cameron4

There's a pretty active modding / hacking channel in the Light Phone discord that's out there somewhere. I haven't tried it on my own LP2, but some folks are flashing theirs with alternate versions of Android to get a few additional apps that they need

I take photos for fun in my spare time and recently started shooting on film again. This time around I've been interested in how film actually functions. SmarterEveryDay has a fantastic 3-part YouTube series of the Kodak manufacturing process as he tours through the facility. I'm now amazed that film is still even being manufactured today, and can't even imagine what the production line was like during the heyday of film.

I've developed my own film in the past but knowing so little about chemistry myself, it's still pretty much magic to me even after digesting all of the info from the series.

If it hasn't made it onto your list yet, Ursula K. Le Guin's book titled "The Dispossessed" is a great exploration of anarchism in practice through a sci-fi lens

I also haven't recognized any changes as a regular user and listener. I'm not an artist so I haven't uploaded any music and I do wonder if the artist experience has changed at all. I'm definitely bracing myself for change if / when it comes, however. I plan to keep using Bandcamp until then.

When Epic bought the platform I do remember a similar reaction from folks, along with confusion because why would a gaming company buy a music platform, and what kind of dumb sweeping changes were they going to make? The Songtradr acquisition at least makes more sense from an industry standpoint. Personally, I feel better with the platform in their hands rather than Epic's

This article makes a lot of great points. Thankfully, proof of "green-ness" of a building such as LEED Certification is becoming marketable, and developers or building owners can advertise their building's LEED status to potential tenants. What likely needs to happen to really achieve healthier indoor spaces is to create a standardized process similar to LEED certification for all new construction. Just as the article states, the change needs to happen at the policy level.

Aside from policy changes, customers also have a tremendous amount of leverage in the design process. If customers begin to push for healthier materials and designs, we'll likely see change faster than waiting for policy or building code changes.

Many architects push for healthier materials and designs but cost is such an enormous obstacle. Healthier materials are usually the more expensive option, and are the first to go in any value-engineering endeavor.

There are ways to design for maximum natural ventilation as well, but there are several generations of architects educated to design for HVAC systems, likely due to the energy crisis that the author mentioned. They just don't know how to design a building for passive ventilation. Heck, I finished school in 2020 and just barely touched on this kind of thing. Contractors and engineers also stand in the way - it's tough to re-educate such a huge industry with so many actors, trades, and fields involved in every project. This is also somewhat of an American problem. The western/American AEC industry could and should look to elsewhere in the world for examples of healthier design. Above comment about lack of education applies here as well - very few educators in America can teach this, as most never learned it themselves.

In my industry, several "open letters" have been sent to Autodesk for their lack of response to customer requests and seemingly basic or common-sense features that have been requested for decades:

https://the-nordic-letter.com/

https://archinect.com/news/article/150324438/nordic-architec...

Doubt anyone has marched in protest of Autodesk but sometimes I sure feel like doing so

This is a good question - I haven't studied much aside from densifying existing neighborhoods but when thinking about other options, I suppose suburbs come to mind. Before going any further, I should clarify that I live in the US and look at this through an American lens. Anyways, a primary issue with suburban affordability is that demand is high and space is limited[1]: many folks want to live in the suburbs but maintain their jobs in urban centers, and you can only have so much low density housing within commuting distance to a city. Since urban centers are where the majority of jobs are, it's tough to suggest that people "just move to the country", for example. Remote work could help with reducing density while allowing people to relocate to more remote and/or affordable places. More public transportation may also allow suburbanites to move further away (think high-speed trains and commuter rails).

I've also heard arguments for an urban model that focuses on smaller, more community-centric cities instead of huge urban centers like New York or LA. I don't have any primary sources for this, but I think the idea is to keep density low-ish, and increase the distribution of these urban nodes evenly across a region [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_village]. To me this sounds similar to the mundane suburban towns I grew up around.

Urbanity/density is likely the easiest[2] solution, but I'm sure it's not the only one. There are likely many thoughtful solutions that don't rely on density - I may look around to see if I can find any.

[1] I guess this issue applies across the entire spectrum of housing, which is why there's a housing crisis

[2] Easy is relative - obviously, this is has proven to be a very difficult problem to solve.

Your logic is correct, or at least most would say so!

Denser housing could solve a lot of housing issues. The problem is getting denser housing built, especially in not-so-dense neighborhoods. This could be for any number of reasons - the accusatory voice in my head likes to think it's mostly due to NIMBYs ("not in my backyard!" or folks that don't want to live in higher density neighborhoods) because of their warped perception of these spaces: higher crime, higher traffic, unsafe for children, etc. Some of these views may be true, but it's not a given in every high density neighborhood. Safe, walkable, dense neighborhoods exist in many places already.

Another issue can be policy, and specifically zoning, which a lot of NIMBYs fight very hard to control. I'm no expert on zoning, but the general consensus among architects and pro-housing people is that it's holding back a lot of potential homes from being constructed. Check this out for some opinions on zoning: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/can-the-us-ho...]

In my previous city there's a popular type of "middle housing" (not high end single-family, and not small apartments) called a dingbat. They at one point in time were crucial for filling the gap in housing but have now been regulated away. Check this out for info on dingbats: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlWvcsGlHA4]

For your neighborhood in particular, zoning regulations have likely limited height to 5 floors. Maybe folks in the community lobbied for this regulation to keep density down, or maybe your towns infrastructure can't support a higher density of cars (and this brings up building code and parking requirements that we have in America) - there could be many combinations of reasons for this density limit, but you should look into it! A city's history of zoning policy can be very interesting, as they oftentimes stem from decades old regulations or segregation.

Your optimism is valid - optimism is incredibly important for solving problems like these, especially when so many solutions exist! Implementing those solutions is usually the toughest part.

I'm an architect (of buildings) and mostly lurk here but this is very interesting and had to comment - many designers don't like the idea of quantifying design value through measurable data, but it's most definitely the future. The design time and cost savings that can be had from using datasets or software like Archilyse's will continue to grow, while also (hopefully) ensuring a higher baseline design value of buildings. I'm personally just beginning my journey of coding/programming because of exactly this sort of thing (among other reasons).