theDailyTrotter

Lumitectura from barno on Vimeo.

If you are an engineer: watch this. This is where architecture is going and it excites me.

In light of the Winter Olympics being in the most livable city in North America, I was looking at data about the affordability of major cities in the world. This study was done by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. One of the interesting correlations I pull from this material is that the United States has some of the most affordable housing markets in the Western World. It also seems that the quality of urban life has a positive correlation with the cost of living.

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.