Mar 28, 2007

Duchamp discrimination


Evidently they've only had trouble with very short people smoking...

There was a no smoking sign in the handicapped stall, too, but not in the other one.

Mar 25, 2007

Little orange houses for you and me

This isn't really new, but I hadn't seen this explanation from the perpetrators/artists/movers-and-shakers before, and I liked it.

You see, Detroit is FILLED with abandoned houses that the city doesn't have either the time, money, or concern to do anything about. Filled. Some are squatted in, some house crack dealers, some have trees growing through their roofs, some are burned out. They slump and persist through stifling heat and shattering cold either being ignored, or offending, or just causing heads to shake in wonder.

So some people grabbed some Disney-certified Tiggerific Orange paint, and started painting a few of them in high-visibility areas, like next to freeways. Surprise, surprise, the city tore them down. From the letter sent to The Detroiter:
From one perspective, our actions have created a direct cause and effect relationship with the city. As in, if we paint a house orange, the city will demolish it. In this relationship, where do the city's motivations lie? Do they want to stop drawing attention to these houses? Are the workers simply confused and think this is the city's new mark for demolition? Or is this a genuine response to beautify the city?
It could be coincidence or it could be new awareness of a particular house fostering honest intentions in someone in the City bureacracy. However, the same thing happened twice to houses that had been absorbed by Tyree Guyton's massive art installation a few years back. Given that pattern and the stultifying pace with which the city tackles all its problems, I'm guessing they just can't stand to have anyone paint a big smiley face on their failure.

Mar 19, 2007

Coming up, wild guesses and prognostication

Last night just before turning off the TV the leader for the 11 pm news came on, showing a minivan skidding off a freeway onto the shoulder, then wildly swinging back across traffic. This was followed by a small car doing a similar careen in heavy snow. The tagline at the bottom of the screen was 'Freezing Rain' though I wasn't aware of any in the area. The newscaster's voiceover: "The roads may not be this bad, but we'll see what's in store for your morning commute..."

Cut to scene from 'The Land Before Time.' 'Could dinosaurs lower your taxes? Stay tuned for the Leadbusters' hot money tips!'

Mar 15, 2007

McDonough

Over the last couple of days I've been reading this interview with William McDonough at work. He's an architect lauded by the environmental community for his work which can best be summed up by the phrase 'cradle to cradle,' meaning producing something with the expectation that it will be remade or turned into something else instead of thrown away at the end of its useful cycle. Very good read touching on wide-ranging impending issues.

Plastic Love

The latest installment to the carporn list isn't electric or hybrid (it's a diesel Hyundai, for chrissakes), but having a body made of 85% PET (polyethylene terephthalate, the stuff of plastic pop bottles is 'upcycled' to make it) makes it very light and could remove huge amounts of otherwise one-time-use plastic from the waste stream. Combine that with a hybrid engine and you'd have an even better QarmaQ (is that Car-Mac? Care-Make? Karma-Q?). Another feature is the use of molded resins and Lexan films to replace the need for paint, the most polluting part of the manufacturing process.



The kicker for me is this: the body is made with two resins developed through GE's impressive ecomagination effort. Couldn't an American car company have leveraged this kind of thinking to partner with GE? American companies working together to address fuel efficiency and use less oil in making the plastic, etc. - they could have an eagle in the commercial and everything.

Well it turns out they have. GM's Volt concept car, I learned from the GE site, also uses Xenoy IQ, one of the resins in the QarmaQ, in the hood and doors. As its name implies, it can also be electric (and integrates a modular engine design - see the link), so in that case could be even hotter than the Hyundai (using my unquantified and unpublished carporn meter). Add to that its name's pronouncability and we've got a contender. However, limited use of the plastics (it's a concept car, boys, go crazy) and a positively staid design mean that the QarmaQ still nudges it aside in concept heaven. Good start, though, Chevy - way to keep up with Hyundai.

Mar 9, 2007

LMFAO

From indexed:

As if being featured on bad juju wasn't enough, indexed's creator just got a book deal, too. Well-deserved, given her prolific and consistently funny and poignant work.

Mar 5, 2007

office chatter

A coworker stopped by my cube to ask if I'd heard the latest from Ann Coulter regarding John Edwards. I hadn't, but assured him that anything that falls out of her mouth can safely be ignored for the inanity that it is.

Undaunted, he summarized that she'd only avoided calling him a fag because 'if you use that word you have to go into therapy.' I rolled my eyes, but he followed with, "Just think of how offensive that would be for all the gay men out there to be compared to a trial lawyer. No wonder they don't like her!"

They have arrived

So I've been singing the praises of alternative fuel vehicles (as in electric/hydrogen/hybrids, not as in E85), but so far they've all been gorgeous sports cars presently WAY beyond the buying power of most of the public. Phoenix Motorcars' designs won't be more affordable any time in the immediate future, but I bet they will be more widely received once they are.

photo courtesy of Phoenix Motorcars' website
The main issue regarding fuel-efficiency remains - just because you're driving an electric SUV doesn't mean that you're not still carrying around a lot of extra useless weight (a la the 'one person in a Ford Expedition' routine), but I bet Phoenix realizes it's in their best interests to make trucks and SUVs as light as they safely can, and I bet they will. It will be interesting if they grow to the point that they can take on the Big 3's gasoline fleets.