February 25th, 2010
This week has been full of exciting and inspiring energy news. I was first excited to see the 60 Minutes piece on the Bloom Box Bloom Energy Server, they publicly announced their product at a press conference earlier today. Bloom’s solution certainly seems like a viable part of the energy solution and already has major customers lending it credibility. Bloom is exciting and my plan was to write this post on them but then Bill Gates changed my mind.
Bill Gates recently spoke at TED 2010, and like his last appearance it was incredibly interesting (although sans mosquitos). His talk revolves around the above equation, making the point that to stop climate change the result of the equation has to be zero. This simple equation creates a painfully clear picture of what has to happen, assuming you can handle basic arithmetic. There is a bigger message in this formula though, and it has been in part illustrated by the setting, and audience of the speech as well as this week’s announcement by Bloom Energy. We no longer live in the time of the Manhattan Project or the Space Race. The days of the government getting together with intellectuals and intrepidly solving the great problems of our day are over. Solutions wont come from ineffective legislation or meaningless UN conventions, it will come from someone’s garage. For various reasons there is nothing the government can really do about any part of the equation. Sure we can regulate consumption or services or energy and pollution, even population has been regulated, but none of these factors can truly be controlled by a government. In fact Gate’s point is that the only truly controllable part of the equation is CO2 per energy unit and this takes a new innovation, something sadly our government nor any other seems capable of spurring.
This week has been full of exciting and inspiring energy news. I was first excited to see the 60 Minutes piece on the Bloom Box Bloom Energy Server, they publicly announced their product at a press conference earlier today. Bloom’s solution certainly seems like a viable part of the energy solution and already has major customers lending it credibility. Bloom is exciting and my plan was to write this post on them but then Bill Gates changed my mind.
The solutions wont come from ineffective legislation or meaningless UN conventions, it will come from someone’s garage. We are on our own.
Bill Gates recently spoke at TED 2010, and like his last appearance it was incredibly interesting (although sans mosquitos). His talk revolves around the above equation, making the point that to stop climate change the result of the equation has to be zero. This simple equation creates a painfully clear picture of what has to happen, assuming you can handle basic arithmetic. There is a bigger message in this formula though, and it has been in part illustrated by the setting, and audience of the speech as well as this week’s announcement by Bloom Energy. We no longer live in the time of the Manhattan Project or the Space Race. The days of the government getting together with intellectuals and intrepidly solving the great problems of our day are over. Solutions wont come from ineffective legislation or meaningless UN conventions, it will come from someone’s garage. For various reasons there is nothing the government can really do about any part of the equation. Sure we can regulate consumption or services or energy and pollution, even population has been regulated, but none of these factors can truly be controlled by a government. In fact Gate’s point is that the only truly controllable part of the equation is CO2 per energy unit and this takes a new innovation, something sadly our government nor any other seems capable of spurring.
go to Bloom Energy
Tagged with , Environment, Government, Social Change | No Comments »
February 16th, 2010
From BLDG BLOG:
In the desert 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles is a suburb abandoned in advance of itself-the unfinished extension of a place called California City. Visible from above now are a series of badly paved streets carved into the dust and gravel, like some peculiarly American response to theNazca Lines (or even the labyrinth at Chartres cathedral).Bill & Ted meet Cerne Abbas Man.
Google Street View gives you a good view of this somewhat unfortunate art form. In light of the recent economic conditions you wonder how many more of these there are. The waste in terms of labor and money as well as the environment has to be staggering.
Tagged with , Architecture, Environment, Mapping | No Comments »
November 22nd, 2009
We like to think of it as clearing our inventory. But honestly we have been relatively negligent on the blog for the past couple of months as our studio has been getting busier. So as a thank you and a little pre-holiday gift we are giving away 2 packs of FIELD NOTES COLORS “Mackinaw Autumn”. That’s right 2 packs means two winners, two people will be chosen at random to win a pack.Winners will be announced Friday 12/18 at noon CST. The winners will be announced here and contacted via direct message on Twitter.
So the rules this time:
Just tweet anything (preferably design related) with the tag #PKFNC1 and you’re eligible.
EDIT: A little late, but better late than never. The winners are: MichaelStine and crussell6481. Thanks everyone for playing.
Tagged with , Contest | 2 Comments »
October 9th, 2009
Design thinking is a frustrating topic for strangers to the subject. It is not a concrete process for creating innovation; there is no instruction manual for design. You can learn to rules for research or color theory and typography, but you really only learn design by doing it. Design thinking doesn’t just require you to do things a different way it requires a new way of thinking, this is what makes it so hard to grasp, it’s a fundamental shift from the traditional mode of business thinking. Tim Brown gets over this hurdle with a lot of case studies, to put you in the mindset of doing. IDEO comes up a lot in the book. This is a source of frustration for many people but the fact is not many people do it better than the fine folks at IDEO, and showing you the thought process behind their work gives you glimpse into how they were thinking.
This book is clearly a primer on design thinking, it has a lot of information in it but requires a close read to pick it up. It may be heavy on the IDEO promotion, but again I think there is a purpose to that, revealing many insights in to the way IDEO works and thinks. So bottom line, this may not be required reading for those versed in design thinking, but it is a nice refresher. It should be required for design students if only to show them a world outside of posters, something many programs don’t do well.
Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation
by: Tim Brown
publisher: HarperBusiness (September 29, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0061766089
ISBN-13: 978-0061766084
hardcover: 272 pages
Tagged with , Book Review, Design | No Comments »
September 21st, 2009
Hmmm contest you say? …
That’s right we have a unopened shiny new three-pack of the limited edition FIELD NOTES “COLORS” Grass Stain Green memo pads. If you haven’t heard about FIELD NOTES yet they are awesome 3″ x 5″ sketchpads, perfect for being handy when inspiration hits. The winner will be announced Friday 09/25 at noon CST, winner will be chosen at random. The winners will be announced here and contacted via direct message on Twitter.
So what do you have to do? All that is required is to re-tweet the following:
We can and should use design as a tool to change the world. http://bit.ly/3ApGmJ #PKcontest2
UPDATE 09/25/09: Congrats to Eusebio Reyero, he won the Field Notes. For everyone else thanks for playing and better luck next time.
Tagged with , Contest | 1 Comment »
By Nathan Shedroff. 
By by Bruce Mau, Jennifer Leonard, Institute Without Boundaries.