3.1.2K8: Right to light

When my father worked for the U.S. Department of Energy, one of the areas of independent energy use he was studying was a subject referred to as "air rights" or "sun rights." The idea was that one structure did not have the right to block the sunlight that fell on another structure, and it was seen as a potential element of future home and building layout and construction. As a student working for an architecture degree, the idea fascinated me, and I hoped to see more of its principles applied to design and construction of homes and buildings. Alas, the idea never got much further than the planning boards, and with the breaking up of the DoE, faded into the sunset.

Fast-forward to Santa Clara, California in 2008, where Mark Vargas has just successfully sued Richard Treanor and his wife, Carolyn Bissett, to cut down the two redwood trees on their lawn that were shading Vargas' roof-mounted solar cell collectors. Although California actually had some little-known and lesser-used laws on its books, this may be the first time they have been applied and enforced anywhere in the country.

So, are everyone's shade trees doomed to be cut down? Hardly. The California law charges that existing trees or objects will not be required to be cut or removed, but new growth or structures that encroach on already-installed solar systems must be cut back or removed to avoid blocking sunlight. So, if your trees or structures were up before the solar panels, there is no legal way to force you to remove or trim anything. In fact, the Treanors are hoping to convince the California legislature to scrap the law, which forced them to cut down two big, healthy, animal-housing, carbon-absorbing trees on their property, with no compensation for their loss (in fact, the state was within its legal rights to fine them, though it declined to do so). Vargas, in his defense, suggested that his solar panels would do more to cut back on carbon emissions than the Treanor's redwoods.

But as more homeowners look to generating their own power using solar cells, many of them are looking up and seeing a major part of their sunlight blocked by their neighbor's homes or trees. Now that a precedent has been set, we may expect to see more battles of this nature, in California at least, and eventually, nationwide.

3.19.2K8: R.I.P. Sir Arthur C. Clarke

Sir Arthur C. Clarke, 1917-2008

Today I join many people, around the world, in mourning the death of Sir Arthur C. Clarke.

His obituary will be repeated in many places, so I will not go into the details of his extraordinary life here. I would rather describe how much of an influence Sir Arthur has had on most of my life, as his memory will continue to do into the future.

Ray Bradbury may get the nod as the first science fiction author I ever read, but Arthur C. Clarke certainly had the most impact on me. Unlike most of the SF I'd read during my early years, Clarke's work had a quality of undeniable realism to it that brought a more palpable dimension to SF. He took SF out of the "gee whiz" arena and presented it as something that you could easily see happening in real life. His efforts to apply real science in realistic ways, made his work more approachable, more practical. You could easily believe that, but for an accident of time, you could have been right next to the main characters in his stories... and, in many cases, could easily have been the main character.

I have often described Sir Arthur's writing style as being similar to the iconic Brigidier General in the drawing room, calmly regailing his enthralled listeners with stories of his exploits from the Boer War. His was a dry wit, but an ingenious one. He had a talent for setting up the listener for the punch line, which was often given a cosmic proportion, but all the same maneuvered deftly into the bounds of the imagination so as not to overwhelm and lose its effectiveness.

Sir Arthur knew his science, and he wrote of what he knew. I was first impressed with his detailed afterwords, in which he described the roots of the science or events his story had related, and much more than straight biblios and page references... information that made clear why it was so significant to him, and his story, and therefore why the reader should be aware of it. He also knew humans, and their capacities and limits. His oft-quoted phrase, "Any science, sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic," is perhaps the most concise description of the connection between Man and Science that there ever will be.

Most importantly, Sir Arthur had a vision of the universe that was as practical as it was full of wonder. His opinion on the possibilities of life in the cosmos were well-served by his undersea hobbies, which opened his mind to even more incredible possibilities of the tenacity of life. He was one of the first to make the connection between the micro-organisms that have been recently discovered to be thriving just millimeters from the scalding heat and deadly gasses of active submerged volcanoes, and the likelihood that life elsewhere in the universe similarly needed only a tiny sliver of a chance to assert itself. At the same time, he saw past the human prejudice of anthropomorphism, and understood that there was no reason to expect life elsewhere to be anything like we might imagine.

All of these things inspired me into science fiction, its promises and possibilities, and its outlook. Clarke's approach to SF, his voice, was the first one I wanted to emulate, or at least tribute, in my own work. His attitude towards SF was one I shared. For years, I found myself wishing I could someday go to Sri Lanka, Clarke's home, and to visit my greatest literary inspiration, to thank him, and perhaps to worship at his feet. I do not know whether or not I would be writing SF if it had not been for Sir Arthur... but I do know that without his influence, my writing would not be a tenth of what it is now.

We are all richer to have had him. We are all poorer to have lost him.

3.22.2K8: Society against the digital riot

Every few weeks, it seems, a thread pops up on the MobileRead web site wherein the members enter into a new round of a now-familiar discussion on e-book piracy, or the practice of creating e-books independently of the publisher's intent, sharing and downloading them without paying for them. I have been involved in a number of those threads, and as I tried to defend the idea that people should be willing to pay for the things they get, I slowly built up a picture of what was really going on at the discussions' base. The argument essentially revolves around the individual's responsibility to the society at-large, versus his insistence to be allowed to do what he pleases, despite society's wishes.

Society finds itself faced with a new area of contention, a digital arena that is very unlike the realities of the rest of the world. The ease of file sharing, the eroding of global boundaries, and the seemingly insubstantial nature of digital goods, have created new levels of commerce and trade and product that have yet to be properly understood and quantified. As laws and practices are eroding beyond the national boundaries that spawned them, individuals freely practice anarchy, then go online and brag about it. The digital realm is starting to resemble a town enmeshed in rioting, where people smash and grab and thumb their noses at helpless authorities.

But sooner or later, a riot stops, and the rule of society reasserts itself. In the aftermath of a riot, vendors usually do one of two things: Either they arrange to bolster security in their store, and often raise prices to account for security costs and theft-related loss; or they cease to sell in that location altogether, taking products away from individuals. Either way, the consumer is not better off... maybe they snagged a few free loaves of bread, but now they have to shlep all the way across town and/or spend more for their bread. This, of course, never occurs to them during the riot... they just smash and grab, set themselves up for the inevitable punishment later, and find someone else to blame for the closing of their local store and the increased drain on their wallet.

This is exactly what we can expect, when society finally gets the digital realm organized (and it will) and puts a stop to the anarchic practices of illegal file sharers. We can also expect that, with the improvements in file-tracking capabilities that the web developes on a day-to-day basis, a lot more of these pirates will get caught and punished... they will not remain as anonymous as they think.

In the end, society will prevail. The riots will end, we'll assess our losses, and figure out the best ways to protect ourselves from the rioters in the future. Digital goods will be secured from loss. Anti-social practices will be curtailed and contained. It will take a lot more than the internet to bring down society... because society is fully capable of taking down the internet.

So I guess we shouldn't worry too much about online "pirates," other than to wonder how much their actions will inevitably cost the rest of us.

3.28.2K8: Even California is softening on the environment

California surprised the heck out of a lot of people the other day, when it revised the target number of zero-emission vehicles it wants to see in the state by 2014, from 25,000—itself a lowering from the pre-2003 numbers of 10%—down to 7,500.

Their justification is that they have swapped 17,500 zero-emission vehicles for 60,000 hybrids, a bone thrown to the major automakers who have made little or no effort to put fully-electric vehicles in the roads, and realized how much California's initiatives were going to cost them. Unfortunately, hybrids are far from zero-polluting, and in fact many of the larger hybrid trucks and SUVs still do not get mileage equal to that of a small car. Overall, it means a reduction in pollution that won't amount to much.

Other states, which follow California's lead in establishing clean air standards, are expected to adopt similar numbers. The Union of Concerned Scientists went on record as disappointed with the change. The American automakers, predictably, were very satisfied.

Unfortunately, as the economy worsens, environmental issues are again being pushed into the background (as they always are when the economy gets tight). Anything seen to be injurious to the American economy will be back-burnered, and every pro-economy speech given by our prospective presidential candidates will deftly steer clear of environmental issues that tend to lower corporate profits and (supposedly) cause layoffs. All of this is expected.

It's just a shame to see the mighty California, forever the leader in environmental issues, cave so obviously and spectacularly. If they can't protect the environment, Gods help the rest of us.