Local Teamsters are playing the "transit first" card on 7,000 downtown parking spots that are owned by Caltrans. According to the union president, the daily cost of one of those spots is less than a roundtrip BART ticket, which ends up encouraging driving — so those parking lots should be used for tree farms or public art instead. Also, the lots are non-union. Not that that's the real reason behind the Teamsters wanting tree farms in the FiDi. [SFGate]
Are addicts only people sitting in twelve-step meetings or those waiting for life to get dark enough to start needing them?
I won't pretend to have the definitive answers on this topic.
I will say that I've gotten better at asking really good questions. Questions that don't just have me re-arranging familiar facts into new stories that make it easier to sleep for a night or two. Questions that point at what's been sitting under the surface of the mind stimulating distraction.
Distraction from what?
From what you're here to do. You know, that sense of something more that when the lights are low, there's no one around, TV's off, and you feel it? Yeah, that voice that says something like, "Is this it? Is all there is?"
"This" would be referring to the circular dance of feel something missing, reach somewhere outside for something or someone more than what's here now to fill the void, notice that it didn't work, and look for the next thing. That "this". All the ways you and I distract ourselves knowingly and mostly unconsciously from having to feel that there's something more to step into that's not a new handbag, a better drug combination, a longer orgasm, or a tastier latte.
And p.s. by-the-way, there's nothing at all wrong with handbags, orgasms, or lattes. They just can't ever fill a void inside. A handbag (or man-bag in my case) is for carrying items, a latte is a coffee beverage and not a therapy, and an orgasm... well, we'll leave that for another post.
Are we addicted to distraction? If we are, why isn't it obvious to more of us? If masses of us are distracted, does that lessen the impact or make it harder to wake up from?
"It's the world that has been pulled over your eyes," says the character Morpheus about the nature of the Matrix.
"It's everywhere you look," he says.
And just when I think I'm starting to get the hang of letting things be as they are, some big distraction knows just the way to saunter by and get my attention, get my commitment to possessing it, filling myself up on it. So sometimes I ramp up for a full-out pursuit and get on the hunt. In the excitement and adrenaline, I might miss that familiar feeling; the one that's got a slight gripping sensation somewhere in my body, letting me know that the seeming Greek god walking by is just a Trojan horse. Other times I'm crystal clear that the seduction is just a reflection in the pond, and not the Reality that will leave me feeling whole and grounded.
It's a journey. Trying to get it "right" is another distraction. Getting a workable relationship with self-love and letting it all be an ongoing experimental growing process breeds peace. Peace breeds contentment. Contentment breeds immunity to being seduce-able by Trojan horses.
Love this line from the New York Times’s David Carr on the Charlie Rose show, regarding the iPad:
One thing you have to understand about this gadget is that the gadget disappears pretty quickly. You’re looking into pure software.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Carr is a business reporter, not a tech reporter. He sees the forest, not the trees. But this is really astute. I’ve been using a Nexus One Android phone for the last few weeks, and Carr’s quote summarizes the fundamental difference between Android and iPhone OS. On the iPhone, once you’re in an app, everything happens on-screen, with touch. Everything. You go outside the screen to the home button to leave the app or the sleep button to turn off the device. On Android, many things happens on screen with touch, but many other things don’t, and you’re often leaving the screen for the hardware Back, Menu, and Home buttons, and text selection and editing requires the use of the fiddly trackball. An Android gadget never disappears.
Photo via StoryCorps
A report published last week offers a peek into the effects of global warming on the world's trees. As it turns out, early indications hint that rising temperatures and increases in CO2 em...Read the full story on TreeHugger
When it comes to plastic bags things are pretty black and white.
"I’m not crazy about telling everyone not to use plastic bags. I know they can be very useful. But since I’ve been living in the US it is very hard to ignore the mass amounts of plastic bags everywhere. Everyone keeps them stuffed into one that hangs from the pantry door. They line trash bins. They carry food even if it is just a single pack of gum. They flutter from trees. They float in the breeze. They clog roadside drains. There are so many everywhere that no one really treats them as if they’re worth anything."
Via Hello Bauldoff
Via Design*Sponge
Popular Mechanics has a tips:
Keeping your wits about you, you take aim. But at what?
Magee’s landing on the stone floor of that French train station was softened by the skylight he crashed through a moment earlier. Glass hurts, but it gives. So does grass. Haystacks and bushes have cushioned surprised-to-be-alive free-fallers. Trees aren’t bad, though they tend to skewer. Snow? Absolutely. Swamps? With their mucky, plant-covered surface, even more awesome. Hamilton documents one case of a sky diver who, upon total parachute failure, was saved by bouncing off high-tension wires. Contrary to popular belief, water is an awful choice. Like concrete, liquid doesn’t compress. Hitting the ocean is essentially the same as colliding with a sidewalk, Hamilton explains, except that pavement (perhaps unfortunately) won’t “open up and swallow your shattered body.”
The San Francisco Redevelopment Agency's gearing up for some heavy-duty spackling action in SoMa alleyways near blighty 6th Street. According to the Examiner, construction crews will be trucking in a bunch of street improvement gear starting in March this year, including trees, brick-like paving, street lights, raised crosswalks, and art. There's also a car-free plaza in the plans — perhaps the "Tutubi Plaza" shown at the corner of Minna and Russ alleys in 2008 proposals? Says the agency's project manager: "The alleys are a forgotten treasure in San Francisco. A lot of people spend a lot of their time there." And after all's said and done, they might end up even enjoying their alley time.
· Project is right up SoMa’s alleys [SF Examiner]
· South of Market [SF Redevelopment Agency]
A Hello Kitty chainsaw (high-res pic HERE): it was only a matter of time. Makes a great addition to you to Hello Kitty AR-15. But not your family. You don't want that thing suckling your teat for six months. F*** your nipples up.
Hello Kitty Chainsaw [hellokittyhell]
Thanks to GuamOtoko and Isaac, who have beheaded zombies with even MORE feminine chainsaws. If you can believe that.
Eco Factor: Self-sufficient skyscraper harvests solar and wind energy.
Conceived as a city that takes input from nature and the surrounding the Eco-Cybernetic City by Orlando De Urrutia resembles a forest of trees that are in search of light. The building is not only self-sufficient in terms of energy, but features systems that allow it to save energy and rely on natural sources for everything from energy to water.
The building with 150 floors has been touted to be an “alive machine” by the designers, as the building interacts with its surrounding environment. Featuring a two-tower structure, the building is equipped with aerogenerators that take advantage of the airflows between the towers to generate wind energy.
Specialized systems have been integrated in the design that allows the building to harvest water from the air and also harvest rainwater. The Eco-Cybernetic City incorporates a façade of photovoltaic lattices, which generate solar energy for the building and its unique multimedia LED façade that interacts with the changes in the atmosphere.
The skin of the building is made of bio-climatic panels that are easy to clean and also allows the growth of vegetation. Once vegetated, the surface creates a green mantle that purifies the air surrounding it.
Via: Orlando De Urrutia
Eco Factor: Self-sufficient skyscraper harvests solar and wind energy.
Conceived as a city that takes input from nature and the surrounding the Eco-Cybernetic City by Orlando De Urrutia resembles a forest of trees that are in search of light. The building is not only self-sufficient in terms of energy, but features systems that allow it to save energy and rely on natural sources for everything from energy to water.
The building with 150 floors has been touted to be an “alive machine” by the designers, as the building interacts with its surrounding environment. Featuring a two-tower structure, the building is equipped with aerogenerators that take advantage of the airflows between the towers to generate wind energy.
Specialized systems have been integrated in the design that allows the building to harvest water from the air and also harvest rainwater. The Eco-Cybernetic City incorporates a façade of photovoltaic lattices, which generate solar energy for the building and its unique multimedia LED façade that interacts with the changes in the atmosphere.
The skin of the building is made of bio-climatic panels that are easy to clean and also allows the growth of vegetation. Once vegetated, the surface creates a green mantle that purifies the air surrounding it.
Via: Orlando De Urrutia
