I'd like you to meet Maglev...

Possibly America's next wave in transportation. Yes, we might get a bullet train:

I can see the Shinkansen (http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/transportation/4219935.html) tracks near my house from my balcony and I still get a little rush of excitement everytime I see a bullet train smoothly slide past. For a girl from Minneapolis, a city which actually disassembled the majority of it's advanced public transportation system in the early 20th century (to make way for automobiles, no less... don't get me started on how cool it would be to still have those streetcars), it's somewhat hard to imagine taking advantage of such advanced train systems as I have encountered in Europe and Japan at home. But man would it be nice...

On the subject of inventions, here's another little guy that I found intrigueing. It's the latest robot... out of NORWAY (bet you thought I was gonna hit you with Japan, didn't ya?). There is still no outer casing to the invention, but this "snake" ( actually inspired by nature) can extiniquish fires better than humans. (http://www.dagbladet.no/kunnskap/2005/02/15/423493.html) Kinda cool:

Countries like Japan, my current home, could actually really benefit from this new technological creatures. It should be no surprise that Japan is an earthquake-prone area. In the past, more people have actually died from the fires following catostrophic earthquakes (like the 1923 Tokyo one or, more recently, the Hanshin Earthquake the toppled Kobe in 1995). They are doing more to support buildings and structures, so they don't collapse, but it would also be helpful to install something of this sort to help combat spreading fires. It's narrow and only 7kg, too, so not hard to transport or store in small spaces!

And lastly... since we're already talking inventions... any of you Oles out there might want to check out the current copy of Fortune Magazine. Adam Gettings is featured (p.49)! Love, love, love the entreprenuerial spirit.... um, and the pic is totally GQ. Adam and I had a few classes together and hung out in school, but I probably got to know him better when we participated in the same entreprenuerial internship after our junior year and both went on the Economics J-term trip to China our senior year. I think we think alike in some ways, but I stil thought he was crazy when he quit his job and moved to CA to build robots with his brother. I guess I was wrong!