cross-winds

Winner of the UK James Dyson Award, which recognises excellence in innovative designs and engineering, the O-Wind (o for omnidirectional) Turbine captures any random breeze or gale from all vectors and could prove especially revolutionary in dense urban environments where traditional windmills could not go.  Small enough to be used by individual apartment dwellers dangling them outside on their balconies, the prototype taps into a power source that previously went unharvested. See a video demonstration and learn more about the awards competition at Dezeen at the link above.

calving

According to Slashdot, Dubai is exploring the possibility of towing an Antarctic iceberg to the rapidly expanding desert megacity to supply its populace with fresh water. What do you think about that?
I don’t know what the environmental consequences are to nibbling at the margins of the last apolitical refuges of the Earth but it doesn’t strike as a particularly good, far-sighted idea. An engineering firm is in the process of selecting an appropriate candidate—somewhere in the vicinity of a hundred million tonnes—and is working out the logistics, though it’s unclear about the finer points of storage or sale to the government.

the truth is out there

Rather than the usual under construction signs begging off any inconvenience caused, the authorities at Denver International are instead embracing the lore that’s been built up since its opening in 1995 while major renovations are undertaken at the airport’s Jeppesen Terminal.
Conspiracy theories abound and the airport expressed a willingness to parody itself, including its apocalyptic murals, “Templar” marking, coded Masonic words printed on the carpet (which are questionable transliterations of Navajo topographical terms), and a purported network of subterranean passageways that connect world leaders with aliens lodged at the relatively nearby military installation colloquially known as Area 51. See more of the publicity boards at the link above.

isobar

Thanks to a tip from the always excellent Everlasting Blört, we’re treated to a fun and hopefully expanding project made by Tim Holman and Claudio Guglieri. Called the Pattern Library, one is invited to scroll through bolts of repeating geometries of tiles, meanders, waves, tiles, rotations and reflections with more information about the designers of each motif available as well as the option to download the wallpaper as a template. Give it a spin yourself to appreciate the variety of designs.

ausländische militärstandorte

Though less than a tenth of US troop presence remains from levels around the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and stationing the American military has been fraught for both host and sending nations at times, the army’s announcement to add fifteen hundred troops to the roughly thirty thousand currently in Germany is a far more welcome alternative to what the Commander-in-Chief’s druthers—threatening to remove all troops from Germany if the country failed to pay its membership dues. America’s footprint got significant smaller in Europe in 2012 with the closure of several outposts and the announced re-basing of the headquarters in Heidelberg but this announcement, which will deploy soldiers to Ansbach, Grafenwöhr, Hohenfels and Baumholder in 2020 may signal a re-strengthening of a presence and partnership that is welcome by many.