One way to express your angst over your latest energy bill could be to…
DRIVE INTO THE PG&E BUILDING!
This SUV interrupted my zombie-like stagger toward work this morning… so I took a picture.
I don’t know what the human injuries were, but the PG&E building and sidewalk pseudo-obelisk seemed unphased.
May 15th was not only a “Spare the Air” day and “Bike to Work” day; it also was a day of record temperatures in The City. As the day went on, the heat soared to 97 degrees in the city.
As noon approached, trouble began to brew on the BART system. For the next 8 hours, the system was plagued by delays of 45 minutes or longer.
I met the BART problem head-on at rush hour last night. I arrived at Civic Center at about 4:40pm. Trains were being held in between stations and at stations for 10 to 15 minutes at a time. The first train only went to 24th street/Mission, so I didn’t get on. Then I realized, soon enough, the trains were ONLY going to 24th Street/Mission, where you would have to transfer.
17 minutes later, two more trains came and went, absolutely packed to the ceiling. Finally, I got on a train. At 24th Street, something strange happened- the train went backwards. Apparently, while I was zoning out in iPod land, the train had suddenly become a Richmond train and just started going the other way at 24th Street.
At 16th, I disembarked to attempt another try towards my destination. Alas, my “SFO” BART train, again, suddenly became a Richmond train and turned around. But, at least, this time, I managed to GET OFF the train at 24th.
The platform was packed with people, the trains kept turning around. Then two more packed trains rolled by. Finally, I braved one of the packed trains. My last BART train of the evening made several long pauses to cool itself, but I did finally make my destination at 6:20pm.
Where will advertisers find the “most digitally savvy consumers,” those most ready to early-adopt, link up, throw all their personal information online, and then blog about it?
Not San Francisco or Silicon Valley, says Advertising Age. The winner is Austin. San Francisco comes in tenth — tenth — behind places like Sacramento, Phoenix and Las Vegas. WTF!
The story becomes really dubious when it starts talking about the web sites these “savvy” consumers visit. Not slashdot, blogher, twitter, BoingBoing or Huffington Post. Not even Salon, Google or icanhascheezburger. The web sites for “digitally savvy” consumers are supposedly ESPN.com, NFL.com, CNN.com, Ask.com and Amazon. Oh yeah, right!
The Green Roof Industry Association has awarded the new Cal Academy of Sciences with an award of excellence for their green roof installation. The new Academy opens on September 27, 2008. The living roof is a key part of the platinum LEED certification the museum has accomplished. From the southeast view the building truly blends in to the landscape. From the west, see picture below, still a sight to behold.
The roof also retains 2 million gallons of rainwater, preventing 70% of the rainwater that falls on the roof from becoming runoff. The water that does run off the roof is collected in basement-level cisterns and reused for roof irrigation. No potable water will be used to irrigate the living roof.
The roof covers an ambitious 197,000 sq. ft. to a depth of 6-7 inches and cost $17 per sq. ft. In conjunction with the building’s other innovative sustainable features, the living roof contributes to many of the anticipated LEED® points, which, when achieved, will make the Academy the world’s largest LEED® Platinum -certified public space
Photo Credit: Peter Kaminski. H/t to Inhabitat.
Loading …I’ve been noticing the ugly new street signs around town for the last year or two, but this was the first chance I had to actually compare the old style (top) with the new style (bottom).
It’s not just that the new font is ugly; it’s that the text is not even centered. And I’ve seen that on other new-style signs too. What’s up with that?
Looking for a nice view of The City? Hi-Def San Francisco, a project of CloudView Photography, has some great views!
Not only is there a live view of the SF skyline, there are some stunning HD panoramas, a live map of ships in the Bay and more. My favorite is the mesmerizing HD time lapse of The City as viewed from Sausalito, available in 480p, 720p, and even 1080p(!) so you can fill your screen with a superb view of SF.
With all the video games, cell phones, vending machines and ATM’s in our midst, many people would argue humans have lost touch with their wild side forever.
I’ve spent most of my life in metropolitan areas. Though I’ve spent some time on horseback, I’ve spent 95% of my time riding urban public transportation systems instead. I buy my food in boxes, in bags, and heat it at home. Hell, for lunch, I even graze at a salad bar.
A train takes me to my job, which is as far from harvesting my own food and repairing my homestead as a job could possibly be. I work with digital media. CDs and DVDs and the computers that record them are my daily companions. I have an iPod, a few computers, a cell phone, a personal organizer and automated payments. I’m the perfect example of the city-dwelling, half-woman, half-machine that has every day of the week organized to an annoying level.
You could say I’m far from my roots as a savanna-loving homo sapien… you could say that of my co-workers too. So it was pretty interesting to see something quite to the contrary in the middle of my day-to-day technology bustle. I heard quite a ruckus on the bottom floor of our brand-new, giant-sized office. I gazed down from my loft to see a fork-lift pushing a giant machine into the corner of the production area.
Diagonally across from the machinery was the entire assembly crew, staring in wonder. I went downstairs to check it out. A brand new machine that resembles a yellow submarine attached to complete photo-developing station was being hoisted into our midst. It’s a massive tangle of steel and gears, still shining from the factory and looming large over every other machine in our company. I hear tell this was the major reason for moving to our new office. The gaggle of human assemblers were still staring at the great beast.
That’s when I realized what seemed so odd about the bunch…
they were afraid.
(more…)
Metal cookware, that is. Beijing artist Zhan Wang has sculpted a metal version of San Francisco as a part of the exhibit On Gold Mountain: Sculptures from the Sierra at the Asian Art Museum. He has painstakingly crafted a model of San Francisco with mirrors, pots, pans, and rocks specially selected from the Sierra Nevada Mountains that were then transported to his studio in China to be integrated into his sculptures.
Zhan Wang has also created similar sculptures for other cities, such as London, Beijing and Chicago. On Gold Mountain: Sculptures from the Sierra is on display at the Asian Art Museum until May 25th.
Could it be good, old-fashioned … humiliation?
It’s a rite of passage, a fraction of the cost of items, it’s prevention is a billion-dollar industry… it’s SHOP-LIFTING.
One grocery store in West Portal has decided to offer two choices to folks who purloin their goods…
1) Talk to the police…
or
2) Be openly mocked
I had quite a time joking with the shop-keep
about the woman in picture number 2!
She is clearly saying, “Well, I would… neeeevvvver…”
Apparently, she WOULD, and was caught shoveling handfuls of apples into her purse.
She was caught… red-handed… (sorry…)
