Mackinaw Bicycle Manufacturing

Michigan

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[theonion]

Pope Francis Lays Hands On Ailing U.S. Infrastructure

“My heart just melted when I watched the pope interrupt his address to walk over and gently embrace this disfigured bridge cross-girder that was covered in unsightly rust,” said New York City resident John Reedy, one of thousands of observers reportedly moved to tears as the pontiff reached out to the weak and crippled metal framework, gingerly kissed the decayed surface, and then closed his eyes while blessing the neglected overpass.

More. 

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Things just went from catastrophic to apocalyptic as Volkswagen just admitted that the emission test cheating engine management software at the center of the Dieselgate controversy is installed in 11 million Volkswagen Group cars worldwide.

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René Redzepi Plans to Close Noma -- Reopen It as an Urban Farm  (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) 

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Looking from every angle I am unable to find the way that Tesla is asymmetric. Disruption theory suggests that whatever causes it to survive or prosper will be embraced and extended by competitors precisely because it will also cause those competitors to survive and prosper.

The auto industry may be a lot slower than the computer industry to respond. But once the industry embraces battery-based power, it will convert a world-wide production and distribution system to sustain itself.

That does not mean Tesla is a bad business. They may carry on with Porsche-like or even BMW volumes for a long time. But that’s not a disruptive outcome, it’s a niche strategy.

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[mackinawbicycle]

Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit. (wtf)

“Double-hit cases” have been around for decades. I first heard of the “hit-to-kill” phenomenon in Taiwan in the mid-1990s when I was working there as an English teacher. A fellow teacher would drive us to classes. After one near-miss of a motorcyclist, he said, “If I hit someone, I’ll hit him again and make sure he’s dead.” Enjoying my shock, he explained that in Taiwan, if you cripple a man, you pay for the injured person’s care for a lifetime. But if you kill the person, you “only have to pay once, like a burial fee.” He insisted he was serious—and that this was common.

In 2010 in Xinyi, video captured a wealthy young man reversing his BMW X6 out of a parking spot. He hits a 3-year-old boy, knocking the child to the ground and rolling over his skull. The driver then shifts his BMW into drive and crushes the child again. Remarkably, the driver then gets out of the BMW, puts the vehicle in reverse, and guides it with his hand as he walks the vehicle backward over the boy’s crumpled body. The man’s foot is so close to the toddler’s head that, if alive, the boy could have reached out and touched him. The driver then puts the BMW in drive again, running over the boy one last time as he drives away.

Here too, the driver was charged only with accidentally causing a person’s death. (He claimed to have confused the boy with a cardboard box or trash bag.)

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“No company is better than Uber at telling so many seemingly dissonant stories at once: It is creating jobs, which it will obsolete; it is good for the environment because it will end car ownership, except that it puts people in automobiles instead of buses or trains; it is making transit cheaper, until, perhaps, it is the only form of transportation; and it is inevitable, after it unilaterally remakes or outright replaces city infrastructure. And all of those stories are, in one way or another, probably true.” 

[theverge]

Ikea’s flat-pack refugee shelter is entering production.

The lightweight “Better Shelter” was developed under a partnership between the Ikea Foundation and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Each unit takes about four hours to assemble and is designed to last for three years — far longer than conventional refugee shelters, which last about six months.

[mackinawbicycle]

WIRED: The Plan to Bring Nature Back to the Los Angeles River

[topo-designs]

[themadfeed]

Zero Foodprint: How Restaurants Can Help Lead the Fight Against Climate ChangeGabe Ulla

This summer, Lucky Peach editor-in-chief Chris Ying returned to MAD to remind us about Zero Foodprint, the not-for-profit he co-founded with emissions specialist Peter Freed and restaurateur Anthony Myint of Mission Chinese Food that helps restaurants eliminate their carbon footprint.

You can watch Ying’s remarks in the video above, and here’s an update on all the progress the organization’s made lately: 

Read More

[latimes]

What a year of California’s drought looks like. 

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today's Beijing Marathon... 

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"I saw more plastic bags than fish,"

Over the last 30 to 40 years, millions of tonnes of plastic have entered the oceans. Global production of plastic now stands at 288 million tonnes per year, of which 10% ends up in the ocean in time. 

[mackinawbicycle]

Bike messengers leaving the White House on Dec. 7, 1941 -- day of the Pearl Harbor attack.