Pruned —
On landscape architecture and related fields —
Archives —
Future Plural —
@pruned —
Offshoots —
#Chicagos —
@altchicagoparks —
@southworkspark —
Water Infrastructure At Its Most Magnificent
InfraNet Lab continues its unbroken string of phenomenally wonderful posts with a report on stepwells, those “inverted ziggurats excavated from the earth” that were the Subcontinent's answer to the extreme seasonality of its water supply. During the too few monsoon months of hydro-excess, the stepwells would fill up and the collected water would be used for the upcoming drier months.
The stepwells also were occupiable public spaces. According to Nerraj Bhatia, “As a subterranean landscape, the base of the inverted pyramids provided a cool microclimate to escape the hot conditions at grade. As such, these became central public spaces of gathering and architectural significance. The collection of water also attracted large ecosystems of bees, fish, lizards, parrots, pigeons, and turtles amongst other species. Each monsoon would reinvigorate these stepwells and promote new life. As a functional, religious and social infrastructure, these became the central spaces for many communities to gather, bathe and converse.”
Short of purchasing the standard text on stepwells, Morna Livingston's Steps to Water: The Ancient Stepwells of India, you can read more about them in this article also written by Livingston, who says of their demise:
Meanwhile, one stepwell, the Chand Baori, made a brief appearance here in a post which has been postscripted through the years.
Rainwater Harvesting in Mumbai
InfraNet Lab continues its unbroken string of phenomenally wonderful posts with a report on stepwells, those “inverted ziggurats excavated from the earth” that were the Subcontinent's answer to the extreme seasonality of its water supply. During the too few monsoon months of hydro-excess, the stepwells would fill up and the collected water would be used for the upcoming drier months.
The stepwells also were occupiable public spaces. According to Nerraj Bhatia, “As a subterranean landscape, the base of the inverted pyramids provided a cool microclimate to escape the hot conditions at grade. As such, these became central public spaces of gathering and architectural significance. The collection of water also attracted large ecosystems of bees, fish, lizards, parrots, pigeons, and turtles amongst other species. Each monsoon would reinvigorate these stepwells and promote new life. As a functional, religious and social infrastructure, these became the central spaces for many communities to gather, bathe and converse.”
Short of purchasing the standard text on stepwells, Morna Livingston's Steps to Water: The Ancient Stepwells of India, you can read more about them in this article also written by Livingston, who says of their demise:
It was only with the British rise to power in India in the early nineteenth century, that opposition to stepwells as key elements of the Indian water system emerged. To the British, stepwells were a sanitary disaster. The installation of rural taps became a top priority of the Raj. Not without reason, the British colonialists feared disease from the mixing of bathing and drinking water; moreover, the stepwells hosted a waterborne parasite, the guinea worm.
Meanwhile, one stepwell, the Chand Baori, made a brief appearance here in a post which has been postscripted through the years.
Rainwater Harvesting in Mumbai
Out of Water
The Out of Water Project is both a traveling exhibition and a book scheduled to be published by Birkhauser Publishers in 2010.
Organized by Liat Margolis, co-author of Living Systems, and Aziza Chaouni, of Bureau E.A.S.T., the exhibition currently features 24 international case studies of innovative projects and technologies for water scarcity on multiple scale, plus 10 Futures Scenarios designed by invited young designers such as Fletcher Studio, Proxy and MatSys. The book will be more comprehensive in scope and will include a set of self-generated mappings of global water scarcity, as well as an in-depth catalogue of cross-referenced case studies and future scenarios.
The exhibition will travel to Ohio State University this Fall semester. Previously, it was presented at the Daniels Faulty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, University of Toronto. Mason White, who is a faculty member there, posted some of the projects in his blog, InfraNet Lab.
Below are some of the other projects, courtesy of Liat Margolis.
One is Porous Skin by Wayne Jenski.
Quoting the project brief in full: “Porous adaptive membrane was developed as a deployable structure for a clinic for Doctors without Borders. The membrane consists of dispersed micro-pore structures. Those form a series of self-adjusting thermal flues, intended to regulate the temperature of the air as well as the collection of air-borne moisture. The morphology of the pore was developed to open and close in response to changes in ambient temperature, solar gain and humidity. The skin, through its pores collects, then conveys condensation via an inner skin down to a large water bladder. The bladder acts as the foundation ballast but is also used to filter and store local water for sanitation and drinking use. Condensation replenishes water supply. The bladder is oriented to absorb solar energy, utilizing the water as a heat sink to filter the collected water by solar radiation. Both skin and bladder operate in accordance with solar radiation to collect, convey and convert water.”
Another documents an existing infrastructure for effluent reclamation in Israel. The main organization in charge of this is KKL (Keren Kayemet LeIsrael), or JNF in English (Jewish National Fund), which is the philantropic organization overseeing all aforestation projects in Israel for the last 50 years. In the last 20 years or so, they started building waste water recycling infrastructure for agricultural irrigation.
Again quoting the project brief in full: “Israel's reuse of wastewater accounts for 75% of crop irrigation and alleviates severe shortage of drinking water, which is comprised of 10% desalinated water (project to increase to 50% in the next 20 years). Without treated effluent, intensive agriculture would be impossible. This national program (KKL-JNF) consists of an interlinked network of over 200 open-air reservoirs, with static volume of 150 MCM and a dynamic volume (emptying and refilling) of 270 MCM of treated effluent a year. Those distribute water seasonally via an extensive pipe infrastructure. In the case of the Jezreel Valley, the most production valley in Israel, 15-20 MCM of effluent per year enable irrigation of 4000 ha of cotton . While loaded with fertilizing nutrients, effluent environmental quality is significantly ungraded due to settling and oxygenation, microbial breakdown of remaining organic matter, and UV to suppress pathogens.”
Next is a network of water storage units by Ruth Kedar. It is modeled after indigenous water management systems.
Yet again quoting the project brief in full: “The cistern is a contemporary adaptation of historical and regional desert technologies. The modular storage structure utilizes available and pre-cast concrete to offer a kit of parts that can be sized and aggregated according to the catchment area, topographical conditions, and inhabitant demand. The cistern network is modeled after the Nabatean systems of runoff agriculture, which used very low channels and surface modification to collect water from great catchment areas. The reservoir employs the principles of the Qanat, an underground tunnel that diverts runoff into a series of vertical wells. Each cistern is outfitted with an outlet to interlink them together, but also allow for diversion toward irrigation. As the need for water increases, the system can be expanded to accommodate additional catchment and storage. Specifying a smaller reservoir and a shorter exposed conveyance distance can reduce evaporation.
Last is the Dixon Land Imprinting Machine, which was covered by InfraNet Lab but it's so cool that we're going to replicate it here and enter it into our archives.
Final copy-paste: “Absorptive soil ensures against the devastation wrought by the twin desertification hazards of drought and deluge. The Dixon Land Imprinting machine restores the microroughness and macroporosity of compacted and barren soil to accelerate infiltration and revegetation processes. It is most effective in areas with low rainfall, degraded-, brushy-, rocky-, sandy-, and clayey soils, overgrazed ranges and abandoned agricultural land. The roller drops seeds onto the soil surface and imbeds them in the imprint surfaces. The imprinter forms interconnected water shedding and absorbing v-pockets, which function as rain fed micro-irrigation system. Down-slope furrows feed rainwater into cross-slope furrows where it collects and infiltrates. Revegetation is rapid because the imprints hold rainwater in place and captures seed, water and windblown plant litter, which works as mulch to suppress evaporation.”
We'll be pining for the rest of the projects, and if permitted, we'll post them here as they come in. We will certainly be posting updates on where and when the exhibition will be traveling to next. Keep a look out here for those.
The Out of Water Project is both a traveling exhibition and a book scheduled to be published by Birkhauser Publishers in 2010.
Organized by Liat Margolis, co-author of Living Systems, and Aziza Chaouni, of Bureau E.A.S.T., the exhibition currently features 24 international case studies of innovative projects and technologies for water scarcity on multiple scale, plus 10 Futures Scenarios designed by invited young designers such as Fletcher Studio, Proxy and MatSys. The book will be more comprehensive in scope and will include a set of self-generated mappings of global water scarcity, as well as an in-depth catalogue of cross-referenced case studies and future scenarios.
The exhibition will travel to Ohio State University this Fall semester. Previously, it was presented at the Daniels Faulty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, University of Toronto. Mason White, who is a faculty member there, posted some of the projects in his blog, InfraNet Lab.
Below are some of the other projects, courtesy of Liat Margolis.
One is Porous Skin by Wayne Jenski.
Quoting the project brief in full: “Porous adaptive membrane was developed as a deployable structure for a clinic for Doctors without Borders. The membrane consists of dispersed micro-pore structures. Those form a series of self-adjusting thermal flues, intended to regulate the temperature of the air as well as the collection of air-borne moisture. The morphology of the pore was developed to open and close in response to changes in ambient temperature, solar gain and humidity. The skin, through its pores collects, then conveys condensation via an inner skin down to a large water bladder. The bladder acts as the foundation ballast but is also used to filter and store local water for sanitation and drinking use. Condensation replenishes water supply. The bladder is oriented to absorb solar energy, utilizing the water as a heat sink to filter the collected water by solar radiation. Both skin and bladder operate in accordance with solar radiation to collect, convey and convert water.”
Another documents an existing infrastructure for effluent reclamation in Israel. The main organization in charge of this is KKL (Keren Kayemet LeIsrael), or JNF in English (Jewish National Fund), which is the philantropic organization overseeing all aforestation projects in Israel for the last 50 years. In the last 20 years or so, they started building waste water recycling infrastructure for agricultural irrigation.
Again quoting the project brief in full: “Israel's reuse of wastewater accounts for 75% of crop irrigation and alleviates severe shortage of drinking water, which is comprised of 10% desalinated water (project to increase to 50% in the next 20 years). Without treated effluent, intensive agriculture would be impossible. This national program (KKL-JNF) consists of an interlinked network of over 200 open-air reservoirs, with static volume of 150 MCM and a dynamic volume (emptying and refilling) of 270 MCM of treated effluent a year. Those distribute water seasonally via an extensive pipe infrastructure. In the case of the Jezreel Valley, the most production valley in Israel, 15-20 MCM of effluent per year enable irrigation of 4000 ha of cotton . While loaded with fertilizing nutrients, effluent environmental quality is significantly ungraded due to settling and oxygenation, microbial breakdown of remaining organic matter, and UV to suppress pathogens.”
Next is a network of water storage units by Ruth Kedar. It is modeled after indigenous water management systems.
Yet again quoting the project brief in full: “The cistern is a contemporary adaptation of historical and regional desert technologies. The modular storage structure utilizes available and pre-cast concrete to offer a kit of parts that can be sized and aggregated according to the catchment area, topographical conditions, and inhabitant demand. The cistern network is modeled after the Nabatean systems of runoff agriculture, which used very low channels and surface modification to collect water from great catchment areas. The reservoir employs the principles of the Qanat, an underground tunnel that diverts runoff into a series of vertical wells. Each cistern is outfitted with an outlet to interlink them together, but also allow for diversion toward irrigation. As the need for water increases, the system can be expanded to accommodate additional catchment and storage. Specifying a smaller reservoir and a shorter exposed conveyance distance can reduce evaporation.
Last is the Dixon Land Imprinting Machine, which was covered by InfraNet Lab but it's so cool that we're going to replicate it here and enter it into our archives.
Final copy-paste: “Absorptive soil ensures against the devastation wrought by the twin desertification hazards of drought and deluge. The Dixon Land Imprinting machine restores the microroughness and macroporosity of compacted and barren soil to accelerate infiltration and revegetation processes. It is most effective in areas with low rainfall, degraded-, brushy-, rocky-, sandy-, and clayey soils, overgrazed ranges and abandoned agricultural land. The roller drops seeds onto the soil surface and imbeds them in the imprint surfaces. The imprinter forms interconnected water shedding and absorbing v-pockets, which function as rain fed micro-irrigation system. Down-slope furrows feed rainwater into cross-slope furrows where it collects and infiltrates. Revegetation is rapid because the imprints hold rainwater in place and captures seed, water and windblown plant litter, which works as mulch to suppress evaporation.”
We'll be pining for the rest of the projects, and if permitted, we'll post them here as they come in. We will certainly be posting updates on where and when the exhibition will be traveling to next. Keep a look out here for those.
Dymaxion Sleeps
When we posted this garden installation, called Dymaxion Sleeps by Jane Hutton and Adrian Blackwell, along with a few others from this year's International Garden Festival at Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens, we only had that one illustration to use. The following day, thankfully, the duo sent us a few photos of their project as built.
The name of the installation comes from Buckminister Fuller’s Dymaxion World Map, whose geometry is copied for the garden's horizontal surface. This surface is made of nylon netting by Creations Filion, specialists in circus and performance safety nets. It is taut when empty and becomes hammock-like when the kids wade in. Should one choose to relax or sleep on one of the triangular spaces, below are beds of aromatic plants — lemon geraniums, lavenders, peppermints, catmints, etc. — to help you unwind.
It's probably one of the few gardens in the festival that's easily transferable to a modest backyard garden. If we had a garden, we'd install one.
Or above a patch of rainforest, first spiraling around thickly trunked trees and then jutting out like tendrils above the canopy. Or out in the middle of the ocean, moored to floating buoys, a respite for pirates, climate change refugees and Pacific Garbage Patch docu-cineastes. Or above just about anything.
Sonic Garden
Poule mouillée!
When we posted this garden installation, called Dymaxion Sleeps by Jane Hutton and Adrian Blackwell, along with a few others from this year's International Garden Festival at Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens, we only had that one illustration to use. The following day, thankfully, the duo sent us a few photos of their project as built.
The name of the installation comes from Buckminister Fuller’s Dymaxion World Map, whose geometry is copied for the garden's horizontal surface. This surface is made of nylon netting by Creations Filion, specialists in circus and performance safety nets. It is taut when empty and becomes hammock-like when the kids wade in. Should one choose to relax or sleep on one of the triangular spaces, below are beds of aromatic plants — lemon geraniums, lavenders, peppermints, catmints, etc. — to help you unwind.
It's probably one of the few gardens in the festival that's easily transferable to a modest backyard garden. If we had a garden, we'd install one.
Or above a patch of rainforest, first spiraling around thickly trunked trees and then jutting out like tendrils above the canopy. Or out in the middle of the ocean, moored to floating buoys, a respite for pirates, climate change refugees and Pacific Garbage Patch docu-cineastes. Or above just about anything.
Sonic Garden
Poule mouillée!
Lago Navona
This is a postscript to our post on the sewer zeppelins and artificial lakes of Rome.
*
Every weekend during the sweltering month of August, from 1652 until 1866, the drains of the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi were blocked so that the waters would overflow and flood much of Piazza Navona, a sort of aqueous reincarnation of the naumachiae, or mock naval battles, that were once staged on the same site more than a thousand years ago. Or perhaps this aberrant hydrology was an attempt to mimic the floodplains of the real Quattro Fiumi. It could even be described as the temporary, theatrical reemergence of the marshy landscape on which the Eternal City was built.
In any case, it was one of the most popular midsummer festivals in Rome, the “merriest of them all,” according to the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Members of the nobility and gentry came in droves in their carriages. Watched by gazers crowding the shores of this artificial lake or looking out from the windows of the palaces surrounding the piazza, princes and nobles would parade side by side with peasants and farmers around and around the water's shallow periphery or crisscross across deeper parts. It probably didn't take long until the water became just a dirty puddle, but one could still churn up microgusts of cooling breezes. On the dry portions of the piazza, entertainments were set up, as well as booths for refreshments.
This urban hydro-spectacle would go on all day, until sunset, sometimes even into the night. Then the piazza was drained, and the water once again contained in its Baroque basin.
*
As a postscript to this postscript, check out Millennium Park's Crown Fountain, whose seasonal artificial lake swarms with hyperactive, overheated, giggle-infected kids (and adults) every summer.
Once a year, after a multi-million dollar renovation, the twin spouts of Crown Fountain will be allowed to gush out as though they were gigantic fire hoses, flooding the entire park. Frank Gehry's sunken pavilion becomes an inland sea in which concert goers ply the waters on gondolas. The Lurie Gardens transform into a wetland prairie. Anish Kapoor turns into an island. The new Nichols Bridgeway is repurposed as a water slide. And everywhere waterfalls cascade down Neoclassical stairs.
That or truck in a few dumpster pools as counter-pavilions to the two pavilions commissioned for the anniversary celebrations of Daniel Burnham's Plan of Chicago.
This is a postscript to our post on the sewer zeppelins and artificial lakes of Rome.
Every weekend during the sweltering month of August, from 1652 until 1866, the drains of the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi were blocked so that the waters would overflow and flood much of Piazza Navona, a sort of aqueous reincarnation of the naumachiae, or mock naval battles, that were once staged on the same site more than a thousand years ago. Or perhaps this aberrant hydrology was an attempt to mimic the floodplains of the real Quattro Fiumi. It could even be described as the temporary, theatrical reemergence of the marshy landscape on which the Eternal City was built.
In any case, it was one of the most popular midsummer festivals in Rome, the “merriest of them all,” according to the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Members of the nobility and gentry came in droves in their carriages. Watched by gazers crowding the shores of this artificial lake or looking out from the windows of the palaces surrounding the piazza, princes and nobles would parade side by side with peasants and farmers around and around the water's shallow periphery or crisscross across deeper parts. It probably didn't take long until the water became just a dirty puddle, but one could still churn up microgusts of cooling breezes. On the dry portions of the piazza, entertainments were set up, as well as booths for refreshments.
This urban hydro-spectacle would go on all day, until sunset, sometimes even into the night. Then the piazza was drained, and the water once again contained in its Baroque basin.
As a postscript to this postscript, check out Millennium Park's Crown Fountain, whose seasonal artificial lake swarms with hyperactive, overheated, giggle-infected kids (and adults) every summer.
Once a year, after a multi-million dollar renovation, the twin spouts of Crown Fountain will be allowed to gush out as though they were gigantic fire hoses, flooding the entire park. Frank Gehry's sunken pavilion becomes an inland sea in which concert goers ply the waters on gondolas. The Lurie Gardens transform into a wetland prairie. Anish Kapoor turns into an island. The new Nichols Bridgeway is repurposed as a water slide. And everywhere waterfalls cascade down Neoclassical stairs.
That or truck in a few dumpster pools as counter-pavilions to the two pavilions commissioned for the anniversary celebrations of Daniel Burnham's Plan of Chicago.
Rainwater Harvesting in Mumbai
Like so many cities all over the world, Mumbai is facing a water crisis. In fact, according to BBC News, it is experiencing “one of the worst water shortages in its history.”
Mumbai receives most of its water from lakes that are heavily dependent on monsoon rainfall. Rainfall figures this year, however, are “alarming” as “one lake has enough water to last for the next three weeks, while two others have reserves for about two months.”
In response, authorities have reduced the amount of water going to the city and asked people to conserve the supply that they do get. They are also considering cloud seeding, we read.
*
Other options for Mumbai are explored by Robyn Perkins in emergeMUMBAI. Last year, this project was one of the winners of 2008 ASLA Student Awards. Quoting the project statement:
The full description, which we will not attempt to summarize here, can be found on the ASLA website. But here are some diagrams of proposed hydrological flows.
“emergeMUMBAI started by creating the first ever map of flood points in greater Mumbai,” writes Perkins. “This investigation of where and why the flooding occurs led to regional solutions the city could use. This analysis determined the location of high-risk sites, including government housing sites possibly up for redevelopment. The investigation continued by focusing on one critical, 100-acre site.”
At that site, rainwater is directed to a collection tank system under the courtyard. The water gets filtered and its sediment load allowed to settle.
When needed, “a play pump brings water to ground level where it flows through the slow-sand-dobi-ghat filtration tank. The end result here is grey water, but is clean enough for laundry and bathing.” And perhaps enough to alleviate Mumbai's water shortage.
Rainwater Harvesting in Quito
Rainwater Harvesting in Al-Andalus
Like so many cities all over the world, Mumbai is facing a water crisis. In fact, according to BBC News, it is experiencing “one of the worst water shortages in its history.”
Mumbai receives most of its water from lakes that are heavily dependent on monsoon rainfall. Rainfall figures this year, however, are “alarming” as “one lake has enough water to last for the next three weeks, while two others have reserves for about two months.”
In response, authorities have reduced the amount of water going to the city and asked people to conserve the supply that they do get. They are also considering cloud seeding, we read.
Other options for Mumbai are explored by Robyn Perkins in emergeMUMBAI. Last year, this project was one of the winners of 2008 ASLA Student Awards. Quoting the project statement:
emergeMUMBAI addresses flooding at a regional level, water management and public social spaces for housing redevelopment sites, and most importantly, it alleviates the insufficient water supply for the individual citizen. The project uses modern techniques combined with Indian models to provide solutions that work within Mumbai’s culture and maintenance/implementation regimes. Each block of the colony becomes self-contained in terms of water management, while supplying enough water to meet its consumption demands.
The full description, which we will not attempt to summarize here, can be found on the ASLA website. But here are some diagrams of proposed hydrological flows.
“emergeMUMBAI started by creating the first ever map of flood points in greater Mumbai,” writes Perkins. “This investigation of where and why the flooding occurs led to regional solutions the city could use. This analysis determined the location of high-risk sites, including government housing sites possibly up for redevelopment. The investigation continued by focusing on one critical, 100-acre site.”
At that site, rainwater is directed to a collection tank system under the courtyard. The water gets filtered and its sediment load allowed to settle.
When needed, “a play pump brings water to ground level where it flows through the slow-sand-dobi-ghat filtration tank. The end result here is grey water, but is clean enough for laundry and bathing.” And perhaps enough to alleviate Mumbai's water shortage.
Rainwater Harvesting in Quito
Rainwater Harvesting in Al-Andalus
Terraforming Versailles on the Moon
Last week, government and commercial websites in South Korea and the U.S. were targeted with denial-of-service attacks. In the U.S., “[the websites] of the Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and Transportation Department were all affected at some point over the weekend and into this week.” And in South Korea, “at least 11 major sites have slowed or crashed since Tuesday [July 7], including those of the presidential Blue House, the Defense Ministry, the National Assembly, Shinhan Bank, the mass-circulation newspaper Chosun Ilbo and the top Internet portal Naver.com.”
There is evidence to suggest that the cyberattacks were instigated by North Korea, though a link to the rogue state may never be proven definitively.
*
From rogue states or not, from Russia or China, from the domestic front or not, cyberattacks like those of last week are real and significant threats to America's computer network systems. To develop defenses against such online attacks, the U.S. Defense Department has been creating specialized forces. For the Army, there is Army Network Warfare Battalion, which was activated last year. For the Air Force, there is the 57th Information Aggressor Squadron, whose hackers “spend their days and nights probing the military’s vast computer networks for weaknesses to exploit” in “a series of inconspicuous trailers” at Nellis Air Force Base. Meanwhile, at West Point and the other federal military academies, cadets can now choose to receive training in cyberwarfare.
“There is hardly an American military unit or headquarters that has not been ordered to analyze the risk of cyberattacks to its mission — and to train to counter them,” wrote the New York Times. “If the hackers were to succeed, they could change information on the network and cripple Internet communications.”
*
Also last week, New Scientist reported that the first node in space of the interplanetary internet went online. This newly installed system aboard the [International Space Station] could one day make communication automatic and less prone to data loses between earthbound networks and spacecrafts and astronauts orbiting the earth or in deeper space.
According to a press release prepared earlier this year by Carnegie Mellon, researchers at the university assisted Astrobotic Technology Inc. in developing conceptual robots capable of preparing lunar landing sites for a future moonbase.
Specifically, these lunar bulldozers would be tasked “to build a berm around a landing site to block the sandblasting effect” of multiple landings and takeoffs. Alternatively, a fleet of “small robots could comb the lunar soil for rocks, gathering them to pave a durable grit-free landing pad.”
It is envisioned that these robots would be sent to the moon in advance of human expeditions. In other words, these telepresent digging machines would be operated from earthbound venues — and thus prone to takeovers from hackers.
Not that that would be easily done. As far as we know, the rovers Spirit and Opportunity haven't yet been commandeered by hackers and programmed to dredge arabesque parterres on the surface of Mars.
Certainly, what would be easy is fantasizing about a rogue landscape architect with previous training in cyberwarfare at the National Security Agency. Because of the financial meltdown, he is between jobs, simmering and festering in soul-draining temp jobs, constantly bombarded by the cackles of gossiping colleagues in adjacent cubicles.
Clearly in need of a creative outlet, he sets up a botnet of thousands of infected computers to try to take control of the moon rovers. He will have to wait, however, until those robots have landed and their calibrations finished to start hacking the servers of NASA and what would then be a greatly expanded interplanetary internet. But once appropriated, he will upload a different set of instructions.
He will program them to terraform a full scale, regolithic Versailles on the surface of the moon.
Artist-in-Residence-in-Mars
Last week, government and commercial websites in South Korea and the U.S. were targeted with denial-of-service attacks. In the U.S., “[the websites] of the Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and Transportation Department were all affected at some point over the weekend and into this week.” And in South Korea, “at least 11 major sites have slowed or crashed since Tuesday [July 7], including those of the presidential Blue House, the Defense Ministry, the National Assembly, Shinhan Bank, the mass-circulation newspaper Chosun Ilbo and the top Internet portal Naver.com.”
There is evidence to suggest that the cyberattacks were instigated by North Korea, though a link to the rogue state may never be proven definitively.
From rogue states or not, from Russia or China, from the domestic front or not, cyberattacks like those of last week are real and significant threats to America's computer network systems. To develop defenses against such online attacks, the U.S. Defense Department has been creating specialized forces. For the Army, there is Army Network Warfare Battalion, which was activated last year. For the Air Force, there is the 57th Information Aggressor Squadron, whose hackers “spend their days and nights probing the military’s vast computer networks for weaknesses to exploit” in “a series of inconspicuous trailers” at Nellis Air Force Base. Meanwhile, at West Point and the other federal military academies, cadets can now choose to receive training in cyberwarfare.
“There is hardly an American military unit or headquarters that has not been ordered to analyze the risk of cyberattacks to its mission — and to train to counter them,” wrote the New York Times. “If the hackers were to succeed, they could change information on the network and cripple Internet communications.”
Also last week, New Scientist reported that the first node in space of the interplanetary internet went online. This newly installed system aboard the [International Space Station] could one day make communication automatic and less prone to data loses between earthbound networks and spacecrafts and astronauts orbiting the earth or in deeper space.
According to a press release prepared earlier this year by Carnegie Mellon, researchers at the university assisted Astrobotic Technology Inc. in developing conceptual robots capable of preparing lunar landing sites for a future moonbase.
Specifically, these lunar bulldozers would be tasked “to build a berm around a landing site to block the sandblasting effect” of multiple landings and takeoffs. Alternatively, a fleet of “small robots could comb the lunar soil for rocks, gathering them to pave a durable grit-free landing pad.”
It is envisioned that these robots would be sent to the moon in advance of human expeditions. In other words, these telepresent digging machines would be operated from earthbound venues — and thus prone to takeovers from hackers.
Not that that would be easily done. As far as we know, the rovers Spirit and Opportunity haven't yet been commandeered by hackers and programmed to dredge arabesque parterres on the surface of Mars.
Certainly, what would be easy is fantasizing about a rogue landscape architect with previous training in cyberwarfare at the National Security Agency. Because of the financial meltdown, he is between jobs, simmering and festering in soul-draining temp jobs, constantly bombarded by the cackles of gossiping colleagues in adjacent cubicles.
Clearly in need of a creative outlet, he sets up a botnet of thousands of infected computers to try to take control of the moon rovers. He will have to wait, however, until those robots have landed and their calibrations finished to start hacking the servers of NASA and what would then be a greatly expanded interplanetary internet. But once appropriated, he will upload a different set of instructions.
He will program them to terraform a full scale, regolithic Versailles on the surface of the moon.
Artist-in-Residence-in-Mars
Descansos
Very briefly, as a postscript to an old post, the New York Times invited several people to comment on roadside memorials, no doubt inspired by the recent public exhalations of supposedly private grief over Michael Jackson's death. The editors asked: “Why do people feel a need to build them? Are they a distraction or a warning? Should restrictions be placed on them?”
As expected, the responses (and the many fascinating comments from readers) are incredibly diverse.
Very briefly, as a postscript to an old post, the New York Times invited several people to comment on roadside memorials, no doubt inspired by the recent public exhalations of supposedly private grief over Michael Jackson's death. The editors asked: “Why do people feel a need to build them? Are they a distraction or a warning? Should restrictions be placed on them?”
As expected, the responses (and the many fascinating comments from readers) are incredibly diverse.