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  • Ted x Gowanus!

    In Art / Culture, Brooklyn, Environmental, Event Spaces, Events, Gowanus Happenings, History, Nerd Stuff, Science, Space, technology / By / / 0 comments

    Hang onto your nerd hats Gowanus peeps, it’s about to go all Ted Talks in Brooklyn’s Superfunest area!

    Ted, the global spreader of ideas via epic presentations, is coming to Gowanus January 26th, 2014 at The Green Building and 501 Union.

    According to the website the theme seems to be “Inspiring Community”, which is clearly Gowanus! (Suck it everywhere else!)

    TEDxGowanus is an event featuring TED-style talks inspired by the unique ideas, stories and arts that have incubated in or are related to the Gowanus area.  This event will involve a cross section of attendees and speakers, from original Gowanus residents and business owners to recent entrepreneurs, developers, and thinkers. The TEDxGowanus agenda will include a full spectrum of topics: from performances and presentations by local artists to stories and ideas that explore the neighborhood’s history, industry, ecology, and evolution.  During breaks, attendees will have the opportunity to interact with an exhibit area featuring displays and booths by local businesses, speakers’ projects, and artists of Gowanus.

    So, it’s like an epic nerd lecture Gowanustastic mix!

    tedxgowanus

    Speakers so far include:

    Ate Atema – (who did this great talk already about bitches street creeks, which we assume he will talk more about at this event). He is the Managing Principal of Atema Architecture, ‘an award-winning New York-based architectural practice, and Flow Collaborative, an international team he formed to work on large-scale projects integrating architecture, ecology and infrastructure.’

    Eymund Diegel – (aka Professor Gowanus) ‘is the chair of Public Laboratory, a fun citizen science group partnered with the Gowanus Canal Conservancy’s Grassroots Aerial Photography program, where local citizen’s Eymund Diegel is the chair of Public Laboratory, a fun citizen science group partnered with the Gowanus Canal Conservancy’s Grassroots Aerial Photography program, where local citizen’s insights help improve Google Earth and City mapping of our neighborhood. As a Gowanus resident, he also helps out at the Hall of the Gowanus, a community historic research resource. ‘

    Andrew Gustafson - a geographer, historical researcher, and New York City tour guide. He develops and leads tours for the Brooklyn-based company Turnstile Tours, and his projects have included the research and development of tours at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and the Brooklyn Army Terminal, as well as about Brooklyn’s rich baseball history.

    Hans Hesselein – (aka the Green Planter) Hans joined the Gowanus Canal Conservancy as the Director of Special Projects in December, 2010 and was asked to serve as Executive Director in 2013. Throughout his time at the Conservancy, Hans has been responsible for developing and managing green infrastructure projects, watershed planning initiatives and volunteer stewardship programs. Hans comes to the Conservancy with a strong background in horticulture, construction technology, community engagement and landscape architecture.

    Plus a whole lot more see here!

    *code names from GYFO; speaker details from TedxGowanus website
     

    Grab your tickets early for $25 bucks today here. 

    Shout out to both the Team over at TedxGowanus for setting this bad boy up. Special big luv to Sean Gannet who’s organizing stuff and Joseph Alexiou (Gowanus history buff) who’s co-curating.

     

  • The Bike Maker

    In bike, Nerd Stuff, New York, Science, Sports / By / / 0 comments

    Ezra Caldwell of Fast Boy Cycles fabricates two wheel transports that are pristine pieces of functional art. Growing up in a wood shop and later studying dance, Ezra has had a very interesting and unique life. In 2008, he was diagnosed with cancer and instead of allowing cancer to define him, he  added photography to his many talents. His self-portraits capture a man battered in a fight with illness, but not beaten.

    Made by Hand / No 5 The Bike Maker from Made by Hand on Vimeo.

    more Made By Hand here!

     

  • Feeding Bedbugs

    In Nerd Stuff, Science / By / / 0 comments

    This is so awful we can’t even tell you…

    Author Bill Schutt videos ‘bedbug expert’ (crazy person!) Lou Sorkin as he allows hundreds of bedbugs to bite him on his arm.

    Towards the end of the video Lou talks about how he holds his arm a certain way so more bedbugs can feed and states: “Without me what are they going to do?
    – their going to die Lou…that’s what they are going to do! and frankly that’s all bedbug should do!

    Warning this video will make you itch for days after seeing it…


    ahhhh! we are so itchy!

     

    Via

     

  • Birds Eye View From A Giant Red Balloon

    In Environmental, History, Nerd Stuff, Photography, Science, technology, The Canal, Ur A Nerd / By / / 0 comments

    So last weekend you were probably bee boppin around Gowanus and might have seen a big red balloon floating in the sky near the Canal. As usual whenever you see a big red balloon you thought two things:

    1) 99 Luftballons (99 Red Balloons) – the song by that band you can never remember the name of!

    and…

    2) Le ballon rouge (The Red Ballon) – the 1956 movie by Albert Lamorisse that you fell asleep watching in film class and failed to ever watch all the way through, even though it’s only like 30+ minutes long.

    Neither of which have anything to do with the balloon you saw in the sky.

    The floating red balloon you possible saw is for an ongoing mapping project being conducted by the Public Laboratory, local residents, and the Gowanus Canal Conservancy’s Low Altitude Mapping Program with the help of Gowanus Dredger’s canoes…aka a whole lot of Gowanus nerds! The data is being collected by all these sciency types for a Proteus Gowanus Over My Dead Body Expedition map and the Conservancy’s Gowanus ReLeaf Expedition aerial review. The team used a Red Balloon from Grassroots Mapping filled helium donated by Liberty Industrial Gases.

    The Googlesque images taken shows the here and now of Gowanus, Brooklyn from above!

    Check out a few of these aerial shots that show Thomas Greene Park Pool, Bayside Fuel Depot, the Canal, Bond St, President St, the controversial Royal Palms Shuffleboard rooftop, and a few of balloonist enjoying themselves.






    (images provided by Eymund Diegel)

    In addition to the fun shots above another round of photographs, found here , were specifically taken for the Gowanus Canal Conservancy to show Canal edge vegetation, new plantings, and street end sites that local residents would like converted to parks. The images also show the greenery the Conservancy has added near the Gowanus Canal and their outdoor office known as the Salt Lot. It probably shows other sciency stuff too like water levels and icky things like pollution.

    Also, a group of photos for Proteus Gowanus were taken in the search for one of Gowanus’s biggest secrets. Supposedly hiding under a large slap of concrete maybe 250 plus dead bodies! The bodies are possible of a Maryland Regiment killed in the first battle of the American Revolutionary War, the 1776 Battle for Brooklyn aka the Battle for Long Island. The image shows 8th Street and 3rd Avenue from above. In it you see someone laying on the ground for scale and a large amount of concrete that has what appears to be cracks making patterns. The theory, listed  under one of the images on Proteus Gowanus’s flickr page, is that if there is a mass grave…

    expansion cracks in the concrete would run north south, contrary to the logical northeast to southeast layout of the lot and steel reinforcing grid’s expansion joints.”

    The images alludes to such cracks and truly might be the final resting place for America’s first soldiers to be lost in battle. Further studies of the images and from other historical documents may force the excavation of this particular lot in Gowanus in the future.

    The mapping program is ongoing and previous birds eye view photos are available on the Proteus Gowanus flickr, Gowanus Canal Conservancy’s flickr pages and Mapknitter.org.

     

  • Gowanus Spaceman

    In Art / Culture, Brooklyn, Gowanus, Gowanus Products, Nerd Stuff, Science, technology, Ur A Nerd / By / / 0 comments

    Here in Gowanus, Ted Southern, an artist  & designer, and Nikolay Moiseev, a Russian mechanical engineer, play with odd looking plastic suits. The funky plastic duds aren’t  for scuba-ing in the Gowanus Canal, but for playing in the great beyond…space. Together Ted and Nikolay are Final Frontier Design a startup company that hopes to make the spacesuit for the new commercial (private) space program. They have a ridiculously cute Kickstarter in which they explain their plans to make the next futuristic apparel for those leaving earth. Check it out:

    Wired Magazine has the full story on their plans here.

     
 
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Gowanus, Brooklyn

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