Author Archives: Jon Lowder

Winston-Salem’s Innovation Quarter Highlighted in Wall Street Journal Piece

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In today’s (4/16/14) Wall Street Journal, Winston-Salem’s very own Wake Forest Innovation Quarter plays a starring role in the paper’s Deal of the Week segment about the role of historic preservation tax credits in redeveloping mills and factories in North Carolina:

The old plants are worth preserving because they represent North Carolina’s “industrialization at the turn of the 20th century,” said Myrick Howard, president of Preservation North Carolina. “The textile and tobacco industries provided the capital for the rise of our modern banking and energy industries.”

A big user of the tax-credit program is Wexford Science & Technology, a unit of San Diego-based BioMed Realty Trust Inc., BMR +0.66% which has renovated three former R.J. Reynolds tobacco factories in Winston-Salem. The old tobacco factories are part of the Wake Forest Innovation Quarter biomedical-science and information-technology hub, where researchers are working on treatments for smoking-related ailments.

This redevelopment is leading to new apartment communities being developed as well, including one of PTAA’s newest members, Plant 64.

Wake Forest Innovation Quarter in Winston-Salem

*Please note that this is a cross post of a piece I wrote for the blog at work.

Corruption Hurts Us All

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It's not often you'll find something everyone should read on a blog dedicated to land use  and zoning law, but Tom Terrell has a great post about what the corruption case involving Charlotte's ex-mayor means for us all:

The only thing that has raised my ire in the aftermath of this sad event has been listening to citizens and pundits take partisan political glee in watching an opposing party member take a fall for corrupt behavior. Shame on all of us who reacted this way.  And shame on others who gloat when public corruption arises, as it equally does, from Republican ranks.

The public office that is defiled belongs to all of us, not to any party or party faction.

It’s easy to repeat the worn adage that power corrupts. What we should remember is that power and self-governance also ennoble us, in large ways and small, as we go about the daily and sometimes tedious business of running our democratic institutions for the people.

Unfortunately, those are the acts and decisions that don’t create headlines.

Back to the Future in Publishing

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Dana Blankenhorn makes a good argument for publishers turning back the clock:

Back in the print era, journalism meant organizing and advocating a place, an industry or a lifestyle. It should mean that again.

Newspapers could prove to car dealers that of the X number of people driving past their stores each day, Y% took the newspaper. Magazines could show that of the X number of decision makers in the business Y% took the magazine – they would have names, titles, addresses. Filling out the “qual card” got you the publication for free, while others had to pay for it. And the more important readers got copies without even sending in the qualcard. Consumer publications could survey their readership and prove to people selling to that lifestyle that X percent of their market, with Y amount of buyign power, subscribed to the publication…

Journalism is not a trade, and it's not a profession. It is the creation of markets. It's putting buyers and sellers together, aggregating and organizing both sides so that you have well-informed buyers hitting the buy button, and getting satisfaction from their purchases.

Winston-Salem Doc’s Orgasmatron Can’t Get Lift Off

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Following is the true story of a Winston-Salem doctor who has discovered a way to give women an orgasm with the push of a button, but can't get his device to market because of a surprising lack of volunteers and funding:

The doctor who discovered in 2001 that a pain-relief implant could also trigger orgasms is still struggling to raise interest in studying it further.

Stuart Meloy, a surgeon at Piedmont Anesthesia and Pain Consultants in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, was investigating how the device could be used to treat woman who have difficulty achieving orgasm, but we reported in 2003 that volunteers for early tests were proving hard to find.

As of 2014, the massive media interest in the device has not translated into the $6 million that Meloy estimates would be needed to run a full trial…

Meloy stumbled on the idea while performing a routine pain-relief operation. "We implant electrodes into the spine and use electrical pulses to modify the pain signals passing along the nerves," he told New Scientist in 2001. The patient remains conscious during the operation to help the surgeon find the best position for the electrodes. Meloy's breakthrough came one day when he failed to hit the right spot. "I was placing the electrodes and suddenly the woman started exclaiming emphatically," he says. "I asked her what was up and she said, `You're going to have to teach my husband to do that'."

This is an obvious candidate for a Kickstarter campaign.

Sports vs eSports

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My kids never really got into watching sports like baseball, basketball, football, etc. When I was their age (teens to eary 20s) my life revolved around watching all manner of sports whether it was live or on TV, but my kids would probably rather have their toenails removed than to be forced to sit through a couple of hours of game watching.

Actually I need to revise that last sentence; at least one of my kids LOVES watching video of other people playing the newest "sport" – eSports aka video games. According to this article he's not alone:

In October, some 15 million people tuned in to watch Major League Baseball’s World Series in the United States. But that’s nothing compared to the other big sporting tournament that took place around the same time: In late September and early October, 32 million people watched the League of Legends Season 3 World Championship, according to a new report (pdf) from SuperData, a games research company.

Indeed, the finals of the competitive tournament for players of the online multiplayer game resembled a major physical-world sporting event, with the 18,000 tickets to watch it live at the Staples Center in Los Angeles selling out in one hour. On the day, the capacity crowd gathered to watch teams do battle against each other as they spawned minions and unlocked glyphs.

I really am so0000 last-century.

Recognizing Faith

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From Jeri Rowe's excellent piece about Canterbury School's Father Finnin:

“I hope they come to realize that faith isn’t something you have to create,’’ he says. “It’s something you recognize. Theology and God surrounds us already. So, it’s not a matter of creating it. It’s a matter of stopping and recognizing it and being aware of it. It’s not about introducing the divine in everyday life. It’s about recognizing it and letting everyone be aware of it."

Our Poop Problem

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Anyone else feel like we missed a huge opportunity when we didn't use the economic crisis as a reason to put people back to work by engaging them in massive public works projects? Seeing reports about our aging and crumbling infrastructure you can't help but think, "Why didn't we take some of those billions (trillions?) of dollars we spent bailing out various industries and dedicate them to upgrading our roads, bridges and sewers?" Wait…sewers? Yep. Apparently our concrete sewers aren't being eaten by the very stuff they transport:

“The veins of our cities are in serious trouble, and they’re in serious trouble because of corrosion, and this corrosion has been unanticipated and it’s accelerating,” said Mark Hernandez at a symposium on the microbiology of the built environment in Washington DC yesterday. Hernandez is a civil engineer, but he’s meeting with microbiologists because this problem is bacterial. Essentially, it’s an infection of the nation’s sewage system.

Here’s what’s going on. One set of microbes emits hydrogen sulfide, the gas that is also responsible for raw sewage’s unpleasant smell. This gas fills the empty space between the top of the pipe and the water flow. Another set of microbes living in this headspace turns hydrogen sulfide to sulfuric acid, which eats away at concrete, leaving behind gypsum, the powdery stuff you find in drywall.

“Essentially what we’re ending up with is wet drywall,” said Hernandez. This is one reason the American Society of Civil Engineers has gave our wastewater infrastructure a D grade.

Happy Birthday Smitty!

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Today Smitty turns 50 and SueMo does a much better job than I ever could in telling us why he's so important to those of us who call Winston-Salem home:

I can't tell you how many people I have met, befriended, and worked with on events as a result of that dinner, and several other "Smitty Dinners."

I read the e-mail newsletter faithfully every other week and have planned my schedule accordingly. His Best of Winston-Salem is always a highlight as I learn about my new favorite places and people in the community that make our city a special place to live, work, learn, and play. 

The effect that Smitty has had on my life is immeasurable. So many of my friends, experiences, and overall feeling about this community is attributed to Jeff Smith and I am sure that I am not alone. On this milestone birthday, I wish Jeff the happiest of birthdays and many more.