From treehugger.com, via TheMammal’s photostream.

Via core77.com.

San Bernadino was hit hard by the economic slump and subprime mortgage fiasco, so many of its properties have been left vacant. This gave the skating community the chance to mark their turf on an abundance of abandoned swimming pools – echoing the era when Alba and others took their hardcore style to the pools following the 1970s drought in Southern California.

The invitation to paint ‘Ridiculous’ was put out by MTV, but if that makes this sound more commercial than it perhaps should, remember that the guys who found it could, in theory, have been arrested for this stunt. And look no further than D*Face’s skull designs, hundreds of which litter the pool basin, to see that this is a graphic artist doing what comes naturally to him – and an artist who loves skating.

Link, photo and video via environmentalgraffiti.com.

Via ~EvidencE~’s photostream.

no speed limits in Beleize City, so speed bumps are placed at strategic locations to help keep things under control. no word who they got to model for the sign.

From *Watcher*’s photostream.

Via rabbitz_man’s photostream.

From suspiciousminds’ photostream, who went through a trial to get the photos:

This unknown power plant had been visited in the past by some of the old explorers, dating back to 2005 and 2006. At that time it was rather easy to access the plant, but very few actually risked it. The decayed part situated just next to the active part made it a very though one…

The year 2007. Chances are you’ve never heard of Electro Magnetic Pulse, but the boys in blue had. A 24/7 security patrol was put on site, with the aid of a handful of live camera’s. There’s even a camera on top of the building, just in case some lunatic parachutes his way up there. The complete area was fenced with razor wire top to bottom and the occasional landmine was put in place. Ok, kiddin’ about that landmine.

Summer of 2008. Everyone who tried that place over the past two years got caught by security. I don’t know what we were on to, but in some crazy mood we decided to give this one a go.

Click through the photo link for the rest of the story….

Via EXurban’s photostream.

We kid you not. According to its online retailer, the wallet is woven from over 20,000 super-fine strands of stainless steel which “protects your ID like armour plate”.

The idea is sound, in principle. The stitching methodology reminded us of a Faraday cage – an enclosure designed to block out external electric fields.

The wallet promises to completely shield its contents from today’s hi-tech pickpockets, while also being stronger than leather.

Speaking of contents, the wallet can hold six cards, has two internal slots and a billfold – that’s a fiver folding flap to our British readers.

Via reghardware.co.uk.

Designed by Maartje Santbergen, the rug is a persons’ woven paper trail. Unraveling pieces of the rug gives the reader more information about the person that died.

Link and photos via mocoloco.com.

From NewScientist.com:

COULD your cellphone learn to predict what you are going to do before you’ve even started doing it?

Communications engineer Arjen Peddemors thinks so, and along with colleagues at the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands he has devised a system that learns users’ behaviour patterns to provide them with an enhanced cellphone service. It could, for example, prevent the phone starting large downloads such as music tracks or podcasts when your behaviour suggests you are about to go out of network range.

Such prediction has become possible because smartphones like the Nokia N97 and Apple iPhone contain accelerometers that sense motion. They are normally used to reorient images when the screen is flipped from vertical to horizontal, or by software that responds to a shake of the phone. But Peddemors realised that they also generate a data stream that reflects every move the phone’s owner makes.

Routine events such as going to work are likely always to involve similar sequences of actions: locking the front door, opening the garage, getting in the car, for instance. The Delft system uses telltale sequences and timings like this to create an electronic signature of particular events.

A neural network software app running on the phone is then trained to predict what happens next and act accordingly. So if your regular drive to work takes you through a particular phone cell, the “going to work” signature could trigger the software to negotiate with the cellphone network to ensure that the cell will have the 3G capacity to maintain your streaming music channel as you drive through it.

Featured on here a few months ago, a few of her prints are now available for purchase via the Fuse Works online gallery.

See also:

• Imaginary Suburb

Zebra Imaging changes the way people can look at an architectural model:

Via core77.com.

Vinyl decals for your outlets, created by Hu2Design. Link via mocoloco.com.

Tech Crunch has all the gory details, but this video gives you the gist – the heavyweight that Google now is just entered the Augmented Reality world, with an Android only (for now) application, Google Goggles:

Meanwhile, iPhone owners don’t despair. You get to play with the other part of the complete-AR-experience tool-kit; voice recognition. Dragon Dictation, regarded as the best PC-based voice-recogition software is now available on the iPhone. If that’s not enough, you can see what your friend’s see, with Knocking.

Gadgets giving us superpowers, we got ‘em.

The above picture is from Ariana Osborne’s blog, where she lays down some solid ranting regarding the “opposing” disciplines of Art and Science.

I really wasn’t sure what I wanted for Christmas until now.  In fact, this is just the sort of system a twenty-first century Santa needs.

From WIRED’s Danger Room:

…described as a modular upgrade for parachute systems for use in “high-altitude, high-opening” jump missions, typically carried out by Special Forces. This 6-foot wing gives a glide ratio of 5:1, which means that a drop from 30,000 feet will allow you to glide about 30 miles. The makers estimate that this would take around 15 minutes, giving an average speed of about 60 miles an hour.

“All equipment is hidden in a lifting body optimized for stealth, the radar-signature is extremely low,” says the Gryphon data sheet (PDF). “Detection of incoming Gryphon soldiers by airborne or ground radar will be extremely difficult.”

Gryphon has a guidance system and heads-up display navigation. Best of all, the company are looking at an option for bolting on small engines similar to those used in Yves Rossy’s setup. These will increase the range to more than 60 miles, but will also make it possible to cover long distances from low altitude so that the entire mission can be more stealthy.

Yes, so while Yvs Rossy (aka Fusion Man) won’t sell to the military, other companies are happy to.

thanks to my buddy Tone for the tip-off!

Previously:

• Fusion Man to fly across the English Channel
• Wingsuits

From The Telegraph:

Researchers in the Netherlands created what was described as soggy pork and are now investigating ways to improve the muscle tissue in the hope that people will one day want to eat it.

No one has yet tasted their produce, but it is believed the artificial meat could be on sale within five years.

Vegetarian groups welcomed the news, saying there was “no ethical objection” if meat was not a piece of a dead animal.

…

The scientists extracted cells from the muscle of a live pig and then put them in a broth of other animal products. The cells then multiplied and created muscle tissue. They believe that it can be turned into something like steak if they can find a way to artificially “exercise” the muscle.

The project is backed by the Dutch government and a sausage maker and comes following the creation of artificial fish fillets from goldfish muscle cells.

Which begs the question: if it’s cloned human tissue, is it still cannibalism?

Perhaps soon instead of just having them endorse food, we’ll actually be eating celebrities.

Until then, let them eat cupcakes:

thanks to Nora Wainwright for the tip-off!

See Also:

• Cocoon – the cooker that grows it’s own meat

From Inhabitat comes another dose of future-pr0n, a truly epic vertical farm project:

Urban Forest is a commercial high-rise building that takes the form of an urban mountain with over 70 floors, each one different and unique. Each floor is an abstract curved shape, layered slightly off-center to give the facade an organic look as it rises up into the sky. A central cylindrical core structure supports all the floors and hosts the mechanical systems and elevators.

Each floor is also covered in floor-to-ceiling glass windows, providing expansive views of the city. A walk-around balcony of differing widths hosts the green garden space, as well as pools, trees, and courtyards. Some floors are nothing but open space, while others contain offices or residential space. Each floor is seen as a separate and unique level of the urban forest and is meant to combine both nature and the urban metropolis.

Why do I keep blogging these crazy schemes? Because eventually one of them will succeed and I frankly can’t wait to go check out the one that does in person.

Speaking of ambitions, good news for Masdar City; the Dubai debt crisis shouldn’t affect it.