Robot Rhino

Posted by Martin R on April 9, 2011
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I really like this shock absorber at the end of the Minneapolis light rail line under the Mall of America parking garage. It looks like a robot rhino.

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Comments

  1. #1 Ken
    April 9, 2011

    Form follows function, they say. Can this tell us anything about the evolution of Rhinos?

  2. #2 Birger Johansson
    April 9, 2011

    First I thought about early Permian gorgonopsides, then I recalled the walking Imperial war machines from the second Star Wars film.

    I am glad that light rail lines are still alive and well, and taking some load off the streets and roads.
    In Stockholm, they were in a hurry to get rid of light rails since it was seen as a low-status, old-fashioned thing. Gothenburg kept them, which probably has kept the traffic situation substantially less overheated than in Stockholm.

  3. #3 Phillip IV
    April 9, 2011

    Ken @ #1:

    Can this tell us anything about the evolution of Rhinos?

    Yup: If we continue to allow railway traffic to exert selective pressure on rhinos, they will ultimately evolve to be yellow.

  4. #4 Ken
    April 9, 2011

    @Phillip IV: Brilliant! I’m going to steal that line and use it in conversation the next time I’m with someone at a rail depot. But don’t worry, I’ll give proper credit as to source. Eventually.

  5. #5 Martin R
    April 9, 2011

    Birger, Minneapolis’s light rail is not a tram that runs in the street, it’s a small train running on a railroad bank and a lot of elevated stretches. It’s like Stockholm’s Tvärbanan.

  6. #6 Birger Johansson
    April 10, 2011

    My bad! :)

    Are people in Minneapolis beginning to see the recession subside? I assume the bigger cities will be the first to recover (while there is of course a big demographic that are always the last to see any “trickledown”). I hope there are not many empty, foreclosed houses in the suburbs -these days, news stories from USA are often sad, but there must be a lot of dynamic stuff going on below the horizon of journalists.

  7. #7 Martin R
    April 10, 2011

    There are suspiciously many “For Rent” signs outside houses with peeling paintwork in the vicinity of the Institute of Arts and the American Swedish Institute.

  8. #8 William Starr
    April 27, 2011

    Actually, it looks like the most industrial-strength sex toy ever.

    (Wait, why are you all looking at me like that?)

  9. #9 Martin R
    April 29, 2011

    Woah! Give it to me, baby!