Author: m1k3y

In the late ‘80s, artist Beverly Doolittle and her husband Jay decided they wanted a house on their 10 beautiful, naked acres in Joshua Tree and they tracked down super-organic architect Kendrick Bangs Kellogg, who immediately fell in love with the site. Beverly tells the Desert Sun "He was jumping all over the rocks like a mountain goat. He had been looking for rocks to build on.“ The couple gave him free rein and in 1988 work began on this concrete, steel, glass, and copper house, placed perfectly naturally on the rocky site and looking from the top kind of like a ribcage.

The house was finished in 1993 but interior designer John Vugrin spent several years making "tweaks.” The Doolittles didn’t move in until the early aughts, but now they want to downsize and have already left for Utah. They’re selling this gem—perfect for the fashionable Bond villain—for $3 million.

Read more

The Middle Class Is Steadily Eroding. Just Ask the Business World.

mitchwagner:

Businesses for the middle class are hurting, while those serving the wealthy are doing fine.

> In Manhattan, the upscale clothing retailer Barneys will replace the bankrupt discounter Loehmann’s, whose Chelsea store closes in a few weeks. Across the country, Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants are struggling, while fine-dining chains like Capital Grille are thriving. And at General Electric, the increase in demand for high-end dishwashers and refrigerators dwarfs sales growth of mass-market models.

> As politicians and pundits in Washington continue to spar over whether economic inequality is in fact deepening, in corporate America there really is no debate at all. The post-recession reality is that the customer base for businesses that appeal to the middle class is shrinking as the top tier pulls even further away.

The Middle Class Is Steadily Eroding. Just Ask the Business World.

Read more "The Middle Class Is Steadily Eroding. Just Ask the Business World."

blech:

sparkyrobot:

fuckyeahconceptcarz:

1961 Ford Gyron

Is this car just balanced on two wheels?  Is it called a “Gyron” because it is gyro-stabilized?  YES!!

from Wiki-you-know-who:  ”The Ford Gyron was a futuristic two-wheeled gyrocar first shown to the world in 1961 at the Detroit Motor Show as a concept car designed by Syd Mead. One wheel was at the front and the other at the rear like a motorcycle and the car was stabilized by gyroscopes. The two occupants of the vehicle were seated side by side and, when the vehicle was stationary, two small legs appeared from the sides to support it. The vehicle was created for research and marketing purposes, with no intention to put it into production.

Syd Mead + crazy idea = reblog (despite my usual dislike of cars)

Yes, Mr Musk will be by soon in his zeppelin to collect them thanks. Just write the number you feel is correct on the cheques as they flutter down.

Read more

sci-universe:

This artist’s conception illustrates a storm of comets around a star called Eta Corvi. Evidence for this barrage comes from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, whose infrared detectors picked up indications that one or more comets was torn to shreds after colliding with a rocky body.

Read more

fuckyeahbreakawaycivs:

The Independent nuclear powered Republic of Disney breakaway civ futcha. It’s a legit possibility. They do have planning permission after all.

A retrofuturistic monster mickey mouse stomping on the future, carving an empire from a shattered amerika.

Drop in a chinese made thorium reactor. Build a wall. Smells about right.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
Read more

Let’s talk about the future of work. Let’s talk about Hacker Culture. Let’s talk about the radical democratization of knowledge and the near infinite possibilities available combining the tons of once cutting edge prohibitively expensive tech now sitting idle gathering dust available for nominal cost via a website this one guy and his pals used to literally bootstrap themselves into space.

Because we’ve managed to keep stumbling forwards, however much a mess we’ve made along the way. And there’s more aluminum sitting in rubbish dumps than mines, they say. Because we keep building new things. And then discarding them; throwing into drawers to rot objects that were for a moment the very highest of technology.

These are the moments I long for The Collapse. Apart from the mass deaths. Obviously.

What can we build when we stop trying. And start playing.

Scrapheap space programs. Fuck yeah.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
Read more

I have asked this question in other places, but still have a few unexplained issues. About all this talk of terraforming Mars: I was under the impression that Mars lost whatever atmosphere it may have once had because of the planet’s smaller size, meaning not enough gravity to “hold onto” it. The other theory I read about involved Mars’ magnetic field. So how would it be possible to recreate livable conditions, now?

heythereuniverse: Hi there! Mars actually does have an atmosphere. It’s very very very very tenuous, but there’s something there (Think about it this way, the surface of the Earth has the pressure of ~101 kilopascals (that’s 101,000 pascals), whereas Mars has ~600 pascals. Big difference, but I would still call it an atmosphere. The planet […]

Read more "I have asked this question in other places, but still have a few unexplained issues. About all this talk of terraforming Mars: I was under the impression that Mars lost whatever atmosphere it may have once had because of the planet’s smaller size, meaning not enough gravity to “hold onto” it. The other theory I read about involved Mars’ magnetic field. So how would it be possible to recreate livable conditions, now?"