Revisiting a favourite theme, albeit one I haven’t written about in a while, the Guardian tells us that the US construction industry is investing heavily in green construction techniques. Good news for sure – but the most critical issue from where I’m sitting is to get these techniques and materials out into the developing world, and especially Asia, where construction of brand-new buildings and even cities is going on at a frantic pace.
It still bemuses me that this isn’t a huge industry in Singapore, where there’s a large construction sector, and a government that appears to have money to burn when it comes to investing in R&D that may bring economic benefit to the country in the future. Although they’ve taken some small steps in terms of the way they build public housing, and some regulatory requirements for private developers, I’m not hearing much about R&D into new techniques and materials. Perhaps it’s not sexy enough – or perhaps the local construction lobby is too powerful. After all, the Straits Times published a leader opposing seatbelts for the foreign workers who travel in the back of trucks – because it would impose excessive costs on the construction companies….* Of course, I would be delighted if someone better informed than me can point me towards a source of information about R&D into green building in Singapore!
* I can’t find an online source for this, but it made a big impression when I read it…
It may be due to watching David Lynch’s Dune at an impressionable age, or perhaps reading Michael Moorcock’s Oswald Bastable series at around the same time, but I have strong steampunk affinities. In particular, I’ve always regretted the fact that the great airships were phased out after the the Hindenberg disaster.
Although there seems to be a suggestion every 10 years or so that an airship revival is imminent, it never seems to happen. Still, I am inspired nonetheless by a couple of articles (via Slashdot) that seem to give hope that it may yet happen, enabled by the rising cost of oil.
It seems to me that these could be very useful for short-haul passenger trips around south-east Asia – perhaps they would be safer than the chronically over-loaded Indonesian passenger ferries, and less prone to disasters. They would also be very useful for moving cargo around China, or India….
I’ve written previously that my apartment overlooks the port of Singapore, and that I’m fascinated by the constant flow of ships and their cargo, as well as by the streams of commerce that they represent; perhaps one day it will be my good fortune to live with a view of a Singapore Airship Port, with gleaming zeppelins depositing passengers and goods from all over the world…
Slashphone brings the news that when the Meizu M8 is released in February next year, it will hit the market not just in China, but also in the US. Apparently it will be previewed at a trade show in the States in January.
Hm. So much for my hopes of making a fortune by selling them from China on eBay…. 
I’ll be in Beijing in February, so it’s likely I’ll be getting one. The question is, do I buy a CECT T100 in the meantime? I’ll have to make that decision in the next couple of days…
I’ve just found Tim O’Reilly’s report from the Beijing Foo Camp, posted a week ago. It chimes with everything I feel about Beijing after my time there, and in particular, this:
There are (reportedly) very large differences between the tech cultures in Shanghai and Beijing. Shanghai is very entrepreneurial, with money as a common language. Beijing is more complex, richer by most opinions, but more difficult. We might have felt more at home in Shanghai, but because of the complex interactions between government, academic institutions (which are centered in Beijing), the artistic revival here, and business, many felt that the future is here in Beijing. Of course, they also said that the rivalry between the two cities is like the rivalry between LA and New York.
I totally agree – and it’s one of the reasons why I keep touting Beijing as one of the most interesting places in the world to be right now – and why I’m going back next year 
The whole of Tim’s post is worth reading for his thoughts on Beijing, China, and the tech/arts scene.
IBM’s Innovation Factory is going to be working with China Telecom to set up a research centre in Shanghai. What I find interesting is that the centre will be based around collaborative media and social technology, pulling in knowledge from not just the two partners but also their customers, suppliers and the rest of their extended human networks.
It will be fascinating to see how this works. Much of my experience in China suggests that Chinese employees still tend to be knowledge-hoarders by instinct; the market right now is still lending itself to job-hopping and the search for a better salary above all else, and that encourages talent to try to maintain its value by not sharing. I looked at this for my HRM course at Tsinghua two years ago, and the tendency hasn’t changed.
