have a piece of my mind...TransPyro
twitter.com/coviolgrand:
Una forma muy gráfica de ver como la burbuja inmobiliaria ha destrozado nuestro paisaje y nuestros pueblos…
En Nación Rotonda podemos ver con estos deslizantes el antes y el después de toda esta locura sobre muchos núcleos.IMPRESIONANTE! toda una lección de ANTIURBANISMO
(via humanscalecities)
I really don’t understand why people keep building with wood and bricks instead of pouring concrete to make their walls.Tornado Strikes Moore, Oklahoma
An EF-4 tornado struck Moore, Oklahoma today, causing widespread damage across a 20-mile path throughout the Oklahoma City suburb. The tornado has claimed at least 37 lives with many more injured and has left thousands without power.
Our thoughts go out to those who have been affected, and we hope those in the Oklahoma City area stay safe in the upcoming days. You can find more information on how to help the tornado victims here.
Just horrible.
dxo:
This is so sad.fuck
click the picture for the article
i’ve been watching the news since 2 pm, when the storm first started. i just can’t. it’s horrific. at first we thought it was coming towards us, then it went the way it did and just watching it in motion was terrifying. i am going to get a shelter put in my house now. these things are worse than they have ever been and i just do not feel safe hiding in my closet anymore.
I’m glad you’re okay and you know I share your concern. We’re lucky that we have a deep basement and it’s built into the slant of the Earth so I have some peace of mind.
And yep, they’re getting worse. Been here in the Midwest for the better part of 30 years and I seen the increase of devastation and frequency.i have lived here in oklahoma my whole life and i have never seen anything as terrifying and destructive as this. i thought the may 3, 1999 tornado was bad but this one was so much worse. my heart is just broken for all those kids and their parents right now. between this and the ones that tore through here yesterday, i am terrified for tomorrow because we are supposed to have more storms in the morning.
They said the tornado today was estimated to be nearly 2 miles wide at some points. The Joplin MO tornado that took 158 people and leveled the town was only about a mile wide. You never know how these things will act, how big, how powerful or where. About twice a year, I have a dream about ‘em.
One of my earliest memories was when I was a little one was visiting family in OK (before we moved out there) and walking through the pouring rain in the dark to get to the shelter. Of course my older cousins told me about a tornado that ripped a baby from its mother’s arms. Lol, whether or not that was true, I don’t know, but it sure scared the piss outta me.Terrible. :(
Beautiful Bicycle Monday
La Boriosa: Based in Treviso, Italy, Biascagne Cicli makes custom, mostly single-speed and fixed-gear bikes from used and vintage new-on-stock components.
Shape Field Bike: San Francisco–based studio Shape Field Office partnered with Nicholas Riddle, a framebuilder and founder of the Urban Mobility Lab at California College of the Arts, to create this handsome porteur-style conveyance.
Bough Bike: Dutch designer Jan Gunneweg sculpts bespoke wooden bikes from his workshop in Alkmaar. He’s planning to introduce a lower-priced wooden bicycle line.
Thonet Bentwood Concept: Legendary furniture maker Thonet commissioned Andy Martin and his London-based studio to design this limited-edition roadster, marrying the low-tech methods that Michael Thonet used to build his 1830s chairs with 21st-century technology. Martin didn’t rely entirely on traditional steam-bending techniques but employed a CNC machine to cut and join the wood frame, which sits on off-the-shelf carbon wheels. Such craftsmanship doesn’t come cheap; you can get yours for $70,000.
The Hawaiian Silversword: Another Warning on Climate Change
by Zach Fitzner
The Hawaiian silversword (Argyroxyphium sandwicense), a beautiful, spiny plant from the volcanic Hawaiian highlands may not survive the ravages of climate change, according to a new study in Global Change Biology. An unmistakable plant, the silversword has long, sword-shaped leaves covered in silver hair and beautiful flowering stalks that may tower to a height of three meters.
The Hawaiian silversword flowers only once in its life of 20 to 90 years, not unlike the much-loved agave. Because of this, records show that the number of silversword flowering in any given year varies wildly from zero to 6,632 plants. It depends on pollination from other individual plants for reproduction, so the trigger for flowering events is a key piece of a puzzle not currently understood, like many aspects of ecology…
(read more: Monga Bay)
(photos: T - Paul Krushelnycky; B - Forest and Kim Starr)
(via timberpress)
David Smilde
I did an interview with Al Jazeera’s “Min Washington” program yesterday regarding the challenges and future of Chavismo without Chávez. I would put it up on the blog but it won’t air until next week and then will have Arabic voice overs. Here is a summary of what I said.
The first issue we talked about was Maduro’s rough first month and what it means for Chavismo after Chávez. I suggested that indeed it has not been easy. The election was closer than anybody thought it was going to be, with approximately 6% of the electorate switching from Chávez to Maduro between October 2012 and April 2013. Since then Maduro’s numbers have only worsened with majorities of the Venezuelan population disagreeing with the National Electoral Council’s (CNE) decision to not do a full audit, and some polls suggesting that Henrique Capriles would win if new elections were held. The optics of the April 30 violence in the National Assembly (AN) were terrible, and the government’s video trying to blame it on the opposition only turned tragedy into farce.
What is incredible is that Maduro’s rocky first month has come without really beginning to address the significant political and economic challenges Venezuela faces. There has been no talk of the communal state-something that is important for the left part of the coalition. And only in the past week have Venezuela’s economic issues come to the fore.
(via Ms. Chatelaine Lisa Giroday is a hip, urban farmer)
Well here you are, me, Lisa Giroday, of Victory Gardens, featured in this month’s Chatelaine! Thanks to everyone involved, including Jenny Charlesworth for the words and Alana Paterson, for the picture!
