Home : Journal : Archive

Sunday August 13, 2006

SimDubai

Urbanity

Being a huge fan of Sim City and urbanity, I also love to see some of the more impressive accomplishments of landscape architecture that can be seen with Google Earth.

Take as example the Sim City-like precision and planning oversight that is being demonstrated in the United Arab Emirates where Dubai is booming.

Huge highways and large traffic corridors are being built the in the desert, nicely ahead of the actual occupancy:

/img/journal/20060813-simdubai.jpg

And sometimes Dubai looks exactly like a Sim City screenshot:

/img/journal/20060813-simdubai2.jpg

Quite amazing. This satellite view almost makes me want to play Sim City right away.

(This is an edited repost of a Skyscraper City thread of mine.)

Annoying cat owners

Personal

I don't like cats much (they're cute and all but I'm a dog guy), but perhaps I dislike cat owners more. Or at least the stupid family on television now. They picked up a nice cat from the asylum. A young one, of course.. but they had young kids who demanded that so I can't entirely blame them.

They take the cat home, so far so good. The take the cat out of the box, it immediately seeks cover. And instead of giving the poor kitten time to get used to the new environment, we see tons of camera shots of the entire family teasing it and it crawling away further in its place of cover.

Perhaps it's not as bad as I make it seem but it doesn't take a huge leap of faith to imagine a world full of incompetent people. Poor kitten. But oh well, it could've been a puppy.

Netherlands the best

Anglosphere

Looks like Holland cares most about the poor and the environment:

The Netherlands is the rich nation which does the most to improve lives in developing countries, a Center for Global Development (CGD) report says.

While the Netherlands led the pack on generous investment and aid as well as measures to curb greenhouse gases, the CGD added they could work harder.

Yeah? If we lead the pack, shouldn't the CDG moan about everyone else?

I'm really trying to have an open viewpoint here, but this research looks sloppy. For example, the CGD criticises the US for an apparent 90% inefficiency of aid to Iraq, but they include greenhouse gas emission as criterium even though mankind is only responsible for roughly 10% of total global output, so a similar inefficiency is inherent.

I have read some PDFs on their web site and it is still unclear to me what exactly the CDG is proposing we do to solve all the misery in the world. It's easy to say we don't do enough yet criticise all we are doing, but any organisation asking for more effort and money to aid their cause will need to be able to provide some solid arguments for their case.

The Netherlands are the best. But at what exactly? Adhering to vague mission statements?

Harry Potter Trilogy

Anglosphere

A few months ago I had not even read a single page of Harry Potter. But then I read a few at Kirsten's. Well, consider me to catch up on Hermione, Azkaban and all that: I bought the trilogy on DVD today. Yeah yeah, I know I should read more, but I really do feel more like a popcorn night tonight. The box set was only €14,99 at Mediamarkt.. not a bad deal for three supposedly worthwile movies! Take us out, Scotty Snape!

Next day: Monday August 14, 2006 Previous day: Saturday August 12, 2006

© Copyright 1995-2007 Robert John Kaper. All rights reserved.

Powered by the delicious Kiki CMS! (#8/9)