‘Presentation drawing, City by the Sea mural (south wall), Midway Gardens.’
Frank Lloyd Wright.
Pencil, color pencil, gold ink, watercolor, and crayon on tracing paper.
(via Brain Pickings)
City Forward: An Award-Winning Lesson in the Use of Open Big Data | Citizen IBM Blog
Sponsored by IBM, the City Forward website can be used to compare a selected city’s characteristics and challenges to others around the world. In the process, users can identify trends, pinpoint similarities and get ideas for how a city may be improved. These city stories then can be shared and discussed within the City Forward Community.
Completely free of charge, City Forward connects to the work done by Smarter Cities Challenge teams around the world. The website provides data for more than 100 cities, and offers both city leaders and the public the unique ability to consolidate multiple data sources. The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS) recently recognized City Forward with its 2013 Corporate Social Responsibility Webby Award.
A magnificent Birdseye view of this solar power array in Seville, Spain.
Hoe het veld met zonnepanelen van de Gemasolar Power Plant nabij Sevilla er van boven uit ziet. Heel vet!
(via cjwho:)
Our daily Shuttle magnificence!
Shuttle Moon
As a gorgeous full Moon rose above the eastern horizon on February 7 2001, the Space Shuttle Atlantis streaked skyward towards an orbital rendezvous with the International Space Station. Watching from Orlando, Florida, about 60 miles west of the Kennedy Space Center launch site, photographer Tony DeVito captured this digital image, one of a series of pictures of the shuttle’s fiery climb. While foreground street lights flickered on and a clear evening sky grew dark, the shuttle’s path just grazed the bright lunar disk. On this mission, STS-98, Atlantis carried the U.S. Destiny laboratory module to be added to the expanding orbital outpost.
Image credit: Anthony DeVito
Bitcoin is a new kind of money. It’s the first decentralized electronic currency not controlled by a single organization or government. It’s an open source project, and it is used by more than 100,000 people. All over the world people are trading hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin every day with no middle man and no credit card companies. It’s a startup currency which has never happened before.
Bitcoin is the first digital currency that is completely distributed. The network is made up of users like yourself so no bank or payment processor is required between you and whoever you’re trading with. This decentralization is the basis for Bitcoin’s security and freedom.
Email let us send letters for free, anywhere in the world. Skype lets us make phone and video calls for free, anywhere in the world. Now there’s bitcoin. Bitcoin lets you send money to anyone online, anywhere in the world for less than a cent per transaction! Bitcoin is a community run system not controlled by any bank or government. There’s no wallstreet banker getting rich by standing between you and the people you want to send and receive money from.
Bitcoin is more efficient than all competing currencies. This will drive its adoption in the same way computers were adopted, in that computers made people more efficient in competing in the marketplace. A currency has value by it being widely used. Bitcoin is a startup currency with a deflationary bootstrapping economy. Its use spreads by providing the speculator incentive.
Bitcoin is going to be the biggest opportunity for innovation that the world has seen since the industrial revolution. An idea whose time has come.
An action shot goes a long way
Demonstrate how a book works.
Namaste Tower: A Welcoming Gesture Of Green Design | Earth Techling
Looking more like a giant sculpture than a working skyscraper, the Namaste Tower currently under construction in Mumbai, India, is expected to be as green as it is beautiful to behold. The building will also incorporate a renewable energy system to help produce hot water, abundant greenery in the common areas and several passive systems to help reduce energy demands.
(via emergentfutures)
Global E-mail Patterns Reveal “Clash of Civilizations”
technologyreview.comThe global pattern of e-mail communication reflects the cultural fault lines thought to determine future conflict, say computational social scientists.
(Source: futuramb, via emergentfutures)
This article in The Atlantic is from last year, but with the recent news of Bitcoin’s ATM in New Hampshire and the digital currency’s surge against the US Dollar, I’ve become increasingly fascinated by alternative economic infrastructures, and found this prescient piece a good primer to share.
An innovative 3D pen!
Behold the 3Doodler, the world’s first pen that lets you draw 3D sculptures in real time.
(via futuresagency)
I’ve just moved house to a fantastic shabby chic thing called a “terraced maisonette” in the Battersea area on London, hence all the furniture and home ware stuff. We’ll be returning to our regular programming shortly. But “Positive Future” definitely nails the sense of things at the moment…
