David Lidsky's Blog, page 4875

The Rolex Learning Center Is Full of Holes, but That's a Good Thing

With its latest building in Lausanne, Switzerland, Japanese architecture firm SANAA has proposed a new shape for education in the 21st century.

The Japanese architectural duo SANAA is best known for designing the new home of New York's New Museum, a haphazard stack of blocks on the Bowery. Their newest building, which opens its doors next week, has every bit as much minimalist whimsy as the New Museum, but none of the right angles. Instead, the Rolex Learning Center, a research facility for...

Uncommon Indicator: Cargo Traffic Surging

Los Angeles is of course best known for being home to arguably the most glamorous industry in America--moving pictures. But another, decidedly less glamorous, business has been bustling in the Southland and some experts believe this quickened pace of transactions is solid evidence that the economic climate is improving. We're talking about the cargo industry.

In January, traffic at the nation's most robust ports, in L.A. and Long Beach, ticked up 1.6%, meaning over 1 million containers were...

Basurama Turns Electric Train Ruins Into Playground

In 1986, the city of Lima, Peru, began construction on a set of concrete columns and passways that were supposed to be part the infrastructure for an electric train system. The plan fell through--maybe it was hatched before its time--and its remnants remained as an ugly reminder of the failure. As of this month, however, the remains have been repurposed into a colorful (and free) playground featuring swings, car tires, a zip line, and plenty of climbing structures.

The Ghost Train park was...

LOLspats: Cheezburger Network Sues Failbook.com for "Confusing and Defrauding Our Users"

In one corner: Christian Castillo, owner of Failbook.com, who embedded the popular site Failbooking.com--a hub for LOL-worthy Facebook updates--to "show what the domain could be used for." In the other: Cheezburger Network CEO Ben Huh,
owner of Failbooking.com, who claims Castillo "was trying to confuse
and defraud our users by marketing the content and site as his own and
trying to profit from it." Ready, set, fight!

The Cheezburger
Network--which runs FAILblog, LOLcats, and a host of...

Infographic of the Day: Obama Says "I Inherited This Mess" With a Chart

A chart marking the first anniversary of the stimulus package makes a case for the Obama administration's effectiveness at saving jobs.

It was exactly one year ago today that Barack Obama signed the $787 economic stimulus package, officially known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, into law. With the unemployment rate hovering around 10 percent, the White House continues to battle public perception and Republican attacks that the stimulus plan has been ineffective in creating...

Han Solo and Chewbacca Consult on International Space Station Observation Deck

NASA astronauts, spacewalking outside the International Space Station, have just finished installing what's likely to be the best viewing platform ever: A multi-windowed observation deck that offers Earth views from low Earth orbit.

The deck is part of the new Tranquillity node that Space Shuttle Endeavour has just delivered into orbit, flying on her last mission into space before being mothballed. It's kind of fitting then that as part of this mission, Endeavour's played its part in...

Tales of Freelance Health Insurance That Might Just Make You Queasy

This week, to paraphrase Bushy Sr., it's all about health insurance, stupid. I wondered whether I would be the right person to write about the system in the U.S., since I hail from the other side of the Atlantic, where we've had a free health-care system (albeit a creaky one) since 1948. I won't be writing about the entire issue (as we'll be here until about 2019 as I endeavor to understand how the system works--or doesn't), merely how freelancers and home workers cope with the thorny...

Eat-onomics With Melanie Cheng, Founder of FarmsReach

San Francisco-based FarmsReach pairs farmers up with buyers for sustainable local food systems, helping buyers source produce locally and support healthy farms. Founded in 2007, the online marketplace opened its public beta version in February 2009. It currently serves the San Francisco Bay Area and a few other regions, but aims to be nationwide by the end of this year.

Fast Company: What's your definition of sustainable food?

Melanie Cheng: We all have the idealistic wonderful definition...

Judge Sides With Ferris Bueller of Facebook, Free Speech in Teacher Cyberbullying Case

Want to express your opinion about a teacher online when you're off-campus? Thanks to a landmark ruling in a Florida law case, that's now protected free speech and not a cause for accusations of cyberbullying (as long as its not inciting law-breaking.)

This news concerns the Katherine Evans/Sarah Phelps case in Florida, spurred when Evans launched a special Facebook page in 2008 dedicated to her English teacher Sarah Phelps. This page was not of the usual "fan" variety however, as its title...

You Are Where You Eat: Government Releases Interactive Map of American Dietary Habits

The online visualization tool charts 90 different environmental factors that impact American diet and health.

At last week's TED conference, Jamie Oliver, the passionate British chef who won this year's $100,000 TED prize, became emotional as he showed pictures of the residents of Huntington, West Virginia, America's fattest city--who will, on average, live shorter lives than their parents due to diet-related illness. Oliver has been in Huntington to shoot a new ABC series, Jamie Oliver's...