Live forever or die trying
Stars Lee Pace (“Pushing Daisies”) and directed by Tarsem Singh (directed “The Cell”). I adore Pushing Daisies, and The Cell has some of the most visually stunning imagery I’ve ever seen, and this looks to be similarly beautiful. ( Although the reviews suggest it has plotting problems similar to those of “The Cell”.)
Via riotclitshave
The Vertical Farm
The Problem
By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth’s population will reside in urban centers. Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about 3 billion people during the interim. An estimated 109 hectares of new land (about 20% more land than is represented by the country of Brazil) will be needed to grow enough food to feed them, if traditional farming practices continue as they are practiced today. At present, throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for raising crops is in use (sources: FAO and NASA). Historically, some 15% of that has been laid waste by poor management practices. What can be done to avoid this impending disaster?
A Potential Solution: Farm Vertically
The concept of indoor farming is not new, since hothouse production of tomatoes, a wide variety of herbs, and other produce has been in vogue for some time. What is new is the urgent need to scale up this technology to accommodate another 3 billion people. An entirely new approach to indoor farming must be invented, employing cutting edge technologies. The Vertical Farm must be efficient (cheap to construct and safe to operate). Vertical farms, many stories high, will be situated in the heart of the world’s urban centers. If successfully implemented, they offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (year-round crop production), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming.
It took humans 10,000 years to learn how to grow most of the crops we now take for granted. Along the way, we despoiled most of the land we worked, often turning verdant, natural ecozones into semi-arid deserts. Within that same time frame, we evolved into an urban species, in which 60% of the human population now lives vertically in cities. This means that, for the majority, we humans are protected against the elements, yet we subject our food-bearing plants to the rigors of the great outdoors and can do no more than hope for a good weather year. However, more often than not now, due to a rapidly changing climate regime, that is not what follows. Massive floods, protracted droughts, class 4-5 hurricanes, and severe monsoons take their toll each year, destroying millions of tons of valuable crops. Don’t our harvestable plants deserve the same level of comfort and protection that we now enjoy? The time is at hand for us to learn how to safely grow our food inside environmentally controlled multistory buildings within urban centers. If we do not, then in just another 50 years, the next 3 billion people will surely go hungry, and the world will become a much more unpleasant place in which to live.
StatoilHydro to build first full scale offshore floating wind turbine
StatoilHydro has decided to build the world’s first full scale floating wind turbine, Hywind, and test it over a two-year period offshore Karmøy. The The company is investing approximately 400 million NOK [~$60 million]. Planned startup is autumn 2009.
StatoilHydro has developed HyWind based on floating concrete constructions familiar from North Sea oil installations. In this way we exploit the wind where it is strongest and most consistent — far out to sea.
The project combines known technology in an innovative way. A 2.3 MW wind turbine is attached to the top of a so-called Spar-buoy, a solution familiar from production platforms and offshore loading buoys.
Bilde“If we succeed, then we will have taken a major step in moving the wind power industry offshore”, says Alexandra Bech Gjørv, head of New Energy in StatoilHydro. (Photo: Øyvind Hagen, StatoilHydro)
“We have drawn on our offshore expertise from the oil and gas industry to develop wind power offshore,” says Alexandra Bech Gjørv, head of New Energy in StatoilHydro.
The rotor blades on the floating wind turbine will have a diameter of 80 metres, and the nacelle will tower some 65 metres above the sea surface. The floatation element will have a draft of some 100 metres below the sea surface, and will be moored to the seabed using three anchor points. The wind turbine can be located in waters with depths ranging from 120 to 700 metres.
“Taking wind turbines to sea presents new opportunities. The wind is stronger and more consistent, areas are large and the challenges we are familiar with from onshore projects are fewer,” says Alexandra Bech Gjørv.
Hurricane Spawned Biggest Waves Ever Measured
Hurricane Ivan, which struck U.S. shores September 15, 2004, kicked up the tallest, most extreme waves ever measured, scientists announced today.
At more than 90 feet (27 meters) tall from crest to trough and 600 feet (183 meters) long, the massive waves would “wipe out” a commercial fishing boat, said Douglas Mitchell. Mitchell is an oceanographer with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.
Harbor Wing AUSV can sail itself
Autonomous seafaring vehicles may not be quite as common as unmanned land or air vehicles, but Harbor Wing Technologies looks to be doing its small part to change that, with it now apparently pretty far along in the development of its self-named Autonomous Unmanned Surface Vehicle (or AUSV). Among other things, it employs a specially-designed “WingSail” that can rotate a full 360 degrees to let the vessel maneuver efficiently upwind or downwind, and it uses a custom-made guidance system that can relay vital navigational and situational data to a “semi-portable” command station, which can apparently also be used to pilot the vessel in a pinch.
Autoplay video under the cut
The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Midgett, homeported here, and a Navy maritime patrol aircraft crew teamed up to interdict a stateless (unflagged,) self-propelled, semi-submersible vessel Wednesday with seven tons of cocaine aboard approximately 400 miles south of the Mexico-Guatemala border.
The 60-foot, self-propelled, semi-submersible (SPSS) craft was detected by the crew of the Navy aircraft which vectored the crew of the Midgett to the location of the SPSS. The Coast Guard quickly commenced a boarding of the stateless SPSS. The Coast Guard boarding team located 295 bales of cocaine, valued at more than $196 million, in a huge forward compartment. The SPSS became unstable and began to sink during the transfer of the bales of cocaine from the SPSS to Midgett. The condition of the vessel made it unsafe to tow and Midgett’s crew sank the vessel as a hazard to navigation.
Built For Speed: Printing Buildings
Contour Crafting is an effort to scale up rapid prototyping/manufacturing (a billion dollar industry to make 3 dimensional parts) and inkjet printing techniques to the scale of building multi-story buildings and vehicles. The process could accelerate the trillion dollar (US only) construction industry by 200 times. Projections indicate costs will be around one fifth as much as conventional construction. (Land prices are unchanged, so the actual prices of homes would not change as much in say Hawaii, Tokyo, Manhattan or San Francisco). Using this process, a single house or a colony of houses, each with possibly a different design, may be automatically constructed in a single run, embedded in each house all the conduits for electrical, plumbing and air-conditioning.
Myth of U.S. Invincibility Floats in the Persian Gulf
The war game was described as “free play,” meaning that both sides were unconstrained, free to pursue any tactic in the book of war in the service of victory. As Gen. Kernan put it: “The OPFOR (Force Red) has the ability to win here.” Much of the action was computer-generated. But representative military units in the field also acted out the various moves and countermoves. The comparison to a chess match is not inaccurate. The vastly superior US armada consisted of the standard carrier battle group with its full supporting cast of ships and planes. Van Riper had at his disposal a much weaker flotilla of smaller vessels, many of them civilian craft, and numerous assets typical of a Third World country.
But Van Riper made the most of weakness. Instead of trying to compete directly with Force Blue, he utilized ingenious low-tech alternatives. Crucially, he prevented the stronger US force from eavesdropping on his communications by foregoing the use of radio transmissions. Van Riper relied on couriers instead to stay in touch with his field officers. He also employed novel tactics such as coded signals broadcast from the minarets of mosques during the Muslim call to prayer, a tactic weirdly reminiscent of Paul Revere and the shot heard round the world. At every turn, the wily Van Riper did the unexpected. And in the process he managed to achieve an asymmetric advantage: the new buzzword in military parlance.
Astutely and very covertly, Van Riper armed his civilian marine craft and deployed them near the US fleet, which never expected an attack from small pleasure boats. Faced with a blunt US ultimatum to surrender, Force Red suddenly went on the offensive: and achieved complete tactical surprise. Force Red’s prop-driven aircraft suddenly were swarming around the US warships, making Kamikaze dives. Some of the pleasure boats made suicide attacks. Others fired Silkworm cruise missiles from close range, and sunk a carrier, the largest ship in the US fleet, along with two helicopter-carriers loaded with marines. The sudden strike was reminiscent of the Al Qaeda sneak attack on the USS Cole in 2000. Yet, the Navy was unprepared. When it was over, most of the US fleet had been destroyed. Sixteen US warships lay on the bottom, and the rest were in disarray. Thousands of American sailors were dead, dying, or wounded.
If the games had been real, it would have been the worst US naval defeat since Pearl Harbor.
What happened next became controversial. Instead of declaring Force Red the victor, JOINTFOR Command raised the sunken ships from the muck, brought the dead sailors back to life, and resumed the games as if nothing unusual had happened. The US invasion of the rogue state proceeded according to schedule. Force Red continued to harass Force Blue, until an increasingly frustrated Gen. Van Riper discovered that his orders to his troops were being countermanded, at which point he withdrew in disgust. In his after-action report, the general charged that the games had been scripted to produce the desired outcome.