This is what we’re going to get RJay for his birthday
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(CNN) — A floating city off the coast of San Francisco may sound like science fiction, but it could be reality in the not-too-distant future.
The Seasteading Institute already has drawn up plans for the construction of a homestead on the Pacific Ocean.
One project engineer described the prototype as similar to a cruise ship, but from a distance the cities might look like oil-drilling platforms.
According to the plans, the floating cities would not only look different from their land-based counterparts, but they might operate differently, too.
Patri Friedman, a former Google engineer who now works for the Seasteading Institute, said floating cities are the perfect places to experiment with new forms of government.
Some of the new political ideas the group is tossing around include legalizing marijuana and making intellectual property communal — so that everyone would take ownership in art produced on the city at sea.
“The idea isn’t just about getting away from rules or getting rid of rules. It’s about a system that encourages experimentation with different political systems,” he said.
Friedman said the floating city may be built in modular pieces so that city blocks and neighborhoods can be recombined to create new urban layouts.
The idea of building cities on the sea is not new, he said, but the Seasteading Institute has come closer to realizing the goal than others.
“A lot of people over the past hundred plus years have had this idea and even specifically building cities on the ocean to try out new forms of government,” he said. “But they’ve pretty much been totally imagined and if they did try, they totally failed.”
There are several unknowns about future attempts to create floating cities, said Christian Cermelli, an engineer and architect with Marine Innovation and Technology, based in San Francisco.
Cermelli, who is part of a team of designers creating a blueprint for the first seastead, said it’s unclear if construction is possible — or what it would cost.
Still, a prototype for the idea may be finished in as little as three years, he said.
Friedman said seasteads are loosely based on oil rigs, but with important modifications.
“We care more about sunlight and open space, so the specifications are different,” he said. “Also, oil platforms are fixed in place. We think it’s important to have more modular cities. So you would build a city out of buildings that can actually be separated and rearranged.”
Cermelli said the ocean cities may use technology from suspension bridges “to expand the space at sea and basically get a roomier platform.”
Friedman says the idea of seasteading has met a range of reactions.
“Some people think we’re crazy. A lot of people think we’re crazy,” he said. “Some people think terrible things could happen, others think it would be great.”
About 600 people have joined the Seasteading Institute.
Some of them, like Gayle Young, say the idea is exciting partly because it’s so different.
“I love the idea because it’s audacious. It’s big,” she said. “It’s about pushing frontiers.”
Cubeecraft (pronounced “kyoob-ee”) papercraft toys are FREE to download.
Each toy features interlocking tabs for construction – eliminating the need for tape, glue or other messy adhesives. To download click on the model you would like then save the template image.
Each toy is designed to be printed on a standard piece of 8 1/2 X 11 A4 letter paper.
Simply print, cut and fold your model into a cute and fun paper toy.
You gotta love the visions of the future. This is a very inspirational video by Microsoft. I’ll be 41, Miya will be 19, and Lucas will be 10!
This video was unveiled at Wharton Business Technology Conference on Febuary 29th. Microsoft’s Business Division president Stephen Elop unveiled the latest production from Microsoft Office Labs called “2019″, starring stock photo men, women and children playing with the next-generation of communication, collaboration and production technologies.
After realizing that yellow sticky note “to do” lists were consuming his life, animation filmmaker Jeff Chiba Stearns decided to visually self-reflect on his filmmaking journey by animating on the same sticky notes that caused him to ignore major world events for the last nine years. Animation meditation is blended with image, text, and an original musical score by Genevieve Vincent through the creation of a classically animated experimental film that was drawn straight ahead with only a black ink pen on over 2300 yellow sticky notes.
http://www.boyofblue.com/cameras/yama.html#anchor
This “steam-punk” artist creates pinhole cameras using skulls. The workmanship is beautiful, and rather nightmarish. So are the photographs!
YouTube is the power of user generated videos online. The users maketh and the users taketh.
Vixey.net is a free utility that will allow you to download the video or audio from any YouTube video to your computer. Its an online video conversion service.
The Vixey application can be downloaded to your computer, but you can also use the website to download the videos by entering the url of the YouTube video… yes, its that easy.
Check out this link: http://www.simonhoegsberg.com/. The first panoramic slide show is amazing and tells a great story. Shout out to Nigel Storey for sending this my way.
Njoy :)