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more about #cities more comments → Klebert L. Hall: High speed rail would be nice, but we really, really, suck at implementing passenger rail in the US. To actually do it right, we'd have to build new ... more » Bootknife-Jackson: still further is the fact that passenger trains are often forced to idle on the tracks for up to an hour while freight traffic is given higher priorit... more » Dr Emilio Lizardo: Do French farmers still throw crap on the TGV tracks because they feel the high speed trains adversely affect their crops? Irrational prejudice again... more » Yamazaki-kun: We've got quite a few roadblocks in the way of high-speed passenger rail in the US. The main ones: * Amtrak's purpose, at least as Congress sess it, ... more » Makidian: I wish they would connect Dayton and Cincy along I-75 with some sort of train system that way commuting for my wife would carve 75% of her daily trip ... more » killgore_the_conqueror: 60 days to reach the moon? more like 2 and half days. from the earth to the moon (center to center) is 238857 miles. if you're going 4000 miles an ... more » Roklimber: "The Obama Administration has pledged to make as much as $13 billion worth of stimulus money available for high speed rail projects" That money will ... more » Indigen: They stick them on products, yet turn off the scanners at the door because of false positives from legitimate customers with tags poorly disabled at t... more » tetracycloide: [Pedantic post pointing out an obscure reference to a bar left off the list in a vain effort to prove my own superiority.] more » Aidan_: Heck yeah, I'd love to go to Club Hel. For the, um...*ahem* very talented bartender. Yes. _ more » Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.: Looks like strong feelings about the elimination of the White Hart, the Draco Tavern, and Quark's. I got a t-shirt at Worldcon years ago that says "Q... more » phoghat: My favorite has always been Callahan's. Spyder has a way with denizens of this bar. more » Magenta Lornak: And WHERE may I ask, is Quark's? more » Srynerson: 5.) Mos Eisley Cantina . . . What kind of Crowd? A seedy plethora and a who's who of the desert planet of Tatooine. Shouldn't that at least also say,... more » GalinaPapus: Arthur Cover here. This is just off the top of my head, but Lord Dunsany's Jorkens character was always telling stories at a club. Then there's deCa... more » -
#futuretransportation
Super High Speed Trains Might Be A Part Of Your Future Holiday Travel Plans
Since many Americans spent part of the last few days traveling home for Thanksgiving on trains, Scientific American chose to mark the occasion with an in-depth report on the future of rail travel. The future looks promising... and fast. More » -
#rfidtags
Your Fast Pass Leaves Slow Data Trails, The Ghosts Of City Life
These glowing images look like a kind of luminescent jellyfish at the bottom of the ocean, but they're actually the trails left by an LED attached to a RFID tag. These tags create invisible patterns as they move through cities. More » -
#triviagasm
7 Science Fictional Bars We'd Like to Visit
Life in the cities of tomorrow is filled with stressful encounters involving flying cars and Robopocalypses, so where can you find a nice place where everyone knows your designation? Here are seven science-fictional bars we wish we could visit. More » -
#futuremetro
What Will Today's Cities Look Like in the Future?
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 » -
#top10
Top 10 Most Corrupt Mayors From Science Fiction
You think your city's leadership is bad? Just look at these 10 stand-out examples of terrible mayors and awful city leaders from science fiction and urban fantasy. They steal, they kill, they won't give the people air! More » -
#thecross
Brooding Citiscapes from Andrew Niccol's New Dystopian Thriller
Andrew Niccol, the writer and director behind Gattaca, returns to dystopia with The Cross, his new thriller starring Orlando Bloom. Early concept images reveal a darker, more futuristic urban dystopia than we saw in Gattaca. More » -
#futuremetro
Seven Futuristic Urban Tools You'll Find in Today's Cities
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.
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#urbanfantastic
Megapolisomancy, Or Why All Cities Are Haunted
Your city seethes with ghosts. Its impossibly twisted streets stream with magic, and its chimneys exude smoke of a decidedly hallucinatory nature. Why do modern, urban places feel as if they are home to so many unexplainable, otherworldly forces? More » -
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#triviagasm
The Cities You Can Never Leave
Science fiction imagines strange and wondrous cities in our future, but many are less paradise than prison. We take an ill-advised vacation inside the cities that will never let you leave.
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#urbanfuturism
William Gibson's Bridge City in "Virtual Light" Could Become Real
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 » -
#futuremetro
The Otherworldly Architecture of François Schuiten
Belgian comic book artist François Schuiten is famous for creating rich and fantastical cityscapes, with shades of steampunk and Art Nouveau, envisioning a future dominated not by faceless office buildings, but by romantic and innovative architecture. More » -
#futuremetro
Welcome to the Future Metropolis
Cities contain highly-concentrated human activity. That's why they represent our glorious, high-tech future - and threaten us with dystopian social collapse. This week on io9, our Future Metro section explores the wonder of cities in fiction, art, and real life. More » -
#futurecities
The Most Fantastical Cities On Earth, As Chosen By Ursula K. Le Guin And Michael Moorcock
Their books take you to strange cities from other planets, alternate histories and mythical realms. But what real-life cities inspire Ursula K. Le Guin, Michael Moorcock, Nalo Hopkinson and China Miéville? The SharedWorlds project found out, with fascinating results. More » -
#urbanfuturism
The Same Cityscape According To Star Trek And Terminator Salvation
Mega-nerd Protohiro compared screenshots of the exact same view of San Francisco from the Star Trek and Terminator Salvation trailers. Here's Trek's super-bright, super-big Frisco. Click through to see Terminator's gloomy, Skynet-infested version. More » -
#startrek
Star Trek's Future San Francisco Would Never Get Past The Board Of Supervisors
Most people saw the massive cityscape in the new Star Trek trailer, and drooled. But not San Francisco activists, who've battled to keep mega-buildings out. Did Starfleet scrap our zoning laws? They ask. More » -
#architecture
The Cities Bloomed with Mushroom Tops That Drank the Sun
Cities whose power comes from the sun must grow into these organic shapes. Homes cling like fungus to tall, fat stalks, and solar panels stretch awkwardly open above each neighborhood. More » -
#urbanfuture
This City Will Never Drown Again
This gorgeous image of a floating city is one design team's idea of what New Orleans might look like in the future. Let me add to that: a better future, where urban design is graceful, humane, and forward-looking. Their idea is to create low-cost houses that are buoyant, and that survive floods by welcoming the Mississippi River into the city. More » -
#architecture
World's First Zero-Carbon, Zero-Waste City
Imagine a city built from the ground-up to use recycled materials and eschew carbon emissions. Next year, it may be real. The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi has an ambitious project underway to create the world's first zero-carbon, zero-waste city by 2009. They're hoping to build this city in the immediate vicinity of the Institute by transforming research facilities, labs, shops, residential units for employees and students, etc. into a carless, compact, reduce-reuse-recycle heaven. More » -
#architecture
Abu Dhabi's Shiny New Oceanfront Created via Environmental Computer Modelling
From the architecture firm that brought you Kazhakstan's alien ship building comes a new design for the Abu Dhabi World Trade Center. Using high-tech environmental computer analysis that takes into consideration the complex climate and topography of Al Raha Beach, Foster + Partners created this bright-but-cool, airy-but-windproof, asymmetrical-but-functional, and very futuristic-looking building. More »
