What I would do - a ramble

No matter what the benefits of aggregation, then, our new civilization is likely to need many cities of diverse sizes, each matched to the ability of the local environment to supply its needs. That means no megacities in the middle of the desert, like Phoenix, Arizona.

Another example of the 'easy targets' which i think everybody has at least come to accept. I always wonder about Phoenix, a city so incongruous, a city so misplaced and so ill-advised, how exactly did it get there and what does that tell you about us. I don't think recognizing that Phoenix is a problem (about 50 years too late) is something we should be all back-slappy about, the 20-20 hindsight of today's urban planner is no reason for optimism and no reason for urban planners to broadcast their new self-importance in today's long term development strategy.

"Hey, we know we made a huge blunder in the desert, but our recognition of an empty stable is why you should listen to us now."

We get it, it is bad, and anybody with half a brain should have known that long ago. Now you tell us you should trust us now?

While we're tinkering with the economy, we might want to move away from using GDP as a measure of success. When nations began focusing on GDP after the Second World War, it made sense to gauge an economy by its production of goods and services. "At that time, what most people needed was stuff. They needed more food, better building structures - stuff that was lacking - to make them happy," says Ida Kubiszewski of the Institute for Sustainable Solutions at Portland State University in Oregon. "Now times have changed. That's no longer the limiting factor to happiness."

On the other hand, increases in mobility, communication and technology - as well as the sheer size of the human population - mean that many of the world's problems are now truly global. "What if there were a newspaper that was published just once a decade? What is the macroheadline of our time?" asks Paul Raskin, president of the Tellus Institute, a think tank in Boston.

boom boom boom boom

From SFGATE: (03-28) 12:15 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Shoppers in San Francisco's Union Square got a shock this morning when a manhole cover on Grant Avenue blew off and sailed into the air. No one was injured by the blast, which was caused by the failure of an underground power cable at about 9:45 a.m., said Brian Swanson, spokesman for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. The cover landed a few feet from the hole, he said. Grant Avenue between Post Street and Campton Place is still closed. No power was lost, but repairs to the cable are expected to continue until tonight. - Will Kane

And it's not the first one either. PG&E is not having a good time of it recently. I'm surprised there is not a google app of exploding manholes, a free walking tour of exploding manholes, or the ever popular hipster treasure hunt of exploding manholes.

Revit Architecture 2011

I should probably go and get certified.

It shouldn't take too much effort, I'll need to go look up a few things and practice a little for the professional section of the exam. And then I should be good to go.

Reminder

Another Whine, You Know While I'm Here

Still learning about pivot tables, do we spent an hour working on pivot tables or do we spend 5 minutes on pivot tables, 40 minutes on formating a report because its cool if the date is right justified, and 15 minutes talking about the teacher's dog?

Training and a Note to Self

I'm sitting in a class at the local city college, keeping my MS Access toasty warm, watching teachers teach and students study.

I've done my own bit of teaching software applications, not Access, but fairly complex programs to a wide range of levels of users, not completely unlike this scenario. I hope I do not teach in this way.

As an example of what I would consider a poor method of learning is the kind of rote intructions we are following with the regard to pivot tables. I know how to create a pivot table in Access and Excel but the majority of the class do not. I'm nort sure the majoroty of the class know what a pivot table is or what it does and the teacher is doing nothing to explain.

The teacher simply instruts the students to go to database tools, view the relationships, add the junction and additional tables, create the links between primary keys, but doesn't explain why, she simply keeps repeating that this is difficult stuff.

Obviously its difficult(-ish), but there's no need to make it more difficult to remember steps by not explaining why these steps are taken. There is no way to better way to prevent students from missing steps than explaining why a step needs to be taken and what the effects will be on future steps should a step be missed.