Living in a big building. No I mean BIG.

If you've read Robert N. Charrette's ShadowRun books or if you've played the RPG of the same name, you're familiar with the concept of the Arcology.

In it's most basic terms, a city within a building, or a building that contains all the amenities required by a small city - from living quarters to shopping to travel and recreation.

Aside from the fictional treatment, there are serious proponents such as those at the Arcosanti Project.  Of particular interest is the section on Arcology Theory.

Not just for the kids

Roughly a year ago I ran across this story at The Independent newspaper website. 

Some politico thought 11 year olds should be reading one book a week. So, The Independent asked some children's authors and book experts what they thought and came up with the list of 50 books every child should read.

Some of these books I read as a kid myself. Some I read as an adult.  Many more on the list sound intriguing and I wouldn't mind giving them a go.

Check out of the list for yourself.  Comment on the list or perhaps tell us about one of your favourites as a kid, whether it's on the list or not.

Just how small are we?

Yes the Universe is a big place, but what does that say about you and me? It says that we are very small in the scheme of things.

Perhaps we have been successful in this universe by being small, and what better way to measure our smallness than An Atlas of the Universe.

A Hoarders Life for me!

Over the past few weeks I've been shrugging off the mantle of winter. It's starting to feel like spring cleaning time, a yearly ritual to be undertaken from physical, mental and digital points of view.

There may be more about the physical and metal, later. Currently, I've been having fun thinning and consolidating a lot of data I have been hoarding.  Suddenly, it's time to set it free, and so the next bunch o posts will be a sort of link dump or old bookmarks and other wierd web pages etc., ad naseum.  I figure we all have the same little digital collections.  Mine accumulate because I see something I can imagine is useful, even though I have no use for it myself.  As I share these things, I'll be deleting them from folders and bookmark files, from snippets of text and pages of notes and notations.

Here's one now.  It was the first thing in a folder of bookmarks.

First seen on the internet in 1994, and last updated in 2005, I give you An American's Guide to Canada.