Construction cranes have pretty much been a constant feature of the Toronto skyline for as long as I can remember. These pictures, taken from them, apparently illegally, are quite awesome. I wish they had higher res versions.

Beautiful Pics!

View From The Crow’s Nest - Torontoist

Announcing my latest website project:

Wiki Voter Guide is a website that helps you research upcoming elections in the United States using Wikipedia. Why use Wikipedia for this purpose? On the one hand, Wikipedia can contain information that is incorrect or misleading, because it can be edited by anyone. However, we believe that Wikipedia can be a useful resource if it is used properly and read with a critical eye. Its openness and collaborative process enables people to work together to create objective documentation of a politican's positions and views, independent of any campaign or special interest. Also, the WikiTrust Browser Plugin makes it easier to identify and eliminate vandalism. You can read a detailed discussion of the philosophy and origins of this website by clicking here.

I said I'd do something about this, and I am.

Feedback?

Wiki Voter Guide

A hard core look at the issues.

YouTube - WIKILEAKS vs The Pentagon - RAP NEWS

Wal-Mart plans to roll out sophisticated electronic ID tags to track individual pairs of jeans and underwear, the first step in a system that advocates say better controls inventory but some critics say raises privacy concerns.

While the tags can be removed from clothing and packages, they can't be turned off, and they are trackable. Some privacy advocates hypothesize that unscrupulous marketers or criminals will be able to drive by consumers' homes and scan their garbage to discover what they have recently bought.

They also worry that retailers will be able to scan customers who carry new types of personal ID cards as they walk through a store, without their knowledge. Several states, including Washington and New York, have begun issuing enhanced driver's licenses that contain radio- frequency tags with unique ID numbers, to make border crossings easier for frequent travelers. Some privacy advocates contend that retailers could theoretically scan people with such licenses as they make purchases, combine the info with their credit card data, and then know the person's identity the next time they stepped into the store.

Wal-mart clothing tracking a privacy concern?

Created by Lauren Theis and Lila Kerr, the ingenious DIY centrifuge is cobbled together using a salad spinner, some plastic lids, combs, yogurt containers, and a hot glue gun. The simple and easily-replicated design could be an invaluable tool for clinics the developing world, enabling them to separate blood to detect diseases like anemia without electricity.

The students discovered that a salad spinner can separate 15 microliters of blood into plasma and heavy red blood cells after spinning for just 10 minutes. By holding a gauge up to the tube, Theis and Kerr are able to measure a patient’s hematocrit (ratio of red blood cells to total volume), which can indicate anemia. And while anemia itself isn’t deadly, the condition can point to other ailments like HIV, malnutrition, and malaria.

Now this is the shit that we should be nurturing and focusing on.

Students Transform Salad Spinner Into Life-Saving Centrifuge

That's the unlikely dilemma posed by "Vermontasaurus," a whimsical sculpture thrown together with scrap wood by a Vermont man. Boland, 61, is a former teacher, hot-air balloon designer and pilot who runs the Post Mills Airport, a 52-acre airfield. Last month, he decided to turn a pile of broken wooden planks and other detritus on the edge of his property into something more. Using a dinosaur model as his inspiration, he put out a call for volunteer helpers and went to work. He cut a huge pine tree into four pieces and, using a back hoe, planted them as the bases of the four feet. Then, over nine days and using dozens of volunteers, the ersatz sculpture began taking shape. A splintered two-by-four here, the rotted belly of a guitar there, half a ladder from a child's bunk bed here, Boland and his volunteers worked under basic ground rules: No saws, no rulers and no materials other than what was in the scrap pile. Also, anything nailed into place couldn't be removed. And nothing was to be level or plumb.

Government officials are not amused. The Town of Thetford told Boland his sculpture was really a structure — akin to a shed or a gazebo — and that he needed a $272 permit for it. The state Division of Fire Safety, meanwhile, told Boland that if he couldn't get a structural engineer to attest to the sculpture's safety, he could not allow people to congregate underneath it. The Vermont Natural Resources Board weighed in with a notice of alleged violation that said the wooden dinosaur was a substantial change to an existing development and may therefore need another permit, at a minimum of $150, under an ultra-restrictive state land-use law called Act 250.

Sounds like a case of stick-in-the-mud-atitis :P

Does a 25-foot-tall, 122-foot-long dinosaur need a permit to avoid extinction?

The age of the silent hybrid may be coming to an end.

Gas-electric hybrids, propelled by electric motors at low speeds, are well-known for their quiet ride and great mileage. But their silence isn't always golden.

Some researchers and safety groups say that quiet operation -- "hybrid creep" -- can pose risks for unsuspecting pedestrians and the blind, who use sound cues.

Quiet hybrids: An end to their sounds of silence?

Like millions of her subjects, Queen Elizabeth II is going to have to make do and mend by cutting spending and putting off palace repairs as royal finances are squeezed by Britain's budget crisis.
Accounts published Monday by Buckingham Palace reveal the total public cost of supporting the monarchy was 38.2 million pounds ($57.8 million) in the year to March 31, the equivalent of 62 pence (94 cents) per person. The total is more than 3 million pounds less than in 2008-2009.

The 84-year-old queen receives 7.9 million pounds of public money each year to pay for staff and other costs, an amount that has not risen in 20 years.

A meager $1 a year to have a cute, yet feisty queen as the figure head of your county? I'll take two. :)

Cost of the queen: less than $1 per person a year

A man whose Mercedes-Benzwas outfitted with emergency lighting equipment pulled over an off-duty Monterey County sheriff's deputy Friday in unincorporated Salinas.

The driver of the white Mercedes pulled the deputy over in the area of Natividad and Rogge roads, according to the Monterey County Sheriff's Office.

The deputy yielded to the Mercedes.

A passenger in the Mercedes got out, crossed between the two vehicles, and approached the deputy, which the deputy said was out of character for law enforcement.

The man, who was wearing a white polo shirt and jeans, asked if the deputy had been drinking.

The deputy said he found this suspicious and identified himself to the subject. The deputy then brandished a firearm and the suspect went back to the Mercedes and took off.

Awesome!!

Fake Cop In Mercedes Stops Monterey Co. Deputy

There is a whole series of manhole covers from major cities as rugs

Awesome rug