Mirrored Thoughts

from the BLDGBLOG (Architectural Conjecture, Urban Speculation, and Landscape Futures) — soon to be available: BLDGBLOG: The Book!
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Great streets, campuses, and pedestrian nostalgia
bldgblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/great-streets-campuses-and-pedestrian.html

1) A "street" is not simply space devoted to automobiles. It's a place of movement, outdoors, that connects different destinations.
2) Cities could be designed to look like college campuses, full of trees and paths and benches and interchangeable varieties of long walks between different locations – whether those locations are churches, bookstores, police stations, football stadiums, private homes, or hash bars.
3) The reason you need a car is because you're surrounded by highways and parking lots – it's not the other way around. City planners need to realize this.

Double Agent: tinyurl.com/2x5npb

Dreaming …

Tailor-Made Travel
Dump the generic guidebook and get a key to the city
—By Angie Vo, Venus Zine
Utne Reader May / June 2007 Issue
www.utne.com/ issues/ 2007_141/ promo/ 12553-1.html

Don't you hate spending half your vacation in a new city poring over guidebooks, trying to figure out whether this art gallery or that club is worth visiting or is just a tourist trap? If you wish you could feel like a local wherever you travel, Miss Information (www.miss-info.net) has just the remedy. Partners Alexis Owens and Colleen Cavanaugh Anthony create custom guidebooks with all the crucial tips for your trip.

Although they're pretty and palm-sized, the hand-bound books pack tons of useful information on events and destinations for your trip. Each guidebook is personalized with listings based on your interests and accompanied by photos and other thoughtful extras, such as a library card bearing your name.

Miss Information has profiled destinations ranging from Los Angeles to Jaipur, India, for clients who include fashion-shoot teams, wedding parties, and individuals. The price of a guidebook differs with each project and is based on the amount of time spent doing research and the number of books ordered. Owens and Cavanaugh Anthony keep detailed files on popular destinations and can put together a guidebook in a matter of days.

[From Venus Zine (Winter 2006) www.venuszine.com ]

Approaching Asimov's light sculpture from The Naked Sun (sequel to The Caves of Steel): Philip's 'Drag and Draw' — www.pixelsumo.com/post/drag-draw

Saturday Night Fireworks; Sydney, Autumn, 2007

Don't know why they're doing it, but these last two Saturday nights, around 10pm, there's been a fairly big burst of fireworks, it looks like between the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House.
Tonight, as soon as I heard them I threw on outdoor clothing, grabbed my trusty Canon A80 and headed for the closest vantage. This is the result, run through iMovie to join two parts, and with title added. I'm interested to see if there's any noticeable difference in quality from the raw footage, also uploaded.

No idea why they're doing this, but it's nice to watch from my nearby salient.

One Budget Rumination

Thinking & listening to discussion after the Federal Budget speech for 2007, I came up with a slightly new slant to the ones that I've had before on earlier budgets:

This government is like an abusive partner or parent. After beating &/or abuse &/or deprivation — all said to be 'for your own good', or because 'you made me do it' — come the gifts and attention and 'I love you, you know that'.

'Super' chocolate; slogans; Hazards of aeroplane towing

I'm not sure if this story is good news for chocophiles or bad. Actually, some of the work they're doing sounds like it could be quite useful in more general spin-offs.

Super chocolate being developed for army
"Scientists from the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) at Scottsdale in Tasmania are working on a new ... vitamin-packed dark chocolate that won't melt in the heat of battle and will last for years (AAP)"
au.news.yahoo.com/ 070504/ 2/ 13cp1.html

I also note that the Cadbury chocolate factory 'betweeen the mountains and the sea' has for long been a tourist attraction in Tasmania.

T-shirts & bumper stickers that actually say funny things
T-Shirt catalogue: www.instantattitudes.com/shirts.html
Bumper stickers: http://www.instantattitudes.com/lists.html (subdivided into subject sections)
The Complete List, Everything, The Whole Enchilada, Too Bloody Many Stickers: http://www.instantattitudes.com/complete.html

Includes "If all the world's a stage, I want better lighting!"
http://www.instantattitudes.com/gifs/bs322.gif

Totally unrelated, this may amuse news.bbc.co.uk/ 2/ hi/ south_asia/ 6620461.stm Boeing 737 stuck in city road (in Chembur, Mumbai)

The decommissioned aircraft was being driven through the city at the weekend when the driver got lost and then abandoned the plane.
It appears that after taking a wrong turn, the driver found himself facing a flyover that was too low for him to take the plane under.
The driver has not been seen since and no-one is assuming responsibility for the 737...