mean people suck?

ENERGY!!!


[awesome pic from the colorful rhythm of my life and honestly i am freakin the f*ck out for finding this image]

its about time that i start writing down the notes for my book. but if anyone wants to steal the idea, go ahead. this is something we all need to discover, as fast as possible. the theory goes basically like this: our INTENTIONS actually create an electromagnetic-type force that is dynamic and responsive to those created by the people around us. over time, the fluctuations in these energy patterns surrounding us [and related to our emotional states] become habit and, like neurological pathways, these are the patterns we seek/follow in our interactions, creating a general temperament.

but whats interesting is the interactions of the fields:

[images from Paul Nylander and although the 2nd one's a little funny, they were built in Mathmatica which is pretty crazy software]

i'll find some more illustrative images later. now i need a coffee...
anyways, a handful of interesting facts or ideas supporting this theory:

- 1 - colloquial - when someone stares at you from across the room, and you catch them. this has happened to most of us

- 2 - colloquial - the cycle of violence - when you approach with anger, you get anger back. ever seen those scenarios where people are getting robbed and the victims act so nice the robber get all confused? i've heard a story or two. same is true for conflict resolution.

- 3 - scientific - quote from a MAYO CLINIC cancer research doctor about animal companionship “I think it creates healing of the soul. Some of the anger and the resentment is channeled in a positive way for caring for the pet.” fulltext here

- 4 - scientific - "When people touch or are in proximity, one person’s heartbeat signal is registered in the other person’s brainwaves. " and in addition this: "the magnetic field produced by the heart is more than 5,000 times greater in strength than the field generated by the brain, and can be detected a number of feet away from the body, in all directions, using SQUID-based magnetometers (Figure 12). Prompted by our findings that the cardiac field is modulated by different emotional states (described in the previous section), we performed several studies to investigate the possibility that the electromagnetic field generated by the heart may transmit information that can be received by others."

that last one blew my mind, it is the best scientific support of this theory i have ever found. these and other great articles here


now, im not arguing, necessarily, that it actually IS and electromagnetic field surrounding your intentions, but rather, that that is the only factor of the intentional EMF we can currently quantify in any realistic way. i also believe that this force is additive [perhaps exponentially?], resulting in the elation felt in church or the ecstasy felt at a dance party [when you're sober]. thoughts? i'd love to hear any ideas people have on this...

green band-aid

' In the larger picture, green architecture is still nothing more than a band-aid treatment where major surgery is required'

there truly is something wrong with the system. our recent partisan political scandal surrounding the 'debt ceiling' has solidified our own people's disgust with the present state of american [and/or international] politics



look - even the conservatives have turned into lunatics! image from Mike's MoosRoom, a pretty hilarious-looking conservative blog... its amazing what happens when some people learn photoshop!!

there is something fundamentally off in our cultural spirit, and it is captured in the spirit of our architecture. as far as i can see, most high profile architecture is some metaphor of sex and technology - certainly most renderings are! like images we see everywhere around us, for the majority of people it is removed, something for us to look at, desire, lust, but never have. this building is a perfect, singular example:



nobody can deny the technological triumph of this building with its crazy bent-over cantilever and bridge like morphology. the expressed diagrid surely delights countless engineers and scraper-lovers. there was a bit of controversy about the building's inspiration, however when the two tower project was rumored to be a bit of a perverted joke. it was implied by koolhaas that sexual imagery inspired the form - you can see it better from the interesting perspective:



an ironic inversion seems to be what koolhaas was doing here. most towers, historically, have been claimed to celebrate masculine genitalia. it seems OMA aspired to create a female towering form which could perhaps emasculate and simultaneously consume the phallic agression of all the skyline's previous skyscraper phalli - including its direct partner.

regardless of his intellectual irony [at best obscure commentary but more realistically finally a formal gesture] OMA never offers a solution but rather a celebration. but the system remains intact, spectacularly reinforced: its still about sex and technology. domination, seduction, control, and commercialism.
and you just can't cover that boner with a green band aid.

The Rain InSANE!

[IN HONOR OF THE MOST EVER EVER RECEIVED IN CHICAGO HISTORY JULY 23, 2011]

they say 'the rain in spain stays mainly on the plain' ..or at least somebody did



i can't seem to figure out why they say that, but in chicago, they say rain stays mainly DOWN THE DRAIN!!! or flooding above it - check out this image from saturday:

[as you see, 'exit only'] and this one:


the record breaking rainfall is important for a number of reasons, not the smallest of which being that climate change will continue to produce more and more dramatic weather in the coming years, and we will begin to see more strange and unsettling events like this winter's 'THUNDERSNOW' as time unfolds. [which BTW was more like a 70s scifi movie than real life] however, when it comes to stormwater we should also consider this:


now regularly, storms provide the awesome effect of recharging aquifers and watersheds. although this image was created to demonstrate where an invasive carp species could enter the great lakes, it is also demonstrating the more important and dangerous condition that has existed for the past 100 years: ALL OUR WATER GOES out the canal to the mississippi, and finally out TO THE GULF OF MEXICO. and not just the water we drink or shower with, we have 'combined sewers' in the midwest, they handle both wastewater and stormwater, mix them, and dispose of them together. i won't get into the serious problems with that system beyond the relevance here: even ALL THAT STORMWATER ^^^^^ will not be absorbed into the great lakes and reused by chicago. once it goes into our drains, it will be in the atlantic ocean. think about this - chicago uses a lot of water and all of it goes to the gulf, as well as any rain that falls on our streets or impervious surfaces. and it has for OVER 100 years. but we know now that water will be the most scarce resource of the coming century and the great lakes is 20% of it (for the whole planet) ....we're running out of excuses, chicago. lets fix this soon.

the resurrection of that GWORD!!

That G Word will now officially rise from the ashes of architecture school like a zombie moreso than the second coming of hey zues. and with it will come all of the knowledge that 3 crammed years of school will fill a brain with, and all of the narrow-mindedness that design education encourages students to adopt in order to see the world 'as designers' but lest we forget, we are all designers, and every small action may in fact create a chain of events that results in your eviction. [or other design related consequence] remember, anything 'designed' is simply something with thought put into its creation. so, keep on designing your kids! i'll stick with inanimate objects for now.

first, i'll recommend this book:
james wines was suggested to me as an architect to study during one of my reviews. as it turned out, i already had this book on my shelf, but had never gone past flipping through it due to THAT G WORD on the title. it makes it hard to take anything seriously sometimes. but i delved and to my surprise his first exhortation was that we ought to respect Eisenman for challenging what architecture means. and then he goes on the skewer his own book title. i'm on board!! anyways, its actually a really interesting read so far, lets see where we go beyond the intro. pretty soon, lets talk about EMERGENT SYSTEMS!! who all like those? who all is reading this?! well... i am

THAT G WORD!!!!!! HOOOOOOOOOOOOOAH


[this is, apparently, the stuff james wines hates]


[and this, apparently, is his most famous built work. 1970, post abstract sculpture. ....ooooook]

the TOP 10 FATAL DISEASES in the world

1. HEART DISEASE - coronary heart failure - common causes: high cholesterol, old age, smoking, high blood pressure
2. CEREBROVASCULAR DISEASE - stroke - common causes: high blood pressure, old age, smoking, heart disease
*note - causes of hypertension (high blood pressure) - sedentary lifestyle, obesity, sensitivity to sodium, alcohol intake, vitamin D deficiency
3. LOWER RESPIRATORY INFECTION - bronchitis, pneumonia - common cause: bacterial infection *bacteria develop increasing resistance to antibiotic treatments
4. HIV/AIDS - common causes: unprotected sex, intravenous drug use, contaminated medical equipment
5. CHRONIC OBSTRUCTIVE PULMONARY DISEASE - chronic bronchitis, emphysema - common causes: smoking, air pollution, chemical exposure, dust
6. PERINATAL CONDITIONS - mortality associated with childbirth - some factors: bacterial infections, sexually transmitted diseases, premature birth, severe malformation
7. DIARRHEAL DISEASES - bacterial contamination - common cause: contaminated drinking water
8. TUBERCULOSIS - airborne bacterial disease - less common in developed countries, great increase (30%) in people with silicosis - a condition often caused by paint, concrete, or portland cement exposure
9. MALARIA - tropical parasite - common cause: mosquito bite. resistance to treatments, ongoing vaccination unaffordable
10. TRACHEA, BRONCHUS, LUNG CANCER - common causes: smoking, genetics, air pollution



ok, so here's some final thoughts: diseases related to lifestyle: 5 of the top ten. diseases related to environmental contaminants: 5 of top ten. diseases related to poor/lack of infrastructure: 4 of the top ten. hmmm. i wonder how these are interrelated? maybe there are really THREE DISEASES.

KILLING OURSELVES
KILLING THE EARTH
KILLING EACH OTHER

theories on FAT: a sexy exploration!

1. the SUPERSIZE phenomenon

ha! blame it on jurassic park! it turns out that supersize was the concept of a McDon's exec, who realized people felt greedy when they bought TWO, but not when they bought ONE that was a bit LARGER. when JURASSIC PARK came out in 1993 (remember that? i seriously went four or five times) the accompanying fast food promotion was mcdonald's DINO SIZE.


see that? the DINO SIZE EXTRA VALUE MEAL was the beginning of SUPER SIZED FAST FOOD! but that was in 1993. the super sized PEOPLE trend had already started in the mid-80s (look at the time lapse map on post below) so it seems we cannot totally blame this on supersize alone. in fact, the phenomenon lead to the SUPER SIZE ME documentary, which i believe has started the trend of having 'healthy' options at fast food places, and seems to be a good thing (even if simply reactionary) its seems that the super size phenomenon was one of the things that highlighted the growing obesity issue.

2. HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP
seriously, do we even know what this stuff is? i sure aint completely sure! all i know is, its in practically EVERYTHING. its such a big deal when something DOESNT have it, they advertise on the front of the package. so WTF?
ok 1st - regular corn syrup is pure glucose glucose is a monosaccharide (simple sugar) that is easily metabolized and is found nearly everywhere in biology. the commercial form is created through processing of starches - which in america is almost exclusively CORN STARCH


(glucose!)
why is GLUCOSE the most common simple sugar in cell function, and not other simple sugars (LIKE FRUCTOSE)? well, apparently it not highly reactive with enzymes and proteins - while the other sugars are. this reaction of simple sugars is called GLYCATION, and it destroys or lowers the function of many enzymes. these lowered enzyme functions are known to lead to complications of advanced DIABETES (!)
now, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP is reprocessed corn glucose, resulting in a mixture of 55% FRUCTOSE for use in soda, or 42% fructose for use in commercial baking. interesting. so HIGH INTAKE OF FRUCTOSE CAN LEAD TO REDUCED ENZYME FUNCTION. we may have hit something here. lets check the use of HFCS in america over the years:

image from the golden spiral a really pretty sicknasty sustainablog - check it

so yeah... LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING TO ME. ok we got fast food, and definately corn syrup. why else are we getting SO FAT???

3. TRANS FATS - or PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED OILS
ok ok to make a long story (and some scientific jargon) short, ill try to cut down what trans fats really are. basically, liquid fats (unsaturated fats, not usable for most baking, shorter shelf life) are treated chemically in a process called HYDROGENATION that makes these oils act more like solid fats ( or SATURATED fats: butter, lard) examples of this are MARGARINE and CRISCO.

(hilarious, according to the FDA 'zero grams of trans fat' actually means less than 1 gram/tablespoon, after a reformulation of crisco in 2007 - they were gonna ban it!)
unfortunately, the process of hydrogenation can leave some of the molecules unsaturated, creating a PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED, or TRANS FAT. trans fats are unnecessary for life (some fats are!), raise levels of bad cholesterol while lowering the levels of good cholesterol in your system, and are more harmful than any naturally occurring fats.
in the 1920s, butter and lard were becoming more expensive, and use of soy protien left a large amount of unused soybean oil on the market. hydrogenation made perfect sense - use otherwise unusable product to create shortening and margarine, and sell it for less than butter. up to the 60s hydrogenated fats became the norm, argues by some for being cheaper, while others thought margarine was actually healthier than butter. by 1988, there was suggestion that trans fats might cause heart disease, and by 1994 there was an estimated 30,000 heart disease deaths caused by trans fats. reaction to trans fats has been slow, with mandatory labeling and nutrition information FINALLY adopted in JAN '08. and thats just LABELLING - also keep in mind that less than 0.5 gm/serving counts as ZERO to the FDA. (holy crap that is stupid)
while cities and counties have made some moves to lower trans fat use, it still seems VERY widespread in america, and CERTAINLY LINKED TO OBESITY PROBLEMS.

ok, super size portions, enzyme slowing corn-sugar, and cholesterol-loaded fats? the formula for a fat america is coming together. any other ideas people? its time we wrapped our heads around whats happening to our bodies.