Lemonade happening and park

Via Cool Hunting a 2:08 min. clip showing the world's largest lemonade stand, an incredible park built on an elevated railroad track, sharing the story of a traditional workshop based in NYC.

Direct link to the clip on YouTube

Transcript:

"The tank goes on the top of the building and the water is fed down through gravity to provide the people of New York ... to wash and shower with, to fight fires, and tack life and property.

Today we are erecting the world's largest lemonade stand, which will serve for the grand opening of the High Line.

The High Line is the City's newest park, an incredible park built on an elevated railroad track, that had been abandoned for many years and it stretches the west side of Manhattan.

We were opening the High Line just a few weeks ago, and this is sort of the first big public celebration. We have all kinds of stuff in this happening, this is just puppet festival. Behind me you'll see, a construction of what will be the world's largest lemonade stand. A lemonade tank containing 15 hundred gallons of natural lemonade

When we had this idea of a lemonade stand and when we took it a step further and started thinking about the water tanks there was really only one person to call, which is Rosenwach. They are the company, they've been doing this for generations.

We've been in business for over a 100 years ... I'm the fourth generation and my son is the fifth generation, and we started in the late 1890's here. Our buildings are over 20 stories and they really require an artisian well top with scrubby fed down and best we have in wooden tank.

But the tanks that we make on the roof obviously hold water, and the tank here will hold lemonade, and it goes together like a traditional barrel.

The water tank after the walls is an icon of New York, and what better than to provide the lemonade for the grand opening than a traditional New York water tank."

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Learn more about the High Line Park Project: according to wikipedia this started as a project in 2004 with the New York City committing $ 50MM to establish the proposed park, which was inaugurated and opened to the public in the summer of 2009. (June 8)

Real problems and Common Knowledge

The problem with real problems, is who gets to define what those really are.

How to minimize the impact of lobbies taking advantage of public money unless the outcomes respond to public real benefits?

How to foster the networks and ideas that could either "respond to real problems with simple solutions that can evolve with time" ?

I came across this ScienceBlogs and it brings forth interesting points to reflect and think on examples. The heading of the blog is Common Knowledge.

The case of digital public TV in Spain now open to private entities for marketing sports and entertainment by business groups that contribute to soccer becoming almost a religion in some countries, could be one case to follow closely. What kind of role model(s) are the leaders and administrators of public funds offering the young? And what mass media are offering here today makes you hope that more and more kids may prefer to entertain themselves with video games and other informational skill building activities, via web or other, building their own social media networks and learning something of value along the way.

The integration between soccer, media and business, the trade with professionals and all the publicity that goes with it, I fail to understand how any of that should be subject to public interest, and draw laws that benefit any. It may be not as bad as pushing a stupid war move following lousy decision making in international centers, but it's also not heading in the right direction.

Moving on to another hot subject drawing amazing amounts of public funds and attention, in Asturias as in the US: public health systems: standards, administration and information. What is public, what isn't, and how to better integrate both with fair policies and rules. Not an easy subject by all means, where the mesh of standards, underlying assumptions and beliefs, not to mention the private interests are highly complex. Yet, we tend to expect simple positive outcomes, responding to what multiple opposed players define as "real problem", and that they are implemented fast.

My chosen take away of all this from the above quoted post by John Wilbanks, dated August 5, 2009,

"the real issues underpinning what it would take to generate real disruptive innovation in health technology and health costs."

"If we're going to bring that level of innovation potential to health IT, we need to keep the lessons of the simple standard in mind. Because right now, if you're a bright young entrepreneur, you don't get into health IT. And the lack of not just standards, but the right kinds of standards, is the first barrier we have to knock down to change that reality."

Evolving Administration

The United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources hearing, on the nomination of Steven Chu to be Secretary of Energy with the new team driven by the now President Obama. This was a Full Committee Hearing, on Tuesday January 13, 2009.

If you choose to link to the original version, these are the key moments:

Minute Action

• 15:51 Introductions
  
• 32:09 Dr. Chu swears and gives testimony
  
• 41:16 Questions and Answers
  

Many questions by Senate representatives insist on traditional energy sources and defense issues, traditional nuclear energy issues, and nuclear arms clean up still pending. Scroll to minute 92:00 (min 95:27 he responds commenting on-going plans and his will to get going, at the same time, referring to the changing mood in the country with respect to this topic, and the new discoveries that science can bring.

"... as a scientist I am ever optimistic about our ability to expand the boundaries of what is possible". "training, development, employment (...) improving management and program implementation, simply put, if the Department is to meet the challenges ahead, we'll have to run more efficiently and effectively. One of my first priorities will be to put together a strong leadership and management team, one that shares not only my vision for the Department, but also my commitment to improving the way that the Dept. does business. I do not underestimate the difficulty of meeting these challenges...but I remain optimistic, that we can meet them".

This Senate Committee offers a very useful link of FAQ describing many content options and tools.