Bucky Fuller notes

John Todd, Jaime Snyder and Hunter Lovins interviewed on Democracy Now

Dr. John Todd was awarded the first annual Buckminster Fuller Challenge prize at a conferring ceremony at the Center for Architecture in New York City on Monday, June 23rd.
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A model of R. Buckminster Fuller’s “Dymaxion Dwelling Machines” community, about 1946. An exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art will offer a review of some of his grandest designs.

The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller

AS the designer R. Buckminster Fuller liked to tell it, his powerful creative vision was born of a moment of deep despair at the age of 32. A self-described ne’er-do-well, twice ejected from Harvard, a failure in business and a heavy drinker, he trudged to the Chicago lakefront one day in 1927 and stood there, contemplating suicide. But an inner voice interrupted, telling him that he had a mission to discover great truths, all for the good of humankind...

But recent research has shed new light on Fuller’s inner life and what really drove him. In particular, it now appears that the suicide story may have been yet another invention, an elaborate myth that served to cover up a formative period that was far more tumultuous and unstable, for far longer, than Fuller ever revealed.

via roamin

Buckminster Fuller exhibition at the Whitney opens today (prev)

stray bullets

Big one today.

Pentagon Spy: Terrorists Ready to Launch Satellite Strikes by 2020 What it should have been called was: China pretty much capable of launching satellite strike right now. My favorite part: Take, for instance, the Defense Department's accusation that Beijing has "developed and tested an ASAT system described as a 'parasitic microsatellite'" - a tiny machine that would attach itself to American orbiters, for nefarious purposes. The claim, which first appeared in the 2003 edition of the Pentagon's annual “Chinese Military Power" (CMP) report, came from a Hong Kong newspaper, and was repeated in several editions. Experts guffawed at the suggestion.

Stakeouts, Lucky Breaks Snare Six More in Citibank ATM Heist The FBI has recently made at least six more arrests in New York -- bringing the total to 10 -- thanks to information from arrested scam suspects, a lucky traffic stop, and an undercover operation that at one point had Eastern European hackers chasing a female FBI agent through the streets of New York, trying to mug her for ATM-card-programming gear.

The Web Time Forgot In 1934, Otlet sketched out plans for a global network of computers (or “electric telescopes,” as he called them) that would allow people to search and browse through millions of interlinked documents, images, audio and video files. He described how people would use the devices to send messages to one another, share files and even congregate in online social networks. He called the whole thing a “réseau,” which might be translated as “network” — or arguably, “web.” (via)

Eyeing tourism, Haiti battles its violent reputation "It's a big myth," says Fred Blaise, spokesman for the UN police force in Haiti. "Port-au-Prince is no more dangerous than any big city. You can go to New York and get pickpocketed and held at gunpoint. The same goes for cities in Mexico or Brazil." Eye opener (via)

How Russian Scientists Kept a Dog’s Severed Head Alive! So wrong. Highly disturbing whether true or not. Video and everything. Environmental Graffiti is no namby-pamby outfit. They post some pretty hardcore stuff.

George Carlin's Last Interview Long interview and it's just the highlights! One of the most extensive interviews I've read. My arm is getting tired here. The crook of my arm. (via)

Maryland plantation attic holds 400 years of documents For four centuries, they were the ultimate pack rats. Now a Maryland family's massive collection of letters, maps and printed bills has surfaced in the attic of a former plantation, providing a firsthand account of life from the 1660s through World War II. (via)

Could treasure hunters have discovered "Nazi Gold"? A recent discovery has renewed world interest in the quest. Have treasure hunters really discovered the famed Nazi gold stash? Some say they have. Some even say they've found the Amber Room.

Shaolin Temple wants to sell its secret Today's Southern Metropolis Daily has an article reporting that Shaolin is now selling a series of books called"Shaolin Kung Fu and Medicine Secret" (少林武功医宗秘笈) for 9,990 yuan a set on its online store, "Shaolin Stage of Joy". I'll hold out for the Shaolin Buddha Finger.

Preserving Your Personal Digital Archives While there is, as of yet, no hard guarantee that your family photos will be around 10,000 years from now, there are a few things that you can do to keep them around long enough for the next generation to enjoy and pass on. We have some basic tips for keeping your personal digital data alive and kicking through your lifetime, and if you want to shoot for the ten thousand year mark, these tips can get you headed in that direction, too. It stands to reason that the Long Now people are as good a source as any for this type on info.

The Wizard of Mauritius An enticing mystery.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. (via)

Self Storage, Life Logging and the Dymaxion Chronofile

From Long Views:

Long Now was invited to be part of the art exhibit “Self Storage” which transforms a storage unit in San Francisco into a library of Ephemera open to the public under the care of a librarian and indexed for consultation and handling.

The project titled Self-Storage was inspired by the historical precedent of the Dymaxion Chronofile, a system that Buckminster Fuller devised to chronicle his life.

From Stanford's R. Buckminster Fuller Archive:

The centerpiece of the collection, in many ways, is the Dymaxion Chronofile, an exhaustive journal of Fuller’s trajectory from 1920 until his death in 1983. Fuller had been collecting clippings and artifacts since he was a child. But in 1917, he began a formal chronological file which he would later call the Dymaxion Chronofile. The Chronofile was a vast scrapbook that included copies of all his incoming and outgoing correspondence, newspaper clippings, notes and sketches, and even dry cleaning bills. Initially, the Chronofile was bound into handsome leather-backed volumes. In later years, to save space and expenses, the Chronofile was simply stored in boxes. By the end of his life, this exhaustive “lab notebook” of his life’s experiment amounted to 270 linear feet.

Fuller intended for the Chronofile to be a case study of his life in context, in which his daily activities were presented in parallel with developments in technology and society. In it, he at once traced the evolution of his own thoughts, relationships, and business ventures; and documented new inventions, trends, and technologies that were emerging on the broader level.

Bucky's is said to be the most documented human life in history.

Over the years I had collected a fair bit of my life's documents and ephemera, but a few hurricanes and floods back in my New Orleans days truncated that effort.

In late 2005, I made it a habit to record every thought, idea, dream, phrase or random fuzzy notion that crossed my mind. I also record every word, name, object, book, work of art or any other item I might be interested in. It's not so much a journal or diary, it's more of a mental scrapbook. It has been very useful and enlightening. (I'm close to filling the seventh notebook.)

On looking back at my entries, two things stand out.

One, there are many items recorded that I am certain I would not have remembered otherwise.

Secondly, the practice has helped to alleviate the illusion of time compression.* Years don't seem to zoom by so fast when I examine my recorded thoughts. It makes me realize how long a year really is and how much one can think and do during that time. It also brings to mind what was going on in my life and how much I have learned in the interim.

I'll never come close to anything that Buckminster Fuller did in that regard, but I can attest that thought and life logging is a good habit to develop. Apart from personal benefits, it could also be quite valuable and interesting to those that come after.

* The other thing I've found to defeat this is novelty. When we are kids, everything is new. Time takes forever. As we get older and fall into patterned behavior, our life tends to go into auto-pilot and this is the big time-killer, literally and figuratively. Apart from slowing the zoom down, trying and learning new things will keep you young, healthy and sane and will fill your time with something worth remembering.

See also