Author: Jeff Milner

Trials for a robot that builds houses are soon to be underway by the “construction industry”. The robot, referred to as a “contour crafter”, takes instructions directly from an architect’s computerised drawings and then squirts successive layers of concrete on top of one other to build up vertical walls and domed roofs. The robot then fills the hollow walls with more cement.

It’s my opinion that they’ll never get this thing efficient enough for widespread use, but as Greg Lynn, a leading architect from Venice, California, said. “I believe that aesthetically there’s a great potential to make things that have never been seen before.” Maybe they will make some neat artwork.

The Bush campaign is running ads attacking Kerry for being a flip-flopper. Here’s a few Bush flip-flops from dailykos.com.

• Bush is against campaign finance reform; then he’s for it.
• Bush is against a Homeland Security Department; then he’s for it.
• Bush is against a 9/11 commission; then he’s for it.
• Bush is against an Iraq WMD investigation; then he’s for it.
• Bush is against nation building; then he’s for it.
• Bush is against deficits; then he’s for them.
• Bush is for free trade; then he’s for tariffs on steel; then he’s against them again.
• Bush is against the U.S. taking a role in the Israeli Palestinian conflict; then he pushes for a “road map” and a Palestinian State.
• Bush is for states right to decide on same sex marriage, then he is for changing the constitution.
• Bush first says he’ll provide money for first responders (fire, police, emergency), then he doesn’t.
• Bush first says that ‘help is on the way’ to the military … then he cuts benefits.
• Bush-“The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden.” Later, Bush-“I don’t know where he is. I have no idea and I really don’t care.
• Bush claims to be in favor of the environment and then secretly starts drilling on Padre Island.
• Bush talks about helping education and increases mandates while cutting funding.
• Bush first says the U.S. won’t negotiate with North Korea. Now he will.
• Bush goes to Bob Jones University. Then says he shouldn’t have.
• Bush said he would demand a U.N. Security Council vote on whether to sanction military action against Iraq. Later Bush announced he would not call for a vote
• Bush said the “mission accomplished” banner was put up by the sailors. Bush later admits it was his advance team.
• Bush was for fingerprinting and photographing Mexicans who enter the US. Bush after meeting with Pres. Fox, he’s against it.

During the 2000 elections down in the States, Ralf Nader created a parody of the Mastercard Priceless commercials critiquing the corporate interests behind the Bush and Gore campaigns. Mastercard sued Nader and his campaign claiming copyright infringement. After four years of battles, the court has finally ruled for Nader.

Threatening letters to people who satirize you: $500

Reputation as giant corporation required to intimidate publisher: $Billions

Trial court decisions protecting parody and satire from overzealous accusations of copyright and trademark infringement: Priceless

There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s Mastercard’s lawyers.

I remember one morning when I was 7, it was April 26th, 1986. I was getting ready for school and the news was going on about some power plant exploding in the USSR. I didn’t really consider what a big deal that was or what kind of impact radiation can have. Here are some details:

“In 1986 a nuclear reactor in Chernobyl began an uncontrolled, runaway nuclear reaction. The heat produced a massive steam explosion which released large amounts of radioactive material into the air.

Most of this material precipitated out of the air into the nearby farms, villages, and towns making them uninhabitable.

Luckily much of the high level radiation was produced by radio isotopes with short half-lives, and the radiation levels quickly dropped. Nevertheless, the residual background radiation stabilized at a level which has been considered high for human occupation.”

This is a photo of the abandoned city of Pripyat. Although the damaged reactor in its crumbling “sarcophagus” is still an extremely hazardous site, radiation levels in the town of Pripyat and in the surrounding countryside are considered safe enough for brief visits. At the time, the explosion released thirty to forty times the radioactivity of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Pripyat has been a ghost town since the explosion in 1986.

The prevailing opinion of Guantanamo Bay among human rights groups and this particular blogger is that it is an American jail on foreign soil designed to deny prisoners “many of their most basic rights”. What other reason could there be to have an American prison in Cuba?

Now the way the prisoners are actually being treated can’t be concluded one way or another at this time, but for a few young Afghans, imprisonment in Cuba was like the dream of a lifetime.

Last year I accepted the call to solicit donations on behalf of the Heart and Stroke Foundation. While on my route I met a nice elderly couple that live just down the street on the other side of the back alley from my house – the Gordons. I felt guilty for making her get out of her chair (she looked so comforable), but once she was up and answered the door both she and her husband were very kind. Nice people I thought and then moved on.

The collection process as a whole wasn’t that bad but the donations were slow and I was worried that I wouldn’t have much to show for the effort. Besides it was cold and meanwhile I couldn’t help but think that I had better things to do in my nice warm house. I swore I would not be doing this again next year.

I’m not sure what happened, I thought to myself as I knocked on another door about three weeks ago. Well I suppose I don’t really have anything better to do and the donations seem to be coming along nicely – plus it’s not nearly as cold as last year. I again knocked on the same houses in the vicinity of my block and again was greeted by Mrs. Gordon. She looked old and tired. I again felt guilty for making her get out of her chair. Her husband was not around and she looked much more frail than I remembered. She gladly donated ten dollars to the fund and made small talk. Her husband had died about a month after the last time I was there, which was exactly one year ago. Wow, I thought, he looked fine. I didn’t know what to say, I just thanked her for the donation and wished her a good evening. Thank you, she said. I kind of felt like I should do something more for her. She seemed so lonely, but what would I do? It’s not like I can just pop over there and say hi, I mean I’m 24 and have nothing in common with her. As it turns out I’ll never have a chance to talk to her again. I was told that her name was in today’s obituary section of the paper.

“Really? Ruby Gordon that lives right over there?” I asked my next-door neighbour.

“Yes it was in the paper this morning.” she explained.

I scratched at the dried remnants of duct tape on my porch. The previous owner of the house let his son Stewart live here. Stewart was an activist. He had taped up ropes around the back yard to use as drying lines for paper machie masks. The masks were for protesting at the G8 conference in Calgary a few years ago. For their protest they wanted to strip down to illuminate the evils of The Gap but I guess they didn’t want to do so while showing their faces.

“You know who else died?” asked my neighbour, “Stewart’s father, Hugh.”

“Really? Hugh Crawford?” I repeated back. It was kind of a shock. The man I bought this house from? Dead? Well I guess he won’t be coming for that box of receipts that I saved for him for over a year. It was garbage anyway – I don’t why he had me save it.

“He passed away about 6 or so weeks ago,” she explained, “heart problems of some sort. He was in his early 50’s.”

It got me thinking about life and death and how it’s all so fleeting. Apparently it doesn’t take much for the old ticker to quit ticking, so I suppose this just shows that it’s in my own best interest to keep canvassing again next year because you never know, you know?

On October 25, 2003 in the small village of Dalaro in Eastern Sweden a strange event occurred that has yet to be explained. 32 people, unbeknownst to each other, converged on the local Volvo dealership to purchase the same model of car on the same day. Previous to that day, the dealership in question had never sold more than 32 cars in one year, let alone one day. Watch the cool (but large) flash video documentary. Or download it here: Quicktime or Windows Media.

Is it a collective unconscious? Yeah, I know, I’m buying into the merchandising wagon. But it’s an interesting documentary – especially if it’s true.