This table – in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, design by Thom Faulders of BeigeDesign and Anna Rainer
, has, as far as well can tell, never been put into production. This one seems like it should have had at least a couple of production runs large enough to see how they work out and hold up:
Link to “Undercover Table” (1999)
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The delays on New York’s Second Avenue line are nearing pension age. Our ability to use additional underground capacity – to move passengers, to move freight, and as emergency shelter – is not matched by planning or construction.
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Yet – our former colonial masters – at whom Americans snicker – (yes, marmite doesn’t quite make sense; but this is beside the point) – continue to surpass us in mass transportation and energy efficiency. They’re building new underground train extensions The “long train(s) of abuses and usurpations,” will, reportedly, carry 1,500 passengers each. The “patient sufferance of these Colonies” perhaps now means that ‘we’ll build mass transportation systems when we’re good and ready.’ [singlepic=72,320,240,,right]
reports that the Brits have taken a decision to start construction on a long-planned extension to the London underground transit system – Crossrail. And plans for the “Thames2000” extension remain under discussion. They could dither for another few years – and they’d still get it done before the Second Avenue Subway. The following images are of the Thames2000 system.
Images from the thingsmagazine piece, linked here .
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According to Science Daily,
Recent research from Vidi researcher Josef Stuefer at the Radboud University Nijmegen reveals that plants have their own chat systems that they can use to warn each other.
Clover plants can warn each other via a network of runners. (Credit: Image courtesy of Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research)
From Inhabitat:
Designed by Kennedy & Violich Architecture (KVA MATx), the beauty of the Portable Light Project is its merging of high-tech industry and local craft-based economies, not to mention the fact that it delivers usable light to demographics and regions that are either off-the-grid, mobile, or in locations with little daily sunlight. “Portable Light is based upon the principle that global needs for technology development are inevitably interconnected. Knowledge, techniques, market solutions and data produced by the project benefit the “third” world and the “first” world where the need to imagine, design and develop energy efficient alternatives to the centralized and increasingly costly electrical grid is becoming ever more important,” says KVA.
The materials themselves and attention to the design process prove that Portable Light is not just functional, but thoughtfully constructed with sustainability and humanity in mind. It combines high-brightness LEDs from pedestrian walk signals, water-resistant tactile switches from dishwashers, and rechargeable batteries from the cell-phone industry, all sourced from consumer appliances and standard technologies. Continue reading
According to Ellen Sullivan’s Associated Press piece , published on Firehouse.com
The nation is preparing for its biggest terrorism exercise ever later this month when three fictional “dirty bombs” go off and cripple transportation arteries in two major U.S. cities and Guam, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press.
Yet even as this drill begins, details from the previous national exercise held in 2005 have yet to be publicly released – information that’s supposed to help officials prepare for the next real attack.
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Just came across the very clever blog, Brad’s Sketchpad, which is not connected to the excellent actor Brad Dourif, the funny Brad Garrett , or the city Brad, which is located in Romania.
It belongs to Brad Stone, a technology writer for the Times, my hometown paper. And he seems to be channeling Gary Larsen, the Far Side cartoonist. Or so it appears; my understanding was that the Times had a rule against cartoonists appearing in the newsroom, often misunderstood simply as a reluctance to publish Doonesbury or other cartoons. So maybe he’s just swiped the real Brad Stone’s identity. If so, watch the Times’ tech blog, Bits , for an interesting series on identity theft.
Not me, though. If I were going to be impersonating someone at the Times – and I could pull it off – Maureen Dowd. The Popular Logistics Board of Estimates has concluded that she’s probably having more fun than anyone else there. Like Rosalind Russell but without the hats.
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From Inhabitat:
As part of the Mayor of London’s plan for an increased reliance on energy efficient vehicles to power the city’s transport infrastructure, Transport for London, the British agency responsible for public transportation, has introduced one hybrid bus across route 141. The current hybrid bus is powered by a hybrid diesel-electric engine. Thanks to the mixture of both systems, the bus is able to cover the same distance range as a conventional diesel bus. All the hybrid buses will be marked with a leafy insignia to better communicate to the passengers that they are indeed traveling on an environmentally friendly bus. Here’s hoping that the rest of London, and other cities in the world follow this lead.
“This is a world-first for London marking our commitment to a cleaner, greener public transport network.” said Mayor Ken Livigstone.
Huntsville is setting up a shelter system – although there are no plans to provide food or bedding. What about light and heat? Medical care?
From Jay Reeves’ Associated Press article:
In an age of al-Qaida, sleeper cells and the threat of nuclear terrorism, Huntsville is dusting off its Cold War manual to create the nation’s most ambitious fallout-shelter plan, featuring an abandoned mine big enough for 20,000 people to take cover underground.
I don’t understand it.
But – Michael Chertoff has started a blog. And, after a recent post, David W. Stephenson, of Stephenson Strategies, made a comment that actually made it through DHS screening.
I’m not sure he could have gotten the comment onto a commercial flight, though, unless it was in checked luggage.
Check out Mirabile dictu! My comment on Chertoff’s blog was ok’d
, on Stephenson blogs on homeland security 2.0.
Stephenson is co-author, with Eric Bonabeau, of Expecting the Unexpected: The Need for a Networked Terrorism and Disaster Response Strategy, in the February 2007 issue of Homeland Security Affairs .
We’ve blogged about this article before – but it’s good enough that I’m happy to shill for it more than once – as I am about HSAJ’s parent organization, the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense & Security.
Between Stephenson, Bonabeau, and Professor Brian Steckler of NPS, I’ve been persuaded of the utility of wireless networks in emergencies – although it’s my contention that, organized from the bottom up – we need more than one system. More about system redundancy and about NPS soon.
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posts today its Transportation Tuesday: top 10 cities for public transit:
Just because we’re in the top 5 – doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be doing more.
From Paul Rega at Project Disaster , original dispatch from Xinhua News Agency:
China has ordered all poultry imports and relative products shipped from Canada after September 23 to be returned or destroyed to ward off the H7N3 avian influenza virus.The decision jointly made by the Ministry of Agriculture and the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine came two days after the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) released an outbreak alert, saying that the highly pathogenic virus has been confirmed in a chicken broiler breeder flock in Saskatchewan.The Paris-based international organization warned that approximately 540 roosters have died in one barn containing approximately 600 birds. Another 49,100 roosters and broiler breeders held in other nine barns nearby are susceptible.
To remedy the situation, China has imposed an import ban on all poultry and relative products from Canada and required relevant local governmental departments to seal up all Canadian poultry and relative products carried by airplanes, ships or trains from abroad that must stop over in or transit China.
Illegal poultry imports from Canada must be destroyed under the supervision of entry-exit inspection and quarantine departments.
China has decided to restore as of Sunday the imports of animals with cloven hooves and relative products from Santa Catarina, Acre and the cities of Rio Grande do Sul and Rondonia of Amazon in Brazil as these regions have been confirmed by the OIE as free from the foot-and-mouth disease.
From Commissioner Joseph Bruno’s announcement:
What if New York City were hit by a Category 3 Hurricane?
In New York City, over eight million people live on land that has 578 miles of waterfront. By 2030, the population is expected to reach nine million. At the same time, global climate change has put New York City at an increased risk for a severe coastal storm. In recent years, storms have become more intense, occur more frequently, and continue farther north than they have historically. The city would face many challenges during and after such a storm; one of the most difficult is the possibility that hundreds of thousands of people could lose their homes.
With financial support from the Rockefeller Foundation and in consultation with Architecture for Humanity-New York, the New York City Office of Emergency Management is sponsoring an open competition to generate solutions for post-disaster provisional housing. “What if New York City…” is a call for innovation and an opportunity for designers and policy-makers to collaborate on one of the biggest challenges facing densely settled urban areas after a disaster: how do we keep people safely and comfortably housed while reconstruction proceeds?
A jury of experts in the fields of architecture, design, urbanism, and government will choose ten entrants who will be awarded $10,000 each and technical support to develop their proposals into workable solutions. These solutions will provide support for New York’s most vulnerable communities and be a precedent for dense urban areas all over the world.
This design competition will rely on a fictional but realistic New York City neighborhood devastated by a hypothetical Category 3 hurricane.
