Zürich, maybe transport is key

We have now been in Zürich for two months. So maybe I can say that I am getting a feel for the city. We will be here til mid summer, so my thoughts and feelings are sure to change.

A few observations:

OK, lets get to the meat of the situation. Zürich is boring.

Now that we are past that, what is going on here? A city of half-million. Situated on a large natural lake on the Limmats river which is the drain from the lake (fed by snowmelt) this seems somehow unique to me, but all old europe cities had to have some sort of water reason for being, I guess.

Dead smack in the center of Europe, but not a part of the EU. Seperate currency completely surrounded by the EU. The trains here go everywhere. I guess the planes go everywhere, but I have yet to leave by air, so I don't know yet.

Seems to be a population boom going on here. Little fuckers everywhere. And it is not just because I have a little fucker of my own. There are a lot of em here. Not sure the demographic reasons at this time, but my unscientific poll tells me that the Zürichers are feeling comfortable enough about their lives to have a population positive amount of screamers to bundle up and trundle out into the snow.

My wife, Jill, is studying at the major technical university here. Lots of foreigners, and they all seem to be hustling for some angle to stay. Many of them, it seems, are being actively tossed out by the very effecient swiss border patrol, or whatever long german word that department is. Why? Why do they want to stay so?

The weather sucks. Day after day of grey, snow mixed with rain. The valley that defines Zürich also creates a very low ceiling. Mitigates the worst of winter, but seriously socks you into the grey. For many of the same reasons, plus being in the center of industrialized Europe, the air quality is nothing to write home about either.

Maybe it is because the public transit system is to die for.

When I first got here, I looked at the transit map: http://www.zvv.ch/fahrplan_liniennetzplan1.asp

And saw noodles. A complex difficult system. Now that I have been here, I see that it is an insanely dense system built on an old, old plan that can get you around town with staggering swiftness.

Ok, whatever you say, how does this affect you in your everyday life. so this is a quick description of an afternoon of a Hausmann:

I take my daughter to Kinderkrippe. I step out of the house at 1:40pm. I walk 7 minutes to Bucheggplatz. Wait 4 minutes and catch the 69 to Milchbuch, I am lucky, this bus is the bomb, it is the latest by Neoplan http://www.man-mn.de/en/Coaches/ProductsSolutions/City_buses/Lions_City/Entry.jsp
and now that I traveling with this kid carriage called a stroller, three steps into a bus are a total pain in the ass. This new bus rocks. Boom and boom, I am into or out of the bus in a flash. The bus makes a 3 minute trip to Milchbuch, and I walk a path to the kinderkrippe.

5 more minutes, and I am free, drop the kid off at the kinderkrippe, and away I go.

I am back to catch either the 72 or the 69 back to bucheggplatz. I go back to the crib. Take care of laundry, and email, go shopping right down the street and come back with nearly 200chf of stuff. It is the xmas season, so I am gonna buy some food. On the way, I recycle three colors of glass and a few PET bottles, all conviently located near the the bus stop.

So now it is 4:50pm. I have to pick up Sofia at or before 5:55 or there is hell to pay at Swiss daycare. I don't know what exactly would happen, but my knees tremble at the thought of being there after 5:55. The Swiss have no problem telling you when you fuck up. Reticence to bitch doesn't seem to be a part of the culture.

So I take a chance. Leave the flat, walk two blocks, catch the 46 to a totally different part of town, boom, go to a wine merchant and buy a case of wine that I know is good. On the way there, see a bike shop and stop in to buy a bottle of oil... lose 4 minutes. Now it is 5:13. Catch the 46 back, when I am back at the Bahnhof Wipkingin, stop in at the local store to get some plants. Hustle up the street and drop the wine and plants in the laundry room to avoid the three story climb to the flat. Now it is 5:32

Walk back to Bucheggplatz, hop on the 69 and I am back to pick up Sofia by 5:50pm.

Zürich rocks. In less than an hour I moved all over town, took care of all kinds of stuff and did not piss off the kinderkrippe.

Maybe transport is one of the keys to civilized life. In addition, I have lost nearly 10kilos in the past two months.

on parenthood

So here I am in Switzerland. I got a 14 month daughter, she is a lot of work, (need link here to flikr album "Sofia and support crew"). My wife got the gig for us to be here, and now the time is now that she has to produce. She is in the thick of it. That means that I am doing childcare from morn til about 9 or 10pm lately. We have a wonderful 12 hours, three 4 hour afternoons per week of glorious Swiss daycare, praise be. Please note that 12 hours is woefully short of a standard 40 hour workweek and a far cry from the normal obsessed 52 hour week of which I subscribe to when actually working-- well maybe.

So my good buddy, Eric http://www.stamen.com sets up this blog "cause I have so much time to ramble" so ramble I shall. Starting with an excerpt of an email, that I shall promptly forward to his wife (Nikki):

*dear eric* "The funny thing, to me, is that you think that stay at home dad means I actually have time to ramble. It is full time work, and to be honest, interesting but not particularly stimulating intellectually. The moments that I have to actually put something in writing are limited. But I will try. It is after midnight and she just got to bed.

Time.

Here is the cold hard truth here buddy. It is great having a kid, but the first couple of years are a total mind fuck time suck.

When you have munchkins, which you must, because they are soooooooo cute and will eventually be much smarter and stronger than you, one of you will have to drop out of normal life and take care of the sucker(s). If it is Nikki, probably, then YOU should help with the load. Now that I am full time care giver, I see that women have had a bum deal for a long, long time. The work never stops. -- of course I am doing it with style, waking at 10am, smoking, shopping and cooking fine meals cause I seem to be landing these commissions to spin rocks--go figure-- smoking more, and taking the kid to kinderkrippe. -- but it IS relentless and yet somehow relentlessly inane.

Doing it in Switzerland is fun. At least the sheer "otherness" keeps the monotony at bay. I would be out of my mind with boredom if I understood the language.

If we have another kid, I really hope I have the cash for two au-pairs.

LOOP: Law Officer Oversight Project

At Burning Man over the past few years I have personally dealt with two friends who were subjected to an illegal search and busted for small quantities of personal substances. I have heard tales of many more instances of Cops crossing the constitutional line. We live in a constitutional republic and have rights that are above whoever happens to be in power or happens to be wearing a badge. I feel that it is time to push back. Thus, I would like to present the first draft of:



LOOP: Law Officer Oversight Project

Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the presence of law enforcement in Black Rock City. With this has come numerous reports of officer misconduct, unlawful and unconstitutional searches and arrests.

The idea of LOOP is to build an open-source system designed to bring accountability and oversight to this branch of our government that is there to Serve and Protect.

The basic idea of LOOP is to create a centralized location, both physical and virtual to act as a clearinghouse of information on the activities of the branches of law enforcement that are present at Burning Man.

The goals would be to:

1. Compile listings of the names and ID number of all government Enforcement Officers at Burning Man.
2. Compile all arrest reports/ citations at Burning Man. This can be done by filing FOIA act requests en mass to the appropriate agency.
3. Compile all first person accounts of Law Enforcement activity during the existence of Black Rock City, ideally these will be in the form of depositions under oath, as soon as possible after the incident.
4. Track individual officers and cross reference their activity to ascertain if "justice is blind" or if patterns exist that suggest otherwise.
5. Track the different agencies and cross reference their actions during the event.
6. File FOIA requests on all activities, phone logs, email logs, radio transmission logs of these agencies.
7. Compare these with eyewitness accounts and depositions to compare veracity of accounts.
8. Act as a clearinghouse of information to aid in the legal defense of the citizens of Black Rock City, particularly those being prosecuted for engaging in victimless crimes.
9. Work in a completely open-source manner.
10. To maintain truthfulness, ethical conduct and respect for the US Constitution.

What is needed for LOOP:

Physical presence at Burning Man:

Small trailer to use as office and file storage. This should be placed on either the first or second loop road where all the BM infrastructure is located. It will need:

Secure server and grid power.
Shade structure and waiting area with couches and chairs.
Cool drinks and water.
Secure and lockable file cabinets, maybe (ideally) work paperless with a double redundant server system in disparate locations. Hanky-panky in the middle of the night is always a possibility, auto wireless backup to a server in an undisclosed location within BRC would be close to impossible to tamper with.
Desks, chairs, AC.
Staffing during business hours.
Lawyer available to take depositions on a regular scheduled basis.

Potential Structure:

The key is to build the project "wide and shallow". Use open source as a model to avoid burdening any one person with too much work. Strive towards a robust structure that is not dependent on any individual. This would avoid the "founder's burn-out/obsession syndrome" and put the project above any accusations of political gain.

Use a wiki type system as the fundamental backbone of the project. Design it to be robust and tamperproof from the beginning with secure server access and a rotating team of administrators that have "god power" over the wiki, i.e. root access and ability to make changes without tracking. The nature of this project will guarantee that information, contents and maybe the server itself will appear in open court. The methods used and systems built must be above reproach.

Structure: It might be possible to use the three branch model for this project:

Executive: There should be an executive, one (or more?) person(s) must be elected to make the quick decisions required of any project. The executive must be held to account by the other branches. The executive makes the final decision and tries to carry out the mandate of the council. Reports back to the council with success and failure. Has oversight over Fundraising and PR.

Council: Largest group. Serves as the legislature, charged with coming up with the ways means and hows. Absorbs all new ideas, new workers, defines new committees. Disburses tasks to the various committees, forms new ones when necessary.

Ethics/Legal: Serves as oversight, functions as the judicial branch to ensure that things are done properly, legally and ethically. Direct oversight over the legal department. Must have a balance of individuals, with no more than half (60%?? 75%??) being members of the bar.

All branches should focus on reducing and redacting the wiki to make it clearer and more organized. This helps bring new volunteers up to speed rapidly and attempts to avoid repeating information and mistakes.

Possible Committees/Departments:

Legal: Research relevant law issues. Create a code of conduct and help with staffing the legal department. Develop a standard operating procedure for any encounters with Law Enforcement by LOOP volunteers. Develop a standardized deposition routine that is most likely to withstand challenge in court.

Operations: Set up systems for tracking the activities of law enforcement. Coordinate volunteers for observation, video documentation, reconnaissance and more. Work closely with IT department to create a robust, transparent and useful information system, distributing the required tasks across a large number of people. Build simple, open source methods to coordinate volunteer activity. Build and staff the desert office.

Information Technology: Develop technological ways to track the activities of Law Enforcement. This can be in the form of RADAR, Field agents two way communication, GPS, radio monitoring and any other means necessary. Design of information collation systems that allow a web interface to track patterns of activity both in real time and historically. Launch this information as an open-source document on the web as a historical record to aid future research.

Education: Educate the Citizens of Black Rock City on their legal rights. Educate Law Officers of their responsibilities. Train LOOP volunteers for the task of monitoring Law Enforcement.

Public Relations: One of the most effective tools in a democratic society is knowledge. Informing the citizens of BRC of the services offered by LOOP is mission critical. This should include promo's on all the radio stations, inclusion in the survival guide, regular mention and request for help in JackRabbitSpeaks, news organizations and more.

Accounting: Keep the books, keep em clean and keep them open.

Fundraising: Even with a completely volunteer organization, there are always costs. Raising the money necessary to work with a minimum of hassle and time for the individuals involved is critical to maintain morale. Often the cheapest route is the one that is most painful and disillusioning, accept that mistakes will be made and attempt to raise a little extra to make up for them.

Zach & Sofia in Venice, with floods

Zach & Sofia in Venice, with floods
Originally uploaded by rodenbeck1.

See how easy it is?

Why Venice real estate will be a good investment:

Early draft.

1) The city was the most important city in the world for close to a 1000 years, accordingly, the buildings that were built and the sheer splendor of the place is extraordinary. Other than a causeway and a parking lot, there are no automobiles. No other city on earth uses water and foot paths exclusively in this manner. Geographically it is a totally unique place on earth.

2) is is rather nasty right now because of the regular flooding mixed with the canal system as sewer system.... and the leftover heavy industry of the industrial revolution around the lagoon.

2) Venice currently floods often, when it does, it is a total mess. It will continue to do so until the MOSE project is complete, about 8 years from now, 10 to be safe 12 to be Italian. The MOSE project is brilliant and should protect the city for a couple of hundred years of global warming and the predicted rise of the oceans. The design still allows the lagoon to be flushed by tidal and river action, which is critical.

3) The place is crawling with tourists, providing ready avenues for rental income from a property, particularly in peak season. This is both good and bad, but hey..... It probably isn't that hard to avoid them if you lived there.

4) When the Mose project is complete, it will change everything. Suddenly the inability to plan for the future because of the constant flooding, the city will be able to focus on being beautiful and restoring itself as a living antique.

5) Along with the MOSE project there are parallel projects that are underway that will affect the quality of living: A new sewer system that pumps the funky to the mainland to be treated. A new deep water port that will remove the need to bring in large tankers into the lagoon, reducing the risk of major accident.

6) Italy is currently kind of poor, but is part of the EU, and is ruled by law. The Euro will become very strong eventually and Europe will protect Venice, it is a treasure.

7) The coming information economy will mean a lot of people who can live anywhere with highspeed internet. Thus, they will be much more able to choose where to live. Venice is beautiful, if it smelled good, didn't have to wade to work all winter, and you could make a living there, why not live in such an amazing place? The complexity of the city would lend itself to endless interesting walks and with an influx of hipsters, cool parties.

8) This means that there will probably be a realestate boom in approximatly 10-15 years. It is already the playground of the rich, it will become more so when things stabilize and the information economy becomes more dominant. The time to get in is about 5-7 years from now, the flooding will still be a real problem, but the end in sight.