Visualization

Tips / Visualization

This week’s selected media, June 7, 2026: The Greatest Sentence Ever Written, Slavery–Summary on a Map,

This week I finished: The Greatest Sentence Ever Written, by Walter Isaacson: Wow, the original content of this book is only 41 small pages, not counting empty pages at ends of chapter, with not many words per page, but packs a lot of meaning. It also includes important selections from Locke and Rousseau, as well as Jefferson's first draft of the Declaration and the full signed Declaration. Isaacson looks at the second sentence of the Declaration: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. and elaborates on it word or phrase by word or phrase. He considers the…

June 7, 2026

Freedom / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

The Timeline for Pollution and Depletion’s Effects on People

This post follows The Scale and Pollution and Depletion's Effects on People: Here, now, not future projections. I suggest reading it first. The timeline is important. Before the atrocities above, things could seem like they might work out, then explode. I could treat any of them, but will pick US slavery since its timeline is long, so easiest to discern. Here is the increase in number of slaves in the US from 1610 (zero) to 1860 (4 million): US slavery in the years approaching 1860 involved a national culture of trade, torture, and killing. While any instance of slavery is cruel, that national culture didn't exist in 1619. Oxford-educated Trinidadian historian Eric Williams wrote, “A racial twist has thereby been given to what is basically…

June 2, 2026

Awareness / Freedom / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

The Scale and Pollution and Depletion’s Effects on People: Here, now, not future projections

I talk about the USSR gulag system, abolitionism, slavery, the Holocaust, and similar atrocities in the context of pollution and depletion. Most Americans know the horrors of slavery and the Holocaust. We know viscerally the images of slaves' welts and concentration camp survivors looking like skeletons. By comparison, images of pollution and depletion look like piles of garbage and graphs of CO2 concentration. Similarly, few images of the gulag exist because few were taken and few Americans register how many more suffered and died, nor how gruesome the conditions. Am I stupid, ignorant, or crazy to talk about these atrocities in the context of pollution and depletion? Context and Frame of Mind Before reading this post, it helps to clarify how you feel about some…

June 1, 2026

Should I fear posting concerns about artificial intelligence?

Freedom / Models / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

Should I fear posting concerns about artificial intelligence?

I'm posting more about artificial intelligence, maybe enough to make a category for it. I posted that I hesitated to post my last one with this explanation: "I held back on posting it because of the question in the last paragraph. I’m finishing the third volume of The Gulag Archipelago and studying the effects of dominance hierarchy, which artificial intelligence is forming. People who criticized Stalin didn’t fare well. Should we worry about criticizing the people and machines who may be at the top of a steepening dominance hierarchy?" I doubt I have to worry, but reflecting on something thoughtfully and calmly isn't worrying. Besides AI, I also post a lot about dominance hierarchies. They form when there is a necessary resource that can be…

May 19, 2026

May Day / No Kings Garbage.

Nonjudgment / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

May Day / No Kings Garbage.

The other day I posted pictures of the needless garbage Democratic candidates send to my mailbox. They talk sustainability, but look at their action. You can see the pictures in Democrat Garbage: When Democrats Say They Value Sustainability, They Mean When It's Convenient For Themselves (Republicans Probably No Different). Am I unfairly judging them? On the contrary, the conflict is between their values and their actions. I didn't ask for them to send me garbage. I work to stop junk mail being sent to me. I hardly receive any now, but Democrats do it. Holding people accountable to their values helps them. It doesn't hurt them. Their garbage continued to arrive after the election. I put an image of more recent garbage of theirs at…

May 2, 2026

More Americans died in the Civil War than all other wars combined

Freedom / Visualization

More Americans died in the Civil War than all other wars combined

From the Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, PA: "The number of war-related deaths in 1861-1865 is greater than the total number of American deaths in all other American wars." I've been stating that finding lately and wanted to cite my source for future reference. Estimates on deaths from wars are hard, as pages like How Many Died in the American Civil War? at History.com describe. Wikipedia's United States military casualties of war links many sources. You can define war deaths to include only people in the military or not, you can pick high estimates or low, and so on. I consider the Civil War Museum a credible source. Its gift shop had signed books from podcast guest David Blight (so far I've only finished the…

April 30, 2026

What we can learn from jarring images from the Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, PA

Awareness / Freedom / Nonjudgment / Visualization

What we can learn from jarring images from the Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, PA

I gave a keynote and led a leadership workshop near Harrisburg, PA---a place halfway between where I grew up in Philadelphia and where my dad grew up, in Pittsburgh, so we passed through there many times growing up. I learned that the city hosts a Civil War Museum, so arranged to spend half a day there. I recommend it. A few items affected me beyond what I would have expected. Scroll down and you'll see the leg irons, collar with spikes, and whip with spiky metal spurs (the card implied that it wasn't known if this particular whip was actually used, but even if not, just that someone made it says a lot). First a few words. I'm not sure the pictures will hit you…

April 17, 2026

I’m not looking for them, but hours after my last post: more trashed Christmas Pagan Trees

I’m not looking for them, but hours after my last post: more trashed Christmas Pagan Trees

I'm not trying to make lots of headlines about this pattern, but I don't want to revise past posts. I'm not looking for these killed trees. On the contrary, that I can't avoid them suggests how many we kill, ostensibly to celebrate life and the birth of someone who promoted loving your neighbor as yourself. Hours after posting The last Christmas Pagan Trees of the Season?, which wasn't my last post this season speculating I'd seen the last of trees we killed and trashed this season, I saw another one. Then today, before I could post about it, I saw yet another. Here's the one from today, about as scraggly, sad, and pathetic as I could imagine a Christian would allow something to represent the…

March 28, 2026

The last Christmas Pagan Trees of the Season?

The last Christmas Pagan Trees of the Season?

I've already written a few posts this year wondering if I've seen the last discarded trees, but we cut down so many, it takes this long to discard them all. We could have left them standing. It’s almost April and people pay to chop down so many trees, I’ve seen them thrown out this month. I think I’ve seen the last for the season so I’ll post the last images of them. I’ll copy text from previous posts so people see I’m defending, not attacking, tradition. It’s sad how garbage-y they look. This long after Christmas, I think people have lost interest in connecting the trees with life. Anyway, the text for context: Every year, I take pictures of how people trash their trees. I…

March 27, 2026

Another walk in the park with family Spodek Method commitment

Nature / Relationships / Stories / Visualization

Another walk in the park with family Spodek Method commitment

I posted last month about a Spodek Method commitment to walk in a park with my sister in Queens based on walking in the park with my dad. Yesterday, I walked in the same park I did with my dad, this time with my other sister, plus her husband and son, my brother-in-law and nephew. To refresh your memory, that post, Another Spodek Method commitment: a walk in the park with family, began: I’ve done a lot of Spodek Method commitments. I’ve loved them all, at least I don’t remember disliking any, but haven’t recorded many of them here, but liked posting My Spodek Method commitment to make water ice from snow: A photo essay last month. I did another one over the weekend and…

March 16, 2026

The last Christmas Pagan Tree of the season?

Nature / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

The last Christmas Pagan Tree of the season?

I just posted The first warm day of the year means overflowing doof garbage, of course, which showed how Americans celebrate spring: polluting and depleting, funding the production of garbage, and driving themselves to obesity. We also celebrate winter by killing trees. I hope the picture below is the last Christmas Pagan tree of the season. It goes to show you how many trees we kill in our pagan rituals that we now practice, merged with Christian ones. Then it was wrapped in plastic, gratuitously, as if pine trees were toxic or dangerous, but the car behind it or garbage below it are safe. It's sickening, literally and figuratively. It's also American in 2026.

March 10, 2026

The first warm day of the year means overflowing doof garbage, of course

Doof / Fitness / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

The first warm day of the year means overflowing doof garbage, of course

Sunday was the first warm day of the year. It was shorts weather. Do we celebrate the abundance of nature? No, that's not today's American values. What are today's American values? You can tell by our behavior. We buy doof, not food. We don't prepare it. We buy it pre-prepared, which means overloaded with salt, sugar, and fat, then packaged. We don't even eat fresh fruit on its own. We eat non-fresh fruit pre-chopped and assembled into plastic containers. Want proof? When I went to Washington Square Park for my sidcha to pick up at least three pieces of litter from the northwest corner, every trash can was beyond full. People weren't satisfied to fill the cans. They dumped doof packaging trash all around the…

March 10, 2026

The last Christmas Pagan Trees of the season?

Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

The last Christmas Pagan Trees of the season?

It's March and people pay to chop down so many trees, I've seen them thrown out this month. I think I've seen the last for the season so I'll post the last images of them. I'll copy text from previous posts so people see I'm defending, not attacking, tradition. It's sad how garbage-y they look. This long after Christmas, I think people have lost interest in connecting the trees with life. Anyway, the text for context: Every year, I take pictures of how people trash their trees. I find the waste and death tragic and the images of something that was supposed to celebrate life become garbage. This season, I started seeing trees trashed before Christmas: Ten days before Christmas people are already throwing away…

March 6, 2026

Today’s blizzard, February 2026

SIDCHAs / Stories / Visualization

Today’s blizzard, February 2026

Everyone has a camera, so anyone can find wonderful pictures of anything online, but I couldn't help take some pictures of today's blizzard. It started yesterday and is forecast to run until this evening. Many places see more snow all the time, so I'm not saying we're experiencing a lot of snow. It also isn't that cold, slightly below freezing. I tried to take pictures that show the city before the beautiful snow turns to slush and reveals the larger accumulations of litter and garbage when the city pauses picking up the mess people leave. Recall that sanitation systems are socialist. Whether you like socialism or not, sanitation systems motivate more pollution and depletion. I'll start with the park across the street with my local…

February 23, 2026

If you wait to solve all the challenges of zero pollution and depletion before starting, we’ll never start. If we start, we’ll solve the problems.

Hands on Practical Experience / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

If you wait to solve all the challenges of zero pollution and depletion before starting, we’ll never start. If we start, we’ll solve the problems.

People dream that we'll figure out how to keep our world as it is, just without pollution and depletion. We'll just create new technology that does what existing technology does, but it will be "clean," "green," and "renewable." Well, shoot, why didn't people think of making technology that didn't hurt people in the first place? What jerks, not making things "clean," "green," and "renewable." Oh wait, maybe it's not possible to replicate the results of technology that violates the Constitution (by depriving people of life, liberty, and property without due process of law) with technology that doesn't. Maybe we're dreaming of an impossible fantasy. Even if it is possible to fly, drive, and ship thousands of shipping containers per load across oceans without violating the…

February 21, 2026

A rat and plastic in Washington Square Park, of the many due to garbage and litter

Nature / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

A rat and plastic in Washington Square Park, of the many due to garbage and litter

I don't have anything against rats, but they represent a loss of biodiversity and a failure of our society. They thrive on our waste. This island used to be covered with countless species of mammals, birds, and probably reptiles and amphibians, on top of plants and fungi. Now we have mostly rats. No beavers, coyotes, bears, egrets, swans, butterflies, and what used to live here, plus fish, mollusks, dolphins, and everything in the water and air. Walk through Washington Square Park on any night now and you'll see countless rats running around. Also mice, pigeons, and roaches. In the recent snow, you can see the holes they dig in the snow. I took the pictures and video below before the big recent snowfall. This rat…

February 11, 2026

See me on Korean TV!

Hands on Practical Experience / Visualization

See me on Korean TV!

Last fall a Korean production company asked to cover my off-grid living. As usual, I tried to clarify I work on leadership applied to sustainability and that covering my solar panels would be like covering Martin Luther King's shoe's during the bus boycott. Media is media the world over, so they covered my staircase and dark apartment as opposed to changing global culture. Still, without understanding what they say, I found parts funny. The guy who interviewed me, Ha Seok-jin, seems to be renowned in Korea. I had a good time with him and the crew. The title of the segment is 활기 넘치는 뉴욕에서 지속가능한 에너지 쓰는 이들의 이야기(feat.천국의계단) which seems to translate to Stories of Those Using Sustainable Energy in Vibrant New York…

February 10, 2026

Two months of Christmas pagan trees, hundreds of trees, thrown away

Nature / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

Two months of Christmas pagan trees, hundreds of trees, thrown away

Here is a video showing a bunch of trees people bought to celebrate the birth of their lord and savior, in a tradition unrelated to that birth, borrowed from paganism. Instead of celebrating birth, they are actual death. Apparently people believe we have too many trees and forests. I love tradition. We don't keep alive every tradition ever. People used to practice infanticide. Should we keep practicing it for tradition? We can create new traditions or, for that matter, restore ones from before Christians borrowed pagan ones. They mulched all those trees before a second load formed. Here's what it looked like between. Here's a second load: Those trees were just the ones people took the time and effort to be mulched. Here are about…

February 6, 2026

The redlined neighborhood I grew up in

Education / Stories / Visualization

The redlined neighborhood I grew up in

I was curious if the neighborhoods where I got mugged, beat up, and learned to be a white boy meant being targeted for violence with impunity growing up were officially redlined. I didn't know where to find maps. They could be from insurance companies, government agencies, and who knows what other sources. I finally found one, though from 1937, decades before I was born and with a world war in between. It's from an insurance company. Here's all of Philadelphia. You can tell how much was rated differently by color. I grew up in three homes in northwest Philadelphia. I'll zoom in below. Zooming in on the legend, we see red is redlined, the lowest grade. It also shows it was made for the Home…

February 2, 2026

My Spodek Method commitment to make water ice from snow: A photo essay

Creativity / Hands on Practical Experience / Nature / Stories / Visualization

My Spodek Method commitment to make water ice from snow: A photo essay

First, I grew up in Philadelphia, and in Philadelphia, we have something called "water ice." It's like cheese steaks in that it's local. I didn't know it wasn't universal until I moved away. Elsewhere they call something like it Italian ice, but we don't. Here's an article on it from USA Today: What is Philly-style water ice? We explain how it's made and where to get it. On to the matter at hand. I was recently led through the Spodek Method to a commitment that involved finding some clean snow, mixing it with fruit, and making something like water ice from scratch---that is, mixing fresh fruit with snow. I did it today. Here is my journey. First, I chose the fruit based on what I…

January 31, 2026

The New York Times on population

Nature / Visualization

The New York Times on population

I just found this opinion piece in the New York Times from 2023: The World’s Population May Peak in Your Lifetime. What Happens Next? It starts: The global human population has been climbing for the past two centuries. But what is normal for all of us alive today — growing up while the world is growing rapidly — may be a blip in human history. Children born today will very likely live to see the end of global population growth. A baby born this year will be 60 in the 2080s, when demographers at the U.N. expect the size of humanity to peak. The Wittgenstein Center for Demography and Global Human Capital in Vienna places the peak in the 2070s. The Institute for Health Metrics…

December 3, 2025

Why I work on sustainability leadership here and now despite other things I could do instead

Choosing/Decision-Making / Visualization

Why I work on sustainability leadership here and now despite other things I could do instead

You've probably heard the advice not to compare things to the Holocaust or slavery. I have. It says that however bad you think your thing is, it's not as bad and you just end up looking ignorant. [EDIT November 16: Immediately after posting this post, I started updating and editing the graphs, explanations, and more. The changes were too big to just update this post. I'll keep it here for reference and post new versions, but consider it a rough draft. Here is a later version, in two parts: The Scale and Pollution and Depletion’s Effects on People: Here, now, not future projections The Timeline for Pollution and Depletion’s Effects on People ] I've written before about the difference in levels of suffering and death…

November 10, 2025

Garbage people throw in my building’s garden every day

Doof / Freedom / Visualization

Garbage people throw in my building’s garden every day

My building has a little garden in front with a low wall people can sit on. Isn't it nice to provide space for people to take a load off? I'm sure most of them don't, but plenty leave their garbage in our little garden. Here are some pictures from a typical morning. The "Rite-a-way" box is rat poison I don't like that the superintendent puts there, but with all the garbage people put there, rats arrive. The plants on this side of the garden are all dead. They were verdant and abundant at first. The most common garbage types are Beer cans Soda cans Water bottles Coffee cups and lids Napkins Bags Lottery tickets, usually ripped up Doof wrappers: chips, candy bars, etc Little alcohol…

November 8, 2025

A video tour of Drew Gardens, fall 2025

Nature / Visualization

A video tour of Drew Gardens, fall 2025

Today I posted about My fifth annual cooking workshop at Drew Gardens: pictures and video. I also made these two videos to show off Drew Gardens. I don't think I posted a walk-through before. Anyone wondering how much they can change a neighborhood will love these videos. For context, here is what Drew Gardens looked like before, barren and strewn with garbage. After looking at it, watch the videos. The first video is about three and a half minutes of me giving a more full tour. I start at the southern end, which abuts the Cross Bronx Expressway. You'd think that proximity would ruin a garden, and it probably did when all the land you'll see was bare of foliage and scattered with used tires…

October 27, 2025

Why form is important in lifting weights, especially Turkish Get-Ups

Fitness / Visualization

Why form is important in lifting weights, especially Turkish Get-Ups

In case you can't make out the image below, it was lesson number one in the importance of proper form in doing Turkish Get-Ups. In particular, it's a dent in my floor in the shape of the bottom edge of one of my kettle bells. If you lose control of a kettle bell while doing a Turkish get-up, especially when you're holding it high above your body and the floor, you can try to regain control, but there's a good chance it will hit the floor hard. That dent is where a kettle bell hit when I lost control because I lost my form. It happened something like five years ago. I mention that this dent was lesson number one. Lesson two was the weight…

October 24, 2025

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