The Shape of Things to Come

On Alpine Road in Portola Valley, a few miles southwest of the campus of Stanford University, where the flat suburban landscape begins to give way to the vistas of the Santa Cruz Mountains, there is an old wooden roadhouse called the Alpine Inn, where college students drink beer and wine at old wooden tables carved with initials. It’s as if Mory’s, the venerable Yale hangout, were housed in a western frontier tavern out of a John Wayne movie. The locals, who call the place Zott’s, a contraction of Rossotti’s, the name of long-ago owners, claim it has the best hamburgers for miles around, but what makes the place notable isn’t what it serves. Affixed to the wall near the front door is a small bronze plaque that reads:

ON AUGUST 27, 1976, SCIENTISTS FROM SRI INTERNATIONAL CELEBRATED THE SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION OF TESTS BY SENDING AN ELECTRONIC MESSAGE FROM A COMPUTER SET UP AT A PICNIC TABLE BEHIND THE ALPINE INN. THE MESSAGE WAS SENT VIA A RADIO NETWORK TO SRI AND ON THROUGH A SECOND NETWORK, THE ARPANET, TO BOSTON. THIS EVENT MARKED THE BEGINNING OF THE INTERNET AGE.

That the world’s first e-mail was sent from a picnic table outside at Zott’s goes well with the rest of Silicon Valley lore, like the founding of Hewlett-Packard in one garage and Apple in another. It reminds you that for a long time the most striking thing about the appearance of Silicon Valley was how ordinary it was, how much it looked like everyplace else, or at least like every other collection of reasonably prosperous American suburbs, whatever may have been going on in its garages and whatever some geeks may have done over beers at Zott’s 37 years ago. Yes, Silicon Valley has Stanford, with its vast and beautiful campus, and some handsome mountain scenery marking its western edge, but the rest of the place has always been made up of neighborhoods and landmarks that could have been almost anywhere else, like the 101 Freeway and the strip malls and supermarkets and car dealerships and motels and low-rise office parks. Most of Silicon Valley is suburban sprawl, plain and simple, its main artery a wide boulevard called El Camino Real that might someday possess some degree of urban density but now could be on the outskirts of Phoenix. Zott’s is what passes for local color, but even this spirited roadhouse has a certain generic look to it. You could imagine it being almost anywhere out West, the same way that so much of Silicon Valley looks like generic suburbia.

And even after a few people began doing unusual things in their garages, and other people started inventing things in the university’s laboratories, and even after some of these turned into the beginnings of large corporations, some of which became successful beyond anyone’s imagination—even these things didn’t make Silicon Valley look all that different from everyplace else. The tech companies got bigger and bigger, but that has generally just meant that the sprawl sprawled farther. There was certainly nothing about the physical appearance of these few square miles that told you it was the place that had generated more wealth than anywhere else in our time.

Until now, that is. In June of 2011, four months before his death, Steve Jobs appeared before the City Council of Cupertino, where Apple’s headquarters are located. It was the last public appearance Jobs would make, and if it did not have quite the orchestrated panache of his carefully staged product unveilings in San Francisco, it was fixed even more on the future than the latest iPhone. Jobs was presenting the designs for a new headquarters building that Apple proposed to build, and that the City Council would have to approve. It was a structure unlike any other that his company, or any other in the world, had ever built: a glass building in the shape of a huge ring, 1,521 feet in diameter (or nearly five football fields), and its circumference would curve for nearly a mile. It was designed by Sir Norman Foster, the British-born architect known for the elegance of his work and for the uncompromising nature of his sleek, modern aesthetic—close to Jobs’s own. In a community that you could almost say has prided itself on its indifference to architecture, Apple, which had already changed the nature of consumer products, seemed now to want to try to do nothing less than change Silicon Valley’s view of what buildings should be.

That the proposed building was received with great enthusiasm was no surprise; a small suburban city like Cupertino is rarely going to stand in the way of whatever its largest taxpayer wants to do, and the building, after all, was one of Steve Jobs’s dying wishes. What was more surprising was that not long after Apple unveiled Foster’s audacious design, which it expects to start constructing soon and to occupy in 2016, Facebook decided that it, too, needed more space, and after searching several months for an architect, the company hired Frank Gehry, one of the few architects in the world who is even better known than Foster, and set him to work on a massive building of its own. Gehry’s Facebook building is intended in some ways to be the antithesis of Foster’s for Apple. It will be set lower into the ground and will be covered entirely by roof gardens: a building that will blend into the landscape rather than hover over it like an alien spacecraft. (From the minute the design became public, people have been calling the Apple building the “spaceship.”) But Facebook’s project is not exactly what you would call modest: underneath those gardens will be what might be the largest office in the world, a single room so gargantuan that it will accommodate up to 10,000 workers.

A few months after Facebook unveiled Gehry’s project, in the summer of 2012, Google, the biggest company of all, which until then had been operating solely out of existing buildings that it had renovated to suit its purposes, announced that it, too, was going to build something from scratch. Google had canceled a new building designed by the German architect Christoph Ingenhoven earlier that year, but after the Facebook announcement the company turned again to the idea of putting up a new building, as if it could not be left out of this latest form of Silicon Valley competition. In the architecture arms race, Google’s long-standing practice of taking over old suburban office buildings—and sometimes even entire office parks—scooping out their insides, and replacing them with lively, entertaining innards was no longer enough. Google hired NBBJ, a prominent Seattle-based firm—take that, Microsoft!—and set it to work on a new complex to add to the dozens of low-rise buildings it already occupies in the town of Mountain View.

All of this activity suggests that Silicon Valley now wants to grow up, at least architecturally. But it remains to be seen whether this wave of ambitious new construction will give the tech industry the same kind of impact on the built environment that it has had on almost every other aspect of modern life—or even whether these new projects will take Silicon Valley itself out of the realm of the conventional suburban landscape. One might hope that buildings and neighborhoods where the future is being shaped might reflect a similar sense of innovation. Even a little personality would be nice.

by Paul Goldberger, Vanity Fair |  Read more:

Image: Apple, Inc.

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Even the New York Times Can't Resist Going Lowbrow with Native Advertising

[ed. See also: Zuckerberg wrestles with the same issue.]

One of the anomalies of digital journalism is a lack of clarity between high and low. That's the historic distinction in publishing, mass from class, the vulgar from the refined, tabloid from broadsheet, the penny press from papers costing a nickel.

You knew who you were by what you read. You were what you read.

For writers, writing for the New Yorker was not only a different experience, and different purpose, but actually imputed different meaning than writing for, say, the Reader's Digest, or the New York Post, or, for that matter, Time. Even the upper segment was segmented, each brand cultivating its form of elitism.

Now, in a sense, there is just Buzzfeed and its like, traffic magnet sites. Buzzfeed's editor, Ben Smith, is a credible journalist who now works in the middle of a random content stew, that, in another world, would have devalued his skills and undermined his career potential. But Smith, along with a whole generation of writers who exist outside of intellectual caste or conceit, is part of a flattened world, one in which there is only one real measure, traffic. And almost all traffic is low value. Hence the main job is getting more of it, and, if possible, to incrementally raise its value.

Which is why the New York Times now finds itself, grimly, and with the greatest self-pity, having to accept native advertising or branded content. In an achingly self-conscious memo, the Times publisher, Arthur Sulzberger (quite a big gun to announce a minor advertising development), tried to explain "our version of what is sometimes called 'native advertising' or 'branded content'" and why it would not offend Times readers or the Times' sensibility.

How advertising is handled has always been a key distinction between low and high order publishing. The higher you stood, the more separate you were from advertising, and, in the logic of snobbery, the greater a premium price the top brands would pay to be in your company. Whereas, lower order publishing (middle market newspapers, Sunday supplements, women's magazines, hobby magazines, trade magazines) has, traditionally, done pretty much anything that advertisers wanted.

In the new digital world of content disaggregation (where you find a single article through search engines or social media referral, rather than seeking out a particular brand) and traffic aggregation (in which ad networks and programmatic buying now deliver huge audiences largely disconnected from a brand), snobbery has less and less of a place.

The 'New York Times' traffic, or, for that matter the New Yorker's, does not trade at much of a premium to Buzzfeed or Gawker, both sites that are now earning incrementally greater advertising rates with native advertising programs.

Native advertising is a response by ad-supported content sites to deal with the fact that display advertising – clearly separated advertising units on a given page – yields ever-more discouraging response rates. The alternative, a common practice of lower order publishing, is to create advertising content that is easily confused with editorial content, in the hope of raising response rates.

Suffice it to say, it is easier for an advertiser to mimic the hodge-podge of Buzzfeed content than to mimic, say, the New Yorker's content. Again, the high and low divide. Indeed, many of the most successful new content sites –Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, Gawker, Business Insider, and Glam Media, among them – are such an amalgam of aggregated content, partnership sharing agreements, pay per click modules, user generated contributions, and, as well, the blitherings of novice journalists (sometimes heralded as a return to long form), that it's very hard, if not pointless, to separate real content from phony stuff. Hence, the Times' angst.

The Times' substantial investment in resources, quality controls, expertise, and exclusivity is now competing in a form better served by the opposite of those things.

by Micheal Wolff, The Guardian |  Read more:

Image: Richard Drew/AP

Fore!

[ed. Ehh...  not much worth posting today, so here's a classic. Makes me think of a hilarious Curb Your Enthusiasm episode when Larry decides to swipe a beloved 5-wood from the casket of his dead buddy at a funeral home and gets caught.]

On the par-3, 175-yard fourteenth hole at Riviera, I hit my tee shot a mere ninety yards and a physics-defying thirty degrees to the right—almost sideways. It’s a miracle I got my right leg out of the way, or I could have shattered it with the club. As I walked to the ball, I remarked to my friend that after seventeen years of playing this course I’d never seen someone hit a ball anywhere near where mine ended up. He had never seen it, either. “What’s more,” I said, “I couldn’t care less.” My friend was taken aback. But I meant it. I didn’t care, and I didn’t particularly care about the next shot, either. I felt liberated, not unlike the way I felt when my wife left me, except this time I didn’t take up skipping.

Finally, after years of pain and struggle, I had accepted the fact that I would never be a good golfer. No matter how many hours I practiced, no matter how many instructors I saw, how many books and magazines I read, or how many teaching aids I tried. Then it hit me. According to Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s book “On Death and Dying,” Acceptance was the final stage of grief that terminal patients experience before dying, the others being Anger, Denial, Bargaining, and Depression. I was in the final stage! When I started thinking about it, I realized that I’d gone through every one of those stages, but not as a terminal patient . . . as a golfer.

My first stage: Anger. There was a time when I was always angry on the course. Driving fast in the cart. Throwing clubs. Constantly berating myself. “You stink, four-eyes! You stink at everything. You can’t even open a bottle of wine! You can’t swipe a credit card at the drugstore! You can’t swipe. And you’ve never even been to the Guggenheim. The Guggenheim! And call your parents, you selfish bastard!” Then I’d walk off the course and vow never to play again, only to return the following week for more of the same. I hardly ever finished a round. Once, I bought a brand-new set of clubs, and then, after a particularly terrible day, I gave them to the caddy at the sixteenth hole and left.

The Anger phase lasted for years, and then I entered the next phase, Denial. “All I need are some lessons,” I told myself. “Why should everyone else be able to do it and not me? Why are they good? I’m coördinated. I have a jump shot! I can go to my left. Obviously I have it in me. I have it in me! Next year, I’ll go to Orlando and spend a week taking lessons with Leadbetter. I don’t care what it costs. How can you spend a week with Leadbetter and not get better? It’s impossible.” But I did, and I didn’t.

by Larry David, New Yorker |  Read more:
Image:Vector_Golf by DaPino Webdesign

What's on Your Reading List?

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[ed. See also: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Reader.]

via: lost link
[ed. Reminds me of somebody I used to know. Oh no... It's that song!]

Sears Roebuck Catalogue Assembly Line 1942.
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Papinta (Caroline Hipple Holpin)

Book Art by Jonathan Callan.
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[ed. I read somewhere that every book is a Mystery if you never finish reading it.]

Smokey and the Bandit

[ed. This sounds pretty much like every federal agency I've ever encountered (and reminiscent of my own beloved state agency). Political manipulation, personnel transfers, budget cuts, administration lackeys, et al. Standard operating procedure for undermining objective regulatory oversight. In the end, government inefficiency just becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.]

There are sports franchise owners who, through civic-mindedness and steely pursuit of victory, win the admiration of their fans. Then there is Dan Snyder, owner of the Washington Redskins. Since the self-made advertising mogul bought the storied football franchise fourteen years ago, the team has had only two winning seasons, a sorry record widely attributed to Snyder’s penchant for micromanaging coaches and throwing money at expensive past-their-prime veterans rather than finding new talent. Yet that losing record hasn’t kept the billionaire Snyder from reaping record profits by exploiting every conceivable revenue stream—from jacked-up ticket prices to luxury skyboxes for lobbyists to charging fans to watch hitherto free team workouts. He sued a seventy-three-year-old grandmother who, after losing most of her assets in the housing crash, couldn’t afford to keep up payment on her season tickets. And when a Washington City Paper writer protested, Snyder sued him, too.

Two recent events further highlight Snyder’s imperiousness. The first is a renewed chorus of demands by everyone from Native American activists to the D.C. city council that the team change its inherently offensive name—to which Snyder last year responded, “NEVER—you can use caps.”

The second is the settling last fall by the National Park Service (NPS) of a whistleblower complaint over a secret sweetheart deal Snyder extracted nine years ago to give his Maryland home an unobstructed view of the Potomac River. It was a small concession in the grand scheme of things, the kind that the rich and powerful frequently wheedle out of government, especially back then, during the presidency of George W. Bush, when such favors were flowing like booze in a skybox. But its discovery set off a decade-long campaign of bureaucratic retribution over two administrations that nearly sent an innocent man to prison. The story of that little favor wonderfully (if depressingly) encapsulates the essential character of our times, in which average people who play by the rules are made to suffer by the blithe manipulation of those rules by the people at the top.

by Tim Murphy, Washington Monthly |  Read more:

Image: Dan Snyder, uncredited

Louis
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Wikipedia Vandalism

Snoop Dogg's Gin and Juice:

New Shelton wet/dry: Wikipedia Vandalism

Always be Squinching and Other Tricks from a Portrait Photographer

People pose for more pictures than ever these days, at their own and others' hands. And since we basically live our entire lives online, those pictures are more important than ever--now, any old romantic prospect or potential empoyer who knows your name can find a photo of you to go with it.

With that in mind, we asked portrait photographer Peter Hurley, whose recent video on “squinching" (squinching: narrowing your eyes slightly to create a confident look. No, not too much--that's squinting. Watch the video for more), went viral recently, to share with us tricks for how to look your very best when posing in front of the camera--even if you’re also the photographer.

Consider the Whole Face

I've got a slew of tips, but squinching and emphasizing the jawline are the first two I start with. The jawline is number one. The squinching is cool, believe me--if people can get people to squinch in front of their cameras, or if they're doing selfies, they're going to look way more confident and cooler--but if their jawline's not out, then it doesn't give them any definition around their face, so it doesn't really help them out anyway. So you have to get the jawline first, then throw in the squinch.

You can only move your mouth, eyes, and eyebrows. Those are the three things you can move on your face. I like to engage eyebrows. That's another thing that I'll work on down the road. But you don't necessarily have to. I've had clients say, "I can move my nostrils." I don't think it's really going to help your picture-taking ability--you're not going to get any more photogenic by flaring your left nostril slightly. Other than that it's really subtleties. It's really the subtle things that make the difference.

by Dan Solomon, Fast Company |  Read more:

Image: Peter Hurley

Synthetic Biology: Engineering Life To Examine It

Synthetic biology is an area of science devoted to engineering novel biological circuits, devices, systems, genomes or even whole organisms. This rather broad description of what "synthetic biology" encompasses reflects the multidisciplinary nature of this field which integrates ideas derived from biology, engineering, chemistry and mathematical modeling as well as a vast arsenal of experimental tools developed in each of these disciplines. Specific examples of "synthetic biology" include the engineering of microbial organisms that are able to mass produce fuels or other valuable raw materials, synthesizing large chunks of DNA to replace whole chromosomes or even the complete genome in certain cells, assembling synthetic cells or introducing groups of genes into cells so that these genes can form functional circuits by interacting with each other. Synthesis in the context of synthetic biology can signify the engineering of artificial genes or biological systems that do not exist in nature (i.e. synthetic = artificial or unnatural), but synthesis can also stand for integration and composition, a meaning which is closer to the Greek origin of the word. It is this latter aspect of synthetic biology which makes it an attractive area for basic scientists who are trying to understand the complexity of biological organisms. Instead of the traditional molecular biology focus on studying just one single gene and its function, synthetic biology is engineering biological composites that consist of multiple genes and regulatory elements of each gene. This enables scientists to interrogate the interactions of these genes, their regulatory elements and the proteins encoded by the genes with each other. Synthesis serves as a path to analysis.

One goal of synthetic biologists is to create complex circuits in cells to facilitate biocomputing, building biological computers that are as powerful or even more powerful that traditional computers. While such gene circuits and cells that have been engineered have some degree of memory and computing power, they are no match for the comparatively gigantic computing power of even small digital computers. Nevertheless, we have to keep in mind that the field is very young and advances are progressing at a rapid pace.

One of the major recent advances in synthetic biology occurred in 2013 when an MIT research team led by Rahul Sarpeshkar and Timothy Lu at MIT created analog computing circuits in cells. Most synthetic biology groups that engineer gene circuits in cells to create biological computers have taken their cues from contemporary computer technology. Nearly all of the computers we use are digital computers, which process data using discrete values such as 0's and 1's. Analog data processing on the other hand uses a continuous range of values instead of 0's and 1's. Digital computers have supplanted analog computing in nearly all areas of life because they are easy to program, highly efficient and process analog signals by converting them into digital data. Nature, on the other hand, processes data and information using both analog and digital approaches. Some biological states are indeed discrete, such as heart cells which are electrically depolarized and then repolarized in periodical intervals in order to keep the heart beating. Such discrete states of cells (polarized / depolarized) can be modeled using the ON and OFF states in the biological circuit described earlier. However, many biological processes, such as inflammation, occur on a continuous scale. Cells do not just exist in uninflamed and inflamed states; instead there is a continuum of inflammation from minimal inflammatory activation of cells to massive inflammation. Environmental signals that are critical for cell behavior such as temperature, tension or shear stress occur on a continuous scale and there is little evidence to indicate that cells convert these analog signals into digital data.

Most of the attempts to create synthetic gene circuits and study information processing in cells have been based on a digital computing paradigm. Sarpeshkar and Lu instead wondered whether one could construct analog computation circuits and take advantage of the analog information processing systems that may be intrinsic to cells.

by Jalees Rehman, 3Quarks Daily | Read more:

Image: uncredited

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Lykke Li

A Lonely Quest for Facts on Genetically Modified Crops

[ed. See also: The GMO Apple the Industry Hates.]

Kona, Hawaii - From the moment the bill to ban genetically engineered crops on the island of Hawaii was introduced in May 2013, it garnered more vocal support than any the County Council here had ever considered, even the perennially popular bids to decriminalize marijuana.

Public hearings were dominated by recitations of the ills often attributed to genetically modified organisms, or G.M.O.s: cancer in rats, a rise in childhood allergies, out-of-control superweeds, genetic contamination, overuse of pesticides, the disappearance of butterflies and bees.

Like some others on the nine-member Council, Greggor Ilagan was not even sure at the outset of the debate exactly what genetically modified organisms were: living things whose DNA has been altered, often with the addition of a gene from a distant species, to produce a desired trait. But he could see why almost all of his colleagues had been persuaded of the virtue of turning the island into what the bill’s proponents called a “G.M.O.-free oasis.”

“You just type ‘G.M.O.’ and everything you see is negative,” he told his staff. Opposing the ban also seemed likely to ruin anyone’s re-election prospects.

Yet doubts nagged at the councilman, who was serving his first two-year term. The island’s papaya farmers said that an engineered variety had saved their fruit from a devastating disease. A study reporting that a diet of G.M.O. corn caused tumors in rats, mentioned often by the ban’s supporters, turned out to have been thoroughly debunked.

And University of Hawaii biologists urged the Council to consider the global scientific consensus, which holds that existing genetically engineered crops are no riskier than others, and have provided some tangible benefits.

“Are we going to just ignore them?” Mr. Ilagan wondered.

Urged on by Margaret Wille, the ban’s sponsor, who spoke passionately of the need to “act before it’s too late,” the Council declined to form a task force to look into such questions before its November vote. But Mr. Ilagan, 27, sought answers on his own. In the process, he found himself, like so many public and business leaders worldwide, wrestling with a subject in which popular beliefs often do not reflect scientific evidence.

At stake is how to grow healthful food most efficiently, at a time when a warming world and a growing population make that goal all the more urgent.

Scientists, who have come to rely on liberals in political battles over stem-cell research, climate change and the teaching of evolution, have been dismayed to find themselves at odds with their traditional allies on this issue. Some compare the hostility to G.M.O.s to the rejection of climate-change science, except with liberal opponents instead of conservative ones. (...)

Like three-quarters of the voters on Hawaii Island, known as the Big Island, Mr. Ilagan supported President Obama in the 2012 election. When he took office himself a month later, after six years in the Air National Guard, he planned to focus on squatters, crime prevention and the inauguration of a bus line in his district on the island’s eastern rim.

He had also promised himself that he would take a stance on all topics, never registering a “kanalua” vote — the Hawaiian term for “with reservation.”

But with the G.M.O. bill, he often despaired of assembling the information he needed to definitively decide. Every time he answered one question, it seemed, new ones arose. Popular opinion masqueraded convincingly as science, and the science itself was hard to grasp. People who spoke as experts lacked credentials, and G.M.O. critics discounted those with credentials as being pawns of biotechnology companies.

“It takes so much time to find out what’s true,” he complained.

So many emails arrived in support of the ban that, as a matter of environmental responsibility, the Council clerks suspended the custom of printing them out for each Council member. But Mr. Ilagan had only to consult his inbox to be reminded of the prevailing opinion.

“Do the right thing,” one Chicago woman wrote, “or no one will want to take a toxic tour of your poisoned paradise.”

by Amy Harmon, NY Times |  Read more:

Image: Jim Wilson 

How to Stay Dry Forever

I hate being rained on. I especially hate it when it's cold. You'd have thought that with all our 21st-century Google-Glass exploring-Mars engineering marvellousness, we would have made more progress on the problem of rain. But no. The umbrella is a few thousand years old and is nowhere near an optimal solution, especially in blustery windy weather. Wet-weather clothing works if you wear it, but most people don't because it looks so awful.

From a materials-science perspective, the best solution for the British weather would be an invisible waterproof coating that you can spray on the clothes you actually do want to wear. Excitingly such materials have now been invented; they borrow tricks from nature, and they may yet get us singing in the rain.

Traditional waterproofing involves materials that are hydrophobic – in other words molecules that repel water. Waxes and other oily materials fall into this category because of the way they share their electrons at an atomic scale. Water molecules are polar, which means they have plus and minus charged ends. Waxes and oils prefer their electrons more equally distributed and so find it hard to conform to the polarity of water, and in the stand-off they repel each other. Hence oil and water don't mix. This hydrophobic behaviour is bad for vinaigrettes but good for waterproofing.

Nature uses this trick too but is much better at it. Go into a garden during a rain shower and have a look at how many leaves repel water so effectively that water droplets sit like jewels glistening on their surface. Lotus leaves have long been known to have this superhydrophobic property, but no one knew why until electron microscopes revealed something very odd about the surface of the lotus leaf. There is a waxy material there, yes, but it is arranged on the surface in the form of billions of tiny microscopic bumps. When a drop of water sits on a hydrophobic surface it tries to minimise its area of contact, because it wants to minimise its interaction with the non-polar waxy material.

The bumps on the lotus leaf drastically increase this area of waxiness, forcing the droplet to sit up precariously on the tips of the bumps. In this, the Cassie-Baxter state, the droplet becomes very mobile and quickly slides off the leaf. So by manipulating just the bumpiness of its surface, lotus leaves are far better at repelling water.

The mobility of the droplets has another effect. By zooming around the surface of the leaf rather than sticking, the droplets of water collect small particles of dust, hoovering them up. This cleaning mechanism of these superhydrophobic surfaces is called the lotus effect.

by Mark Miodownik, Guardian | Read more:
Image: Alarmy

Ice Bowl II

[ed. The '67 Championship was one of the best NFL games in history (and I watched it on tv in Honolulu. Yea!). Here's a short six-minute video.]

The Green Bay Packers' playoff game Sunday against the San Francisco 49ers could be one of the coldest in NFL history, rivaling the subzero temperatures of the 1967 Ice Bowl.

Temperatures at Lambeau Field are expected to be -2F (-19C) at kick off, and by the fourth quarter may reach -7F (-21C), with wind chills approaching -30F (-34 C), according to the National Weather Service. The so-called Ice Bowl, the 1967 NFL championship game in which the Packers beat the Dallas Cowboys to advance to Super Bowl II, saw cold as severe as -13F (-25C), with a wind chill of -46F (-43C).

In these temperatures, exposed skin can become frostbitten in minutes and hypothermia can equally quickly. Players can huddle around giant heaters on the sidelines, but fans will have to take extra safety measures, such as dressing in layers and sipping warm drinks. The Packers plan to pass free coffee, hot chocolate, and 70,000 hand warmers, which fans can slip into gloves and jackets to provide warmth for up to 10 hours. (...)

Lambeau Field has a heating system buried beneath the turf to keep the field from freezing, but it failed during the Ice Bowl, leaving the sod feeling as though "someone had taken a stucco wall and laid it on the ground", according to journalist David Maraniss. The system was upgraded in 1997 to include 30 miles of heating pipes, so players on Sunday can expect softer landings.

The field should be relatively clear Sunday, with no snow in the forecast. The stands had been filled with snow during the week, but the team, continuing a popular tradition, invited members of the public to help shovel it for $10 per hour. Though Packers' tickets sell notoriously quickly, the severe forecast scared off many from buying seats to the playoff game, and the NFL threatened not to air the game on local TV if the team failed to sell out. Corporate partners of the Packers stepped in to assist, however, and helped the team avert disaster for Wisconsin. (...)

The 1967 game took a major toll on players, said Ed Gruver, the author of a book called The Ice Bowl: The Cold Truth. Packers coach Vince Lombardi didn't let most of his players wear gloves, so several, including Hall of Fame quarterback Bart Starr, suffered varying degrees of frostbite, Gruver said. One Cowboys player had respiratory problems due to breathing in so much frigid air, he added, and Dallas quarterback Don Meredith's calls were inarticulate because his lips were frozen.

by Alan Yuhas, Guardian |  Read more:

Image: Wesley Hitt/Getty Images

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