Blog Roundup
Constructing a Foundation for 'Net-Zero' Buildings
One of the more encouraging aspects of green technology development is the fact that big corporations with deep pockets, operating on a large scale, have every reason to start thinking green, since energy inefficiency costs them money, and the means to make something happen. Apparently, some big players in commercial construction technologies are forming an alliance to develop zero-net-energy, carbon-neutral commercial buildings. Huge.
(via WorldChanging)
*****
From an article on we make money not art about Germany legalizing Segways on public sidewalks, we have these nifty pictures of German police riding Segways:
(via we make money not art)
*****
Manuel DeLanda - "Deleuze and the Use of Genetic Algorithms in Architecture"
Suffice it to say it kills me that this lecture is happening in LA while I'm in Mexico. It looks like they do a live webcast of their lectures, but they don't seem to archive them. Oh, well.
At least I will get to see this before it's over.
Whoever Reads Bourgeois Newspapers Becomes Blind and Deaf: Away with These Stultifying Bandages!, John Heartfield, 1930
(via art.blogging.la)
*****
The Red Ferret Journal has put up all kinds of neat stuff since the last time I looked at it:
This phone can record your conversations directly onto a CD. One CD apparently stores 15,000 calls. Neat-O. Story here. But that kind of pales in comparison to this...
... which is apparently a spa-massager helmet. No, really. You wear it on your head and it pummels you with water until you feel better. Story here, MDMA not included.
(via Red Ferret)
*****
Speaking of MDMA, I'm not even sure how to process this one:
"Doctors from London University have revealed details of what they believe is the largest amount of ecstasy ever consumed by a single person. Consultants from the addiction centre at St George's Medical School, London, have published a case report of a British man estimated to have taken around 40,000 pills of MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, over nine years. The heaviest previous lifetime intake on record is 2,000 pills.
Though the man, who is now 37, stopped taking the drug seven years ago, he still suffers from severe physical and mental health side-effects, including extreme memory problems, paranoia, hallucinations and depression. He also suffers from painful muscle rigidity around his neck and jaw which often prevents him from opening his mouth. The doctors believe many of these symptoms may be permanent.
The man, known as Mr A in the report in the scientific journal Psychosomatics, started using ecstasy at 21. For the first two years his use was an average of five pills per weekend. Gradually this escalated until he was taking around three and a half pills a day. At the peak, the man was taking an estimated 25 pills every day for four years. After several severe collapses at parties, Mr A decided to stop taking ecstasy. For several months, he still felt he was under the influence of the drug, despite being bedridden." (emphases mine, full story here)
All I can really say there is Ho. Ly. Shit. Just say no to drugs, kiddies, where "drugs" = completely marinating yourself in ecstasy for nearly a decade.
The part that completely slays me is "After several severe collapses at parties, Mr A decided to stop taking ecstasy." Can you imagine the scene at the last party he collapsed at, the one that turned him around?
"It's OK, everybody loves you, dude, we just want to know if you're all right."
"What ... what year is it?"
"Hmm... maybe you should slow down. Do you maybe need some water? I've got gum. You want gum, maybe? Maybe get some air?"
(from the Guardian, via Boing Boing)
*****
Finally, Lawrence Lessig had this to say about the US, Japan, South America, and intellectual property law:
"In the late 1990s, I travelled a bunch to South America to talk about cyberspace. In conference after conference, I listened to South Americans describe how they were waiting for the government to enact rules so they could begin to develop business in cyberspace. That reaction puzzled me, an American. As I explained to those who would listen, in America, business wasn't waiting for the government to "clarify" rules. It was simply building business in cyberspace without any support from government.
Yet as I listened to the Japanese describe the stuff they were doing with content in cyberspace, I realized we (America) had become South America. One presentation in particular described an extraordinary database the NII had constructed to discover relevance in linked databases, and drive traffic across a database of texts. I was astonished by the demonstration, and thought to myself that we could never build something like this in the U.S., at least until cases like the Google Book Search case was resolved.
And bingo â?” the moment of recognition. We are now, as the South Americans in the 1990s, waiting for the government to clarify the rules. Investment is too uncertain; the liability too unclear. We thus wait, and fall further behind nations such as Japan, where the IP (as in copyright) bar is not so keen to stifle IP (as in the goose that ...)."
(via Lessig Blog, obviously)
One of the more encouraging aspects of green technology development is the fact that big corporations with deep pockets, operating on a large scale, have every reason to start thinking green, since energy inefficiency costs them money, and the means to make something happen. Apparently, some big players in commercial construction technologies are forming an alliance to develop zero-net-energy, carbon-neutral commercial buildings. Huge.
(via WorldChanging)
*****
From an article on we make money not art about Germany legalizing Segways on public sidewalks, we have these nifty pictures of German police riding Segways:
(via we make money not art)
*****
Manuel DeLanda - "Deleuze and the Use of Genetic Algorithms in Architecture"
Suffice it to say it kills me that this lecture is happening in LA while I'm in Mexico. It looks like they do a live webcast of their lectures, but they don't seem to archive them. Oh, well.
At least I will get to see this before it's over.
Whoever Reads Bourgeois Newspapers Becomes Blind and Deaf: Away with These Stultifying Bandages!, John Heartfield, 1930
(via art.blogging.la)
*****
The Red Ferret Journal has put up all kinds of neat stuff since the last time I looked at it:
This phone can record your conversations directly onto a CD. One CD apparently stores 15,000 calls. Neat-O. Story here. But that kind of pales in comparison to this...
... which is apparently a spa-massager helmet. No, really. You wear it on your head and it pummels you with water until you feel better. Story here, MDMA not included.
(via Red Ferret)
*****
Speaking of MDMA, I'm not even sure how to process this one:
"Doctors from London University have revealed details of what they believe is the largest amount of ecstasy ever consumed by a single person. Consultants from the addiction centre at St George's Medical School, London, have published a case report of a British man estimated to have taken around 40,000 pills of MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, over nine years. The heaviest previous lifetime intake on record is 2,000 pills.
Though the man, who is now 37, stopped taking the drug seven years ago, he still suffers from severe physical and mental health side-effects, including extreme memory problems, paranoia, hallucinations and depression. He also suffers from painful muscle rigidity around his neck and jaw which often prevents him from opening his mouth. The doctors believe many of these symptoms may be permanent.
The man, known as Mr A in the report in the scientific journal Psychosomatics, started using ecstasy at 21. For the first two years his use was an average of five pills per weekend. Gradually this escalated until he was taking around three and a half pills a day. At the peak, the man was taking an estimated 25 pills every day for four years. After several severe collapses at parties, Mr A decided to stop taking ecstasy. For several months, he still felt he was under the influence of the drug, despite being bedridden." (emphases mine, full story here)
All I can really say there is Ho. Ly. Shit. Just say no to drugs, kiddies, where "drugs" = completely marinating yourself in ecstasy for nearly a decade.
The part that completely slays me is "After several severe collapses at parties, Mr A decided to stop taking ecstasy." Can you imagine the scene at the last party he collapsed at, the one that turned him around?
"It's OK, everybody loves you, dude, we just want to know if you're all right."
"What ... what year is it?"
"Hmm... maybe you should slow down. Do you maybe need some water? I've got gum. You want gum, maybe? Maybe get some air?"
(from the Guardian, via Boing Boing)
*****
Finally, Lawrence Lessig had this to say about the US, Japan, South America, and intellectual property law:
"In the late 1990s, I travelled a bunch to South America to talk about cyberspace. In conference after conference, I listened to South Americans describe how they were waiting for the government to enact rules so they could begin to develop business in cyberspace. That reaction puzzled me, an American. As I explained to those who would listen, in America, business wasn't waiting for the government to "clarify" rules. It was simply building business in cyberspace without any support from government.
Yet as I listened to the Japanese describe the stuff they were doing with content in cyberspace, I realized we (America) had become South America. One presentation in particular described an extraordinary database the NII had constructed to discover relevance in linked databases, and drive traffic across a database of texts. I was astonished by the demonstration, and thought to myself that we could never build something like this in the U.S., at least until cases like the Google Book Search case was resolved.
And bingo â?” the moment of recognition. We are now, as the South Americans in the 1990s, waiting for the government to clarify the rules. Investment is too uncertain; the liability too unclear. We thus wait, and fall further behind nations such as Japan, where the IP (as in copyright) bar is not so keen to stifle IP (as in the goose that ...)."
(via Lessig Blog, obviously)