The WaPost's Rick Weiss reports on the growing movement to slap more regulations on nanotechnology. Interestingly, the only reported skepticism about regulation comes from the EPA:
An estimated 700 types of nanomaterials are being manufactured at about 800 facilities in this country alone, prompting several federal agencies to focus seriously on nano safety. Yet no agency has developed safety rules specific to nanomaterials. And the approach being taken by the Environmental Protection Agency, arguably the furthest along of any regulatory body, is already facing criticism by some as inadequate.
In documents that are now being finalized for public comment, the agency calls for a "stewardship program" that would be voluntary. Manufacturers would be asked to alert officials about nanoproducts they are making and to provide information about environmental or health risks they have uncovered. But they would not be required to make such reports or to do special studies.
Although the agency may at some point feel the need to impose stricter controls, the voluntary approach has the advantage that it can be implemented more quickly, said Charles Auer, director of the EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics. He added that the agency is not sure it understands enough about the new materials to know how best to regulate them.
"This way we can develop something, gain experience and learn more about what we're dealing with," Auer said.
I don't know whether to be glad that front-line regulators are aware of their ignorance or upset that Weiss didn't find anyone outside the government to suggest that maybe slapping controls on a nascent technology isn't the best way to proceed.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on December 05, 2005 • Comments
Forbes has a timely retrospective and slideshow, with assorted fun facts. Did you know Play-doh was originally designed to clean wallpaper?
Posted by Virginia Postrel on December 05, 2005 • Comments
The Manolo comments on the item below: "Ultimately, however, although the Virginia can point to the items of coolness, she cannot explain exactly what it is that makes them cool. This it is because the 'coolness'" is more about the emotional than the intellectual."
Coolness, like any aesthetic response, is (to quote myself in umpteen speeches) "immediate, perceptual, and emotional. It is not cognitive." Trying to make aesthetic value cognitive leads analysts of all sorts to fixate on status and exclusivity, because they're easy to understand.
That said, with enough after-the-fact cognitive effort, I think it's possible to identify elements, like flatness in electronics, that make something cool, at least at a particular moment in time. Graceful ingenuity, like that displayed in Podlowski's rings, is cool. If I work hard enough, I might even be able to articulate some of the factors that make the BCBG bags cool. But this is a blog, and I'm too lazy to make the effort. (I've spent the last year writing thousands of unpublished words analyzing glamour, another powerful, intangible quality that depends on the audience's imagination.)
What's really hard about explaining "cool" isn't analyzing an object you've already decided is cool. It's creating a cool object in the first place. You can't just mix and match known elements to solve a well-defined problem. You have to intuit what will evoke the right emotions.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on December 05, 2005 • Comments
Friday afternoon, I had an interesting phone conversation with Steven Levy, who is writing a book on the iPod. At one point, he asked why I thought the iPod had managed to stay cool even after it became ubiquitous. Doesn't a gadget have to be exclusive to be cool? No, I said. That's one kind of cool. There's another kind that depends on the intrinsic aesthetics of the product. An intrinsically cool product doesn't have to be expensive or hard to get to stay cool.
It's easy to think of cool electronics. Flat-screen TVs are cool. So is the Motorola Razr. Come to think of it, flatness is simply a cool feature in electronic products. Their cool factor doesn't depend on who owns them. That doesn't mean flatness will always seem cool. It could easily become normal and boring. (I remember when silent light switches seemed incredibly cool.) If we get used to the looks of something, if it starts to fade into the background, it loses its cool factor. But it's a mistake to confuse freshness with exclusivity.
Steven Levy asked me to name some non-electronic gadgets that are intrinsically cool. I'm terrible at answering questions like that off the top of my head, especially with no pictures. But here are some examples.
This is the BCBG Max Azria Signature bag, which comes in 16 colors and two or three different sizes. I have it in bright blue. It was just so cool that every time I saw it, whether in a store window or a magazine spread, I did a double take, as though I was seeing it for the first time. Turns out it doesn't just look good. It's also incredibly functional, with pockets for every purpose.
Lots of cars are cool. The classic Jaguar is the example I managed to come up with on the spot, undoubtedly because it's not just cool but glamorous. The Prius is cool, both technically (the hybrid engine) and aesthetically. After the initial boring model, designed to look as Camryish as possible, Toyota wisely gave the Prius a cool wrapping. Every time I see one, I think, "What a cool car. Oh yeah, it's a Prius."
For current cool at, however, it's hard to beat the Chrysler Crossfire.
The coolest thing I own is a lot smaller than a purse or a car or even my Razr. It's an amethyst ring by Polish designer Tomasz Plodowsi. It's not expensive, not exclusive, but really, really cool.
I'm enabling comments on this entry, in case you'd like to add your own. Please limit the discussion to this topic. UPDATE: I don't know why the comments link isn't showing up. I'm trying to figure out the problem. If you know Movable Type and have any theories, please let me know. I have "Allow Comments" set on "Open."
Posted by Virginia Postrel on December 04, 2005 • Comments
Few authors have a Maureen Dowd/Bill O'Reilly-style publicity machine. So the biggest obstacle to most book sales is simple ignorance. People who might like a book simply don't know it exists. The most likely way they'll find out is if a friend reads the book and recommends it. Hence the importance of buzz.
Lately, I've been fretting over The Substance of Style's respectable but unspectacular sales (roughly 18,000 copies in hardback, now out of print, and 12,000 copies so far in paperback). One problem seems to be that, while the book has enthusiastic fans, it has gotten minimal word of mouth. Why? Professor Postrel's cheery explanation: "The people who like your stuff don't have any friends."
Posted by Virginia Postrel on December 03, 2005 • Comments
Photo blogger Rick Lee finds it. Scroll down for other abstract still lifes from his sundry shopping trips.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on December 03, 2005 • Comments
This post is a bit late, since I've been traveling without Internet access, researching the pens story (see below). But here's my new NYT column, on new research that seems to confirm the link between job hopping and Silicon Valley's innovative environment.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on December 01, 2005 • Comments
Have you or a loved one had a bar mitzvah recently? If so, did you (or he) receive pens as presents? For an article on pens in a digital age, I'm looking for bar mitzvah boys (isn't that redundant?) to interview, and I'd prefer not to use even distant relatives. If you qualify, please email me. Thanks.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 29, 2005 • Comments
A cornucopia of interesting links here.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 29, 2005 • Comments
Atop the headlines on TCS's "Elsewhere" lineup is this cryptic teaser: "Pamela Friedman would agree!" Pamela Friedman? I asked myself. The only Pamela Friedman I know is Ron Bailey's wife.
Yes indeed, the link is to a Hit and Run post titled, "Bailey tackles touchy subjects." Very funny, to an elite audience.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 29, 2005 • Comments