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gq:

If you’re going to pitch your city to the X Games, here’s the way to do it. Go get ‘em, Detroit.

yes.

THIS.

This is Hideaki Akaiwa. When the Tsunami hit his home town of Ishinomaki, Hideaki was at work. Realising his wife was trapped in their home, he ignored the advice of professionals, who told him to wait for the army to arrive to provide search and rescue.

Instead he found some scuba gear, jumped in the raging torrent - dodging cars, houses and other debris being dragged around by the powerful current, any of which could have killed him instantly - and navigated the now submerged streets in pitch dark, freezing water until he found his house. Swimming inside, he discovered his wife alive on the upper level with only a small amount of breathing room, and sharing his respirator, pulled her out to safety.

If he had waited for the army, his wife of 20 years would be dead.

Oh, and if that’s not enough badassery for one lifetime, Hideaki realised his mother was also unaccounted for, so jumped back in the water and managed to save her life also. Since then Hideaki enters the water everyday on a one man search and rescue mission, saving countless lives and proving that two natural disasters in a single day, and insurmountable odds can’t stand in the way of love. This man is my hero.

(via worsethandetroit)

» Turning Cell Phones into Urban Supercomputers

vruz:

ReadWriteWeb

One of the primary ideas behind IBM’s Smarter Planet concept is a web of sensors all over the planet, leading to a data explosion. But what if that web of sensors was more directly under the public’s control? Strategic forecast consultant Chris Arkbenberg hits on an interesting idea in a recent blog post. He muses on the idea of using mobile phones for grid computing, a la SETI@home, to create massive distributed supercomputers for processing all of this data. “Consider the processing power latent across a city of 20 million mobile subscribers, such as Tokyo,” he writes. Arkenberg takes the idea further by suggesting that sensors could be built into mobile phones that could monitor air quality or act as a sort of distributed surveillance system. The possibilities are endless. “Consider what could be done with an API for addressing clusters of mobile sensors,” he writes.

Turning Cell Phones Into Urban Supercomputers

(via worsethandetroit)

sagaston:

Song of the Day:

Deadmau5 VS the Temptations: Papa Was A Ghost (mixed by DJ Tripp)

canisfamiliaris:

The most subversive protest of all: An Egyptian protestor kisses a riot police officer.

(via kateoplis)

(via sagaston)

kateoplis:

China is planning to create the world’s biggest mega city by merging nine cities to create a metropolis twice the size of Wales with a population of 42 million.

The “Turn The Pearl River Delta Into One” scheme will create a 16,000 sq mile urban area that is 26 times larger geographically than Greater London. The new mega-city will cover a large part of China’s manufacturing heartland, stretching from Guangzhou to Shenzhen and including Foshan, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Zhuhai, Jiangmen, Huizhou and Zhaoqing. Together, they account for nearly a tenth of the Chinese economy.

Telegraph (image by rastaschas)

More China . . . . . . .

Steampunk Boba Fett vs Princess Leia

Talk about lumbering #mecha monstrosity…

(via lexmachina)

This is tight… Steampunk Iron Man (via @jeffisageek)

(via jeffisageek)

digitalyn:

Dark Roasted Blend: Battleship Island & Other Ruined Urban High-Density Sites
3D representation of Kowloon Walled City

(via pushart)