leaps and bounds

Æon Magazine shares an interesting thought on robotics and mobility, pondering whether advances in controlling servos and springs might not lead to changes in human travel, making wheels and roadways obsolete. I personally would very much to don some exoskeleton that would enable me to run and work—or just be seated while a carriage-and-four negotiates the traffic and natural landscape while the roads are reclaimed by Nature. What do you think? Will it be a shock to future generations that humans were allowed to pilot wheeled-vehicles on endless stretches of highways?

urban-outline or shadowboxing

In a piece entitled The Civic Minimum BLDGBlog features the photographic safari of Chris Clarke through a haunting nook of a suburb on the edges of London.

This bleak, mock landscape was commissioned by the Ministry of Defense for paramilitary and police training for urban warfare—and stands strangely deserted outside of exercises. The course, which contains all of the idylls that idealistic city-planners can summon up—with all the traditional necessities and a small town, Main Street/High Street look that is increasingly crowded out by property-management agents—makes me think of those exterior-shots for a sitcom household or the flats of Wild West towns built up by Hollywood, but I cannot image that peopled this training-ground would lose its eerie aura. How effective are such scenarios when zoning and economics no longer favour such models?

two-bit, four-bit

The winning design team for the upcoming series of Norway's paper currency features pixelated reflections on the observe of the natural wonders that appear on the face of kroner. It strikes me that the Nordic countries have gone mostly cashless—including a mechanism to donate electronically to the basket as it is passed down the pews at church—and successfully branding each bill with a bar-code (to prevent counterfeiting and to usher in a form of electronic transaction) accessible to any retailer and financial institution without the associated fear of knowing the chain of possession. I do rather like the designs and have no issue with reducing lag-time, however, being old-fashioned, I like to sequester my allowance and have a few coins left over to plonk into savings myself.

i'm fantastic, made of plastic

Over death threats against the artist, an exhibit entitled Barbie: Plastic Religion to be held in Buenas Ares was called-off. The packaged dolls do not come across to me as a lampoon or necessarily sacrilegious and rather than being aimed as what we hold sacred but rather offers a much more uncomfortable critique of the worshipful, whom can be selective about what their icons, avatars stand for and can pick and choose from their several virtues. The majority of the figures have a Catholic theme, with Joan of Arc and quite a few Marian apparitions—however there is also Buddha Ken and Staci as Kali the Destroyer.

czy wiesz?

Later this month, a monument (EN/DE) will be dedicated in Poland to the collaborative philosophy behind the online lexicon Wikipedia. The sculpture will be unveiled in Słubice on a university campus, and was commissioned after a suggestion by one of the professors. It is fitting that the first tribute to the pervasive and unfettered resource be raised up here, as the city borders Germany, just across the Oder River from Frankfurt, and these two populations are among the most avid and active contributors to Wikipedia in Europe.