theDailyTrotter

The Winter Olympics are coming, but there isn’t any snow! And it looks like one man has found a new winter hobby.

Smart Electricity Meter

Greensource Article on Smart Grid Technology

In the midst of all of the discussion about restarting the economy and what the next steps are, there is a major lack of publicity on specific technologies that are revolutionizing our systems. For example: in Bakersfield, a smart grid for meter reading was invested in. As a result, data is transmitted from each house to a terminal that transmits data to the center. Now residents can monitor their usage through the web and usage data is now more readily available to optimize the usage of electricity.

This is just one example of smart grid technology, the next step is upgrade our outlets to only use energy when it is needed, eg: cell phone chargers. Chargers, if left plugged into the wall have a constant usage of electricity. The result is chargers use more electricity when the cell phone is not plugged than when it actually charging the device. Take this instance and multiply that by 4.6 million cell phones in the world and that amounts to a serious waste of electricity.

This is the Tesla Coil – Wireless Electricity invented in the 19th century (Glad we didnt go with this model?)

Denny’s takes the cake. Screaming chickens: doesn’t get any more random than that!

night lights from thesystemis on Vimeo.

Night Lights by YesYesNo.

I am thankful that Jon Stewart has taken hard stances on real issues. While my moral values may not be the same, Jon has been a strong force in apoliticizing our system. After watching that clip, I then watched O’Reilly’s response which (true statement) made me throw up a little in my mouth.

Pacific Environment’s Yellow Treehouse in New Zealand captures my boyhood dream of an amazing treehouse. This treehouse is amazing on so many levels, first, the Yellow Treehouse has been booked since it opened. Second, it captures what so many people aspired for themselves as a kid, from the little entrepreneurs to even the most segregated population groups like Star Wars fans. Third, it is eco-friendly and definitely grass roots.

Business model: iconic/novelty experience, taps into childhood dreams, eco friendly, inexpensive construction cost, etc. Seems like an intelligent move to me.

I am all for comfort, but at times I do like strong conceptual ideas that do not necessarily make for the most comfortable design. Take Ivo Otasevic’s aCHAIR for example:

In light of my last post, I think that it is far too soon to make a judgement on policies that Obama has implemented. However, I was not pleased wit his state of the union address. First off, to that point, Obama has maintained a consistent stance on truth, and relied heavily on tact to navigate difficult subjects like job creation, reform and healthcare. The state of union address was rampant with blatant lies and ridiculous pandering to the right. For the first year of his term, it was refreshing to see a president who wasn’t focused on playing a political game by espousing a constant stream of lies to mobilize an entire fleet of radical followers entrapped by their desires to abide by non-existent ideals (in the political realm). Obama stood for change, and his first year was exactly that, and what change was that? Obama has strove to make investments in places that have long term returns, not returns produced through creative accounting. Our media culture is driven be the necessity of immediate returns, otherwise they might not have anything to talk about. Thus we find Obama, having to choose between the salvaging of his political career or the pursuance of a altruistic goal.

Now, from what I know about Obama, before his campaign he was a strong centrist (slightly to the left), and thanks to clever punditry and Glenn Beck we have seen his political appearance veer to the left. Could his move to the right be a calculated move he had planned on since the beginning (not just a reassessment)? Consider this, he knew that he would have a democratic congress for the first part of his term. So he plays left to get a significant amount of left agendas addressed or at least pursued. The next chapter he pushes for the center to maintain his appeal as he looses his strong majority in congress.

With all that said, it is still disconcerting that he is pushing right on a platform of statements that are untrue. He has been a better president than that, I expect more.

Perhaps this needs to be examined again,

The last few months people have started to become very vocal about how Obama hasn’t done anything for United States. Sure enough, most people are basing their opinions (which are more like media guided misnomers) on his healthcare reform. Thanks Media, for holding Obama accountable for CONGRESS’ job! Second, we are only a year into his presidency, which means that the majority of the policies in place (thanks to bureaucracy) are from the predecessor’s term. If there is any blame to go around, it doesn’t go to Obama. With that said, in a year or two I will start to more critically assess whether or not Obama was the best candidate or just simply the better candidate (because who knows what would happen if McCain died and Palin took over, Just to resign). It is about time someone recognizes that President Obama had an accurate assessment from a centrist source. Check out the Brookings Institute’s Assessment!
Article by Brookings Institute

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

Thanks to the Architecture blog from MyNinjaPlease.com, I ran across this video. First off, make sure to watch it in HD Fullscreen. At first, I thought this video was a combination of CG and real footage, then I read the caption….the ENTIRE piece was created by CG. AMAZING, not only is the rigging almost entirely perfect, but the textures are photo-realistic. Alex Roman, good job.