Photo via the New Republic It's a widely held notion that politicians have long been in the pocket of Big Oil. And there's good reason for that perception: oil companies' huge campaign donations, vast lobbying power, and close ties to politicians have ensured that their taxes remain low , that hidden subsidies are around to provide extra funding, and that they receive preferential treatment in US energy policy. But there could be a new, ... View original post here: The Next Big Oil: Big Smart Grid?
So there really isn't anything that deep to this image. It's just a (more or less) life-sized blue whale eye. And on the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society site you can educate yourself/be mesmerized/ waste some time for a while staring at it while the entire life-sized animal scrolls across your browser window. Believe me, it's way cooler than you might think:... Read more from the original source: Ever See a Blue Whale Life-Sized on Your Computer? Now You Can
published December 2, 2009 and has No Comments
Nick Orf, one of the team of students , demonstrates Thermeleon. When I wrote a post entitled Arguments Against White Roofs in Northern Cities are Specious , I was complaining about the roofers who say that in cooler climates, white roofs can mean higher heating bills. It was a controversial issue: dark or light? Now Gizmodo describes how MIT ...
Read more...published November 6, 2009 and has No Comments
Alex at Shedworking is expanding into interior design, with this bookcase that opens up to "create an environment which helps us to concentrate and focus," although it won't do much for noise. Alex calls it "shedworkingesque." Designer Rene Siebum won third in the public voting at the Design Academy Eindhoven during Dutch Design Week for it. ... Read the ...
Read more...published November 2, 2009 and has No Comments
click on image to enlarge As part of the Cities Alive Green Roof Infrastructure Conference in Toronto, there was a student design competition , that Steven Peck of Green Roofs for Healthy Cities described as a challenge to "faculty-led student teams from around the world to develop ways of productively using the walls and roofs of multiple buildings by ...
Read more...published November 2, 2009 and has No Comments
Contributors to Core77 always amaze with their 1 hour design challenges (now bigger and better at 90 minutes!). The latest challenge was to imagine "What will reading look in the future? Will we be using printed books, rectangular electronic devices, embedded technologies? This competition challenges designers to envision a rich future digital reading experience, based on a defined set ...
Read more...published October 23, 2009 and has No Comments
The results are in from the Design It competition, a Google mashup with the Guggenheim where 600 designers used Sketchup to design a shelter, no more that 100 square feet in floor area that provided a space for one person to study and sleep. There was a peoples' choice award where more than 100,000 voted, giving the prize to ...
Read more...published October 22, 2009 and has No Comments
Sometimes it's just impossible to find a gas station. But not if Croatian Architects UPI2M have their way; They propose building vertical farms and biofuel factories on top of existing gas stations, using algae and bamboo grown on top to fuel up cars below. And, you can't miss them! ... Read the full story on TreeHugger View post: BioOctanic Tower: ...
Read more...published October 22, 2009 and has No Comments
It has taken me a couple of days to put together my thoughts about the winner of the Chain of Eco-Homes competition, the Meadowlark House by Steven Learner Studio. The judging process was fascinating, with a sophisticated video conferencing system tying all the jurors together from Greensburg to San Francisco to Toronto. This wasn't just a design competition, they ...
Read more...published October 12, 2009 and has No Comments
Image via myuibe We've seen our share of e-reader news the past few days , showing that the trend towards digitizing books isn't going anywhere - in fact, it's on the uptake. But we book lovers have a hard time letting go of actual paper pages and embracing devices that put thousands of paper books into one small, portable ...
Read more...published October 8, 2009 and has No Comments
Images NL Architects The Port of Rotterdam ran a competition for the design of a 70 meter (230 feet) high tower for a radar and observation platform. Designboom shows NL Architects ' proposal to build it out of shipping containers, an appropriate choice for one of the world's busiest container ports. ... Read the full story on TreeHugger See ...
Read more...published October 6, 2009 and has No Comments
Tiago Barros and Joau Paulo Fernandes via Designboom Usually when pedestrians and cyclists are separated from cars at highways, it is the pedestrians who have to climb stairs and walk over the highway; cars get priority. So they often run across and get killed. Designboom quotes Portuguese architects Tiago Barros and Joau Paulo Fernandes, who thought "why change the ...
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A Finnish designer has made a working surfboard from broken skateboards. Read the original here: Hollow Surfboard Is Made from Broken Skateboards
How to grow tastier tomatoes and how to make food taste sweeter without sugar: just two amazing discoveries from a study of the chemical interactions underlying tomato flavor preferences Read the rest here: The Secrets of Tasty Tomatoes Discovered - Can ...
