scribefire is best in firefox

I am a blogger who uses blogging as a research tool – I collect stuff for myself – but I also do this in a public performative way. So you can also see and use the stuff I am collecting. I often just reblog – and press this. Scribefire however has allowed me to annotate and drag images into blog posts. So the page looks less bare.

I recently spoke to a dozen people about scribe fire – best thing since sliced bread and stuff like that.

I have of course become a MarsEdit blogger and so have not been using scribefire for a few years. So when I wen back – and discovered that there was scribefire for Safari now. Great. I added it and tested it to see if I would go back to using scribe fire.

Imagine my disappointment – its scribefire alright, but takes up the whole window – so you are ona  separate webpage like interface. Not good.

I then went back to firefox – which I have not been using for a few years – and thankfully the scribefire in the firefox environment is still the same. Its heaps better – you can blog and browse at the same time.

I have tried it on Chrome – I have gone off Chrome – even if it has this beautiful japanese theme. Chrome is rough! Anyway Scribefire on Chrome is just like Safari. Dont like it.

But Scribefire is fantastic – only best try it on Firefox for the ultimate experience.

Sustainability in Retail

This morning I read a piece in the Age about digital shopping , I have also been thinking about how retail and sustainability can be combined to make up a design project. Is there a campaign in this? There has to be I guess. Retail is the life blood of society. It may be “evil itself” for the sanctimonious moralizing sustainability warrior – but its there and need to be tweaked towards sustainability. So what can we do.

First to check what the current state of thinking was I googled – sustainability in retail blogs. And came up with a whole load of stuff about greening the supply chain. That is one direct agenda – the big one from CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility), and Corporate citizenship. This would include the WalMart stories and the case studies of other such retail Giants.

Is that enough – is the question?

Now we know the anti position – where supermarkets are the big bad thing. Raj Patel does the farmers perspective very powerfully. He is amazing. That project aims to get a fair system happening – so farmers are not squeezed out. We have also seen that amazing social innovation – peoples supermarket in London (http://www.thepeoplessupermarket.org/)

But if we keep going with the inevitability hypothesis – supermarkets are here and will survive – then we need a particular tack – where they are less evil or damaging (IGA versus the Big Ones) and have a progressive agenda focussed upon a sustainable future.

What can this project – the future supermarket – look like?

About « The Sustainability Puzzle

I read through a bit through Robert’s blog – after I got a ‘like’ to my last post from him.

Unlike my darting in and out of posts and reblogging – Robert writes essay style pieces.

Take a look. via About « The Sustainability Puzzle.

The Sustainability Compass « The Sustainability Puzzle

The Sustainability Compass « The Sustainability Puzzle.

A great diagram – about sustainability agendas as a matrix.

The Sustainability Compass « The Sustainability Puzzle

A Great diagram. All sustainability issues – agendas – in one diagram. (posted using “press this” wordpress plugin)

via The Sustainability Compass « The Sustainability Puzzle.

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A good discussion of the sustainability paradox – more jobs but less environmental impact.

The Sustainability Puzzle

Like a doctor treating a medical problem, without accurate and good information, the doctor can’t diagnose the problem correctly.  And, without an accurate diagnosis, he or she can’t develop a proper treatment.  Our society works in much the same way.  If the general population is not given accurate information about our sustainability problem, how can we expect them to realize that the treatment and its urgency are appropriate for the scale of the problem?

From our past experience, we’ve learned that the solution to our economic problems is through creating more jobs, more manufacturing and more consumption of goods.  The problem is that this solution clashes with our environmental reality—the way we live consumes too many resources and it is only going to become worse because of our population growth.  However, if we are content with a permanent economic underclass, then it may be possible to continue the current paradigm…

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Say no to designing objects

Is that really possible?

First the chain of causality and unsustainability: you buy things, which then creates the system that caters to this consumption behaviour, which then needs the manufacturing system to make things, which then requires designers to imagine things, which then means you have designers who want to design (things).

The question that I faced entering university from commercial practice in 1994 was – will I continue just being involved in a thingiverse – and will I be able to sustain my interest in such a work life. I was going into university as a teacher, I didn’t need to work clients and indulge in producer-side-thinking. I had the option to be idealistic.

So I said in 1994 – I will no longer design things.

My first action was to document the design inherent in the works of non designers – people on the street/ hawkers and this I referred to as the public domain. Design in the Public Domain.

Four years later I was to embark simultaneously on two projects – in both “producer side thinking” would be absent. Both would impact upon peoples lives – a large number of people.

That kept me busy for 5 years.

These projects – one on Waste and one on Pedal powered vehicles – sustained and developed my desire to do Projects as Campaigns. Thus was born the idea of Campaign Projects.

I have now been doing campaign projects for 17 years. Two projects were prototyped.