the beetle and the trees
the invasive
asian longhorned beetle has been found in central park, again - but this time, it's going to take down one of the park's treasured american elms... the park is home one of the last stands of
Ulmus americana in the northeastern U.S., 1700 of them, protected by their isolation from
dutch elm disease. the american elm had been considered the ideal street tree, due to its vaselike shape and unique branching structure that could arch over a roadway - the arrival of d.e.d. wiped out elm populations across the northeast, leaving behind scores of treeless "elm street"s.
while the true elm cathedral is located in the interior of the park at
the mall, this new infested tree, one of the double row of american elms that stretches along the length of fifth avenue - is not very far from that grove.
the asian longhorned beetle attacks over ten genera of hardwood trees, all of which are important species in our eastern forests, such as maple, birch, ash, willow, poplar and horsechestnut. its presence has so far only been discovered in urban areas, the destinations of the shipments from china packed in infested solid wood packing crates. even if the beetle remains confined to city limits, it threatens the urban forest which provides
numerous benefits that are important to us selfish humans.
environment:central park
mccarren park, greenpoint, brooklyn - 1997
the first discovery of the asian longhorned beetle in north america, was just down the street...
the aftermath
brooklyn:trees
planted brooklyn freshness
went out to
hick's nursery yesterday afternoon - easily one of the most amazing retail nurseries around - and spent the better part of a gloomy sunday putting them in the containers on the roof and clearing away last season's detritus... the roof will be amazing this year!
white bellflowers
garden mums and lobelia
indie coffee
this is a nation of caffeine addicts. and now
the finishing school has built a very cool way to fight the creeping corporate coffee culture -
www.delocator.net Delocate is a web-verb created for this project as a defense mechanism for independent business establishments. The term is defined as an action that creates complex competition analysis. This is achieved by locating both the targeted corporation store(s), Starbucks in this case, and the independently owned alternative(s) based on their physical proximity using comparative online retail store locator technology. On the delocator.net web site, users are enlisted into a temporary coalition to post information about cafés in their neighborhood ... On the results page for each search, listings of both independently owned cafés and Starbucks retail stores are presented. By comparison of numeric quantity and site-specific detail, the viewer/searcher will see evidence of the unchecked aggression and power that corporate businesses have in our communities.
via
pale blue dotokay so that's pretty darn cool, turning the marketing tool 'find a store' back against the chains that have so many that they need a database just to tell you about them.
lots of other ideas, for those of you willing to download and fiddle with
the toolkit:
mom and pop hardware stores vs walmart
toy stores vs walmart
drugstores and pharmacies vs walmart
any independent store vs walmart
independent coffee stores are the anchor of any neighborhood. find one and go there.
coffee:culture:economy
sleep is for the weak
I just emailed the revised (and hopefully final) version of my thesis to my committee.
hooray! now i'm going to go off and be weak.
math and the unicorns
more proof that mathematicians do really cool things - an amazing
article in the new yorker describes the problem of trying to tile together incredibly high resolution pictures of sections of the unicorn tapestries (which are at
the cloisters in washington heights), a problem which was ultimately solved by a pair of mathematican siblings and a supercomputer made of mail order parts.
art:math
scaleable evolution - in a game
via
world changingSpore is the new title announced at the 2005 Game Developer's Conference by Wil Wright, the genius behind Sim City, the Sims and a variety of lesser-known computer toys (he hates to call them games). Spore is nothing less than the ultimate world-building simulation. Start with single-cell goo, then evolve through multicellular life forms, move onto land, develop social creatures, start cities, and eventually start colonizing more planets. And none of it is pre-programmed -- everything, from the creature movement to social interaction -- is emergent, based on simple rules and the results of player creative decisions.
going back to the
original article describing the demo of the game, i learned this game basically uses rules - to allow you to play the game of life across spatial and temporal scales. involving all sort of interactions - like predator-prey systems, evolution of body form, development of sentience and cultures, and eventually whole galaxies.
and this all came out of demonstrating a method of game development that doesn't rely on massive amounts of content. all to avoid paying all those expensive arty designers.
this really cements my belief that computing is driven by only two markets: games and porn. really. and ecologists should pay attention to what is going on in the world of animation. take the schooling fish in pixar's movie finding nemo - that's a mathematical model, with random movements introduced to individual fish to mimic real schooling behaviour. sim city is a cellular automata model, based on rules too. yet all this great creative and interesting stuff can come out of it. and it's stochastic! with any number of possible outcomes.
not that you should ignore porn or anything like that.
ecology:math:games
there goes the neighborhood
rezoning for 40 story waterfront condos in williamsburg.
the dept of city planning shows us
illustrative massing. now
that's what i call jargon.
they forgot about the shadows those buildings will cast. so much for rooftop beers gazing at the sunset. at least personally, i have a power plant between me and the river, so hopefully i will get to continue to enjoy late afternoon sun. unless of course, my rent gets too astronomically high in the meantime. never mind surviving the pounds of particulate pollution!
but more importantly, this shows how little the
community's development plan actually counts when it comes to the big bucks - whose interest reflects how far the neighborhood's come since its crack and crime ridden days. but even the folks up on
madison ave think there's a better way to go than the city's plans.
the very last public city council hearing on this is at city hall tomorrow, april 4, at 1 pm. if you can't go, the waterfront warrior have created a nifty way to
email all 50 city council members at once.
it's an election year folks - and the squeaky wheels get the oil. after all, we are still waiting to see if
bruce ratner will end up taking out freddy's.
is this what brooklyn's renaissance is supposed to look like??
urban planning:brooklyn:politics
ishirt
just another example of the infinite marketing angles ipod provides
apple:music
me, the south park version
although i decided to forgo the scientist look... for now anyways.
via
pharyngula south park:media:nerds
