Skip to main content

WBC 16 Update #1: It's a Long Way to Tampere (you know the tune)

I'm attending World Building Congress 2016 this year in Tampere, Finland to present the paper I wrote in the IDBE Program/Programme and see how the international research establishment might relate to the work we do at GFF. I'm hoping to post here once a day to recap the happenings, but I'm off to a bit of a rough start.
It wasn't the simplest itinerary to begin with. A flight from DFW to Chicago on Sunday evening, an overnight leg to Helsinki, and a two hour train trip from there to Tampere for a night's rest before my presentation at 11am on the 31st. It didn't get simpler when the flight to Chicago was delayed due to weather in Dallas for and hour and a half. That put me on the ground at Terminal 3 in Chicago 20 minutes before the flight to Helsinki was to leave, at Terminal 5. If you've been through O'Hare, you probably know that wasn't going to happen. Luckily, I thought, AA had already re-booked me on another flight. Instead of straight to Helsinki, I'd go through London-Heathrow. The flight to London left a few minutes late, but it didn't seem to be anything of concern as I already had my boarding pass for the final leg and there seemed to be plenty of cushion. I had looked at the departure time but, to be honest, it didn't really penetrate my consciousness until I was sitting in the Heathrow departures lounge, finally on wifi, snacking on some Pret. It's just now 1pm and my flight to Helsinki doesn't leave until 6:40pm, bummer. I wonder when I arrive in Helsinki...11:35pm. That's late, I bet I'll have to rush to make the last train. No, no rush, the last train is at 10:45pm, so I'll definitely miss it. I'll have some deep-night time to kill in Helsinki before catching the first train to Tampere, arriving at 8am, giving me just enough time to change clothes before I present my paper. At least, that's the plan right now.
Cheers! Sam

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Urban Play

Looking at this proposal for Atlanta , I can't help thinking there is something inherently elitist about urban recreation spaces that don't include playgrounds or sports courts and fields. The abstract, curvilinear forms that are fashionable today are almost completely irreconcilable with activities like basketball or soccer or softball. Those activities are pushed to second-class parks that receive virtually no programming effort and minimal maintenance. Add to that the sometimes stark racial and cultural divides between participants in these various sports and I can see why it is convenient for city staff to think that a "nice" park doesn't have sports facilities, perhaps only subconsciously. Designs with swooping paths and undulating terrain help conceal that prejudice. It isn't an entirely fair criticism of this particular project as they appear to be trying to add something public, green and walkable to what might otherwise be entirely vehicle oriented.  ...
1 comment
Read more

Bloomberg Surveillance

I was watching a little Bloomberg this morning. An interesting moment occurred when Tom Keene was discussing the talks  going on in Paris. I wish I had the exact phrasing, but he said something like, “We really need to wait until we see the impacts [of climate change] before we can try to prevent them.” His tone sort of trailed off at the end as if the contradiction of that statement occurred to him mid-sentence. His point was, I believe, that it would be irresponsible to spend big money trying to prevent something that might not happen. They then moved on to the massive smog alert  going on in Beijing and how the health impacts of burning coal have brought the Chinese government to the table sooner than anyone had imagined possible. Unfortunately, he and his fellow commentators failed to put these two ideas together:   If we wait until we see the impacts, it will be too late to avoid them. When inaction risks many lives, the only prudent thing to do is act now.* ...
1 comment
Read more

The Value of Pop Economics?

A friend recently posted a meme about rising income inequality to Facebook. One of the comments was a link to a piece from Economics Explained with the provocative title " How The Dutch Economy Shows We Can't Reduce Wealth Inequality With Taxes " I'm starting to see a pattern in these sorts of economics articles: 1. Make a pointed and contrarian claim about the power of economics to address a major issue in contemporary society (taxes won't fix inequality). 2. Compare related economics concepts that have much narrower definitions than the ones that drew in the reader (GINI vs income & wealth inequality vs a few specific aspects of Dutch taxes and culture). 3. Add some artfully selected facts to keep people interested (Heineken family info). 4. Also artfully avoid saying explicitly that the narrow comparison proves or disproves anything specific about the broader societal problem. 5. Make a generally agreeable statement about the world: Inequality doesn't ...
Post a Comment
Read more