20151230 - bicycle - 2

21st Century Bike Technology

Info on the Modern Bicycle

If your last bicycle was a 3-speed butcher's bike or a 10-speed 'racer', you are in for a pleasant surprise. Advances in materials and technologies mean that bicycles are generally lighter weight and work much better than they did 10, 20 or 30 years ago.

Here are some of the features of modern bikes that make cycling comfortable and fun!

The Right Bike for You
There is a vast range of styles and sizes of bikes on the market. Bikes are now built for every purpose you could imagine, from competing in the Tour de France to going to the shops. So whether you want a bike for commuting or one for climbing up Ben Nevis, or even a bike that will do both, we'll have a bike for you be it a road bike, a mountain bike or anything in between (i.e. a hybrid).

Light Weight and Safety
Advances in material technology mean that you can now get a lightweight aluminium-framed bike at a fraction of the cost you would have paid twenty years ago. In more recent years, carbon fibre bikes have become more affordable too. That's a good thing because a lighter bike is easier to pedal up hills. The use of better materials can also improve safety. Witness the 4-fold improvement in wet weather braking performance that came about when aluminium alloy rims superseded chromed steel wheels.

Brakes
Bicycle brakes have evolved dramatically over the past few decades. If you bought an everyday bike up till the late 1980s, it would have probably come with long-arm caliper brakes (remember using your feet to stop the bike on wet roads?) When pioneer mountain bikers twinned tandem bike technology (cantilever brakes) with motorcycle levers, they set a new standard in stopping power. The cantilever brake evolved into the more powerful V-brake in the 1990s. A properly adjusted V-brake remains a cool, lightweight design, but for consistent all-weather performance and longer pad life, they have been superceded by mechanical (cable operated) disc brakes which, in turn, have been usurped by hydraulics. Originally designed to work consistently in extreme MTB downhill racing, hydraulic disc braking has now trickled down to mid-range MTBs and hybrids with the result that the ideal of fingertip brake lever control is more accessible than ever before.

Comfort
Suspension is now ubiquitous on mountain bikes (and some hybrids) because it smooths the bumps, thus enabling you to ride further and/or longer and/or faster over rough terrain. It's a misconception that suspension is just for expert mountain bikers. Quite the opposite. Suspension helps keep the tyres 'planted' while the wheels roll over obstacles that might have otherwise pitched you off the bike. Suspension therefore helps compensate for lack of skills when you start out, and helps build confidence as you climb the MTB learning curve.

Contact Points
Saddles now come in a huge range of shapes and sizes from traditional Brooks leather to women's specific to clinically tested Body Geometry. Choose a saddle that's optimised for your style of riding. If you like to stretch out to the bars, you'll probably be most comfortable on a saddle so skinny, you're barely aware it's there. If you prefer to sit upright, a wider cushioned gel saddle can offer armchair-like comfort.

Handlebar height is crucial for comfort. It's also down to personal preference so it's difficult to advise on. Athletic riders usually prefer to ride stretched out and aero with handlebars below saddle height. For others, comfort means riding upright so the bars are above saddle height. We find most riders are 'in the middle' and like their handlebars to be around the same height as the saddle. Transforming an ill-fitting bike to one you enjoy can therefore simply be a matter of swapping the original handlebar stem for a taller or shorter one.

Pedals - again you have a massive range to choose from because getting the best support for your feet is important. Some say the first rule for improving trail skills is to get yourself a pair of flatties AKA platform pedals. Others, including roadies, mountain bikers, tourers and commuters, prefer to ride 'clipped in', with the shoes literally connected to the pedals. This isn't as scary as it sounds. Swinging the heel out 20 degrees to disconnect the foot swiftly becomes second nature. Riding clipped in, truly engaged to the pedals, enhances the feeling of being at one with the bike............................

 http://www.edinburghbicycle.com/comms/site_info/21st-century-bike-technology.htm?f_Cardinal=10

 http://www.incrediblethings.com/lists/cool-concept-bikes/

20151229 - bicycle - 1

History of the bicycle

Vehicles for human transport that have two wheels and require balancing by the rider date back to the early 19th century. The first means of transport making use of two wheels arranged consecutively, and thus the archetype of the bicycle, was the German draisine dating back to 1817. The term bicycle was coined in France in the 1860s.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_bicycle
 http://www.biketree.com/more-bikes

20151228 - astronomical milestones

 

Astronomical milestones of 2015

Magazine issue: Vol. 188, No. 13, December 26, 2015, p. 22

 

The New Horizons mission to Pluto might get all the attention, but 2015 had plenty of other amazing space mission firsts — and lasts, as scientists said good-bye to two orbiters.

Dawn

The Dawn probe arrived at Ceres March 6, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit a dwarf planet (take that, Pluto!) (SN: 4/4/15, p. 9). Dawn quickly started mapping its new home. Bright patches sitting within craters (SN Online: 9/10/15), which at first glance looked like exposed ice, are probably salt deposits. The craters themselves are also puzzlingly scattered unevenly across the surface (SN: 9/5/15, p. 8).

Rosetta 

A leak of oxygen, buried since the solar system’s start, was the last thing Rosetta mission researchers expected to detect at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Finding such oxygen was a first in cometary chemistry (SN: 11/28/15, p. 6). The Philae lander, meanwhile, surprised the world when it awoke June 13 from a nearly seven-month slumber (SN Online: 6/14/15). Contact has since been spotty.

Kepler

NASA’s premier planet hunter introduced us to Kepler 452b this year, possibly the most Earthlike world yet known (SN: 8/22/15, p. 16). Its 385-day orbit of a sunlike star would be comforting to humans. But at 1.6 times the width of Earth, the exoplanet might not have a solid surface on which they could enjoy it. That’s OK. With 1,030 confirmed exoplanets and counting, the Kepler space telescope keeps looking.

 https://www.sciencenews.org/article/astronomical-milestones-2015

20151227 - communication

20151226 - sustainability

Sustainability

In ecology, sustainability is the capacity to endure; it is how biological systems remain diverse and productive indefinitely. Long-lived and healthy wetlands and forests are examples of sustainable biological systems. In more general terms, sustainability is the endurance of systems and processes. The organizing principle for sustainability is sustainable development, which includes the four interconnected domains: ecology, economics, politics and culture^. Sustainability science is the study of sustainable development and environmental science.
Healthy ecosystems and environments are necessary to the survival of humans and other organisms. Ways of reducing negative human impact are environmentally-friendly chemical engineering, environmental resources management and environmental protection. Information is gained from green chemistry, earth science, environmental science and conservation biology. Ecological economics studies the fields of academic research that aim to address human economies and natural ecosystems.
Moving towards sustainability is also a social challenge that entails international and national law, urban planning and transport, local and individual lifestyles and ethical consumerism. Ways of living more sustainably can take many forms from reorganizing living conditions (e.g., ecovillages, eco-municipalities and sustainable cities), reappraising economic sectors (permaculture, green building, sustainable agriculture), or work practices (sustainable architecture), using science to develop new technologies (green technologies, renewable energy and sustainable fission and fusion power), or designing systems in a flexible and reversible manner, and adjusting individual lifestyles that conserve natural resources.
Despite the increased popularity of the use of the term "sustainability", the possibility that human societies will achieve environmental sustainability has been, and continues to be, questioned—in light of environmental degradation, climate change, overconsumption, population growth and societies' pursuit of indefinite economic growth in a closed system.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability
 http://www.sps70.com/choices/improve/sustainability/

20151225 - spacex

Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) is an American aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company with its headquarters in Hawthorne, California, USA. It was founded in 2002 by former PayPal entrepreneur and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk with the goal of creating the technologies to reduce space transportation costs and enable the colonization of Mars. It has developed the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 launch vehicles, both of which were designed from conception to eventually become reusable, and the Dragon spacecraft which is flown into orbit by the Falcon 9 launch vehicle to supply the International Space Station (ISS) with cargo. A manned version of Dragon is in development.
SpaceX's achievements include the first privately funded, liquid-propellant rocket (Falcon 1) to reach orbit, in 2008 the first privately funded company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft (Dragon), in 2010; and the first private company to send a spacecraft (Dragon) to the ISS, in 2012. The launch of SES-8, in 2013, was the first SpaceX delivery into geosynchronous orbit, while the launch of the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), in 2015, was the company's first delivery beyond Earth orbit.

On December 21, 2015, SpaceX successfully returned a first stage booster back to the ground at Cape Canaveral, the first such accomplishment by an orbit-capable rocket.
 
NASA awarded the company a Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) contract in 2006, to design and demonstrate a launch system to resupply cargo to the International Space Station (ISS). SpaceX, as of May 2015 has flown six missions to the ISS under a cargo resupply contract. NASA also awarded SpaceX a contract in 2011 to develop and demonstrate a human-rated Dragon as part of its Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program to transport crew to the ISS.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX

20151224 - europe/africa

Europe’s grand challenge – Africa’s future

 

 

Africa’s population will be five times Europe’s by mid-century. Will the continent become a permanent source of desperate migrants, or a fabulous investment opportunity? Europe needs to engage, massively.
The wave of migrants coming into Europe at the moment has a proximate cause – sectarian war and chaos in the Middle East – but it isn’t a transient phenomenon. The current migration is just the beginning of a long-term trend that will almost certainly last for at least a hundred years.
The reason: Over that time-period, Africa’s population is set to go from 1.16 billion today – exactly twice that of the European Union – to 2.4 billion by 2050. That’s five times the EU’s current population of 508 million. By 2100, according to the UN, Africa’s population could be 4.2 billion – eight times that of today’s EU.
The arc of Muslim countries from North Africa and the Middle East through South and Central Asia is also in the midst of a demographic explosion. According to Pew Research Center, the world’s Muslim population will grow from 1.6 billion today to 2.8 billion by 2050.
If the Muslim world and Africa remain plagued by war, chaos, misrule, failed states and poverty – exacerbated by resource competition worsened by climate destabilisation, food and water insecurity – nothing and no-one will be able to hold back the flood of desperate refugees...................

 http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2015/09/14/opinion-europes-grand-challenge-africas-future/
 http://europafrica.net/earn/

20151223 - delfshaven

Delfshaven is a borough of Rotterdam on the right bank of river Nieuwe Maas, in South Holland, the Netherlands. It was a separate municipality until 1886.
The town of Delfshaven grew around the port of the city of Delft. Delft itself was not located on a major river, so in 1389 a harbour was created about 10 km (6 mi) due south of the city, to be able to receive seafaring vessels and avoid tolls being levied by the neighbouring and competing city of Rotterdam. This settlement was named Delfshaven ("Port of Delft").
On 1 August, 1620 the Pilgrim fathers left Delfshaven with the Speedwell. Since then, the town's Oude Kerk has also been known as the Pelgrimskerk, or in English, the "Pilgrim Fathers Church".
Fishing, shipbuilding and the distillery of jenever were the main sources of income. The Dutch East India Company had important wharfs and warehouses in Delfshaven, and one of the Dutch West India Company's most famous commanders, Piet Hein, was born here.
Delfshaven belonged to the city and municipality of Delft until 1811, when it became a separate municipality. Delfshaven was annexed to Rotterdam in 1886 at its own request. The current borough has some 73,000 inhabitants. Its small historic centre has been carefully preserved. This features modest local museums, a brewery and six or so dining and drinking facilities.
Delfshaven escaped the bombing of Rotterdam by the Luftwaffe on May 14, 1940. Later during the Second World War, the area around the Groot Visserijplein and other parts of the western city of Rotterdam were destroyed by an allied bombing, on March 31, 1943.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delfshaven
 http://jgsmits.home.xs4all.nl/delfshaven/heden_kaarten.html

20151222 - pilgrim fathers church

The Old or Pilgrim Fathers' Church (Oude of Pelgrimvaderskerk Rotterdam-Delfshaven) is a church located in Rotterdam-Delfshaven, in the Netherlands.

History

The history of the Old or Pilgrim Fathers' Church goes back as far as 1472, when the Roman Catholic church of St. Anthony was consecrated on this site. The oldest known
In 1608 a group of English religious dissenters fled to the Netherlands. They had left the Anglican church a few years before and had founded their own religious community.
After living in Leiden for eleven years, they decided to become Pilgrims and cross the wide waters to America, where they might worship God in their own way and still be Englishmen.
The great adventure started in Delfshaven, on 21 July 1620. There a ship awaited them, the Speedwell, that was bound for America. According to the chronicles the Pilgrim Fathers knelt down in prayer on the quay near the church, that was later to be named after them.
The most radical rebuilding took place in 1765. At this time the church was heightened considerably and was given its present facade with the bell-shaped gable. Much later, American visitors gave it its third name: Pilgrim Fathers' Church.
In the nineteenth century the building with the text 'Eben-Haëzer' in its gable, was erected behind the church. The Stichting Oude Hollandse Kerken (Foundation Old Churches in Holland) acquired the church in 1992. A large-scale restoration was completed in 1998.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrim_Fathers_Church

20151221 - pilgrim fathers

The Pilgrim Fathers

Citation: C N Trueman "The Pilgrim Fathers"

 

The History Learning Site, 17 Mar 2015. 17 Dec 2015.

 

In 1620 one hundred Puritans boarded the ‘Mayflower’ bound for the New World. These people were the Pilgrim Fathers. The Pilgrim Fathers saw little chance of England becoming a country in which they wished to live. They viewed it as un-Godly and moving from a bad to worse state. The Pilgrim Fathers believed that a new start in the New World was their only chance.

A lot of the trials and tribulations about where they should sail to, the journey across the Atlantic to the New World and the initial problems experienced by the Pilgrim Fathers are contained in a diary written by William Bradford.

“The place they thought of was one of those vast and unpeopled countries of America, which are fruitful and fit for living. There are only savages and brutish men, just like wild beasts. This idea led to many and different opinions. But, after many things were said, it was agreed by the major part to carry it out. Some were keen for Guiana, or some of those fertile places in those hot climates. Others were for some part of Virginia.

 http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/stuart-england/the-pilgrim-fathers/

20151220 - ellis island

Why the stories of Ellis Island matter today

Kate Torgovnick May

When artist JR started a project about the 1.2 million people held in limbo at the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital in the early 20th century, he couldn’t help but notice ghosts of the present.

They stand in line, hands clasped in front of them or gripping the suitcases that contain their possessions. The women wear headscarves, the men thick coats, the children the travel-weary expressions of those who have come a very long way.
The photos could be of the refugees currently camped out between Greece and the Balkans, or of the 2,000 migrants living in temporary accommodations at Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport. But they aren’t. These are archival images of people at the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital — its own special sort of limbo, where many were held or turned away from the opportunity of a new life. In the short film Ellis, TED Prize winner JR highlights the stories of the individuals who populated this hospital. Here’s a poignant look at images from the film and the art installation that inspired it.

Welcome to America

As immigrants passed through Ellis Island, doctors examined them and held them at the hospital if they were determined to have a communicable disease or to be in need of the “psychopathic ward.” Some 10% of the 12 million immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954 ended up at the hospital — and some 120,000 people were turned away from the United States. While little documentation remains of who these people were, archive photos serve as witness. In 2014, JR pasted two dozen of these images throughout the hospital grounds. “I’m fascinated by the unique stories each person had in moving to America,” he says. “Everyone wants to have a better life and to give their children a better life than theirs. That resonates with people around the world.”

Patients of all ages

The seven children in this image aren’t wearing head coverings for religious reasons. They were treated at the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital for favus, a scalp infection for which all members of a family should be treated simultaneously. Doctors at the hospital also treated patients for measles, heart disease, scarlet fever, trachoma and a host of other medical issues. At the height of immigration to the US, the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital occupied multiple buildings and had about 750 beds. About 350 babies were born here, and 3,500 people died here.


 http://ideas.ted.com/gallery-why-the-stories-of-ellis-island-matter-today/
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellis_Island

20151219 - oceanography

Oceanography, also known as oceanology and marine science, is the branch of Earth science that studies the ocean. It covers a wide range of topics, including marine organisms and ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynamics; plate tectonics and the geology of the sea floor; and fluxes of various chemical substances and physical properties within the ocean and across its boundaries. These diverse topics reflect multiple disciplines that oceanographers blend to further knowledge of the world ocean and understanding of processes within: astronomy, biology, chemistry, climatology, geography, geology, hydrology, meteorology and physics. Paleoceanography studies the history of the oceans in the geologic past.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceanography
 http://www.glogster.com/jnielander/oceanography-jessica-nielander/g-6m0urrc0dd0ufjbk7ktena0

20151218 - winter

Winter is the coldest season of the year in polar and temperate climates, between autumn and spring. Winter is caused by the axis of the Earth in that hemisphere being oriented away from the Sun. Different cultures define different dates as the start of winter, and some use a definition based on weather. When it is winter in the Northern Hemisphere, it is summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and vice versa. In many regions, winter is associated with snow and freezing temperatures. The moment of winter solstice is when the sun's elevation with respect to the North or South Pole is at its most negative value (that is, the sun is at its farthest below the horizon as measured from the pole). The earliest sunset and latest sunrise dates outside the polar regions differ from the date of the winter solstice, however, and these depend on latitude, due to the variation in the solar day throughout the year caused by the Earth's elliptical orbit (see earliest and latest sunrise and sunset).

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter
 http://crazy-frankenstein.com/winter-season-wallpapers.html

20151217 - freedom of speech

Freedom of speech is the right to communicate one's opinions and ideas without fear of government retaliation or censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used.
Governments restrict speech with varying limitations. Common limitations on speech relate to libel, slander, obscenity, pornography, sedition, incitement, fighting words, classified information, copyright violation, trade secrets, non-disclosure agreements, right to privacy, right to be forgotten, public security, public order, public nuisance, campaign finance reform and oppression. Whether these limitations can be justified under the harm principle depends upon whether influencing a third party's opinions or actions adversely to the second party constitutes such harm or not. Governmental and other compulsory organizations often have policies restricting the freedom of speech for political reasons, for example, speech codes at state schools.
The term "offense principle" is also used to expand the range of free speech limitations to prohibit forms of expression where they are considered offensive to society, special interest groups or individuals. For example, freedom of speech is limited in many jurisdictions to widely differing degrees by religious legal systems, religious offense or incitement to ethnic or racial hatred laws.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech
 http://hubpages.com/politics/Freedom-of-Expression

20151216 - raif badawi

Raif Badawi, whose name is also transcribed as Raef Badawi,born January 13, 1984, is a Saudi Arabian writer, dissident, and activist, and the creator of the website Free Saudi Liberals.
Badawi was arrested in 2012 on a charge of "insulting Islam through electronic channels" and brought to court on several charges, including apostasy. In 2013 he was convicted on several charges and sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes. In 2014 his sentence was increased to 10 years in prison, 1000 lashes, and a fine. The flogging was to be carried out over 20 weeks. The first 50 lashes were administered on January 9, 2015. The second flogging has been postponed more than twelve times.The reason for the most recent postponement is unknown, but the previous scheduled floggings were delayed due to Badawi's poor health. Badawi is known to have hypertension and his health has worsened since the flogging began. His wife, Ensaf Haidar, who took refuge in Canada after her life was threatened in Saudi Arabia, has said Badawi will not be able to survive further flogging.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raif_Badawi

20151215 - andrei sakharov

Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov (21 May 1921 – 14 December 1989) was a Russian nuclear physicist, Soviet dissident and human rights activist.
He became renowned as the designer of the Soviet Union's Third Idea, a codename for Soviet development of thermonuclear weapons. Sakharov later became an advocate of civil liberties and civil reforms in the Soviet Union, for which he faced state persecution; these efforts earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975. The Sakharov Prize, which is awarded annually by the European Parliament for people and organizations dedicated to human rights and freedoms, is named in his honour.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Sakharov

20151214 - microbiome

How the microbiome shapes our world

Brooke Borel

Plus: Why you shouldn’t give probiotics to your dog.

You are never really alone. On your skin, in your nose, in every inch of your personal space, you are accompanied by trillions of tiny organisms. Collectively, these microorganisms are known as the microbiome — the complex ecosystem of microbes that share and shape our world. Yet the quest to understand the microbiome is still in its infancy. What’s the role of the microbiome in human health and wellbeing? How are you affected by the small rainforest of microorganisms that live in every office building, or the collection of microbes in your gut? Science is just beginning to figure that out — and the research will blow your mind.
We invited three scientists to talk about what interested them most about the current microbiome research. Read on for insights from microbiologist Jonathan Eisen (TED Talk: Meet your microbes) evolutionary biologist Rob Knight (read about his 2014 TED Talk), and ecologist and TED Fellow Jessica Green (We’re covered in germs. Let’s design for that).

Research into microbiomes seems to have hit critical mass in the last few years. Why is that?
Jonathan Eisen: I think there are five or six different related things all happening at the same time. At least some of it is technology — our ability to study microbial communities has gotten better. There has also been pioneering work on human-associated microbial communities. We’ve learned that they play a profound role in various aspects of human health and disease.
 

----the microbial communities in our buildings, in our cars, in our planes, in our hospitals, are all affecting our health.-----

A third, and maybe fourth, area, are related just to general malaise about the human genome. We spent two billion dollars sequencing the genome — or the government did — and there was this promise that we were going to understand human biology simply from analyzing the genome. But that didn’t work out exactly as we hoped.
And then everybody tried to come up with another way to explain human biology that wasn’t the genome. So there’s been a lot of hype and hope in the epigenome, de novo somatic mutations, and the microbiome. If the genome doesn’t explain everything, a really nice alternative explanation is that on top of the genome, the patterns of microbial communities that people have in and on them may explain a lot of the variation that we see.........................


 http://ideas.ted.com/its-all-around-us-three-scientists-on-how-the-microbiome-shapes-our-world/

20151213 - skyscrapers

What skyscrapers might look like in the future

Bruce Sterling

 

Some among my readers may recall a dreadful incident, created by a dark genius of political theater, in September of 2001. This dismal act involved aircraft and skyscrapers. It so transfixed the public imagination that some feared skyscrapers would no longer be built.
Over a dozen years later, and we can see: quite the opposite came to pass. Skyscrapers multiplied in many locales never before graced with their presence. They showed impressive formal vitality, in a startling panoply of unheard-of shapes and stylings.
Today’s supertall structures, seen objectively, are risky, daring, even rather scary. Yet they inspire no apparent fear; the public greets them with kindness and complacency.
There are some complaints, of course, those standard complaints: the aggressive, thrusting showiness, the lack of a straightforward business model, the spoilt views of historic skylines. Identical things were said about the Eiffel Tower in the 1880s.
Old-fashioned complaints rarely pose big problems for innovators. Technologies in real trouble with society — nuclear power, for instance — are continually generating new, exciting complaints. Skyscrapers, even the tallest ones, are becoming urbane.
The newer ones have looser floor-plans, a wider variety of uses and users; more cozy creature-comforts, less of the boxy, steel-framed swaying and creaking. In short, they’re a modern case study in good old-fashioned technological advance. Novelty abounds in skyscraperdom today. New design methods, stronger materials, advances in building management, exotic fabrication methods, political smart-city initiatives — these promise a host of surprises.
So this is a fun time for skyscraper speculations. I may mention that, as I write, I just got through with a lively project for Arizona State University, involving a tower seventeen kilometers high. This would seem to be the tallest possible structure that is buildable with today’s methods and materials. This notion has been a pleasant locus for some Arthur C. Clarke-style aerospace engineering by us sci-fi writers. I can’t help but tell you that this imaginary edifice would weigh twelve million tons, and it would likely have to be extruded upward from the planet’s surface, from some desert test-bed… But never mind: that’s all science fiction.
Today’s supertalls may boggle the mind, but they are stunningly factual, immediately obvious, impossible to overlook. It’s their children, the unbuilt towers of futurity, that are surrounded by a dense, foggy haze of harbingers. Futurist scenarios can prove useful here. Scenarios cause loose ideas to separate and clump into trends.................................


 http://ideas.ted.com/what-skyscrapers-might-look-like-in-the-future/
 http://skyscrapersource.com/

20151212 - climate pact

The Road to a Paris Climate Deal

By The New York Times

A pact to slow global warming was reached Saturday. We’re providing insights and analysis.


 http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/climate/2015-paris-climate-talks/key-points-of-the-final-paris-climate-draft

20151211 - venus project

The Venus Project

The Venus Project is an organization that proposes a feasible plan of action for social change, one that works towards a peaceful and sustainable global civilization. It outlines an alternative to strive toward where human rights are no longer paper proclamations but a way of life.
We operate out of a 21.5-acre Research Center located in Venus, Florida.
When one considers the enormity of the challenges facing society today, we can safely conclude that the time is long overdue for us to re-examine our values and to reflect upon and evaluate some of the underlying issues and assumptions we have as a society. This self-analysis calls into question the very nature of what it means to be human, what it means to be a member of a "civilization," and what choices we can make today to ensure a prosperous future for all the world's people.
At present we are left with very few alternatives. The answers of yesterday are no longer relevant. Either we continue as we have been with our outmoded social customs and habits of thought, in which case our future will be threatened, or we can apply a more appropriate set of values that are relevant to an emergent society.


Experience tells us that human behavior can be modified, either toward constructive or destructive activity. This is what The Venus Project is all about - directing our technology and resources toward the positive, for the maximum benefit of people and planet, and seeking out new ways of thinking and living that emphasize and celebrate the vast potential of the human spirit. We have the tools at hand to design and build a future that is worthy of the human potential. The Venus Project presents a bold, new direction for humanity that entails nothing less than the total redesign of our culture. What follows is not an attempt to predict what will be done, only what could be done. The responsibility for our future is in our hands, and depends on the decisions that we make today. The greatest resource that is available today is our own ingenuity.
While social reformers and think tanks formulate strategies that treat only superficial symptoms, without touching the basic social operation, The Venus Project approaches these problems somewhat differently. We feel we cannot eliminate these problems within the framework of the present political and monetary establishment. It would take too many years to accomplish any significant change. Most likely they would be watered down and thinned out to such an extent that the changes would be indistinguishable.
The Venus Project advocates an alternative vision for a sustainable new world civilization unlike any social system that has gone before. Although this description is highly condensed, it is based upon years of study and experimental research by many, many people from many scientific disciplines.
We propose a fresh, holistic approach - one that is dedicated to human and environmental concerns. It is an attainable vision of a bright and better future, one that is appropriate to the times in which we live, and both practical and feasible for a positive future for all the world's people......................


 https://www.thevenusproject.com/en/about/the-venus-project
 https://www.pinterest.com/aarondegner/the-venus-project/