Urban Studies

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“The Car Can Presumably Get Lost, Just The Way A Human Can”

March 4, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

From Henry Blodget’s new Business Insider piece about Google’s self-driving cars, a passage about the obstacles the company has to overcome to perfect its auto software:

“The first challenge is driving in snow.

When snow is on the road, the cars often have a tough time ‘seeing’ the lane markers and other cues that they use to stay correctly positioned on the road. It will be interesting to see how the Google team sorts that one out.

A second challenge, apparently, is when the car encounters a change in a road that is not yet reflected in its onboard ‘map.’ In those situations, the car can presumably get lost, just the way a human can.

A third challenge is driving through construction zones, accident zones, or other situations in which a human is directing traffic with hand signals. The cars are excellent at observing stop signs, traffic lights, speed limits, the behavior of other cars, and other common cues that human drivers use to figure out how fast to go and where and when to turn. But when a human is directing traffic with hand signals–and especially when these hand signals conflict with a traffic light or stop sign–the cars get confused.”

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“Occupying The Middle Of Nowhere Must Have Appealed To The Students, Architects And Seekers”

March 4, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

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The opening of a 2012 New York Times article about Arcosanti, futuristic designer Paolo Soleri’s carless ecotopia in the Arizona desert, which has arrived at a crossroads:

“The pilgrimage began with a black-and-white handbill on a campus bulletin board. At the top was a sketch of an ultramodern compound rising above a desert canyon: a city upon a hill.

Next came the manifesto. ‘If you are truly concerned about the problems of pollution, waste, energy depletion, land, water, air and biological conservation, poverty, segregation, intolerance, population containment, fear and disillusionment,’ the poster began. Then, at the bottom, the remedy: ‘Join us.’

Occupying the middle of nowhere must have appealed to the students, architects and seekers of the 1970s who founded Arcosanti, an ‘urban laboratory’ in the desert 70 miles north of Phoenix. After following a washboard road to the desolate camp, they would find a kind of kibbutz. Here, in workshops, they might build a 30-foot-high concrete vault or plant olive trees or cast bells in silt to sell for construction money.

Above all, they were able to join an ongoing colloquy with the city’s visionary designer, Paolo Soleri. In a cosmic language of his own invention (filled with phrases like the ‘omega seed’ and “miniaturization-complexity-duration’), Mr. Soleri proselytized for a carless society in harmony with the natural world. Over the course of 40 years, some 7,000 souls would come and go.

For the most part, though, they left.”

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“Americans Used To Sleep In An Unconsolidated Fashion, That Is, In Two Or More Periods Throughout The Day”

March 4, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I like to go to sleep at 3 a.m. or so and rise at about ten, but society frowns on such owl-ish patterns. From “Up All Night,” Elizabeth Kolbert’s new New Yorker article about so-called sleep disorders, one theory about why we all act like zombies:

“The Slumbering Masses, by Matthew J. Wolf-Meyer, takes a more polemical view of what might be called the ‘sleep question.’ Wolf-Meyer, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of California at Santa Cruz, spent four years interviewing just about everyone involved in sleep research: physicians, technicians, patients, members of patients’ families. He concludes that what Americans have come to think of as sleep problems are mostly just problems in the way Americans have come to think about sleep. ‘Normal sleep is always pathological sleep, or at least potentially so,’ he writes.

Wolf-Meyer refers to the practice of going to bed at around eleven o’clock at night and staying there until about seven in the morning as sleeping ‘in a consolidated fashion.’ Nowadays, adults are expected to sleep in this manner; anything else—sleeping during the day, sleeping in bursts, waking up in the middle of the night—is taken to be unsound, even deviant. This didn’t use to be the case. Until a century and a half or so ago, Wolf-Meyer observes, ‘Americans, like other people around the world, used to sleep in an unconsolidated fashion, that is, in two or more periods throughout the day.’ They went to bed not long after the sun went down. Four or five hours later, they woke from their ‘first sleep’ and rattled around—praying, chatting, smoking, or making love. (Benjamin Franklin reportedly liked to spend this time reading naked in a chair.) Eventually, they went back to bed for their ‘second sleep.’

Wolf-Meyer blames capitalism in general and American capitalism in particular for transforming once perfectly ordinary behavior into conduct worthy of medication. ‘The consolidated model of sleep is predicated upon the solidification of other institutional times in American society, foremost among them work time,’ he writes. It is ‘largely the by-product of the industrial workday, which began as a dawn-to-dusk twelve-to-sixteen hour stretch and shrank to an eight-hour period only at the turn of the twentieth century.’ So many people have trouble getting enough sleep between eleven at night and seven in the morning because sleeping from eleven to seven isn’t what people were designed to do.”

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

March 3, 2013 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

"

“You can have a bit of blood, if that suits you.”

Soul – $666 (Bushwick)

Looking to sell my soul for some extra cash. Do with it what you will. Take by any method that doesn’t leave me with bodily harm. You can have a bit of blood, if that suits you. $666 OBO.

“Since Today’s Young Players Have More Tools Than Players Of Earlier Eras…Does That Make Them Prodigies?”

March 3, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Iron Lung Patient Playing Chess with Bobby Fischer

I don’t play chess, but I’ve always been fascinated by great players, their monomania and fast-developing talents, which seem to almost pull them along. But where it was easy in pre-digital times to announce a new prodigy, that isn’t the case in an age marked by so many advanced computer programs. From Dylan Loeb McCLain in the New York Times:

“After Bobby Fischer became a grandmaster at 15 in 1958, breaking the old record by three years, it was 1991 before Judit Polgar bettered his mark.

Since then, 33 other players, including Yi, have earned the title at a younger age than Fischer. The current record-holder is Sergey Karjakin of Russia, who did it in 2002 at 12 years, 7 months.

The onslaught of young grandmasters is the result of the development of strong chess computers that can be used for training as well as the creation of databases and the Internet, which give players easy access to tough competition. Since today’s young players have more tools than players of earlier eras and therefore mature more quickly, does that make them prodigies? It is difficult to say.”

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“Digital Disruption — A Force That Silicon Valley Gestated And Nursed From Its Earliest Days — Is Now Global”

March 3, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Speaking of digital decline, James McQuivey argues in an All Things D article that Silicon Valley as a whole is sowing the seeds of its own descent. The opening:

“All good things must come to an end, including Motown and many a once-noble region or hamlet. So I have history on my side when I lob the following grenade: Silicon Valley will take its turn someday, falling from the heights it has attained.

I make this assertion because if we look closely, we can already see what will cause the decline of Silicon Valley. In fact, the valley’s residents are consciously planting the seeds of the valley’s own demise. What’s more, I believe many of them will celebrate when the valley is no longer on top.

My cheery assessment depends on this sleight of words: Decline is relative, and the decline that Silicon Valley faces will be less like watching Hewlett-Packard slip into irrelevance and more like proudly standing to one side as the rest of the world — eventually even the less-developed world — catches up to it. Thus, the ‘decline’ I claim the valley seeks and will eventually succumb to is a most desirable decline, indeed.

Digital disruption — a force that Silicon Valley gestated and nursed from its earliest days — is now global. Digital devices, the networks that connect them, and the software tools that prod human beings to hanker for more of all these things will soon be everywhere. The long-term effect of rising digital disruption will be to redistribute the benefits of the future across the planet even as it continues to improve the already futuristic valley that started it all.”

________________________

“I had my Commodore 64 / Had to score”

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A Note From 1902 About The Medical System

March 3, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the January 12, 1902 New York Times:

“Phoenix, Ariz.–‘Padre,’ a big medicine man of the Yuma Indians, who lives on a reservation near Yuma, Ariz., has been offered as a sacrifice to the spirit in accordance with the custom of his tribe and has expiated the sins of the tribe, which are held responsible for an epidemic of smallpox.

The medicine man learned several days ago of the intention of the Indians to sacrifice him, and fled to the mountains. Being half starved he returned to the Indian village and pleaded for mercy. He was bound hand and foot and conveyed by a squad of Indians to Mexico, where he was bound to a tree and tortured to death.

‘Padre’ had a warm place in the hearts of his tribesmen, but their customs required them to make a heavy sacrifice.”

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“The Number Of Commercial Companies That Are More Than A Century Old Is Vanishingly Small”

March 3, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The opening of John Naughton’s smart Guardian article which reminds us what should be obvious but gets obscured in the hoopla–that today’s blockbuster tech companies will be completely gone someday:

“Some years ago, when the Google Books project, which aims to digitise all of the world’s printed books, was getting under way, the two co-founders of Google were having a meeting with the librarian of one of the universities that had signed up for the plan. At one point in the conversation, the Google boys noticed that their collaborator had suddenly gone rather quiet. One of them asked him what was the matter. ‘Well,’ he replied, ‘I’m wondering what happens to all this stuff when Google no longer exists.’ Recounting the conversation to me later, he said: ‘I’ve never seen two young people looking so stunned: the idea that Google might not exist one day had never crossed their minds.’

And yet, of course, the librarian was right. He had to think about the next 400 years. But the number of commercial companies that are more than a century old is vanishingly small. Entrusting the world’s literary heritage to such transient organisations might not be entirely wise.”

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Old Print Article: “Blames Odd Cult For Firm’s Trouble,” New York Times (1909)

March 1, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

"He has claimed to Schepp and others that he is a prophet."

“He has claimed to Schepp and others that he is a prophet.”

Yet another story about a coconut importer who went mad and joined a cult which instructed him that he could commit any act he wished without repercussions if he just changed his name. Yes, that story again. The opening of an April 15, 1909 New York Times article:

“Decision was reserved yesterday by Supreme Court Justice Dowling on the application of Payne L. Kretzmer and Herman Obertubhessing for the appointment of a temporary receiver for the L. Schepp Company, large importers of cocoanuts. During the argument  Charles. E. Rushmore, counsel for Leopold Schepp, the founder of the company and the principal defendant, said that the trouble in part was due to Kretzmer, who was formerly a Vice President of the Schepp Company, being a member of a cult which had for its principal doctrine the theory that persons could do anything they wanted to with impunity if they changed their names to suit their temperament. 

As an example, Mr. Rushmore said that the plaintiff, Kretzmer, had changed his name from Louis to Payne since he had joined the cult and induced many of the employees of the company to act similarly. One employee who, according to Rushmore, had been induced by Kretzmer to change his name under the idea that he was immune from the consequences of anything he did, stole from the company after making the change, and as a consequence found himself a prisoner convicted in General Sessions. 

To bear out this charge Mr. Rushmore filed with the court an affidavit by Leopold Schepp. It set forth that, while Kretzmer had previously ‘been a man of intelligence and of reasonable mind, within the last year and a half and at various other times he has claimed to Schepp and others that he is a prophet; that he is no common man, not a follower, but a leader; that he has the power to foretell the future and power to cure any person of any physical or mental ills.'”

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

March 1, 2013 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

"Nice convo."

“We may have a nice convo.”

ANYONE HAVE SWEATY HANDS?

Anyone have sweaty hands all the time? I do. If you do too I’d like to hear of your experience and we may have a nice convo. Thanks.

“Before New Orleans Was Called The Big Easy, It Was Known As The Wet Grave”

March 1, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The crisp opening graph of Nathaniel Rich’s New York Times Magazine description of the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum, which I somehow have never visited on my trips to that city:

“Before New Orleans was called the Big Easy, it was known as the Wet Grave. The nickname referred both to the inundation of coffins when buried in the swampy ground, and to New Orleans’s standing during the 19th century as the nation’s filthiest, deadliest city. The cholera epidemic of 1832 killed more than 4,000 people in three weeks; it returned the next year to claim another thousand. The 1853 yellow-fever outbreak is among the deadliest epidemics ever to hit an American city; some 8,000 perished that summer alone. Diphtheria, typhoid and malaria were constant companions. It is therefore not surprising that America’s first licensed apothecary shop was established here in 1823, at 514 Chartres Street, blocks from America’s oldest pub.“

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“There’s Something Mona Lisa-Like To This Card”

March 1, 2013 in Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

When people buy a rare object, they’re also purchasing a narrative. Often, they’re mainly purchasing a narrative. So, say there’s a rare baseball card and a famous athlete acquires it and adds his cachet to the item. And then it’s discovered that the card he purchased was (perhaps) tampered with before he bought it to make it seem more mint. Does the card lose some of its value, hold it or even become more valuable because of the supposed ruse? What is it that is actually being bought or sold?

Watch Nick and Colin Barnicle’s short film “Holy Grail: The T206 Honus Wagner” at Grantland.

 

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“In 1965, No More Than 20 Percent Of Americans Had Ever Flown In An Airplane”

February 28, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

From Derek Thompson’s eye-opening Atlantic piece, which explains how air travel changed in America (for the better) when D.C. regulators stood down:

“If you want a two-word answer to why airfares have dropped so much since the 1970s, it’s this: Deregulation worked.

Before 1978, the airlines played by Washington’s rules. The government determined whether a new airline could fly to a certain city, charge a certain price, or even exist in the first place. With limited competition, airlines were guaranteed a profit, and they lavished flyers with expensive services paid with expensive airfares. The silver and cloth came at a predictable price: The vast majority of Americans couldn’t afford to fly, at all.

With prices skyrocketing during the energy crisis of the 1970s, an all-star team of senators and economists decided that Washington should get out of the business of coddling the airlines. Let’s hear from a young former aide to Sen. Ted Kennedy named Stephen Breyer (oh, yeah, that Stephen Breyer) reviewing the free market case for letting airlines fly solo:

In California and Texas, where fares were unregulated, they were much lower. The San Francisco-Los Angeles fare was about half that on the comparable, regulated Boston-Washington route. And an intra-Texas airline boasted that the farmers who used to drive across the state could fly for even less money — and it would carry any chicken coops for free.

Three decades later, the lesson from Texas — if you deregulate the skies, ticket prices will fall — has been applied across the country. The democratization of the air is obvious enough from the frenetic bustle of every major U.S. airport. But the stats are mind-blowing, as well. 

— In 1965, no more than 20 percent of Americans had ever flown in an airplane. By 2000, 50 percent of the country took at least one round-trip flight a year. The average was two round-trip tickets. 

— The number of air passengers tripled between the 1970s and 2011. 

— In 1974, it was illegal for an airline to charge less than $1,442 in inflation-adjusted dollars for a flight between New York City and Los Angeles. On Kayak, just now, I found one for $278.”

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“In 1907, The German Apothecary Invented Pigeon Photography”

February 28, 2013 in Excerpts, Photography, Urban Studies | Permalink

Long before commercial planes, helicopters and certainly drones, Julius Neubronner invented pigeon photography, attaching a small camera to carrier pigeons, capturing great aerial photography for postcards and such. From Alyssa Coppelman at Slate: “In 1907, the German apothecary (who ran his family’s business) invented pigeon photography as a means of tracking his carrier pigeons. One of his pigeons used for getting medicinal supplies more quickly (a sort of FedEx pigeon) had stayed away a month before returning to him. Looking to track the pigeon’s journeys, Neubronner did what any curious owner would do: He strapped a small, timed camera to the pigeon to track its future travels.”

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“A Cylindrical Colony, In Which A Twenty-Mile Long Tube Was Lined With Human Habitations, Also Made The Cut”

February 28, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I’ve used the artwork of Rick Guidice and Don Davis on this site in the past. They’re the artists NASA hired in the ’70s to create awe-inspiring representations of space colonies the department hoped to build. Veronique Greenwood’s new Discover article, “The Men Who Made Space Colonies Look Like Home,” explains how and why the artists came to create their far-flung work. An excerpt:

“In the mid-1970s, NASA began to give grants to a Princeton physics professor named Gerard O’Neill. O’Neill was convinced that building colonies that orbited the Earth was the best way to harvest the mineral riches of asteroids and provide a home for the burgeoning millions of Earth. The colonies would trail behind the moon, a location where they would not need to expend any fuel to stay aloft. On them would be vast manufactories of solar arrays that, released into space, would beam power back to Earth in the form of microwaves, justifying the colonies’ expense. For a few years, O’Neill’s ideas spread like wildfire through a certain set of forward-thinkers in science and the media.

In 1975, O’Neill spearheaded a ten-week-long study at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, working with engineers, social scientists, and other researchers, as well as architects, to see whether such structures were feasible. Their final report describes several possible colony types, such as the Bernal Sphere, in which the landscape is smeared across the interior of an enormous globe, and which generates its own gravity using centrifugal force. A cylindrical colony, in which a twenty-mile long tube was lined with human habitations, also made the cut, as did toroid colonies, shaped like immense hula hoops. With the extension of current engineering, the study participants concluded, it was possible that such things could be built and sustained as early as 1990.

Someone at NASA got in touch with Davis and Guidice, who had each worked on other illustrations for the agency in the past, about illustrating the report. Soon they were receiving sketches, technical specs, and explanations from O’Neill.”

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“We’re Close But I Have Friends I’m Much Closer With”

February 28, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Twins aren’t disconcerting only because we know that they can fool us at any moment substituting their sibling without our knowledge, but because they have someone who will always be closer to them than us no matter what. Well, that’s the stereotype, at least. An identical twin just did an Ask Me Anything on Reddit. A few exchanges follow.

_____________________

Question:

You are the prettier one. Right? 

Answer:

Of corse!

Question:

Also the spelling challenged one.

Answer:

I said I was prettier, not that I was more intelligent.

_____________________

Question:

Do you feel like your twin is the person you are the closest with, if so, do you think you could ever be closer with anyone else, including a future spouse (assuming you are not married) or your future children?

Answer:

We’re close but I have friends I’m much closer with. We don’t tell each other everything, and rarely talk about boys together, whereas I have friends I can tell anything to. However I know she will always be there for me, even though we constantly fight, while I don’t necessarily know that about my friends. I feel I will definitely be closer with my future spouse (I’m only 19!) and my children, but I will also have a very close relationship with her children as well. After all, they will have the same genetic makeup from my sister as my children will have from me.

_____________________

Question:

Do you have any other siblings? If so, do you feel like your relationship with them is different from that with your twin? Did your parents dress you in matching outfits when you were children?

Answer:

I have an older brother. One time he asked my mom where his twin was. We definitely have a different relationship, he’s an older brother who I feel, has always resented my twin and me deep down for having each other.

My mom didn’t want to dress us in matching outfits so she would buy us the same outfits in different colors. I always think its a bit sick when I see twins dressed exactly alike. Parents should encourage them to be unique!

_____________________

Question:

Two words: twin threesomes?

Answer:

Hahahaha, NO! We are very weird about boys and sex. We don’t talk to each other about boys or what we have done. It just seems…creepy.

“It Might Also Herald An Age Of Self-Assembling Furniture”

February 28, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

3D printing is upon us, but scientists at MIT are already working on 4D, in which objects assemble themselves. From BBC: “At the TED conference in Los Angeles, architect and computer scientist Skylar Tibbits showed how the process allows objects to self-assemble.

It could be used to install objects in hard-to-reach places such as underground water pipes, he suggested.

It might also herald an age of self-assembling furniture, said experts.”

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A Brief Note From 1907 About A Pet Chicken

February 27, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the July 21, 1907 New York Times:

“Atlantic City–Miss Ella Hall, a Georgia society belle, is the possessor of a pet chicken, which she brought all the way from her home in the South to the shore. The other day she created quite a sensation when she took the chicken in bathing with her, and in the way of a novelty she has the ‘Teddy Bear’ girl beaten. And the chicken seemed to enjoy the novelty of bathing. It cannot swim, of course, but the fair owner has taught it to be perfectly still when she places it in the water, and it floats as lightly as a cork.”

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“We Are Surrounded By Electromagnetic Fields Which Are The Results Of Information Transfer”

February 27, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Parasitic energy harvesters are urbanites who tap into wasted, overflow energy and repurpose it. One German designer has come up with an invention to aid them. From Pop-Up City:

“Recently we found a stunning new invention in the field of parasite energy harvesting that we want you to know about. German designer Dennis Siegel created a small device that is able to harvest energy from electromagnetic fields and instantly recharge batteries (!).

Since electromagnetic fields are omnipresent, this small invention has a huge potential. Siegel explains that we are surrounded by electromagnetic fields which are the results of information transfer, or byproducts of electric equipment. Those fields can be found near power supplies of electronic devices like a coffee machine, a cellphone or an overhead wire. Many of those fields are very capacitive and can be harvested with coils and high frequency diodes. Siegel’s small harvesting device is able to tap into several electromagnetic fields to exploit them. The energy is stored in an ordinary battery. This way spoiled energy that flows around in the air can be ‘re-used’ easily.”

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

February 27, 2013 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

"Undertones of strawberries and malbec."

“Undertones of strawberries.”

Body Fluids (Pee) are Healthy – $25 (Midtown)

In ancient Mediterranean cultures its quite healthy and advised to use human urine as a natural ailment for a variety of illnesses and conditions.In the Western culture many of us turn in vain to antibiotics and other such remedies that truly do not promote health at it’s most natural source. Here, at Organic Pee and Me we are on a mission to restore what many do not know is a natural and preferred means of health and rejuvenation. For you pleasure we offer a variety of tastes,. We recommend you select the taste and nutrient profile that is most beneficial to you based on what may be lacking in your diet. You may select from: 

  1. The natural, no preservative added urine of a young, blonde. American, healthy trainer who snacks on fruits, vegetables, brown rice and protein shakes and bars all day. 
  2. Or you can select the urine of a beautiful Asian whose natural body chemistry has been described as bitter yet sweet and aromatic. 
  3. For those among us who enjoy male urine (which is more full-bodied than female urine) we offer a very special blend of European, Mediterranean with undertones of strawberries. 

Our quality – high. Our supply – fresh. Our prices – competitive.
Bottled right from the source. Naturally Organic.
If you want organic pee- come to me!
Prices negotiable.

"Our quality - high."

“Our quality – high.”

“There Was A Story Where You Killed The Chicken, But You Didn’t Really Kill The Chicken”

February 27, 2013 in Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Alice Cooper, the picture of health, being interviewed by Tom Snyder in 1981. Cooper officially became a senior citizen earlier this month. Poor video quality.

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“Few People Think Of Finance As An Ethical Career Choice”

February 27, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Ethicist William MacAskill’s new Quartz article recommends that those who want to aid the less fortunate should trade community organizing for Wall Street banking. Of course, a lot of things you might have to do in that career may lead to destroying the economy and creating more at-risk people. His piece’s opening:

“Few people think of finance as an ethical career choice. Top undergraduates who want to ‘make a difference’ are encouraged to forgo the allure of Wall Street and work in the charity sector. And many people in finance have a mid-career ethical crisis and switch to something fulfilling.

The intentions may be good, but is it really the best way to make a difference? I used to think so, but while researching ethical career choice, I concluded that it’s in fact better to earn a lot of money and donate a good chunk of it to the most cost-effective charities—a path that I call ‘earning to give.’ Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and the others who have taken the 50% Giving Pledge are the best-known examples. But you don’t have to be a billionaire. By making as much money as we can and donating to the best causes, we can each save hundreds of lives.”

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“But How Safe Is A 50-Piece Plastic Body On A Highway?”

February 27, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

More about Jim Kor and the next iteration of his 3D-printed electric car, the Urbee, this time from Alexander George at Wired:

“To further remedy the issues caused by modern car-construction techniques, Kor used the design freedom of 3-D printing to combine a typical car’s multitude of parts into simple unibody shapes. For example, when he prints the car’s dashboard, he’ll make it with the ducts already attached without the need for joints and connecting parts. What would be dozens of pieces of plastic and metal end up being one piece of 3-D printed plastic.

‘The thesis we’re following is to take small parts from a big car and make them single large pieces,’ Kor says. By using one piece instead of many, the car loses weight and gets reduced rolling resistance, and with fewer spaces between parts, the Urbee ends up being exceptionally aerodynamic.’ How aerodynamic? The Urbee 2′s teardrop shape gives it just a 0.15 coefficient of drag.

Not all of the Urbee is printed plastic — the engine and base chassis will be metal, naturally. They’re still figuring out exactly who will make the hybrid engine, but the prototype will produce a maximum of 10 horsepower. Most of the driving – from zero to 40 mph – will be done by the 36-volt electric motor. When it gets up to highway speeds, the engine will tap the fuel tank to power a diesel engine.

But how safe is a 50-piece plastic body on a highway?

With three wheels and a curb weight of less than 1,200 pounds, it’s more motorcycle than passenger car.

‘We’re calling it race car safety,’ Kor says. ‘We want the car to pass the tech inspection required at Le Mans.'”

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Old Print Article: “To Beautify The Human Race This Wealthy Russian’s Fad,” New York Times (1904)

February 27, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

“On his lands there live men and women of striking physique and charm of face.”

A wealthy Russian man founded a utopian farm in which beautiful people and only beautiful people were collected to be entered into arranged marriages in the hopes that perfection would be perpetuated. The opening of a September 18, 1904 New York Times article:

“Reshetnikoff, a wealthy distiller of Northeast Russia, is a man with a fad. He believes that the human race, by judicious mating, can be brought to a state of physical perfection, and on his great estate near Perm he is doing what he can to prove his theory. Just as extreme speed and symmetry is developed by the breeder of horses, or as the horticulturist brings his plants and the florist his blooms to the highest possible degree of usefulness and beauty, it is his aim to give to the world a type of men and women who shall be flawless in strength and shapeliness.

Throughout all Russia he is known as the ‘man with a beauty farm.’ He is giving his time to the demonstration of his chosen task without stint, and spending his money with a freedom which would in itself insure notice. More than that, he has already proved to a large degree that he is justified in the stand he has taken, for on his lands there live men and women of striking physique and charm of face.

As a matter of fact the end for which he is striving is one which would probably be speeded by the thinking people of the world by every means in their power if it were not for an obstacle which others believe to be insurmountable and which he affects to ignore. This obstacle is affection. Since order was evolved from chaos and the waste places of the earth were populated, reason has entered but little into the matching of man and maid. The strong have loved the weak and the ugly have won the hearts of the beautiful. Those who have watched the work undertaken by the Russian distiller take these things into consideration in refusing actively to undertake the propagation of his cult. They know the futility of the fight he is making.

“Deformed and diseased persons are not permitted to find a home on the estate.”

The eyes of Europe were recently centered on the Reshetnikoff estate by a remarkable marriage arranged by him–a marriage which marks the passing of at least one milestone in the journey toward perfection which he has undertaken for the unbuilding of humanity. The bride and the bridegroom were ‘nurslings’ of his beauty farm, the first couple, both of whom had sprung from unions arranged by him.

That the bride was as nearly the ideal of physical womanhood as could be found by the most extended search, and that the bridegroom was as strong and handsome as could be desired, was admitted by all who saw them. But that their offspring would meekly accept at maturity the men or women selected as best qualified for the perpetuation of their strength and comeliness was not so readily granted.

‘That is the weak link in M. Reshetnikoff’s chain,’ said a scientist who is deeply interested in the ideal the distiller has set out to achieve. ‘His labor is doomed to be lost. Suppose a boy is born of this marriage who represents all that the patron of the parents hopes for. When that boy grows to be a man he is just as apt as not to choose a little, lop-sided woman for a wife as he is to select the kind of mate M. Reshetnikoff would have him take, and the care and thought which were embodied in him would be thrown away. The marriage is fortuitous. That is all. As long as there are men and women they will choose for themselves. His dream is Utopia, impossible of fulfillment.’

The Russian distiller has for many years attracted to his estate handsome giants of both sexes by means of concessions of lands and valuable privileges. Further grants of land encouraged them to enter the state of matrimony. All expenses of marriages are paid, and an annuity is given of $15 for every child born. In the event that marriages are arranged by the distiller, and the parties selected refuse to carry out the arrangements, they are deported. Deformed and diseased persons are not permitted to find a home on the estate.”

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“The Truth Is A Funny Thing”

February 27, 2013 in Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

In this trippy, time warp of a 1971 documentary, young Californians become Jesus freaks after running out of other crap to try.

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