ARTEFACTO A PLACE WHERE TO START – By Adrian Palacios

Time: does it go by?

Sorry, this entry is only available in Español.

Witricity

Everbody who has used any electric appliance has clearly noticed that they need to be plugged to a wall socket in one way or another - unless they run on batteries, which gives them some autonomous live, but sooner or later they will have to go back to the charger, which needs to be plugged to the wall.

When we all got it wrong

Now that Darwin and his Natural Selection theory is a daily thing, I dare to say that the language itself, like nature, has a way of evolving based on inexact reproduction too. In more simple words: when somebody hears and memorises  something, the next time he speaks it out it won't be an exact copy of what he heard - that is what boring recorders are for - instead, it would be a mixture of what he heard and what he understood of the original message.

When summing together the effects of time, divulgatory ignorance and the lost in translation effect, we end up having an interesting compilation of facts that we all believe but they are no more than the social propagation of a translation or interpretation error.

Wikipedia has a very comprehensive list, but be warned! some of them are wrong!

More urban space, for more cars?

This interesting project is considering to use the old sewer system to install a delivery network in which automated capsules are able to find their way to the set destination and deliver any type of goods in urban areas. The system claims to be able to eliminate the urban delivery traffic, therefore reducing congestion and improving the quality of the air in the area.

The question is, if we eliminate delivery traffic isn't this only a false positive? In the first years maybe the urban traffic will get better but soon popularity will make the car a better option and more non-delivery vehicles will end up in the roads, making traffic unbearable again.

Latest on pee.

It is disgusting walking on the streets smelling yesterday night's pee. Unfortunately sometimes it is impossible not to do it, that is why the Mexican industrial designer Miguel Melgarejo has created this interesting urban gadget called Axixa - which means urine in the Aztec language Nahuatl.

It looks like the shape of a leak on a wall, it is fitted on it and it can drain liquid through it. Very good idea, that confirms again who, if men or women, love this peculiar action :)

I saw it on the design blog.

Riding Bamboo

One cannot argue that the bike - pushbike - as a method of transportation has managed to get around a vast number of conditions where other transport, public or private, could not offer a good enough solution. Short or medium distances, small towns or big cities and in very extreme weathers, hot or cold. I have been personally an everyday user of a pushbike for years, and is only now, when my body is starting to complain, that I have had to replace it with motorised one

In developing countries is when bikes have been proved to be extreamly eficient, not only because very few people can really access to cars, but also because the way it can adapt to very diferent circumstances, such a space or maintenance. Africa is a peculiar example. Bike usage in this country is absolutely massive, not only as a personal method of transportation; boda-bodas are used as public service in many parts of the continent. At the same time bike production in Africa in non-existent, the majority of them are there as a legacy of the colonial times, when the pavements were completely different than how they are now, or are produced in China or India, where spare parts access is almost impossible.

Is here where The Bike Bamboo Project comes in place. These guys are pushing hard to develop a bike for African people and made by African people, using as main material local Bamboo. The most interesting thing is the speed at which plant can grow, its tensile strength is greater than the steel and producing it is cheat and renewable.

Have a look at the website.

There are many other projects similar to this, like Bamboo Bike Studio in which you can build your own bamboo bike for about $1300.

How to open a banana (II)

We have been seeing around some posts about how monkeys open bananas and how badly mistaken we have been all this time when trying to open them from the stem. Well, for those who haven't seen the explanation see below, for those who already have mastered the technique, there is a website which offers all sort of possibilities when doing this so simple action.

Critics panel switched off.

I'm reading on "El Pais" that the United States Interests Office in Havana has switched off the messaging system against the local government. The light panel, which is a metre and a half tall and spreads across 25 windows, is situated in the fifth floor of the building and has been operating since January 2006.

From my time in Cuba,  I remember perfectly the building, is a massive pile of concrete, surrounded by a huge security fence. For part of the time I was there, people walking nearby had to move to the other side of the street when passing in from of it. What times!