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Here are some snapshots from a dark chapter in American history. Throughout the 19th century, San Francisco's growing Chinese immigrant population had to contend with codified prejudice from legislation like the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, segregated communities, and the sentiment that Chinese-Americans were the source of leprous, smallpox, and malarial "vapors." More »
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The original 1956 plan for the Bay Area Rapid Transit system was way more complex on paper than it is in reality. Designer Jake Coolidge has imagined a universe in which this full plan was implemented. And even though it doesn't involve filling in the Bay or underground rocket trains or pyramids, it does complement world-building for any tales about an alternate reality San Francisco rather nicely. More »
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How far would you go to protect the last living member of an entire species? This is precisely the question being faced by national park officials and environmentalists in the San Francisco bay area, where the last-known specimen of the low-growing shrub known as the Franciscan manzanita makes its home. More »
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Tiffany Bozic is a San Francisco-based artist who will make you fall in love with a rhino beetle. We talked to her about her techniques, as well as bridging the worlds of science and art. More »
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Now that J.J. Abrams' time-traveling prisoner series Alcatraz is locked in for Fridays next fall, let's take a look at the show's abandoned penitentiary setting, which has since been turned into a tourist attraction after closing in 1963. More »
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This modified garage by Beausoleil Architects was built to comply with city planning standards, but it also makes a fantastic place to store one's Batmobile, Black Beauty, Popemobile or what have you. Check out a video of it in action. More »
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One thing everyone should aspire to own is a 70-ton topographical map of the Golden State the length of two football fields. It can be yours for $500,000. More »
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Doug McCune has charted San Francisco's crime rate topographically. Crimes like prostitution and narcotics peak in certain areas (Shotwell Street and the Tenderloin, respectively). San Franciscans, do you live in Strumpet Heights or Teetotaler Valley? More »
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James, of Ben Francisco's "Tio Gilberto and the Twenty-Seven Ghosts", plans on spending an idyllic summer in the Castro, only to run into complications, both romantic and otherworldly. An interesting take on the supernatural, plus we interview the author! More »
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You know you've always wanted to live in a rocket ship, and at last a group of intrepid weirdos in San Francisco show you the way. It's the spaceship house, with lights and everything. More »
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Last night's io9 meetup in San Francisco was incredibly fun and well-attended. We've got a giant gallery showing science fiction nerds in their natural habitat: Borderlands Cafe, among giant bookshelves full of paperbacks. More »
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The San Francisco Airport shines like a space station in this aerial shot. All it needs now is its own "emotionally stirring" soundtrack and you've got Battlestar Francisco, the series. [via Suite P] More »
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What will the New Yorks, Londons, and Tokyos of tomorrow look like? Will they be technological Edens, grim dystopias, or entirely obliterated? We look at science fiction's take on the future of today's cities to gauge our urban future. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5361171&view=rss&microfeed=true The best part about living in a futuristic, metropolitan wonderland are the technologies that make urban living so much smoother. Here are some of our favorite little gadgets and what-nots that modern cities have to offer. More »
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San Francisco's Bay Bridge is getting a makeover that will leave a large portion of the old bridge unused, but still standing strong. Now two architects are proposing that the city build a neighborhood on it. More »
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Just a reminder: Spanish time-travel thriller Timecrimes is showing tonight (for free) at the Embarcadero Center Cinema in San Francisco, at 7:30. RSVP to timecrimessf@gmail.com. More »
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Curious to see Timecrimes, the Spanish time-travel thriller that's already sparked a U.S. remake (that may involve David Cronenberg?) If you're in San Francisco, your chance could come on Tuesday. More »
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Over the weekend, the newly-revamped ecotechtural marvel known as the California Academy of Sciences opened its doors to the general public in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Packed with new, high-tech exhibits and massive tanks showing off slices of the coastal ecosystem, the museum is a monument to eco-consciousness on every level. From its living roof (pictured above), to its "flooded rainforest" walk-in tank, it's a must for visiting. Or just gawking at. We've got some photos of the most breathtaking parts. More »
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This weekend marks the opening of San Francisco's new Contemporary Jewish Museum, but locals have been gawking at the building's mesmerizing shape for months. Todd Lappin of awesome blog Telstar Logistics snapped some images of this shiny, weird cube that is actually a room in the museum, even though it looks like precisely the wrong shape for everything. Maybe it's completely ordinary-looking inside? Nope. Check out the interior, below. More »
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Tonight in San Francisco the nerds can rejoice at Nerd Salon, an event where you can chat or flirt without fear about comic books, computers, bioengineering, and Battlestar Galactica. Convened by myself, and Electronic Frontier Foundation legal geek Jennifer Granick, Nerd Salon is a place where people will help you with your homework. While drinking. And playing with humanoid robots, supplied by the excellent David Calkins and Simone Davalos of Robogames. Come out between 6-9 PM to the Makeout Room in San Francisco and say hi to your fellow io9ers and sundry nerds. More »
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Urban history is littered with the dead bodies of scrapped public transit projects. When eager commuters and car companies turned the automobile into the most popular form of transit in the world in the twentieth century, many cities set aside plans for expanding their public transit systems, such as the electric tram system planned for regions feeding into Melbourne, Australia. In some cases, city planners actually ripped out existing transit systems like Los Angeles' once-enormous cable car network. What would these cities and others look like if their public transit systems had continued to thrive and we lived in a world without cars? We've got five alternate urban histories of public transport for you below. More »
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The Quake Catcher Network is the latest effort in distributed computing that aims to turn your computer into a node in a vast, distributed earthquake detection network. Developed by University of California seismologists and computer scientists, Quake Catcher uses accelerometers already built into many laptops to detect shaking. If several nodes produce consistent hits at once, the word goes out across the internet in real time: Earthquake in Progress. Once there are enough nodes in active fault zones, the researchers think they can pick up seismic waves on the Network and transmit a warning to populated areas with somewhere between 10 and 20 seconds of warning. After the break, we take a look at three of the most dangerous places on Earth that are most likely to need Quake Catcher. More »
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It's another installment of Entropist, a sci-fi culture column by futurist design maven Geoff Manaugh, author of BLDG BLOG. The British branch of Penguin Books recently premiered a new website called - a bit lamely - We Tell Stories. The basic idea is that six authors will tell six stories over a period of six weeks. More interesting, however, is the fact that story #1, "The 21 Steps" by Charles Cumming, was told using Google Maps. So combine this same strategy with today's urban sci-fi, add a few more cities - and you've got a way to map science fiction across the planet. Could there someday be a Google Maps of Sci-Fi? More »
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These paintings from the PS3 game Resistance: Fall of Man 2 make mayhem and alien invasions look downright gorgeous. We aren't sure if that's meant to be the Golden Gate Bridge in the image above, since the structure of the supports looks somewhat different, but if it is... San Francisco looks like it might take a pounding in this sequel. We've got a whole gallery of this beautiful art below. More »
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If you think San Francisco is pretty now, wait till you see it in the future. Local architecture firm Iwamoto Scott proposes this curvy, colorful cityscape for the city by the bay, to accommodate a population that's slated to double by 2108. Some more details and pics after the jump. More »
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For those of you who will be out here in lovely San Francisco for the fangasm-inducing WonderCon (Feb 22-24), good news awaits. You can while away the afternoon perusing the online schedule, and planning what you'll be doing that weekend. Don't forget to pencil in the io9 meetup for Friday, Feb. 22 from 7-9 PM — location TBA. What's in store? A ton of awesome stuff, including a preview of the new X-Files movie and a chance to meet awesome artist Ben Templesmith. Here's the schedule: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. [WonderCon] More »
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Every town has one. It's the local scifi or comic book store that's much more than a place to buy books. It's a meeting spot, a salon, and a cruising joint for people who want to hang out and talk scifi with other bookish types. The store proprietors should be legendary — Crabby Heinlein Guy is really mean and elitist, but Goth Girl is super nice and will always recommend good books even if you don't know Star Wars from The Star Fraction. Every week, we're going to feature one beloved local scifi or comic book store here on io9. We begin the love this week with a natty bookstore in San Francisco called Borderlands, which is full of unusual books and home to one hairless cat named Ripley. More »
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