Image | Formats | The Committee to Nuke Elysium

Cairo has always been a city of informal, unsanctioned construction, and this practice is only increasing. Take what’s going on in the neglected neighborhood that runs next to Cairo’s main highway. With no paved streets and flocks of sheep clogging busy thoroughfares, 20th Street seems like an unlikely place for urbanist revolution. But with no assistance from government or any other authority, this year the working-class residents of this area built their own informal highway exit.

Nondescript mounds of dirt and sand mixed with trash, roughly 10 feet high, sit comfortably next to the highway overpass, forming entrance and exit ramps. Stray cats and dogs rummage through these homemade ramps as cars and large trucks fly by. Once the dirt highway exits were in place, residents simply moved the concrete safety barriers to create their new entry point.

from In the Traffic of Cairo’s DIY Highway Exit, an Urbanist Movement Grows – Next American City

In a workshop Friday at the Hackers On Planet Earth conference in New York, a German hacker and security consultant who goes by the name “Ray” demonstrated a looming problem for handcuff makers hoping to restrict the distribution of the keys that open their cuffs: With plastic copies he cheaply produced with a laser-cutter and a 3D printer, he was able to open handcuffs built by the German firm Bonowi and the English manufacturer Chubb, both of which attempt to control the distribution of their keys to keep them exclusively in the hands of authorized buyers such as law enforcement.

Over the weekend, a lockpick vendor at the HOPE conference was already selling dozens of the plexiglass Chubb keys for a mere $4 each. Ray says he plans to upload the CAD files for the Chubb key to the 3D-printing Web platform Thingiverse after the annual lockpicking conference LockCon later this week.

from Hacker Opens High Security Handcuffs With 3D-Printed And Laser-Cut Keys – Forbes

Marcus Dickinson, 40, was very overweight and unhealthy when he created his EVE Online character Roc Wieler, the tough guy seen above left. Eventually, Dickinson became so inspired by Roc that he hit the gym to be more like him. Above right is Dickinson now. “I’m a role player inherently,” Dickinson says. “I take it seriously.” Virtual reality: Avatar inspires gamer to hit the gym (CNN) (via Man cultivates healthy lifestyle to be more like his avatar – Boing Boing)

Not happy with building mysterious gigantic structures in the desert, the Chinese are now building inter-dimensional portals in the middle of their cities. I mean, come on, what the hell is this 157m high metal structure in the the city of Fushun, in northeast China’s Liaoning province?

It’s made of an astounding 3000 tons of steel and it will glow at night — decorated with 12,000 LED lights. According to Fushun Municipal Government’s officials, this titanic structure does absolutely nothing except serve as an elevated sighting position. They claim it is pretty “landscape architecture” — like the Eiffel Tower. It uses four elevators to take people to the top.

Source: http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/11/what-the-hell-is-china-building-here/

The Science Fiction Condition by justinpickard on Flickr.

claytoncubitt:

On getting things done in a disaster:

A few days ago I saw a blog post showing a local Brooklyn startup company named BioLite which recently launched a product that’s basically a small portable camp stove with an ultra-efficient burn rate and an attached thermal-electric USB charging station. In the power outage caused by hurricane Sandy the guys at BioLite had come out of their offices in DUMBO and were offering hot coffee and phone charging using their handy little stoves.

I had been out to the Far Rockaways and seen the devastation out there, very reminiscent of Katrina, and I saw the hard work being done on the ground by Occupy Sandy, and I knew immediately I needed to connect these two amazing, yet disparate groups.

So I did. I tweeted at BioLite and asked if they were interested in donating some units for the effort in the Far Rockaways. And then I got in touch with Occupy Sandy to coordinate getting these delivered to where they’d make a difference.

We all set a time and a place to meet up, and today we loaded up a loaned van full of these stoves and took them out to the Rockaways. Two representatives from BioLite demo’d the safe use of the stoves to ten representatives of Occupy Sandy, who’ll in turn share the 20 or so stoves with whomever needs them, to heat up donated soup, and charge cell phones, or just to keep their hands warm.

FEMA didn’t coordinate this. The Red Cross didn’t organize this. This is just one cool company and a bunch of concerned citizens pooling their resources and skills to take care of neighbors in a disaster zone.

And that’s how I’d recommend helping, if you’re looking to help. Don’t text Red Cross $10. Instead, check out the Occupy Sandy website. They’ve even hacked Amazon’s Wedding Registry service to facilitate shipments and donations. If you’re local to the disaster area, even though your lights might be back on, know that it might be weeks or longer for areas like the Rockaways, Staten Island, and Jersey Shore, and it’s going to be a brutal winter.

This is not to say that FEMA or the Red Cross don’t do good things. But in a time like this, what’s really needed is smart motivated individuals like you and me to just say, “What’s needed? I’ll make it happen.”

Special thanks again to BioLite for the innovative stoves, and Occupy Sandy for the sweat and boots on the ground. Amazing people!