Stuff I Find Interesting
Alex Steffen, 28 Nov 08
It's a holiday weekend, so this is a lazy post: I was recently asked what kinds of technological developments I found interesting. Here's the list I sent back.
URBAN TECH
We're getting close to good models of the land use-transportation-energy-climate emissions interactions, and these are pretty much all saying that land use is at least as important a transportation task as clean energy/new vehicles, if not more important
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//007800.html
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//007898.html
but wire those cities tightly and ubiquitously and all sorts of mayhem gets possible
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//007897.html
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007929.html
including making buildings themselves a lot smarter
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007965.html
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//006421.html
infrastructure could get really weird
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//007838.html
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//008211.html
URBAN DATA USES
Walkscore
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//008231.html
Not because it's perfect -- far from -- but because it sorta works, and it's really popular, which strikes me as a good leading indicator of the combination of urban proximity and digital precision.
people mentioned transit mapping for iPhones, but iNap is critical
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//008687.html
if you don't want to miss your stop
(and I more and more think that divergent innovation's a real thing)
And packstations for your deliveries
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//007854.html
dynamic parking metering?
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//008113.html
ENERGY
Energy mortgages: someone else puts in the distributed energy equipment, you pay them back (plus interest) from the savings:
Fabio Rosa wiring rural Brazil
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//003295.html
Berkeley paying for its citizen's solar
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//008094.html
Locavolt/ district energy
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//008596.html
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//007986.html
OTHER COOL STUFF
Front Design air-sculpting chairs
http://www.core77.com/blog/technology/front_design_sketch_furniture_wow_4865.asp
Talented Swedish designers using motion-capture and fabbing to design chairs in the air.
Bruce Sterling's story Kiosk about cheap fabbers and copyright and revolutions and cultural crazes and everything... well, it used to be available free, and it stuck in my head (though now I can't find it).
Outquisition Technologies
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008208.html
Some parts of the developed world are collapsing slowly, and some of those are going to get hit hard by economic transitions and climate change: what sort of tech would help folks who live there?
Remote sensing to do cool things, like find ghost nets
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//002656.html
FarmSubsidy.org still thrills me
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//006272.html
heck, I like all the tech+ farming stuff
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//007018.html
fish-farming
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//008375.html
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//007998.html
cowpooling
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008187.html
Jonathan Harris' whalehunt
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//007688.html
Clickable. Links. ?.
Posted by: C. on 29 Nov 08
this looks like a great article, but can you PLEASE go back and make these links functioning so I don't have to put each of them into my browswer one at a time?
Posted by: christian on 30 Nov 08
Sorry guys, but this one was a quickie. You'll have to cut and paste this time.
Posted by: Alex Steffen on 30 Nov 08
hear of hyperlinks, web friend?
Posted by: The Pied Pipes on 1 Dec 08
ack.
so. annoying.
Posted by: iamironman on 1 Dec 08
Here's an easy way to deal with non-linked URLs. On my Mac running Firefox, I simply highlight the non-linked URL, Right-Click, and select "Search Google for [URL appears here]"
The search result brings up the correct URL, I click on it, and bingo.
Posted by: Jim Lange on 3 Dec 08
Dear Jim, as cool and handy as google is, you really shouldn't use it completely in vain as you described. Did you know that one google search uses about the same amount of energy as a regular light bulb does in 24 hours. So if you know where you are going you really should have the time and the energy to directly steer your browser to that destination without any google assistance.
Posted by: Kirsi on 25 Dec 08
Please note that comments will remain open for only 14 days after the article is posted. While previous comments will remain visible, attempts to post new comments after this period will fail. This helps stop comment spam, so your forebearance is appreciated.
The Worldchanging comments are meant to be used for further exploration and evaluation of the ideas covered in our posts. Please note that, while constructive disagreement is fine, insults and abuse are not, and will result in the comment being deleted and a likely ban from commenting. We will also delete at will and without warning comments we believe are designed to disrupt a conversation rather than contribute to it. In short, we'll kill troll posts.
Finally, please note that comments which simply repost copyrighted works or commercial messages will be summarily deleted.
