Snag is in Yukon Territory, far western Canada, very near the border with Alaska. Latitude = 62°23'.

I've been in Kapuskasing, Ontario in January when it hit -40F (or -40C ... same thing) That was "cold enough" for me.

One of my relatives in involved in the military and frequently spends time in both Greenland and Antarctica. Brrr. He sent me a picture postcard from Antarctica and I get cold just looking at it.

I think it is pretty neat. I have to wonder though... Did the school have its own people involved in the design of the project as well? It looks like this school of art and design at an engineering/technical institute just hired some outside firm to come up with everything. Were their own "experts" involved in the creative process or did they just approve the presented designand sign a big check?

My undergraduate institute had a nice school of architecture, yet new buildings on campus were always the work of an outside hired firm. What message did this send to people considering attending the school?

My graduate university had a very highly ranked finance program at their school of business, yet the university's endowment portfolio was always (poorly) managed by an outside company. I know the internal people could have done a much better job, but the university didn't trust them.

What sort of message does it send when they don't trust their own "experts"? Obviously, projects like these are not a part time jobs and college professors are busy, but I'm willing to bet many of them would be interested in working on a few year "internal sabbatical" such as this to hone their practical knowledge in their fields and show off their own capability. What better advertising would it be for the schools' own related programs?

That's frickin' awesome.
As for it lasting long, the intent isn't so much to have a practical bicycle as to challenge his woodworking skills ... think of it more as a piece of art.

The kid's story on the link is interesting -- His Dutch grandfather had to use wooden wheels on his own bicycle during WWII on account of rubber shortages. I have a related story: My mom was born in 1941, and as rubber was in short supply, when her father built her a toy wagon to ride in, he put wooden wheels on it. I had that same wagon growing up and I still have it (with the same wooden wheels -- they wear fairly well actually). When the weather gets nice, I'll plop my 1 year old son in it and pull him around in it as well. It's 65+ years old, but still looks good.

Hmmm...I wonder how well it would go over if real American Indians put on blackface "in tribute" of the former runaway slaves.

Ya know, I've seen the quip about the 2 year old pillow before and frankly, I don't buy it. Does anyone have a link to somebody who actually (in a lab) dissected a pillow then sorted & weighed all the bits? If I saw some original lab results, I might buy it, but I just keep seeing the same "inside the Snapple lid" trivia repeated. I'm sure there are zillions of dust mites, but a 10% mass fraction is huge. Where is the data?

Hail Xenu!

Alex says: "Then can I bring a shaggy, dirty dog full of fleas into a restaurant because I claim that it is a “service animal”? "

Sadly, the answer is YES. The ADA was a sham. OK, it was well-intentioned at the start, but wound up being so over-expanded that everything is now a "disability". The effect on business owners is profound -- yet more costs for them to absorb.

I'm a cat person, but this really stretches the line. If the cat was actually trained to fetch him things or act as a "seeing feline", that would be one thing, but a living security blanket? My opinion wouldn't be different if it was a dog used in the same manner. Come on... It's a pet!

@Carl-
I guess the 11MB TIFF wasn't good enough for red.

Any 7 year old with a fish tank knows this.

His numbers are full of crap. His notchy-looking wheelskirts alone probably *wreck* the aerodynamics. I'll bet the Cd is worse than teh production vehicle. Turn the car over to a disinterested 3rd party (engineering undergrads at a local university?) and have them run tests. It's pretty easy.

Hey, Zimbabwe is just learning that food gets to be in short supply (= expensive) when you take all the land away from the efficient large farmers and disperse it to a myriad of inexperienced people running tiny farms. The food gets expensive first and everything else follows. Mugabe needs an economics advisor who took a class in teh subject.

Super. Let's create human beings so that we can kill them and harvest their cells and organs. Great breakthrough.

Hey, people used to think the Son of Sam was crazy too.

Richard
Of
York
Gave
Battle
In
Vain

Good comments from Eugenio, Patrick, and Alex. I'll add one thing: Memorization is NECESSARY BUT NOT SUFFICIENT. That is "engineer-speak" for saying kids DO need to learn memorization skills (for all the reasons the others posted), but it's not sufficient in itself to ONLY know memorized facts. But I've never heard anyone claim that ONLY memorizing facts is important! Who claims this?? Rather, it's just the FIRST step (and a continuing tool) to a life full of learning.

It's absolutely *necessary* that children know a lot of facts before they continue on the path towards better understanding. In the classical education model, it's termed the "trivium" (Latin for "3 ways") of Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric. The earliest stage (grammar) is most of this memorization and fact gathering takes place; from there, children learn to think creatively (Logic), and then express themselevs (Rhetoric). You need all three (!) to be well-educated, so yes, memorization is an important component. It only gets a bad rap from mush-headed "educators" (never trust a teacher who is too big for their britches to call himself a teacher) with advanced degrees in "Education" rather than core knowledge subjects, like language, history, science, or math. These dolts don't know a whole lot about anything themselves, so this disparage memorization because they don't like students more knowledgable than themselves. Your tax dollars at work in the world of government schools.