Daily Thoughts 10/17/2010 (Hacking Work, The Vertical Farm)

Viktor Vasnetsov (1848-1926) Русский: Книжная лавочка, Russian: Book shop, 1876

Daily Thoughts 10/17/2010

This is an article on the book Hacking Work Breaking Stupid Rules for Smart Results by Bill Jensen and Josh Klein http://www.mediabistro.com/mediajobsdaily/why-you-should-break-the-rules-at-work_b4114 . It looks interesting, but also potentially troublesome.

I am going to write my review of The Vertical Farm tomorrow.  I did take a look around to see if there were any planned urban greenhouses for Manhattan and I found a company called Gotham Greens which is developing a rooftop greenhouse system. http://gothamgreens.com/Fast_Company.pdf  It reads a little like a mix of marketing for Whole Foods and an experiment in urban agriculture.

Daily Thoughts 10/16/2010 (The Vertical Farm)



Designs by Chris Jacobs http://www.chrisjacobs.com, and Rolf Mohr. 3d Modeling and rendering, Dean Fowler http://www.machinefilms.com.  Creative Commons 3.0 Unported.  Vertical Farm.

Daily Thoughts 10/16/2010


I read some more of The Vertical Farm last night.  I think Dr. Dickson Despommier got a number of things wrong.  He tells us that venture capital is not likely to support vertical farms.  Venture capital is already starting to support closed loop aquaponics systems for cities that combine fish tanks with hydroponics to create closed loops recycling the water in the systems.  It is just starting. This is an article on Big Green Boxes an aquaponics startup. http://www.grist.org/article/food-the-new-agtivist-gene-fredericks-is-thinking-inside-the-citys-bi/P1  Another company which is starting based on the vertical farm concept is Home Town Farms http://www.hometownfarms.com/about.html

The book is conceptually interesting.  I like the ideas, but feel that the book is more about the idea than the practicalities of trying to build a vertical farm.  A book which might give a better sense of the design principles behind this book would be A Safe and Sustainable World, The Promise of Ecological Design by Nancy Jack Todd.  There are detailed descriptions of how aquaponics, bioshelters, and living machines work.  John Todd is the creater of many of the ideas in this book including living machines. http://www.toddecological.com/eco-machines/

I'm a bit annoyed right now.  I went to my local library this afternoon and found out it is closed on the weekend.  I wrote my local representatives, but am not sure if it will get them to do anything yet.

Web Bits

I rather liked this article from Library Journal about Social Research Networks http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/communityacademiclibraries/887239-419/social_research_networks_spawn_new.html.csp  It shows that social networks can be used for other things than just socializing.

Daily Thoughts 10/15/2010 (The Vertical Farm)

William Richards Castle (1849–1935) donated his collection of books on history of the Pacific (he was born and lived in Hawaii) to Harvard library.

Daily Thoughts 10/15/2010

I read some more of the book, The Dragonfly Effect on the train to work.  It has an interesting feel to it.  It basically says the strongest messages are backed by emotions that have a straightforward message.

I worked a bit more on weeding in the oversize 300s.  I also did a little more work on the survey for our website.  Hopefully, it will be up soon.  I also pulled a few books from our storage from 1854.

I started reading The Vertical Farm Feeding The World In The 21st Century by Dr. Dickson Despommier.  The book reads like someone took the some of the principles of a bioshelter farm and scaled them up to fit inside a skyscraper.  It is a mix of the far fetched and the practical.  He does site John Todd briefly for his work on "living machine" water purification systems.  There is a very utopian feel to the writing.  Dr. Despommier uses ideas like "cradle to cradle", natural capitalism and other ideas from ecological design.  I can see the ideas being first tried out in smaller three or four story urban organic greenhouses before they attempt to put them in skyscrapers.