Month: December 2017

Architecting NYC

New York Magazine asked some of New York City’s distinguished architects how they would improve the city and save it from climate change.

While Mark Foster Gage dreams of infilling the East River with green space, Charles Renfro envisions “a citywide network of rooftop parks” inspired by his own work on the High Line. Green space would not only absorb stormwater and heat but, when elevated, it would be flood resistant by nature.

Many architects played with some overarching plan of connection or integration. Bonetti/Kozerski Architecture wants to protect NYC bikers by integrating the Citi Bike system with a low lying bike bridge they call “the El Bike Lanes.” Norman Foster’s plan involves an extension of Madison Square Park into a “series of off-traffic islands” done in the same style.

Rafael Viñoly reinvents the NYC street plane all together into a “matrix of elevated circulation patterns.” On the other hand, Family New York’s Oana Stanescu and Dong-Ping Wong look to the skyscrapers. They believe the NYC skyline should be a place for everyone, not just a wealthy ghost town.

Most expensive subway

7x more expensive than anywhere else. time for some union-busting.

An accountant discovered the discrepancy while reviewing the budget for new train platforms under Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan.

The budget showed that 900 workers were being paid to dig caverns for the platforms as part of a 6km tunnel connecting the historic station to the Long Island Rail Road. But the accountant could only identify 700 jobs that needed to be done. Officials could not find any reason for the other 200 people to be there.

Clean eating scams

Instagram is for dummies

The oh-so-Instagrammable food movement has been thoroughly debunked – but it shows no signs of going away. The real question is why we were so desperate to believe it

and similarly for waterwater:

“Real water” should expire after a few months. His does. “It stays most fresh within one lunar cycle of delivery. If it sits around too long, it’ll turn green. People don’t even realize that because all their water’s dead, so they never see it turn green.” Mr. Singh believes that public water has been poisoned. “Tap water? You’re drinking toilet water with birth control drugs in them. Chloramine, and on top of that they’re putting in fluoride. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but it’s a mind-control drug that has no benefit to our dental health.” (There is no scientific evidence that fluoride is a mind-control drug, but plenty to show that it aids dental health.)

Amber alerts for cops

cops now want to be treated like little children. the correct response is of course to disable these annoying & useless amber alerts.

Warning people about violent suspects in their area is somewhat useful — a severe weather alert but for crime. But there’s no reason for a system like this to prioritize crimes against police officers. Adding mere threats to the mix just adds a bunch of junk info of nearly no use to the citizens on the receiving end of these alerts. At best, people will clear them from their screen as quickly as they do interloping Amber Alerts. At worst, they’ll decide to play Batman and put themselves and officers at risk by attempting to Do Something.

Stupid way to lose a fortune

You know you live in a banana republic if sending large amounts of money with a “check” is a thing.

Lorette Taylor’s father had died and left his children a large chunk of cash, which Taylor, as executor, had to divide between herself and 2 siblings. When she tried to do so, her bank said it was best to send her brother and sister bank drafts. 1 of the drafts, in the order of $846650, was destined for her brother, who hired UPS to ship it to his local store. The package never arrived.

ML planet Hunting

Using a dataset of more than 15K labeled Kepler signals, we created a TensorFlow model to distinguish planets from non-planets. To do this, it had to recognize patterns caused by actual planets, versus patterns caused by other objects like starspots and binary stars. When we tested our model on signals it had never seen before, it correctly identified which signals were planets and which signals were not planets 96% of the time. So we knew it worked!

The Numbers King

Grotzinger, who was advising, not seeking a job, elegantly guided the group through the challenges of climate modelling. Many of the problems were familiar to the Flatiron staff. “Most of the data actually gets ignored,” Grotzinger explained. And there was a problem of collaboration. He was a specialist in historical climate change—specifically, what had caused the great Permian extinction, during which virtually all species died. To properly assess this cataclysm, you had to understand both the rock record and the ocean’s composition, but, “geologists don’t have a history of interacting with physical oceanographers.” He talked about how his best collaboration had resulted from having had lunch with an oceanographer, and how rare this was. Climate modelling was an intrinsically difficult problem made worse by the structural divisions of academia. “They will grope their way to a solution probably in the next 50 years. But, if you had it all under 1 umbrella, I think it could result in a major breakthrough.” Simons and his team were interested. It seemed Flatiron-ready. The scientists asked Grotzinger how many fellows, and how much computing power, such a group would need. Grotzinger estimated that a division would need at least 50 researchers to be effective. “I would include some programmers”. He hopes to have his 4th division in place by next September. Why stop there? Why not 8 units? Why not Simons University? He had the money, after all. But he insisted that 4 divisions was all he could handle, if he wanted both first-class work and a collaborative atmosphere. He added that he needed to manage it all, with his “light touch.” Simons understood that, whatever structure he set up, it ultimately needed to function well without his supervision. The foundation had signed a 35-year lease on the institute’s building, with an option to renew for 15 more. As long as the tax laws didn’t change dramatically, Simons’s fortune could keep the institute going in perpetuity. But humans, he realized, were not machines. “I’m hoping this is going to last 100 years. But I won’t see it.”

Mars wheel

Imagine you’re sending a rover to Mars. The rover’s tires need to be light, durable, and also flexible enough to tackle a variety of terrain. NASA has spent decades trying to craft the perfect rover wheels, but something always comes up short in the pick-2 situation…typically durability. Now researchers at the NASA Glenn Research Center have come up with a promising new rover wheel for the next generation of rovers.