Elemental

These are my links for December 11th through December 17th:

• Is global warming unstoppable? – Another nutty theory or not?: "Garrett says his study's key finding "is that accumulated economic production over the course of history has been tied to the rate of energy consumption at a global level through a constant factor."
  That "constant" is 9.7 (plus or minus 0.3) milliwatts per inflation-adjusted 1990 dollar. So if you look at economic and energy production at any specific time in history, "each inflation-adjusted 1990 dollar would be supported by 9.7 milliwatts of primary energy consumption," Garrett says….
  "Economists think you need population and standard of living to estimate productivity," he says. "In my model, all you need to know is how fast energy consumption is rising. The reason why is because there is this link between the economy and rates of energy consumption, and it's just a constant factor.""
• Kevin McCloud is a Big Hit at TGR/RIBA Conference – "The challenge of combining sustainability and conservation issues were thoroughly debated at the conference with input from conservation officers, architects and engineers. Some questioned the need to debate this issue when there are ‘only’ 380,000 historic buildings in the UK – perhaps we should be concentrating on the many thousands of non-historic buildings that are below current standards of sustainability.
  Others wanted to discuss what should be tackled first and what makes most carbon sense. The contrast between the photovoltaic panels at the nearby Heelis project costing £450,000 and only contributing 10-15% of the building’s electrical needs and Kevin McCloud’s modest but effective eco-refurb of a terraced house in Manchester reducing carbon emissions by over 30% but only costing just over £2,000 could not have been sharper."
• ‘Sustainability’ is a dangerous mirage – Building Design – Owen's on top form: "It’s the very term “sustainability”, which has enabled even Dubai to present itself as if it is touching lightly upon the earth, that is at fault. What exactly is it that we want to “sustain”? Humanity? Nature? Capitalism? As a slogan it’s as awful as “save the planet”. The planet is safe, it’s we who are in danger.
  The problem with the rhetoric of sustainability is that, as a buzzword, it serves to fill the ethical void in the apocalyptic capitalism of the last 30 years. So, we get sustainable supermarkets, green-roofed car parks, carbon neutral desert cities, all of which are a kind of architectural offsetting as moronic as its economic equivalent. A hundred new industrial towns can have the mirage of Dongtan projected onto them. The recent demise of the British “eco-towns” is the pettier version of the same failure."
• Controlling dew point – 2009-11-19 10:00:00 | Consulting-Specifying Engineer – Excellent article (ASHRAE/US bias) which explains the principles of designing to dew point rather than relative humidity: "Not so long ago, HVAC designers did not have to be especially concerned with humidity. With plenty of cheap energy, the industry could afford to wallop the air with heavy-duty cooling to dry it, then fry it with reheat to keep it from freezing the occupants."
• Building4Change : European research gives blueprint for social sustainability – "Tools, instruments and metrics to foster sustainable communities are biased towards environmental sustainability, a European research project has found. The research, carried out by Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development, provides a blueprint for policymakers on incorporating social sustainability into European urban redevelopment initiatives.
  The report recommends greater integration of socially responsible investment and local authority indicators, alongside increased investment in data gathering to improve understanding of social sustainability. It highlights valuable monitoring systems such as the FootprintR sustainable investment policy, created by developer Igloo"
• Abu Dhabi to set school building eco standard – Building – "A new sustainable building standard is being developed for Abu Dhabi's schools.
  The system is being drawn up by Estidama, the organisation behind the emirate's local sustainability code for the the Abu Dhabi Education Council."
• Futerra Sustainability Communications – leading thinking – Another great guide to communicating sustainable futures from Futerra: "In this guide we argue that climate change is no longer a scientist's problem, it's now a salesman's problem. We call upon government spokespeople, climate campaigners and business advertisers to stop selling visions of hell. Instead we must all create and sell a new vision of a' low carbon heaven'.
  This guide is a new approach for us. Most of our previous thought leadership has been very practical – this is stronger, more opinioned and more controversial. There's still a lot of guidance and original research. But we're not pulling our punches."
  From the report: "Dates, percentages and figures come in action plans, not visions. A 20% cut by 2020 isn’t a vision, it’s a target. Put all the targets together and imagine what the world would be like if we met and exceeded them: that’s a vision."
• Land Securities chief executive accuses Government of lacking courage on sustainability – Modern Building Services – "On the need to dramatically improve the poor energy efficiency of the UK’s existing building stock, he said, ‘Unlike in the USA, the UK always seems to have a reluctance to use carrots and sticks in the tax system to drive behaviour and redirect capital investment. There is good evidence that tax allowances change investment decisions — and these allowances can be temporary.
  ‘I would certainly advocate a much higher level of Enhanced Capital Allowances for investment in energy-saving plant and building adaptations. However, I think the simplest route may be to use the property rates system to reward those who occupy energy-efficient buildings .’"
• Leeds given more power over regeneration – Building – "Rosie Winterton, minister for local government, has signed a programme to give Leeds and its regions more power over housing, planning and regeneration.
  The Leeds City Partnership pilot programme brings together 11 councils, regional partners and central government to create a devolved housing and regeneration board."
• Building4Change : New plant produces energy by mixing fresh water and sea water – "World's first osmotic plant opens, but commercial version will not be available for several years.
  European renewable energy producer Statkraft this month opened the world's first power plant generating energy by mixing fresh water and sea water in Norway.
  The energy is based on the natural phenomenon of osmosis, the transport of water through a semi-permeable membrane. When fresh water meets salt water, substantial amounts of energy are released, which can be used to generate power.
  At the osmotic power plant, fresh water and salt water are guided into separate chambers, divided by an artificial membrane. The salt molecules in the sea water pull the fresh water through the membrane, increasing the pressure on the sea water side. The pressure equals a 120 metre water column, or a significant waterfall, and can be used in a power generating turbine."
• Design Activism: Coming across chemicals: in plastics and in schools – "the main problem with the chemicals is that not enough of them have been properly tested for health effects, and the result is that we only regulate chemicals that we know about. A classic example is BPA, a chemical additive found in bottled water containers, baby bottles and the like. Last year mounting evidence about adverse health effects from BPA caused it to be withdrawn from the market.
  The long term solution to this problem is hatching in the Green Chemistry movement, which is aiming to put the burden of proof of safe chemicals on the manufacturers. Currently a chemical is innocent until proven guilty, however, there are simply too many chemicals and, based on the evidence we do have, no reason to assume their innocence. Proposed green chemistry policies also recognize that health problems might arise for interactive, multiple exposures."
• Ben Casnocha: The Blog: 10 Easily Implementable Life Problem-Solving Strategies – Some great thoughts on procrastination from Ben: ""Can I fail at this?" It's like Raymond Chandler said: there is no success without the possibility of failure. Therefore, something I can't fail at is also something I can't succeed at. I can fail at conducting an interview, writing an essay or making a video. I can't fail at meandering around the internet in search of "neat stuff to read." In a recent tweet, I defined procrastination "the temporary displacement of tasks at which it is possible to fail with tasks at which it is not possible to fail." I suspect I'm less far off the mark than ever, especially regarding why procrastination is not a productive tendency."
• ippr – Institute for Public Policy Research – Left foot forward – "Increased birth rates and an ageing population, coupled with a fall in net immigration into the UK means that natural change, births and deaths – is now responsible for a greater component of the UK’s population increase, rather than immigration.
  But what should a progressive UK population policy look like? It will have to deal with issues such as family size, retirement age, population distribution across the UK, as well as immigration control.
  Attempts to restrict immigration to a zero net immigration level… will have major economic consequences. At present younger immigrants make a greater fiscal contribution than do the older UK-born population. Big restrictions on labour immigration would result in higher taxes, among other outcomes. Fiscal deficits could be alleviated if everyone worked longer… Family impacts on population size, but how would British adults react to being told to stop at two children? What incentives could be offered to families who stop at two?"

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These are my links for August 15th through August 19th:

• Track LEED v3 Credits in Project Management Software – It can only be a matter of time before we see a BREEAM focused product like this? :"Tracking LEED credits is a document-intensive process. Just ask any experienced LEED Accredited Professional (AP). Submittal documentation includes drawings, receipts, product spec sheets, photos, commission plans and more. Adding to the clutter, numerous project members will access and edit these documents.
  Project management software, especially web-based systems, act as a repository for the storage and retrieval of critical project documents. Simply upload a document into the system, then attach it to the appropriate LEED-credit log. From there you can track the history of a document, see every change that has been made and who made it."
• Spillway: The Joy of Sprawl – Lovely blog post on SimCity which almost had me downloading the game straight away: "Realism and terrain constraints help ameliorate this problem, but generally the most beautiful cities are the ones that develop organically, at least in part, with some lack of planning thrown in."
• RICS survey finds some breathing space before the real storm hits (Brickonomics) – More doom from Brian: "So a less horrific picture than six months ago, but this can only realistically be seen as a breathing space before the nasty onslaught on public sector cuts takes effect.
  On my assessment the industry has about a year to reshape itself for levels of workload far below those to which it has grown accustomed. More importantly, it will need to learn how to live without turnover growth.
  Sadly the signs are that the industry is self-harming in the run up to its biggest challenge in a generation. Not the best preparation.
  Back to two of my big concerns of the moment: lunatic bidding (and it is not just our contracting brethren); and the madnes
• Why contractors can’t help suicidal bidding when the workload turns down (Brickonomics) – Excellent analysis from Brian (as always): "On the face of it contractors face the "Prisoner's dilemma", the classic game theory problem.
  In expressing the dilemma facing UK contractors in terms of the game we get something like:
  Contractors cannot discuss prices, but they know if they all take a "cooperative" stance and refuse to bid below cost then the industry remains competitive, but without being suicidal. If workloads are shrinking it probably means they each share the pain of reduced turnover, but at least the work they do win remains profitable or at cost. Their vanity may be damaged, but their sanity remains intact.
  But if some break rank, those that hold firm win no work and go out of business.
  So, as the theory suggests, they go for the option where they can best control the level of risk and which offers the least-worst option. This means they all take to bidding below cost.
  This creates a downward spiral where the exit point is collapse of firms who can no longer sustain t
• Asia Times Online :: China News, China Business News, Taiwan and Hong Kong News and Business. – Good to see hutongs being renovated rather than razed. I'm hoping they can manage to add in WC's to most buildings – last time I was there you still had to pop out of the bar/restaurant and leg it to the public loos on each street – intelligent addition of infrastructure is one of the main limiting factors to keeping areas like this useable: "I believe the next 10 years we will see far greater investment in the city's hutongs," Bechtle continues. "Places such as Nanluoguxiang are already showing how Beijing's alleyways and courtyards can be renovated intelligently. The quality of life is being raised there without sacrificing architectural aesthetics."
• Blog: Sustainability – the most interesting aspect of London 2012? – London 2012 – James Cracknell is Sustainability Ambassador for London 2012. After watching 'On Thin Ice', I'm in awe of this guy's (sometimes dangerous to himself) drive and grit: "Over the last few years, having rowed across the Atlantic and skied to the South Pole, my perception of the world we live in has changed. But it was the definition of sustainability on a human level – 'the potential for long-term improvements in wellbeing, which in turn depend on the wellbeing of the natural world and the responsible use of natural resources' – which probably best conveys why this was an area I wanted to try and help LOCOG achieve the targets they've set themselves."
• Uneconomic Growth – I'm fascinated by this premise, but how to translate from theory to reality?: "At what point do we realize that growth can only take us so far? Initially growth did a lot for our progress, but now we are seeing the impacts of uneconomic growth worldwide. It is time we turned our focus away from growing – getting larger – and push for development – getting better. The steady state economy is the logical next step for a growth economy that has reached the end of economic growth."
• Real Life LEED: Deconstruction Costs Revealed (aka Sustainable Demolition) – Deconstruction vs. demolition (in addition to the costs, think about time), and the offset of waste 'charges' vs. salvage: "On a 6,800 sf office/warehouse building, deconstruction costs showed a 20.9% ($2,128) premium over standard demolition, but that was more than offset by the retail value of the salvaged material at $3,046."
• Trends lend support to need for AEC Web 2.0 adoption « pwcom 2.0 – Great post from Paul, but don't forget Gen X cohort will be the 33-54 demographic over the next 15 years, anecdotal evidence suggests Gen Y have more in common with baby boomers (i.e. their parents): "Smaller employment pools will cause skills shortages as the 33-54 cohort decreases by 6 per cent over the next 15 years, creating ongoing recruitment, retention, and reward challenges … Also, Kogan believes, future leaders will want constant communication through technology, which means they’re always in touch and able to work, blurring the line between work and life outside of work – in other words, the classic description of Generation Y (or even Generation Z) and its demand for Web 2.0 tools and techniques to support new ways of working."
• Design Activism – The 'trouble' with environmentalism. I would never describe myself as an activist, but this Ann picks up this point on the other side of the coin (personal small changes):
  "Protest and direct action are powerful, but also risky and potentially dangerous. By contrast, personal change–drive less, eat organic food–is relatively safe and “easy.” As Derrick Jensen argues, writing in Orion magazine, personal change doesn’t equal political change:
  “Would any sane person think dumpster diving would have stopped Hitler, or that composting would have ended slavery or brought about the eight-hour workday, or that chopping wood and carrying water would have gotten people out of Tsarist prisons, or that dancing naked around a fire would have helped put in place the Voting Rights Act of 1957 or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Then why now, with all the world at stake, do so many people retreat into these entirely personal “solutions”?"
• Tories to take axe to Partnerships for Schools – Building – And so it begins: "The Conservatives are preparing to slash the budget of delivery body Partnerships for Schools under proposals to cut the cost of the UK’s school building programme.
  The plans are part of an overhaul of schools policy, including the £55bn Building Schools for the Future programme, being discussed by the shadow Treasury team and shadow schools department. It is likely to see funds diverted from new buildings and major refurbishments towards smaller improvements in areas such as IT and furnishings."

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These are my links for May 26th through June 1st:

• Concentration Solar Power Module Integrates Into Side And Roof Of Buildings – min-CSP – intriguing but no data in the article to back up the theory: "The system, of which the international patent has already been requested, consists of a stationary lens and a linear absorber plate that concentrates sunlight to generate energy. This concentration system reduces the space that until now was needed with traditional plates, which move around in search of sunlight"
• UK Climate Impacts Programme – Socio-economic scenarios – Getting quite old now (Feb 2001) but sets forward 4 potential scenarios for socio-economic situations against which climate change will play out in the UK :
  1. National Enterprise
  2. Local Stewardship
  3. World Markets
  4. Global Sustainability
  At 140 pages, it's not a quick read, but useful resource.
• A glimpse of the future as 56% of surveyors see workload fall (Brickonomics) – More sound commentary from Brian: "But for all the figures on workload, the two bits of data that will probably reflect most the long-term effects of the recession are those for employment and for profit margins. Both continue to look grim.
  It may sound like a management course cliché but one of the biggest weaknesses of the construction industry is one of its biggest strengths, its flexibility.
  And this weakness is exaggerated by the easy willingness of firms to work at below cost.
  My recollection of the 1990s recession was the less damage was done by falling workloads, which the industry's flexibility can absorb without huge stresses, than was done by winning work below true cost or at unsustainable thin margins."
• Monbiot.com » How Much Should We Leave in the Ground? – I had wondered about this before – good to see George has done the math for me: "Even ignoring all unconventional sources and all other greenhouse gases and taking the most optimistic of the figures in the two Nature papers, we can afford to burn only 61% of known fossil fuel reserves between now and eternity." This would result in a 2ºC rise in temperature. Adaptation, here we come…
• Monbiot.com » Crash Landing – Monbiot being unusually level headed: "we were told by both the airline companies and the Confederation of British Industry that business flights were necessary and non-negotiable: civilisation would collapse if executives weren’t able to fly whenever and wherever they wished. The government repeated this creed, insisting that the UK economy was dependent on the expansion of Heathrow. Now we learn that these are the first expenses to be cut when a contraction begins. Businesses are discovering that there are other means of engaging with people overseas, such as email, video-conferencing and an outlandish new device called the telephone."
• ACE – If we can’t count the buildings, how can we plan cuts in emissions? – There's an elephant in the room, and his name is data: "There is no definitive data showing precisely what the carbon footprint of Europe's buildings is. So we can have no confidence we can identify precisely what percentage of the carbon dioxide emissions by end use comes from space heating as opposed to water heating, lights and appliances as opposed to cooking."
• Why Has Globalization Led to Bigger Cities? – Economix Blog – NYTimes.com – Great article on cities with a slant on India: "The right response to the problems of megacities is not to get misty-eyed about village life, but rather to work to improve the quality of infrastructure in those growing urban areas."
• FT.com | The Undercover Economist | Dear Economist: Can you help me to stop procrastinating? – How to cope with procrastination: "The behavioural economists Dan Ariely and Klaus Wertenbroch conducted an instructive study of procrastination with three groups of students at MIT. Each group had to complete three assignments over the course of the 12-week course. The first group had a separate deadline for each paper, after four, eight and 12 weeks. The second group had no intermediate deadlines: all three papers were due at the end of the course. Students in the third group were asked to impose their own deadlines.
  Students with well-spaced deadlines – those in the first group and a subset in the third who had spaced out their deadlines – tended to achieve the highest grades. Students who had assigned themselves no intermediate deadlines, or had been assigned none, fared poorly."
• A new era for public health? « – "Yet one group of very important people now admit they too have neglected the issue. The latest edition of The Lancet – probably the world’s leading medical journal – says health professionals “have barely begun to engage with what should be the focal point for their research, preparedness planning and advocacy”. Now doctors see climate change as “the biggest global health threat of the 21st century”.
  The Lancet calls for a “new public health advocacy movement” to usher in an unprecedented era of co-operation between widely divergent spheres such as disease, food, water, sanitation, shelter, settlements, extreme events, population and movement.”"
• Prince fails on sustainability – Building Design – A bit late getting to this one – Amanada takes on Charles: "This is where the speech unravelled for in making out “experimentation” to be a terrifying leap in the dark rather than something good based on hypotheses and a body of knowledge he came across as an intellectual Luddite, whose only solution is to retreat into a Hobbit-like world of organic earthy buildings and no cars."
• Carbon-effective refurbishment – Modern Building Services – Ant Wilson calls for an integrated approach to refurbished buildings: "At the same time, the lower metre could be well insulated and fitted with photovoltaics (PVs) and internally lined with phase-change boards. Emerging concentrated photovoltaic energy generation (CPV has around 1000 times less embedded energy than conventional PVs, and its price is falling rapidly, which will improve the cost-effectiveness of building-integrated PV in coming years."

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This is one of those posts which blogs were originally invented for – a record of something I did to my computer which I can refer to in the future, so I know how I did it.

Every company I have ever worked for has used Outlook. As a tool, it has it’s limits in it’s “out of the box” configuration. Below are the three main tweaks I use to keep my inbox to zero. Note – I use folders extensively to keep project related email in. When projects reach a milestone (out to tender or report issued etc) or a conversation reaches a conclusion, I archive to the central repository. This is not my ideal way of working, but given the constraints I’m working with, it’s the best solution I’ve found so far.

The first tweak is to keep all my incoming and outgoing live emails in one inbox. The sent items get automatically filed in my inbox (although not from the crackberry) and deleted from the sent items. Instructions for setting this up are here complete with screen shots. As a summary:

Rules and Alerts > New Rule > Check messages after sending > Next > Specified folder (Inbox)

To delete outgoing mail from sent items (and only have in your inbox):

Tools > Options > Email options > untick save copies of messages

The next part of the equation is to set up a key shortcut to move emails into folders. Depending on your work flow you may also want to set up a copy shortcut. Personally, I try to keep only one copy of an item at any one time (hence deleting the sent items).

Full instructions are here (third tip down the page). Basically, you end up with an Alt+1 shortcut in a new toolbar which will give you the ability to move emails to a folder without using the mouse.

The final tweak is to make Outlook look a little more like Gmail. I use this inside my project folders to help me decide if a conversation is finished and can be archived. Click on any of the fields at the top of the inbox. Choose field chooser and add the extra field ‘conversation’. Drag onto the toolbar. Remove the Subject field. Right mouse click and arrange by conversation. You should end up with a nested view of conversations, and as all your sent items are in there too, you can keep track of who said what, when. You will have to do this for each folder you are using this method on. I don’t use it in my inbox – my inbox should really only have outstanding non-project related emails and incoming unread emails.

A few more useful keyboard shortcuts for Outlook:

Alt + w Forward

Ctrl + u Mark as Unread

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These are my links for May 5th through May 11th:

• BREEAM: BREEAM Extranet – Elements of the BREEAM Extranet are now available to all with a public log-in option – loving how BREEAM are continuing to open up to all.
• Multiple monitors boost productivity by 35.5% | 18 Feb 2009 | ComputerWeekly.com – Some bias in that Fujitsu have an interest in selling more screens, but good to see some data on something I've suspected a long time (and I'm still hankering after Terry Pratchett's 6 screen set up): "Employees can perform a typical knowledge-sector job much more efficiently at a three-display workspace than at a conventional one, according to a laboratory survey by the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering (IAO), supported by Fujitsu.
  Fujitsu said this is particularly relevant for jobs where digital information has to be processed very frequently, as is the case for scientists, editors, engineers or insurance company employees.
  Overall, the study showed that larger screen areas increase productivity, and with the three-display workspace interconnected to form one desktop, Fraunhofer IAO scientists recorded increases in productivity of 35.5%."
• Andrew Winston – " I have a new book coming out this summer called Green Recovery. It focuses on going green in hard economic times. It lays out ways to get lean quickly, which can help companies survive today and preserves capital to invest in people and innovation. This plan can prepare companies to emerge from the downturn in a much better competitive position.
  My publisher is making a core part of the book available for free now. You can download my special report here:
  www.tinyurl.com/WinstonReport
  This pdf includes the introduction and the core chapter on getting lean. The other chapters on how the green wave is evolving, and how to get smart, get creative, and get (your people) going will be out by August in the full book."
• Andrew Winston: Is Bjorn Lomborg Dangerous or Helpful? – "Lomborg has a long habit of tilting at windmills that he mostly imagines. His most famous argument is that we shouldn't prioritize climate change over other pressing social priorities like poverty alleviation — as if they're all separate. The poorest people in the world are energy poor and don't have access to clean water — the two biggest environmental challenges of our time. He's always setting up false tradeoffs to establish his more "reaonsable" middleground…
  Lomborg's arguments are more subtle than he usually gets credit for. Probably 75% of what he says is dead on — but that's what makes him so dangerous. It's the other 25% that gets us in trouble."
• Ben Casnocha: The Blog: Procrastiflation: Procrastination + Inflation – I'm a procrastiflator!: "The longer a task goes un-completed, the harder it is to do it.
  If you say you're going to call John Doe on Monday, and you don't, and you continue to procrastinate on Tuesday, and then Wednesday, it becomes harder and harder with each passing day to ever complete the task."
• Dave Gorman: Limescale – Hilarious post from Dave Gorman in which he fixes the economy by rerouting hard water from London to Scotland.
• Commissioning strategy to be included in revisions to Part L – Building Sustainable Design – "The proposed changes to Part L were due to come into effect in April 2010, but this target is now likely to be missed. A government spokesman said the April date “is becoming increasingly challenging and the revisions to the regulations could be put back to October 2010”."
• Wales introduces green building standard – PlanningResource – A sign of things to come for the rest of the country? "Housing developers will have to meet the Code for Sustainable Homes Level 3 while non-residential buildings will need to achieve the BREEAM ‘Very Good’ standard.
  The legislation will come into effect on 1 September 2009.
  Davidson said: "I am determined to use the planning system to move towards zero-carbon buildings. We need to do everything we can to make new buildings, from our homes through to our offices, as environmentally friendly as possible. The new policy will play a key role in achieving this.""
• Defra, UK – Sustainable Development – Need to write a sustainable policy? "The Stretching the Web tool was developed with the aim of helping practitioners to integrate Sustainable Development into their policy making as well as project or programme work. The web is a simple graphic that allows you to easily explore a broad range of key positive and negative impacts."
• Aecom buys Savant to boost European presence – Building – More familiar names go, as AECOM assimilates Faber Maunsell and EDAW further – now to be known as AECOM Europe. Follows the news that Whitby Bird now to be known only as Ramboll.

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I’m not quite sure when I crossed the line from nerdy reader (a lifelong habit) to full on geekdom, but I suspect it was when I discovered blogs. I’m not ashamed by my geekiness, in fact sometimes I’m quite proud of it. But it wasn’t until I started working with a bunch of Gen Y’s who, if the press are to believed are constantly IM’ing and Youtubing and can only converse by txt, and my geekiness was an order of magnitude greater than theirs, that I began to realise how far across the line I’d crossed.

So how many of the signs below can you identify with?

1. You have a personal contact card from Moo with your twitter, gmail, linked-in and blog address listed, colourfully illustrated with photos from your Flickr feed
2. You have editted a Wikipedia page and monitor changes to it via RSS
3. You digitally stalk an online ‘celebrity’ i.e. you have a Dilbert day to a page on your desk, follow the RSS feed, read Scott’s blog but just don’t think much of the animated cartoon (alternatively your fangirl/boy obsessions may centre on a different victim – Merlin Mann, Neil Gaiman, or Wil Wheaton are all fair game – now Kathy Sierra isn’t blogging (though she is on twitter) I can’t think of another female in the same league?).
4. You look up information while a discussion/argument is still in progress – that’s what google on the crackberry was invented for, right? My friends will probably disown me if I ever get my hands on an iPhone.  Hat tip to geek dad for pointing this one out.
5. You have chosen the technologically superior (and most importantly, free to view) Humax over paying for a Sky+ subscription, and you prefer to gorge on TV series on DVD in their entirety than wait for a paltry episode per week. Having been burned as an early adopter for most gadgets you’re waiting for internet TV to settle down before committing to any one solution.
6. You have read, digested and tweaked David Allen’s Getting Things Done within an inch of the original intent, and now run a complex system of notebooks, Gmail filters, Zoho notebook, Instapaper, WatchThatPage and RTM, which someday will be consolidated into the mother of all productivity systems
7. You have turned one of Hugh McLeod’s gaping void cartoons into a business card, mug, mouse mat or t-shirt (see also no.3 above – fangirl/boy behaviour)
8. You own and tote around a Linux netbook such as the Asus Eee and generally favour open-source or creative commons over traditional models of intellectual property
9. You have cracked your work’s IT lockdown and only ever use Firefox, plus you have tried to introduce colleagues to Yammer or Twitter, Delicious and/or wikis and discussion forums
10. You know your Meyer Briggs personality type and thinks it explains quite a lot

There is obviously no hope for me. This list could have been expanded to 20 quite easily, but I thought I’d better stop before I completely expose all my foibles! Anyone else wish to confess their geeky habits or quirks?

admin Geekery Geekery, Productivity, Web 2.0

These are my links for July 9th through July 10th:

• Low carbon refurbishment of buildings – Management guide – This guide is aimed at those who wish to ensure that a planned refurbishment delivers carbon savings, in addition to meeting its other objectives. It provides clear, practical guidance based on real world experience.
• Jones Lang LaSalle acquires ECD, original developer of green globes- 7/9/2008 8:35:00 AM – Building Design & Construction – Jones Lang LaSalle adds ECD to growing list of acquisitions, recently including Upstream.
• workinproperty: Link Executive Bonuses To Green Targets – The UK's biggest trade union, Unite, has suggested that company executives should have their pay and bonuses linked to meeting "green" targets.
• First international standard on whole-life cost analysis – Building – published by the Building Cost Information Service as “BS ISO15686-5 Buildings and Constructed Assets – Service Life Planning, Part 5: Life Cycle Costing”.
• The Art of Nonconformity » A Brief Guide to World Domination – Via my good friend Cathy. Yes, it's a self help guide, but a good one.

mel starrs News buildings, business, carbon, competitors, existing, lifehacks, pay, Productivity, Psychology, WLC

These are my links for June 20th through June 24th:

• Nuclear Power Crawling Forward | Worldwatch Institute – Fairly level headed (considering it's author is from Greenpeace) and well researched appraisal of global nuclear power reactors construction in 2007. Some interesting facts and figures.
• No Impact Man: LV GRN: Slimy pets to eat your garbage and entertain your kids – DIY wormery advice from Colin Beaven.
• How to Save the World – Getting Rid of E-mail – Dave Pollard on why we don't need email for 90% of the time. Excellent advice, especially #10.
• My Business Magazines Lied to Me : Coconut Headsets – Rob's past experiences in the business blogosphere have scarred him, and made him uber-cynical, but his sparce postings have an insight which make him compelling reading…
• STROMA RELEASES FREE CODE SOFTWARE – Free CSH software from Stroma in Castleford.
• THE TOP 100 Green Design Firms – ENR | McGraw-Hill Construction – Construction Industry, News Articles, Business Conditions & Analysis, Markets, Finance, Costs, Legislation, Government, Management, Labor, Construction Methods, Equipment & Materials – ranking of ENR's Top 100 Green Designers is based on firms’ 2007 design revenue from projects registered with, and actively seeking certification from, third-party ratings groups under objective environmental or sustainable design standards.

mel starrs News 100, business, composting, CSH, Designers, email, ENR, free, green, Internet, LEED, Management, nuclear, Productivity, Social, Software, statistics, stroma, Top, tutorials, waste

These are my links for June 15th through June 18th:

• Carbon Trust publishes views on Green Tariffs | Carbon Trust – In light of these concerns, for voluntary reporting purposes, Defra recommends that organisations calculate emissions from renewable tariffs using the average electricity emissions factor for the UK
• Shh – don’t tell anyone – these apartments are green! | The Greenwash Brigade | Marketplace from American Public Media – The basic lesson of hunting greenwash is to look for details and evidence; obscuring information or providing none is a loud indicator of guilt.
• Guest Post: Advanced GTD with Remember The Milk – I'm a big fan of GTD and also of web-based apps that can be accessed from any computer/phone. I've tried Remember the Milk before, but this looks like the system to beat all systems…
• “Zerstreutheit” and the Attention Management Cure | 43 Folders – Time management is *so* passe – attention managment is the new buzz. Totally agree with the sentiments here.
• NYT: Businesses Fight the Email Monster They Helped Created | 43 Folders – Merlin Mann on email bloat.

mel starrs News attention, carbon_trust, electricity, email, greenwash, green_tariffs, gtd, LEED, lifehacks, procrastination, Productivity, rememberthemilk, time, US

These are my links for May 29th through June 1st:

• is there a fourth sector? | design activism – Interesting discussion on businesses straddling the line between not-for-profit and for-profit (resonates with Yvon Chouinard's book Let my People go Surfing)
• Appraisals of Extensive Green Roofs – via Building magazine forums, a survey from Liverpool JMU on green roofs. Go help research and fill it out.
• Medicority « Life’s too short to drink cheap wine. – Great post about user competence and associated levels for Revit. Would love to see a similar one for IES<VE>. Agree with most of the observations. Anyone involved in BIM at any level should read this one.
• Mixed use needs real meaning – Building Design – "enormous plazas surrounded by galumphing great modern warehouses full of people sitting at computer screens earning the money needed to buy shiny gewgaws inside other galumphing great modern warehouses stuffed full of throwaway things made in China."
• Greener B-Schools, Greener Employees – Harvard Business Online’s Leading Green – Convergence ahoy! Andrew Winston (Green to Gold) is writing for Harvard Business Online. Sustainability is no longer an option.
• Sustainability in construction industry organisations – Nick Reilly's blog – the list of bloggers continues to grow.
• Want to Boost Productivity? Give Workers Bigger Screens – Why bigger or two screens are a good idea. From HBR.

mel starrs News article, BIM, blogger, business, construction_industry, fourth_sector, glancey, green, Productivity, R&D, Revit, roofs, survey, Sustainability