Our World

These Are the End Times

As time lurches forward, people do weirder and weirder things. I have a subscription to Popular Science, which isn't really that good of a magazine, but it has some interesting stuff. In this month's edition, it talked about Russian plans to create a floating nuclear powerplant, which would supply power to the northern territories where it's too cold to effectively run coal and oil plants. The problem, of course, is that if the reactor was caught in a storm without control rods, it couldn't keep power without overheating. I don't need to say what would happen if that thing became another chernobyl in the water.

Also, there are plans to modernize construction of houses in such a way as to produce them like cars and computers, sections rolling out of factories every day. Total interchangability with standardized plans.

There are more plans to create custom, living houses. The frame would be made of trees which would be grafted together to form a single multitrunk, and a lattice scaffold would lay between the trunks to guide growing vines and roots into walls. The inside of the house would be packed with clay and straw for walls, which would be plastered to keep out water and pests. Water would be collected on the roof and treetops from rain to be used in a septic system, which would be cleaned by bacteria and fish. Solar panels held from thin bars attached to the naturally occuring treetops would help with electrical bills. The windows would be made out of a soy-based plastic, which, as the house grew, would stretch from a bubble-like form into a more flat pane. The upside to all this: You've got a LIVING HOUSE DUDE! Plus, the zoning board couldn't say anything about your house naturally expanding its size. The downside: Replastering the walls as it grows. These things could be grown and then transplanted to plots in five years.

The above link goes to the computer projection of the living house at popsci.com.

posted by Anonymous @ 10/19/2006 05:39:00 PM