What we see now is a surreal imitation of the suburban industrial parks and commercial spaces of yesteryear. They’re built atop the past’s mistakes, erasing them from our maps and eyes.
And yet, as the humans eat dosas and climb fake mountains and learn acupuncture and buy lap dances, beneath the asphalt and concrete, the microbes eat toxic waste sweetened with molasses, cleaning up our mistakes.
A revolution began here. And this is what’s left over.
Quotes
Admit it. You aren’t like them. You’re not even close. You may occasionally dress yourself up as one of them, watch the same mindless television shows as they do, maybe even eat the same fast food sometimes. But it seems that the more you try to fit in, the more you feel like an outsider, watching the “normal people” as they go about their automatic existences. For every time you say club passwords like “Have a nice day” and “Weather’s awful today, eh?”, you yearn inside to say forbidden things like “Tell me something that makes you cry” or “What do you think deja vu is for?”. Face it, you even want to talk to that girl in the elevator. But what if that girl in the elevator (and the balding man who walks past your cubicle at work) are thinking the same thing? Who knows what you might learn from taking a chance on conversation with a stranger? Everyone carries a piece of the puzzle. Nobody comes into your life by mere coincidence. Trust your instincts. Do the unexpected. Find the others…
That’s what makes Berlin’s tech ecosystem so hard to describe, so hard to nail down to a few points. The Berlin tech community is fueled by talented folks from around the world coming together to build companies, to the backdrop of an urban canvas. In a city which has only ever witnessed change and wants more of it. Berlin’s tech ecosystem is more about the type of people it attracts and the inspirational environment it provides than anything else.
Well, Citi Bike launched more than a month ago, and there have been no deaths or serious injuries. Unless this first month was a total outlier, Citi Bike won’t result in a significant increase in bike fatalities in NYC, let alone the doubling or tripling predicted by Pucher. As the AP glossed over quickly, only three minor injuries have resulted after more than 500,000 rides. It’s too early to extrapolate what the Citi Bike safety record will be over the course of an entire year, but it is safe to say that the injury rate on Citi Bike so far is much lower than the overall bike injury rate in NYC.
The plan is touted by officials as making it easier to identify both stolen mopeds and dead or injured moped riders.
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Wednesday, June 3. It’s a week now. I’ll admit, I’ve always supported bike share in principle. But I never thought it would be for me. I’ve changed my mind. I actually think Citi Bike is going to become a feature in my life. Every day, I’ve thought of new ways it’s useful. And I like that I feel excited every time I use it.
Are there glitches one week in? Sure. I’ve heard some online chatter. But guess what? A hundred years later, the subway has glitches too. Citi Bike will only improve.
Five characteristics of an open source city:
1. Fostering a culture of citizen participation
2. Having an effective open government policy
3. Having an effective open data initiative
4. Promoting open source user groups and conferences
5. Being a hub for innovation and open source businesses
“We’re working on constantly shifting grounds,” said Rudolf Frieling, a curator of media arts at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which has been at the forefront of sustaining online art. “Whatever hardware, platform or device we’re using is not going to be there tomorrow.”
“Frankly speaking,” he added, “it’s a huge challenge.
Not every museum is set up to do that. It takes huge technical expertise.” The riddles are only solved by “actually doing it,” Mr. Frieling explained.
We live in a world made up more of story than stuff. We are creatures of memory more than reminders, of love more than likes. Being attentive to the needs of others might not be the point of life, but it is the work of life. It can be messy, and painful, and almost impossibly difficult. But it is not something we give. It is what we get in exchange for having to die.