Free Republic

The French invented the term film noir – it's supposed to have been coined in 1946 by the critic Nino Frank – but it took them years to come up with their own contributions to the genre, by which time it was very nearly played out in Hollywood. That American film noir was essential to the earliest films by most directors of the French New Wave is generally accepted; that something critical was lost in translation is just as certain. Louis Malle had a strange relationship with his peers in the nouvelle vague; like the very different Eric Rohmer, he...

People have been pooping in elevators at the Westfield San Francisco Centre mall, and the frequency of the problem has reportedly picked up. "It's like twice a week now. It used to be once a month," Abimael Garcia, who manages janitors at the mall, noted, according to the San Francisco Standard. "So lately, it's increased." Garcia believes people poop in the elevators because they are the nearest semi-private areas to Mission Street, where there are often individuals camping, according to the outlet — several workers indicated the only routinely utilized public bathrooms at the mall are located on the second...

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- He's conquered the streets with electric cars, and he's leading the commercial race to space, but that's not enough for Elon Musk. Billionaire Musk spoke at a TED Talks conference and gave the first glimpse of the traffic-beating underground tunnels he hopes to create. The SpaceX and Tesla CEO plans to build the network of tunnels with his latest venture, The Boring Company. Construction was well underway at the Hawthorne-based business on Friday. AIR7 HD was overhead as crews worked on the early designs of a tunnel-digging machine with The Boring Company logo. Here's how it...

For most city-dwellers, the elevator is an unremarkable machine that inspires none of the passion or interest that Americans afford trains, jets, and even bicycles. Wilk is a member of a small group of elevator experts who consider this a travesty. Without the elevator, they point out, there could be no downtown skyscrapers or residential high-rises, and city life as we know it would be impossible. In that sense, they argue, the elevator’s role in American history has been no less profound or transformative than that of the automobile.

(CNSNews.com) – As part of his ongoing campaign to transform New York City into what he calls “Fit City,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg is promoting “active design” for low-income housing developments being built there, including plans to prompt residents to use the stairs and rooftop gardens for growing “healthy” foods. In 2010, the Bloomberg Administration and other public and private sector groups issued the “Active Design Guidelines,” which promotes car-free neighborhoods, encourages “physical movement” inside buildings and “improves access to nutritious food.”The Center for Action Design was launched next as a resource for architects and developers who sign on to the...

Under his watch, New York City has required food chains to post calorie counts, eliminated trans fats from restaurants and fought unsuccessfully to limit the size of a soda. Still, even as his days in office are numbered, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg continues his campaign against obesity, this time by urging New Yorkers to take the stairs. Mr. Bloomberg said on Wednesday that he had issued an executive order requiring city agencies to promote the use of stairways and use smart design strategies for all new construction and major renovations. Mr. Bloomberg has also proposed two bills that would increase...

An angry man riding a mobility scooter plunged to his death, after he rammed an elevator door. The unfortunate incident happened at a shopping center in Daejon, South Korea. The 40 year old man who's name was Lee, obviously had a problem with his anger. That anger, for what ever reason, has been his undoing. You will see the man reach the elevator just after the woman inside pressed the button to go down. Seconds after the doors closed, Mr Lee reached the elevator and actually ran into the doors because he must have anticipated that the woman would...

t was a bizarre and abrupt way to die for a man who, by all accounts, went at life full-bore and was fit and agile from riding his bicycle everywhere he went ... Doctor killed in mysterious elevator shaft fall It was a bizarre and abrupt way to die for a man who, by all accounts, went at life full-bore and was fit and agile from riding his bicycle everywhere he went. But as San Francisco police combed over the evidence Tuesday, investigators said this is what appears to have happened: Dr. Daniel J. Kliman, an Alameda physician and one...

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - After three days of grueling competition and friendly shoulder-to-shoulder innovation, over $100,000 in prize money remained in the vault at the close of the Space Elevator Games - the premier event of NASA's new X-Prize-styled series of Centennial Challenges. First envisioned in the 1960s, the space elevator concept began garnering serious attention with the discovery of ultra-strong carbon nanotubes. If built, space elevators would provide an incredibly low-cost route for sending payloads, and eventually humans, to Earth orbit and the universe beyond. NASA has funded studies of the space elevator concept, which have given promising conclusions.

SEATTLE - If the space elevator dream comes true, robo-cars powered by laser light will roll on a carbon-nanotube ribbon stretching up tens of thousands of miles from Earth's surface, carrying cargo and passengers on a monorail to the sky.