What architects don't draw (and certainly don't design)

What architects don't draw (and certainly don't design)

I'm collecting photographs of things that don't seem right in buildings. Most are of pipes and cables just attached on the building, marring its appearance, creating places difficult to clean or maintain or even hazards. 

Others are of details clearly not designed, resulting into strange, dysfunctional, unreachable or uncleanable parts. 

 

My problem with such failures is how they happen and why. It appears that even with 3D software, integration and interoperability in BIM etc., there is a lot that we fail to see. Even worse is that we often don't care - and I'm referring to everybody here, from architects and engineers to clients and contractors. We're used to improvised solutions at the last moment, even on site - we are even proud of this capacity, as if any old solution just so as not to halt design or construction is to the benefit of the building. 

I believe that the answer to the problem is quite easy technically but currently impossible socially: there are not enough people interested in changing the production processes in the built environment. If these don't improve, no change in designing can be expected. So, I'll just keep collecting the photographs in the hope that the sheer volume of stupidity they present is enough evidence for some future generation.  

Trouble with BIM

Trouble with BIM

The optimist would say that support for BIM is consolidating; the pessimist that it's dwindling. There is still a substantial push for BIM but at the same time there are more critical voices - and they're not all Luddites. In my own view, there is a growing number of organizations that is increasingly reluctant to invest in BIM. If there's a hard core of organizations pushing BIM, there's also a periphery that if not turning against BIM, is certainly refusing to adopt and adapt to it. In between there are organizations that reluctantly follow and partially implement BIM.

Critics (e.g. https://doi.org/10.1080/09613218.2017.1293940) stress that the problems are not only practical, such as the cost and complexity of the implementation, but also operational, due to the imposition of a design representation onto activities and processes. They are concerned with the possibility of a digital divide that may disenfranchise smaller firms and create a two-tier marker with benefits only for the most privileged and powerful, who can afford the luxury of being BIM compliant. This, they argue, may reduce the potential of change through BIM.
While I largely agree with the criticism, I fear it suffers from a couple of fallacies. Firstly, it expects technology to bring on change in society rather than technology to meet emerging or latent demand in society. BIM does not bring change; at best it enables change and helps channel it in specific ways. One shouldn't put the cart before the horse and expect the horse to understand how it should push.
Secondly, it equates the technology with its current implementation. The way BIM is deployed today is depressingly limited. The software is underwhelmingly powerful and laden with analogue remnants, while users tend to do as little as possible rather than focusing on returns from a serious investment. We even talk of levels in BIM deployment and maturity but some of these levels do not make sense because they go against the fundamental requirements of the technology (and methodology, I hasten to add to pacify the believers).
If we place this criticism on the above scheme, it becomes obvious that the periphery simply doesn't recognize the necessity of a change to which BIM could contribute, so they don't adopt it. They can also be critical of the way it is implemented and hence unwilling to join in. In any case, they don't care enough, in the same way that not everyone cares about social media and hence doesn't spend endless hours setting up multiple profiles and maintaining their status and history.
This suggests that BIM is being pushed in a direction that doesn't relate to the change required in AECO and the built environment. That such a change is urgently needed is unquestionable but one cannot talk of culture change for implementing BIM; it's the other way around: ongoing culture change should promote BIM.
As for the practical and operational side, if the change was evident and BIM fitted the bill, people would have invested heavily in it. Just compare to the huge investment we have made as societies, organizations and individuals in mobile information processing. What started as mobile telephony was soon recognized for what it could offer and adopted widely and fervently. The adaptation it brought on is simply spectacular. Look around you wherever you may happen to be: people grab every opportunity to do something with their smartphones. Would they do the same for BIM?

Nitrogen and building construction

Nitrogen and building construction 

As usually, the latest crisis in the Netherlands combines the environment and the economy. We're in trouble with nitrogen norms and we have to slow down - literally: maximum highway speeds have to go down to 100 km/h to save agricultural and building activities. Just search the Internet with query terms like "nitrogen, crisis, Netherlands" and you'll get the whole story.
My problem is that I want to be an informed citizen. I understand why agriculture produces nitrogen emissions but what about building construction? What is the relation? It must have to do with either the materials or the way we construct buildings, including transportation. And if some claim that halving the livestock in the country would resolve the nitrogen crisis, wouldn't similar measures solve the problem of building construction, too?
 A quick search returned an article that tries to provide an overview of the problem. It claims that the problem lies with the machinery used in building construction, which emit huge amounts of nitrogen. The article further states that there are no alternatives to these fossil fuel guzzling machines, so we have to live with it. Building construction has to go on because there is a housing shortage in the Netherlands but also because building construction is important for the economy in general.
Easy conclusions like that trouble me. Firstly, I remain uncertain about the causes and effects of the much-advertised housing shortage. There's admittedly demand and certainly widespread activity but where are we building houses and for whom? It seems that the demand is chiefly in the Randstad and the new supply is mostly for the higher end of the market. House prices are going up to worrying levels, so increase in supply doesn't seem to have an effect on that - quite the contrary, I'd argue. Interestingly, due to housing demand, the Randstad appears to be expanding, engulfing neighbouring areas step by step. It'll be ironic if we end up returning to those areas that are currently being abandoned in favour of the Randstad but with Randstad housing prices. Surely some policies could start this return earlier than that, creating opportunities in currently less popular areas in this small, well-connected country.
Let's forget that for the moment and go to the inevitability of current building construction wastefulness and pollution. One could argue that in the same way that car drivers are asked to drive at a higher speed, the building sector could be asked to prioritize projects that require fewer nitrogen-emitting machines. It's probable, for example, that low-rise construction is less demanding in this respect than the high-rise developments favoured in many places. One could also use materials less demanding of heavy machinery for their production, transport and assembly. There are probably many such "soft" managerial solutions if one wants to reduce the nitrogen impact of building construction.
Above all, however, I fail to see why the building sector shouldn't modernize its production processes. In many respects, we're building in an outdated way that consumes too much and doesn't deliver superior products. Any comparison between buildings constructed in the last 100 years can demonstrate this stagnation. It's puzzling why we aspire to buildings that are environmentally neutral in use (in terms of energy consumption, CO2 emissions etc.) but we don't do the same with building construction. There's something wrong here and we're making it worse by summarily accepting current practices as inevitable or unchangeable.
So, let's keep asking ourselves what's hidden behind each question or statement, let's try to find the real problems that are behind them and see how these relate to each other. Quite often they require bold decisions and demanding strategies but the rewards can be much bigger and infinitely more secure.

The variable third dimension

The variable third dimension 

I've been rereading Gibson's The ecological approach to visual perception, enjoying his relentless debunking of many things we accept unquestioningly, mainly because everybody accepts, believes and propagates them. I've grown rather wary of statements that include "of course", especially if people listen to them and just nod in acceptance. Automatically I make a mental note to examine them more critically.
One of the concepts Gibson attacks with conviction is the third dimension in visual perception. He suggests that thinking of depth as the third dimension comes from erroneously believing that what we perceive is a two-dimensional projection, just like in a camera. He points out how unnatural it is to analyse visual perception with such projections, while in reality we constantly change our viewpoint by moving our heads and bodies. One could therefore say that once again metaphors and implementation mechanisms distort our thinking and cloud our understanding.
In architecture the third dimension is different: not depth but height. The difference actually stresses the similarity of both cases: both start from a two-dimensional projection as the reality. The floor plan is one of my favourite representations, a marvel of overview and economy. However, any design described by a floor plan is three dimensional. What the floor plan describes is just some aspects of the design. The rest should be in the designer's mind or other, complementary representations.
That's why I feel inclined to roll my eyes every time someone claims that this or that adds the third dimension to drawings or designs, that it liberates architecture from two-dimensional tyrannies. Such claims merely reveal fundamental misconceptions and lack of understanding of one's tools. That's the real tyrannies.

The con of computerization

The con of computerization

Like a con artist, a scientific area I know rather intimately is known by many names: computer-aided architectural design, design computing, computational design, digital architecture, digitization or digitalization … And like a con artist it keeps promising the same things to different people without delivering much in the end. I've come to consider this a primary characteristic of the area: rather than delivering, it shifts its attention to new clients. CAD was aimed at designers and engineers but it failed to become more than admittedly adaptable but nevertheless expensive drawing. BIM was sold to a wider market of largely unknowing yet enthusiastic and powerful stakeholders. BIM has yet to deliver but now we have digitalization and proptech, which appeal to artistic designers and property managers respectively. Fundamentally the area has been promising more or less the same in different guises.
Much of this is inherent in computerization: it's full of short-lived technologies, early market share acquisition, gadgeetering and wannahaves with little practical value beyond fashion and exhibition. My life is full of obsolete technologies -things that work perfectly well but have been superseded in what they do- and, even though I often discard as much as I can, they keep accumulating. Any individual, any area involved in computerization falls victim to the transience of computing technologies.
Unfortunately many areas make it even worse by their lack of historical memory. It is impressive how often I get a feeling of déjà-vu reading research proposals or reports: it is not only that new generations want to do the same stuff as there predecessors, they also appear ignorant of earlier attempts and especially failures. And if one points this out, the usual reaction is one of solipsistic dismissal: yes, others may have tried it already but we have better technologies and better brains, so we'll do it anyway. Unfortunately, new attempts generally fail in more or less the same way as previous attempts. Ironically many talk of machine learning but human learning appears to be ignored.
In conclusion, the whole thing feels like a con: promises without return, merely selling the idea to the naïve, the ignorant, the deluded. And the worst thing is that everybody seems to behave like a con artist.

Experienced architects

Experienced architects 

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a reunion of my fellow architecture students. Most of them I hadn't seen for almost forty years but they proved to be delightful company. It was as if seeing each other after so much time brought us back to our young selves. The scars of the intervening decades were there, openly visible and unashamedly discussed, but they had receded to the background.
Most of my fellow students had become professional architects and their views on architecture delighted me even more. Their realism without cynicism, attention to detail and overall performance, pride in the ability to develop environments that work and understanding of the role of architects made me realize that there might still be hope for our turbulent profession. The only pity is that these views are not heard often enough. We still pay too much attention to the opinions of architectural celebrities, while the architects' umbrella organizations appear to be lost somewhere between a glorious past and an imagined future.

Numbers and interpretations

Numbers and interpretations 

Some numbers trouble me, for example official statistics stating that building activity or use is responsible for this much of waste production in a country or that much of global energy consumption. They tend to be hefty percentages that automatically suggest that we should take action: buildings have to change in the way they are designed, constructed, maintained, used, demolished etc. 

The potential seems undeniable but are the specific actions justified? First of all, why do we assume that there are inefficiencies? It may be so that the large numbers relating to the built environment are inevitable, given our needs or habits. It's inconceivable that we stop heating our homes or workplaces but that's not all. Airconditioning, for example, used to be a luxury, even in cars, and nowadays it's more of a necessity. Do we know what the minima or maxima are, even if they exist? 

Secondly, who's going to change things and how? Existing disciplines are keen to take charge and innovate but at the same time they are the ones who perpetuated all the existing ills. Would we expect witch doctors to develop MRI scanning? Would we even train witch doctors to operate MRI scanners? 

Thirdly, is the change feasible? People are not stupid, so if there was something better to be done, they'd have done it some time ago. If the built environment is inefficient in some respects, this may be due to greater efficiencies in other aspects. 

In conclusion, let's dig deeper to find the real problems instead of jumping into arbitrary, unwarranted action. I have no doubt that we can improve the built environment but what is depicted as promise and progress does not always convince me in justification and hence also in potential. 

Smart cities

Smart cities

Last week I spent a couple of days mostly listening at a conference on smart cities. Some thoughts have lingered on; let's try to put them together.

Authorities

Many equate the city to the municipality or other local authority. That's surely not the case. Cities are complex ecosystems in which authorities certainly have a key role. Sometimes they lead, mostly they follow and generally they facilitate. The future of the city is not the content of a vision document by any authority. Such a document usually encapsulates ongoing developments and emerging trends. Its compilers naturally try to take credit for all that it contains and authorities use it to stipulate relevant policies. Still, the future may escape these constraints. 

Power 

Lots of talk about power, lots of assumptions about its structure and fixed character. A closer look at recent events suggests otherwise: the Dutch government had to make a U-turn on natural gas and it has been forced to reconsider policies with respect to CO2 and nitrogen emissions. In all cases, citizens and law courts suddenly came into the picture and caused the change. So much for power structures …

Citizenship

Cities are not just complex. They are also aspirational places, full of opportunities for social mobility and personal improvement. The effects go beyond individual lives - just witness the transition from cities as collection of slums to places of comfortable, gracious living. Citizens learn from each other, copy each other, envy each other. Citizenship should therefore cover all aspects of city life, not just the relations with authorities. Citizen action can have many goals and a varied scope. 

Smartness

Some claim that cities haven't really changed much for a number of centuries. This seems certainly true if one looks at e.g. buildings. Many modern cities include parts that were constructed even in the middle ages. Other aspects have changed a lot. Roads, for example, are completely different to what they used to be before the invention of motor vehicles or electric lighting. Physically they may have changed little but culturally they are quite different. Pavements, zebra crossings, traffic lights etc. make us behave differently to earlier users of the same environment. 

One could argue that the old cities are covered by overlays of new technologies and other cultural innovations. In this sense, mart technologies are the latest overlay to be added, still in development. There is, however, a difference between smart technologies and their predecessors (see https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-fourth-revolution-9780199606726?cc=nl&lang=en&), which becomes clear when we go beyond the gadgets of the smart technologies. There we see the data they produce and process, and that these data in turn drive the gadgets. The scale and detail of the data presents unprecedented opportunities for holistic, coherent descriptions of what takes place in cities. These descriptions could help understand and explain cities, explore scenarios more reliably than ever and predict the outcome of our actions with the specificity one has come to expect from modern science. 

Epilogue

So, does the smart city matter? To a large extent it doesn't. As any novel term, it tries to standardize rather diverse developments without being able to control them. The combination of social and technical disciplines it entails poses interesting questions but the answers are less so. Perhaps this is because each question is approached in isolation and with rather limited means, cutting the city phenomena into manageable but unconnected chunks. If there's one thing I've learned about smart cities, buildings and things is that they require considerable effort, persistence and transparent connections to their context. 

Educational limitations

Educational limitations

It's inevitable that I often speak to people working in education, not just because of my profession but also because there are so many people working in education. What strikes me in these talks is that for every optimist (usually young, usually technophile), there are five who bemoan the effects of progress and change.
One could say that education is inherently conservative. It transmits the past and so relies on established approaches and accepted knowledge. But claiming that the past -any past- was better or easier does nothing to help one understand what is happening now, let alone find promising solutions fit for a dynamic world.
Quite a few complaints are recognizable: skills that disappear and knowledge that is lost, while they matter for learning. It's not always clear whether they matter for learning or for specific forms of learning but, in any case, it is evident that there is a mismatch between what people should learn and how they could learn it.
My biggest worry in this respect comes from an ecological perspective: our species -any species- has developed so as to perceive and utilize information from the particular environment we happen to be (https://www.routledge.com/The-Ecological-Approach-to-Visual-Perception-Classic-Edition-1st-Edition/Gibson/p/book/9781848725782). We have become quite good at that but we are also quite good at adapting and augmenting our environments with technologies that range from motor vehicles to writing.
Some suggest that we are reaching the boundaries of our capacities in perceiving and processing information. While I'm reluctant to subscribe to simplistic notions of information overload, it is quite evident that e.g. motorized traffic may be too tough on our attention and working memory capacities (http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/).
The same may apply to education. It may be hampered too many subjects vying for attention in short times and disconnection from experience and utility. Educational approaches that used to work a few decades ago might be outdated, although from personal experience I would argue that they were already outdated.
In conclusion, we may be asking the wrong questions with respect to education today. We may have to reconsider our means and ends, or even accept that education cannot achieve or cover all that it is supposed to do, certainly not in the short periods of formal education.

Dangers of overproduction

Dangers of overproduction 

Association football (soccer) used to be a throwback, lagging behind wider societal and economic developments. Now its at the forefront of change, showing us what the future holds. One can learn a lot from the business of football; in many respects, it is far better organized and more professional than other industries. That's why I follow with interest the merry-go-round of every transfer period: the rumours, the gossip, the moves, the expenditure. It's fascinating to see how mobile football professionals have become and the conditions that trigger mobility, price increases and attraction.
This summer, I was particularly intrigued by the fate of established players: how many high achievers and earners have become surplus to requirements at their clubs, which are desperate to offload them but appear not to be able to do so. In many major clubs, there is at least one big name that has been sidelined with little hope of return or escape.
This used to be the fate of many young, talented players who left the club of their early successes too soon to join another, usually major club, where they encountered higher competition. We used to hear about so-and-so who had been full of promise but nowadays just warms the bench of a big stadium. That many established, successful players have joined them, often despite their astronomical wages, is a new phenomenon.
One reason for that is the overproduction of new talent that has to be sold on. Many lesser clubs rely on this not only for their finances but also for having an ambitious team, hungry for success and personal advancement. Every year we welcome new stars from all continents, players who join the ranks of the highly valued and highly paid. And these new stars are not as naïve and vulnerable as in the past. After all, most have the same agents and managers as the older stars. So, managers can choose on whom to rely and are less dependent on the established players in the club.
This could be construed as a positive development: a cleansing and rationalization of the footballing human resources. On the other hand, however, there is overproduction (and probably not just an epidemic of it), that pushes everything up: transfer prices and volumes, mobility and failure. There are just too many professional footballers at the moment and their number or wages are not expected to drop. If clubs continue to buy and sell at the current rate (and why shouldn't they), we are going to see even more high earners doing very little.
It would be interesting to compare this situation with the housing boom we are currently having in many countries. It appears that there is demand especially for housing and moreover of an increasingly higher quality. So, we are building like mad, driving prices up even for less desirable properties. There's no doubt that we are overproducing because we can. Conditions seem to justify it, just like in football. But what can be the consequences? If the football industry collapses, it will not have the same impact as similar trouble in the housing market.

Comfort, energy, behaviour

Comfort, energy, behaviour

There was an interesting news item a couple of days ago on the dangers of airconditioning (https://nos.nl/artikel/2295688-klimaatverbond-airco-s-frustreren-doelstellingen-klimaatakkoord.html). It's been the hottest June and July on record, so we're inevitably  aware of the importance of cooling buildings. It also makes sense that relevant agencies point out that until now in energy policies we'd been focusing only on the effects of heating in buildings and neglecting cooling, which increases energy consumption and its impact on the environment. Airconditioning is already too familiar, e.g. from cars, for us not to expect it in buildings, too.
What doesn't help is that heating and cooling are presented as distinct aspects and subsystems. The common parts are neglected, for example the role insulation plays. Do people understand that it keeps both the heat and the cold out of abuilding? And how about passive climatic solutions, stuff that doesn't require energy? When are we going to promote these and integrate them in the design of buildings? We're eager to reduce energy consumption but such solutions have yet to become prominent in planning and building codes.
Finally, it's not helpful that the news item puts emphasis on human behaviour, claiming that how people are going to use airconditioning is uncertain: they could use it to protect themselves from extreme temperatures but also to keep temperature at a comfortable 22 or 23 degrees. Putting the blame on users makes little sense, not just because people have different needs (not just preferences) but also because the environments we create for them should be inclusive, covering wide ranges of needs. The goal is that most people feel comfortable indoors, regardless of the temperature outdoors. Don't blame them for needing more than what current buildings offer, just make buildings perform better, using as little additional energy as possible.

Poor maintenace

Poor maintenance

Second NOS news item on this Monday: https://nos.nl/artikel/2287387-meer-geld-voor-achterstallig-onderhoud-bruggen-afsluitingen-dreigen.html
Once again private and public parties agree that the maintenance of the environment, in this case infrastructure, isn't up to scratch. Once again they call for investment and action. Once again I'm puzzled: as a citizen (which also means taxpayer) I've been investing heavily in such matters - or so I thought. Where did the money go? Was it wisely invested as it was supposed to? The public parties that so eagerly call for investment were to manage this investment, so also to take effective action. Did that happen?
I have few reasons to doubt the claim that maintenance has to improve. Every day I encounter something in the environment that requires attention. I also understand why the private parties call for action: they stand to gain business. What fails to convince me is the attitude of the public parties: they are supposed to be in the lead in such matters, not only executing orders but also evaluating the relevant actions and monitoring the situation. Did they do their job properly but failed to convince their political masters that further investment was necessary and so play it through their friends in industry and the mass media? This seems doubtful. Both politicians and civil servants seem to pay little attention to unglamorous matters like maintenance. Somehow it seems preferable to let things deteriorate and then come into the foreground as a saviour and initiator of grand projects. Poor, neglected, underrated maintenance …

Confused by abundance

Confused by abundance

It's getting a bit too much and at the same time too little with scientific literature. Once upon a time, we used to have just a small number of scientific journals in my area, a couple of conferences every year and a few books that established approaches. Nowadays there's an inflation of journals, conferences and even books that amount to little. Going through the latest batch of journal papers is often depressing: tiny steps taken with sound methods. Even worse are the wider effects of computerization: having all publications digitally available and websites on one's research is not enough. One also needs to have blogs, vlogs, YouTube channels, tweets, facebook and LinkedIn activity, followers and likes. Educational technologists keep reminding us how important all those things are for our careers and students (not to mention their own).
Are they really? Should I invest so much time in temporary, forgettable stuff? Should I repeat in one outlet what I've done in the others, merely in order to increase exposure? Am I a researcher or a PR person? Even if I could justify the time, I'm not convinced by the hyperactivity in this kind of dissemination and advertising. We are just wasting valuable resources by pretending that what we have to say deserves so much space. Even worse is that it becomes quite hard to find worthwhile information in the resulting mess. If only people tried to consolidate what they have to say in a definitive publication …

Modernity

Modernity

I was watching Hitchcock's North by northwest the other day, thoroughly enjoying the film, as well as the images of modernist architecture that abound in it. Twenty years after the film was released, the same morphology was still the most modern idiom, they one we were taught to respect and reproduce. That got me thinking and comparing the architecture with other designed things in the film. Some seemed rather out of sync. Men's suits in the period when the film was made were spartan and austere enough to match modernist architecture and furniture, significantly simplified from prewar men's fashions (ironically the stuff Loos appreciated). Women's clothes were closer to their overcomplicated prewar precedents, not yet attuned to the practicalities of the washing machine and the dry cleaner. Still, those early postwar women's fashions were considered pretty revolutionary at the time. Twenty years later both men and women dressed in even simpler manners, having abandoned hats and adopted denim (which seems equivalent to respectively avoiding pitched roofs and using béton brut in architecture). Modernism was still dominant, although there was widespread disappointment with its effects. Postmodernism was about to emerge, promoting eclectic, decorative forms, from which we have yet to recover. Things keep changing in ways that seem unpredictable, rendering our vision of modernity outdated almost as soon as they are expressed. Perhaps it's a good thing that we don't were the clothes or have the technologies one sees in science fiction imagery from the 1950s and 1960s. That stuff seems quite comical today. As for modernism, its redeeming feature (which is not unique to modernism) is simplification and the resulting attention for fundamental aspects of form and construction. Although it has not become the basis for all morphology, ait underlies a fair share of the things we make and use today, thankfully often without the dogmatic proscriptiveness of modernism.

Standards, protocols, technologies and purpose

Standards, protocols, technologies and purpose

Once again I've been busy with literature review on BIM and related matters, once again I found myself swimming in an ocean of technicalities, most of which seem to be supporting each other's existence: protocols, guidelines, standards - all presented as obvious solutions to fundamental problems, as key enablers of change. Sometimes what they say hits the nail on the head, e.g. when they suggest that BIM adoption is not enough, that it's all down to more extensive and intensive collaboration through BIM. More often, however, it's all about how to use some arbitrary facilities: how to be a correct user of some technologies (orthopraxy), how to conform to some standards.
That's not enough: there has to be some real purpose, something that justifies the time and effort put into mastering and utilizing all these facilities. I know that this runs contrary to current sociotechnological tendencies, that the reward is often just the ability to participate, but I still need some sense of purpose: why am I modelling a wall like this; what will be the outcome; which benefits are we expecting from collaboration and conformity. Without adequate answers, I fear I'm just jumping on a bandwagon that leads me nowhere. Even with a good seat and good company, I have better things to do elsewhere.

Cars in films

Cars in films

It's quite telling how American urban life in the 1950s and 1960s is depicted in films. It must have been a fascinating period for the physical environment, with so much becoming mature and widely available. Recent films seem to celebrate this and depict it in a fond manner. Cars, in particular, have rather gentle presence, being there and serving people well, in contrast to films on more recent times, where motorized traffic can be overwhelming - and not just in bigger cities. It seems that the past we want to remember can be quite different from what was experienced back then, just because the present is worse. Reversely, back then people may have exaggerated the ills of cars because they thought the past was better, more peaceful and tranquil. At least, there are enough films from the period that do not present cars in a positive manner, while horses and horse-drawn vehicles receive more sympathetic treatment. The past is always sanitized.

Citizens

Citizens 

I've been listening to a learned podcast about the future of the world and humanity: politicians, scientists and others seem to agree not just on the challenges that face us but also on the way forward. Either mildly pessimistic or moderately optimistic, they tend to focus on the citizen. Their argument is that if the citizen is aware of the problems and the effects of their choices, then improvement should be expected - even salvation.
I'm filled with doubts. Even if we managed to agree on a common approach, are we powerful enough as citizens? We're far from equal in any society. The one is a fearful employee and the other a powerful employer. Each has their own impact and between the individual citizen and the abstract group of society there are intervening layers composed of interests and hence related to power. How can we ignore them and believe that citizens as voters, consumers, taxpayers and the like can achieve enough just by their choices? Our choices are shaped by the intervening layers, either on purpose or by accident. It's the reciprocal relations between the individuals and these layers (which include ideologies, lifestyles, ethnicities etc.) that I'd focus rather than passing buck directly to citizens.

Data and information

Data and information

Any search for definitions in scientific literature never fails to puzzle me. In this case, I was looking for definitions of information. What I found was often relative to other terms like data, knowledge and intelligence. Interestingly, rather trying to elucidate the relations between terms, most definitions sought to make sharp distinctions, as well as to downplay one term and elevate another. In particular, data were often presented as raw, unorganized facts, permanent object properties, with little if any meaning - base stuff. Information, on the other hand, was elevated and refined: data processed and organized so as to be meaningful and useful. Frequent examples of information referred to statistical techniques, which clearly could purify data to the extreme.
Such definition reek of biases, e.g. that data are dumb or that knowledge is the proper accumulation of information. As a result, they fail to account for things we know about the world and our cognition, from the way information is communication between physical entities, such as a flower sending information to a bee's eyes, to how human creativity affects information. Coming against such definitions leaves me with more questions than answers. Should I therefore just trust the authority of the authors and impose their definitions on my perception of the world?
The answer can be found in rhetoric and its modes: pathos, ethos and logos. Pathos appeals to our emotions: let's save the environment, for example. Even with limited further explanation, it seems a good idea. In practice, however, it can lead to disasters, like saving one species from extinction and, by doing so, disturbing ecological balance to the detriment of more species. So, pathos needs to be accompanied by logos: good argumentation that helps us understand. Ethos relates to authority, such as an eminent professor telling stuff in a lecture. We tend to believe such authorities. It is important, however, that they also employ logos to convince us by explaining and illustrating their statements.
From the perspective of rhetoric, therefore, we have little to gain from definitions merely based on ethos or pathos. We also need to apply logos, both as developers and as receivers of definitions. Beware of definitions given in a couple of sentences, without further analysis and explanation.

Learning motivation

Learning motivation 

I've been using a smartphone app to learn a new language but I'm considering giving it up - the app, not learning the language. Already my frequency of use has dropped so low that the app is giving up on me: it no longer sends me regular motivational messages.
Ironically, it's exactly this motivational approach that's getting on my nerves. In general, I can live with the learning approach of the app and its limitations. I've nothing against the repetition of words and phrases or the abrupt introduction of new stuff that reduces me to guessing, although the further I go, the more evident it becomes that the underlying database of the app is rather limited. I can also tolerate the adverts, even when they interrupt the flow of a lesson. What irritates me is the constant game-like urging to achieve high scores, to compete for a high listing, the silly rewards and the nagging reminders.
My objection is that all that amounts to noise that distracts me from learning and discourages me from using the app. I'm not learning a language to show off by collecting virtual rewards; I want to be able to speak the language. My true reward would be the ability to read or listen to something and understand it. Why not treat me to an interesting short story or a humorous dialogue that I could appreciate with my current, limited appreciation of the language?
The same silliness extends to all kinds of learning, I fear. Rather than empowering the learners and letting them realize it, there are always some trivial pursuits that supposedly modernize learning but in fact distract from the purpose and effects of learning.

Metrics

Metrics 

"I've measured out my life with coffee spoons" T.S. Eliot, The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock

"Can't sing. Can't act. Balding. Can dance a little." reported RKO Radio Pictures screen test report on Fred Astaire 

Can we reduce potential, capacity and achievement to a few numbers, however meaningful and validated by scientific research? Does Messi's physique explain why he can be fascinating to watch? I'm sure that there have been earnest explanations of his success on the basis of some physical capacities but equally certain that they don't tell the whole story; they just isolate some features and promote them over others. How about Best? He managed rather little, yet he's remembered as one of the greatest. Which metrics explain his popularity?
Academic life abounds with metrics. Even worse, people take them seriously;  they start from some index of a researcher than from a publication that appeals to them. It's easy to play the game, just like in social media: recirculating trending stuff and connecting to mutual admiration groups does the trick. Having large numbers of PhD students who routinely cite you is quite handy.
My problem is that most heavily cited publications and highly indexed researchers hold little appeal as fundamental sources. They are useful as reference points, as indications of the state of the art, existing tendencies and dominant approaches but they tell little that's new, although this may be an unfortunate side effect of their success. In the end, I have to dig deep to find something I can really learn from. Its metrics are secondary; it's quality primary.