- Francis Wheen: How Mumbo-jumbo Changed the World
“By 1989, Francis Fukuyama was declaring that we had now reached the End of History. What colonized the space recently vacated by notions of history, progress and reason? Cults, quackery, gurus, irrational panics, moral confusion and an epidemic of mumbo-jumbo.”
- Cool design solution – the citynipple: Spinning cones on the underside of pedestrian crossings to allow blind people to sense when it’s safe to cross.
- Aphorism of the day #1: “There is No Demand for Messages”
- Amazing, detailed comparative mythological/historical analysis of the Zelda canon.
- Aphorism(s) of the day #2:
“Margaret Mead once said Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. Generations of zealots have tacked these words up on various walls, never noticing that the two systems that run the modern world markets and democracies are working right precisely when they defeat these attempted hijackings by small groups.”
- (Abraham) Blazin’ Squad:
“A good social software programmer could do well learning from the great social engineers and machines of our time, the waiter and the restaurant. The restaurant provides a table of you and your companions. It provides the setting (food and drink) to make the conversation comfortable. And then it disappears in the background, allowing your conversation to develop on its own.”
- “You Won’t Believe What We Put On A Phone!”
- Global Frequency TV pilot gets the go-ahead
- Singularity-ho! Wardrobemalfunction.com gets registered in hours after the event.
- I’m enjoying the provocative, prolific bubblegeneration
- Free PDF downloads of Shell’s scenarios looking forward to 2020-2050
Petafloptimism 
Weird that the article on the rotating cones for pedestrian crossings makes it sound like a new thing — my-sister-the-civil-engineer pointed them out to me a while ago (I’ve been touching up the control boxes since…), and she says they’ve been around for a good while.
Here are some: http://www.microsense.co.uk/ttu.htm — tactile cones. Very cool. Much like all the civil engineer stuff I get told about actually. Makes me want to jack this www nonsense in.
The Shell scenarios have a shorter link:
http://www.shell.com/scenarios
“the citynipple”
I had a strange thought as soon as I read this article. What if more than one blind or visually imparied people are waiting at the crossing? Only one can use this system.
Unlikely I know, but still
Here in Australia, all pedestrian crossings give a constant bleeping sound to signal that the button has been pushed. Then a longer higher note, followed by a quicker beeping to indicate it is safe to cross.
This seems to me a bit better solution, since it doesn’t require the user to be right next to the stop. That’s important, since busy crossings can have alot of people waiting at them.
I’d heard a while ago that pelican crossings actually had secret switches for blind people to use, which would enable the safe-to-cross beeping (which is why you don’t hear them any more – and it has been a while, hasn’t it?).
I’d noticed and twiddled the cones, as a result, but had assumed they needed some sort of secret safecracker handshake, rather than being a replacement for the beeping…