Andrew Baisley

For every container of Greek yogurt you see on a supermarket shelf, picture another container (or two or three) of deadly poison. It’s called acid whey, and it’s a toxic byproduct from the yogurt-making process that’s becoming a big problem for manufacturers as their product continues its assault on the hearts and minds of health-conscious Americans.

Never heard of "acid whey?" Neither had we. Modern Farmer explains:

It’s a thin, runny waste product that can’t simply be dumped. Not only would that be illegal, but whey decomposition is toxic to the natural environment, robbing oxygen from streams and rivers. That could turn a waterway into what one expert calls a “dead sea,” destroying aquatic life over potentially large areas. Spills of cheese whey, a cousin of Greek yogurt whey, have killed tens of thousands of fish around the country in recent years.

The scale of the problem—or opportunity, depending on who you ask—is daunting. The $2 billion Greek yogurt market has become one of the biggest success stories in food over the past few years and total yogurt production in New York nearly tripled between 2007 and 2013. New plants continue to open all over the country. The Northeast alone, led by New York, produced more than 150 million gallons of acid whey last year, according to one estimate. (Emphasis mine.)

Possible solutions to the acid whey problem include farmers mixing it with cattle feed, incorporating it into fertilizer, or making biogas from it. Another is using it to make baby-food. But nobody’s really figured it out. As Cornell dairy scientist Dave Barbano told Modern Farmer: “Because the Greek yogurt production grew so rapidly, no one really had the time to step back and look at the other viable options."

The cheese industry has solved its whey problem by selling the stuff to companies that make body-building supplements. But the "sweet whey" produced from cheese-making is richer in protein than acid whey, and therefore easier to process.

For now, it remains a mystery what will become of all that whey. But by all means, keep eating the Greek yogurt and feeling good about yourself.

[Illustration: Kelly Rakowski/Co.Exist]

The destruction of 5Pointz, Long Island City's famous graffiti-covered warehouse, is imminent as owner/developer David Wolkoff expects to raze the building by the end of the year. At this point, the only things standing in Wolkoff's way are a zoning variance and (maybe, possibly) pangs of conscience after getting chewed out by LIC residents and graffiti lovers at public forums. One such forum was held last night at MoMA PS1. Ostensibly a Queens Community Board 2 hearing to consider the zoning application, it basically functioned as a place for frustrated artists and neighbors to express their extreme displeasure about the loss of 5Pointz (and the proposal for the two rental towers that will replace it) to Wolkoff's face.

While a few held out hope that the iconic building could be saved (one gentleman tried to rally everyone to form a chain around it on the day the bulldozers arrive), the majority in attendance seemed to view the situation more realistically, regarding the loss of 5Pointz as a foregone conclusion and just trying to make Wolkoff feel at least a little bit bad about it. Another gentleman spoke at length during the question and answer section about 5Pointz's cultural and artistic value, what a great experience it had been for his art students to see it, how many people visit the site from around the world, etc. When asked by the CB2 chair what his question was, he replied, "No, I made a statement," and stormed out to thunderous applause.

[5Pointz, photo by woodendesigner/Curbed Flickr pool]

The meeting began with a presentation from Wolkoff and his team laying out the particulars of the project, which are as follows: Assuming the zoning variances are granted, there will be two towers, one 47 stories and 480 feet high and the other 41 stories and 420 feet high, containing a total of 1,000 market rate rental units (50 percent 1BRs, 25 percent 2BRs, and 25 percent studios). There will also be an enormous gym with a swimming pool, rock climbing wall, spin room, etc. and 50,000 square feet of retail space. The aspects of the project meant to benefit the community are a 250-car public parking garage (charging market rates) and 30,000 square feet of open space which will include 2,280 square feet of walls that artists will be commissioned to paint (because if there's one thing that graffiti artists love, it's being told exactly where to put their art). There will also be five artist studios which will charge "nominal" rent.

[An illustration from environmental review documents for the proposal 5Pointz replacement.]

As far as the proposal went, public criticism ranged from the parking (wouldn't the added cars from 1,000 market rate apartments offset the benefit of a 250-car garage?) to the fact that the public space did not seem to be designed around the art walls to the design of the building themselves—one community member, after extolling the virtues of 5Pointz, concluded, "and you have the balls to propose these tasteless, glitzy, cornball boxes?" A bunch of people mentioned that the corner that 5Pointz is located on is one of the noisiest in the city due the 7 train.

Others were content to simply try to embarrass Wolkoff. After his opening statement about how his family had been in Long Island City for over 40 years and how he, too, was a member of the community, having grown up in this very area, one gentleman asked him what the name of grocery store across the street was. The following exchange occurred:

Wolkoff: Court Square Diner.
Guy: No, the grocery store.
Wolkoff: The ... deli.
Guy: Yeah, what's it called?
Wolkoff: ... I've definitely bought soda there.

It didn't save 5Pointz or anything, but it probably felt good.
· 5Pointz coverage [Curbed]

Architects like wordplay. It’s a fun and effective way to condense the main thesis behind a project without resorting to archi-speak. It’s also a good bit of marketing. A simple subversion like “horizontal skyscraper” immediately makes a potentially interesting (or uninteresting) project that much more compelling. Another example: the Tower House.

Designed by GLUCK+ architects, the Tower House looks exactly like it sounds--that is, it takes the form of a skyscraper and shrinks it down to the scale of a house. The four-story-high-building is configured to resemble Lego blocks, an analogy that extends to the house’s bright yellow and green color scheme. A vertical bar, the “tower,” is bisected at its summit by a wide horizontal volume, which appears to conquer gravity with the most minimal of supports.

The house was designed and built for GLUCK+ principal Thomas Gluck and his family on land owned by Gluck’s architect father, who founded the firm (until recently, Peter Gluck and Partners) in 1972. The estate is sprinkled with small follies that the senior Gluck has built over the years, including a guesthouse and studio. The Tower House crowns the sprawling grounds and commands privileged views of the Catskill mountains beyond.

Yet the house’s sensationalist form came almost as an accident, the result of a spontaneous what-if proposition. Asked about the rationale for lifting the house up toward the treetops, Bethia Liu, Gluck+ Director of Strategic Projects, says that the architects “suspected there might be great views up there.” “But,” Liu continues, “you can’t build a house like this on a whim, so we built a 50-foot-tall scaffolding tower to check to be sure.”

The views turned out to be quite spectacular, and the architects proceeded to develop their soaring scheme. The built structure, which bears a striking resemblance to El Lissitzky’s conceptual tower project (and early wordplay adoptee) “Cloud-Iron,” packs all of the home’s three bedrooms and its full-height, yellow-painted stairwell into the vertical volume. The block is split into three modules: The bathrooms are in the middle, with the rooms on one side facing the scenery; the zigzagging stairs are on the other side, sculpturally framed behind a shear glass wall; and the living areas and kitchen fit into a wedge-like prism that locks into the tower’s fourth floor.

As you might have guessed, the house’s quirky shape--what the GLUCK+ office describes as an “adult tree house--presented a significant structural challenge for its designers. “Given the height and the very narrow 14-foot footprint,” Liu explains, “the overturning forces were very strong.” To counteract these, the entire structure had to be fastened to the site by drilling a series of stainless-steel anchors into the bedrock. The end of the cantilevered box also had to be balanced on thin steel stilts.

The seasonal use of the house posed its own set of issues. As a vacation home, it would be sparingly occupied. That meant the architects had to devise a sustainable, efficient way to maintain the structure year-round. They concentrated all utilities in an insulated core, which constituted just 700 of the house’s 2,500 square feet. By doing so, only the core needs to be heated in the cold months. Additionally, they oriented the bedrooms to obviate air conditioning in the summer. The south-facing glass stairwell acts like a “solar chimney” that whisks the hot air out of the house through rooftop vents, while cool air is funneled down into the living spaces. The system, the architects claim, cuts energy costs by half.

 

 

If you thought our awesome new water front couldn’t get any longer, wait for a few more months when Hunters Point South’s waterfront opens up! There will be 11 acres of water front and park combined into a modern boardwalk.

The site is waterfront and city, gateway and sanctuary, blank slate and pentimento. These readings suggest an approach to the landscape that enhances what is unique about the site, while framing a new multi-layered identity as a recreational and cultural destination. New open spaces with connections to the surrounding communities provide access to the water’s edge and spectacular views of the Manhattan skyline.

 

via Curbed

If I asked you how well you knew other parts of the world, you might think I was trying to see how much you knew about geography. And maybe, thanks to those few months where you binged on Sporcle, you could label a blank map of the Balkan peninsula or name the capitals of all the countries in Central America without too much trouble. That would be impressive. But it wouldn’t necessarily help you in a round of GeoGuessr.

That’s because the game doesn’t test your map smarts so much as your intuition for what the world actually looks like, on the ground and in-person. Gameplay is simple. GeoGuessr serves up a nice big Street View snapshot from somewhere in the world, and you have to guess where you are by dropping a pin on a map of the world. The closer you are to the actual location, the more points you get. You get five tries.

It might sound impossibly difficult, and when the site throws you a totally unremarkable vista of some trees and a highway, it can be. But the more you play, the savvier you become as a geographic detective. Cars can give a good indication of what part of the world you’re in, and signs of any sort can be hugely helpful--it’s up to you whether or not zooming in to read the language is cheating. Often times, though, you don’t even have those to work from, so quickly you become more closely attuned to the small variations in things like road markings and telephone polls.

It’s hard, really, to think of another game like it. GeoGuessr combines some of the real world immediacy of orienteering with the nose-up-to-the-page fun of the I Spy books, all mixed in with that tingly I can’t believe I’m doing this from my couch feeling that occasionally and unexpectedly washes over you when you’re having a sustained session with one of Google’s world-traversing products.

It’s also a terrific reminder that you don’t necessarily need to create a bunch of new stuff to come up with a compelling new experience. All GeoGuessr does is take the usual Street View interaction--provide a location; see what it looks like--and give it to people in reverse. It’s a perfectly elegant concept, and it ends up being incredibly fun. Just be glad it doesn’t mix in any destinations from Google’s ocean floor view.

Try GeoGuessr for yourself here.

archiemcphee:

Redditor Funkopolis shared this amazing video, which was recorded by the dashboard camera of a Portland, OR police cruiser. What begins as an officer’s straightforward pursuit of a speeding driver quickly turns into something completely awesome.

We don’t want to spoil the surprise. Just watch and smile.

[via Reddit]

Designed by architecture firm Bercy Chen for a science fiction writer and his family, the Edgeland House has everything the literary genre is made of: a gloomy industrial past, futuristic allusions riffing off ancient sensibilities, and techno-primitive building methods.

Sited just outside of Austin, Texas, on a rehabilitated brownfield, the Edgeland House is embedded in a grassy clearing. An old oil pipeline cut through the site, which the architects removed in an attempt to “heal the land” of its past pestilence and “recreate the original prairie,” says co-principal Thomas Bercy. But rather than leveling the site and crowning it with an unimaginative single-family home, Bercy Chen proposed building the house in the void vacated by the pipeline. “Nestling the house in the excavation and covering it with a green roof completed the site remediation,” Bercy tells Co. Design.

To strategize, they looked at building typologies that employed similar methods. The architects hit on the pit house, a pre-industrial building technique developed by Native Americans in the Southwest. Pit houses, which were among the first native dwellings in the region, were purposefully sunk in order to maintain thermal temperatures throughout the day and night--a model “well adapted to the harsh Texas climate,” Bercy says.

Adapted to today’s architectural performance standards, the typology is inherently “sustainable” because it relies on passive technologies to insulate the residence. “We were interested in reinterpreting this ancient typology in the 21st century,” Bercy explains. The Edgeland House, which is partially submerged along its base some seven feet in the ground, exploits all the benefits of the type and even builds off of them. The architects installed hydronic heating and a large green roof that spans the width of the house’s footprint. Both take full advantage of the land: The heating system, which loops into a buried geothermal pump, augments the structure’s thermal storage capabilities, and the roof’s extra nine inches of soil greatly increases its insulating properties.

As for the form--the “architecture”--of the house, the designers seem to be riffing off their interactions with their client, a sci-fi novelist. “The owner was very engaged with the process at the early phase of schematic design,” Bercy says, adding, “It is not every day that you have discussion about Paul Virilio’s Bunker Archeology with a client.” The home is characterized by folding planes and angled walls arranged on a plan that resembles a small spaceship. A narrow path splits the house in two; the bedrooms and baths occupy one side and the kitchen and living room fill the opposite. The discrete volumes, like two wings of a small spacecraft, are covered by pointed overhanging roof planes that converge like an arrow head. A small smart pool, which uses diamond electrodes instead of chlorine to clean the water, completes the allusion.

Nothing smooths over a hangover better than brunch and a well-balanced Bloody Mary, but if you're not careful, you could find yourself facing a $10 ice-filled glass of Worcestershire sauce that does little to temper your raging headache. Luckily, this city's got its share of stellar, unique Bloodies to help get you back on your feet, before promptly knocking you back off of them. Here are a few of our favorites, and as always, leave yours in the comments: [ more › ]

Over the last couple of months, we've become huge fans of Chris Hadfield, the Canadian astronaut who has been in command of the International Space Station since last winter. He's taken some absolutely amazing photos of NYC from space, shown us what happens when you cry in zero gravity, and even sung a duet with one of the dudes from Barenaked Ladies. Hadfield is heading back to Earth today, but he came up with the perfect farewell video: below, watch as Hadfield covers David Bowie's seminal "Space Oddity" in outer space. He's literally floating in the most peculiar way—and the real Bowie approves! [ more › ]

Weird things women wear, EXPLAINED!

That’s the plan of New York’s Niagra Falls. In the hopes of staunching its population decline and bringing a new generation of engaged youth, the city is accepting applications for urban pioneers willing to move in exchange for a little debt relief.

Shrinking city syndrome is chronic, painful and basically uncurable. Once a city starts losing its population--usually because it relied on an industry now in decline (see Detroit)--there is no proven strategy for stopping the bleeding.

But there are some interesting unproven strategies. Case in point: Niagara Falls, New York, a city that just nailed down five more citizens by agreeing to pay back (some of) their student loans.

If we’re not spending at least part of our day thinking about how to stabilize and grow our population, we’re not doing our jobs.

Niagara Falls is a poster child for population loss. The city had more than 100,000 people in 1950. Now they’re struggling to keep above 50,000, a number which carries more than just symbolic consequences: It’s the cut-off for HUD entitlement funding. “That’s a dollar loss right off the bat,” Niagara Falls director of community development Seth Piccirillo says. It means less money for everything from home repairs to police. But Piccirillo is worried about the private sector, too: “When was the last time an employer said, ‘I want to put 500 jobs in a shrinking city’? It doesn’t happen.”

A solution they came up with, literally on the back of a napkin, is called Live NF. It will reimburse up to $3,492 a year of your student loans for two years--if you move to downtown Niagara Falls. They had 42 applicants, and have just announced their first five winners, who range from an artist from Buffalo to a web designer with a master’s in bible studies.

The Niagara Gazette reports that winner Bobbie Thoman is already looking into setting up a community garden. “Anything you can do to get involved in the community, it makes you, I feel like, live a fuller life,” Thoman said.

The program has a budget for 15 more "urban pioneers" and continues to accept applicants. Even though 20 more residents will be a drop in the bucket, every drop counts, according to Piccirillo. “If we’re not spending at least part of our day thinking about how to stabilize and grow our population, we’re not doing our jobs,” he says.

Piccirillo has been contacted by five other cities that wanted to learn more about the project, but right now, it’s too early to give advice. “We’re still writing the book,” he says.

The fate of 5Pointz, the iconic graffiti-covered warehouse in Long Island City, has been decided—it will undoubtedly meet the wrecking ball—but what exactly will replaced it has yet to be determined. As of right zoning would allow for a bulky, 600-unit residential building, but the owner, David Wolkoff, wants two towers and 1,000 units. And now, we have the first idea of what that could possibly look like. New York YIMBY unearthed the environmental review of the proposed project, which includes the above rendering. The image is only for illustrative purposes, so this isn't necessarily what will replace 5Pointz, but it's clear that nothing of the current colorful building will remain.

Wolkoff wants a larger tower of 47 stories (498 feet), plus a shorter 40-story tower (440 feet). When the proposal was presented to the community board last summer, there were no plans for any of the units to be affordable—and the environmental assessment reaffirms this—but we would't be surprised if that changes during the ULURP process. Since Wolkoff needs a change in zoning, he'll likely give concessions to the community, and often these concessions revolve around affordable housing. The environmental assessment only says that the applicant could apply for the 421a tax abatement, which then would require 20 percent of the units to be affordable.

[5Pointz, photo by woodendesigner/Curbed Flickr pool]

Despite strong opposition to the destruction of 5Pointz, there are no plans to preserve any parts of the art-covered warehouse, but the new project will include 2,280 square feet of undefined artist space. Demolition of 5Pointz could begin as early as this fall (previous reports said the building would be gone by September). If that's the case, construction of the first tower would start next year, and the whole shebang would be operable sometime in 2017. For a detailed timeline, see page 235 of the environmental assessment.
· First Glimpse: '5Pointz' Redevelopment Plans [NY YIMBY]
· 22-24 Jackson Avenue Environmental Assessment [official PDF]
· 5Pointz coverage [Curbed]

 

We’ve just confirmed that a new Japanese restaurant will be opening up in Long Island City.

Hibino, a popular high-end restaurant in Carrol Gardens, will opening a restaurant on Jackson Ave., where the Los Amigos deli used to be (next to PNT Fitness).

 

Spotted at WNYC: ramps!

45-45 Center Boulevard, a 41-story rental building in TF Cornerstone's massive East Coast project, topped out in September. A neighbor tells us the building is now nearing completion, and that showings and leasing will begin May 15. In the meantime, a handful of listings are online, giving us a hint as to pricing. (The building will have 820 studio through three-bedroom apartments.) Studios start at $2,125/month, one-bedrooms at $2,645/month, two-bedrooms at $3,875/month, and three-bedrooms at $5,390/month. With the gazillion new rentals set to hit the LIC market this year, how will 45-45 Center stand out?

The building appears to be banking on its amenities. Which are—drumroll please:

Residents will enjoy over 50,000 square feet of amenities, including a children's playroom designed by acclaimed partner Appleseeds, two tennis courts, real sand beach volleyball courts, an expansive landscaped terrace and sun deck, wading pool, state-of-the-art fitness center and even an on-site dog run. 4545 Center Blvd offers unparalleled convenience with a 1,000-car on-site parking garage and Midtown Manhattan just a 4-minute subway ride away.

Here's a selection of studio through three-bedroom floorplans:

· Listings: 45-45 Center Boulevard [TF Cornerstone]
· 45-45 Center Boulevard coverage [Curbed]

Moves is free, lives in your phone, and requires zero interaction. If this doesn’t get you motivated to move your ass, nothing will.

Personal fitness trackers like Nike Fuelband are the thin end of the wedge for mainstream wearable computing. But if, like me, you’ve ever thought, Why would I buy a whole separate device just to do this one little thing? then you might be, like me, just lazy enough to try a free iOS app called Moves instead. Its killer feature? A completely interaction-less experience that requires almost no effort or change on your part--which is ironically effective for something designed to encourage you to change your habits.

The problem with a lot of fitness trackers is that, for all their gorgeous product design and supposed simplicity, they still provide an excuse to shave the yak instead of actually start exercising. "Shaving the yak" means completing an endless series of preliminary steps before you "can" do what you actually should be doing in the first place. It’s basically procrastination by other means. If saving up to buy an expensive fitness tracker, configuring it, learning how to use it, remembering to wear it, etc., etc., are all things you are convinced you "must" do before you can get your ass on a bicycle, then you’re simply never going to get your ass on that bicycle.

Moves brilliantly removes all those self-imposed obstacles. It’s free, so there’s nothing to save up for or buy or hem and haw about. It lives in your iPhone and tracks your activity in the background, so there’s no separate device to learn how to use or remember to carry (you already have your phone on you at all times). There’s no setup: You install it, turn it on, and that’s it. And there’s no management, syncing, or any other "interactive" bullshit to forget to do or get bored of and stop doing altogether. You don’t even have to launch it--Moves will simply ding a little summary of your physical activity into your Notifications Center every day, where you’ll end up seeing it regardless of what you’re doing with your phone. Essentially, Moves gives you no more excuses.

Moves was created by Sampo Karjalainen and Aapo Kyrola when Kyrola realized he was gaining weight while finishing his Ph.D. but didn’t know how to motivate himself to be more active. The first prototype they built included all the gamified bells and whistles you might expect, "but the problem was that [test users] didn’t remember to use the app for everyday activities," Karjalainen tells Co.Design.

The solution: radical simplification. Many so-called "features" simply got the axe. "The ideology is to keep the app really effortless, and that’s why we dropped user accounts, manual adding of exercise, and some other features," Karjalainen says. "This has served us well--our users are saying that Moves is such a great app as 'it asks so little, but gives so much.'" (By running in the background, Moves will deplete your iPhone’s battery faster than usual, but not by much.)

Designer Craig Mod called Moves a true "minimum viable product", and he’s right. There isn’t much else you could strip out of Moves and still have it meaningfully function. But that’s the point. It’s not there to "do stuff," it’s there to get you to do stuff. According to Moves, I walked 15.5 miles last week and biked eight. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s more than I was doing before. And I didn’t have to shave any yaks in the process.

[Download Moves]

[Image: Fitness via Shutterstock]

WNYC’s Reema Khrais snapped this photo of Building crews hoisted the last pieces of a 408-foot spire Thursday morning to the roof of One World Trade Center. MORE

They may not be Anime posters-level odd, but this is certainly one of the weirdest motivational strategies we've heard of: a local realtor has promised employees bonuses if they just get the company logo tattooed on them. No doubt inspired by the incredible productivity of Billy the Human Billboard, Brooklyn-based Rapid Realty NYC is giving employers who get inked a 15 percent pay raise. “I think it’s a good opportunity to show commitment to a company that makes going to work fun every day,” Robert Trezza, who is the 40th employee to get the tattoo, told CBS. [ more › ]

 

[Map of Hunters Point South]

With construction moving forward on the first two parcels of Hunter's Point South, the city is turning its attention to the next piece of this massive affordable housing puzzle. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development released the Request for Proposals (RFP) for the second phase. Phase Two encompasses a chunk of land known as Parcel C, bound by Center Boulevard, Borden Avenue, 2nd Street and 54th Avenue. Unlike the Parcels A and B, which will be all affordable housing, only 50 to 60 percent of the 1,000 units on Parcel C will be set aside as affordable for families earning between $60,000 and $140,000 per year.

Parcel C is about 110,000-square-feet, and the new building will have 28,000 square feet of new retail space along Borden Avenue and 2nd Street. The RFP asks developers to incorporate storm resiliency measures, and all proposals must comply with the FEMA flood maps. A community space and residential parking may also be included, but they are not required. Submissions are due by July 26.

[A rendering of Phase One]

The first phase of Hunters Point South consists of two buildings with 925 affordable units, 17,000-square-feet of retail, a new park, and a new school (slated to open this fall). The plans were designed by SHoP Architects, and the project is being developed by Phipps Houses, Related Companies, and Monadnock Construction.
· Hunters Point South RFP [official PDF]
· Hunters Point South [nyc.gov]
· Hunters Point South coverage [Curbed]

As we all await Chelsea Market's expansion near the High Line, its owners are considering launching a similar venue in Long Island City. The office building at 31-00 47th Avenue, which developer Jamestown Properties purchased for $80 million last year, could be the future home of some retail shops with a market feel and a food focus. That's a relief, because all the new renters and condo owners in LIC were really struggling without a place to buy their ramps and artisanal bread. [TRD; previously]

The poor attempt by cell phone companies to disguise our mobile infrastructure as something natural is almost insulting. Photographer Dillon Marsh has documented some of the most egregious examples.

You’ve all seen them. One lone spectacle of arboreal majesty, towering above the treeline as you drive down the highway. It’s only when you get closer (though not too close, because the disguise is not so good) that you realize the impressive tree is nothing more than a cell phone tower with some rudimentary camouflage, meant to blend into its surroundings, but actually sticking out more for their poor attempt at blending in.

Dillon Marsh, a South African photographer, has created a photo series of the incongruous pieces of infrastructure. They’re from various places around that country: Durbanville, Paarl, Stellenbosch, Eerste River. Amazingly, it seems as though the problem is even worse there: the giant trees are made even more surreal by their total misplacement.

Marsh says he became "intrigued by [their] peculiar nature" after a tower went up near where he grew up. Then he started seeing more of them, and he became hooked:

"In 2009, when I came across another one, I decided to track down and photograph as many of them as I could find around Cape Town. This proved to be way more than I expected and in the end I decided to limit the series to 12 photos so that I could concentrate on new projects."

Wired has more on the history of towers-as-trees. Some of the first examples appeared in the U.S. Southwest in the early 1990s, made by a company called Larson Camouflage. Another photographer, Robert Voit, has snapped trees-masts in Portugal, Italy, and other places. His images are pretty interesting, too.

Safety harnesses are for amateurs—all the cutting-edge window washers know the real thrill of the job comes from working without any restrictions, with your body free to improvise a spontaneous interpretive dance with gravity. The unidentified window washer in this video below knows the key to impeccably clean windows is an artisan who isn't handcuffed by all the Man's ropes and straps. Confining this guy to a harness would be like trying to transfer John McClane to a desk job: [ more › ]

The 10 types of people you meet in New York.

No Backpacks at the Office

For the past year and a half I’ve been largely working from home, so I forget what it’s like to commute with other fellow city-dwellers on public transportation in the rush periods. But the past few weeks i’ve been up and out early in the morning and was reminded of the all-to-common practice of men wearing backpacks with their suits. 

The look is very unprofessional. Seeing a grown man walking to his office wearing a backpack that would be found in a high-school student’s locker strikes me as juvenile. The ballistic nylon, the tactical pouches, way-too many zippers and often-terrible color schemes look tacky on a guy who went through the trouble to wear a suit to make a favorable impression. 

If you have items that need to be carried to and from work, then buy a briefcase. You can find them in almost any configuration to carry whatever you need and it will compliment your business attire. And there’s the added bonus you won’t be that guy who keeps his backpack on his shoulders while riding the crowded bus or train that hits everyone else in the face and takes up room (please, at least put it on the ground like gentleman). 

And don’t think of this as being against all backpacks all the time. We’ve recommended backpacks in the past, but for more casual attire and situations. But if you’re going to the office, then leave them at home. 

-Kiyoshi

(Image via primatage)

Backed by Google Ventures, Robinhood aims to be the next, best investment app. But it needs to solve problems behind real-world investing to pull it off.

It’s rare that I hear something like this from an entrepreneur:

“When we go live, we can really test to see if it works.”

But that’s exactly what co-founder Vladimir Tenev tells me while we talk about his startup’s upcoming iOS app, Robinhood. The best way to describe his software might be one-part Twitter, one-part Yelp, and one-part Mad Money. It’s a social network for investors, in which users prognosticate stock prices and the most successful users float to the top. Theoretically, all of us who are less financially inclined can learn from those with great track records, so that in the future maybe we can make some dough, too.

Theoretically. Because while social networks are pretty well understood, fraud still runs rampant. And fraud mixed with investment advice is an inevitable disaster.

“There are already social finance networks, like StockTwits,” Tenev explains. “One of the complaints people have is, there are some people telling me what they’re buying, selling, and thinking, but generally I have no idea if this person is full of shit.”

In response, the Robinhood team designed the app for as much profile transparency as possible. While you can technically invent a fake persona, all of your predictions are recorded along the way. So your score card becomes part of your identity, and while your name might not be real, that doesn’t really matter, because your predictions were right or wrong, period.

But there’s another problem. Consider when a link goes viral on Twitter and there’s exponential attention on a single story. Generally, that’s a pretty neat by-product of the Internet, and it means your grandma eventually watches the same video that you just did. But when you mix that idea with the possibility of pump-and-run stocks (artificially inflated stocks destined to plummet) or just very quick bubbles, you have to wonder, isn’t Robinhood designed at its core for disaster?

“It can be very dangerous when combining social networking with finance,” Tenev admits. “[Viral investments] can be very good for the first people to hop on, but the people in the end just get destroyed.”

So that brings us to the “when we go live, we can really test to see if this works” point. Tenev acknowledges that Robinhood’s Stanford-based algorithms might have to be tweaked, that they may have to develop strategies to recommend investors to follow for reasons beyond profitability (and in worst cases, that may even lead to a manual intervention). In short, the app may have to throttle the excitement of its own product for the health of its own financial ecosystem.

Then again, the app does have a pretty smart ace in the hole. While Robinhood will eventually allow you to buy and sell stocks from within the app, it’s launching with a natural limiter: It’s an advice-only social network for now.

Download it here.

We learned last year that there's a hefty price to pay for the luxury of repairing to the Hamptons for the summer: Unless your pool deck is big enough to accommodate your private jet, most people, even linen-pant-wearing, tennis bracelet-owning Hamptons people, are forced to suffer the indignity of the drunken cattle car that is the LIRR, a reportedly nightmarish experience defined by toddlers hurling iPads and grown men in visors cradling blenders. [ more › ]

San Francisco’s Exploratorium has always set the bar for experiential science learning. Its newly completed space full of new exhibits (and old favorites) should help it keep revolutionizing hands-on science education for years more.

Visit San Francisco’s Pier 15 anytime on or after April 17 and you’ll get to take in a bridge enveloped in manmade fog, a 3-D topographic map of the Bay Area with data sets projected onto its surface, mouse stem cell research, and items from patients who lived at a now-shuttered mental institution. It’s all part of the new Exploratorium, a $300 million upgrade to the mother of all experiential learning science museums.

Originally built in 1969 at the Palace of Fine Arts, the Exploratorium is the brainchild of Frank Oppenheimer (his brother Robert is the Oppenheimer of atomic bomb fame), who received a grant from the National Science Foundation to create a “library of experiments” that let students learn about science at their own pace. Before moving to Pier 15 this spring, the Exploratorium sat in a dark, somewhat musty space that nonetheless made a big impact on experiential learning across the globe. All of the Exploratorium’s exhibits are home-grown, and today, 80% of science centers worldwide use its exhibits, ideas, and programs.

The new Exploratorium is huge (330,000 square feet, which is three times as large as its previous incarnation) and gorgeous, with 360-degree sweeping views of the San Francisco Bay throughout the space. I didn’t get to explore nearly all of the 600-plus exhibits (one quarter are brand new) during the day I spent at Pier 15, but I did come across some clear highlights. Rest assured that other science museums are paying attention.

Some of the most exciting new exhibits are in the East Gallery, which focuses on living systems. In addition to exhibits like the algae chandelier (above), a piece featuring phytoplankton that are nourished by pumped-in air, the gallery also contains a life sciences lab that can grow everything from stem cells (mouse stem cells can be viewed by visitors under a microscope) to plants. One of the gallery’s curators describes it as "an open kitchen of exhibit development."

The gallery also makes use of the bay that surrounds the Exploratorium. The Seasons of Plankton exhibit, for example, uses USGS data and photos of the San Francisco Bay’s phytoplankton that were collected each week by staff to show visitors how plankton life changes throughout the year.

The Wired Pier exhibit, located in the observatory, also harnesses the surrounding environment, with data (atmosphere, weather, water) from sensors installed around the building shown on a video wall--and archived for future use.

It wasn’t yet installed when I visited, but artist Fujiko Nakaya‘s Fog Bridge, located outside the building, looks like another potentially big hit--especially because it’s viewable to passersby who haven’t paid for an Exploratorium ticket. A thousand high-pressure nozzles will create fog that wraps around a 150-foot long pedestrian bridge. Nakaya has done fog sculptures around the world; you can see what they look like here.

Perhaps the most controversial new exhibition is The Changing Face of What is Normal: Mental Health. Timed to launch with the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the exhibition features items collected from former patients at the Willard Psychiatric Center, a New York mental institution that closed in 1995. Many of the items--pictures, books, letters, even ice skates--come from patients with diagnoses that would be unrecognizable today.

The idea is to get visitors to reflect on what normal really means in the context of mental health--something that the DSM has long struggled with. A placard at the exhibition explains: "There’s also a concern that the DSM overdiagnoses behaviors that many see as normal. For example, someone formerly called 'shy’ might now be diagnosed with a social phobia or an anxiety disorder." This is heavy stuff for some of the younger kids that come to the Exploratorium. It may also be the first time an all-ages science center has really tackled mental health. But considering the Exploratorium’s influence, it probably won’t be an outlier for long.

Image by: the Exploratorium

And while it doesn’t stand out among the Exploratorium’s flashier exhibits, Visualizing the Bay (above) is one of the most fascinating pieces in the building. It looks initially like a simple topographic map of the San Francisco Bay Area, but a projector above the map can overlay a number of visualizations onto the surface, including population distribution by age and ethnicity, a history of earthquakes over the past 40 years, and fog patterns.

Unsurprisingly, the Exploratorium has some ambitious environmental goals: It plans to be a net-zero energy building within the year, thanks to a series of almost 6,000 rooftop solar panels and a heating and cooling system that runs on bay seawater.

If you’re anywhere near the Bay Area, check the new Exploratorium out. Trust us: it’s worth it, if for no other reason than to see what kinds of new exhibits your local science museum will show in the coming years.

Black on black Eames.

Two Explosions at Boston Marathon Finish Line