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Blue Sunset
We ended last year with one of our favorite photos of the decade: an extraterrestrial sunset photographed in 2005 by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. We thought we'd end this year with another Martian sunset. This one was captured last month by Spirit's twin, Opportunity, in a series of photographs, which the rover science team combined and enhanced to create a seamless simulated descent. A bonus footage included in the embedded video above shows the moon Phobos passing in front of the sun.
Watch it with music here.
We ended last year with one of our favorite photos of the decade: an extraterrestrial sunset photographed in 2005 by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. We thought we'd end this year with another Martian sunset. This one was captured last month by Spirit's twin, Opportunity, in a series of photographs, which the rover science team combined and enhanced to create a seamless simulated descent. A bonus footage included in the embedded video above shows the moon Phobos passing in front of the sun.
Watch it with music here.
A Machine the Size of the Universe
A quick quote from a PBS two-part documentary first broadcast in 2008 and based on the “definitive” book on cold, Tom Shachtman's Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold. The scientist quoted is Seth Lloyd, of MIT:
Full program transcript here.
A quick quote from a PBS two-part documentary first broadcast in 2008 and based on the “definitive” book on cold, Tom Shachtman's Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold. The scientist quoted is Seth Lloyd, of MIT:
Getting to absolute zero is tough. Nobody's actually been there at absolute 0.000000, with an infinite number of zeros. That last little tiny bit of heat becomes harder and harder to get out. And, in particular, the timescales for getting it out get longer and longer and longer, the smaller and smaller the amounts of energy involved. So eventually, if you're talking about extracting an amount of energy that's sufficiently small, it would indeed take the age of the universe to do it. Also you, actually you'd need an apparatus the size of the universe to do it, but that's another story.
Full program transcript here.
GPS Coyotes
The coyote seen roaming around Downtown Chicago the other night may not be one of the pack fitted with GPS devices and let loose around the city “to help deal with rats and mice,” but learning that there is actually such a pack sent us into ecstatic fits.
According to researchers involved in The Cook County, Illinois, Coyote Project, there are over 250 coyotes fitted with radio collars now roaming the streets, parks and backyards of the metropolitan area. This is “the largest urban study of coyotes in the world.”
Set up an API to give mobile software developers a way to access those radio pings, and there might be apps to track the coyotes' urban ramblings. Google Coyote®. And yes, we're betting that it will have an audience. It's no different than nature webcams and participatory GIS platforms, like Google Earth, both of which have sizeable user base. It's also not uncommon for a lot of people to have their only extended contact with the wilderness mediated virtually. Make the interface slick, and the data pornographers and Tufte zombie acolytes will come in droves.
Develop it into an iPhone app, and you have the makings of an urban safari fad, as popular as birdwatching or urban GPS-tagged fruit harvesting. And to make it more interesting, that is, to approximate the conditions of a Serengeti safari, dial down the app's locative precision. Instead of giving you exact coordinates, it only tells you that the coyote is roaming somewhere in Hyde Park.
Touring the city in search of indigenous cyborg fauna.
GPS Pigeons
Into the Wild
The coyote seen roaming around Downtown Chicago the other night may not be one of the pack fitted with GPS devices and let loose around the city “to help deal with rats and mice,” but learning that there is actually such a pack sent us into ecstatic fits.
According to researchers involved in The Cook County, Illinois, Coyote Project, there are over 250 coyotes fitted with radio collars now roaming the streets, parks and backyards of the metropolitan area. This is “the largest urban study of coyotes in the world.”
We have tracked the coyotes day and night and located the collared coyotes more than 40,000 times. This allows us to peek into the hidden lives of urban coyotes. We use results from this unique project to answer common questions regarding coyotes in urban areas. Many aspects of coyote ecology have direct management implications. Although our study was focused on Cook County, Illinois, we believe the things we have learned about coyotes and people living together are indicative of many metropolitan areas in the Midwest and eastern United States.
Set up an API to give mobile software developers a way to access those radio pings, and there might be apps to track the coyotes' urban ramblings. Google Coyote®. And yes, we're betting that it will have an audience. It's no different than nature webcams and participatory GIS platforms, like Google Earth, both of which have sizeable user base. It's also not uncommon for a lot of people to have their only extended contact with the wilderness mediated virtually. Make the interface slick, and the data pornographers and Tufte zombie acolytes will come in droves.
Develop it into an iPhone app, and you have the makings of an urban safari fad, as popular as birdwatching or urban GPS-tagged fruit harvesting. And to make it more interesting, that is, to approximate the conditions of a Serengeti safari, dial down the app's locative precision. Instead of giving you exact coordinates, it only tells you that the coyote is roaming somewhere in Hyde Park.
Touring the city in search of indigenous cyborg fauna.
GPS Pigeons
Into the Wild
Prunings LXI
1) “Take a deep breath. Even if the air looks clear, it’s nearly certain that you’ll inhale tens of millions of solid particles and liquid droplets. These ubiquitous specks of matter are known as aerosols, and they can be found in the air over oceans, deserts, mountains, forests, ice, and every ecosystem in between. They drift in Earth’s atmosphere from the stratosphere to the surface and range in size from a few nanometers—less than the width of the smallest viruses—to several several tens of micrometers—about the diameter of human hair. Despite their small size, they have major impacts on our climate and our health.”
2) “The Norwegian documentary Bergensbanen details the gorgeous 300-mile, 7.5-hour-long train ride from Bergen to Oslo. An intrepid group of DJs have scored the entire journey.”
3) Turkey plans to supply northern Cyprus with fresh water via a pipeline. “As for Turkey, its own water supplies are not so abundant as to be able to be so generous in its desire to share its own dwindling water resources with Northern Cyprus. This only points out the continuing political rivalries going on between Greece and Turkey that has resulted in so many problems in Cyprus over the years.”
4) Another dispatch from the #Super-Versailles: Using two vehicles with high-powered heaters, “Beijing will collect and melt snow this winter in a bid to quench the water shortage that has plagued the Chinese capital for years.”
5) A recent New York Times Room for Debate question: “[E]ven if the U.S. and other countries can find and [mine rare earth minerals], do they have the technical expertise to compete with China in their processing? Is the domestic production of rare earth elements essential to American economic and national security interests?”
1) “Take a deep breath. Even if the air looks clear, it’s nearly certain that you’ll inhale tens of millions of solid particles and liquid droplets. These ubiquitous specks of matter are known as aerosols, and they can be found in the air over oceans, deserts, mountains, forests, ice, and every ecosystem in between. They drift in Earth’s atmosphere from the stratosphere to the surface and range in size from a few nanometers—less than the width of the smallest viruses—to several several tens of micrometers—about the diameter of human hair. Despite their small size, they have major impacts on our climate and our health.”
2) “The Norwegian documentary Bergensbanen details the gorgeous 300-mile, 7.5-hour-long train ride from Bergen to Oslo. An intrepid group of DJs have scored the entire journey.”
3) Turkey plans to supply northern Cyprus with fresh water via a pipeline. “As for Turkey, its own water supplies are not so abundant as to be able to be so generous in its desire to share its own dwindling water resources with Northern Cyprus. This only points out the continuing political rivalries going on between Greece and Turkey that has resulted in so many problems in Cyprus over the years.”
4) Another dispatch from the #Super-Versailles: Using two vehicles with high-powered heaters, “Beijing will collect and melt snow this winter in a bid to quench the water shortage that has plagued the Chinese capital for years.”
5) A recent New York Times Room for Debate question: “[E]ven if the U.S. and other countries can find and [mine rare earth minerals], do they have the technical expertise to compete with China in their processing? Is the domestic production of rare earth elements essential to American economic and national security interests?”
Soft Brackets
In case you need reminding, you now only have exactly one month to submit to Bracket 2.
And in case you've yet to begin work on your submission and need a starting point, check out these videos of landslides and the infrastructural counter-measures to mitigate and manage an ever shifting landscape.
In case you need reminding, you now only have exactly one month to submit to Bracket 2.
Bracket 2 invites the submission of critical articles and unpublished design projects that investigate physical and virtual soft systems, as they pertain to infrastructure, ecologies, landscapes, environments, and networks. In an era of declared crises—economic, ecological and climatic amongst others—the notion of soft systems has gained increasing traction as a counterpoint to permanent, static and hard systems.
...
Bracket 2 seeks to critically position and define soft systems, in order to expand the scope and potential for new spatial networks, and new formats of architecture, urbanization and nature. From soft politics, soft power and soft spaces to fluid territories, software and soft programming, Bracket 2 questions the use and role of responsive, indeterminate, flexible, and immaterial systems in design.
And in case you've yet to begin work on your submission and need a starting point, check out these videos of landslides and the infrastructural counter-measures to mitigate and manage an ever shifting landscape.
Walking Apiary
A couple of unrelated things —
1) David Bowen's Swarm, as described by Art in America, consists of “a plastic globe propped up by long rods attached to a wheeled platform, which moves erratically within a black circle on the floor. Its path...is determined by the progress of a swarm of flies captured inside the globe. A sensor attached to a microcontroller at the foot of this device translates the flies' aggregate movement into mechanical motion.”
2) A couple of days ago, Geoff Manaugh giddily reported that “a single-family home in California has been 'invaded' by bees—so much so that honey is now leaking from the electrical outlets, coming 'from a giant beehive behind the walls.'” After the bees, “honey-hungry ants” might soon arrive.
— now less unrelated:
In Walking Apiary, a foreclosed house is propped up by long rods attached to a wheeled platform, which moves erratically around an abandoned suburban development. Its path is determined not by the paved streets circling around empty lots but by the chaotic activities of bees that have colonized the house. Add more foreclosed houses droning with million of bees, and you have a roving urban honey farm.
It's an overwrought attempt at squishing Archigram into contemporary preoccupations with destabilized ecologies, unpaid mortgages and utopian food systems.
Outdoor Furniture
A couple of unrelated things —
1) David Bowen's Swarm, as described by Art in America, consists of “a plastic globe propped up by long rods attached to a wheeled platform, which moves erratically within a black circle on the floor. Its path...is determined by the progress of a swarm of flies captured inside the globe. A sensor attached to a microcontroller at the foot of this device translates the flies' aggregate movement into mechanical motion.”
2) A couple of days ago, Geoff Manaugh giddily reported that “a single-family home in California has been 'invaded' by bees—so much so that honey is now leaking from the electrical outlets, coming 'from a giant beehive behind the walls.'” After the bees, “honey-hungry ants” might soon arrive.
— now less unrelated:
In Walking Apiary, a foreclosed house is propped up by long rods attached to a wheeled platform, which moves erratically around an abandoned suburban development. Its path is determined not by the paved streets circling around empty lots but by the chaotic activities of bees that have colonized the house. Add more foreclosed houses droning with million of bees, and you have a roving urban honey farm.
It's an overwrought attempt at squishing Archigram into contemporary preoccupations with destabilized ecologies, unpaid mortgages and utopian food systems.
Outdoor Furniture
Drylands
If you're around Burbank, CA, this Thursday, November 11, and are interested in arid water systems, then consider attending a lecture by Aziza Chaouni and Liat Margolis at the Arid Lands Institute, Woodbury University. Titled Out of Water: Innovative Technologies in Arid Climates, they will cover recent research projects in Morocco, the Sahara, and the Israel/Jordan/Palestine watershed that showcase contemporary design strategies for managing water scarcity.
If you can't make it, there is still their Out of Water website. It archives some of the projects included in their traveling exhibition and no doubt will be featured in their lecture.
Their talk, meanwhile, is part of a very interesting lecture series.
The line-up of speakers is stellar. The first was our hero, Katherine Rinne, whose ongoing research project, Aquae Urbis Romae, “examines the 3,000-year history of water infrastructure and urban development in Rome.” Her upcoming publication, The Waters of Rome, is a much eagerly awaited book. Here's the blurb:
The speaker scheduled for next week is Morna Livingston, author of a book on Indian stepwells.
A “magnificent architectural solution to the seasonality of the water supply” in India they may be, but our favorite use for them is as the stage for the spectacular death scene of Charles Darwin, the naturalist, and Wallace, his companion monkey and fellow lepidopterist.
The titles of the other two scheduled lectures, Canalscape: Ancient and Contemporary Infrastructures of Phoenix and Indigenous Infrastructure and the Urban Water Crisis: Perspectives from Asia, make us wish they were going to be streamed online.
If you can't make it, there is still their Out of Water website. It archives some of the projects included in their traveling exhibition and no doubt will be featured in their lecture.
Their talk, meanwhile, is part of a very interesting lecture series.
The human need for water has ordered landscapes, given rise to culture, and shaped architecture + urban form throughout history.
Excavating Innovation: The History and Future of Drylands Design examines the role of water engineering in shaping public space and city form, by using arid and semi-arid sites in India, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and the New World to explore how dryland water systems throughout history have formed and been formed by ritual, hygiene, gender, technology, governance, markets, and, perhaps above all, power.
The line-up of speakers is stellar. The first was our hero, Katherine Rinne, whose ongoing research project, Aquae Urbis Romae, “examines the 3,000-year history of water infrastructure and urban development in Rome.” Her upcoming publication, The Waters of Rome, is a much eagerly awaited book. Here's the blurb:
In this pioneering study of the water infrastructure of Renaissance Rome, urban historian Katherine Rinne offers a new understanding of how technological and scientific developments in aqueduct and fountain architecture helped turn a medieval backwater into the preeminent city of early modern Europe. Supported by the author’s extensive topographical research, this book presents a unified vision of the city that links improvements to public and private water systems with political, religious, and social change. Between 1560 and 1630, in a spectacular burst of urban renewal, Rome’s religious and civil authorities sponsored the construction of aqueducts, private and public fountains for drinking, washing, and industry, and the magnificent ceremonial fountains that are Rome’s glory. Tying together the technological, sociopolitical, and artistic questions that faced the designers during an age of turmoil in which the Catholic Church found its authority threatened and the infrastructure of the city was in a state of decay, Rinne shows how these public works projects transformed Rome in a successful marriage of innovative engineering and strategic urban planning.
The speaker scheduled for next week is Morna Livingston, author of a book on Indian stepwells.
From the fifth to the nineteenth centuries, the people of western India built stone cisterns to collect the water of the monsoon rains and keep it accessible for the remaining dry months of the year. These magnificent structures—known as stepwells or stepped ponds—are much more than utilitarian reservoirs. Their lattice-like walls, carved columns, decorated towers, and intricate sculpture make them exceptional architecture, while their very presence tells much about the region's ecology and history. For these past 500 years, stepwells have been an integral part of western Indian communities as sites for drinking, washing, and bathing, as well as for colorful festivals and sacred rituals. Steps to Water traces the fascinating history of stepwells, from their Hindu origins, to their zenith during Muslim rule, and eventual decline under British occupation. It also reflects on their current use, preservation, and place in Indian communities. In stunning color and quadtone photographs and drawings, Steps to Water reveals the depth of the stepwells' beauty and their intricate details, and serves as a lens on these fascinating cultural and architectural monuments.
A “magnificent architectural solution to the seasonality of the water supply” in India they may be, but our favorite use for them is as the stage for the spectacular death scene of Charles Darwin, the naturalist, and Wallace, his companion monkey and fellow lepidopterist.
The titles of the other two scheduled lectures, Canalscape: Ancient and Contemporary Infrastructures of Phoenix and Indigenous Infrastructure and the Urban Water Crisis: Perspectives from Asia, make us wish they were going to be streamed online.