Endless Knots

Re: Dymaxion Man - The New Yorker and me

It's always a happy day for a writer when the words "The New Yorker" and one's name appear on the same page, especially when it's the magazine itself bearing the logo. In this issue, my Letter to the Editor appears in response to Dymaxion Man, a profile of Bucky Fuller (link takes you to the index of my many posts about Bucky and Margaret Fuller) by Elizabeth Kolbert. This was my first time out sending such a letter to The New Yorker so I hadn't before experienced the magazine's prodigious fact-checking procedure.

Here's the tiny behind-the-scenes: On Tues of this past week, I received an email saying my letter was under consideration, asking if I was OK with their edits. Frankly, I'm not that picky when it comes to editors choosing my words. My rule on this: Unless they've turned me into a liar or a lunatic, I go with what the editor suggests. They asked me to call or write. Those who know me can guess what I did.

Yes, I called (as soon as I was able to duck out of the workshop I was giving for a few moments) and suggested only that it be more explicit about Bucky's influence on the field of chemistry. (Three chemists shared the Nobel in 1985 for their discovery of the buckminsterfullerene, a new class of molecules, which is explained in full, I now see, by Richard Wolfson's letter, the one that appears before mine.) Next, I received an email asking for detail around two "facts" in the letter, which fortunately I was able to produce as soon as I returned home. Then came the email saying mine would appear today. Which it does. Thank you, New Yorkers, especially Scott.

Welcome, Adele Josephine Kader

Leigh, Jake, and Adele Kader, 7 lbs, 4 oz, Sat, June 28, 2008, ~ 3 AM

Connected to our family
since daughter Miranda and Leigh attended college together

It's the sociology, telecommuters

The New York Times wisely runs a full page of op-eds today on the impact of high gas prices, "Is Your Tank Half Empty or Half Full?", but none deals with the biggest problem introduced by telecommuting: How to really work effectively at a distance. The Times is not alone in headlining telecommuting (well, in truth, only one piece in today's paper, "Pajama Life" by Nicole Benson Goluboff, actually even touches on this). I've seen dozens of articles about the sudden move to telecommuting in the past few weeks, dozens. Having covered this topic in rather excruciating detail over many years, let me leave it at this for now: Our old slogan, "90% people, 10% technology," remains true. It's not about bandwidth, whiz-bang software, or mobile devices. The magic is in the sociology. Keep four things in mind, correct as necessary, and your telecommuting will work just fine: People, Purpose, Links, and Time.

Wild weather

It began as a beautiful day, sunny, if not a bit hot, a good one for that early morning quick weeding. Soon, the clouds came in, nothing to be concerned about, it would seem, and then around 2 in the afternoon, thunder, lightning, wind, torrential rain, street floods, and suddenly a crash. It was all over in less than half an hour.

Remember my gorgeous peonies? They're under this huge branch, one of two that broke loose from an old maple in our backyard, each in excess of thirty feet that fell from the back of the house to the front, grazing the roof. Another tree in the back of the yard toppled onto a neighbor's house and was caught on an open jalousie window. Across the street, another huge maple, uprooted, is now "resting" on the side of our neighbors' house. Microbursts, they said, and some other neighbors lost power.

Dog Belle Lipnack

Perhaps, like me, you were surprised to learn that dogs (cats too and, for all I know, gerbils, reptiles, and kangaroos) now can get health insurance. Granted it's not Tufts PPO or Blue Cross but if you have an old ailing dog, dang if it isn't worth it. So poor Ms. Belle, our 13-year-old Golden Retriever, is suffering from certain afflictions endemic to old age, namely arthritis. And she's got an underactive thyroid, which is helped by medication. The first round of NSAIDS to treat the arthritis helped a bit but they are tough on her old gut. So now we've moved to Tramadol, which must be procured from, yup, the local pharmacy.

When I went to pick up the prescription yesterday, they said I'd have to wait a bit.

"Something wrong?" I asked.

"No, it's just that Belle isn't in the computer," said the pharmacist.

(Good thing, I thought. Belle literally IN the computer might be trouble.)

Well, now she is and her Rx bottle came marked "Dog Belle Lipnack."

Team cooking in pictures

Team cooking, a photo essay

My team

 

Our captain

 

Minestrone

TEAM IR

 

Chef Scott Gambone (his idea)

 

Artful starter

Judges at work

 

Teams' work

 

At our places

 

Team cooking

Consider this for your next team-building event: a cook-off. I'm doing a workshop tomorrow on teams - both face-to-face and virtual and as prelude to the day (and as part of a leadership program that the participants are enjoying) tonight's activity was this: People formed into teams, donned their chef's jackets, toques, and aprons, and were presented with tables full of ingredients, butane burners, a wide assortment of knives and cooking implements, and plates for presentation. The first few moments were spent with teams preparing their menus - and figuring out what ingredients other than those on the tables in front of them that they might need. Then the clock was set for an hour and off they went.

My team swung into action with an ambitious menu of bruschetta, melon wrapped in prosciutto, scallops seviche (my sole contribution to the menu), minestrone, beef tenderloin topped with blue cheese, and...memory fails - a nice concoction of veggies and something with veal. And fruit with whipped cream. We didn't win (a panel of four chefs from the hotel served as judges) but we sure had fun.

The cook-off is the brainchild of Scott Gambone, executive chef of the Ritz Carlton at Reynolds Plantation in Georgia, 75 miles east of Atlanta. Delighted to learn that Scott recently held the same position at the Ritz Carlton in Boston - which gave us a chance to trade famous-names-in-Boston-cooking stories. Great exercise, Scott. I'd recommend it for any team-building event. For those of us who hate heights, a lot better than bungee jumping.

NB: I'll add some pictures to this post once I get home. Forgot the cord that attaches my camera to my computer. Bad me, bad.

The great reseau

Here's one for the history books, especially for those among us interested in how we got to the point that I can be sitting here in my study typing and you can be wherever you are and both of us are learning about this incredible, deep-history view of the web. Alex Wright has a great piece in June 17, 2008, NY Times, "The Web Time Forgot." Not to be missed. Click now or forever hold your view of when the web really started:

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.”

Sun's good results from telecommuting

Ted Samson has an instructive and fact-filled report in InfoWorld on Sun's success in sending workers home, "Sun, employees find big savings from Open Work telecommuting program." This is the emblem of the article I want to just steal and post here but alas, you must click. You MUST, it's that worth reading if you're in the ranks of those who make such decisions or in the ranks of those who'd like to see such decisions made. Thanks to Stella for seeing this one first:

Sun found that its U.S. employees worked at home an average of 2.1 days per week in 2007. In doing so, they saved an average of $870 per year in gasoline (back when it was just $3.26 a gallon) and around $1,770 dollars in wear and tear on their car (by driving 3,700 fewer commute miles). They were also spared -- get this -- 104 hours of commute time, which translates to around two and half weeks. This is based on the finding that Sun U.S. employees have an average commute of 40 miles round-trip per day.

Presumably those savings make up for the fact that employees do need to pay a negligible amount -- less than $20 per year, according to Sun -- for the energy required to work from home, including heat.

Sun also found that employees used less energy at home than they do at the office. "Office equipment energy consumption rate at a Sun office was two times that of home office equipment energy consumption, from approximately 64 watts per hour at home to 130 watts per hour at a Sun office." Contributing to the difference: Office employees tend to use workstations and monitors while more home employees use laptops as well as Sun Ray thin clients, both of which require less power than traditional desktop PC/monitor combos.

A perfect summer evening at Solstice Summer Writers' Conference

Regular Endless Knotters know that I'm a great fan of Solstice Summer Writers' Conference. And not just because my friends are involved. Three years ago, I attended the inaugural session of the conference; nine months later, I'd finished a novel. Rocket fuel for writers. Among the gifts of the conference, the evening reading series. Here's the line-up for this year's conference, which begins this coming Sunday at Pine Manor College, Chestnut Hill, Mass, just outside Boston. Choose any evening and you'll be amply rewarded. Here's the press release:

THE SOLSTICE SUMMER WRITERS’ CONFERENCE ANNOUNCES ITS JUNE READING SERIES

[Chestnut Hill, MA, May, 2008]  Pine Manor College announces its annual Solstice Summer Writers’ Conference Reading Series. All readings begin at 7:00 p.m. unless *otherwise noted, and are held in the Founder’s Room of Pine Manor College, located at 400 Heath Street in Chestnut Hill. Copies of the authors’ books will be available for sale after all readings; cash-bar receptions will follow the readings on June 22, 27, & 28. *Plenty of free parking!

Sunday, June 22 at 7:30 p.m.  Francisco Aragón & Julia Glass
Francisco Aragón (author of Puerta del Sol; editor of The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry) & Julia Glass (author of The Whole World Over and 2002 National Book Award winner Three Junes).                           

Monday, June 23 at 7:00 p.m.  Cleopatra Mathis & Tor Seidler
Cleopatra Mathis (author of White Sea and What to Tip the Boatman? winner of the 2001 Jane Kenyon Award) & Tor Seidler (author of the forthcoming Gully’s Travels; Publisher’s Weekly Pick of the List The Wainscott Weasel; and Mean Margaret).

Tuesday, June 24 at 7:00 p.m   Meg Kearney & Steven Huff
Director Meg Kearney (author of An Unkindness of Ravens and The Secret of Me) & Steven Huff (author of the forthcoming A Pig in Paris and More Daring Escapes).

Thursday, June 26 at 7:00 p.m.  Patricia Spears Jones, Lee Hope, & Eric Gansworth
Patricia Spears Jones (author of Femme du Monde and The Weather That Kills), Lee Hope (Pushcart Prize-nominee and winner of the Theodore Goodman Award for Fiction), & Eric Gansworth (author of Indian Summers and Mending Skins, winner of the 2006 PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles National Literary Award).

Friday, June 27 at 3:15 p.m.   Brenda Prescott & Tanya Whiton
Program Administrator Tanya Whiton (published in literary journals including Northwest Review and Crazyhorse 63) & Brenda Prescott (published in literary journals including Crab Orchard Review and The Louisville Review).

Friday, June 27 at 7:00 p.m.   Marina Budhos & Stephen Dunn
Marina Budhos (author of The Professor of Light and House of Waiting; Rona Jaffe Award winner) & Stephen Dunn (author of fourteen collections of poetry, including Everything Else in the World and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Different Hours).

Saturday, June 28 at 7:00 p.m.  Barbara Hurd & Dennis Lehane
Barbara Hurd (author of Walking the Wrack Line: On Tidal Shifts and What Remains and Entering the Stone: On Caves and Feeling Through the Dark, a Library Journal Best Natural History Book of the Year) & Dennis Lehane (author of the forthcoming The Given Day, Mystic River, Shutter Island, and Gone Baby, Gone).