Grandma, Dad, and the Fallen Poplar

Taken August 26, 2011 at Balsam Lake, Ontario, Canada.

Pool Photographs

Taken August 9, 2011 at my family home in Mississauga, Ontario Canada

Float Homes on Powell Lake

Oases

http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/2000-year-old-food-forestoasis-feeds-800-farmers-video.html "Geoff Lawton discovers an oasis in the middle of the Sonoran desert in Arizona."

Tuned Mass Damper on Taipei 101

Fold-a-house

River Wall

While playing around on Google Maps recently, I followed the course of a river from its headwaters to its outlet in Hudson's Bay.  I noticed that as I followed it's course it was abruptly cut off by a dam... and it was cut off a half-dozen more times by similar dams.  Dams from the air look funny: they cut off the beautiful fractaline/neuronal shape of the river making it abstract.   Below is a series of images showing various dams in North America and how they cut off the rivers flow (the might canyons after the dam host only a rivulet).  I'm not sure whether this makes me sad to see, or maybe some other emotion that is as yet inarticulate

First 21 Days of the Life of a Bee

via:http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/05/an-extraordinary-glimpse-into-the-first-21-days-of-a-bees-life-in-60-seconds/

Self-driving Convoys

Sweden Runs Out Of Garbage: Only 1% Ends Up In Landfills

"In fact, Sweden has become so good at recycling their waste; the country now has to import 800,000 tons of trash each year from the U.K., Italy, Ireland and Norway to keep their WTE plants up and running."

http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/11/26/sweden-runs-out-of-garbage-only-1-ends-up-in-landfills/

Bob Ballard

Amphibious Excavator

World Record Load -

From: http://gcaptain.com/watch-triple-e-leaves-port-with-world-record-load/ On July 21, 2014, the MV Mary Maersk departed Algeciras, Spain with a world record 17,603 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU), the most TEU’s ever loaded onto a single vessel. MV Mary Mearsk is the third vessel in Maersk Line’s Triple-E class, which have nominal capacity of 18,270 TEU, although port restrictions have prevented the vessels from reaching full capacity. “Algeciras has been preparing for full utilisation of the Triple-E for more than a year,” says Carlos Arias, head of the South Europe Liner Operations Cluster. “This included the upgrading of four existing cranes and the arrival of four new Triple-E cranes.” Also: http://www.citylab.com/work/2014/10/a-complete-guide-to-the-future-of-us-freight-movement/381012/

Convertible Liv

Creative furniture by yookartik

"Lego-style apartment"

Archimedes Sphere

Cabin Disguised as Boulder

Swiss studio Bureau A has concealed a wooden cabin inside an artificial rock and transported it to a remote site in the Swiss Alps.

via: http://www.dezeen.com/2014/12/18/bureau-a-antoine-mountain-hideaway-concrete-boulder-swiss-alps/

Dauphin Manitoba - Basic Income Test 1974-1979

Between 1974 and 1979, residents of a small Manitoba city were selected to be subjects in a project that ensured basic annual incomes for everyone. For five years, monthly checks were delivered to the poorest residents of Dauphin, Manitoba –- no strings attached. 

 Dr. Evelyn Forget is the researcher at University of Manitoba credited for tracking down those 1,800 dusty boxes of Mincome raw data that sat forgotten for 30 years. She first heard about the project in an undergraduate economics class at the University of Toronto in the ‘70s. Mincome checks were still being delivered when her professors praised the experiment as “really important,” saying it was going to “revolutionize” the delivery of social programs. It stuck with her... 

 In 2011, Forget released a paper distilling how Mincome affected people’s health using census data. She found overall hospitalization rates (for accidents, injuries, and mental health diagnoses) dropped in the group who received basic income supplements....

via: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/30/city-eliminated-poverty-mincome_n_6392126.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013

Need to find the 2011 paper... 

HAVOC - Upper Atmospheric Occuptation of Venus

The atmosphere of Venus is an exciting destination for both further scientific study and future human exploration. A lighter-than-air vehicle can carry either a host of instruments and probes, or a habitat and ascent vehicle for a crew of two astronauts to explore Venus for up to a month. The mission requires less time to complete than a crewed Mars mission, and the environment at 50 km is relatively benign, with similar pressure, density, gravity, and radiation protection to the surface of Earth. A recent internal NASA study of a High Altitude Venus Operational Concept (HAVOC) led to the development of an evolutionary program for the exploration of Venus, with focus on the mission architecture and vehicle concept for a 30 day crewed mission into Venus’s atmosphere. Key technical challenges for the mission include performing the aerocapture maneuvers at Venus and Earth, inserting and inflating the airship at Venus, and protecting the solar panels and structure from the sulfuric acid in the atmosphere. With advances in technology and further refinement of the concept, missions to the Venusian atmosphere can expand humanity’s future in space. - See more at: http://sacd.larc.nasa.gov/branches/space-mission-analysis-branch-smab/smab-projects/havoc/#sthash.KBECCg7S.dpuf