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Unlocking the Silver Revolution: The Truth About Grey Hair and the Empowering Journey to Embrace the Grey

<p>In a recent poll by midlife connection organisation, Connected Women reveals that two-thirds of women over the age of 50 haven’t embraced their grey hair (67%). With hair starting to go grey in our 30s and 40s, that’s a long time to hide those pesky greys!</p> <p><strong>What causes grey hair? </strong></p> <p>According to Harvard Health, hair doesn’t ‘turn’ grey. Once a strand of hair is a particular colour, it will stay that way unless it is dyed. After the age of 35, hair follicles produce less colour, so when that strand of hair falls out it will be more likely to grow back grey.</p> <p><strong>Can stress cause grey hair? </strong></p> <p>There is very little evidence to indicate that this is true, however, research shows that in mice, in response to a fight or flight situation, hair follicles are impacted and the pigmentation-producing stem cells can be lost. Without stem cells available to produce pigment cells, the hair will go grey.</p> <p>So, can we now legitimately blame our grey hairs on our kids, or our husbands.</p> <p><strong>What happens when you pluck your grey hairs out? </strong></p> <p>Don’t do it! Not only will it simply grow back grey, but according to Trey Gillen, hairstylist and creative director of education at SACHAJUAN, doing so can also traumatise the follicles which could mean NO hair grows back.</p> <p><strong>When is the right time to go grey?</strong></p> <p>This is something that only you can decide. If your hair is dark brown or black, your greys will be more noticeable, so you’ll need to have regular (two to four weekly) trips to the hairdresser to cover them up. At some point you will most likely grow weary of trying to stem the tide and it will be time to just embrace the grey. You will know when you’ve had enough!</p> <p>If you have lighter hair, then your greys will be much less noticeable. Lighter hair gives you a much longer window between coloring appointments in the initial stages of going grey, and later you can use the greys as ‘herringbone highlights’ as per Sarah Jessica Parker’s beautiful mane, which is wonderful way to gracefully embrace going grey.</p> <p><img src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/2023/05/Phoebe-headshot-EDITED.jpg" alt="" width="1280" height="720" /></p> <p><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder; color: #212529; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 16px; background-color: #ffffff;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: #212529;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Phoebe Adams is the founder of Connected Women, an organisation providing a community for women over 50 to connect with each other and build meaningful friendships. With a rapidly growing community in Perth, Sydney, Wollongong, and Melbourne, Connected Women provides a safe and welcoming space for women to come together and share experiences. To learn more about the organisation and how you can get involved, visit <a style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #258440; text-decoration-line: none; background-color: transparent; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;" href="https://www.connectedwomen.net/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">connectedwomen.net</a>.</em></span></span></p> <p><em><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder; color: #212529; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 16px; background-color: #ffffff;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: #212529;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-weight: 400;">Image credits: Getty Images</span></span></span></span></em></p>

Beauty & Style

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We were told we’d be riding in self-driving cars by now. What happened to the promised revolution?

<p>According to <a href="https://electrek.co/2015/12/21/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-drops-prediction-full-autonomous-driving-from-3-years-to-2/">predictions</a> <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/09/lyfts-president-says-car-ownership-will-all-but-end-by-2025">made</a> nearly a decade ago, we should be riding around in self-driving vehicles today. It’s now clear the autonomous vehicle revolution was overhyped.</p> <p>Proponents woefully underestimated the technological challenges. It turns out developing a truly driverless vehicle is hard.</p> <p>The other factor driving the hype was the amount of money being invested in autonomous vehicle startups. By 2021, it was estimated more than <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/02/04/self-driving-cars-why/">US$100 billion</a> in venture capital had gone into developing the technology.</p> <p>While advances are being made, it is important to understand there are multiple levels of autonomy. Only one is truly driverless. As established by <a href="https://www.sae.org/blog/sae-j3016-update">SAE International</a>, the levels are:</p> <ul> <li> <p>level 0 — the driver has to undertake all driving tasks</p> </li> <li> <p>level 1, hands on/shared control — vehicle has basic driver-assist features such as cruise control and lane-keeping</p> </li> <li> <p>level 2, hands off – vehicle has advanced driver-assist features such as emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, auto park assist and traffic-jam assist</p> </li> <li> <p>level 3, eyes off — vehicle drives itself some of the time</p> </li> <li> <p>level 4, mind off — vehicle drives itself most of the time</p> </li> <li> <p>level 5, steering wheel option — vehicle drives itself all the time.</p> </li> </ul> <h2>Why the slow progress?</h2> <p>It’s estimated the technology to deliver safe autonomous vehicles is about <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/mar/27/how-self-driving-cars-got-stuck-in-the-slow-lane">80% developed</a>. The last 20% is increasingly difficult. It will take a lot more time to perfect.</p> <p>Challenges yet to be resolved involve unusual and rare events that can happen along any street or highway. They include weather, wildlife crossing the road, and highway construction.</p> <p>Another set of problems has emerged since <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonmainwaring/2022/08/22/cruise-ride-hailing-goes-green-and-driverless/?sh=6a7439376843">Cruise</a> and <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/19/23467784/waymo-provide-fully-driverless-rides-san-francisco-california">Waymo</a> launched their autonomous ride-hailing services in San Francisco. The US National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/16/cruises-autonomous-driving-tech-comes-under-scrutiny-from-safety-regulators/">opened an investigation</a> in December 2022, only six months after the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jun/03/california-driverless-taxi-cars-san-francisco">services were approved</a>. It cited incidents where these vehicles “may have engaged in inappropriately hard braking or became immobilized”.</p> <p>The San Francisco County Transportation Authority <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/01/technology/self-driving-taxi-san-francisco.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stated</a>, "[I]n the months since the initial approval of autonomous taxi services in June 2022, Cruise AVs have made unplanned and unexpected stops in travel lanes, where they obstruct traffic and transit service and intrude into active emergency response scenes, including fire suppression scenes, creating additional hazardous conditions."</p> <p>In several cases, Cruise technicians had to be called to move the vehicles.</p> <h2>What’s happening now?</h2> <p>Active autonomous vehicle initiatives can be grouped into two categories: ride-hailing services (Cruise, Waymo and Uber) and sales to the public (Tesla).</p> <p>Cruise is a subsidiary of General Motors founded in 2013. As of September 2022, it operated 100 robotaxis in San Francisco and had plans to increase its fleet to 5,000. Critics said this would increase city traffic.</p> <p>Cruise also began to offer services in Chandler (a Phoenix suburb), Arizona, and Austin, Texas, in December 2022.</p> <p>Waymo, formerly the Google Self-Driving Car Project, was founded in January 2009. The company lost <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/11/23453262/waymo-av-driverless-taxi-phoenix-california-dmv-progress">US$4.8 billion in 2020 and US$5.2 billion in 2021</a>.</p> <p>Waymo One provides autonomous ride-hailing services in <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/28/23617278/waymo-self-driving-driverless-crashes-av">Phoenix as well as San Francisco</a>. It plans to expand into <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/19/23410677/waymo-los-angeles-autonomous-robotaxi-service-launch">Los Angeles</a> this year.</p> <p>Uber was a major force in autonomous vehicle development as part of its business plan was to replace human drivers. However, it ran into problems, including a crash in March 2018 when a self-driving Uber killed a woman walking her bicycle across a street in Tempe, Arizona. In 2020, Arizona Uber sold its AV research division to Aurora Innovation.</p> <p>But in October 2022 Uber got back into autonomous vehicles by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/samabuelsamid/2022/10/06/motional-and-uber-announce-10-year-deal-to-deploy-automated-vehicles-in-multiple-us-markets/?sh=44d83a84273e">signing a deal</a> with Motional, a joint venture between Hyundai and Aptiv. Motional will provide autonomous vehicles for Uber’s ride-hailing and delivery services.</p> <p>Lyft, the second-largest ride-sharing company after Uber, operates in the US and Canada. Like Uber, Lyft had a self-driving unit and in 2016, Lyft co-founder John Zimmer <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/09/lyfts-president-says-car-ownership-will-all-but-end-by-2025">predicted</a> that by 2021 the majority of rides on its network would be in such vehicles (and private car ownership would “all but end” by 2025). It didn’t happen. By 2021, Lyft had also <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/26/lyft-sells-self-driving-unit-to-toyotas-woven-planet-for-550m/">sold its self-driving vehicle unit</a>, to Toyota.</p> <p>In 2022, Zimmer <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/20/lyft-co-founder-says-autonomous-vehicles-wont-replace-drivers-for-at-least-a-decade/">said</a> the technology would not replace drivers for at least a decade. However, Lyft did partner with Motional in August 2022 to launch <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lyft-and-motional-deliver-the-first-rides-in-motionals-new-all-electric-ioniq-5-autonomous-vehicle-301606519.html">robotaxis in Las Vegas</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/lyft-motional-launch-robotaxi-service-los-angeles-2022-11-17/">Los Angeles</a>.</p> <p>Telsa is the <a href="https://www.ev-volumes.com/">world leader in sales</a> of battery electric vehicles. It also purports to sell vehicles with full automation. However, by the end of 2022, no level 3, 4 or 5 vehicles were for sale in the United States.</p> <p>What Telsa offers is a full self-driving system as a US$15,000 option. Buyers acknowledge they are buying a beta version and assume all risks. If the system malfunctions, Telsa does not accept any responsibility.</p> <p>In February 2023, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration <a href="https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2023/feb/16/tesla-recall-full-self-driving-cars">found</a>, "[Fully self-driving] beta software that allows a vehicle to exceed speed limits or travel through intersections in an unlawful or unpredictable manner increases the risk of a crash."</p> <p>This led to Tesla <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/feb/16/tesla-recall-full-self-driving-cars">recalling 362,000 vehicles</a> to update the software.</p> <p>Another setback for autonomous vehicle sales to the public was the October 2022 announcement that Ford and VW had decided to <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/26/ford-vw-backed-argo-ai-is-shutting-down/">stop funding autonomous driving technology company Argo AI</a>, resulting in its closure. Both Ford and VW decided to shift their focus from level 4 automation to levels 2 and 3.</p> <h2>So, what can we expect next?</h2> <p>Autonomous vehicle development will continue, but with less hype. It’s being recognised as more an evolutionary process than a revolutionary one. The increasing cost of capital will also make it harder for autonomous vehicle startups to get development funds.</p> <p>The areas that appear to be making the best progress are autonomous ride-hailing and heavy vehicles. Self-driving car sales to the public are <a href="https://www.drive.com.au/news/level-4-self-driving-technology-mercedes-benz/">further down the track</a>.</p> <p><em>This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-were-told-wed-be-riding-in-self-driving-cars-by-now-what-happened-to-the-promised-revolution-201088" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>.</em></p> <p><em>Images: Getty</em></p>

Technology

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Fashion Revolution Week is over, but the fight continues

<p dir="ltr">We’re becoming more conscious of where our clothes come from and how workers are compensated for their labour, and people such as Carry Somers and Orsola de Castro - the founders of <a href="https://www.fashionrevolution.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fashion Revolution</a> - have been major players in increasing awareness.</p> <p><span id="docs-internal-guid-e57fe6ef-7fff-ae09-140f-53a453222c3f"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">The pair of former fashion designers created Fashion Revolution - and the accompanying hashtag #WhoMadeMyClothes - back in 2014, almost a year after the devastating Rana Plaza Collapse in Bangladesh resulted in the deaths of 1100 people and injuries of another 2500.</p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/Ccur8RlouOX/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Ccur8RlouOX/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Orsola de Castro (@orsoladecastro)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">Since then, Somers and Castro have marked the anniversary of the disaster each year with their annual Fashion Revolution Week. This year’s theme, Money Fashion Power, shone a light on how power and wealth are disproportionately held by a few in the mainstream fashion industry who rely on the exploitation of people and natural resources for profit.</p> <p dir="ltr">“As we enter our 9th year, we will go back to our core, exposing the profound inequities and social and environmental abuses in the fashion supply chains,” de Castro said in a statement.</p> <p dir="ltr">“From the uneven distribution of profits, to overproduced, easily discarded fashion, to the imbalances of power that negate inclusion. On the other hand, inspiring new designers, thinkers and professionals all over the world are challenging the system with solutions and alternative models.</p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-3e13cea4-7fff-cad9-72f6-969d3226fe98">“Fashion Revolution Week is all of this, scrutinising and celebrating fashion, globally, locally, wherever you are.”</span></p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CcArcNfMIBi/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CcArcNfMIBi/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Fashion Revolution (@fash_rev)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">Though the week of events have come to an end for 2022, there are still some things we can do to advocate for a fairer industry - and it can be as easy as opening your wardrobe.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>1. Write to a policymaker or brand</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">Taking action doesn’t need to always be on a global scale, and writing to your local policymaker can be an effective way to make a difference in your area even after Fashion Revolution Week ends.</p> <p dir="ltr">Using Fashion Revolution’s handy <a href="https://www.fashionrevolution.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">template</a>, you can find the contact details of your local Australian Senator or Member <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Guidelines_for_Contacting_Senators_and_Members">here</a>, while New Zealand MPs can be found <a href="https://www.parliament.nz/en/get-involved/have-your-say/contact-an-mp/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr">Or, you can ask your favourite brands who makes the clothes they sell via social media, using the hashtags #WhoMadeMyFabric and #WhatsInMyClothes, or using Fashion Revolution’s <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BTY3vX5ZdIelRIg4SqJvIEJFj_wA6Ey1/view" target="_blank" rel="noopener">email template</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>2. Take a look at your wardrobe</strong></p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-b3942f94-7fff-f65e-1103-d33e05eda690"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">Considering the clothes already in our wardrobes is another way we can make a difference. Caring for our clothes, repairing them when they tear or lose a button, or repurposing unrepairable clothes are some simple ways we can make them last.</p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CcK-SNwg6hC/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CcK-SNwg6hC/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Fashion Revolution (@fash_rev)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">When we do need to add something to our wardrobes, opting for secondhand clothing and consulting the <a href="https://issuu.com/fashionrevolution/docs/fashiontransparencyindex_2021" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fashion Transparency Index</a> before buying new clothing can help us make more informed choices and support companies making positive changes.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>3. Arm yourself with knowledge</strong></p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-2f0491db-7fff-14a0-8f6c-d399997d61ac"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">Another way to take action is to educate yourself on the issues facing the fashion industry, and Fashion Revolution has plenty to choose from.</p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CY1l9p8KxLD/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CY1l9p8KxLD/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Fashion Revolution (@fash_rev)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">Their series of ‘pay what you can’ <a href="https://www.fashionrevolution.org/fashion-revolution-fanzine-library/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fanzines</a> cover everything from the industry’s relationship with the environment to the opaque nature of supply chains, and you can see what garment workers experience first-hand through the <a href="https://workerdiaries.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Garment Worker Diaries</a> website.</p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-4b1d51ae-7fff-2c29-66c3-a1755b19282c"></span></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image: @fash_rev (Instagram)</em></p>

Beauty & Style

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Up on a roof: why New Zealand’s move towards greater urban density should see a rooftop revolution

<p>New Zealand has historically been a suburban land. Famously <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/artwork/1997/the-half-gallon-quarter-acre-pavlova-paradise">characterised</a> as a “quarter-acre pavlova paradise”, the domestic ideal has long been a single dwelling on a full section. But that is changing fast.</p> <p>With soaring house prices and homes in short supply, <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300433304/labour-national-announce-sweeping-housing-density-law-threestorey-homes-without-consent">medium-density development</a> is set to fill urban and suburban horizons. Combined with a growing awareness of ecological sustainability, it seems Kiwis may soon be looking up to those green spaces they once looked at through backyard windows.</p> <p>So, why not a rooftop revolution? Humans have made use of roof spaces since the invention of housing. Legend has it the Hanging Gardens of Babylon that greened the ancient city were created on roofs and terraces by those yearning for nature within their urban landscape.</p> <p>These days, rooftop gardens and the “green roofs” movement are trending internationally, both as domestic and commercial spaces. Once useful for solar power and collecting rainwater, roofs are now used for food production, growing mini “forests” to mitigate climate change, “wildlife gardening”, leisure and entertainment.</p> <p><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436848/original/file-20211210-68670-1hdfld1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436848/original/file-20211210-68670-1hdfld1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt="" /></a> <span class="caption">Friedensreich Hundertwasser’s famous roof garden on the restrooms in Kawakawa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></p> <h2>Rooftops of the world</h2> <p>Examples of rooftop regeneration are everywhere. Thailand’s Thammasat University, for instance, boasts urban farming on its rice terrace-influenced <a href="https://worldlandscapearchitect.com/thammasat-university-the-largest-urban-rooftop-farm-in-asia/">green roof</a>, a multipurpose organic food space, public commons, water management system, energy generator and outdoor classroom.</p> <p>The rooftop of the Paris Exhibition Centre is <a href="https://www.euronews.com/green/2020/06/28/the-world-s-largest-rooftop-garden-has-just-opened-in-paris">now a vegetable garden</a>, aimed at cutting the cost of food miles and feeding locals. With its massive, architectural “supertrees”, Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay invents a lush oasis in the densely populated city-state.</p> <p>Closer to home, the artist and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser’s famous roof garden on the <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/7817/kawakawa-public-toilets">restrooms in Kawakawa</a> was a precursor to his remarkable Waldspirale building in Darmstadt, Germany.</p> <p>Typical of his belief in culturally diverse urban forms that co-exist with nature, the apartment complex includes a <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/waldspirale">forest on its spiral roof</a>. Even more ambitious, Whangārei’s brand-new Hundertwasser Art Centre has a <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/452692/hundertwasser-art-centre-due-to-open-in-whangarei">forest rooftop</a> that includes more than 4,000 plants.</p> <p><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436849/original/file-20211210-188518-tv3ice.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt="" /> <span class="caption">Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></p> <h2>The green roof</h2> <p>Similar ideas inform the the <a href="https://www.greenroofs.com/projects/university-of-auckland-engineering-building/">green roof</a> on the University of Auckland’s engineering building. The project involves six plots containing 3,600 native and succulent plants, chosen for their ability to cope with both drought and flood conditions. Pumice, clay and bark are among the soil substitutes on trial, all part of proving a model for both commercial and domestic buildings.</p> <p>To the west, the <a href="https://greenroofs.co.nz/projects/waitakere-civic-centre/">Waitākere Civic Centre green roof</a> was designed to manage rainwater runoff, increase energy efficiency and promote biodiversity. The flat 500sqm garden contains ten types of native plant, iris and sand dune coprosma. The roof provides food and habitat for native insects and birds.</p> <p>Rooftop development also offers the opportunity to decolonise cities, showcasing local culture and ecology and creating Māori spaces. Part of a renaissance in Māori architecture, Auckland International Airport’s green roof was <a href="https://inhabitat.com/the-cloak-fearon-hay-architects-install-a-maori-inspired-green-roof-at-auckland-international-airport/">influenced by korowai</a> and made from flax fibre with geometric patterning.</p> <p>And to the south, with part of its intention being to absorb noise pollution from the airport, Remarkables Primary School in Queenstown has a green roof that blends into the landscape and can be <a href="https://greenroofs.co.nz/projects/remarkables-primary-school-queenstown-new-zealand/">used as a classroom</a>.</p> <p><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436850/original/file-20211210-188518-1pudl1g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt="" /> <span class="caption">The Press Lounge rooftop bar in New York.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></p> <h2>Drinking in the view</h2> <p>If there’s a pioneer of the sky-high lifestyle it’s probably the rooftop bar and restaurant. Kensington Roof Gardens in London opened in 1938, and from 1981 to 2018 was the site of Richard Branson’s appropriately named Babylon restaurant.</p> <p>But the city rooftop bar is now a staple around the world. <a href="https://www.therooftopguide.com/rooftop-bars-in-auckland.html">Auckland</a> and <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/pacific/new-zealand/articles/the-best-rooftop-bars-in-wellington-new-zealand/">Wellington</a> boast multiple options, and post-earthquake Christchurch defies the loss of so much of the central city with two bars atop restored heritage buildings.</p> <p>For those old enough to remember, these rooftop playgrounds might make them nostalgic for the real versions from their childhoods.</p> <p>Taking their lead from the US, magical department store rooftop playgrounds thrilled generations of Kiwi children while their mothers shopped. On the Farmer’s rooftop in Auckland they could drive model cars, happily caught up in a fairground atmosphere that featured a giant toadstool.</p> <p>On the Hay’s rooftop in Christchurch there were cheap rides on spaceships and fibreglass dinosaurs to slide down. There was even a popular purpose-built crèche on top of the then new Wellington railway station between 1937 and 1941.</p> <p><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436854/original/file-20211210-25-1gja0wa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt="" /> <span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></p> <h2>Embracing Babylon</h2> <p>All of this suggests we might be ready for the rooftop revolution. The question is, however, is there a political and civic commitment to greening the mass of new medium-density roof spaces now being built?</p> <p>It will likely take a shift in mindset, supportive legislation and perhaps subsidies. In bucolic “God’s Own Country”, where our mental maps are of wide open spaces rather than vertical ones, roofscapes are going to take a bit of getting used to.</p> <p>Might embracing a Kiwi Babylon mitigate our nostalgia for low-density living and let us re-imagine green spaces in exciting new ways? Let’s hope so. History tells us rooftops can combine utility with pleasure and sustainability. We just need to look up.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172226/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p> <p><span><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/katie-pickles-547300">Katie Pickles</a>, Professor of History, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-canterbury-1004">University of Canterbury</a></em></span></p> <p>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/up-on-a-roof-why-new-zealands-move-towards-greater-urban-density-should-see-a-rooftop-revolution-172226">original article</a>.</p> <p><em>Image: Shutterstock</em></p>

Home Hints & Tips

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The death of the open-plan office? Not exactly but a revolution is in the air

<p>“What will it take to encourage much more widespread reliance on working at home for at least part of each week?” asked Frank Schiff, the chief economist of the US Committee for Economic Development, in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1979/09/02/working-at-home-can-save-gasoline/ffa475c7-d1a8-476e-8411-8cb53f1f3470/">The Washington Post</a> in 1979.</p> <p>Four decades on, we have the answer.</p> <p>But COVID-19 doesn’t spell the end of the centralised office predicted by futurists since at least the 1970s.</p> <p>The organisational benefits of the “propinquity effect” – the tendency to develop deeper relationships with those we see most regularly – are well-established.</p> <p>The open-plan office will have to evolve, though, finding its true purpose as a collaborative work space augmented by remote work.</p> <p>If we’re smart about it, necessity might turn out to be the mother of reinvention, giving us the best of both centralised and decentralised, collaborative and private working worlds.</p> <p><strong>Cultural resistance</strong></p> <p>Organisational culture, not technology, has long been the key force keeping us in central offices.</p> <p>“That was the case in 1974 and is still the case today,” observed the “father of telecommuting” Jack Nilles <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/12/what-telecommuting-looked-like-in-1973/418473/?sf43013774=1">in 2015</a>, three decades after he and his University of Southern California colleagues published their landmark report <a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/book/10.5555/540203">Telecommunications-Transportation Tradeoff: Options for Tomorrow</a>. “The adoption of telework is still well behind its potential.”</p> <p>Until now.</p> <p>But it has taken a pandemic to change the status quo – evidence enough of culture resistance.</p> <p>In his 1979 article, Schiff outlined three key objections to working from home:</p> <ul> <li>how to tell how well workers are doing, or if they are working at all</li> <li>employees’ need for contact with coworkers and others</li> <li>too many distractions.</li> </ul> <p>To the first objection, Schiff responded that experts agreed performance is best judged by output and the organisation’s objectives. To the third, he noted: “In many cases, the opposite is likely to be true.”</p> <p>The COVID-19 experiment so far supports him. Most <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/54-percent-adults-want-mainly-work-remote-after-pandemic-study-2020-5">workers</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/working-from-home-remains-a-select-privilege-its-time-to-fix-our-national-employment-standards-139472">managers</a> are happy with remote working, believe they are performing just as well, and want to continue with it.</p> <p><strong>Personal contact</strong></p> <p>But the second argument – the need for personal contact to foster close teamwork – is harder to dismiss.</p> <p>There is evidence remote workers crave more feedback.</p> <p>As researchers Ethan Bernstein and Ben Waber note in their Harvard Business Review article <a href="https://hbr.org/2019/11/the-truth-about-open-offices">The Truth About Open Offices</a>, published in November 2019, “one of the most robust findings in sociology – proposed long before we had the technology to prove it through data – is that propinquity, or proximity, predicts social interaction”.</p> <p>Waber’s research at the MIT Media Lab demonstrated the probability that any two workers will interact – either in person or electronically – is directly proportional to the distance between their desks. In his 2013 book <a href="https://www.humanyze.com/people-analytics-book/">People Analytics</a> he includes the following results from a bank and information technology company.</p> <p><strong>Experiments in collaboration</strong></p> <p>Interest in fostering collaboration has sometimes led to disastrous workplace experiments. One was the building Frank Gehry designed for the Chiat/Day advertising agency in the late 1980s.</p> <p>Agency boss Jay Chiat envisioned his headquarters as a futuristic step into “flexible work” – but <a href="https://www.wired.com/1999/02/chiat-3/">workers hated</a> the lack of personal spaces.</p> <p>Less dystopian was the Pixar Animation Studios headquarters opened in 2000. Steve Jobs, majority shareholder and chief executive, oversaw the project. He took a keen interest in things like the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/healthy-living/new-work-order-from-google-and-pixar-to-innocent-the-future-of-the-office-starts-here-8687379.html">placement of bathrooms</a>, accessed through the building’s central atrium. “We wanted to find a way to force people to come together,” he said, “to create a lot of arbitrary collisions of people”.</p> <p>Yet Bernstein and Waber’s research shows propinquity is also strong in “campus” buildings designed to promote “serendipitous interaction”. For increased interactions, they say, workers should be “ideally on the same floor”.</p> <p><strong>Being apart</strong></p> <p>How to balance the organisational forces pulling us together with the health forces pushing social distancing?</p> <p>We know COVID-19 spreads most easily between people in enclosed spaces for extended periods. In Britain, research by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine shows workplaces are the most common transmission path for adults aged <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/17/scientists-age-groups-covid-19-workplaces-shops-restaurants">20 to 50</a>.</p> <p>We may have to get used to wearing masks along with plenty of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1438463918305911?via%3Dihub">hand sanitising</a> and disinfecting of high-traffic areas and shared facilities, from keyboards to kitchens. Every door knob and lift button is an issue.</p> <p>But space is the final frontier.</p> <p>It’s going to take more than vacating every second desk or imposing barriers like cubicle walls, which largely defeat the point of open-plan offices.</p> <p>An alternative vision comes from real-estate services company Cushman &amp; Wakefield. Its “6 feet office” concept includes more space between desks and lots of visual cues to remind coworkers to maintain physical distances.</p> <p>Of course, to do anything like this in most offices will require a proportion of staff working at home on any given day. It will also mean then end of the individual desk for most.</p> <p>This part may the hardest to handle. We like our personal spaces.</p> <p>We’ll need to balance the sacrifice of sharing spaces against the advantages of working away from the office while still getting to see colleagues in person. We’ll need new arrangements for storing personal items beyond the old locker, and “handover” protocols for equipment and furniture.</p> <p>Offices will also need to need more private spaces for greater use of video conferencing and the like. These sorts of collaborative tools don’t work well if you can’t insulate yourself from distractions.</p> <p>But there’s a huge potential upside with the new open office. A well-managed rotation of office days and seating arrangements could help us get to know more of those colleagues who, because they used to sit a few too many desks away, we rarely talked to.</p> <p>It might just mean the open-plan office finally finds its mojo.</p> <p><em>Written by Andrew Wallace. Republished with permission of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-death-of-the-open-plan-office-not-quite-but-a-revolution-is-in-the-air-140724">The Conversation.</a> </em></p>

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Billions are pouring into mobility technology – will the transport revolution live up to the hype?

<p>Over the past decade almost <a href="https://files.pitchbook.com/website/files/pdf/PitchBook_Q4_2019_Emerging_Tech_Research_Mobility_Tech_Executive_Summary.pdf">US$200 billion</a> has been invested globally in mobility technology that promises to improve our ability to get around. More than US$33 billion was invested last year alone. Another measure of interest in this area is the <a href="https://travelandmobility.tech/lists/unicorns/">number of unicorns</a>, which has doubled in the past two years.</p> <p>A unicorn is a privately held startup company valued at US$1 billion or more. In early 2018 there were 22 travel and mobility unicorns. By last month the number had grown to 44.</p> <p>The top categories in the mobility area are: ride hailing, with 11 unicorns (25.0%); autonomous vehicles, with ten (22.7%); and micromobility, with three (6.8%). The remaining 20 unicorns are in the travel category (hotels, bookings and so on).</p> <p>Mobility technology is more than just autonomous vehicles, ride hailing and e-scooters and e-bikes. It also includes: electrification (electric vehicles, charging/batteries); fleet management and connectivity (connectivity, data management, cybersecurity, parking, fleet management); auto commerce (car sharing); transportation logistics (freight, last-mile delivery); and urban air mobility.</p> <p><strong>Promised solutions, emerging problems</strong></p> <p>Much of the interest in mobility technology is coming from individuals outside the transport arena. Startups are attracting investors by claiming their technology will solve many of our transport problems.</p> <p>Micromobility companies believe their e-scooters and e-bikes will solve the “<a href="https://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/9780784413210.007">first-mile last-mile</a>” problem by enabling people to move quickly and easily between their homes or workplaces and a bus or rail station. While this might work in theory, it depends on having <a href="https://theconversation.com/fork-in-the-road-as-danish-and-dutch-style-cycle-routes-spread-19744">safe and segregated bicycle networks</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/people-love-the-idea-of-20-minute-neighbourhoods-so-why-isnt-it-top-of-the-agenda-131193">frequent and widely accessible public transport</a> services.</p> <p>Ride-hailing services might relieve people of the need to own a car. But <a href="https://www.som.com/ideas/publications/som_thinkers_the_future_of_transportation">there is evidence</a> to suggest these services are <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-ride-hail-utopia-that-got-stuck-in-traffic-11581742802">adding to traffic congestion</a>. That’s because, unlike taxis, more of their time on the road involves travelling without any passengers.</p> <p>Navigation tools (Google Maps, Apple Maps, Waze) have <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps">been around longer</a> than most other mobility technologies and are meant make it easier to find the least-congested route for any given trip. However, <a href="https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~theophile/docs/publications/Cabannes_19_ACM.pdf">research</a> suggests these tools might not be working as intended. The <a href="https://www.som.com/ideas/publications/som_thinkers_the_future_of_transportation">backlash</a> against them is growing in some cities because traffic is being directed onto neighbourhood streets rather than arterial roads.</p> <p>Autonomous vehicles have the goal of reducing injuries and deaths from car crashes. Only a few years ago many bold predictions were being made that these self-driving vehicles would be having positive impacts by now, but this hasn’t happened. The enthusiasm for autonomous vehicles has cooled. <a href="https://www.vtpi.org/avip.pdf">Some now believe</a> we won’t see many of the social benefits for decades.</p> <p>The final mobility tech area is known as mobility as a service (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobility_as_a_service">MAAS</a>). It’s basically a platform designed to make better use of existing infrastructure and transport modes. MAAS begins with a journey planner that is linked to one-stop payment for a range of mobility services – ride-hailing, e-scooters, e-bikes, taxis, public transport, and so on.</p> <p>MAAS is the newest entrant in the mobility tech field. It has attracted US$6.8 billion to date, but is expected to grow to <a href="https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/mobility-as-a-service-market-78519888.html">over US$100 billion by 2030</a>. This idea is creating great enthusiasm, not only among private entrepreneurs, but also in the public sector. It’s too early to know whether it will improve transportation.</p> <p><strong>3 trends are driving investment</strong></p> <p>So, why do venture capitalists <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnfrazer1/2019/03/11/new-mobility-worth-billions-venture-capital-thinks-so/#198cda2247d8">continue to show so much interest</a> in mobility technology startups despite poor company performance to date? It appears they believe personal mobility will become increasingly important. <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnfrazer1/2019/03/11/new-mobility-worth-billions-venture-capital-thinks-so/#198cda2247d8">Three trends</a>support this belief.</p> <p>First, urban dwellers increasingly value the ability to move around easily. It’s thought to be a key ingredient for a liveable city. The problem is public transport is often not very good, particularly in the US and in outer suburbs in Australia.</p> <p>This is due to historically low funding relative to roads. The prospect of more funding and better public transport services in the future is not good. In part that’s because many <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/8/10/9118199/public-transportation-subway-buses">view public transport as welfare</a> and not an essential public service. Thus, if cities want to become more liveable and competitive, they must look beyond government-funded public transport for other mobility alternatives.</p> <p>The second trend is declining vehicle ownership. Since 1986 US sales of car and light trucks per capita have dropped by <a href="https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2020/02/04/vehicle-sales-per-capita-our-latest-look-at-the-long-term-trendh">almost 30%</a>. In Australia, new car sales <a href="https://www.budgetdirect.com.au/car-insurance/research/australian-car-sales-statistics.html">remained relatively constant</a> over the past decade, but a <a href="http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/7982-new-vehicle-purchase-intention-march-2019-201905240039">decline since 2017 is expected to continue</a>. These trends are due in part to the cost of owning a vehicle, but also because of a growing view that owning a car may not be necessary.</p> <p>This brings us to the third trend, which involves demographics and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/delay-in-getting-driving-licences-opens-door-to-more-sustainable-travel-57430">post-millennial desire for access to mobility</a> services <a href="https://theconversation.com/car-ownership-is-likely-to-become-a-thing-of-the-past-and-so-could-public-transport-110550">rather than vehicle ownership</a>.</p> <p>These trends, combined with expectations of an upward trend in prices of these services, suggests there may be good times ahead for ride-hailing and micromobility companies. It also means venture capital funding for these startups will not be diminishing in the near future.</p> <p><strong>The future of transport isn’t simple</strong></p> <p>Transport systems are multifaceted. No one single app or technology will solve the challenges. And, as we are discovering, some of the purported solutions to problems might actually be making the situation worse.</p> <p>If the goal is to get people out of their cars (for <a href="https://theconversation.com/designing-suburbs-to-cut-car-use-closes-gaps-in-health-and-wealth-83961">better health and quality of life and a better environment</a>), this will require more than a technology. Better infrastructure and public policies (including better integration of land uses and transport to reduce the need for transport) will be required – <a href="https://theconversation.com/three-charts-on-why-congestion-charging-is-fairer-than-you-might-think-124894">congestion pricing</a>being one of those.</p> <p>That is not to say technological innovations are not welcome as part of the solution, but they are just that … “part” of the solution.</p> <p><em>Written by Neil G Sipe. Republished with permission of </em><a href="https://theconversation.com/billions-are-pouring-into-mobility-technology-will-the-transport-revolution-live-up-to-the-hype-131154"><em>The Conversation.</em></a></p>

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Why aren’t today’s protests leading to revolutions?

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">We live in a world of violent challenges to the status quo, from Chile and Iraq to Hong Kong, Catalonia and the Extinction Rebellion. These protests are usually presented in the media simply as expressions of rage at “the system” and are eminently suitable for TV news coverage, where they flash across our screens in 15-second splashes of colour, smoke and sometimes blood.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">These are huge rebellions. In Chile, for example, </span><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-50191746"><span style="font-weight: 400;">an estimated one million people demonstrated last month</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. By the next day, </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/27/chile-hundreds-shot-and-beaten-street-protests"><span style="font-weight: 400;">19 people had died</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, nearly 2,500 had been injured and more than 2,800 arrested.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">How might we make sense of these upheavals? Are they revolutionary or just a series of spectacular eruptions of anger? And are they doomed to fail?</span></p> <p><strong>Key characteristics of a revolution</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">As an historian of the French Revolution of 1789-99, I often ponder the similarities between the five great revolutions of the modern world – the English Revolution (1649), American Revolution (1776), French Revolution (1789), Russian Revolution (1917) and Chinese Revolution (1949).</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A key question today is whether the rebellions we are currently witnessing are also revolutionary.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A model of revolution drawn from the five great revolutions can tell us much about why they occur and take particular trajectories. The key characteristics are:</span></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">long-term causes and the popularity of a socio-political ideology at odds with the regime in power</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">short-term triggers of widespread protest</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">moments of violent confrontation the power-holders are unable to contain as sections of the armed forces defect to rebels</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">the consolidation of a broad and victorious alliance against the existing regime</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">a subsequent fracturing of the revolutionary alliance as competing factions vie for power</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">the re-establishment of a new order when a revolutionary leader succeeds in consolidating power.</span></li> </ul> <p><strong>Why today’s protests are not revolutionary</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This model indicates the upheavals in our contemporary world are not revolutionary – or not yet.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The most likely to become revolutionary is in Iraq, where the regime has shown a willingness to kill its own citizens (</span><a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/09/middleeast/iraq-protest-death-toll-intl/index.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">more than 300 in October alone</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">). This indicates that any concessions to demonstrators will inevitably be regarded as inadequate.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">We do not know how the </span><a href="https://theconversation.com/university-under-siege-a-dangerous-new-phase-for-the-hong-kong-protests-127228"><span style="font-weight: 400;">extraordinary rebellion in Hong Kong</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> will end, but it may be very telling that there does not seem to have been significant defection from the police or army to the protest movement.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">People grow angry far more often than they rebel. And rebellions rarely become revolutions.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">So, we need to distinguish between major revolutions that transform social and political structures, coups by armed elites and common forms of protest over particular issues. An example of this is the massive, violent and ultimately successful protests in Ecuador last month that </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/14/ecuador-protests-end-after-deal-struck-with-indigenous-leaders"><span style="font-weight: 400;">forced the government to cancel an austerity package</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The protests in Hong Kong and Catalonia fall into yet another category: they have limited aims for political sovereignty rather than more general objectives.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">All successful revolutions are characterised by broad alliances at the outset as the deep-seated grievances of a range of social groups coalesce around opposition to the existing regime.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">They begin with mass support. For that reason, the Extinction Rebellion will likely only succeed with modest goals of </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/06/how-extinction-rebellion-put-world-on-red-alert-year-since-it-was-founded"><span style="font-weight: 400;">pushing reluctant governments</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> to do more about climate change, rather than its </span><a href="https://rebellion.earth/the-truth/faqs/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">far more ambitious aspirations</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> of a national Citizen Assembly, populated by ordinary people chosen at random, to come up with a programme for change.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mass protests also fail when they are unable to create unity around core objectives. The Arab Spring, for instance, held so much promise after blossoming in 2010, but with the possible exception of Tunisia, failed to lead to meaningful change.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Revolutionary alliances collapsed rapidly into civil war (as in Libya) or failed to neutralise the armed forces (as in Egypt and Syria).</span></p> <p><strong>Why is there so much anger?</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Fundamental to an understanding of the rage so evident today is the “democratic deficit”. This refers to public anger at the way the high-water mark of democratic reform around the globe in the 1990s – accompanied by the siren song of economic globalisation – has had such uneven social outcomes.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">One expression of this anger has been the rise of fearful xenophobia expertly captured by populist politicians, most famously in the case of Donald Trump, but including many others from Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil to Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines and Victor Orbán in Hungary.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Indeed, there are some who claim that western liberalism has now failed).</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Elsewhere, the anger is popular rather than populist. In upheavals from Lebanon and Iraq to Zimbabwe and Chile, resentment is particularly focused on the evidence of widespread corruption as elites flout the basic norms of transparency and equity in siphoning government money into their pockets and those of their cronies.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The broader context of today’s upheavals also includes the uneven withdrawal of the US from international engagement, providing new opportunities for two authoritarian superpowers (Russia and China) driven by dreams of new empires.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The United Nations, meanwhile, is floundering in its attempt to provide alternative leadership through a rules-based international system.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The state of the world economy also plays a role. In places where economic growth is stagnant, minor price increases are more than just irritants. They explode into rebellions, such as the recent tax on WhatsApp in Lebanon and the metro fare rise in Chile.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">There was already deep-seated anger in both places. Chile, for example, is one of Latin America’s wealthiest countries, but has one of the worst levels of income equality among the 36 nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.</span></p> <p><strong>Rebellions with new characteristics</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Of course, we do not know how these protest movements will end. While it is unlikely any of the rebellions will result in revolutionary change, we are witnessing distinctly 21st century upheavals with new characteristics.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">One of the most influential approaches to understanding the long-term history and nature of protest and insurrection has come from the American sociologist Charles Tilly.</span></p> <p><strong>Tilly’s studies of European history have identified two key characteristics.</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">First, forms of protest change across time as a function of wider changes in economic and political structures. The food riots of pre-industrial society, for instance, gave way to the strikes and political demonstrations of the modern world.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">And today, the transnational reach of Extinction Rebellion is symptomatic of a new global age. There are also new protest tactics emerging, such as the flashmobs and Lennon walls in Hong Kong.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Tilly’s second theory was that collective protest, both peaceful and violent, is endemic rather than confined to years of spectacular revolutionary upheaval, such as 1789 or 1917. It is a continuing expression of conflict between “contenders” for power, including the state. It is part of the historical fabric of all societies.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Even in a stable and prosperous country like Australia in 2019, there is a deep cynicism around a commitment to the common good. This has been created by a lack of clear leadership on climate change and energy policy, self-serving corporate governance and fortress politics.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">All this suggests that Prime Minister Scott Morrison is not only whistling in the wind if he thinks that </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/01/scott-morrison-threatens-crackdown-on-secondary-boycotts-of-mining-companies"><span style="font-weight: 400;">he can dictate the nature of and even reduce protest</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> in contemporary Australia – he is also </span><a href="https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/publications/activist-wisdom-practical-knowledge-and-creative-tension-in-socia"><span style="font-weight: 400;">ignorant of its history</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p> <p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Written by Peter McPhee. Republished with permission of </span><a href="https://theconversation.com/we-live-in-a-world-of-upheaval-so-why-arent-todays-protests-leading-to-revolutions-126505"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Conversation. </span></a></em></p>

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The new food revolution: How dining on a cruise just got better and cheaper

<p>Michelin-starred or celebrity chef-run restaurants are not hard to come by on a cruise anymore – because they’ve come to you.</p> <p>Cruising the ocean can, believe it or not, be where you find incredible food for reasonable prices. With dinner options that aren’t available on land and a range of food that will leave your wallets as well as your belly satisfied, maybe a cruise should be your next holiday destination if you’re a foodie.</p> <p>Here are some reasons why you should dine out on the seven seas, so your taste buds love you even more.</p> <p><strong>Michelin-starred choices </strong></p> <p>The exciting factors that are coming into play for cruise lines is their increasing range of food for affordable prices – and the best part is the quality is so good it’s award winning. At the restaurant Harmony which can be found on the Majestic Princess cruise ship, it’s one of the only restaurants off-shore that has a Michelin-starred menu and chef. In fact, Harmony, run by a former chef for Wing Lei – the first Chinese restaurant in North America that has a Michelin star – has created a list of food that appeases your cravings for Cantonese dishes as well as seafood, mouth-watering noodle dishes and soups. </p> <p><strong>Food is fun </strong></p> <p>As demands for more creative and delicious food on cruise lines increases – the more fun cruisers will see from restaurants and experimentative chefs. On one cruise line, dishes are presented on porcelain plates decorated with Sodamin’s Food Faces culinary pop art, produced by the French brand Bernardaud. This restaurant featured on Holland America’s cruise line headed by Rudi Sel De Mar and launched in 2016.</p> <p>24-hour pizza restaurants are proving popular as well for their ease and accessibility for cruise passengers.</p> <p><strong>All types of options for your cravings </strong></p> <p>One of the best factors of cruise food is there are endless options to satisfy all your cravings on board. If you’re feeling a craving for a plate of fresh sushi made to order, then carnival cruise lines have that for you. If fresh fruit with a side of yoghurt is calling your name after a great workout then head down to the breakfast bar on your cruise’s food hall level. The best part is, most of the food is free, delicious and fresh. What more could you ask for?</p> <p>What is the most memorable you’ve ever had on a cruise? Let us know in the comments below.</p>

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The robot revolution in Japan’s nursing homes

<p>An upcoming episode of the SBS program Dateline is going to examine the robot revolution taking place in Japan which has extended to the nation’s nursing homes.</p> <p>Japan is a country with shrinking population where loneliness is a huge issue. To address this the country has moved towards these silicon human lookalikes.</p> <p>An example of this at play is Taneko Suzuki, who lives in a dementia ward at a nursing home. Every time a robotic seal named Paro comes to visit, she lights up.</p> <p>Taneko says, “I’m your mummy, yes, I am… I feel so light and happy when she understands my feelings.”</p> <p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pYS0S_9iIqo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></p> <p>Hiroshi Ishiguro director of a laboratory inventing humanlike robots, says, “I want to extend the possibility of the human by changing the definition of a human. I think, if we do that, we can have a much deeper understanding about our kind.”</p> <p>What’s your views on the use of robots in society?</p> <p><em>The program will be aired on Tuesday 11 April at 9.30pm on SBS.</em></p>

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