This video rules.

The film was made by Charles and Ray Eames, a demo for the Polaroid SX-70.  The camera was a folding SLR with some pretty awesome design going on, it stands to reason that it would take other designers to shoot a good demo of it.  Music is the Cramps, Garbageman.

So I should officially announce that I've started watching TV again. It was a slow process, starting with downloading TV shows that I had heard about and checking them out, then watching the backlog of Heroes episodes my former roommates had put on their DVR, but now the Hurricane and I are kind of scheduling ourselves around which shows we will watch. Sadly was cancelled, which means that there is only one show we've both kept up with that we watch on a regular basis, that being Heroes, but we have started checking out some other shows that have some buzz.

First off, we watched the premiere of Heroes on Monday. Looks like a good start to the second season, no better or worse than I expected, though it's a bit disappointing to see that Tim Kring has fallen victim to the classic comic-book trap, wherein no one ever actually dies as long as they've survived more than one episode. Come on, the brothers should have stayed dead-that's what sacrifice is all about. Other than that, the only complaint is NBC's shitball announcer-I have five hundred clocks in my house and I can read a TV schedule. You don't need to tell me at 8:55 that we're coming to the end of the episode.

Next was Reaper, pilot directed by Kevin Smith, starring some guy who looks like Jake Gyllenhaal and some guy who's clearly doing a Jack Black impersonation for way less money. I was listening to Fresh Air and heard an interview with Kevin Smith and Ray Wise (he plays the devil in Reaper) about the show. Smith said that he was more careful and made a more visually interesting piece largely because he was working with someone else's material (and money.) I find it interesting that someone who has referred to himself as an "incompetent director" before would be willing to take the job. Don't get me wrong, I like some of his movies, but he should really have learned his strengths by now and be playing to those. It's also kind of weird to think that the pilot might not look or feel anything like the rest of the series. I suppose it's always possible, but having a well known indie writer/director involved kind of pokes it in your face.

Tonight was Bionic Woman. I was really looking forward to another good sci-fi show, sadly this is not it. Hurricane was just bored, I felt offended. First major nitpick came about 10-15 minutes in, when Doctor Boyfriend tells his now-bionic girlfriend that she has had "anthracites" injected into her bloodstream. So...he's fixing her up after the car wreck by giving her cancer. Awesome. Soon after that comes the next one-her one stated concern is "what have you done to me?" It takes her at least a few hours of in-show time to ask about her sister who relies on Ms Attentive. Then there are issues with the construction of the show in general. Perhaps it was just the pilot, but they crammed a lot of shit into an hour. This led to amusing moments, like when one of the villains tells another villain, "tell me you love me" and then engages her lip-lock the next moment, leaving no chance for a reply. Was she afraid of hearing him say "no?" Considering the amount of push NBC is giving this, I'm a little shocked that there wasn't better quality control. I guess what the press has been suggesting has some validity: NBC thinks that geeks will watch anything.

It has finally happened: Karl Rove has resigned, singing the old refrain about spending more time with his family. Effective at the end of August, Bush's Brain will be back at the homestead with his loving wife, and talking on the phone to his son, who is in college. What he leaves behind is a Republican party in a shambles as a result of Rove's shortsighted power-grab, and a president with the worst approval rating in history. Rove is seen as being one of the key engineers of our foray into Iraq, as well as the US Attorney scandal, and many of the other missteps of this administration. Like Dick Cheney, he has wielded more power over the president than would seem warranted by his position. Those on the left sometimes saw him as the devil himself, while others are now viewing him as a modern conservative Pyrrhus.

Whatever the case, his mark on the US will take some rubbing to get off. It remains to be seen if his goal of a permanent Republican majority will come to fruition, and if so if he will witness that from a jail cell. In the twilight of the Bush administration, Rove seems like just another rat fleeing a sinking ship.

Density Part II

After several complaints from people that I had called my first post in favor of urban density "Part 1" without shortly posting a part 2, I have decided it might be time to post another entry. I have also been reminded by Hurricane how long it has been since my last post. I have been remiss, I realize. But I might point out that unlike some people, I do not spend the better part of my workday in front of a computer.

 
 

So.

 
 

The next argument comes from something that I have noticed becoming a larger trend recently, namely the recycling of building materials. This has been covered in numerous journals, such as Dwell. While Dwell's primary mission is not necessarily promoting urban density, they do talk quite a bit about green structures, and as my previous posting on density argued, density makes green easier. In the course of recycling building materials, it makes sense to keep as much of the material on-site as possible. In effect, to remodel by recycling. This reduces the amount of transport required, obviously, and has at least in some cases inspired some truly beautiful remodels.

 
 

Next, we have an argument that as yet defies an easy title. Basically it involves a web of infrastructure that high-density development makes more useful and practical. I alluded to this in my first post, here is a little more detail.

 
 

One: public transit. As cities become more sprawling mass transit becomes less practical. I touched on this in my previous density post but it bears a little more discussion. In a city like New York, it is impractical to own a car because it is easy to get around by a combination of subway and bus. In a city like Austin, those without vehicles of their own are restricted to certain neighborhoods that are well serviced by the bus system, or to being homebound. Let's take a closer look at the two forms of public transport that are available in NYNY.

 
 

Trains are attractive for a number of reasons. For one, because they run on a proprietary set of paths, they are easier to schedule. Another is that with minor changes they can run on a completely different source of energy. Especially with systems that run on electricity (see below.)

 
 

Buses work okay by themselves on a small scale, but in larger cities they can be unbelievably useful as a supplement to a rail system. Like trains, because there is a limited fleet of buses, it is possible to change the type of energy they use for a low cost.

 
 

The second thread of the infrastructure that is made more efficient with higher density is electricity. Less mileage of power lines and less substation infrastructure means less overall loss of power due to power lines absorbing electricity. Electricity is a great form of power to use because it is cheap to transport and when you have an existing distribution network, it becomes easy to change the base power source. So, if something cleaner is discovered, it is a relatively simple matter to change what the power plant is running on. Of course, changing from one fuel source to another is still expensive, but it is a lot cheaper to change a power plant than it is to change every car and every central heater in the country.

 
 

The third is roads. More cars on more roads means more maintenance of those roads. With a dense urban development, road maintenance is still a hassle, but it becomes more reasonable to shut down a block or two for a day to resurface because people can walk where they need to go, or get on the public transportation. Sure, if you have the money to own a car, it's a pain in the ass, but you are not stuck in one place. With sprawl, especially with suburbs giving way to exurbs, it is completely conceivable that major road repairs would eliminate the only reasonable route to and from work.

 
 

The fourth infrastructure item is sewage and wastewater. This may be the least obvious but most important. As sewer systems attenuate, there is a greater chance for a catastrophic failure, and just as with roads, the maintenance becomes more and more costly and difficult. There is a second problem here that few people realize, although it is obvious when it is brought up. In sewage and wastewater pipes, small breaks, which do not result in obvious leaks, still allow water to enter. This became an issue during the floods in Houston TX in 2001, when a wastewater system so stretched out it was virtually impossible to maintain properly allowed huge amounts of rainwater to enter the wastewater system and from there caused sewage treatment plants to overflow, making the floodwaters more toxic than they already were.

 
 

Okay, discuss.

In Cars

A strange thought occurred to me this evening while riding with Hurricane and our little tropical depression (who sometimes is more of a squall) back to Ms. H's apartment. I noticed a number of used cars for sale at a repair/inspection place and I began thinking that if one were to watch Antiques Roadshow religiously (and some do,) one would never see an automobile brought up to determine, based on expert advice, what its worth might be.

There are a number of reasons for this, but I think the most salient is that the mass-produced automobile was a (perhaps the)major precursor of the information age. The creation of a piece of machinery that cost around a quarter of what a home did, and was mass-produced in such a way that an individual machine was indistinguishable at a glance from others, necessitated a way to more exactly track the product. This led to the creation of the Vehicle Identification Number, a unique serial number that could be used to identify a vehicle. Each manufacturer kept an index of the VINs for a variety of reasons, primarily to keep track of what options and characteristics a vehicle had. It had a parallel value as an unique identifier in case of theft.

The whole point of a show like Antiques Roadshow is that there is a question as to the paternity (or maternity) of a given object. Mass manufacturing obviates the need for an expert, or the determination of authenticity, by making the product trite. The author of the product is no longer a craftsman, but at best a designer, and usually a corporation. The artistry is gone and in its place is the product. The development of the Universal Product Code (UPC) is the same story writ large over the whole universe of consumer products. One might argue that its incorporation into our lives represents the triumph of the assembly line over the mastery of the craftsman. No longer are gifted individuals rewarded for their ability to create items by hand, they are rewarded only by their ability to design products that do well in an industrial manufacturing setting.

Boinboing pointed to this blog about vampire bats. Fascinating data for all who are zoology nerds.

Whew, it's been a long week. Of course, after several years of not having weekends in the proper sense, I have taken on another duty that completely eliminates my day off. I'm not bitter. At all. It's just that discussing how long a "week" it's been loses all meaning when there is no end to it.

The result of my choice to provide care for the young Mr Q is that I am effectively busy all the time. There is also the result of getting to enjoy watching him grow. It's odd for me to completely recalibrate the apparatus in my head that tells me when to be impressed. I have actually found myself going "holy crap, he put his hand in his mouth!" and then being upset with myself that the camera was not ready to get a picture of this momentous achievement. This morning the Hurricane and myself were both duly amazed by Q's ability to hold his head up from lying on his stomach. I was even more astonished when I realized that-astounding!-he had part of his chest lifted up as well.


In other news, I have begun reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, author of The Botany of Desire. TOD starts out disturbing on the level of Fast Food Nation and then gets scarier and more depressing, until Upton Sinclair seems like a pretty even-handed, low-key writer. And that's just in the first part of the book. I highly recommend it for anyone with a strong stomach and a desire to understand the modern world of food.

So, day 2 of my own daddy day care. I continue to discover new things, like "babies don't like being cold." Things have overall run smoothly, but I am constantly aware of the potential for everything devolving into chaos. I have nothing but respect for the people who somehow manage to do this on their own. If it were not for our ability to shift our schedules and have as much parent time with little Q as possible, I can't imagine what Hurricane and myself would do.

But best not to dwell on the bad that could be, after all things are going well. We're going to try some new stuff this afternoon: grocery shopping! Laundry! Getting out and about in the world! That's right, I am doing my first solo run with baby in tow. So wish me luck, all.