I will be speaking at the Cusp Conference, "a conference about the design of everything." The roster in 2008 was amazing, and so far the 2009 lineup looks awesome, including Lynda Barry, Constance Adams, Harmut Esslinger, Shakeela Hassan, among many others. I am honored to be asked to speak at such an energizing conference, and thanks to Dave Mason for inviting me. More on what I'll be speaking on soon. Stay tuned.
]]>Click here to download the .pdf poster for the public lecture.
Download my presentation slides here (.pdf 36MB)
Click here for streaming, or here to download the podcast from iTunes.
Craig Newmark was part of the kickoff crew. The Sunlight peeps are amazing. The barcamp format works pretty great.
Presenting YOD to some very smart government transparency and citizen advocacy peeps. Feedback ranged from very tough to very useful.
Presenting at TOPP lunchtime visiting lecture series. What TOPP does is amazing...you should check them out.
Makers of death vans say they save money for poor localities that would otherwise have to pay to construct execution facilities in prisons or court buildings. The vans ensure that prisoners sentenced to death can be executed locally, closer to communities where they broke the law.
That "deters others from committing crime and has more impact" than executions carried out elsewhere, Kang says.
[thx to Jay Stallard]
]]>I've been learning about "Participatory Economics" (and trying to figure out how I feel about it, but more on that later) and stumbled across this eye-poppingly compelling image of the future (possible? probable?) in a detailed analysis of the economics of Star Trek:
Every year, in a process running from November 1st to November 30th, Federation citizens indicate, via computer terminal, what and how much of various goods and services they would like to consume in the following year. At the same time, citizens also propose how much work they would like to accomplish in the following year. Briefly, this allows for both "supply" and "demand" to be known, from which is generated a list of prices for various goods and services for the coming year. These prices are generated by publicly accepted algorithms, and other factors, such as the environmental and social cost of producing a good, are factored into the generated prices. Thus prices in the federation reflect the "social opportunity cost" of a good. This is defined as a price that indicates how much society is losing out by producing this good, where it could have produced other goods, and have been less abuse to the environment, etc.
The generation of prices and the submittal of work and consumer desires is an iterative process. In the first round, (ending Nov 14) Individual consumers and workers submit the number of hours they with to work in the next year, as well as the amount of goods and services they wish to consume, from simplified lists of available products. At the same time, neighborhood, regional, national, planetary and interplanetary consumer councils form and submit consumption proposals (For things like swimming pools, more ships for starfleet, terraformation of new planets, etc.). Worker's councils also submit proposals for how much they wish to work, what improvements they would like to make in the workplace, how many of a particular good they wish to produce. All these proposals are then summed up by computer and indicative prices are generated.
Source: PolitiFact Twitter: @politifact
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Fellow designers and non-designers, I heartily urge you to read the 10 proposals of the U.S. National Design Policy, organized and advanced by my dear friend and colleague Dr. Elizabeth Tunstall, and to write an official policy endorsement. Here's mine:
]]>I, Gong Szeto, of Santa Fe, NM, support the U.S. National Design Policy Initiative and the Redesigning America's Future ten policy proposals. Design by definition seeks to make complex matters accessible and desirable to the public. Design in its myriad forms and types of applications has been proven to be a key factor in competitive advantage in the private sector and if employed to serve the people of the United States, will reach new heights in effectiveness for people of all walks of life. The United States of America needs to unearth and explode the massive talents of American design practitioners and focus them on the challenges of this country. Lastly, design is not inherently partisan. Its virtue as an overall set of disciplines is an innate compassion for humanity and an eternal optimism for its prosperity, creative nourishment, and survival.
Senators Jeff Bingaman (D) and Tom Udall (D), and Representatives Matin Heinrich (D), Harry Teague (D), and Ben Lujan (D) are my state representatives and I pledge to do my part in advancing the goals of the U.S. National Design Policy in my state of New Mexico as well as on the national level.
Gong Szeto, Designer
Santa Fe, NM
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