Friday, August 11, 2017
Smog-Eating Bikes
From the Daily Good -
Smog-Eating Bikes Are About To Take On Beijing
by James Gaines
If one design firm can pull it off, cyclists in Beijing may soon double as mobile air filters. Holland’s Studio Roosegaarde has developed anti-smog bicycles and the first prototype is expected to hit the Asian city’s congested streets as soon as the end of this year, according to Quartz.
~~~~~~~~~~
Here’s how the bikes work: A device installed near the handlebars of the bike sucks in smoggy air and filters out particulates like soot or dust, clearing the way for what will essentially be a bubble of clean air right in front of the rider.
The bikes are still in the planning stage, so their effectiveness has yet to be put to the test, but it’s possible that this air-filtration system could benefit more than just the cyclist who rides it. With Roosegaarde’s partner bike-sharing service Ofo providing access to over 6.5 million bikes in Asia and the U.K., a lot of air could end up running through those filters.
https://www.good.is/articles/beijing-bicycles-remove-smog-directly-from-the-air?utm_source=thedailygood&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailygood
Smog-Eating Bikes Are About To Take On Beijing
by James Gaines
 | |
All images via Studio Roosegaarde.
|
If one design firm can pull it off, cyclists in Beijing may soon double as mobile air filters. Holland’s Studio Roosegaarde has developed anti-smog bicycles and the first prototype is expected to hit the Asian city’s congested streets as soon as the end of this year, according to Quartz.
~~~~~~~~~~
Here’s how the bikes work: A device installed near the handlebars of the bike sucks in smoggy air and filters out particulates like soot or dust, clearing the way for what will essentially be a bubble of clean air right in front of the rider.
The bikes are still in the planning stage, so their effectiveness has yet to be put to the test, but it’s possible that this air-filtration system could benefit more than just the cyclist who rides it. With Roosegaarde’s partner bike-sharing service Ofo providing access to over 6.5 million bikes in Asia and the U.K., a lot of air could end up running through those filters.
https://www.good.is/articles/beijing-bicycles-remove-smog-directly-from-the-air?utm_source=thedailygood&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailygood
Passport Website
From the Huffington Post -
This Website Will Upend The Way You Think About Passports
Find out where you can travel without a visa thanks to your U.S. passport.
By Suzy Strutner
Having a U.S. passport comes with really big benefits, as a new website will remind you.
Passport holders from the States can visit some 174 countries without applying for a visa first. VisaDB, a handy new website in its prototype phase, allows travelers to easily browse all the available options. Just plug in the U.S. as your country of residence, and the tool will tell you which countries you can visit visa-free in a given region, along with some helpful data about expenses.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/visadb-passports-do-you-need-a-visa_us_598cd4a6e4b08a247273567d?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
This Website Will Upend The Way You Think About Passports
Find out where you can travel without a visa thanks to your U.S. passport.
By Suzy Strutner
Having a U.S. passport comes with really big benefits, as a new website will remind you.
Passport holders from the States can visit some 174 countries without applying for a visa first. VisaDB, a handy new website in its prototype phase, allows travelers to easily browse all the available options. Just plug in the U.S. as your country of residence, and the tool will tell you which countries you can visit visa-free in a given region, along with some helpful data about expenses.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/visadb-passports-do-you-need-a-visa_us_598cd4a6e4b08a247273567d?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
Medical Marvels
From the NY Times -
Heart and Asthma Monitors? There’s an App for That
By CAROL POGASH
He could have been surfing in Cabo. Instead, Tyler Crouch, then a 21-year-old mechanical-engineering student, spent spring break of 2013 building a digitized stethoscope and thinking, “This better be worth it.”
Since then, he and two classmates from the University of California, Berkeley, have formed a company — Eko Devices, which is based here — raised nearly $5 million and sold 6,000 digital stethoscopes, used in 700 hospitals. The wireless stethoscopes can transfer a patient’s heart rate and other vital signs directly to Eko’s secure portal, where it can, among other things, be shared with other doctors for a second opinion.
Now they have built something with a potentially larger market: It is the Duo, a digital stethoscope for home use, which could change how heart patients are monitored, the entrepreneurs say. It is scheduled to become available by prescription in the fall.
The product, which fits in your hand, combines electrocardiogram, or E.K.G., readings and heart sounds into a device that allows patients to monitor their health at home and send data to their physicians.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/09/business/heart-and-asthma-monitors-theres-an-app-for-that.html?emc=edit_ca_20170811&nl=california-today&nlid=38867499&te=1
Heart and Asthma Monitors? There’s an App for That
By CAROL POGASH
He could have been surfing in Cabo. Instead, Tyler Crouch, then a 21-year-old mechanical-engineering student, spent spring break of 2013 building a digitized stethoscope and thinking, “This better be worth it.”
Since then, he and two classmates from the University of California, Berkeley, have formed a company — Eko Devices, which is based here — raised nearly $5 million and sold 6,000 digital stethoscopes, used in 700 hospitals. The wireless stethoscopes can transfer a patient’s heart rate and other vital signs directly to Eko’s secure portal, where it can, among other things, be shared with other doctors for a second opinion.
Now they have built something with a potentially larger market: It is the Duo, a digital stethoscope for home use, which could change how heart patients are monitored, the entrepreneurs say. It is scheduled to become available by prescription in the fall.
The product, which fits in your hand, combines electrocardiogram, or E.K.G., readings and heart sounds into a device that allows patients to monitor their health at home and send data to their physicians.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/09/business/heart-and-asthma-monitors-theres-an-app-for-that.html?emc=edit_ca_20170811&nl=california-today&nlid=38867499&te=1
So Hard to Watch
I went to see the movie "Detroit" this week. It was horrific. Not because it wasn't well made. It was. Not because it wasn't well cast. It was. Not because it was brought to life by a white director. A problem, but one I could overlook. No, the issue was the pain it evoked. The torment and physical agony of seeing black folks tortured and killed simply for being black, was too much to bear. Seeing the cops who did it get off, was soul-crushing. Knowing this happened 40 years ago and knowing that it is still happening today, is horrifying. Heartbreaking.
An excerpt from the Washington Post -
‘Detroit’ and the question of cultural gatekeeping
By Ann Hornaday
The groan, when it came, was swift, the pain behind it palpable. At a curators’ roundtable at the BlackStar Film Festival in Philadelphia last weekend, the subject was gatekeeping. Who decides what stories get told? Who decides who gets to tell them? When it comes to stories rooted in the African diaspora — the focus of BlackStar, now in its sixth year — how have moving images in mainstream culture contributed to external bias and internalized self-loathing? Why is a particular story that transpired during the 1967 riots being called “Detroit,” as if one specific, if admittedly monstrous, episode can fairly represent the far more complex events during which it took place?
It was at this question, posed by scholar and curator Dessane Cassell, that the collective groan went up in the packed conference room at the Institute of Contemporary Art. “Detroit,” in which director Kathryn Bigelow dramatizes the murder of three black teenagers at the hands of white policemen during the titular city’s 1967 uprising, has been hailed by many critics (including this one) for plunging viewers into an event that crystallizes white supremacy and impunity at their most pathological. But for many others — including those among the filmmakers, programmers and viewers who attended BlackStar — “Detroit” presents yet another dispiriting example of a white filmmaker undertaking self-examination and catharsis using the spectacle of anguish, suffering and desecration of the black body.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/detroit-and-the-question-of-cultural-gatekeeping/2017/08/10/0bdff1a2-7dce-11e7-83c7-5bd5460f0d7e_story.html?utm_term=.11590ba19b41&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1
An excerpt from the Washington Post -
‘Detroit’ and the question of cultural gatekeeping
By Ann Hornaday
The groan, when it came, was swift, the pain behind it palpable. At a curators’ roundtable at the BlackStar Film Festival in Philadelphia last weekend, the subject was gatekeeping. Who decides what stories get told? Who decides who gets to tell them? When it comes to stories rooted in the African diaspora — the focus of BlackStar, now in its sixth year — how have moving images in mainstream culture contributed to external bias and internalized self-loathing? Why is a particular story that transpired during the 1967 riots being called “Detroit,” as if one specific, if admittedly monstrous, episode can fairly represent the far more complex events during which it took place?
It was at this question, posed by scholar and curator Dessane Cassell, that the collective groan went up in the packed conference room at the Institute of Contemporary Art. “Detroit,” in which director Kathryn Bigelow dramatizes the murder of three black teenagers at the hands of white policemen during the titular city’s 1967 uprising, has been hailed by many critics (including this one) for plunging viewers into an event that crystallizes white supremacy and impunity at their most pathological. But for many others — including those among the filmmakers, programmers and viewers who attended BlackStar — “Detroit” presents yet another dispiriting example of a white filmmaker undertaking self-examination and catharsis using the spectacle of anguish, suffering and desecration of the black body.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/detroit-and-the-question-of-cultural-gatekeeping/2017/08/10/0bdff1a2-7dce-11e7-83c7-5bd5460f0d7e_story.html?utm_term=.11590ba19b41&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1
Smart Hires
From Axios -
Jim (Axios CEO Jim VandeHei) told me the one management super-power he would wish for all is this: the self-confidence and judgment to hire people, with killer talent and awesome values, who want your job and can do it better. Do this and the next person they hire will do the same and your company will crush it. Don't do this, and you will have a hot mess of mediocrity. This is the Roy Schwartz Rule — and it's damn good one!
https://www.axios.com/axios-am-2471665645.html
Jim (Axios CEO Jim VandeHei) told me the one management super-power he would wish for all is this: the self-confidence and judgment to hire people, with killer talent and awesome values, who want your job and can do it better. Do this and the next person they hire will do the same and your company will crush it. Don't do this, and you will have a hot mess of mediocrity. This is the Roy Schwartz Rule — and it's damn good one!
https://www.axios.com/axios-am-2471665645.html
Thursday, August 10, 2017
A Better Bus?
From the Washington Post -
Can a better night’s sleep in a ‘hipster’ bus replace flying?
By Peter Holley
For many people, moving between major hubs that are just far enough away to create complications — think Los Angeles to San Francisco, for instance — is a regular travel headache.
Tom Currier calls it the “500-mile problem” and now, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur and his partner, Gaetano Crupi, say they have a solution. It’s called “Cabin” — a double-decker, luxury bus line with WiFi, a comfy lounge and sleeping pods that offer the same pressed sheets you’ll find at the Ritz Carlton.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2017/08/10/can-a-better-nights-sleep-in-a-hipster-bus-replace-flying/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_bus-1120pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.94fcf5e78559
Can a better night’s sleep in a ‘hipster’ bus replace flying?
By Peter Holley
For many people, moving between major hubs that are just far enough away to create complications — think Los Angeles to San Francisco, for instance — is a regular travel headache.
Tom Currier calls it the “500-mile problem” and now, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur and his partner, Gaetano Crupi, say they have a solution. It’s called “Cabin” — a double-decker, luxury bus line with WiFi, a comfy lounge and sleeping pods that offer the same pressed sheets you’ll find at the Ritz Carlton.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2017/08/10/can-a-better-nights-sleep-in-a-hipster-bus-replace-flying/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_bus-1120pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.94fcf5e78559
History Lesson
An excerpt from Atlas Obscura -
The Best Trick U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves Ever Pulled on a Criminal
A particularly glorious example of “fake it ‘til you make it.”
BY ERIC GRUNDHAUSER
THE AMERICAN OLD WEST WAS a fertile cauldron for myth and legend, producing such fantastical figures as Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill. But while many folk heroes of the era may have been embellished-unto-fable, or completely dreamt up, the legendary Wild West figure Bass Reeves was absolutely real, even if his exploits sound like tall tales.
Reeves was one of the most remarkable figures of the Old West, serving as a deputy U.S. Marshal from 1875 to 1907, mostly in and around the regrettable Indian Territory, which once made up much of what is now Oklahoma.
Born into slavery, Reeves escaped from the slave owner George Reeves at some point during the Civil War, supposedly knocking out his so-called “master” in a dispute over cards. Bass then fled into Indian Territory where, despite never having had the opportunity to learn to read, he learned the land and languages of the Cherokee, Seminole, and major tribes that had been forced to relocate to the region. After the passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865, abolishing slavery, Reeves was finally able to settle down at an Arkansas farm and start a family. He and his wife Nellie would have almost a dozen kids while working their peaceful homestead, but for Bass, the legend was just beginning.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/bass-reeves-wild-west-letter-trick?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=eeb0bfdbad-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_08_10&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f36db9c480-eeb0bfdbad-63562045&ct=t(Newsletter_8_10_2017)&mc_cid=eeb0bfdbad&mc_eid=866176a63f
The Best Trick U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves Ever Pulled on a Criminal
A particularly glorious example of “fake it ‘til you make it.”
BY ERIC GRUNDHAUSER
 | |
| Bass Reeves, wearing his iconic push broom mustache. JUNKYARDSPARKLE/PUBLIC DOMAIN |
THE AMERICAN OLD WEST WAS a fertile cauldron for myth and legend, producing such fantastical figures as Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill. But while many folk heroes of the era may have been embellished-unto-fable, or completely dreamt up, the legendary Wild West figure Bass Reeves was absolutely real, even if his exploits sound like tall tales.
Reeves was one of the most remarkable figures of the Old West, serving as a deputy U.S. Marshal from 1875 to 1907, mostly in and around the regrettable Indian Territory, which once made up much of what is now Oklahoma.
Born into slavery, Reeves escaped from the slave owner George Reeves at some point during the Civil War, supposedly knocking out his so-called “master” in a dispute over cards. Bass then fled into Indian Territory where, despite never having had the opportunity to learn to read, he learned the land and languages of the Cherokee, Seminole, and major tribes that had been forced to relocate to the region. After the passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865, abolishing slavery, Reeves was finally able to settle down at an Arkansas farm and start a family. He and his wife Nellie would have almost a dozen kids while working their peaceful homestead, but for Bass, the legend was just beginning.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/bass-reeves-wild-west-letter-trick?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=eeb0bfdbad-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_08_10&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f36db9c480-eeb0bfdbad-63562045&ct=t(Newsletter_8_10_2017)&mc_cid=eeb0bfdbad&mc_eid=866176a63f
Remembering the Korean War
An excerpt form the Intercept - H/T Ben
Why Do North Koreans Hate Us? One Reason — They Remember the Korean War.
By Mehdi Hasan
“The hate, though,” as longtime North Korea watcher Blaine Harden observed in the Washington Post, “is not all manufactured.” Some of it, he wrote, “is rooted in a fact-based narrative, one that North Korea obsessively remembers and the United States blithely forgets.”
Forgets as in the “forgotten war.” Yes, the Korean War. Remember that? The one wedged between World War II and the Vietnam War? The first “hot” war of the Cold War, which took place between 1950 and 1953, and which has since been conveniently airbrushed from most discussions and debates about the “crazy” and “insane” regime in Pyongyang? Forgotten despite the fact that this particular war isn’t even over — it was halted by an armistice agreement, not a peace treaty — and despite the fact that the conflict saw the United States engage in numerous war crimes, which, perhaps unsurprisingly, continue to shape the way North Koreans view the United States, even if the residents of the United States remain blissfully ignorant of their country’s belligerent past.
For the record, it was the North Koreans, and not the Americans or their South Korean allies, who started the war in June 1950, when they crossed the 38th Parallel and invaded the south. Nevertheless, “What hardly any Americans know or remember,” University of Chicago historian Bruce Cumings writes in his book “The Korean War: A History,” “is that we carpet-bombed the north for three years with next to no concern for civilian casualties.”
How many Americans, for example, are aware of the fact that U.S. planes dropped on the Korean peninsula more bombs — 635,000 tons — and napalm — 32,557 tons — than during the entire Pacific campaign against the Japanese during World War II?
How many Americans know that “over a period of three years or so,” to quote Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay, head of the Strategic Air Command during the Korean War, “we killed off … 20 percent of the population”?
https://theintercept.com/2017/05/03/why-do-north-koreans-hate-us-one-reason-they-remember-the-korean-war/
Why Do North Koreans Hate Us? One Reason — They Remember the Korean War.
By Mehdi Hasan
“The hate, though,” as longtime North Korea watcher Blaine Harden observed in the Washington Post, “is not all manufactured.” Some of it, he wrote, “is rooted in a fact-based narrative, one that North Korea obsessively remembers and the United States blithely forgets.”
Forgets as in the “forgotten war.” Yes, the Korean War. Remember that? The one wedged between World War II and the Vietnam War? The first “hot” war of the Cold War, which took place between 1950 and 1953, and which has since been conveniently airbrushed from most discussions and debates about the “crazy” and “insane” regime in Pyongyang? Forgotten despite the fact that this particular war isn’t even over — it was halted by an armistice agreement, not a peace treaty — and despite the fact that the conflict saw the United States engage in numerous war crimes, which, perhaps unsurprisingly, continue to shape the way North Koreans view the United States, even if the residents of the United States remain blissfully ignorant of their country’s belligerent past.
For the record, it was the North Koreans, and not the Americans or their South Korean allies, who started the war in June 1950, when they crossed the 38th Parallel and invaded the south. Nevertheless, “What hardly any Americans know or remember,” University of Chicago historian Bruce Cumings writes in his book “The Korean War: A History,” “is that we carpet-bombed the north for three years with next to no concern for civilian casualties.”
How many Americans, for example, are aware of the fact that U.S. planes dropped on the Korean peninsula more bombs — 635,000 tons — and napalm — 32,557 tons — than during the entire Pacific campaign against the Japanese during World War II?
How many Americans know that “over a period of three years or so,” to quote Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay, head of the Strategic Air Command during the Korean War, “we killed off … 20 percent of the population”?
https://theintercept.com/2017/05/03/why-do-north-koreans-hate-us-one-reason-they-remember-the-korean-war/
Wednesday, August 9, 2017
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