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What drives the work at IMA? Coffee and Cliff Bars (for Matt). But back in the day it was Mate. Last week Rob dipped his toe back in Lake Mate and worked for 12 hours without a hint of caffeine crash. Now we are reconsidering another bulk purchase of gourds, bombillas and pounds of dirt laced herbs. Yes, it tastes like dirt, but man, you can really crank out the work on that stuff.
If you want your own check it here
Archive photo of early IMA Mate time.
Just a peak at the sweetest new ride on the streets of San Francisco. More
details on Park(ing) Day 2007 to come soon!
I guess something is in the air. I picked up the NY Times magazine and came across this article about how Jane Fonda is responsible for global warming. Well, maybe not directly respsonsible, but pretty close.
Seems the debate is in the air.
Friday night I went to a Long Now seminar on nuclear energy. The two speakers, Gwyneth Cravens and D. Richard Anderson, known as "Rip", have a new book on the subject.
Some highlights:
Coal provides 51% of US electricity (while hydro is 7%, nuclear 20%).
Estimates are that coal pollution causes 24,000 deaths a year in the US, 400,000 a year in China (not counting the 5,000 who die annually in Chinese coal mines)
Eating a banana will expose you to more radiation than living next door to a nuclear power plant
One more strike against cigarettes, they pack a lot of radiation
The amount of nuclear waste from one person's lifetime of use would fit in a coke can
The same amount of waste from one person's lifetime use of coal would fill 17 train cars
10% of US electricity currently comes from recycled Soviet nuclear warheads
This Saturday a group of my family members participated in the South End Rowing Club's Alcatraz swim for the second straight year. It is a pretty amazing event to experience. The conditions were much rougher than last year and everyone kept getting a mouth full of salt water when they went to take a breath. But in the end, everyone had a great time and started talking about next year. This is a family tradition I never saw coming. We owe it all to Uncle Mike, seen in the pic trying to get his goggles on after jumping off the ferry in the shadow of the rock.
Park(ing) Day is going off next Friday, September 21st. This is the third year of the event and the biggest to date. There will be tons of parks being built in SF and across the globe. Literally. The current list of participating cities includes NYC, LA, DC, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, St. Paul, Boston, Austin, Salt Lake City, Tampa, Miami, London, Paris, Barcelona, Valencia, Munich, Rio de Janeiro, Toronto, Melbourne and more!
Check out the map for a park near you. We'll see you there!
Park(ing) Day 2007 Map of Parks
Not sure if this is a good idea or not but it caught my eye. A company called licketyship offers a Hotwire-like option for shipping items. You tell them what kind of package you have and they tell you what is the cheapest way to send it. The cool thing is that they include messenger services as well as the obvious big boy box movers like FedEx. I have no idea if they are funded so check 'em out now or it may be too late.
Amazed by the multi-touch feature on the iPhone? Can't believe the ingenuity of Microsoft's new multi-touch table? Think Jeff Han is a genius? I did, but now I'm having second thoughts.
Click here to see how this guy created a multi-touch interface for $2 with a bag of water and some dye.
We are doing a shoot over at the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco this week. The Academy is undergoing a $500 million renovation at the moment and the scene is amazing. Basically, a small city has blossomed to take on the project. Renzo Piano is the architect of what is going to be one of the largest green buildings of its kind. It has a living roof and over 60,000 photo voltaic cells for solar energy. It is set to re-open next year.
