Free Republic

Arnold Skolnick, the artist best-known for creating the iconic poster for Woodstock, has died at the age of 85. Deadline, citing Skolnick’s son, Alexander, said the artist died June 15 due to respiratory failure. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Skolnick was reportedly just five years old when he began dreaming of becoming an artist. As an adult, he worked as a freelancer serving many of New York’s ad agencies. In 1969, he received a phone call from John Morris, the production coordinator of Woodstock. The festival had initially enlisted David Edward Byrd -- known for designing rock concert posters for the...

HOUSTON - The Harris County Toll Road Authority now has an expensive plan to fix design flaws in its billion-dollar replacement of the Ship Channel Bridge. The original structure was finished in 1982. But, with just two lanes in each direction and no shoulder for emergencies, construction on a replacement was started in 2018. HCTRA’s Executive Director Roberto Trevino was hired after flaws were discovered in the design, and he says the danger could have been catastrophic. "It could have collapsed," he says. Trevino says the county wanted the new bridge to be sleek and iconic, resembling the Fred Hartman...

The Orlando area continues to lock down its rank as the most dangerous place in the nation for pedestrians. “Still number one,” said Rayla Bellis, primary author of the 2021 Dangerous By Design report that analyzes the nation’s pedestrian deaths and compares statistics of metro areas and states. Orlando and a few other cities had slightly better numbers in the new report than in one two years ago. “These places were so dangerous to begin with that even seeing these improvements, they are still rising to the top,” Bellis said. The report by the pedestrian-safety advocacy groups Smart Growth America...

The surface transportation construction industry has long had to rely on Washington for its prosperity. We spend most years holding our breath and hoping we will receive more Federal funding to fix our crumbling roads, bridges and highway systems. Currently in the United States, 7 percent of bridges are structurally deficient, and 19 percent of major highway pavements have deteriorated. Yet, our existing financing structure has few tools to address the looming reconstruction challenges facing existing infrastructure. In 2020, Congress passed a one-year extension of the Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act. While the one-year extension of the FAST Act...

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1. Purpose. Societies have long recognized the importance of beautiful public architecture. Ancient Greek and Roman public buildings were designed to be sturdy and useful, and also to beautify public spaces and inspire civic pride. Throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, public architecture continued to serve these purposes. The 1309 constitution of the City of Siena required that “[w]hoever rules the City must have the beauty of the City as his foremost...

Syd Mead, the visionary futurist who worked on such classic fantasy/sci-fi films as Tron, Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049, died today in Pasadena. He was 86. Roger Servick, his spouse and business partner of 40 years, told Deadline that Mead had been in failing health due to lymphoma cancer and he was undergoing treatment at City of Hope in Duarte, CA. Servick, who was by Mead’s side when he died, said his last words were: “I’m done here. They’re coming to take me back.” Mead’s art department credits include Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Aliens, Timecop, Mission: Impossible III,...

Black butterfly wings inspire solar cell design 11-20-2019 by Jonathan Sarfati The ‘common rose’ butterfly of India (Pachliopta aristolochiae) has big wings with large black patches. The black absorbs the sun’s rays that help warm the butterfly in cool weather. Researchers analyzed the wings under an electron microscope, and discovered that the scales which cover them have their surface cratered by a ‘disordered’ array of tiny holes.2

  If I win the lottery, I do not want a big car, I want all the bottles designed by Stranger and Stranger!                                                 www.strangerandstranger.com

Materialists are just waking up to realities that ID advocates have been writing about for decades.The late Robert Jastrow ended his book God and the Astronomers (1978) with a picturesque quote about scientific progress: For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries. A similar thing could be written...

With more than a year left before construction starts, the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) has begun demolition work for the proposed Mobile River bridge and Bayway project. The agency is currently in the process of tearing down nine buildings throughout the project site just south of downtown near Virginia Street, where the bridge will be footed. “Because the final design is in a preliminary phase, we don’t have exact locations on where the footings are going to be … ,” ALDOT spokeswoman Allison Gregg said. Some of the buildings were vacant before ALDOT acquired them, other owners and tenants...

It all started back in 2006 when Kia Motors announced that Peter Schreyer would become its new Chief Design Officer. At the time, this move seemed equally audacious and puzzling: smart hire by Kia boss Eui-sun Chung, the son of Mong-koo Chung, the billionaire chairman and CEO of Hyundai Motor Group (HMG), but perhaps foolish for Schreyer. After all, what could the smaller automaker offer besides handsome compensation, frequent flyer miles, and a top-down corporate culture? Schreyer, a legit rock star in the design world (with the back-in-black wardrobe to match), already had an impressive résumé that listed icons such...

Could Designed Systems Explain Green Lizard Blood? BY RANDY J. GULIUZZA, P.E., M.D. * THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 2018 Green blood is not something you see every day. The recent search for why several species of lizards found in New Guinea have green blood assumes an evolutionary origin for these creatures. It seems like the researchers started with a discovery that indicates green blood developed independently in four species from red-blooded ancestors.

At first glance, the compass point cushions seen in this photo seem entirely inoffensive. But look closer, and you'll notice a glaring mistake; the designer has gotten his south and east muddled up. And the fact they made it to the shop floor suggests the quality control department at the homeware store responsible leaves a lot to be desired.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission authorized nearly $34 million in final design contracts Tuesday for an eight-mile stretch of the Mon-Fayette Expressway from Jefferson Hills to Duquesne. If final design goes as expected, construction could begin in 2022 for the first of three remaining segments needed to finish the last 14 miles of the highway from Jefferson Hills to the Parkway East in Monroeville at a projected cost of $2.1 billion. That’s more than the $1.68 billion cost of the first 60 miles of the highway, started more than 40 years ago in northern West Virginia. The commission’s action Tuesday increased...

Donald Trump and his wife Melania are spending the Thanksgiving holiday at the business mogul's Mar-a-Lago resort.  Trump bought the estate for $10million in 1985 for his then wife Ivana. The resort was developed in the 1920s for heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post.  After he acquired the resort, Trump redeveloped the main house and created his own private quarters - decked out in gold.

Your Brain Has More Memory Than the Internet by Brian Thomas, M.S. * Whoever said the human brain is the most highly organized collection of matter in the universe was more correct than they could have known. New research modeled tiny structures within nerve cells and discovered a clever tactic brains use to increase computing power while maximizing energy efficiency. Its design could form the basis of a whole new and improved class of computer.

Waukesha - The sight of a terrified little girl about to have an MRI scan gave Doug Dietz a different perspective on his work as an industrial designer at GE Healthcare - and led to a project that has turned imaging departments at 27 children's hospitals into small theme parks. The idea that eventually emerged from a mix of brainstorming and research - with some persistence thrown in - was to transform a frightening medical test into a voyage on a spaceship, a visit to a pirate island and other adventures. Imaging departments became elaborate sets. Technicians became amateur actors...

Atheist physicists often refer to a "primordial soup" as a basis for the development of life on earth. However, they cannot precisely map from that soup, in a mathematical way, into an actual life form. Sure, there are plenty of theories about atmospheric conditions that are "ripe for creating life", but it remains conjecture, although the die-hard atheist physicist presents it as factual. They use the "authority" associated with their title, or their position within a university or other research organization, providing false fodder for young minds full of mush, who could not think critically of their lives depended on...

There is an unfortunate climate of fear in the software community today. It is primarily in ephemeral video interviews and podcasts that we get any semblance of coherent criticism and even then it is reticent. Worse than the fact that this criticism is relegated to verbal discussions is that it is later renounced by the very same designers and developers when they are interviewed in the more permanent-seeming medium of the written word. In written interviews, these fair-weather critics go on to reverse their opinions and praise the products of modern minimalist UI design because it is more convenient not...

TORONTO — Authorities across Canada are awaiting test results from the U.S. before deciding what to do about thousands of safety devices with alleged defects that could cause guardrails to rip through cars and motorists instead of protecting them in crashes. In the interim, several provinces have stopped installing the units, which would cost tens of millions of dollars to remove, while the city of Stratford, Ont., has launched a proposed $500-million class action against the manufacturer. At issue is Trinity’s ET Plus — the end unit of the guardrail — which is supposed to absorb impact and guide the...