Band of the Month: Human Bodies

This week, I will be featuring two bands as a small highlight of the 1000 plus talented bands from all over the globe performing in Toronto’s upcoming NXNE music festival that runs June 10-16.
The first of this weeks two bands is Human Bodies.

Patient, lush, and explosive all rolled into a tight, heavily harmonized package, Toronto’s Human Bodies are a group of friends turn band whose charisma and charm are carried both on stage and off. A progressive, instrumentally neurotic sound of one song can be smoothly transitioned into a spacious, vocally driven sonic landscape of the next by this five piece of multi-instrumentalists. The fun never ends with these guys and gal.

Check out a sample below and catch them on stage June 12 at 8pm @ The Rivoli for their NXNE showcase!

Band of the Month by Greg O’Toole.

“Weirdos” Make Cities Better

Joi Ito, the director of the Media Lab at MIT, proposes that one way to make cities a better place for people and economies is to let weirdos flourish. What he’s getting at is that cities attract creative people who can generate wealth and culture so therefore we need to let these creative people do what they do best. The best way to do this, he says, is to have government step out of the way in some neighbourhoods because developing the place may change the weirdos who live there.

What’s more, the very effort to attract such talent by building infrastructure in advance, may well backfire, raising costs and destroying the vibe. “Look at New York,” he says. “If you have an area where established businesses have gone away, costs will go down, and entrepreneurs will move in. Scuzzy kids don’t need much space anymore, they just need a network and a place with a critical mass of energy to self-organize. Infrastructure comes later.”

As technology and the internet have lowered the cost of innovation and expressing yourself creatively, the ability of small groups of people to have a big impact has increased, he says.

“The barrier now isn’t lack of money,” he says, “it’s lack of permission. Untapped capital gets unlocked when authority gets out of the way and lets people do what they would do if given potential and the context in which to do it.”

Read more at Co.Exist.

Lower Your Energy Consumption in Easy Ways

With more technology around the home more energy is required to power the devices, and this adds up when millions of people plug things in. There are enough energy consumers out there that needlessly leave things running leads to a ton of wasted energy being produced. Fortunately there are many easy things you can do to help save energy and money.

U.S. households spend about $100 per year to power devices in low-power mode, around 8 percent of home electricity expenses, according to the government’s Energy Star program. Your water heater, lighting, air conditioner, and heater are the biggest energy hogs. The good news is that you can cut your energy bills without spending a fortune to do it.

Read more here.

Formula E is the All-Electric Alternative to Formula 1

Car racing is a popular sport around the world and it used to be a great testing bed for new, more efficient, technology used in internal combustion engines. Today, the technological improvements seem to be more on material science rather than fuel efficiency (most racing leagues still allow leaded gasoline).

Formula E will have it’s first season in 2014 and the new FIA-sanctioned championship wants car companies to focus their efforts on electric cars.

Formula E’s intent is to show how exciting electric vehicles can be as they race around inner city street courses. Ten cities are being lined up for the stage races in 2014 – with nine announced so far: London, Rome, Los Angeles, Miami, Beijing, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janerio, Bangkok and Putrajaya, Kuala Lumpur.

Formula E has the backing of the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile) – motor racing’s global governing body, which also oversees Formula One.

Landing Renault is significant. Renault is the engine supplier and a big sponsor of Red Bull Racing and a former F1 champion itself. Renault has also invested more in all-electric cars than any other manufacturer and believes Formula E will give it a global marketing opportunity to show off the performance and safety of electric cars.

Read more here.
Check out the Formula E Reddit here.

Moscow and New York City Both Launch Bike Sharing Services

Mayor Bloomberg in New York City has been clear that streets are meant to move people around and not just cars. The efforts the city has made to open up streets to people are working and the most recent push comes from their new bike sharing program.

“I expect to use it most days when it’s not raining,” McGlinn said after his journey, during which passersby flashed him thumbs-ups. “I expect to save money, although that’s not the primary reason why I’m doing it — it’s just nicer.”
…
New York’s version opened yesterday for people who purchased annual memberships, as most businesses were closed for the Memorial Day holiday. The first of 6,000 Citigroup Inc (C).- sponsored bicycles available from 330 solar-powered docking depots in Manhattan south of 59th Street and in sections of Brooklyn will open to the riding public next week.

Read more at Bloomberg.

In Moscow, they also launched a bike sharing program this past week. Unlike New York, Moscow has not spent the past couple years improving transportation networks so upon announcing the new bicycle program, officials proclaimed their intent to expand infrastructure for safe riding.

Moscow city hall has announced that it will develop a total of 131 kilometres (81 miles) of cycle paths by the end of this year, a small figure compared with other large cities around the world.

“Cycling will develop and in two years maybe it will find a compromise with cars, and drivers will understand that cyclists are also a part of the city,” said rider Vitaly as he sat on a bench next to his newly-rented bike.

The city has promised to widen the network to 120 locations and expand outside the centre by the end of July. The system will close at the end of October ahead of winter.

Read more at Yahoo.