Small Streams

Garbage and Its Discontents

"O" from the Angry Drunk Bureaucrat blog points out the opportunities for green economic development in the city. As you can see from my comments I have a problem with the centralized model of going green. I think we can begin to adopt green methods, particularly in public works/sanitation, by providing more incentives for creating a distributed model.

CP's Violet Law surveys the City of Pittsburgh's current situation, particularly in getting local businesses to recycle. The article discusses the difficulty in getting businesses to cooperate, and brings up the city's ultimate solution, begin fining people.

I'm reading Albert Laszlo Barabasi's Linked and he discusses scale-free networks (power laws, 80/20, long tail looking things), and star models (everything connects to one node). He doesn't discuss centralized or pyramidal models much, perhaps because they're man made constructs, think of Roman legions, twenty people commanded twenty people, who commanded twenty people, and so on down the line.

That's somewhat how recycling works in Pittsburgh. X number of trucks report to twelve stations, who report to public works. What if the 100,000 or so households and numerous businesses were given the option and incentive to deal with recycling in their own fashion?

Links:
A 1999 EPA publication Recycling Works: State and Local Solutions to Solid Waste Management Problems

Tags:
recycling

The Jed Clampett Test

New arrival to the Pittsburgh blogging scene, Pinky, recently posted about a visit by literary critic/lawyer Stanley Fish. An interesting write up, and it made me think about things that I barely understand, especially literary criticism.

I also thought about the realm of literary criticism when I saw an article on technology by Anne Galloway. Galloway posted an abstract of a paper she would be giving. I almost got what she was saying about the relationship of technologies to our everyday life. Then I was laid low by the following:

This is most troublesome when we consider the sometimes fine line between the liberating potential of the carnivalesque and the oppressive tactics of the spectacular—to name just two recurring themes in our myths of pervasive computing.

I don't get what she's saying. I might get what she's saying. Maybe I should get what she's saying.

How to judge and whether to trust literary critics, fast-talkers, intellectuals, and rhetoriticians made me think of one of my favorite characters, the Beverly Hillbillies' Jed Clampett. Jed had a load of common sense and mother wit, and never let things get by him.

Literary critics sometimes remind me of Phil Silvers' character Honest John Shifty Shafer trying to put one by Jed.

If Jed needed to know something, he'd find out. He was hardly ever bamboozled by fast talkers, socialites, and big city bankers. When I hear a literary critic talk I sometimes wonder if they, like Shifty Shafer, would pass the Jed Clampett test.

Remember this is the Jed Clampett test, not the . . .

Granny test - she'd fill Stanley Fish's yankee behind with buck shot (or perhaps the rock salt with which Jed replaced the buckshot) before he could begin his rhetoric-in';

Jethro test - It wouldn't take Jethro too long to become a deconstructionist along with being a short order cook/brain surgeon/secret agent;

Elly Mae test - Disappointed they aren't literary critters;

Milburn Drysdale - No money in the humanities;

Miss Jane Hathaway - Maybe she'd understand it, but she sure wouldn't be able to explain it to Jed.

I tend to think if it were worth understanding, Jed would understand it. He'd furrow his brow, use a down-home metaphor, and a light would come to his eyes. "Displacing the terms of opposition -- the dickens you say."

The Skeleton Lounge

Recently I got a chance to visit Greg Karkowsky and see his wonderful work. The following is a video of his skeleton lounge.