Everything And Nothing

The Road Ahead

TIME magazine assembled some of the smartest people they know to identify the trends that are most likely to affect our future. What they got was a fascinating discussion about religion, technology and politics and why no one's golf scores seem to be getting any better.

I think this was my favorite quote from the article:

The Internet is like alcohol in some sense. It accentuates what you would do anyway. If you want to be a loner, you can be more alone. If you want to connect, it makes it easier to connect.
~ Esther Dyson

Keep-Your-Shorts-On Massages for Men

In September, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts' Willow Stream spa in Scottsdale is launching MVP rooms. Men bypass the waiting lounge, wear T-shirts and shorts rather than a robe and watch flat-screen TVs with wireless headphones while being pampered.

It's a spa for men who have spa issues.

Up to 75% of Fairmont's guests are men, but women account for most spa visits, so the Toronto hotel chain turned to market research to figure out what guys want. The MVP rooms are painted "pumping-iron gray" and stocked with manly publications like Cigar Aficionado. And even before the MVP rollout, treatments like the Aloe Eucalyptus Scrub were supplemented with the Gentleman's Barber Facial and the Golf Performance Treatment, a $159 massage. (With so much testosterone in the room, you just might forget that you're there for a pedicure.)

My Own Private Disco

The new rave? Quiet discos. Born of noise complaints in the Netherlands.

Music is piped in to wireless headphones. Dance until 5 a.m. without disturbing the neighbors.

The idea for the Quiet Disco comes from a recent trend of pantomime raves started in Holland three years ago by Dutch DJs Nico Okkerse (aka NO DJ) and Michael Minten (aka DJ OD). (Dutch kids call it stille disco.) The pair most recently supplied this summer's Glastonbury Festival with 1,000 wireless headphones.

Stain Bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn recently held its inaugural Quiet Disco Party. Stain owner Krista Madsen, who tended bar that night, told Blender magazine (October 2005) it had other advantages besides the peace and quiet: "No one tried to talk to me and no one wanted anything from me other than a drink."

On the plus side, at Gastonbury, dancers had a choice of two different frequencies - with different performers playing on each. So that cute guy across the room just might assume that you are listening to the other station without realizing you are a terrible dancer.

Rave on! ;)

Scientists fighting pollution with self-cleaning buildings

An exterior view of U.S. architect Richard Meier's Jubilee Church in Rome. It is made of self-cleaning concrete that helps keep the surface shiny white.

Using technology already available for self-cleaning windows and self-cleaning tiles, scientists are developing self-cleaning building materials that dissolve and wash away pollutants when exposed to sun and rain.

Imagine concrete walls in road tunnels that break down vehicle exhausts, or pavings that clean the air. Skanska, a Stockholm-based construction company, says it is ready to try it. It is taking part in a $1.7 million Swedish-Finnish project to develop catalytic cement and concrete products coated with titanium dioxide, a compound that becomes highly reactive when exposed to light.

The way it works: UV rays hit the titanium dioxide trigger with a catalytic reaction that destroys molecules of the pollutants that make smog. It will also prevent bacteria and dirt from sticking to a surface.

Controlled tests have been impressive, but researchers are still not sure how much of an impact the technology will have on air pollution outside of a controlled environment. (Tests were conducted in Italy and France in 2003, with significant reductions in pollutants.)

Several building have used some of the technology - the Jubilee Church above in Rome and several modern buildings in Japan, including the Marunouchi Building in downtown Tokyo.

Unread and Unsubscribing

If you awake before dawn you probably hear a daily sound that may become as anachronistic as the clatter of horses' hooves on urban cobblestones. The sound is the slap of the morning paper on the sidewalk. For the full story from The Washington Post's George Will, click here.

What's paper got to do with it?

The future of news. It’s mobile, immediate, visual, interactive, participatory and trusted. Make way for a generation of storytellers who totally get it.

Buy Cool

Church of the Customer has an interesting piece about McDonald's new efforts to buy cool - pay rappers to name them in their songs (up to $5 each time a song is played on the radio).

Enter the Big Mac-laden rap song, "McGangsta" from the fictitious rap group Gatbustaz. [WARNING: listen to this profanity-laden song at your own risk.]

Say Goodbye to the Wristwatch

I have two confessions to make.

First, just like the kids in this New York Times article (is this really long enough to be an article, maybe it's a snippet?), I have discontinued my use of wristwatches.

But it's not because I'm trendy or with-it, it's because every time I took my (many) watches to Wal-Mart or wherever to get the batteries replaced, they would work about three days and stop. This happened to me several times, so I decide to start buying the $5 Wal-Mart watch and throw it away when the battery ran out. It lasted about two weeks. I gave up.

I just flat out decided to stop wearing a watch - I was expending more energy to know what time it was than it was really worth. (Now when people ask for the time, I can glance at the freckles on my wrist and sing Neil Diamond's "Does anyone really know what time it is? Does anyone really care?") My co-workers are beginning to find this annoying, but I have not tired of it yet.

My second confession is that I never even considered glancing at my Blackberry or my cell phone to see what time it was. I went into the spiel about not wearing a watch one day with one of my younger co-workers - and she said, "Yeah, I don't wear a watch either. I just look at my phone." I of course did not make the confession to her that I never thought of my Blackberry or cell phone as a portable clock or she would have wondered what kind of idiot she worked for - but my oversight amazed me. (I do sometimes wonder how big ideas come to me often but many small things that seem to be blatantly obvious to others  escape me all the time. Is it one or the other?)

The point that I think the NYT article missed though is that young people want to use their mobiles as a watch because they welcome any excuse to show it off (their status symbol) - much like a newly engaged girl will make exaggerated movements with her hand to look at her finger or a newly licensed teenage driver will pour a gallon of milk down the drain for an excuse to go to the grocery store. It's not about utility - it's still fashion.