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The Shortcomings of Diary Style

It is easy to see, if you’ve been following my posts over the years, how meeting up with other podcasters, vloggers, and bloggers is a very important activity for me. From these meetings come ideas, inspiration, constructive criticism, and more. Madge and I talk about under-reported issues and what deserves more attention in the media. When I’m in Berlin, Tim and I always spent hours talking about what works and does not work for a smooth and usable blog/podcast. Over in DC, John and I always discuss audience participation and our different ideas in how to address the public.

And so this week, two people with enormous impact on how I do my work, Jay and Ryanne, are here in Amsterdam. Just like with each conference, visit, or drink at a local café I’ve enjoyed with other vloggers, their presence has sparked all kinds of new ideas, while also reenforcing what is truly important about the work we do.

One of the big thoughts they’ve helped me consider, is how my work is presented within this site. As part of their presentations this week, they’ve been explaining Show in A Box; their wordpress hacks to help videobloggers present their work in a way closer to their own wishes. What does that mean? For one thing, the blog structure, although convenient for many things, over time buries our work. If I made a good video in March of last year, or a podcast worth your time in April of 2005, you wouldnt notice any sign of it on my front page. If you searched my archives, even then it would take you quite some time to get to it. By putting the last post at the top, blogs bury anything that happened before, even though items that were posted before are still very relevant and should be there for anyone to click and listen or view.

The answer we seek is a way to have a site, some form of blog, where people who create multimedia content can have it featured or accessible relatively easy on the page. If my post tomorrow is about the arctic, next to that post you should see any videos, audio, or text that is related.. regardless of how long ago I produced it.

Of course there are more ideas than just this one, but this is the one – as you can see – that Ive been working on at some level. Still far from the desired result, spending time with these two people with whom I share so much culture and so many goals has set me on the right path. Together, it seems almost inevitable that we can solve these problems and develop even better ways to do the work that we are so committed to doing.

Redesign for 08

Hello friends. This morning Ill be working on a site redesign. YES there will be two columns on the right and hopefully some cool new video and audio feature elements to help direct people to related podcasts and vlogs for posts that you’re currently reading. Sounds like alot of work.. but then.. this is a labor of love.

By all means post your thoughts on what you see so far. Spare me the “don’t change a thing”, change is constant.

bmtv71 Canadian Military Show

Over the past 2 years, as part of the new cold war over who owns the arctic, the Canadian government has chosen to use its military to show how serious they are about defending their claim. Through a series of missions and exercises that involve land, sea, and air forces, not to mention determined statements from the Prime Minister, they obviously hope the international community will back off and they can reign freely as masters of the arctic.

One small but interesting task I undertook recently was to search for video produced by or about the Canadian military deployed in the arctic. This vlog entry features those images. And while there may be a somewhat humorous element to the idea that Canada would use violence to settle an international dispute, you will also notice that they really are armed and very much playing the new cold war game.

Click To Play

Dutch Parties Shrinking

I’m fascinated by associations, groups, unions, fanclubs… well maybe not fanclubs. But if there is a group of people dedicated to something, and they have meetings and membership cards, I’m interested in learning about them. And it is even more compelling if they’ve been around for awhile.

Here in the Netherlands, for example, It seems there has been a tradition of people being not only supporters of a political party, but actually card carrying members. I realize this happens in many countries, but it is not often that I hear the numbers or that someone comes forward and says “Oh Im a card carrying member of the Sloth Party.”

Today I read about how membership numbers for political parties in the Netherlands is shrinking. A very interesting, though not at all surprising, development. As with every passing election voters grow tired of one party and turn to another, and then grow tired of that one and turn to yet another, or they go back to the previous one maybe. And despite all their voting efforts, these parties continue to disappoint and generally do things that people don’t agree with.. even their own party members. So why continue to be a member of a party that never seems to represent you and they said they would.

The numbers in the Netherlands are as follows:

Christian Democrats (party of the prime minister) – 69.200 members
Labor Party – 59.327
Socialist PArty – 50.238
Liberal PArty – 36.832
United Christians – 27.683
Green Left – 21.901
Animal Party (yes!) – 6972

Note that I skipped a few parties because I don’t feel like describing them, though they would be located at the bottom of the list. Furthermore the populist-far-right Freedom Party has no membership, yet you can bet plenty of people vote for them they would just prefer not to have any evidence linking their vote back to themselves.

In the end I think the way people think of elections has changed. Instead of wanting to be a member of a party, and going to meetings and trying to influence party policies, it starts to resemble a menu in a restaurant… you choose what looks like it would be good. And if you dont like it, you spit it out, or choose something else next time. Unfortunately there is no equivalent, besides leaving the country, of “going to another restaurant cause this one is bad”. Then again like so many citizens, you could go on a hunger strike.

Nalgenes Pose a Threat

It is a reoccurring topic on this blog, toxic chemicals in objects that we use for our daily lives, and on this sunday, I’d like to bring forth another.

The difference between this blog and a mainstream news source is that I’m not hear to scare you into paying attention. I don’t believe in trying to scare the crap out of people to get them to listen, I believe more that once people hear the facts that have a direct impact, negative or positive, on their lives – they will want to take action and want to know more.

So if you’re the outdoors type, or the travelling type, or maybe you play ultimate frisbee like myself and my good friends here in Amsterdam, you surely know all about the Nalgene bottle. I know I received mine as a gift from a special friend long ago. Millions of people around the world are into using Nalgene bottles for carrying water throughout their day. They have great faith in these bottles for being reliable and durable. Unfortunately this is more of an assumption based on general experience and the recommendations of others, we don’t sit around thinking, hmm what is this made of and is it ok to carry my drinking water?

However, up in Canada, this is exactly what they’ve been working on. The Federal Health Department has been doing research into the material that Nalgene’s are made from, which includes something called bisphenol-A. More and more research indicates that, especially as a bottle gets older, dangerous chemicals from this plastic start to break down and get into the water. This also true under increased temperatures. Im summarizing the problem somewhat, but the basic idea is one that is unfortunately too common in this day and age. An item that is very popular and seemingly very useful, turns out to also be potentially dangerous yet the issue is hardly noticed on the mainstream radar, unless its used as a scare tactic.

Im sure this issue will come back, as more tests are being done all the time. But for now, many shops in Canada are pulling various kinds of Nalgenes off the shelves, and here in my Amsterdam apartment, Im retiring my dear bottle; Ill find some other purpose for it, hopefully one that has little impact on humans and the environment.

For now consider this a public service announcement. If you’ve got a nalgene and you want to resist any suggestions to stop using it, I strongly recommend you research this issue and then consider your decision. You don’t HAVE to use THAT bottle, there are alternatives that pose less of a risk. This article points out some of them.

Rising Sea, Eating Cities?

During the question/answer segment of my Arctic Cold War talk at the 24C3, alot of people raised tough and specific questions about the Arctic conflict and the facts I used to illustrate the dangers of both military build up and the melting of the arctic. One particular question came from international man of mystery Dan Kaminsky who asked me about data that indicates melting arctic ice is contributing to rising sea levels putting many coastal cities at great risk in the next decade.

As often happens during my talks and virtually any story I tell in everyday life, I may exaggerate my examples, and in the talk I said that most of the arctic ice would be melted by 2015. I also said that ocean levels would rise at an even greater pace and cities like Amsterdam and New York would find themselves in great danger. Dan seemed concerned at the immediacy that such cities would be swallowed up by water, so when he asked me again about it, I calmed down a bit and said, more accurately, that coastal cities would see an increasing rate of rising water levels, so technically some millimeters per year.

Since then I’ve had a chance to examine further that particular phenomenon, and double check what the hell I was saying. Here’s what I’ve figured out:

Ice melting (over land) in places like Greenland (glaciers) and polar ice caps is a cause of accelerated ocean level rise.
By 2015 the arctic ice cover in the summer is predicted to be completely gone.
According to most measurements I find, the average global sea level rise in the 20th century is around 1.2 mm per year.
However the average yearly rate since 1992, according to specialized satellite data is 2.8mm.
If we look specifically at the case of New York City, where the sea level has been rising .03 meters (11 inches) per decade, NY State emergency management models indicate that by 2050, the level will rise between 15 and 19 inches. (38 cm or more)
By 2080 the level will have risen by more than 3 ft! (.9 m)

So although I know Dan is not a regular reader of this blog, now I have more detailed information about just how bad the rising ocean levels are getting and what it means for a city like New York. Next time you’re in the Large Apple, stand at the east river, look down and picture that water 1 meter higher.