Here's What's Awesome: Art Abandonments, Perks for Bikers

By Brady Carlson on Friday, August 29, 2008.

Welcome back to our Friday cavalcade of links we call Here's What's Awesome:

It's got a basket, a bell that rings, and things to make it look good
Hybrid car owners get tax breaks. Employers in big cities offer discounts for bus and subway riders. But where's the love for bicycles? It's (finally) on the way, reports Wired. Google, Humana and other employers are offering a variety of reimbursements, credits and rewards to those who choose bicycles for their daily commutes. (To those who got the reference at the start of this section, no company is offering incentives for having a clan of gingerbread men, sorry.) [Wired]

Abandoned building

See all photos tagged with "urban decay"
Keyword tags make the internet great. They organize content and put similar bits of information a little closer together, but they also lead in fun (search YouTube for the tag "Kitten") and sometimes unexpected directions (for an edition of NHPR's The Exchange I put a photo gallery together of photos tagged with the word "patriotism" and found a wide range of ideas and reflections).

A site called Weburbanist is pointing out some unusual keyword tags on Flickr - abandoned buildings. Take a look through the collections of dead malls or even former mental asylums, and you'll find more than a few stories that you didn't expect to read when you work up this morning. [Weburbanist]

Somehow the web gets faster
Just when your dad finally figured out what a URL was, a new tool for Firefox comes along and threatens to make our painfully-acquired web knowledge obsolete. Ubiquity is a tool that shortens the taskflow for some common web tasks - you can write messages on Gmail or Twitter, or search on Wikipedia or YouTube without having to go to each individual site. I'm going to test this out over the weekend and report back next week; if you're a Ubiquity user, let me know what you think in the comments field. [Presurfer]

(Photo by sandcastlematt)



Word of Mouth is on the move! Sign up for our podcast and take the show wherever you go.

Say what you want to say. How you want to say it. We want to hear from you.

Word of Mouth is all about what's new. Online and on-air, the show looks at our fascinating and ever-changing world, and puts the latest ideas under a microscope. Word of Mouth investigates everything from science and technology, to health and the environment, to new trends in popular culture. The show airs Monday through Thursday at noon and is hosted by Virginia Prescott.

Support From

Corporation for Public Broadcasting


THE NEXT GREEN THING
is supported by


Public Service of New Hampshire

supporting environmental education
and awareness and committed
to responsible forestry



Navigation

User login

 
functionfile: linearguments
user warning: Duplicate entry '25163347' for key 1 query: statistics_exit INSERT INTO accesslog (title, path, url, hostname, uid, sid, timer, timestamp) values('Here's What's Awesome: Art Abandonments, Perks for Bikers', 'node/17256', '', '38.103.63.58', 0, 'fflr1l9vd2hjvo5585a3896q20', 841, 1228284936) in /var/www/htdocs-v5/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 172.
trigger_error/var/www/htdocs-v5/includes/database.mysql.inc: 172Duplicate entry '25163347' for key 1 query: statistics_exit INSERT INTO accesslog (title, path, url, hostname, uid, sid, timer, timestamp) values('Here's What's Awesome: Art Abandonments, Perks for Bikers', 'node/17256', '', '38.103.63.58', 0, 'fflr1l9vd2hjvo5585a3896q20', 841, 1228284936), 512
_db_query/var/www/htdocs-v5/includes/database.inc: 200INSERT INTO accesslog (title, path, url, hostname, uid, sid, timer, timestamp) values('Here's What's Awesome: Art Abandonments, Perks for Bikers', 'node/17256', '', '38.103.63.58', 0, 'fflr1l9vd2hjvo5585a3896q20', 841, 1228284936)
db_query/var/www/htdocs-v5/modules/statistics/statistics.module: 71INSERT INTO {accesslog} (title, path, url, hostname, uid, sid, timer, timestamp) values('%s', '%s', '%s', '%s', %d, '%s', %d, %d), Here's What's Awesome: Art Abandonments, Perks for Bikers, node/17256, , 38.103.63.58, 0, fflr1l9vd2hjvo5585a3896q20, 841.02, 1228284936
statistics_exit
call_user_func_array/var/www/htdocs-v5/includes/module.inc: 406statistics_exit,
module_invoke_all/var/www/htdocs-v5/includes/common.inc: 1287exit
drupal_page_footer/var/www/htdocs-v5/index.php: 37