Friday Roundup

NO MORE CLOTHING -- PLEASE!
Relief agencies are overloaded with clothing.


AFFORDABLE HOUSING SOLUTION?
Landtrusts -- you buy (and sell, when the time comes) the house, but the land itself is held in trust by a non-profit. Sounds like a condo association to me. Link


DISASTER RESISTANT HOUSING
Seeing all of the hurricane related destruction makes me wonder why we build the types of housing we build. There are designs, albeit unconventional, which are better suited for disaster-prone areas.

Some of the strangest are by Eugene Tsui. He designed one in Berkeley which is built on the model of a tardigrad and is impervious to wind, water, fire, termites, and earthquake damage.

In a few weeks Cheryl and I are going to Guam so I've been studying up on that earthquake and typhoon-prone island (where there is no place to evacuate to when a storm comes). They build homes out of concrete reinforced with rebar -- bunkers!

There are other companies working on the problem.


QUIET PLEASE!
A new generation of quieter leaf blowers is coming.


NORTH PARK UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL
It's not one of those things most people care about but it is so unique that it should be noted -- if nothing else just for the record. The North Park Vikings have won the first three football games of their season. That hasn't happened since 1971.


GOVERNOR'S RACE
Warren Beatty, who once played a US senator in a movie, sounds like he is posturing for a run against Governor Schwarzenegger, who mostly played destruction roles in his movies. It would be a difficult choice -- choosing between two actors -- each of whose greatest qualification for the office is name recognition.

Please, please, give us a real choice this time -- no actors, no rock stars, no celebrities -- but people who are down-to-earth, genuine, can function with the system (as screwed up as it is), and who know what they are doing. What we need is some level-headed sanity.