The Godzilla Tower, Tokyo

from Ironic Sans

Hell-on-Earth

The Death of Pinochet led me to do some refreshing of my Chilean Geography. I recalled learning about a brutal desert in that snake-shaped nation, it's called the Atacama. This desert is 50 times more arid than California's Death Valley, and likely the driest terrestrial environment on earth.

The Atacama is situated between two mountain ranges so that moisture from the nearby Pacific Ocean rarely reaches the ground. The average rainfall is ~1 millimeter per year. The climate is so inhospitable that NASA researchers have used it to test research equipment proposed for use on Mars. Perhaps even more surprising is how long the Atacama Desert has existed.

Google News turned up a current story on an extremeophilic deep sea shrimp this morning. The microbial life in the Atacama is also an extremeophile in terms of water demand (and other things). Understanding these fringes of life could lead to breakthroughs in our understanding of biology and evolutionary behavior. Why do some organisims thrive in places where almost every other creature would be tortured? How are they different from the dominant forms of life? We might never get satisfying answers to these questions - especially since scientists continue to find life in improbable places.

a rundown

Since I don't have time to do any of these topics justice in a full posting, here is a rundown of some things that I've been exploring.

Habitat 67 - I saw it first in a big, softcover architecture book under the heading: Clusters. People still live in Habitat 67. The designer is architect Moshe Safdie, a Palestenian-Canadian.

Container Bay - A collection of projects built from shipping containers. Some have been built while many are only planned. FYI: I've been working on my own container home in SketchUp. I'll get some stills up here once it's ready.

Rights & Obligations - Berlin's Hauptbahnhof (The new main train terminal) is about to get a judicial renovation, "The Berlin District Court has ruled that Deutsche Bahn must rebuild whole sections of the new Hauptbahnhof according to the architect's plans, setting a spectacular precedent."

Urban Rail . net - This is neat.

Green Real Estate Portfolios - The Slatin Report covers the trend.

Oklahoma SuperSonics

Should the public foot-the-bill for professional sports? Like it or not most major league franchises are supported and subsidized by the residents of their metropolitan area. Ususally taxes are accumulated to build or improve stadiums & ball parks. While franchise owners can generally afford astronomical payrolls for their players, they argue that the facilities must be built (in part) by the whole city.

Seattle and Sacramento bucked that trend last week. Both cities turned down proposals to raise taxes to build new homes for their Basketball teams. The Seattle vote very nearly garauntees that the SuperSonics will move by 2010 (to Oklahoma City). The fate of the Sacremento Kings is less clear.

"Public sentiment turned against the Sonics last winter when Mr. Schultz, the Starbucks chairman, demanded that the state provide $200 million to refurbish the city-owned arena. The team would have contributed $18 million." (Planetizen)

Sounds familiar, doesn't it.

"I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a Hamburger today..." - J. Wellington Wimpy.

Wouldn't it be awfuly nice if the city paid for over 90% of your house, slashing your costs on that Half-Mil McMansion to a paltry $50,000. Of course you would have to allow guests over regularly for quality food, drinks and entertainment. $8.50 domestic beers, $45 entry fees, $3 coffee, and don't forget the merchandise to remember your visit!

It's about damn time people realized that cities shouldn't willingly fork over their tax revenues for these kinds of projects. I don't disagree that there is some public benefit to having a prominent sports venue. It makes good sense for large businesses who need to entertain clients, it can help to promote local history or industry (such as the Detroit Pistons, Pittsburgh Steelers, and the New England Patriots), and it can help to establish a place on a network of national and international destinations.

The tenor of the argument in Seattle no longer needed to "overpay" for professional sports since the city had so much already going in its favor.

“Citizens in Seattle look around and see Microsoft and Boeing doing fabulously, the Port of Seattle is booming and trade with China is going to define this city’s existence for the next 50 years,” Professor Olson said. “Seattle has said, We can be a big-league city, we can be an international city, without kowtowing to professional sports franchises.” (nytimes)

The Citizens for More Important Things led the campaign to deny public funding of a new arena for the SuperSonics. SacBee has more on Measures Q & R.

Bejing Olympics: 2008

Herzog & De Meuron are designing the Olympic Stadium for Bejing's 2008 Olympics. It's very imposing. It looks practically supernatural, like a webbing that happens to contain a stadium.

The Piezo Effect

Why isn't there a better name for this?

Astronomers call it "the blob" or "giant blob" and it is the most massive thing in the universe known to man.

You have never really seen "the blob," it is too dim for the naked human eye. Even so, it's not much worth looking at. You would think that a galaxy cluster over 200 light years in width would be pretty remarkable, right? Well it is, but not for its looks. "The Blob" is one of the oldest structures in the universe, it formed 12.7 billion years ago. Astronomers also speculate that this cluster is something like a nursery for whole galaxies.

Previously known structures with such high density are much smaller, only about 50 million light-years across. "The densest regions in the universe are the places where galaxies are thought to have formed first. Because this is one of the biggest structures known, it must be one of the very first to have formed," said Philip Best, an astronomer at the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh in the U.K.

In any case, I'm calling on anybody who can read this to think of a better name for this awe-inspiring, mysterious part of our universe. After all, I think we can do a lot better than these old blobs.

Thanks to Seed Magazine for their blurb about "the blob" in their last issue.

Trip Pictures Ready!

More of that church..., originally uploaded by Helmers.

It's official, they're all up. See the Fall Loop.

Silver Floating Pillows

Sidamo, Yirgacheffe, and Harrar

(without realizing it, Starbucks users begin thirsting for a grande upon reading these words)

Wine aficionados know Champagne, Bordeaux, and Alsace - they're all French wines, and regions of France.

The three names in the title share this dual identity crisis. Starbucks uses these three names for its Ethiopian coffees. They are also places in Ethiopia. The most significant of the three (in terms of population) is Harrar.

(disclaimer: I'm no anti-globalization nutjob trying to get you to sign a petition. Seriously, this just interests me as an intersection of commerce, geography, and food.) I learned from Oxfam America about Ethiopia's attempt to protect the trademark on these place names. Starbucks opposes this plan and wants the ability to brand its coffee without paying for the naming rights.

Personally, I believe that if a product can only be produced genuinely in one place (like French wines, Cuban cigars, or African coffee) then distributors should play fair with the producers. Starbucks is hardly the 'evil empire,' they're just trying to make a few more pennies on each cup of hot Ethiopian coffee that passes over their counters. Ethiopia's plan to retain the trademark makes financial sense for an impoverished nation where coffee is a key commodity ('providing 65%-75% of Ethiopia's foreign exchange earnings').

ps. thanks to Co-op America for the email.

A Thousand Mile Loop

The trip odometer rolled over onto 1,000 miles just as we pulled into Lansing on Monday. The pictures will be up on flickr soon. In the meantime, I've rediscovered the Slatin Report, an excellent online periodical about real estate.

Now that more than a year has passed we can safely ask, Who's rebuilding New Orleans? Hispanics, and probably in massive numbers. According to a Tulane study about half of the construction work is being done by Latino crews. Many of these workers came along with firms from Arizona, Texas, and California, their crews are primarily first and second generation immigrants from Mexico and Central America. It's unlikely that most of these workers will settle in New Orleans, but their sudden appearance is already changing the landscape.

"'We're seeing day-worker sites in New Orleans for the first time,' noted R. Kelley Pace, director of the Real Estate Research Institute." Observers in NOLA say that Hispanic laborers are doing some of the toughest and most dangerous jobs. Contractors aware of the questionable nature of their labor's citizenship are taking unscrupulous risks.

What kind of impact will this influx of Hispanic people mean for New Orleans? Before Katrina the area had about 6% Hispanic population, the hurricane might transform New Orleans into a new hub of Hispanic culture and business. It could bring the wave of immigration to the doorstep of the American South.

Also from the Slatin Report: People who think the new World Trade Center project is a fiasco. (Letters in response to Vision Not Accomplished.)

What's your Big Bird like?

Did you know that Sesame Street has regional variations around the world? Many countries have their own versions of the popular American children's show. Each of these shows has its own unique cast of Muppets. Wikipedia has a huge list of them, here are some notable outtakes:

• Canada: Dodi, essentially a Jack-Of-All-Trades, though most commonly known as a bush pilot.
• Israel: Kippi ben Kippod, or Kippi Kippod, a giant porcupine analogous to Big Bird
• Mexico: Abelardo Montoya, the equivalent of Big Bird, with Green and Red feathers (Mexico's National colours; also the colors of a Parrot, one of Mexico's most numerous and representative birds)
• India: Boombah, a hedonistic lion who believes he is descended from one of India's historic royal families. (via Gallli Galli Sim Sim)

This all came after learing about "The World According to Sesame Street," a PBS site detailing regional adaptations in Bangladesh, Kosovo, and South Africa. The South Africa version got a spat of attention for introducing an HIV-positive muppet character to the show in order to address the AIDS epidemic in Africa.

Preparing for Pittsburgh

Ash and I leave for Pittsburgh on Thursday. There will be plenty of pictures upon our return to Lansing. Until then I'll post a few links of interest:

Hybrid Train: "The Green Goat is a diesel-electric hybrid in which the normal massive diesel locomotive engine is replaced by a 290-horsepower inline 6-cylinder diesel truck engine and a 600-volt battery bank. The batteries supply the power needed to drive the electric traction motors on the wheels of this 280,000-pound 'goat.' "

Niagara Escarpment: The largest geological feature remaining from the glacial retreat in the Great Lakes area. Also a world biosphere reserve.

Electroland: A firm that seems to specialize in building-integrated LED spaces. A lot of their work seems to be user/building interactive.

Hotel Puerta America Madrid: Every floor of this hotel was designed by a different person/firm. I can't even imagine how expensive and posh this place is.

Subtopia: Guide to Military Urbanism.

Sealing It Up

The Supplies, originally uploaded by Helmers.

Today I took the initative to seal up the gaps in my house to make it more energy efficient. I wanted to see how hard it was for a non-handy person to heal up a leaky house. Result: surprisingly easy.
See the whole process

The Energy Manhattan Project

In August Wired Magazine wrote about MIT's decision to develop clean, affordable sources of energy. I stumbled upon it while reasearching Emission-to-Biomass (E2B) technology, a process pioneered at MIT (more on E2B below...)

Wired outlines a bunch of what MIT is working on through the Energy Research Council:

• Spinach-derived Solar Power
• Various Battery Technologies for Vehicles and Portable Electronics (we're doing that in Michigan, too)
• Building Technology (mostly to reduce A/C use)
• Turbocharging an automobile engine with plasma from a small ethanol tank (Tony, this one is all you... I don't get how this is supposed to work.)
• And E2B
  
  The article mentions a few more. But the last one stands apart from all the rest.
  
  E2B technology turns Carbon Dioxide and Nitrogen Oxides emissions from smokestacks into raw biomass which can be converted into ethanol, biodiesel, hydrogen, or a bio-solid (which can be burned alongside coal in most power plants). MIT was the first place to demonstrate this technology over 2-years ago. Using algae, which feed on the Carbon Dioxide and other polluting gasses, these 'bioreactors' transform harmful waste into fuel. That said they are not 100% efficient, their performance depends on the availability of sunlight to induce the algae to grow. Still, even on cloudy days this process eats ~50% of the Carbon Dioxide emissions.
  
  The truly amazing thing about E2B technology is that it is not just a pollution remedy. The end-product is a useful and profitable energy commodity. It makes sense for energy companies to deal in energy products such as ethanol and biodiesel. By implementing E2B a power plant can slash its emissions and broaden its portfolio in renewable energy.
  
  If you want to learn more about Emissions-to-Biomass check out these websites:
  
  GreenFuel Technologies
  GS CleanTech
  Random weblog

Refugees in America

Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program just released a report detailing the living where refugees are living in the US. In 1980 the Refugee Act was passed to, "provide for the effective resettlement of refugees and to assist them to achieve economic self-sufficiency as quickly as possible after arrival in the United States."

According to the report over 2 million refugees have entered the US since then. They break down the regions of origin in their summary,

These flows were marked first by refugees primarily from Southeast Asia and theSoviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s during the Cold War period, followed by Europe in the 1990s during the Balkans period, and now a growing number from Africa in the 2000s during the civil conflict period.

So, Brookings asks, where are they all going. Even though refugees are only ~10% of total immigration, they are a fascinating demographic. Most refugees are living in cities that already have a high foreign born population, L.A., Chicago, and New York. Over the past few years, however, new gateways are emerging for refugees in Seattle, D.C., Atlanta, and Portland (Oregon). The report also mentions something regarding unusual concentrations of refugees from particular nations,

Nearly half of Iranian refugees were resettled in metropolitan Los Angeles, one in five Iraqi refugees arrived in Detroit, and nearly one-third of refugees from the former Soviet Union were resettled in New York. [emphasis added]

Read the summary or the full report(PDF) on the Brookings Institute webpage.

Copper Vandals

The price of copper is nearly double what it was last year. And 2005 was the highest price for copper in nearly a decade. And it's costing Detroit more than a few pennies (okay, I apoligize for the pun).

In the past weeks the City of Detroit has sustained around $1 million in property damage. Vandals are targeting all sorts of copper products: electrical wires, air conditioning units, exposed pipes, vases from graveyards, sewer grates, and church bells. The completely recycalable metal is being purcased by scrapyards for anywhere from $0.90 to $3.30 per pound (depending on the yard and the condition of the scrap). For the unemployed, homeless, and destitute stealing copper is a profitable enterprise.

However, it has become increasingly dangerous. Attempted thefts of live wire have accounted for three deaths in Detroit and four more round the nation. It seems as though people are going to even more dangerous lengths to retrieve copper. In Detroit these scrapyard bounty hunters are raiding consruction sites and tearing down utility lines just to get their hands on this now-precious metal.

Tigers Stadium

Last night the Detroit Tigers crushed the NY Yankees hopes for a World Series (in spite of paying their players $194,663,079.00 in 2006.) Although I rarely follow baseball, it was really exciting to watch the Tigers win last night.

Although it's all still talk and paper, there is a serious proposal to redevelop the old Tigers Stadium (the one at Michigan & Trumbull). After a bout of proposals for museums, confrence spaces, and even a Wal-Mart had all passed, the latest plan seems to have moved beyond the drawing board. Currently, Detroit's EDC has decided to investigate the deconstruction techniques that will be necessary for the site. Retail and housing wil surround the historic baseball diamond. The outline of the original park is slated to become a public playing field.

If you want to read more here's a June Freep article about the plans and a late September Detroit News piece detailing recent delays. Here is the article that I lifted the picture from.

City of Debris

CIMG1810, originally uploaded by Helmers.

This is what I was talking about earlier. From this angle the site looks like a grand avenue of debris, like some kind of negative landscape. The two ditches mirror a tree lined street. The heap of rusty scrap could be a monument to some long-ago war.

If you want to see more just click on Helmers up above.

Osaka, Shanghai, Tokyo, Singapore, and Taipei

According to Urban Land Institute (ULI) these are the real estate hotspots in Pacific Asia. Two of the top three are in Japan, ULI seems to be endorsing the Japanese market strongly, an indication that the poor economic situation there is nearly over. Here is the quick & dirty run down of their Asia Analysis:

Strong development markets include Bangalore, Ho Chi Minh City, and Mumbai, and these cities also are high on investors' buy lists. Other solid buy cities include Guangzhou, Bangkok, Beijing, Seoul, New Delhi, and Kuala Lumpur. The relatively mature markets of Melbourne, Hong Kong, and Sydney are viewed as hold markets. Manila and Jakarta are the lowest-ranked cities in the survey.

What are developer/investors working on in these cities. Offices are at the top of the list with the highest amount of investment. Just behind that is the hotel & resort sector. "New Delhi ranks as the best market for purchasing hotel and resort properties, with Mumbai, Ho Chi Minh City, Beijing and Taipei following." There're two Indian cities on that top five - it looks like the tourism industry is about to come to India in a big way.

Beyond offices and hotels the report says that retail, industrial/distribution, and housing are expanding in that sequence. I have only read the press release, but the full report is available on the ULI website.

Lightning Strikes

Lightning Strikes, originally uploaded by swamysk.

*I didn't take this picture. It's actually in Mumbai (fmr. Bombay), India.*

Last night I was getting some late night reading in when my bedroom window went electric blue with the photonic power of a nearby lightning bolt. My first thoughts were that this was some oddity of reflection. I knew that rain had been falling for a while, but I wasn't concerned.

Then it came. A shockwave of thunderous compressed, supercharged air assulted my house. At first the windows didn't rattle, the walls didn't creek and tremble. The noise was not stopping, five, ten, twenty, fourty seconds passed and still the sounds of shaking persisted. Had the frequency of this thunder matched the resonant frequency of my house? would the tremor accelerate, amplify, multiply... would it shake the house apart? was this really just a storm?

Thoughts started racing. Stealth bombing campaign that simulates lightning to "pinpoint" targets, an alien probe being deposited/recovered from earth, a late-night Cyclotron experiment gone terribly wrong. Who knows.

The house survived, and I'm pretty sure it was just a regular old electric storm.

Mountains of Metal

Moments ago I drove by the Olds plant in Lansing. Northbound on MLK I could see the mountains of metal produced by the demolition of the enormous site. Whole buildings were exposed, like some kind of post-war landscape. Caverns of concrete stood exposed to the wear of time and weather and the slow movement of demolition crews.

Pictures will come. This must be documented.

CyberNet

I've been trying to explain this story for a few weeks now. It's a real mess of a scandal and now my family is tied into it (through a car). People outside of Grand Rapids seem to be really unaware of it, and I suppose it is a "local" topic, but it's a parable fit for any Law & Order fan or prospective international banker. Here's a good synopsis (and a paragraph which neatly summarizes it.)

It's March, and CyberNet's headquarters is still bristling with activity and filled with people. Nearly four months to the day after its chief executive took his own life and the company collapsed, the offices are crowded once again: This week, under the direction of bankruptcy court, CyberNet's assets are being auctioned off to the highest bidders in an effort to return some funds to the company's cheated creditors. People from all over Michigan have come to find bargains, but many have also come to see the inside of the extravagant offices and gawk at the jaw-dropping riches, which have become legendary, if not infamous.

Read more about CyberNet...

Urban Homestead

A great video on Treehugger TV about a house in Pasadena, California. The house, on a normal 1/5 acre lot, produces 6,000 lbs. of food and generates more than half its energy.

This piece is a must read. Here's the lead,

An Indian physicist puts a PC with a high speed internet connection in a wall in the slums and watches what happens. Based on the results, he talks about issues of digital divide, computer education and kids, the dynamics of the third world getting online.

It looks like this piece came out in 2000, so it's not new, but it is a serious "mythbuster" about what it means to be "computer literate." This experiment didn't end after this writing. Hole-in-the-wall education is still going on. There was a PBS Frontline episode about it a couple of years ago.

One of the most interesting articles on all of Wikipedia (for the controversy and scope) is called India as an Emerging Superpower. (There similar articles for both China and the European Union.)

is the pentagon the world's largest building?

For whatever reason I had believed this. My understanding was that it had taken the title from Chicago's Merchandise Mart in terms of total square feet of space.

The Pentagon has a floor area of 610,000 square meters (m2), whereas the Merchandise Mart has 390,000 m2. So in that sense, the Pentagon is bigger than the Mart. However, there is a building in the Netherlands that holds the Guiness Book of World Records title as the largest: the Aalsmeer Flower Auction has a floor area of 990,000 m2. An interesting sidenote: Aalsmeer is also home to Endemol's global headquarters. You might be familiar with some of the TV shows they are responsible for.

All of these numbers are in 2-dimensions. Looking at volume, the Pentagon isn't even the biggest US Government building. The NASA Vehicle Assembly Building is larger than the Pentagon by about. 1.6 million m3. However Boeing's Everett Plant (where the 747, 767, 777, and 787 are all produced) dwarfs both of these structures at 13.3 million m3.

(Wikipedia article on world's largest buildings by footprint, size, and mass plus some special categories. There's also an intersting article about the PENREN.)

Arrakis, Iraq

Yesterday I spent my morning finishing Dune. Today I'm doing a little investigation into the toponymy of Arrakis. It sounds like it was derrived from Iraq, but I can't be sure yet. If you're unfamiliar with Dune, here's a synopsis I stole from a New York Times piece:

“Dune,” published in 1965, remains a perfect, self-contained work of science
fiction: an enormous 500-page novel of feudalistic families clashing in a
futuristic world for control of its precious few natural resources, and an
exiled boy-king learning the traditions of a foreign land in order to fight his
way back onto his throne. So what if its characters also happen to eat a
narcotic, mind-expanding spice and ride on the backs of giant sandworms while
speaking in oddly elevated Shakespearean tones? ... fanciful settings disguise the work’s larger philosophical intentions ... a powerful ecological message and a reminder to its readers that their actions will have profound consequences for generations yet unborn.

Okay, so onto Arrakis and Iraq. Did Frank Herbert get his inspiration for Arrakis from the name Iraq? As far as the pronunciation, it seems like a no-brainer. Arrakis sounds like "Iraq-is" it's only a hairsbreadth off. I can't find any direct evidence of this, but many other names in Dune were taken from Arabic. Herbert apparently did say "The scarce water of Dune is an exact analog of oil scarcity. CHOAM is OPEC." but that doesn't necessarily mean that he adapted Arrakis from Iraq. Other than idle speculation such as, "The most obvious influence on Spice is oil, the wealth under the deserts of our world (it's probably not a coincidence that Arrakis is pronounced Iraq-iss)." there is no evidence that the name Arrakis draws its inspiration from Iraq.

Icaro Doria

Amazing idea! If you do nothing else today, please look at this. Flags as diagrams. Icaro Doria depicts social, economic and political statistics about a nation through national flags.

Found on reddit.

Shout out to G-R

Calder Plaza at Vandenburg Center, originally uploaded by sparky05.

A few days ago I was talking to John Wallace about the Calder Plaza in Grand Rapids. This is a fascinating representation of the space. In a way this space is Michigan's reflection of the modernist vision set forth by Chicago's Daley Plaza and Picasso's Untitled sculpture.

A great resource

Stumbling through the meanders of the internet I found newScientist.com a few days ago. In particular, their Special Reports section. I strongly suggest checking these out to get your bearings on hot topics in technology, biology, astronymy, and natural sciences.

What was the hook, you ask? Fuel's Gold: Big Risks of the Biofuels revolution. It's a great examination of the debate on ethanol and biodiesel as replacements for gasoline. (The one drawback, they turn off access to the articles after a week or so; let me know if you can't read it anymore.)

the internets are eating themselves

In today's internet rumormill: the $1Bn purchase of facebook by yahoo!
Add in the mix the concept of visual searching and you might end up with more and more editorials that sound like this or this.

ps: If you've never seen Penn & Teller's Bullshit! I suggest you watch a few online (google video).

Parc Güell

12.29.05 02 Gaudí's Chocolate Factory, originally uploaded by Matilde B..

tetrachromat

Light comes in three basic flavors: red, green, and blue - or so I thought. The standard operating procedure for vision is that Humans (along with primates, and a few other critters) have visual color perception that allows us to distinguish approximately 100 different shades of each of the three colors of light. Mixing and blending these colors in combination allows us to see millions of distinct hues - we are natural trichromants.

However, there are some women who can see four basic wavelengths of light. From Damn Interesting: "In an odd twist of fate, the same genetic glitch that creates color-blind males may create females with better-than-usual color vision." A small percentage of women are capable of detecting a range of color that exists between in a "orange-ish" spectrum. It may be impossible for trichromats to imagine what the world looks like to a tetrachromant.

Genecists have been aware of this acute visual perception for years. According to the Wikipedia, "some birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles, arachnids and insects" are known tetras, and a butterflies might be able to see 5 full wavelengths of color, although their 4th wavelength is in the ultraviolet range, beyond the human eye's capabilities.

Detecting the necessary genes for an enhanced color perception is one thing, to actually demonstrate that tetrachromants can see a range of colors that is an order of magnitude greater than the majority is another issue. Mothers of color blind sons have been tested on their visual perception and speed in color-differentiation. Researchers believe that while many women might have the genetic coding to be tetrachromatic, only a few can detect the "colossal range ... 100s of millions of colors" (approx. 2-3% of women).

develop.metrolansing

Lansing's urban development weblog. I don't know who's running this but they've got up-to-date information on several of Lansing's newest buildings. The photo below is the proposal for the "Stadium District," $12 million of apartments, condos, and retail space directly across from Lugnut's Olds Park.
Lansing is truly a city of neighborhoods. Old Town led the urban reclamation of Michigan's capital city. The small but elegant district is populated by art galleries, music venues and the like. This was in stark contrast to Lansint's "downtown," a place notorious for closing down at the same time as nearby offices. While the Washington Avenue strip of restaurants has not remained static, it has forfieted its status as the city's flagship of culture.

Other districts are turning into hotspots. Among them is the Eastside, 1-block containing, a blues bar, the City Pulse, and some of Lansing's best dining (Thai and Italian, mmm). Recent additions of Gone Wired Cafe and Everybody Reads Bookshop have attracted many to this nascent urban island.

Something in my Urban Planning nose tells me that the Stadium District (above) amounts to something of a sea change in Lansing's development trends. The powers-that-be are seeing the potential for an archipeligo of districts along the capital's central Michigan Avenue corridor. At one end there is the old core of restaurants and shops that serve downtown workers (and a handful of law students at Cooley). Along the way there is an assortment of ecclectic activity centers such as this new development, the Eastside, Frandor, and Michigan State University. The terminus could be in East Lansing (which is getting it's own big-name project, the East Village), or the Meridian Mall, or maybe Williamston.

[Note: That last part is pure speculation. There is a lot of activity near R.E.O. Town and in the MotorWheel/Prudden Place area, too. These will probably get posts later on.]

Make Magazine. I found Make at a bookstore a few weeks ago (barnes & noble, I believe). It's small and expensive but worth it if you are up to the projects described on its pages.

• Make a Rubik's Cube
• Make a Volumetric Projector from JUNK. [A Volumetric Projector is ... what R2-D2 used to show Princess Leia in Star Wars.]
• Make a Home Mycology Lab [mushrooms]

Make is like ReadyMade but a few orders of magnitude up the intensity scale. As Marcus Chan of the San Francisco Chronicle said, "[make is] The kind of magazine that would impress MacGyver”

Dropping Knowledge.

This promises to be an interesting event.

Creemore is Canada

CIMG1739, originally uploaded by Helmers.

Stormy Lansing Sunset

CIMG1766, originally uploaded by Helmers.

Transition

Some things have changed around here since I last saw you.

In some senses, this website will be a clearinghouse for all things Nick. It is a distribution point for information, opinion, images, and news. Integrating toponymy with del.icio.us and flickr is a critical part of this.

Here's a breakdown of the transition.

(old way) posts don't tie into other online services.
[NEW WAY] things link into my del.icio.us and flickr accounts making it easy for users.

(old way) all updates were wordy, textual posts.
[NEW WAY] updates might be single pictures, links added to the sidebar, text, or a combination.

(old way) cluttered style impaired content.
[NEW WAY] content defines style.

begin toponymy 2.0

Geomythology

Along the Oregon and Washington coast, there are Native American stories about boulders, called a’yahos, which can shake to death anyone who stares at them. In addition, Ruth Ludwin, a seismologist in Seattle, discovered tales of villages being washed away and of whales and thunderbirds locked in fights… [warren ellis & the observer]

Hundreds of years ago there were no seismographs to measure the size of earthquakes, no satellite images of hurricanes devestating coastlines, no photography of the smoke caused by wildfires and volcanos. Only recently have catastrophies and other natural phenomena been measured, recorded, and tracked. Only recently have these events been deemed "scientific" as opposed to "spiritual".

Geomythology is an attempt to bridge the gap between prehistoric legends and stories and our archeological record of natural events (floods, earthquakes, heat waves, epidemics, droughts, etc.). There is more than one instance where an ancient story has prodded scientists to make unexpected discoveries.

However improbable it seems, oral accounts of the [Crater Lake aka Mount Mazama, Oregon] eruption must have been transmitted through approximately 250 generations! [7500 years]

These myths and traditions have real-world practical applications, too. For instance,

Last year's tsunami was also triggered by a strong earthquake, and around 300,000 people died. The Moken - or sea gypsies - of Thailand, however, have a tradition which warns that when tides recede far and fast, now known as a precursor of a tsunami, then a man-eating wave will soon head their way: so they should run far and fast. Last 26 December, they did - and survived. [the observer]

Kennecott, Rem, & Architecture's Scientific Revolution

A lot has happened in the last two months. Part of what has inspired me to revive Toponymy was a wealth of links that caught my attention. Without further ado,

• Kennecott Land is a branch of a copper mining company in Utah. The company also owns one of the largest unbroken tracts of land in the continental United States. So why should I mention it? Because they want to build a "a 20-mile string of densely packed, 'walkable' communities framing the rural west side of Salt Lake County. The communities would be laid out along a planned highway and light-rail lines connecting to Salt Lake City."
• Rem Koolhaus is a cool cat. Der Spiegel just did an interview with him. They brought up the Palace of the Republic in Berlin, which I wrote about earlier.
• Seed has a nice article about Architecture's relationship with Science.
  
• Point and Click Census Data + Google Maps.
• Detroit Sold for Scrap (Thanks Ken!) "Once dismantled and processed, Detroit is expected to yield nearly 14 million tons of steel, 2.85 million tons of aluminum, and approximately 837,000 tons of copper."
• Pittsburgh's Green Building Alliance boasts the nations first LEED certified residence hall (at Carnegie Mellon) and the first LEED certified convention center (David L. Lawrence)
• Kinda dense but neat housing article in Metropolis Mag. Worth a read, or at least a cursory glance.
  

2 month hiatus

These last 2 months have been insane - sorry for not posting more on this site, but the quality of the content would've suffered dramatically. So - an update for everybody who hasn't heard: I'm an Americorps VISTA working with Habitat for Humanity. More specifically, I'm helping to set up the Ingham Habitat ReStore. One of my first jobs there was to come up with a website. If you really want to keep up with some of the exploits over at the IHfH ReStore check out InghamHabitat.org (or just Google 'Ingham Habitat').

You're probably saying to yourself: Why in the hell do you need two months away from Toponymy to start some new job - especially one where you're on a computer frequently? First, our PSO training was in Austin - there goes a week. And since then it's been ridiculous. In any case, I'm back now and don't intend to give up on Toponymy any time soon.

Plastic San Francisco (Jello and Superballs)

I know it's not profound or anything but it's pretty cool. Both of these amazing links come from Itchy Robot. First, Jello SanFrancisco. Second, an advertisment for a Sony TV where rubber "superballs" bounce downhill. Click here for the video and here for the pictures.

Architecture 2030

I have to link to this great website about Green Building. It's called Architecture 2030 and it outlines the case and the path toward more sustainable building practices. I've never seen these ideas presented in such a visually compelling way.

I also found the Ecological Design Institute today. They've got a good range of projects and resources. Their book list and 5 principles of design are well done.

On a lighter note Metropolis Magazine has a feature on aerial photographer Olivo Barbieri. He uses a tilt-shift lens in a helicopter to create images that look strangely similar to model mock-ups of famous places (especially the photos from Las Vegas, the phony facades must come through even clearer somehow). It's definately worth a look.

Anti-Pattern: Best Practices and Mistakes in the Landscape

I just happened on the term Anti-Pattern on the Wikipedia. This was after another venture into the whole department of Future Studies (which I find extremely interesting). On the link above you'll find a whole bevy of named anti-patterns in computer programming, organizations, and social trends. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Gas factory: An unnecessarily complex design
• Reinventing the square wheel: Creating a poor solution when a good one exists
• Big ball of mud: A system with no recognisable structure
• Creeping featurism: Adding new features to the detriment of the quality of a system
• Design by committee: The result of having many contributors to a design, but no unifying vision
• Escalation of commitment: Failing to revoke a decision when it proves wrong
• Mushroom management: Keeping employees uninformed and abused

While most people who know about anti-patterns know them through the lens of computer programming - it is really a universal concept that can be applied to any rational task. Architecture, Planning, and Design can experience anti-patterns.

One such anti-pattern can be found in the modernist visions for public housing. The not-so-bizzare twist to this is that it happened on both sides of the Cold War. Both failed. Cabrini Green in Chicago is one notorious example of a housing project - while in East Berlin "100,000 apartments were produced using one particular model, the apartment construction series 70." Now, both are undergoing massive reformatting. The concrete slabs of Berlin are now used like lego bricks for new construction, and Cabrini Green was torn down to make way for "mixed income" neighborhoods.

Oftentimes it seems like the design/planning community likes to point out the "best practices" that are ongoing as trends to follow. And I think that's a good practice to keep. For instance, AIA just released the eight winners of the "Regional and Urban Design Honor" award. However, sometimes it feels as though the projects that collapse are too quickly forgotten about. There are exceptions where people have stopped to analyze what went wrong and find out how a good idea with some support fizzled out. One example is the Seattle Monorail. More dramatically, some landscape features are the direct result of an intention to be aggressive or defensive. Such is the case with Ariel Sharon's legacy in Isreal and Palestine. (I plan to write on this more later.) Other landscapes are the result of neglect and catastrophe, another kind of anti-pattern.

Perhaps it would be a good task to identify and classify development and design anti-patterns in the landscape. Some have attempted to classify the landscapes that are on the ground, but has anybody dared to examine the organizational patterns that lead to them?

The Fire Temple or Agiary

While I completely and freely admit my ignorance of Zoroastrianism I am really very impressed by their temples. The concept behind the Fire Temples (also called Fire Cathedrals, Dar-e Mihr, or Atash Kadeh) is that the ancient fires that so influenced the early religion are preserved and revered in sacred spaces. The fires also were critical parts of ancient legends and the development of heroic figures throughout Persia. (Luckily, for me, there's a comic-book version of one of these legends in English.) Unfortunately I'll never be able to visit one since non-Zoroastrians are not allowed into the Agiary.

The only parallel I can picture in North America is the Eternal Flame for JFK. Although there are apparently other fire-related monuments for 9/11 and whatnot, I would guess that JFK's is the only one that is nationally and perhaps internationally known. So it brings me to this: when does a culture decide to use fire to commemorate somebody or an event? What is the secret thread here that leads us to this insight. I can't yet grasp it but I think fire is one of the serious boundary-crossing mechanism that can break, and nurture every human on this planet. It is a force unlike gravity, erosion, or biology - it is pure chemistry that is essential to human survival. Thus Prometheus. (Long story short: P. makes people in the image of the gods, steals fire from gods to keep humans alive, tells them to cook up a bull as a way of commerating the event.)

What of the fires that have torn apart Oklahoma and other parts of the American South. Fire's can be thought of in two ways: as an end and as a beginning. Fire can be tragic and deadly but warm and nurturing - there must be a cultural or psychological divide somewhere here because humanity cannot go on without fire, yet it is so often used as a weapon. We are constantly barraged with images of fire's destructive power, but it can also be harnessed to do amazing and comforting things.

Image notes: 1 I consider nuclear power the modern chemical equivelant to the antiquated use of fire for war - they are both truly chemical processes that parallel. Both are natural and all around us. Radioactive energy, however, has only recently been discovered and harnessed unlike fire. 2 The Black and White picture is of FDR in front of a fireplace. I tried to find one where he was giving his "fireside chat" that also included a fire, but that didn't pan out.

The "Segway" Movement

Could the future of urban transportation look like this? Stackable Cars? The movement toward chopping down the clumbsy infrastructure of the automobile dominance has taken another step forward. According to the article, "a new MIT car is borne of a complete rethink of people's relationship with their cars in the ever-expanding cities of the future."

Sure, it's just a concept now. Just like so many programs and comanies that are actively reducing the burdens of automobile ownership. Carpool lanes (HOV), Bus lanes, Time-Sharing Companies, Smart Cars and Hybrids are all part of this megatrend. The long-term ideal is to make transportation easy, clean, and efficient. Stackable Cars and Segways are highly technological approaches that might answer some of the key spaital problems associated with "traditional driving."

For some, city driving is a nightmare, and understandably so. Taking a GMC Yukon or a Ford F350 through the hills of SanFrancisco or Chicago' Lower Wacker Drive could be terrifying. This is in essence a scale problem: vehicles should fit the scale of the place and purpose of their trips. This is where devices like Stackable Cars and Segways get fascinating. Their manueverability can adapt to the demands of a densely urban landscape. For instance,

The MIT concept car is a complete re-think of vehicle technology. For a start, there is no engine, at least in the traditional sense. The power comes from devices called wheel robots. "These are self-contained wheel units that have electric motors inside," says Mr Chin. "The interesting thing is that the wheel can turn a full 360 degrees so you can have omni-directional wheel movements. You can rotate the car while you're moving, any direction can be front or back and you can do things like crabbing or translate sideways. It's almost like you imagine yourself driving a computer chair."

Now that would be cool.

Fast Company gives Wal-Mart ideas

To call these twelve, I mean ten steps some kind of break-through for the business community would be melodramatic. The truth about the corporate-culture and business practices of Wal-Mart has been obvious for a while now. In Part One of Hanft's piece for Fast Company there are two unique suggestions:

2. Fire your consultants. ... Now, you've over-corrected in a really scary way, and have gone out and hired a rogue's gallery of spinmeisters who've worked for Reagan, Clinton, Kerry, and Bush. Is that something to be proud of? These are the people who have thrown gasoline on our obscene culture of partisanship and demonization of the "enemy."

3. Leverage your size to help your 1.6 million employees in unexpected ways. The public views you as resisting health insurance benefits because you are cheap and evil. Turn that around. Imagine the radical impact you could have on the marketplace and your brand optics if you focused your ruthless cost-cutting skills on HMOs, forcing them to crumble under the same margin pressure that you so regularly exert on vendors.

Then in Part Two he goes on to mention a few more (and one that I disagree with completely).

7. Stop treating your employees like commodities. No one thinks of Wal-Mart as a place to get a first or a second job, stay on, and build a career. You've got to change that.

10. Lastly, you've announced you're running a big holiday TV campaign, using celebrities for the first time -- names that include Garth Brooks, Queen Latifah, and Destiny's Child. That timing really makes a lot of sense. Kill it. You can't afford health care benefits but you can afford to pay over-priced celebrities to dance around the TV screen? Celebrity advertising has lost its luster anyway, and does anyone really believe that these chauffered millionaires actually shop at Wal-Mart?

I'm glad he (and hopefully a large segment of the American population) has recognized that Wal-Mart is not only a nasty example of how a company can operate but an entirely phony enterprise that can barely hide its disdain for working-class people.

The one problem I find with Hanft's piece is his Sixth suggestion "Expand your vendor base." This would defeat Wal-Mart's key ingredient: aggressiveness and directly impede two other suggestions he made in this piece (one I mentioned above about leveraging against HMOs and another I didn't about preserving small town business by allowing niche market competition) . The retailer's aggressive tactics are perfectly suited to other non-descript giant manufacturing firms. First, Wal-Mart must change its ways, then perhaps small-scale manufacturers would be interested in selling at Wal-Mart. The most critical way Wal-Mart must signal this change is to demonstrate (not with actors) that the wealth that passes through each Wal-Mart clearly benefits the surrounding community and the people who work there.

These are basic demands.The US retail market is currently at a crossroads: the continued reign of Wal-Mart's approach can be accepted as a necessary sacrifice or it can turn toward alternative approaches that reward work and talent; respect existing communities; cooperate with vendors; and ultimately value human life. This is not a choice that the executives at Wal-Mart, Target, Costco, and dozens of other firms will sit down and ponder about. It's one that every "consumer" can act on. Every time a person decides that he or she WILL shop somewhere this alternative approach is used - the board rooms hear it. Call it a Trickle-Up theory: the force of hundreds of thousands of hands carrying merchandise out of smaller, more thoughtful establishments throughout the country might be enough to move the Wal-Mountain.

Lifestyle Changes and the Palace of the Republic

As most of you know I'm now done with my Bachelors degree in Urban Planning. Considering that I might find myself with more time to contemplate issues that I find interesting I'll probably also have more time to update this website. So, here's the first post-MSU posting.

The East German 'Palace of the Republic' is a controversial landmark located on East Berlin's Museum Island. The deterorating building is a hairsbreadth from demolition at the hands of those who believe the concrete, steel, and glass building is wildly out of place in a "proper" European capital.

I couldn't disagree more. While the building is an eyesore to those seeking classical elegance, it is an undeniable part of Berlin's striking history. If the facility were cleaned up a bit and landscaped to conform to its surroundings (a herculean task in such a spatially dysfunctional city) it could become a new kind of landmark - one that honestly portrays an important part of the late 20th century.

According to the NY Times, "The Palace is ugliest when approached from the west along Unter der Linden." - thus the entire building was an intentional political statement at a critical junction of East-West politics. Read the rest of the NY Times article, here.