The Hive

Check out the grand opening of the Hive Cape Ann - a local artist gallery / community hub - here's to strengthening the social fabric!









































Learn more at www.thehivecapeann.com

Stay going...

Prosperity Without Growth

A great (relatively) new report out of the Sustainable Development Commission in the UK:

Prosperity Without Growth

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Sustainable PVC?

Vinyl and PVC are common building materials that have a whole host of problems associated with them. There are many alternative materials that can be used, yet the materials are ubiquitous because they are low-cost and durable, and perform certain functions well.

Under pressure from health and environmental groups aiming to ban PVC altogether in the late ‘90s, the industry in Europe set out to create “sustainable PVC”....read more at our Aedi Construction blog.

credit to http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/03/26/pvc-no-good/ for the photo.

Food, Inc

Get ready for what looks like a great movie on the food industry - hopefully it will help bring home why it's so important to buy local and organic, and support the development of a safe, resilient food system - so often these reasons are invisible to us, so a movie like this should be a big help and great reminder:



Stay going.

Gloucester Blogapalooza

A quick heads up for any local Gloucester / Cape Ann readers - get involved with the first ever Gloucester Blogapalooza!

Tonight (Tuesday, June 9th) at 6:30pm, anyone who blogs, or reads blogs here on Cape Ann please come join the fun for and enjoy some brew and socialization at the Cape Ann Brewing Co.

Joey of Good Morning Gloucester blogging fame is pulling it together - I'm actually really bummed, because I can't make it, already had plans I can't break in the city tonight, but hopefully there will be more... and just wanted to spread the word in the mean time.










Cheers & stay going.

How to create an unstoppable movement:

Start dancing





Great to see tipping points in action. Stay going.

Everything Bad Is Good for You

I went to a bachelor party last week and found myself tearing through all of Everything Bad Is Good for You during my travels - it seemed an appropriate way to start the weekend. Steven Johnson is becoming one of my favorite authors having loved both Emergence and The Invention of Air. But given the title, I had low expectations for this one - it seemed like a title designed to stir up controversy and sell some books. And in some ways it was. But, again his clear style and systemic perspective won me over, and I was sold.

The premise pretty straight-forward: common wisdom is that popular culture is dumbing down society as sex, violence, gossip, and other such trashy themes become more common in TV shows, movies, and video games. Johnson turns that idea on its head, by pointing out that most shows, movies, and games have gotten increasingly complex and smart - referencing the likes of Lost, The West Wing, The Usual Suspects, Memento, Adaptation, SimCity, and even Grand Theft Auto - and analyzing what he calls the Sleeper Curve (derived from Woody Allen's Sleeper where a future society discovers that junk food is actually healthy).

Technology drives this curve in large part - things like TiVo and DVD sales allow for more complex story lines and subtle jokes because people don't have to catch everything in real time. This has led a shift from "Least Objectionable Programming" where bland, easy to understand themes rule, to "Most Repeatable Programming" where complexity and subtley rule (if you're going to buy a DVD you want to know it won'g grow stale after one viewing - and you're going to pick Seinfeld over Three's Company).

I won't spoil the book too much, as it's a good, quick read - but for me the important, and hopeful take-away from this book is that our generation of gamers, Sopranos watchers, and Facebook users are training our minds to deal with complexity - and that is exactly what we need when we confront the sustainability challenge. For the masses of us who aren't supergeniouses, but can see what's going on around us, we are increasingly aware of and in tune with the implications of our actions in a complex system - burning oil here can cause droughts there that can cause famines, unrest, and war, and disrupt trade, displace refugees, and require us to send soldiers to far off lands - multiple story lines, delayed cause and effect, complexity - all things we need to understand to create a sustaianble society, and all things that are increasingly common in pop culture.

Not to say that playing video games is going to save the day - but an interesting perspective to challenge some commonly held assumptions. I'm still looking for the parallel that shows how bachelor parties are good for you... Stay going.