blog (March, 2008)
re-users, re-claimers
Susan Miller linked to an inspiring video on Recycled Houses. Building communities by training those in-need/in-want to construct their own homes (re-)using salvaged materials. Fantastic.
I met someone, Friday, at the recycle bins behind the West Side Market. He was sorting for metals as I was making a drop-off. We talked; I have some things he might want. He showed me a few spots to leave him aluminum, brass, copper: toss it over this fence, cover it with these boxes, leave a bag as a signal under the corner of this dumpster's lid...
They have a bad name from the start -- "Scrapper" having a pejorative connotation -- and they've developed a worse one, as many are catching attention by stealing from and dismantling houses and buildings.
The profession, itself, though, is indispensable by nature, for nature, for all. I can't think of a much more admirable but undervalued pursuit than sorting others' trash to reclaim and reuse -- particularly considering our society's overconsumption, energy inefficiency, and pollution :: material abuse!
What if we started with a new, positive, name for the scrapper: Re-user? Re-claimer?
Help!
We could clean up our land, cut material costs, decrease waste, and employ many, if we would better codify the process and bring it out from underground. Formalize the networks of people and organizations involved: connect re-claimers with builders, deconstruction agencies, materials businesses, waste management. (Integral industry!)
It starts, though, with respect for and the re-naming of this pursuit and those that occupy themselves with it.
nexus, social connection
nexus is defined as both a means of connection as well as the core or center. Biologically speaking, it's a specialized area of the cell membrane involved in intercellular communication and adhesion.
So we've interwoven:
- the means of connection
- the core of a connective network, and
- the part that provides that means.
Nexus comes from the Latin nectere, to bind, (not to be confused with nectar, which is the Latin drink of the gods, but from the Greek for death (think necro.))
Now we have a new definition. Nexus (n): a tool for visualizing your social connections. (Found via information aesthetics: facebook social network graph.) Install the Nexus Facebook app, and it generates a semi-interactive graph of all of your friends and how they're connected. Mouse over a friend-node, and all of her or his friends on your graph are highlighted.
I've said before, there's a ton of potentially interesting data here -- who's connected to whom -- free for the mining. (Is Valdis watching?)
But ... means and membranes ... What are the means of personal connections? Business, love, work: are these just platforms, and communication the only means of direct connection? (Is that a cop-out and re-definition?)
The comment box at the bottom of this post is also a means, (means: instrument or agency.)
Show me your membrane.