Taking back the world: one mall at a time

via Arthur, posted at Spectre:
http://spectregroup.wordpress.com/2010/05/27/mall-farming/

The failure and abandonment of shopping malls throughout the country has a bright side: smart communities and businesses are turning them into greenhouses for organic agriculture. Talk about a nice urban hack. (Hack, as in its original sense of retooling something for a better purpose.)

If this is the way the post-apocalypse looks, count me in.

The Galleria Mall in Cleveland, Ohio is leading the way by growing organic food for mall patrons and local restaurants. The mall has transformed the lost retail space within its glass-top confines into a gigantic, organic-food greenhouse. The idea sprouted when the mall’s marketing and events coordinator Vicky Poole teamed up with Jack Hamilton, a business owner in the Galleria. Together they began operating Gardens Under Glass, a hydroponic garden in the Galleria at Erieview in downtown Cleveland. The project is funded by a $30,000 start-up grant from the Civic Innovation Lab.

Life Inc: The Paperback

Here’s the cover for the paperback of Life Inc. Don’t get too excited, it’s not slated for release until January, so we’ll all have to make do with hard covers until then.

The book is in its sixth printing, which means there’s a nice, constant stream of interest in the ideas. I am planning some extremely strange media for when this edition comes out, so stay tuned for that. As for the title, we went with the original and a new subtitle. So the winners of the title contest and free books are the people who said to leave the title as it is! (I’ll email you when there’s a book to send.)

Believe it or not, the book I’m writing right now - Program or Be Programmed – will most likely be on the shelves before the Life Inc paperback. It’s going extremely well, though it’s the first time my writing process is being characterized by the way I can eliminate unnecessary ideas rather than the way a million related, parallel thoughts come into my head at any moment.

So it’s going to be a short book, which is probably perfect for our attention-deficit net-distracted culture. I’ve just moved the whole thing over to the writing program I use for comics, an outliney word processor called Scrivener which promotes more modular thought processes.

Also, got a number of great people volunteering to get this site in better shape. There are about six years of missing articles, and the last year or so of missing talks. We will have that up before P or B P comes out.

Finally, I’ve started an Institute, looking at memetics and society. It seems to be a better path than teaching at universities – at least for now. There will be some opportunities for study and work next year, but I have to get my book done first.

Many Thoughts

Sorry I haven’t been posting very much. Many things going on in my life and professionally that are keeping me on the road and offline.

My backlogged thoughts in no particular order:

I am writing Program or Be Programmed as a book. I will be done soon. Weeks, not months. Recent events in the Facebook and Apple universes have convinced me more than ever that programming is our era’s equivalent of literacy. Whether corporations are controlling the direction of technology, or whether technology is an emergent entity doing this on its own, our only option is to participate in its unfolding by participating in its programming.

On the terror front, I do not understand why the Times Square Bomber required funding.

Obama recently told a college audience that they’re being distracted by their iPads, and that they need to become aware of who is programming the devices they use. He is right.

I have a busy travel schedule coming up and will do my best to get it posted on this site. I desperately need a redesign and can barter if you are interested.

Next appointment is here. I will be back soon.