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Sustaining Ability

How do we survive, thrive and evolve together? Count the ways with me. I'm Steve Goldman.

Find me here, posting/talking about public policy ideas, corporate responsibility / sustainability practices, beautiful things, great writing and communications tactics until I make something new.

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Posts I Like

Photo via humansofnewyork

Glanced next to me on the subway. Saw this.

Photo via humansofnewyork
Photoset via crisperthanthou

oldschoolfrp:

Bouncy Bubble Beverage, It’s The Mandatory Thing!

(Paranoia RPG cup by West End Games, provided to cons ca 1990.)

I would...

Photoset via crisperthanthou
Photo via helloyoucreatives

A reader’s project

Musicians have a hard time remembering what they played when they’re in the “groove”, which makes transcribing original music...

Photo via helloyoucreatives
Photoset via helloyoucreatives

jeremyben:

Volkswagen City Emergency Brake : For when you get distracted

Advertising Agency : adam&eveDDB, UK

Photoset via helloyoucreatives
Post via tylerweaver

My weekend in three wonderful words...

She

said

yes.

Post via tylerweaver

Who I Follow

(Source: Garfield without Garfield)

theparisreview:

Nature harbors no opinions;
it is we who think of her.
We make sentience

of her indifference, and we communicate
by engineering, adjectives, and awesome
violence. When I arrive

at the island, my soul
will harbor no opinions.
I’ll stop my car

where sea-air and sand-light
become one perception,
all the world my affections, stitched together

by a muster of billboards, the dizzying gulls,
and a drawbridge open in prayer.

—Alan Michael Parker, from “The Island”
Art Credit Margarita Georgiadis

millionsmillions:

Families and their groceries from around the world.

The Great German Energy Experiment (MIT Technology Review)

Germany has set itself up for a grand experiment that could have repercussions for all of Europe, which depends heavily on German economic strength. The country must build and use renewable energy technologies at unprecedented scales, at enormous but uncertain cost, while reducing energy use. And it must pull it all off without undercutting industry, which relies on reasonably priced, reliable power.

“In a sense, the Energiewende is a political statement without a technical solution,” says Stephan Reimelt, CEO of GE Energy Germany. “Germany is forcing itself toward innovation. What this generates is a large industrial laboratory at a size which has never been done before. We will have to try a lot of different technologies to get there.”

Germany is working to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 and by 80 percent by 2050, all the while taking nuclear power out of its energy mix and replacing it on a massive buildout of solar and wind capacity.

futurist-foresight:

This algae-powered building in Hamburg is truly green!

futurescope:

The World’s First Algae-Powered Building Opens in Hamburg

via inhabitat:

The world’s first algae-powered building just opened in Hamburg! Dubbed the BIQ House, the project features a bio-adaptive algae facade and it will serve as a testing bed for sustainable energy production in urban areas and self-sufficient living buildings. International design firm Arup worked with Germany’s SSC Strategic Science Consultants and Austria-based Splitterwerk Architects to develop the BIQ House, which launched as part of Hamburg’s International Building Exhibition.

[read more] [IBA Hamburg] [BIQ House]

(via humanscalecities)

unconsumption:

A number of converted shipping containers are going to be offered as temporary accommodation for homeless people in Brighton, UK. Planning permission has been secured by the Brighton Housing Trust for five years to help ease the city’s housing need.

BBC News reports that the thirty six studio homes, which will be linked by walkways, are going to be installed in a former scrap metal yard.

More: Shipping Containers Repurposed To House The Homeless | Design on GOOD

Our archive of container-related projects is here.

explore-blog:

Pete Seeger

To answer the question “How can a city control its Street Art?” Let’s look at an analogy in a different field: wildfires. In wild areas in Spain, the government adopts a zero-tolerance policy. However, the forest ecosystem depends on fires for its well-being. To attempt to suppress forest fires allows vegetation to grow unchecked, so in the dry summer months, the smallest ground fires can quickly spread to the canopy, where it becomes an unstoppable inferno. The right policy is to provoke controlled fires which allows for appropriate stratification, that is, layering of the woods so that a ground fire stays a ground fire. If a zero-tolerance policy is adopted towards Street Art, undeveloped tagging will go on the increase. Professional artists will move to other countries. Unrest, especially among the budding Street artists, will grow.

Ian Currie on street art culture in Spanish cities. (via thisbigcity)

Biomimicry indeed.

humansofnewyork:

“Why were you homeless?”

“It just got to a point where my mom couldn’t maintain anymore. The sad part was that it was during high school. So I had to keep it a secret. Cause, you know, it’s high school.”

"I learned a great lesson from Michael Mann years ago. I was working on a script for him that became Hancock. It was a rewrite I was doing of someone else’s script, and I said to Michael in one of the first meetings, “What is this about? What’s the theme of it? What do we want to impart to the audience on a subconscious level?” He just looked at me kind of blankly and said, “Vince, come up with a good character, tell the story, and keep the audience engaged. Themes are for professors with patches on their elbows.” I learned not to get hung up on the subtext. Just pay attention to what’s going on under your nose, and the rest will take care of itself." — Vince Gilligan on the end of Breaking Bad →

I don’t agree. We build characters, push them forward, and take them somewhere. We guide the journey.

But the theme is the “why” we want people to (hopefully) walk away with. You think Vince Gilligan doesn’t have ideas he wants to impart to his audience about power corrupting? About the hubris of destroying your family while trying to keep it together?

That thoughtfulness is what drives a creator like Gilligan to set up parallels between characters’ arcs, to linger on people as they make good choices or bad, to leave a moment dead silent or pick perfect counterpoint music to echo what’s just happened.

There’s craft and and there’s art. Both are born of choices, but the latter requires a little extra ambition.

There’s craft and there’s art.