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.)