Vertical Farming

The Vertical Farm Project, led by Dr. Dickson Despommier of Columbia University, aims to deal with the problem of feeding the growing world population. The idea is to build vertical indoor farming structures within urban centers.

The Vertical Farm must be efficient (cheap to construct and safe to operate). Vertical farms, many stories high, will be situated in the heart of the world's urban centers. If successfully implemented, they offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (year-round crop production), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming.

This second rendering looks like an eco-friendly data center.

I am deeply interested in projects that make an effort to take waste out, the least power needed for the most beneficial outcome, that way things work more efficiently. This concept of simplicity in design can apply to many different things, Gentoo Linux (optimized and customized flavor of linux), fixed gear bicycles (less parts, less weight), or farming. We must learn to farm efficiently and locally because "by the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth's population will reside in urban centers."

Self watering containers remind me conceptually of The Vertical Farm. The self watering container takes out the effort of that goes into the watering and maintaing of a garden, and work well for urban or apartment living because they are compact and self-contained.

We must have a solution for the future and the Vertical Farm Project has many good ideas. And as they point out, "we cannot go to the moon, Mars, or beyond without first learning to farm indoors on earth."

Thu, Oct 9, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: Vertical Farming

Happy International Polar Day

Today is a very special day, a day to celebrate People. I almost missed this celebration, but SpaceCollective user LED gave me a heads up. I launched a virtual balloon to show my participation. International Polar Day is a part of a bigger campaign lasting all of 2008, International Polar Year (IPY). IPY aims to focus many scientific efforts on polar regions to study the effects of climate change on Atmosphere, Ice, Land, Oceans, People, and Space.

Join us around September 24th in learning more about People and the Polar Regions. Using the sidebar on the left of these pages you can find many ways to get involved including having local and global discussions, tuning in to radio broadcast from Arctic Canada, and launching a virtual balloon.

Wed, Sep 24, 2008  Permanent link

My repurposing of NASA

I was working on my portfolio recently and I came across this project that I made for a graphic design class. The requirements for the project was to conceptually redesign an ad campaign. I decided to prepose a more esoteric view of NASA. The quotes are some of my favorites from Arthur C. Clarke, Carl Sagan, and Buckminster Fuller.

Click through to see the whole series (10 images).

Wed, Aug 20, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: NASA, Arthur C. Clarke, Carl Sagan, Buckminster Fuller

The Planetary Computer

Indeed, a hyperlink is much like a synapse in the brain. Both work by making associations between nodes. Each unit of thinking in the brain — an idea, for example — grows by gaining links to other thoughts. The greater the number of synapses connecting to an idea, the stronger it becomes. Similarly, the more heavily linked a Web node is, the greater its value to the Machine. Moreover, the number of hyperlinks in the World Wide Web is approaching that of synapses in the human brain. But the Machine contains a million times more transistors than you have neurons in your head. And, unlike your brain, it's growing at a rate that outpaces Moore's law. By 2040, the planetary computer will attain as much processing power as all 7 billion human brains on Earth.
— Infoporn: Tap Into the 12-Million-Teraflop Handheld Megacomputer

Mon, Jun 23, 2008  Permanent link

John Whitney "Catalog" 1961

Mon, Jun 23, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: John Whitney

Flooded London by Squint/Opera

Film and media studio Squint/Opera has created a series of images depicting imaginary scenes in London in 2090, when rising sea levels have inundated the city.
— Flooded London by Squint/Opera

Tue, Jun 17, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: Global Warming, London, Flooded

Lilypad, a floating ecopolis for climate refugees

It is a true amphibian half aquatic and half terrestrial city, able to accommodate 50,000 inhabitants and inviting the biodiversity to develop its fauna and flora around a central lagoon of soft water collecting and purifying the rain waters.
— Lilypad

Mon, Jun 9, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: Lilypad, Vincent Callebaut Architecte, Global Warming

I read this book: The Survivors
Project: The Total Library

I just finished a book that I must reccomend. It is called The Survivors. I feel so down since I finished this book. It is the essence of everything I love about books lately. Adventure, suspense...

I bought The Survivors along with Rendezvous with Rama, another gem from Counterpoint. I mean, it was on the vintage paperback shelf. I paid $1 for this book. I bought it solely on the cover. Perhaps my greatest find at a used bookstore.

I am deeply obsessed with polar regions for the same reason I'm obsessed with the ocean and outer space. It's the unknown, it cannot be contained. We cannot really grasp it, even with our thoughts. It is the sublime. It is beautiful and bleak.

Polar regions have incredible occurrences that only happen at the poles. Auroras? High concentration of meteorites? Yeah! Talk about feeling small. The thought of it all overwhelms me.

The Survivors follows the story of Duncan Craig, who left his job in London in search of something new. He travels to South Africa where he thinks he will be able to find work. The work he finds is far different than he imagines. He becomes a skipper of a catcher in a whaling fleet. The circumstances in which he becomes employed are sketchy. There is a lot of unrest in the fleet and speculation of murder and wrong doing. There is a rush to get out into the Atlantic and sort out all the trouble.

As the story begins to become monotonous, Craig goes into the floes in rescue of another catcher whose hull was cracked from the ice. This simple rescue escalates and many ships go down, including the large factory ship The Southern Cross. With over 500 men on the ice, they must figure out how to survive without freezing to death or being crushed by the icebergs moving through the floes. Whoa! You begin to get an idea of what it would be like to be stranded on the ice, how small we are in the scheme of things, how little control we actually have.

And this is the real deal. While researching this post I came across this blurb about the author: "Hammond Innes was a writer who made a point of researching the material for his adventures in great depth. If he was writing about oil-rigs then he spent time on an oil-rig; if about the Antarctic then he spent time in the frozen South."1 Hammond Innes had personal contact with the forces of the Antarctic. He witnessed the magnitude of the ice. I can't imagine anything more perfect. This book is "a rousing adventure yarn of derring-do on the Antarctic" written by an author who experienced it first hand.

1 Asto

Fri, Apr 11, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: Antarctic, Bland, Disaster Camp, Duncan Craig, Hammond Innes, Nordahl, Southern Cross, The Survivors, Whaling
Sent to project: The Total Library

I read this book: Rendezvous with Rama
Project: The Total Library

While looking for our book club books at Counterpoint I came across Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke for $3. I really like this guy, Arthur C. Clarke. This is the third (fourth?) book I've read that he has written. Okay, the others were 2001: A Space Odyssey (obviously) and Islands in the Sky. I watched the film adaptation of 2010, but that doesn't count. Also, the film wasn't that good. Though it was made 16 years after 2001 the special effects are far more primitive. But that's not the point. I read Rendezvous with Rama and it was very good. I liked it very much. I read it in (essentially) two sittings. You should really read it.



This book has it all, all the elements. It's really the perfect representation for its genre. It has adventure (Wild at Heart hahahah), it has uncertainty, it has the unknown. That's one thing I really like about Arthur C. Clarke. It is a theme in all his works I've read. The uncertainty, the unknown. No matter how advanced and futuristic society becomes, we never know more than our Solar System firsthand. Our Solar System is quite large, and colonization of planets happens, but we still are always curious. There is always the infinite universe. It is pretty darn overwhelming.



To explain the plot briefly, Rama is a 31 mile long spacecraft. It has been traveling for perhaps millions of years. The closest it has been to any star was more than 200,000 years ago. It is an enigma. It is unknown. As it is traveling through our Solar System the crew of the Endeavour has 3 weeks to explore it. That process represents the core of this book. There are many surprises. If you read this book, keep in mind that the Ramans do everything in threes.

Sat, Mar 15, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: science fiction, Arthur C. Clarke, Rama, Rendezvous with Rama
Sent to project: The Total Library

CONVERSION EMERGENCE//CONVERGENT IMMERSION

CONVERSION EMERGENCE//CONVERGENT IMMERSION from Colin Leipelt on Vimeo.

Mon, Mar 10, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: drone