This We Know is one of the first in what will hopefully become an extensive and vibrant community of web pages designed to parse and present all that government data that’s being published over at data.gov.  The web site has a search bar where you can enter a location, then it spits out a list of stuff it knows about that location.  A few interesting things it knows about Austin:

• 307,315 pounds of 32 Pollutants were released (within 22 mi.)
• 38,216 people are Unemployed, while 523,855 have jobs
• There are 122,468 Home Owners and 144,445 Renters
• 63% of people Relocated in the past 15 years (in this town)

I love data.

This just popped up on my blog search for ‘Bercy Chen Studio’:

Beverly Skyline Residence on Bercy Chen Studio mostly G Living, Dark Twisted Space Monkies Go Green
The prepare began as a self-effacing remodel, but turned into a fully master-planning pro the site; including unspoilt inside and extrinsic recycle, an supplementation to an existing 1970’s butter up in, as admirably as re-organization of the garden. As the steadfast brought down was improperly sited, a sizeable motivation of the contemplate was to reconnect the brought down with its place around utilizing the straight topography to acknowledge advance of the effusive views.
One aim was to blend the architecture with the national garden and brook at the patsy of the chattels.

It seems we’ve graduated into the ranks of those whose content has been scraped for link farming.  Maybe we should get a robot to write all our text, the phrase “brook at the patsy of the chattels” has a nice ring to it…

Tom, Agustina and I had an interesting conversation over beers the other night about the emerging role of computers in the design and construction process.  To my mind two main questions emerged: what is a useful role for computation in the design process and how does architecture respond to the impact of CNC manufacturing processes on the constraints imposed on the builder.  These are both very expansive topics, so I’ll stick to the first.

I hadn’t heard much about this in a few years so I did some digging and it looks like we’re on the verge of having some very interesting technology for networking.  Back before wireless routers became commonplace there was talk of using a house’s electrical wiring as a data network – after all the copper is already there, why not use it for signalling as well as power.  The problem is that all the stuff we plug into our electrical wires creates a lot of noise, so transmitting data packets at a reasonable speed is difficult (older standards were too slow to use for networking).

Well it looks like they’re managed to solve most of those problems.  There are systems now that operate at up to 200Mbps (Wireless-G maxes out at 20Mbps in best-case scenarios), and there are standards being worked out which will provide gigabit/second transmission rates.  The first chips for these new standards are expected to start rolling out later this year or early 2010.  The most exciting of these new standards, G.hn, is designed to work over power lines, phone lines, or coax (I suspect the transmission rates will vary depending on which line is being used).

The reason this is interesting to me is that it allows practically anything in your house to be networked; toasters, garage door openers, fridges, televisions, lights, security systems, speakers, HVAC systems, PV arrays, etc.  Anything that plugs in could be networked by simply adding another chip to it’s internal circuitry (I would guess these chips will cost less than $10 in bulk).  Think of the possibilities!  This allows control and monitoring, so not only can the lights turn themselves off when you leave the house, you could graph the exact energy consumption of every appliance in your house.  Coupled with demand pricing for electricity, this would enable enormous gains in energy efficiency.

There’s a piece in Portfolio discussing the possibilities ubiquitous computing enables in the realm of complimentary currencies:

Futurist Douglas Rushkoff, famous for correctly predicting the rise of social media, is trying to convince Craigslist’s Craig Newmark to create “craigbucks.” He thinks it’s the obvious next step in the evolution of money. “People could buy and sell things exclusively on Craigslist using craigbucks,” Rushkoff enthuses. “Sure they’ll want to keep their Visas and their MasterCards, but they’ll want a specialized, alternative form of cash too.”

The idea is not as far-fetched as it may seem. Economists already have a term for this kind of community-specific money; they’re called “complimentary currencies” and they naturally take root when conditions are right. For example, in 2006, a Chinese online social network called QQ produced “QQ coins” that became widely traded, used for almost a billion dollars a year in transactions. Even though the currency was designed just to buy things on the QQ network, other websites started accepting QQ coins for payment of even non-virtual goods, and a black market sprung up to convert QQ coins directly to Yuan. The Chinese government cracked down: They feared that QQ could trigger inflation of the Yuan by increasing the total money supply in China.

…

When the developed world gets over its bias for “printing press–era cash technology” then complementary currencies will be commonplace here too, Rushkoff predicts. He sees a future that has people literally reprogramming their economic systems, using computer networks and handheld devices to administer new forms of grassroots cash. Those currencies could be almost anything: Cash we can use only at one local restaurant, cash cards for Wal-Mart or other chain stores, babysitting dollars we can trade in our neighborhoods.

There are some small examples of people of this future here now. In Japan, people trade “elder-care units,” which are measured in time spent caring for elders in the community, and they’ve become quite valuable as the population in that country ages. In the United States, hours of service are exchanged via the online Time Bank or locally in Ithaca, New York. Then there are the “Life Dollars,” an electronic currency used in the Pacific Northwest. The experiments have been successful, albeit quite small. The total amount of Ithaca hours in circulation is $100,000, while Life Dollars are used for perhaps $2,000 worth of transactions per month.

There’s some interesting work being done on implementing cryptographic digital ‘coins’, and another interesting project that’s trying to create a payment system by collecting a large network of trust relations between friends which allows people who don’t know each other, but who can be connected by mutual friends to transact.

Google just released a service called Latitude, which enables people with certain types of cell phones to publish their physical location.  From Computerworld:

How does Latitude do that? Google is using technology that’s similar to that of Skyhook Wireless in its Latitude service. Like Skyhook, it is a software-only location solution that allows any mobile device with Wi-Fi, GPS or a cellular radio to determine its position with an accuracy of 10 to 20 meters. What sets XPS apart is that it uses land-based Wi-Fi access points, GPS satellites and cellular towers to determine location information.

In other words, Latitude can use any of the three kinds of signals — Wi-Fi, 2G/3G/4G mobile or GPS satellite — that a device can pick up to work out its location. By leveraging these wireless capabilities, the software can combine positioning data from satellites, carrier assistance servers and Wi-Fi base stations to significantly speed up positioning, or TTFF (time to first fix). TTFF for some devices can be up to a minute, but by using multiple reference sites, Latitude can reduce TTFF to a few seconds.

Basically, the software installs on your phone and  periodically checks to see where the phone is located, then send that information to Google.  Aside from the slightly creepy privacy implications, this seems like an interesting way for buildings to ‘know’ where their occupants are located (or their cellphones at least).

I could imagine houses closing the windows, turning off the lights, and dropping the temperature when nobody’s home, then reversing the cycle as the owner starts driving home from work.

I could also see some interesting urban dynamics research using this system if it were widely adopted and the data were public (again, my privacy nerve is twitching…)

After reading and discussing Tom’s post, I thought I’d throw out some more ideas.  I think the biggest challenge to start with is developing a coherent message about how we think the country should go about addressing the ‘green revolution’

Charles Perrow published an interesting book called ‘Normal Accidents‘, which is an anthropological study of catastrophe.  He argues that all systems fail given enough time and that to reduce the frequency and severity of catasrophes we must address the systems which fail (rather than blaming actors in such systems, ie blame the people).  His basic argument is that there are two fundamental factors which influence the probability of a system failure: the complexity of the system and the interconnectedness of the system. Complexity here refers to non-linear causation chains; a complex system is one in which a cause cannot be clearly determined by observing an effect.  Interconnectedness refers to the degree of coordination required between components of a system.  He argues that as complexity and interconnectedness increase, the probability of failure must also increase.

Infoaesthetics just posted a link to a new web page called GeoCommons which allows “non-technical professionals” to view and analyze geo-located data, without the traditional GIS overhead.

As a quick example of why this is cool – here’s a map of the percentage of bridges in each state which are classified as ‘structurally deficient’.  20-25% of the bridges in those states with the big circles are structurally deficient.  Makes you wonder if road trips are such a good idea after all.  Maybe spending some money on roads and bridges isn’t such a bad idea.