Architecture hit - The Penguin House

I live in an apartment that really needs some organization - if I could only get half the functionality of the Penguin House, I'd be happy.



Ahh, the wonder of Japanese housing. I wish I could project holograms from the palm of my hands.

Found via Future House Now

The mind will play tricks on you....

This is a video about cycling awareness, and how easy it is to not notice what is right in front of you.



What you just experienced is called "change blindness." Only a small amount of information that you are exposed to you is processed by your mind.

Neat

The video was produced by Transport London's "Do the Test" program.
found via boingboing

Guess what? We were only joking - Mars Rovers

NASA says that they are NOT going to cut-back the Mars rover program.

From Discovery News:

NASA is saying Tuesday that it has rescinded a letter that recommended budget cuts in the Mars Rover program to cover the cost of a next-generation rover on the Red Planet.

The move comes a day after scientists at the agency's robotics center said they would need to hibernate one of the twin Mars robots and limit the duties of the other because their budget was being cut by $4 million.

That announcement was based on a letter NASA sent to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena last week.

But NASA is saying in a statement Tuesday that neither of the rovers will be shut down.

Good, because that would make the future soon angry, and you don't want to see us angry.

So the little rovers have been running for four years, let's see if we can make it another Martian winter.

This Months Poll - Choose Your Favorite Space-bot

Which one will it be?

The unstoppable power twins on Mars - Spirit and Opportunity?
The first permanent member of the international space station - Dextre?
Or how about that old workhorse the Canadarm?
And don't forget those robots out on the edge of the known, Cassini and Voyager?

I could have chosen so many other space-bots, but these droids have special places in my heart.

If you know of a space-bot I should have put in the poll, contact the future soon.

Over the Horizon

Drifting around the Earth in 2006 July, astronauts from the

International Space Station (ISS) captured a crescent Moon floating far beyond the horizon.

NASA

The Bat-bot

Along time ago when the Science Chaser was put out regularly (it will again, I promise) I reported on this bat-like spy-bot.


powered by ODEO

Well, here is the real thing.

From the University of Michigan:

A six-inch robotic spy plane modeled after a bat would gather data from sights, sounds and smells in urban combat zones and transmit information back to a soldier in real time.

U-M researchers will focus on the microelectronics. They will develop sensors, communication tools and batteries for this micro-aerial vehicle that's been dubbed "the bat." Engineers envision tiny cameras for stereo vision, an array of mini microphones that could home in on sounds from different directions, and small detectors for nuclear radiation and poisonous gases.

The bat would be designed to perform short-term surveillance in support of advancing soldiers. Or it could perch at a street corner or building for longer assignments and send back reports of activity as it takes place.

Thanks to Mark and Virginia for making the Bond Bat-borg skit possible.

This bat-bot update found via DVICE

The future soon circa 1963 - The Peel 50

Oh Top Gear, when will the CBC smarten up and put you on our airwaves?

The Peel 50 is a great car - kind of like a ride-on tractor without the power. But at 100 mpg, who cares? And if Jeremy Clarkson can get in one, why can't everyone else?

Found via CrunchGear
wiki article - P50

How easy it could be - Robot Overlords

This mock-newscast from The Onion will only be funny until it comes true.

found via Danger Room

ARTHUR C CLARKE - THE MAN WHO CREATED THE FUTURE

Arthur C Clarke
16 December 1917 – 19 March 2008

The first book that I read of Clarke's was the The Fountains of Paradise, a novel set in a stand-in Sri Lanka about the construction of the first space elevator. I was hooked from the first butterfly reaching the mountaintop. From there I read Rama, Against the Fall of Night, Childhood's End, Imperial Earth. But Fountain's will always be my favorite, because it is the book that first made me realize that the Earth will be here for a very long time, and that our present society will change and diversify as we climb up the ladder to the stars.

Clarke is a hero of the future soon, and will be until the dissipation of the universe.

Happy Birthday Mark’s stupendous Flickr site!

This is a site you should follow - the re-creation in your mind of the pterosaurs from a cheap dino-substitute to a dynamic beast of the wind WILL happen when you read this blog.

And Mark's an amazing artist, too.

Six for Science

Here we go:

1. The amorphous "Eye of Venus."

2. The Human/Neanderthal split - just yesterday or forever ago... It all depends on your perception of geological timescales.

3. Carbonated Martian Geysers.

4. Another planet out there in the cold? It's old news, but with neat new concept art.

5. Is growth hormone the ultimate placebo?

6. Fancy new solar-thermal power plants in Spain.

Wonderful Days - Anime worth watching

Forget about the Britney video. I know, I know, it doesn't completely suck, and she's pulling a Kanye-like japan fetish move, but really people, Korean anime work can be so much better.

Like this clip from Wonderful Days.



Why this film isn't talked about more, I will never understand.

How did Britney get on this blog!?!

When she got herself all animated into a passable Ergo Proxy/Ghost in the Shell:SLG clone.


But if you would like to see how a real anime looks...



Oh Last Exile... when will you return?

And last, but not least, Russian anime. Oh yes.

What the wall crawler should look like

Do you love the previous robotic wall-crawler post?

Well take a look at this homemade monster of design - the Phoenix.



From Make Magazine:

Phoenix's real beauty lies in her graceful motion, which is some of the most convincing and eerily lifelike that we've seen in a robot that uses standard hobby servos and a common off-the-shelf servo controller.

Check out the Trossen blog for more amazing home robotics.

The sensual defrosting of Mars

It's late, I had to deal with a terrible day of tape and have to get up at 4 am.

But who cares when there are pictures of Mars like this!

Mars' Shifting Sands

As spring now dawns on the Northern Hemisphere of Mars, sand dunes near the pole, as pictured above, are beginning to thaw. The carbon dioxide and water ice actually sublime in the thin atmosphere directly to gas. Thinner regions of ice typically defrost first revealing sand whose darkness soaks in sunlight and accelerates the thaw. The process might even involve sandy jets exploding through the thinning ice. By summer, spots will expand to encompass the entire dunes. The Martian North Pole is ringed by many similar fields of barchan sand dunes, whose strange, smooth arcs are shaped by persistent Martian winds.

Image Credit: NASA, HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona)

NASA photo via Warren Ellis

Speed Racer

I'm excited about this movie, if only for the set design. Are those airships above an uber-Shanghai?



clips and pics found via TOYSREVIL

Robotic Wall Crawler

Not yet built, probably never will be built, but the future soon doesn't care. We want one!

From Yanko Design:

Based on biomimetics, it uses a gecko’s innovative foot design as a template to climb walls without any artificial adhesion. Tho it may not look like it, a gecko’s foot is hairy, fine enough to only be seen on the micro level. This molecular adhesion, combined with C-Bot’s array of ultrasonic sensors means costly (and ugly) scaffolding may be obsolete. Theoretically you can build them big enough to carry a human.

Sure, the design calls for scanning building infrastructure, but one the bot is built it could be hacked so many other ways. Like mobile info-nodes for black data systems, moving cams, urban hunting proxies for our parkour addled kids to step up their hunting techniques, physical stand-ins for virtual world projections, etc.

What would you do?

The Jumping Balloon

Where can I get one of these?

From Modern Mechanix:

HOW would you like to own your own hand-power jitney balloon — to spend your Saturday afternoons joy-riding in the sky, up a thousand feet or so, swinging beneath the round belly of a small gas-filled bag and traveling anywhere you can induce the playful breezes to take you? You sit in a suspender-like harness slung from ropes. In your hands you grasp a stout pulley rope. You give a strenuous tug on the rope—just like pulling an old fashioned elevator cable. A small horizontal propeller whirs just above your head —and up you go, jumping into the sky 100 feet at a jump!

I don't know about you, but this seems way better than para-gliding.

Six for Science

Here it is:

1. Space freighter waiting to launch - how long until we see space truckers?

2. Unraveling the DNA of the British Polar Bear. Yeah, I know what I just said.

3. Floppy when wet: sea-cucumber plastic.

4. Global warming is making fish go deaf.

5. This just in - DRINKING IS GOOD FOR YOU! Watch this space tomorrow for the headline DRINKING IS BAD FOR YOU.

6. Earth-like planets might just be a star system over.

My Book Addiction - thoughts and radio

How I feel in my more heroic book moments...

I have a lot of books. So many book that I can't give you a number, but I can give you the gross tonnage. In a strange room in my friends house, designed to be a grow-up but turned into a dwarves bachelor pad, sit 28 banker-boxes of books.

With an average weight of 60 pounds, the total weight of my collection is 1680 pounds. At least 1680 pounds, but given that a few of the boxes must weigh 100 pounds or more, this might be a low estimate.

So how much is 1680 pounds? About the size of a large horse. I keep a large literary horse in a small room, and sometimes I think the beast is riding me, and not the other way around.

But I'm not sure I would have it any other way.

The following bit of radio I did for my local CBC radio station for our Canada Reads contribution. It's short and fun and generated a lot of nice public feedback. Maybe you heard it when the piece played nationally, but I doubt it.

So here you go - Confessions of a book addict.



I plan to turn this piece into a 15 minute doc for Outfront, delving into the deeper and darker reasons for my book obsession. But for now, this fun little piece will have to suffice.

And, yeah, that's my wife speaking on the tape.

As for the picture of Rex Libris at the top of the page? I just want to be that guy.

The Grand Canyon from the ground up?

The way we think about the creation of the Grand Canyon might be flipped over. Instead of the canyon carving into the earth, the river might have gone underground and worked itself up to the surface.

From Discovery News:

Carol Hill of the University of New Mexico believes that the river sneaks through the region's subterranean plumbing -- the cave-riddled karst formations created by soluble limestone -- avoiding some otherwise very problematic high ground along the river's present course. Her take on the Grand Canyon is that it's not so different from some other steep terrains that have been created by rivers flowing underground and eroding larger and larger caverns until their roofs eventually collapse. When the river carries away the debris, what's left are gigantic, steep-sided sinkholes, much like the bizarre "tiankeng" formations of southern China. Connect these sinkholes and you have a deep, narrow canyon just like those seen in the Grand Canyon.

So, instead of a river digging down into the earth because the land itself is moving up, because the weight of kilometres high glaciers has washed into the sea, the river goes underground, weakening the land above.

When this happens, the land gives way leaving the start of a canyon. It sounds like the jury is still out on this theory, so stay tuned.

Pretty neat, though.

Paul and Patty know how to duck and cover

I think we need more of these videos.

Airship Dreams - '70s sky whale

Big, busty and a lot of extra structure, what's not to like about this airship?

While skimming an Italian retro-futurism site, I came across this airship.
I think that this might be the largest dirigible ever conceived. Now I've got to see if I can track down this 1974 issue and find out the promise of this ships design.

Space Alone - reflection on exploration

Space Alone, by Ilias Sounas, is a moving look at the risks involved in exploration and partial success.

found via neatorama

Six for Science

Here we go:

1. Say it isn't so. Aussie researchers say 'hobbit' species might just be a little human.

2. Antarctic cod hibernate.

3. Suffering from the diabetes? Suck a frog (please don't.)

4. Butterflies remember their caterpillar days, so be nice.

5. Move over sponges, comb jellies are the real base of our evolutionary tree.

6. And finally, how NASA brought you the modern bathroom.

The Future of the Library - Witold Rybczynski

Salt Lake Public Library, photograph by Timothy Hursley

Witold Rybczynski is one of the best architect/writers on urban space alive (with Kunstler a close second.)

In this slideshow essay on Slate, Rybczynski writes about how the didgital world is shifting the form of the library from a space with books to a multi-purpose, multi-media palace of the people. (That last bit is mine.)

From Slate:

Seattle's public library, unlike those of San Francisco or Chicago, was designed to be a downtown hangout, with something for everyone, as if you crossed Starbucks with a mega bookstore. Salt Lake City's public library goes one step further and adds a touch of the shopping mall.
The architects, Moshe Safdie & Associates, made the focus of the building a skylit lobby-concourse, known as the "Urban Room." Like Milan's Galleria—the granddaddy of shopping malls—the dramatic space is a sort of indoor street, lined with shops.
The library houses a cafe and a deli, a florist and a comic-book store, as well as an NPR station and a writing center. The book stacks and reference areas are on the left of the concourse; individual study carrels and reading nooks rise on the right. The result manages to be grandly civic and familiarly commonplace at the same time.

I like Safdie's Salt Lake Library. Maybe what was done with that space should be brought back to his library design in Vancouver. I think a retro-fit would work wonders, and with CBC just around the corner, why not have a public radio/tv studio?

Big Compost comes to Mexico City

From Treehugger:

Each day Mexico City produces 5,100 tons of organic waste, 600 of which come from the city's sprawling Central de Abasto, or central marketplace. The center, known as the CEDA, is the largest food distribution center in the country and one of the largest in the world. In February, the city closed one of its principal dumps, the West Dump, when it reached maximum capacity. The closure has forced experts to think creatively about new ways to divert waste.

So they are going to compost the stuff - but where? I say do it near the site and sell the numerous products that can come from the compost - chicken, eggs, soil, organic fill, cooking gas, pigs, worms, feed for animals, goats, agricultural lots, bio-fuels, soil de-contamination, heat. What did I forget?

They can also combine the composting with with a paper mulch centre and really get down to business.

The Nokia Morph - Nanotechand the handset

Finally, a device worthy of our Strossian reality. The Nokia Morph is adaptive, responsive, self-powering, self-cleaning, translucent, has a sensory system, and looks really really cool.

Of course, we have to wait for the tech to be developed, evolved, marketed, grown and shipped from gene-altered ricepads in Louisiana.

But I'm willing to wait.



found via freshcreations

The Weeds Are Evolving....

French geneticists have discovered that urban weeds are producing less fluffy seeds. The reason? By producing less fluffy seeds, weeds can put more energy into colonizing the patch they grow in.

From New Scientist:

Surrounded mostly by concrete rather than fertile soil, urban weeds have evolved – in just a dozen generations – to keep their seeds close to home, which could amplify the genetic isolation produced by habitat fragmentation.

The risk for the plant is that they are genetically isolating themselves and opening the door to extinction. But, isolation also leads to new species and possible future adaptations to hostile environments.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if city kids went out through the city, discovering new species and variations of weeds that were once common? What will they name these weeds, and how will they use them?

I can't wait.

Jeff Healy is gone

This is not a good day.
CBC story

Autism - another way of being?

For more info read Wired's The Truth About Autism.

video found via Gibson

Giant Sea Monsters of the Arctic

A giant, 15-metre Jurassic predator has surfaced from the depths of the Arctic ocean.

From National Geographic:

Dubbed the "the Monster," this newly identified fossil predator is one of the largest marine reptiles ever found, scientists announced today.

The 50-foot-long (15-meter-long) "sea monster" was excavated last summer on's Norways Arctic island of Spitsbergen.

The Monster likely represents the biggest species of pliosaur known to science, said Jørn Hurum, of the Natural History Museum in Oslo, Norway, who led the dig team—and who called the reptile "the T. rex of the ocean."

So how big is this reptile?

Yeah, pretty big.

Aside - I just got back from seeing Sea Monster's at IMAX. The pliosaur in that film is only about 7 metres long.

found via National Geographic and ScienceDaily

BOX - the cardboard singularity

The thing about singularities is that you never know how, and when, they are going to happen.

box
by sabotage

"Box" is a good little flick. I know that I will never look at cardboard boxes the same way again.
found via neatorama.

The cardboard is coming.