The tunnel people of Las Vegas and Abandoned New York

Deep beneath Vegas’s glittering lights lies a sinister labyrinth inhabited by poisonous spiders and a man nicknamed The Troll who wields an iron bar.

But astonishingly, the 200 miles of flood tunnels are also home to 1,000 people who eke out a living in the strip’s dark underbelly.

Some, like Steven and his girlfriend Kathryn, have furnished their home with considerable care - their 400sq ft 'bungalow' boasts a double bed, a wardrobe and even a bookshelf.
Austin Hargrave Las Vegas tunnels

Deeper underground: Steven and Kathryn live in a 400sq ft 'bungalow' under Las Vegas which they have lovingly furnished with other people's castoffs

FULL ARTICLE HERE:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1326187/Las-Vegas-tunnel-people-How-1-000-people-live-shimmering-strip.html

Another interesting post of a story and pictures of an abandoned area of New York.

"In a different era, Edgemere's seaside was a thriving resort, with grand hotels, a bustling boardwalk, and thousands of residents. Today, it is devoid of buildings and permanent residents, and "has stood vacant, except for plant life and wild dogs, for more than 35 years, when thousands of summer bungalows and stores were plowed under as part of the Arverne Urban Renewal Project, a massive building project that was put on hold and never revived," according to the Rockaway newspaper The Wave. The city continues to maintain the streets in south Edgemere - to some degree - with signs lurking in the bushes and new curb cuts floating like islands in the urban wilderness. But few sidewalks remain intact, most roadways are pockmarked with potholes or covered in shifting sands, and the entire area is used as a communal dumping ground. Clothing, mattresses, toys and used condoms are discarded in the middle of streets. Some remain undisturbed for over a month. "

ARTICLE HERE:


http://kensinger.blogspot.com/2010/09/south-edgemere-wasteland.html

The Web That Time Forgot

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/health/17iht-17mund.13760031.html?_r=2

From Tuesday, June 17, 2008's NYT:

MONS, Belgium — On a fog-drizzled Monday afternoon, this fading medieval city feels like a forgotten place. Apart from the obligatory Gothic cathedral, there is not much to see here except for a tiny storefront museum called the Mundaneum, tucked down a narrow street in the northeast corner of town. It feels like a fittingly secluded home for the legacy of one of technology's lost pioneers: Paul Otlet.

In 1934, Otlet sketched out plans for a global network of computers (or "electric telescopes," as he called them) that would allow people to search and browse through millions of interlinked documents, images, audio and video files. He described how people would use the devices to send messages to one another, share files and even congregate in online social networks. He called the whole thing a "réseau," which might be translated as "network" — or arguably, "web."

Historians typically trace the origins of the World Wide Web through a lineage of Anglo-American inventors like Vannevar Bush, Doug Engelbart and Ted Nelson. But more than half a century before Tim Berners-Lee released the first Web browser in 1991, Otlet (pronounced ot-LAY) described a networked world where "anyone in his armchair would be able to contemplate the whole of creation."

Although Otlet's proto-Web relied on a patchwork of analog technologies like index cards and telegraph machines, it nonetheless anticipated the hyperlinked structure of today's Web. "This was a Steampunk version of hypertext," said Kevin Kelly, former editor of Wired, who is writing a book about the future of technology.

Otlet's vision hinged on the idea of a networked machine that joined documents using symbolic links. While that notion may seem obvious today, in 1934 it marked a conceptual breakthrough. "The hyperlink is one of the most underappreciated inventions of the last century," Kelly said. "It will go down with radio in the pantheon of great inventions."

Today, Otlet and his work have been largely forgotten, even in his native Belgium. Although Otlet enjoyed considerable fame during his lifetime, his legacy fell victim to a series of historical misfortunes — not least of which involved the Nazis marching into Belgium and destroying much of his life's work.

The entire article is worth a read. Check it out.