I learned something about soil erosion last night …

Last night at City Club we heard from David Montgomery, a geomorphologist at the University of Washington. I've never heard of geomorphology, but it was an interesting presentation on … soil erosion. Really! Montgomery's main argument breaks down pretty simply: Farming allows civilization to happen. But plowing the earth, by default, erodes soil faster than it can naturally come back. Therefore over time, a civilization's soil becomes unable to keep up with the demands put on it. And then they fail. It takes a big leap to go from soil erosion to the collapse of civilization. And in fact, Montgomery Read more…

Yay! I’m presenting at Pecha Kucha Tacoma Vol 002 about “Online Identity” in 2 weeks. Must get to work on my 20 slides …

Pecha Kucha Tacoma has its second event at the Robert Daniel Gallery on September 9. I've been invited to speak about "online identity" which goes with the overall "identity" theme of the night. The format is 20 slides, with 20 seconds per slide. So my presentation will be 6 minutes and 40 seconds long. Some of the other presenters are artists, architects, designers, and other cool people. I'm very excited for my 6 min and 40 seconds of fame.

Cool stuff at the Foss Waterway Seaport!

Two years ago, I suggested a "School of Marine Science" on the Foss. I wrote: Locate Tacoma's High Tech High in two buildings: The Foss Waterway Seaport and the Urban Waters facility. Students would learn about hard sciences with a focus on marine biology, marine chemistry, meteorology, climatology … and they could work with researchers in those fields at both institutes. They could add nautical science credits through piloting a small boat the school would run for research in Commencement Bay. And classrooms could still teach them calculus/web programming and other "tech" stuff. This was inspired by my own science Read more…