Hasta La Ideas

Last week I had the opportunity to visit the National Building Museum in Wasington, D.C. Set well beyond the National Mall and the Smithsonian Campus, the National Building Museum is housed in an imposing brick structure formerly the home of the D.C. Pension Bureau. The Museum’s featured exhibition was a retrospective on America’s World’s Fairs of the 1930s, five in all: Chicago, San Diego, Dallas, New York, San Francisco.

The exhibit was a surprisingly thorough look at the planning, culture, technology, architecture and design that went into each of these unique events. Chicago’s 1933 Century of Progress expo was organized to inspire a nation in the throes of a depression. New York’s 1939 World’s Fair celebrated the globalized world of tomorrow, personified most memorably by the famous Trylon and Perisphere and Henry Dreyfuss’ Democracity as its centerpiece. To close out the decade in 1939 and 1940, San Francisco engineered the man-made Treasure Island for the Pageant of the Pacific, a celebration of Pacific culture and America’s Manifest Destiny fulfilled.

While the exhibit was a great history lesson and a fun bit of retronauting (see: Westinghouse’s Elektro the Motoman) I was most intrigued by the show’s conclusion. In the “World’s Fairs Today” section, the historians made the typical case about the interconnectedness of the modern era and the decline in demand and need for these global celebrations. The conclusion also added that the United States had its membership revoked by the B.I.E (the Bureau of International Expositions) after not paying its dues for two years, thus rendering the U.S. ineligible to ever host the event again. Additionally, Congress no longer allocates funds for a U.S. Pavilion at any World Exposition. This resulted in a rather embarrassing (yet still surprisingly popular) U.S. Pavilion at the 2010 Expo in Shanghai. Funded by sixty multi-national corporations, the pavilion was designed by a foreign architect (a Canadian no less) and featured only three short video presentations — not exactly reminiscent of the American Dream showcased so fantastically in the early 20th century.

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The future will be so advanced that this will be one of those commercials circulated on the 2061 version of a blog and laughed at, whether for the breathless descriptions of our 2011 cutting-edge technology or the somewhat strained presentation. But future mockery aside, here’s the current state-of-the-art RP technology being presented by Objet Geometries: The 260 Connex Multi-Material 3D Printer, which can product two discrete materials into one form.

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Attempting to fathom the inner workings of the subway is one of those things that just about any New Yorker can relate to: every straphanger eventually picks up on which trains are more frequent at which hours, platform and station layouts, transfer times, etc. Nevertheless, even a seasoned commuter is subject to the opaque and capricious—if not outright counterintuitive—ebb and flow of the transit system, and waiting on the platform becomes second nature. (The highly unpredictable nature of my closest trains is one of the many reasons I prefer cycling, weather permitting.)

Well, if Tesco’s pilot program in Seoul provides a glimmer of hope for more productive downtime, not to mention one of the more practical applications of QR codes I’ve seen:

Basically, the backlit billboards emulate the aisles of Home Plus (the British grocer’s Korean store), such that otherwise-idle commuters could shop using their smartphones, such that their groceries would arrive at their doorstep at the same time that they would.

Read more at the Fresh N Easy blog

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The simpleminded prediction was always that the rise of credit cards, and services like PayPal, would eliminate cash. But a cashless society is like the Paperless Office—it just ain’t gonna happen. And now the Times reports an interesting trend: These days cash—paper bills, not the concept—now physically lasts longer.

Everyone knows that U.S. cash is already printed on durable paper. It’s cotton-based stuff that’s impregnated with either polyvinyl alcohol or some type of gelatin; the exact recipe is, unsurprisingly, a secret. But as the Times points out, the increased longevity of paper bills is due not to advances in paper technology, but advances in scanning technology (in addition to less usage):

Thanks to technological advances, the average dollar bill now circulates for 40 months, up from 18 months two decades ago, according to Federal Reserve estimates.

Banks regularly send stacks of old notes to the Fed, which replaces the damaged ones. Until recently, notes were simply stacked facedown and destroyed, as were dog-eared notes, because the Fed’s scanning equipment could not distinguish between creases and tears. Now it can. In 1989, the Fed replaced 46 percent of returned dollar bills. Last year it replaced 21 percent. The rest of the notes were returned to circulation where they may lead longer lives because they are being used less often.

Unfortunately, my own personal cash does not seem to last as long now as it used to. But that’s largely due to my vintage sewing machine habit.

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Aspen-style schooling on Orbea’s full-carbon road bike

As an avid urban cyclist, I’ve spent many hours riding various city streets on a fixed gear bike. When The Little Nell Adventure Concierge challenged me to a full road bike experience traversing the beautiful terrain of Aspen, I wasn’t sure how I would measure up. Home to some of the most challenging roads for competitive cycling in the U.S. with its treacherous climbs and speed-demon downhill stretches, the topography is tough for even world champions to tackle.

To aid in my endeavor, The Little Nell outfitted me with a top tier cycling kit, a full carbon Orbea road bike, top of the line bike computer and local professional cyclist and trainer Scott Kasin.

After a few pointers, some subsequent adjustments and a little mockery about “riding like a bike messenger” I was cycling more smoothly and efficiently. Having one of Aspen’s top athletes riding alongside me proved an invaluable resource in learning how to properly operate an elite competition road bike.

Carbon from head to toe and laced with Dura-ace components, the robustly lightweight Orbea road killer really took off when pointed up hill. And after four straight hours of leg burning ascents, the Orca felt right at home and under control bolting downhill at well over 40mph. To understand the full capacity of the cycling machine, Orbea’s intensely accurate description helps set the scene, stating “It is not a product, it is a feeling. It’s competition. It’s adrenaline.”

By the end of the second day my Garmin Edge 800 informed me I had ascended over 6,000 vertical feet, ridden nearly 70 miles, conquered the breathtaking Maroon Bells and climbed from flower laden valleys to the snow covered peaks of Independence Pass—the most difficult stage of the USA Pro Cycling Challenge. What began as a formidable task turned into an exciting adventure thanks to Kasin’s stern teachings and integral instructions, which kept me on course even when a certain “Livestrong” cyclist sped by in a flash of yellow and black.

For more information on the Aspen cycling experience, visit The Little Nell Adventure Concierge.

Images by Graham Hiemstra and Cameron L. Martindell