Swiss Mischief

A young Louis Agassiz?

In an effort to bury Cambridge, MA, Baron von Bloomberg has invited universities to compete for $100M from the city coffers to create a new high tech university. Potential sites include Governors Island, Roosevelt Island, Brooklyn Navy Yards, and the Farm Colony on Staten Island.

Now we discover that, along with Korea (South?), India, Israel, Pittsburgh, and Finland, L'Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) is throwing its chapeau or hut into the ring. The Swiss, you say, a quiet, prompt, neutral, hot chocolate-sipping folk. Think again. Take a look at this announcement of what the EPFL and its nefarious Nanoelectronic Devices Lab of  is up to:

On May 5th, at the FET 11 conference in Budapest, Prof Adrian Ionescu presented “Guardian Angels for a Smarter Life” to the scientific community.

Here is what the Financial Times had to say: "Perhaps the most futuristic proposal is EPFL's Guardian Angels, which will use computing and imaginative energy research to "create the ultimate smart device that will assist humans from infancy to old age". The guardian angel will "scavenge for energy" from its environment, for example by tapping the heat and movements of the human body, said Adrian Ionescu, project leader."

Future site of SMngCITS

Straight out of a Philip K. Dick novel. Where will it end?  This aggression will not stand, man. In response, the Research Bureau is submitting its own 11th hour proposal (you thought it was over? Ah no.): the Sir Myles na gCopaleen Institute for Transportation Studies (SMngCITS, for short). It will be housed in the now decaying Neponset Health Care Center in Rockaway. The easy access to the beach and boardwalk at Jacob Riis National Park will provide (offseason) facilities for its experiments with hydro-steam technology. An early study will explore the feasibility of surf-comuting.