2,000-foot Chicago Lakefront Skyscraper Hotel and Condominium

Blair Kamin's article in today's Chicago Tribune is really worth a glance. Click the link below to read the whole story which I have given you a brief excerpt of. The Trib also has a number of other related stories whether the building would pay for itself, whether anyone would want to live there, reactions from the Mayor, a poll and more drawings of this proposed Hotel Condo development which is unique in that for a building this tall it would not include offices. Given that it would include a hotel, it would likely includes some stores and restaurants however.

ARCHITECTURE

Scaling aesthetic heights
Skyscraper adapts to our world in a stunning new way

By Blair Kamin
Tribune architecture critic
Published July 31, 2005

Let's set aside, for a second, the hardheaded question of whether Spanish architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava's twisting 2,000-foot Chicago tower will ever get built. In a way, it doesn't matter. Last Wednesday's unveiling of the dazzling, but still-evolving 115-story hotel and condo tower marked a major milestone in an ongoing revolution: The skyscraper and the tall office building no longer are synonymous.

For more than a century, they were.

When the great Chicago architect Louis Sullivan articulated the famous principle "form ever follows function" in 1896, he was writing an influential essay, "The tall office building artistically considered." It aimed to impart grace upon a then-new and cantankerous building type, the skyscraper, which was blocking views, darkening streets and making buckets of money for ruthless capitalists.

"This sterile pile, this crude, harsh, brutal agglomeration," Sullivan called it.

More recently, all the holders of the world's tallest building title have been office buildings, from the Empire State Building to Sears Tower to the latest to wear the crown, the pagoda-inspired Taipei 101 in Taiwan. To think about building tall, in other words, has been to think about tall office buildings. And it was to assume that downtowns would be places of work -- noisy, dirty, perhaps industrial -- and that people would live outside them in quieter city neighborhoods or leafy suburbs.

But as Calatrava's design reveals, life and cities have changed and the skyscraper is free to adapt to those changes in stunning new ways. Though far from faultless, it is one of the freshest and most captivating skyscraper designs Chicago has seen in decades, fully taking advantage of the possibilities offered by the fact that it would be a place to live rather than work.

Click here for the rest of Kamin's excellent story:

2,000-foot Chicago skyscraper

After this week, may require registration to read.

Peter

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16 Tons of Digital Steam Music Calibrated By Lasers and Mac

A creative mixture of engineering, computer power, and art, and a 16-ton coal powered steam engine at the London Science Museum.

Click here to see the video

For exhibition and ticket information click here.

Peter

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Woz.org's Complete Mac Links Page

This is just a short post. But a gold mine for Mac fans. From Steve Wozniac's home page, his complete list of Mac links including ratings ( up to 5 W's).

Welcome to Woz.org's Mac Links Page

I give the site PPPPP for Perfectly useful!

Peter

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Meet the iPod family - a photoset on Flickr by Pinkbelt

iPod family - a photoset on Flickr by Pinkbelt

Mr. and Ms. iPod share the pictures of their new arrival, little Shuffle. Here they are taking him out for a walk around the iBook in his new pram.



Every once in awhile you find something on the internet that is so goofy and funny that you have to share it. This, this is one of those moments.

Be sure to stop the slide show and read the individual comments, they are worth it.

Peter

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Peter Files Reluctanly Adds Avertising

As you may have noticed, well it may be hard to miss actually, The Peter Files Blog is now an Amazon Associate. This means that if you make a purchase at amazon through the search box or other links at the Peter Files, we will get a small commission on your purchase so, please consider doing so.

We also have an arrangement with another well known vendor that I am not allowed to mention, that pays for click throughs, but Amazon alas, only pays for actual transactions.

So, it you are considering a book, magazine, computer or iPod purchase, please consider doing it through the Peter Files blog site.

Thanks!

Oh, that's me singing in the background, if it gets annoying, just hit the pause buttion under the words "My Profile" on the right. I will be updating that with other music soon, but that I knew was definately out of copyright. That is me singing by the way.

Thanks to my friend PJ for hosting the file for me.

That's it for this file,

Peter

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The International School of Blog Repair Technicians Announces its Reduced Tuition Plan is Back!

Are you tired of being in the same old rut?

Would you like to make money the fast and easy way?

Does the idea of sitting at home typing a few hours a day at your keyboard, listening to music, watching videos, tossing down the brewskis and watching ESPN while the money rolls in, appeal to you?

Then you my friend, may have just the skills needed to enter the:

International World of Internet Blog Repair!

Think of it. Just a few years ago, no one had a home computer. Now, it seems that everyone in the world has one, and in the past year, web logging or blogging has taken off like a skyrocket!

People all over the world are committing their precious thoughts and memories to their blogs, investing hundreds of hours of their life in writing personal and private thoughts for all the world to see - trusting in this wonderful but complicated technology to keep it safe for them.

BUT WHAT IF SOMETHING GOES HORRIBLY WRONG!!!!

That's where you come in to save the day!

As a Certified International Blog Repair Technician!

From the comfort of your home, your apartment, a restaurant, your car, from any hot spot or modem where you can get a connection, you can be up and doing business with the simple skills we can teach you at the International School of Internet Blog Repair.

"I was sad and lonely, living the simple life in a van, down by the river, but I took out a student loan, got certified by the International School of Internet Blog Repair, and now I have wealth beyond my wildest dreams, thank you, thank you, thank you." - Roma Marriotti

For one simple investment and a small, small, small perpetual percentage of your gross, we will lead you to untold riches in the fastest growing field in internet history!

Here's the secret:

All those people. All those blogs. All those folk who don't have clue one how blogs REALLY WORK - But YOU will! And that my friend will give you the tools to rake in the $dough$ re mi!

"I had just lost my job as a White House intern after a terrible mistake in judgment, I was hounded by the press, ashamed to go outside, what could I do to make a living? My life was over! But then I heard about the International School of Internet Blog Repair, and now I have a career where I can work from home and nobody cares where my dresses are or what cleaners I use. Thank you, thank you, thank you! And the money is great too!" - T. Woman

Yes, the very same people who spent the last 10 years with endlessly blinking clocks on their VCR's are now using the most complicated technology in the history of humanity to save their most precious moments on the most etheral of all technologies, an internet weblog.

Their blogs will break, they almost have to, and here at The International School of Internet Blog Repair we will teach you the basics to fix them quickly, easily and for BIG, BIG, PROFITS.

"I had dreams, oh yes, I had dreams. but then I got gored by what people thought was my boring style and my claims of having invented the internet. Then I settled down to teaching and spending time smooching with my wife, and was quite happy, you might call it a true love story, but the fact is, when I heard about the International School of Internet Blog Repair, I was curious. So I got involved because I liked being in on the ground floor of a new technology. It's just a way cool thing to be doing. Now that I've gotten into it, I think that there's a way that it could spring of into a nanotechnology group of applications too, if you see what I'm saying, I think I could invent a whole new fields here......" - Nota Bore

This is a TIME BOMB OF OPPORTUNITY JUST WAITING TO GO OFF!

Will you be in for the payoff?

No travel required. No Long Hours. No Office. No Suits. No Employee meetings!

But: your will meet people - if you want to! Oh, yes the fringes on this job are mui bueno if you know what I mean. :nudge: :nudge: :wink: :wink: :say no MORE!:

Here's what we will teach you:

Part 1 - The Basics of Blog Repair

How to look at the source code of their blog and fix most problems in less than two minutes, but tell them about it an hour later.

IN NEARLY EVERY CASE the problem is something like a missing ">" sign that they erased in the underlying html code while not not knowing it was there in the first place.

You will work on all the major systems Mac OS X, OS IX, OS VIII ... Blastoff! Unix, Linux, Web T.V., iPod, Cell-phones, video game players, and if time permits, Lisa, Apple, Commodore 64, TRS-80, CMS, MVS, DOS, and possibly even Windows systems if any interest is still out there.

More important of course are all the major browsers used today, Firefox, Safari, Mozilla, Netscape, Visual Basic 6.o and Internet Explorer.

The basic blogger engine types are also covered as well as the code that supports them HTML, CSS, JAVA, Cocoa, Tea, Expresso, Soda, and Jack Daniels. It would be a rum job if we didn't cover it all.

Part 2 - Jazzing up Their Template/Making Their Template Pretty

How to Earn Extra Bucks through Customizing a Customer's blog or post so that their blog looks a little more special than their friend's. If you work this right, contacting their friends listed on their sidebar and offering your services, you can keep this going for months, if not years simply by running two different blogging consultant identities! Mucho Dineros!

Part 3 - Emergency Design Services

Hold on Huston! This is where the BIG dollars are.

"Suzi's graduation is tomorrow and I've just got to get this pretty party page up on time! Help me please - can you get it done on time?"

Part 4 - Tactful Consolation and Damage Control

Sometimes your clients will get themselves into embarrassing situations and it will be up to you to get them out of it. Here's an example.

"Well, you see Ms. Westen, when you posted those pictures from the beach party on your blog, you weren't just storing them on your own computer. No. You see there's this thing called the Internet? The World Wide Web?

That's right Ms. Westen, the whole world, the whole wide world. No, I don't think the whole world saw the pictures you took of you and Mr. Trumpet fooling around. Fortunately for you there is a lot of competition for that kind of stuff, but the thing is, I took the photos down, but you really don't know who copied it, or where it might show up again.

Yes. Someone could copy any of the photos and put them up somewhere else. Yes. Even the really, really naughty ones. No, actually by the standards of the internet yours are quite tame, really. Um, how long were the photos up? That long eh.

Well, I think you've got to assume that you are going to be pretty well known within a couple of months Ms. Westen. At least you did not have any live video files. Heh, heh, heh. Oh, those were on Mr. Trumpet's blog but you made him take them down, oooh, that's, that's not so good.

Well, videos can be downloaded too. I see, well take it from me, even if he tried to make it impossible, there are people, we call them hackers, who specialize in downloading things, no, they don't have a cough, they just get in where they shouldn't, like with a hack saw, yes, who specialize in this sort of thing and that video is probably making the rounds too.

How long was it? No, how long was the video up there Ms. Westen. That long? Well if you let me see it I could probably tell you how much distribution its likely to get... not a chance in hell, yes, I totally understand, and I respect your privacy.

The upside is that with an hour long video it will probably be limited to commercial sites where people have to pay to see it, so fewer people will probably see it. I knew you'd feel better about that! Yes. Ah, um. The downside is of course, that at an hour the video is long enough to release and sell as a DVD.

Well they should, but once these things get out they generally don't give the victims any money. No, it is awfully unfair, Ms. Westin, though you can sue them, if you can find them. My guess would be Singapore, or China, or maybe Russia. Or New Jersey. Yes. Let's hope for New Jersey.

Other problems, let's see, you did put your name and address in your blog so you might want to consider changing both, or at least moving. I'm sorry, I don't mean to upset you but you are really sort of a celebrity now.

Really, there's no need to cry Ms. Westen. Really, please don't cry, everything will be all right. Look on the bright side Ms. Westen, the pictures are really most attractive. Really.

No, no, I didn't stare at them, but to take them down I had to look at them a little, please don't cry Ms. Westen. Please. It makes me most upset to hear a pretty girl like you cry when there is nothing that I can do about it. There is? Gee, you sound really upset about this. I could help? I'd like to. Would you like to come over and talk about this over a drink? Maybe we could work on that whole name problem of yours. Yes, see you at 7. Ms. Wes.. Carol. That's a nice name. My name is Bob. See you at 7."

Now of course this is nearly a worst case scenario. Mr. Trumpet could have been her boss and pulled her into his office to say the dreaded words "You're Fired!" in the middle of the call, but I wanted to keep this example simple.

Part 5 - Selling Blog Repair Internships

Of course, the last big step you can take is to train other Certified International Internet Blog Repair Technicians. Once you have passed the training course you can recruit and train other Certified International Internet Blog Repair Technicians. At first you get a larger part of their fees, but as they recruit more students, your share goes down, but you will always get a small portion of their gross. Now there is a limit to how many Certified International Internet Blog Repair Technicians there can be, we will accept only the best.

We have to say that, this is not some fly-by-night pyramid scheme only interested in your initiation fee. So, don't count on recruiting new International Internet Blog Repair Technicians as your primary source of income like some of these multi-level marketing schemes, but the pennies do add up if your trainees learn the business right and keep their customers, and keep them happy. That's just plain old good service and business sense.

"I lost a really good friend a few years ago and was really depressed, yeah, I got work, good work, but it just wasn't the same, I found myself spending more and more time floating around on my pad, blowing off Piggy, that's my girlfriend, and let me tell you, she get's really angry when she's ignored.

I know it's not easy being green, but for a frog like me, well let's just say I had a really close, personal. relationship with this friend, I had never let anyone get inside me quite like Jim did, and when he was gone, well, it was like I was a different frog. He was more than just a boss. He was a mentor. I always felt lucky watching other people at their jobs, slaving away, in law firms, or accounting offices with other people pulling the strings, heck, they might as well have been puppets. But working with Jim was never like that and with him gone, I felt a little different, sounded a little different, it just wasn't quite the same inside, but I had to keep going you know? All those kids, my fans, I just could not let them down, no matter how low I felt.

Then I found the International School of Internet Blog Repair, and now I have a little something to do to distract me when I'm not feeling quite right. It feels nice to help people and while I can't do it full time, I still get something good from it. My friend The Count helps out too. He really loves it. He's a natural. He finds it very exciting, even more than me. He breaks the HTML into one's and zero's and fixes blog's that way - frankly I think its a little wierd, but he's better at it than I am! I wish he could work more quietly though sometimes.

Had to cut my friend Ernie's access off though. He was having too much fun making Bert's blog do silly things. One night Bert left his Mac on with his Blog open and suddenly around two in the morning a giant rubber duck appeared on the screen quacking you know what song so loud it blasted Bert out of bed so hard he almost went out the window! Ha! Have to admit that was a pretty good one, but when I saw Ernie hanging out the window by his feet I said, "Wacko Jacko, this has gone too far!", got Bert not to drop Ernie if I agreed not to let him on my G5." - K.T.F.

So if you think you have what it takes to be a Certified International Internet Blog Repair Technician, apply via e-post today for details! Don't wait! There's a lot to offer in your initial training kit, so much to offer that we can't list it all just remember:

You get all this and MUCH MUCH MORE!

Your Official Certified International Internet Blog Repair Technician Student ID Card
(Good for student discounts everywhere)

Your Official Certified International Internet Blog Repair Technician Graduation Requirements

Your Official Certified International Internet Blog Repair Technician Student Aid Kit
(Please fill this out to qualify for financial aid call our toll-free number for assistance)

Your Official Certified International Internet Blog Repair Technician Student Online Access Pass
(Gives you access to your classes - learn at your own pace - take the tests until you pass)

Your Official Certified International Internet Blog Repair Technician Student Website Discount Card
(Gives you access to our website and a host of others as a free bonus - just for being our student)

Your Official Certified International Internet Blog Repair Technician Secret Decoder Ring
(Available in all sizes - comes with a firewire connection cord )

Your Official Certified International Internet Blog Repair Technician Student Photo Directory
(Every Campus has a Social Life - Why Should Ours Be Any Different)

Don't Delay! Make Your Application Today!

Significant Tuition Discounts Apply to Those Who Refer Accepted Candidates for Admission to our NEW BLOG REPAIR TECHNICAN

GROUPIE TRAINING PROGRAM

Yes, that's right, our program has now become so popular that our candidates have been deluged by offers for companionship from all over the world and so our founder, Peter of the Peter Files has announced that he will head our special Groupie Training Program - effective immediately.

Blog Repair Technican Training School Candidates who find or recruit an approved candidate for the groupie training program may be eligible for a significant retroactive tuition discount based on the sucessful completion of the Groupie Trainee's Performance in the Program!

Isn't That Amazing!!!

But That's not all!!!

RECRUIT NEW STUDENTS AND QUALIFY FOR FREE TUITION AND RECRUITING BONUSES AS WELL AS THE GREAT REWARDS OF THIS EXCITING NEW CAREER!

So why wait? Start on the exciting path of Blog Repair today!!!

All students required to sign a non-disclosure agreement in regards to the materials and methods of the program before the first day of class and agree to indemnify the school for any dissatisfaction that may occur from student's failure to meet their own objectives through no fault of the school or administration.

An Affilliate of The Interational School of Spam Archaeologists and the
International School for Internet Humor Application Management Systems


That's it for this case in,

The Peter Files

Fine Print (This is a joke. It is only a joke. If anyone does start such a school however I claim a share of intellectual property rights and a small share of the gross. This post is partly inspired by the work of Bob Newhart and his classic Bus Driver School Sketch and his great telephone routines. Bob, please don't be annoyed if sections of this post are too close to your material. I was churned through the same (1076) character building mill that you were and probably spent as much or more time in jug.)

Copyright 2005 by PJF, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR MISUSE OF THIS COMEDY MATERIAL.

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Cheney aide also linked to CIA leak

O.K. This story really brightened my day. Admittedly, not nearly as good as having a new Harry Potter book come out, but still, pretty good stuff. Brings back nice fuzzy memories of the Nixon White House and Agnew. Click on the link to read the rest of the story.

Cheney aide also linked to CIA leak

From Tribune news services
Published July 18, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The vice president's chief of staff was a source along with the president's chief political adviser for a Time magazine article that identified a CIA officer, a Time reporter said Sunday.

The disclosure further countered White House claims that neither aide was involved in the leak.

Until last week, the White House had insisted for nearly two years that Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, and Karl Rove, the deputy White House chief of staff, had no connection to the leak.

This is a story that I think is just going to keep getting bigger and bigger.

Peter

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Peter Files: Readers by Country - Update

One of my newer website trackers, free from onestat.com, installed a month or two ago, identifies the country of origin of pageviews, which is not quite the same thing as visitors. A great many people visit only one page, while some visit more than one.

More interesting to me is the spread of countries, the last time I reported this, I think there were 55 or 56 countries on the list, the total has now jumped to 78! Since some visitors internet connections hide their country of origin some countries might be under-representated, not reported, or in the case of the U.S. over-representated.

Still, its fun to look at. Collecting countries for your blog is sort of like collecting QSL cards in the old short-wave, ham radio days. I shouldn't say old, I am sure some hobbiests and stations still issue QSL reports, though I would be surprised if they did not do so by internet when possible, rather than post.

Kind of magical to look at the countries add up, in a non Harry Potter way.

That's it for this file, over and out.

Peter

	Country				Pageviews		%
1.	United States				2,902		72.26%
2.	United Kingdom				181		4.51%
3.	Canada				136		3.39%
4.	Germany				119		2.96%
5.	Netherlands				61		1.52%
6.	Australia				59		1.47%
7.	France				36		0.90%
8.	Spain				31		0.77%
9.	United Arab Emirates				30		0.75%
10.	Japan				26		0.65%
11.	Italy				25		0.62%
12.	Belgium				25		0.62%
13.	Singapore				24		0.60%
14.	Sweden				23		0.57%
15.	Switzerland				22		0.55%
16.	Poland				18		0.45%
17.	India				16		0.40%
18.	Denmark				16		0.40%
19.	Norway				14		0.35%
20.	Russian Federation				13		0.32%
21.	Finland				13		0.32%
22.	Other				13		0.32%
23.	Austria				12		0.30%
24.	Mexico				12		0.30%
25.	Malaysia				12		0.30%
26.	Saudi Arabia				10		0.25%
27.	Turkey				10		0.25%
28.	Taiwan				10		0.25%
29.	Peru				8		0.20%
30.	Ireland				8		0.20%
31.	South Africa				8		0.20%
32.	Venezuela				7		0.17%
33.	Czech Republic				7		0.17%
34.	Portugal				7		0.17%
35.	New Zealand				6		0.15%
36.	Israel				5		0.12%
37.	Philippines				5		0.12%
38.	Argentina				5		0.12%
39.	Azerbaijan				5		0.12%
40.	Greece				5		0.12%
41.	Brazil				4		0.10%
42.	Slovenia				4		0.10%
43.	Sudan				3		0.07%
44.	Iran				3		0.07%
45.	Kuwait				3		0.07%
46.	Bermuda				3		0.07%
47.	Brunei Darussalam				3		0.07%
48.	Chile				3		0.07%
49.	Bulgaria				3		0.07%
50.	Guam				3		0.07%
51.	Hong Kong				2		0.05%
52.	Hungary				2		0.05%
53.	Indonesia				2		0.05%
54.	Estonia				2		0.05%
55.	Egypt				2		0.05%
56.	Colombia				2		0.05%
57.	Lithuania				2		0.05%
58.	Nigeria				2		0.05%
59.	Korea (South)				2		0.05%
60.	Romania				2		0.05%
61.	Puerto Rico				2		0.05%
62.	French Polynesia				1		0.02%
63.	Ukraine				1		0.02%
64.	Trinidad and Tobago				1		0.02%
65.	Latvia				1		0.02%
66.	Malta				1		0.02%
67.	Maldives				1		0.02%
68.	Cyprus				1		0.02%
69.	Dominican Republic				1		0.02%
70.	Ghana				1		0.02%
71.	Croatia (Hrvatska)				1		0.02%
72.	Benin				1		0.02%
73.	China				1		0.02%
74.	Cote D'Ivoire (Ivory Coast)				1		0.02%
75.	Bahamas				1		0.02%
76.	Yemen				1		0.02%
77.	Zimbabwe				1		0.02%
78.	Thailand				1		0.02%
	Total				4,016		100.00%

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