Average commutes to work tend to average 20-30 minutes. “It’s not just limited to the United States, either. In the Netherlands, the average commute time in the early 2000s was about 28 minutes. Many European nations average about 35 minutes. What makes a half-hour so universal in terms of commuting?”
Tag: 08.22.12
Prairie Futurism: The Forgotten Architecture Of Bruce Goff
“[The] divisive nature of Goff’s work, coupled with the location of many of his completed design projects – most in rural or residential areas in the Midwest – has limited his work from receiving the recognition it deserves,” despite the admiration he received from no less than Frank Lloyd Wright.
Repairing Flood Damage At Miami’s Arsht Center Will Cost Nearly $4M
“As a forensic engineering company continues to investigate why the roof drainage system failed at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts during a spring storm, Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez said in a memo Wednesday that the estimated bill for repairs would be about $3.8 million.”
Novelist Nina Bawden, 87
The English author published 48 novels, including Circle of Deceit (a 1987 Booker Prize Finalist), Dear Austen, and the children’s novels Carrie’s War and The Peppermint Pig.
Treasure Trove Of Historic Russian Architecture Being Wiped Out
“Nizhny Novgorod’s old city is known as one of the world’s best examples of Russian Byzantine design, a distinctive style of brick and wood buildings popular in the 1830s. Why would authorities allow the country’s history to vanish without a trace? Nizhny Novgorod’s citizens know the answer: The kickbacks city planners receive [for approving new construction].”
Ian McEwan Says He Is Not A British Writer, But An English Writer
“I put it to you that there are no British poets, there are no British novelists. I have heard myself described as one, but I think really I’m an English novelist; there are Scottish poets and Scottish novelists.” (His surname notwithstanding, McEwan was born and educated in England.)
Octopuses Have Consciousness, Declare Scientists
From the new Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness: “The weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness … [M]any other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.” (The octopus was the only invertebrate so honored.)
Denver Art Museum Turns Gallery Over To Its Audience
“There’s something utterly charming about seeing those objects in the haughty museum and something hopelessly patronizing about it as well. They don’t belong there, but there they are, and the effort is winning — if you’re willing to be a sport about it.”
Why Would Anyone Choose To Be A Poet?
“In a country that now regards money as the highest good, doing something for the love of it is not just odd, but downright perverse. Imagine the horror and anger felt by parents of a son or daughter who was destined for the Harvard Business School and a career in finance but discovered an interest in poetry instead.”
Of Singers And Apes
“New research from Japan reveals the same technique it took Renee Fleming years to master comes quite naturally to a gibbon. An ability we thought of as uniquely human is, in fact, something we share with at least one other species.”