Bruce Sterling's Blog, page 776

The Favela Finds Its Own Uses for High-Rises

http://www.canopycanopycanopy.com/6/the_city_that_built_itself

*Nice illustrations. Well, not "nice," but *good and useful* illustrations.

(…)

"Because of Pérez Jiménez's tendency toward self-glorification, two-thirds of the blocks in 23 de Enero were still empty as of January 1958, years after their completion, waiting to be dedicated on the next anniversary of the dictator's ascension. But on the twenty-third of the month, as Pérez Jiménez was overthrown, rumors spread through the subsequent cit

Another twist in the incredible saga of Zhenli Ye Gon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhenli_Ye_Gon

*Looks like there's no evidence and no witnesses. I mean, no evidence beyond

the stark fact that the guy's entire mansion was literally stuffed with cash.

"The fortune, found by the police on March 15, 2007 at his residence at Lomas de Chapultepec in Mexico City included the following:
207 million U.S. dollars
18 million Mexican pesos
200,000 euros
113,000 Hong Kong dollars
11 centenarios (Mexican gold bullion coins made of 1.20565 oz t (37.5 g) of pure gold[

Urban Squelette Art

*Man, that stuff looks almost exactly like I would have predicted that

Italian squelette art would look.

"Dear Bruce, (((Yo!)))

"I read your article about the many squelettes gracing our cities and countrysides and thought you might find of your interest the works of DPPP (acronym for Dr. Porka's P-Proj) a group of artist from Italy specialising in exploring cities and suburbs looking for squelettes of luxury villas on the beach, half-built shopping centres right in the middle of nowhere, high-ri

Shapeways is printing steel

http://www.shapeways.com/blog/archives/257-Our-Shops-now-have-3D-printed-Stainless-Steel.html

*Okay, it's a kind of porous, granular steel which is "infused with bronze,"

and it takes 'em quite a while and results look sorta funky, but

jeez, they've got commercial, web-order fabricators that are *printing steel.*

Check that out.

http://www.shapeways.com/themes/stainless_steel_3dprinting_gallery

More weird design whimsy from Yanko

http://www.yankodesign.com/2009/06/29...

*Booze-fueled cellphone built into a hipflask. Been expecting this one for

at least ten years now. Still not in production anywhere, as far as I know.

*Maybe a bootlegger Iranian booze flask with a bootlegger Iranian

SMS-twitter phone. Hey, "hung for a lamb, hung for a sheep."

More idle musing about the New Depression

*Nobody is taking up arms. That's what is great. It's wondrous.

*People don't even change the way they vote. I can't think of a single

bloodthirsty fanatic who is getting a serious hearing. Except for various bloodthirsty

Moslem fanatics, and none of them are complaining about failing industries

or job loss because they were never into those issues in the first place.

*It make you wonder if the world is getting *too old* to support
utopian fanaticism and uniformed political street violence. I'd

Improvised prison escape tools

*Via Adam Savage of Mythbusters, whose enthusiasm for these sinister items

makes a lot of sense.

*The German-design feeling here is especially interesting. One wouldn't

think that national design characteristics apply to the desperate efforts

in prisons, but these gizmos really look-and-feel German.

http://www.marcsteinmetz.com/pages/fluchtstuecke/efluchtstuecke_minis.html

Fabricated Pre-Fab Housing

*Y'know what generally happen to prefab housing efforts?  They get squashed by local building codes, carefully crafted to make sure no radical innovations upset the real-estate applecart.  Been that way for a century. America is littered with brilliant prefab innovations nobody was ever allowed to build or re-sell. The one exception: aluminum trailers.

 

*Do you know where these MIT innovations would be practically perfect, though? In squelettes and favelas.  Got no oversight, no codes, no lega

ReBoot11: hands-on with RepRap and Arduino

*I'd be lyin' if I didn't admit that was a ton of fun.

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brucesterling/sets/72157620681089910/

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brucesterling/sets/72157620540259025/

 

Design Fiction from Yanko

http://www.yankodesign.com/2009/06/26/alternate-reality-time-machine/

(((I wonder why these rhetorical justifications are necessary.)))

"Let me first say that I love pie-in-the-sky designs. Those design inspirations that have absolutely zero chance of ever being manufactured in any way, shape or form. These types of concepts serve as a great launching point for our imaginations, allowing everyone to rethink our preconceived notions of known, actual designs. Part Dick Tracy, part Minority Report an