domingo, 26 de setembro de 2004

Oil peak: the coming overshoot Crude Awakening: a prominent physicist warns in a new book that the world is running out of oil and we're not doing anything to stave off the coming crisis. By Brian Braiker Newsweek Updated: 3:47 p.m. ET Feb. 17, 2004 Feb. 17 - Remember 1973? If you do, there are plenty of reasons to wish you didn't. Chief among them (right after leisure suits) would be the oil crisis that began in October. The Middle Eastern OPEC nations stopped exports to the United States and other Western nations just as stateside oil production was peaking.  The artificial shortage that followed had devastating effects: The price of gas quadrupled in the United States, climbing from 25 cents to more than a dollar, in a matter of months. The American Automobile Association reported that in one isolated week up to 20 percent of the country's gas stations had no fuel; in some places motorists were forced to wait in line for two to three hours to gas up. The number of homes built with gas heat dropped.  But that was the 1970s and this is now, right? Not according to David Goodstein. Saudi princes and SUV drivers may do well to read his new book, “Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil” (W.W. Norton), in which Goodstein argues that our oil-dependent civilization is in for a crude awakening when the world's oil supply really begins to run out — possibly within a few decades. [...] BB: How do you suggest people prepare now? DG: Right now we don't have the kind of leadership that would take us in the direction that would make major changes. As individuals we can do things; I drive a hybrid car, for example. But as a society we have to redesign cities so that people live close to where they work. There are all kinds of measures. We are so profligate in the use of energy that even with the smallest effort we can reduce the rate at which we use energy very significantly, as Californians showed after the last energy crisis. But what we really need is massive infusion of research on all of the possible ways of ameliorating this problem. Book: Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil, by David Goodste (Barnes & Noble) Link Related links: The Peak of World Oil Production -- Richard C. Duncan Hubbert Peak of Oil Production Die Off - a population crash resource page Post Carbon Institute -- Learning to Live in a Low Energy World Changing World Technologies How to Save the World 6:21:41 PM  Google It!  comment []

John Paul Bichard shows Evidencia at Quadrum Art Gallery (Lisbon) Evidência takes as its starting point, an ending; a forensic space, a place in which remains and material take on new significance. From the objects and images, there are no definite conclusions, no clear narratives, just the threads of something that could have happened. The viewer is invited in, but in doing so enters the scene to witness part... of a crime, a conflict, a game? For his Quadrum exhibition, Bichard has (re)constructed a forensic space, a small plot of land which is at once the scene of a crime and a fragment of a first person shooter videogame made ‘real’. As a forensic space, it becomes a clipping, a piece of evidence removed from its original surroundings, as a games space, it is a trope, a snapshot of a brief violent action that would be lost as the player moves on to the next encounter. Evidência John Paul Bichard Evidência #001 Installation: aluminium, turf, tree stump, earth, leaves, feathers, bullet cases. 2004 Link 2:26:56 AM  Google It!  comment []

SkyEar. David Pescovitz: Several months ago, I wrote an article for TheFeature about artists using wireless telecom in their work. One of the artists, Usman Haque, was planning to launch a network of instrumented helium balloons in the air. Equipped with mobile phones, LEDs, and sensors that measure electromagnetic radiation into the air, the cloud of balloons would act as a SkyEar. "As police radios, television signals, distant storms, and other radio transmissions alter what Haque calls the "local hertzian culture," the cloud flickers in response... Of course, calling a particular phone alters the "hertzian topography" in that region of the balloon cloud, affecting its glow. "You can enter into something like a conversation with the cloud," Haque says." Ten days ago in London, SkyEar had its second flight. Link [Boing Boing] 2:18:15 AM    comment []

Video mashup of Russ Meyer + Hoodoo Gurus / Persian Rugs. Xeni Jardin: Following up to this week's sad news that sexploitation auteur Russ Meyers has passed away (Link), BoingBoing reader Richard Crepeau says, "Thought I'd spread the word about a Hoodoo Gurus side project called the Persian Rugs. One of their videos uses Russ Meyer clips from Mondo Topless. A nice hybrid between garage rock and camp." On their website, the band says: "Music and sex go very well together. For proof, just take a look at the video for the Persian Rugs' new single 'Be A Woman'. The band and director Todd Sheldrick have created the perfect setting for the band's 60's Punk-inspired Primal Rock: strippers and cavemen collide in a 21st Century psychedelic garden of eden. (...) The Rugs got in touch with famed 60's director Russ Meyer, the maker of such films as 'Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!'and Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls' (the latter a direct influence on the Austin Powers movies) and asked for permission to incorporate footage from one of his cult classics, 'Mondo Topless', into their new filmclip. Russ asked to hear the song first, [and] loved it (...) Link to "Be a Woman" *.asx video in low and hi-res, contains megadoses of kitsch nudity (and shots of vintage '60s electronic equipment). How did those ladies make their humongous breasts do that stuff on rhythm? Weighed down by all that eyeliner, no less? Update: Reader Rob says, "If you have a fink installation on your mac, you can install asfrecorder from fink unstable packages and record the Russ Meyer/Hoodoo Gurus--Persian Rugs thing." [Boing Boing] 2:15:44 AM    comment []

John Waters film A Dirty Shame From the author of Pink Flamingos: The fight for carnal liberation is under way! Lust is in the air on Harford Road and Sylvia Stickles (Tracey Ullman), a grumpy, repressed middle-aged Baltimorean, doesn't like it. Though Sylvia's handsome husband Vaughan (Chris Isaak) still has marital urges, his wife couldn't be less interested [~] she has more important things to do. Not only does Sylvia run the family's “Pinewood Park And Pay” convenience store, she's also responsible for watching over her exhibitionist daughter Caprice (Selma Blair). A go-go dancer known to her adoring fans as Ursula Udders, Caprice and her stupendously enlarged breasts are currently under house arrest after several “nude and disorderly” violations. But Sylvia's world is turned upside down one day after suffering a concussion in a freak traffic accident. Sexy towtruck driver Ray-Ray Perkins (Johnny Knoxville) rushes to her aid, and the stricken Sylvia realizes he's no ordinary service man; he's a sexual healer who brings Sylvia's hidden cauldron of lust to the boiling point. [...] What follows is rude, joyous and full of sexual anarchy. A movie with a generous heart and a dirty mind. In other words, a classic John Waters comedy. Link 2:04:55 AM  Google It!  comment []

© Creative Commons 2004 Antonio C-Pinto. Last update: 26.09.04; 18:54:05.