, calling a loved one, paying the bills. If you can identify the right cue and reward—and if you can create a sense of craving—you can establish almost any habit.

Studies indicate that anyone can use this basic formula to create habits of her or his own. Want to exercise more? Choose a cue, such as going to the gym as soon as you wake up, and a reward, such as a smoothie after each workout. Then think about that smoothie, or about the endorphin rush you’ll feel. Allow yourself to anticipate the reward. Eventually, that craving will make it easier to push through the gym doors every day.

On a personal level that is as far as Charles Duhigg, the business reporter, takes us. How can I master these techniques as a tool for self-improvement? Alas, this is not a self-improvement book.

While his book left me wanting more, Duhigg's web site thankfully provides useful answers. He should have thrown a few of the diagrams on his web site into an appendix.

Habit loop manipulation has far-reaching utility, and this book diligently illustrates its use in organizational and societal levels. Companies and governments are getting ever more adept at identifying, co-opting, and shaping our behavior patterns to increase profits and maintain control.

Duhigg is value-neutral in his choice of examples of businesses and sports teams using these powerful techniques. Most are stories about turnarounds, such as the use of these techniques to benignly sell more stuff to consumers.

But Duhigg avoids the obvious more insidious side of habit loop manipulation, leaving it presumably for someone else to investigate the brands that profit by encouraging self-destructive habits like drinking, smoking, firearms or gambling.

His enthusiasm for corporate ingenuity seems to blind him at times to the sinister aspects of habit manipulation. While writing about all the successful application of habit loop manipulation by McDonald's, Proctor and Gamble, Alcoa and Target, what might be going on at Phillip Morris, Chase Manhattan and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp?

Fishman Makes Waves in Atlanta

Last month Charles Fishman lectured a packed house at the AT&T auditorium about what we can do to ensure the safety and reliability of our water supplies. Known for his timely and incisive journalism with books such as The Walmart Effect and most recently The Big Thirst, Fishman did not disappoint.

First, some fun facts about water:

• Campbell's Soup operates a factory in Illinois that uses enough water to supply a city of 155,000 residents. Only 3% of it goes into the soup.
• Bottled water is one of the most common items sold in American grocery stores. Americans spent $10.6 billion on bottled water in 2009, something that flows out of our taps for almost nothing.
• It takes a lot of water to cool our electric power plants, and electric utility companies account for half of all the water consumed in the state of Georgia. The average household in the U.S. uses 100 gallons per day, but our indirect consumption based on the amount of electricity we use adds another 150 gallons.
• Antiquated distribution systems in the City of Atlanta and DeKalb County lose 15% of their water through leakage.

Charles Fishman is a great explainer, and this talent comes in handy for a subject as complicated as is our relationship with water.

Viewed on a global scale, water is a resource so vital that countries will sometimes fight wars over it. Fishman cautions us to think locally, where so many critical opportunities and solutions await our discovery.

But first we must overcome inaccuracies in our conventional wisdom about water that inhibit our ability to enact sensible water policies. This starts with the way we pay for it.

Fishman posits that we recently lived through a golden age of water, when we never had to think about water in its apparently limitless abundance. Most municipal water utilities have been happy to charge their customers only to defray the costs of treatment, distribution and disposal. The water itself was free.

Throughout this golden age we assumed that the water itself had no economic value. Amidst the regional "water wars" involving Georgia, Alabama and Florida we now know this to be false. Many regions of the United States are grappling with similar concerns about the adequacy of their water supplies, especially as we face the intensified effects of global climate change and extreme weather events.

So, water is priced too cheaply. Like all vital natural resources our use of water ought to bear a cost significant enough to spur its conservation.

Consider how higher gasoline prices spur the availability and popularity of fuel efficient automobiles. When was the last time you had a casual conversation with your friends about the price of water, the same friends who always know which gas stations have the lowest prices?

This applies not only to municipal water supplies. Most electric power plant operators withdraw vast amounts of water from our rivers and lakes and pay nothing for it. More in my blog, The Water-Electricity Nexus.

All of this matters out of our concern for our health, for economic development, and for the environment.

Fishman said we need to "tap" into our emotional attachment with water to develop new and innovative solutions. He calls it Smart Water and provided several examples.

Orlando, FL is one of several municipalities that has banned the use of drinking water for irrigating lawns. Time for us to re-learn the art of rainwater harvesting and graywater recycling!

Most of his examples come by way of the private sector, where business leaders are finding that conservation and water efficiency can be cost-effective business strategies. It has to go beyond the purview of the steely-eyed capitalist and into the consciousness of the public and our elected officials.

We currently spend almost as much for bottled water as we do for our public water infrastructure, which sorely needs to become more flexible in the face of weather extremes caused by climate change. The $10.6 billion or so that Americans spent annually on bottled water could go a long way to assure that our municipal water systems are safe, secure and environmentally-sound.

We clearly can afford it but so far lack the will.

Fishman's lecture could have tackled much broader issues concerning our relationship with water, such as the privatization of public water supplies and the contamination of supplies by agricultural pesticides. But he wants us to focus on the issues we can best address at a local and regional level.

The NRA Steals an Emmy

Wayne LaPierre may not have accomplished his aims during yesterday's NRA press conference, but his performance achieved something even more remarkable. While telling us that the best way to stop the senseless violence in our schools is to fill them with armed "good guys," LaPierre conjured the working-stiff ghost of Archie Bunker.
As a lifelong fan of the 1970s TV sitcom All in the Family I remember the episode when Archie, brilliantly played by Carroll O'Connor, gave an equal time appearance on his local TV news program. For those of you too young to remember there once was a time when anyone could voice their opinions on TV, at least before President Ronald Reagan abolished the Fairness Doctrine.
Anyway, Archie Bunker had an answer to the big public scare of the time, which was the hijacking of commercial aircraft by armed assailants. A flop-sweating Archie stared doe-eyed into the camera and explained that each passenger should be given a gun as they boarded their flight.
If everyone on the plane were armed, he reasoned, no "bad guy" would ever think of pulling out a weapon. Upon safely arriving at their destination, passengers would simply surrender their guns as they de-planed.
Case closed!
If Wayne LaPierre fails in his quest to defeat proposals for even the mildest forms of gun control, as he has done so deftly throughout his years as president of the NRA, he should at least be awarded one of Carroll O'Connor's Emmys, for proving to us that the spirit of Archie Bunker is alive and well.


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Loving the Brain Bucket

Photo courtesy of Belle Helmets

As an avid recreational cyclist and frequent bicycle commuter, I would never dream of swinging my leg over a bike without wearing a helmet.
Bike helmets work. I have a few that I've worn over the years bearing the unmistakable signs that they served their intended purpose: cracked and scraped where my skull would otherwise have borne the damage.
That said, wearing a helmet is a personal choice that should not be forced upon me or any other adult. Those who impose helmet use on all cyclists impose a double standard of safety and needlessly impede the popularity of bicycling.
We should take note of the dearth of bicycle helmets in Europe. There, the widespread use of bicycles is largely fueled by pragmatism. In many cases the bicycle is the simplest, cheapest, easiest way to complete a desired trip. That includes one's attire.
Europeans rarely bicycle in anything other than their street, school or business attire. The bicycle helmet has not part in it.
In the same way, Americans would hardly find it convenient to wear a crash helmet while driving our automobiles, although one could doubtlessly complete a thorough search of the research literature and "prove" that widespread helmet use would reduce the number of head injuries from automobile accidents.
After all, helmets are entirely acceptable to NASCAR.

Some personal choices, stupid as they might appear, should not be legislated. Light up a smoke and think about it.