December 27, 2011
October 19, 2011
Submarine Cables
An amazing interactive website documenting all the submarine fibre-optic cables which create the "scaleless", "fluid" internet... those visualization of the internet as this abstract series of nodes is highly deceptive, as the internet is at every moment travelling back and forth across these cables as pulses of light: a highly concrete phenomena (if light can be said to be concrete... but you know what I mean)
check it out here: http://www.submarinecablemap.com/
check it out here: http://www.submarinecablemap.com/
September 23, 2011
September 21, 2011
September 7, 2011
Apollo 12 Landing Site
NASA just released updated high-res images of a bunch of landing sites. I redrew the path that the Apollo 12 astronauts took... to make it a bit clearer.
original link
original link
September 5, 2011
Franklin's Walking Stick
"Franklin received a cane while serving as ambassador to France during the 1780s. In his will he bequeathed this reminder of the Revolution and its ideals to George Washington"
"My fine crab-tree walking stick, with a gold head curiously wrought in the form of the cap of liberty, I give to my friend, and the friend of mankind, General Washington. If it were a Sceptre, he has merited it, and would become it."
"Washington's grandnephew donated the cane to the U.S. government in 1843; it was transferred to the Smithsonian from the State Department in 1922."
via http://www.smithsonianlegacies.si.edu/objectdescription.cfm?ID=57
"My fine crab-tree walking stick, with a gold head curiously wrought in the form of the cap of liberty, I give to my friend, and the friend of mankind, General Washington. If it were a Sceptre, he has merited it, and would become it."
"Washington's grandnephew donated the cane to the U.S. government in 1843; it was transferred to the Smithsonian from the State Department in 1922."
via http://www.smithsonianlegacies.si.edu/objectdescription.cfm?ID=57
September 2, 2011
Disappearance of glacial river stuns B.C. hikers
via CBC
"One of the glacial rivers feeding a large lake straddling the Yukon-British Columbia border has dried up, hikers say, turning a normally fast-running watercourse into a muddy field strewn with icebergs.
"You see where the bergs had been dragged along the bottom and you could see the drag marks in the mud from all the various icebergs."
photos at: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/09/02/bc-glacier-river-icefield.html#
"One of the glacial rivers feeding a large lake straddling the Yukon-British Columbia border has dried up, hikers say, turning a normally fast-running watercourse into a muddy field strewn with icebergs.
"You see where the bergs had been dragged along the bottom and you could see the drag marks in the mud from all the various icebergs."
"The maps will have to be redrawn a bit because there's no more river there," he said.
Atlin residents weren't the only ones caught off guard by the shift. Icefield researchers working in the area this summer found normally dry walking trails to the Llewellyn Inlet flooded with chest-deep water.
photos at: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/09/02/bc-glacier-river-icefield.html#
August 31, 2011
Fight, Flight, or play dead?
From CBC:
Riley Teufel, 19, says he was walking along South Alder Street when he heard some rustling in the bushes.
He then saw the bear walking towards him.
“I could tell it wasn't going to go away, so I thought the best thing to do was play dead,” he said.
So he lay on the ground while the bear sniffed him from head to toe for several terrifying minutes.
Teufel says he'll always remember the smell of the animal.
“Garbage and poo and just everything nasty put together…. It was just not a good smell — just a wretched smell,” he said.
Fortunately for Teufel, the curious bear was scared off by a driver who honked his car horn.
via http://www.cbc.ca/news/offbeat/story/2011/08/30/bc-vancouver-island-bear-encounter.html
B.C. bear sniffs man from head to toe
Man played dead while bear inspected him
He then saw the bear walking towards him.
“I could tell it wasn't going to go away, so I thought the best thing to do was play dead,” he said.
So he lay on the ground while the bear sniffed him from head to toe for several terrifying minutes.
Teufel says he'll always remember the smell of the animal.
“Garbage and poo and just everything nasty put together…. It was just not a good smell — just a wretched smell,” he said.
Fortunately for Teufel, the curious bear was scared off by a driver who honked his car horn.
via http://www.cbc.ca/news/offbeat/story/2011/08/30/bc-vancouver-island-bear-encounter.html
August 28, 2011
Brilliant Stop Motion
Wonder if we could also get each person to speak a part of the line of a narrator of the story, and splice each of these persons 1/24th of a second of the word they are saying into the voice and just combine it as it is get this ur-narration to be composed of the collective story telling also of these people.
via Azzo.
August 24, 2011
Cafe Racer
Movie is very relaxed.. but there are some beauty bikes tucked away in the doldrum pace.
Cafe cowboy from benedict campbell on Vimeo.
Thanks to Jimmy for the video.
Cafe cowboy from benedict campbell on Vimeo.
Thanks to Jimmy for the video.
August 21, 2011
August 19, 2011
August 11, 2011
Birds and Bees
"Baby birds gaze up at the night sky for hours, watching the slow rotation of the constellatoins. They find the point about which the stars appear to move, and record it's position with respect to several nearby constellations to maintain a constant heading... Honeybees perform a dance that tells their hivemeates the direction and distance of a food source with respect to the sun: the dancer uses an internal clock to compensate for the movement of the sun between the time she discoovered the source and the time she passes on the information. If it's cloudy the other bees estimate the direction using the polzarization of light in the sky"
- Karl Von Frisch and James Gould
Proof of God, etc
"A group of employees at an Ottawa manufacturing plant say they won the $7 million Lotto 6/49 prize Wednesday, the same day their company announced massive layoffs."
via http://www.cbc.ca/news/offbeat/story/2011/08/11/ottawa-lottery-win-layoffs.html
via http://www.cbc.ca/news/offbeat/story/2011/08/11/ottawa-lottery-win-layoffs.html
August 10, 2011
Follow the Sun
My brothers who have confronted a thousand dangers and reached the borders of the West, do not hesitate to follow the sun and explore the uninhabited world.
- From Le Mepris, 1963, taken from the Divine Comedy by Dante.
Reminds me of:
Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
- Ulysses by Tennyson.
- From Le Mepris, 1963, taken from the Divine Comedy by Dante.
Reminds me of:
Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
- Ulysses by Tennyson.
August 8, 2011
August 7, 2011
LE FLANEUR
Le Flâneur (music by The XX) from Luke Shepard on Vimeo.
By: Luke Shepard
via Ignant: http://www.ignant.de/2011/03/10/le-flaneur/
August 6, 2011
August 3, 2011
July 25, 2011
Calcined Earth - WW2
On the Desert:
“This land was made for war. As glass resists the bite of vitriol, so this hard and calcined earth rejects the battle’s hot, corrosive impact. Here is no nubile, girlish land; no green and virginal countryside for war to violate. This land is hard. Inviolable.”
-The World at War, prologue of narrator, ep08
“This land was made for war. As glass resists the bite of vitriol, so this hard and calcined earth rejects the battle’s hot, corrosive impact. Here is no nubile, girlish land; no green and virginal countryside for war to violate. This land is hard. Inviolable.”
-The World at War, prologue of narrator, ep08
July 23, 2011
July 22, 2011
Big Stone
Stupid Vimeo. Cool Video.
Here's a link: http://vimeo.com/26727946
Making of the Indian Ocean Tsunami Memorial by Carmody Groarke from Dezeen on Vimeo.
Here's a link: http://vimeo.com/26727946
Making of the Indian Ocean Tsunami Memorial by Carmody Groarke from Dezeen on Vimeo.
July 19, 2011
Milky Way's Center
Via Wired:
A space telescope peering into the Milky Way galaxy’s dusty core has spied a colossal twisted ribbon of supercooled material.
Until now astronomers had only seen bits and pieces of the ribbon’s 600-light-year-wide superstructure, which resembles the symbol for infinity: ∞.
“We have a new and exciting mystery on our hands, right at the center of our own galaxy,” said astronomer Sergio Molinari of the Institute of Space Physics in a press release. Molinari and others describe the strange ribbon in an upcoming Astrophysical Journal Letters study available on arXiv.org.
Astronomers previously studied gas-piercing infrared images of the Milky Way’s cloudy barred core, but they didn’t have photos with resolution high enough to discern the ribbon’s entire structure. Molinari and others found the ring by aiming the European Space Agency’s infrared Herschel Space Observatorytoward galactic center.
The telescope’s images suggest the ring is a chilly 15 degrees Kelvin — warmer regions are blue while cooler regions are red — and has two segments that poke out of the galaxy’s pancake-like plain. Ground-based radio telescope data also hints that the ring is spinning around the core as one cohesive unit.
Although astronomers aren’t certain why the two lobes of the ring twist upwards, they suspect the gravitational tug of nearby galaxies — perhaps Andromeda some 2.5 million light-years away — is responsible.
July 11, 2011
Sclera
The white of our eyes is called the sclera.
Someone's sclera:
Humans have a large amount of their sclera visible, partly because our iris are smaller then most animals and partly because it allows other humans to exchange non-verbal (i.e., to see where other peeps are looking)
Interestingly: "in the course of their domestication, dogs have also developed the ability to pick up visual cues from the eyes of humans, making them one of only two species known to seek visual cues from another individual's eyes... dogs do not seem to use this form of communication with one another and only look for visual information from the eyes of humans"
via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sclera
Someone's sclera:
Humans have a large amount of their sclera visible, partly because our iris are smaller then most animals and partly because it allows other humans to exchange non-verbal (i.e., to see where other peeps are looking)
Interestingly: "in the course of their domestication, dogs have also developed the ability to pick up visual cues from the eyes of humans, making them one of only two species known to seek visual cues from another individual's eyes... dogs do not seem to use this form of communication with one another and only look for visual information from the eyes of humans"
via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sclera
July 10, 2011
Berkeley Bionic eLeg
Hope for Parapalegics: " Berkeley Bionics is now aiming to get eLegs on the market by early 2012, and has the funding and production in place to get those units shipped. "
via http://singularityhub.com/2011/07/07/paraplegics-walk-with-exoskeleton-exclusive-video-of-berkeley-bionics-elegs-in-action/
via http://singularityhub.com/2011/07/07/paraplegics-walk-with-exoskeleton-exclusive-video-of-berkeley-bionics-elegs-in-action/
July 6, 2011
Night Sky Timelapse
Brilliant work by Alex Cherney, from Australia:
Ocean Sky from Alex Cherney on Vimeo.
via http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/07/time-lapse-night-sky/
http://www.terrastro.com/about/
Ocean Sky from Alex Cherney on Vimeo.
via http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/07/time-lapse-night-sky/
http://www.terrastro.com/about/
July 4, 2011
$22,000,000,000 Treasure Found
Via CBC:
A vast treasure trove of gold coins, jewels and precious stones unearthed at a lightly guarded Hindu temple in India was expected to grow further in value Monday as the last two secret vaults sealed for nearly 150 years are opened...
Four vaults recently opened at the temple in Trivandrum, the capital of the southern state of Kerala, held a vast bounty that unofficial estimates peg at $22 billion US...
The volume of gold and silver coins was so enormous that the investigators weighed the coins by the sackful, rather than counting them, officials said...
Before the trove was uncovered, there was almost no visible security at the temple, save for a few local security guards patrolling the complex with batons, mainly for crowd control.
$22,000,000,000 WTF?!?!?!?!!
July 3, 2011
Helmet Protester Dies in Crash
RIP:
"Police say a motorcyclist participating in a protest ride against helmet laws in upstate New York died after he flipped over the bike's handlebars and hit his head on the pavement."
"Police say a motorcyclist participating in a protest ride against helmet laws in upstate New York died after he flipped over the bike's handlebars and hit his head on the pavement."
The accident happened Saturday afternoon in the town of Onondaga, in central New York near Syracuse.
State troopers tell The Post-Standard of Syracuse that 55-year-old Philip A. Contos of Parish, N.Y., was driving a 1983 Harley Davidson with a group of bikers who were protesting helmet laws by not wearing helmets."
via http://www.kansascity.com/2011/07/03/2991093/ny-motorcyclist-dies-on-ride-protesting.html#ixzz1R48kGnKCvia http://j-walkblog.com/index.php?/weblog/posts/Helmet_Irony/
July 2, 2011
On Epictetus
Standing upon a tree fallen over a while ago: a pine tree.
It's long branches brushing the ice-cold waters of Strait of Georgia: yet it's trunk remains above the water: a balance beam for the intrepid.
Upon this tree cast into the sea (by wind or erosion or who knows), Epictetus stands.
Naked. Rotund. Short powerful legs.
Hairy. Rough-crude dreds piled upon his head.
He asks me: "have you heard of Chet Baker"
"no"
"Oh. You haven't heard his slow slow jazz?"
"no"
"like this" he says: "bra, tra, bee, waah wahh, woow, bra, bee, really slow slow slow and soulful?"
"no"
"Ah man" Epictetus says "you have to hear him! tra, la, la, leh, boo, bee, tra, tra, tra, tra, la, la, leh, boo, bee: really slow, you know?"
"okay".
Epictetus standing on the log naked, balancing on the bole, making slow soulful trumpet noises with his mouth, playing an air trumpet: trying to make me remember a musician I have never heard of.
He jumps down, walks off and sits beside the other nude sunbathers.
It's long branches brushing the ice-cold waters of Strait of Georgia: yet it's trunk remains above the water: a balance beam for the intrepid.
Upon this tree cast into the sea (by wind or erosion or who knows), Epictetus stands.
Naked. Rotund. Short powerful legs.
Hairy. Rough-crude dreds piled upon his head.
He asks me: "have you heard of Chet Baker"
"no"
"Oh. You haven't heard his slow slow jazz?"
"no"
"like this" he says: "bra, tra, bee, waah wahh, woow, bra, bee, really slow slow slow and soulful?"
"no"
"Ah man" Epictetus says "you have to hear him! tra, la, la, leh, boo, bee, tra, tra, tra, tra, la, la, leh, boo, bee: really slow, you know?"
"okay".
Epictetus standing on the log naked, balancing on the bole, making slow soulful trumpet noises with his mouth, playing an air trumpet: trying to make me remember a musician I have never heard of.
He jumps down, walks off and sits beside the other nude sunbathers.
June 21, 2011
Dancing Lessons
Zola, an eight-year-old Western lowland gorilla, "Zola loves to play in water" the zoo says.
The music was added afterwards.
via http://www.cbc.ca/news/offbeat/story/2011/06/21/zola-breakdancing-gorilla-calgary-zoo.html#
The music was added afterwards.
via http://www.cbc.ca/news/offbeat/story/2011/06/21/zola-breakdancing-gorilla-calgary-zoo.html#
June 20, 2011
Anonymous War Declaration
You thought Bin Laden was hard to catch:
Salutations Lulz Lizards,
As we're aware, the government and whitehat security terrorists across the world continue to dominate and control our Internet ocean. Sitting pretty on cargo bays full of corrupt booty, they think it's acceptable to condition and enslave all vessels in sight. Our Lulz Lizard battle fleet is now declaring immediate and unremitting war on the freedom-snatching moderators of 2011.
Welcome to Operation Anti-Security (#AntiSec) - we encourage any vessel, large or small, to open fire on any government or agency that crosses their path. We fully endorse the flaunting of the word "AntiSec" on any government website defacement or physical graffiti art. We encourage you to spread the word of AntiSec far and wide, for it will be remembered. To increase efforts, we are now teaming up with the Anonymous collective and all affiliated battleships.
Whether you're sailing with us or against us, whether you hold past grudges or a burning desire to sink our lone ship, we invite you to join the rebellion. Together we can defend ourselves so that our privacy is not overrun by profiteering gluttons. Your hat can be white, gray or black, your skin and race are not important. If you're aware of the corruption, expose it now, in the name of Anti-Security.
Top priority is to steal and leak any classified government information, including email spools and documentation. Prime targets are banks and other high-ranking establishments. If they try to censor our progress, we will obliterate the censor with cannonfire anointed with lizard blood.
It's now or never. Come aboard, we're expecting you...
History begins today.
Lulz Security
$308,000,000 to kill a convict
Taxpayers have spent more than $4 billion on capital punishment in California since it was reinstated in
1978, or about $308 million for each of the 13 executions carried out since then.
umm....??
via http://j-walkblog.com/index.php?/weblog/posts/Execution_Costs/
via http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-adv-death-penalty-costs-20110620,0,3505671.story
1978, or about $308 million for each of the 13 executions carried out since then.
umm....??
via http://j-walkblog.com/index.php?/weblog/posts/Execution_Costs/
via http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-adv-death-penalty-costs-20110620,0,3505671.story
June 19, 2011
Code of Ur-Nammu
Oldest known extant legal text, 3100 years ago:
Violent times:
- - a man knocks out the eye of another man, he shall weigh out ½ a mina of silver.
- - If a man has cut off another man’s foot, he is to pay ten shekels.
- - If a man, in the course of a scuffle, smashed the limb of another man with a club, he shall pay one mina of silver.
- - If someone severed the nose of another man with a copper knife, he must pay two-thirds of a mina of silver.
- - If a man knocks out a tooth of another man, he shall pay two shekels of silver.
How often did it come to pass that a man severed another man's nose off? Or cut another man's foot off? Why was it necessary that there should be a code of law which addresses such particular crimes?
The Pointing Finger in History
- Code of Hammurabi (3700 years ago), inscribed upon a 2.4 m tall index finer of black rock. London Museum. Origin of the Golden Rule: "If a man knocks the teeth out of another man, his own teeth will be knocked out."
- Sistine Chapel: God and Man touching. Vatican
- Colossus of Constantine, 12m statue, right hand pointing.
- Sistine Chapel: God and Man touching. Vatican
- Colossus of Constantine, 12m statue, right hand pointing.
June 15, 2011
prof·li·gate
adjective /ˈpräfligət/ /-ləˌgāt/
noun /ˈpräfligət/ /-ləˌgāt/ profligates, plural
|
June 13, 2011
June 9, 2011
Letter E at Delphi
In the Temple of Apollo at Delphi was carved the following:
- "Know Thyself"
- "Nothing too Much"
- "Make a pledge and mischief is nigh"
and finally the letter "E" was carved.
According to Plutarch:
"They say that the famous Wise Men, also called by some "Sophists", were properly only five, Chilon, Thales, Solon, Bias, and Pittacus. But Cleobulus, tyrant of Lindos, and, later on, Periander of Corinth, men with no wisdom or virtue in them, but forcing public opinion by influence, friends, and favours, thrust themselves into the list of the wise, and disseminated through Greece maxims and sayings resembling the utterances of the five. Then the five were vexed, but did not choose to expose the imposture, or to have an open quarrel on the matter of title, and to fight it out with such powerful persons. They met here by themselves; and after discussing the matter, dedicated the letter E, which is fifth in the alphabet, and also as a number signifies five, thus making their own protest before the God, that they were five, discarding and rejecting the seventh and the sixth, as having no part or lot with themselves."
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/misctracts/plutarchE.html
June 8, 2011
June 7, 2011
Radiolarian
Radiolarians (also radiolaria) are amoeboid protozoa that produce intricate mineral skeletons, typically with a central capsule dividing the cell into inner and outer portions, called endoplasm and ectoplasm. They are found as zooplankton throughout the ocean, and their skeletal remains cover large portions of the ocean bottom as radiolarian ooze. Due to their rapid turn-over of species, they represent an important diagnostic fossil found from the Cambrian onwards. Some common radiolarian fossils include Actinomma, Heliosphaera and Hexadoridium.
Kunstformen der Natur
(German for Art Forms of Nature) is a book of lithographic and autotype prints by German biologist Ernst Haeckel. Originally published in sets of ten between 1899 and 1904 and as a complete volume in 1904, it consists of 100 prints of various organisms, many of which were first described by Haeckel himself.
June 5, 2011
Martin Jet Pack *Update
Update on my other post about the Martin Jet Pack.
High altiude flight 5,000ft... and test of parachute. This is looking really close to being "real"!
Randy Halverson
Time-lapse video of stars/milkyway.
Plains Milky Way from Randy Halverson on Vimeo.
" Halverson used a robotic camera rig to snap hundreds of still photos in about 20 three- to four-hour shoots. Back at his computer, he stitched together images from the best shoots. Each second of the video spans about 14 minutes of actual time."
Plains Milky Way from Randy Halverson on Vimeo.
" Halverson used a robotic camera rig to snap hundreds of still photos in about 20 three- to four-hour shoots. Back at his computer, he stitched together images from the best shoots. Each second of the video spans about 14 minutes of actual time."
June 2, 2011
Blue Lobster
from CBC:
"A fisherman hauled an extremely rare blue lobster out of the waters off P.E.I.'s North Shore Wednesday.
Blair Doucette landed the lobster in North Rustico. Only about one in four million lobsters is blue. The colour is caused by a genetic mutation.
Wendy Doucette, Blair's wife, told CBC News in 30 years of fishing he has never seen a blue lobster. They are considering donating the lobster to a local aquarium.
The last blue lobster reported caught off P.E.I. was in 2009."
May 31, 2011
Mauthner Cell
Funny, the primal cells that brains contain:
"Every fish has two Mauthner cells, located in the bottom part of the brainstem, one on the left side and one on the right.... The synapses generated by a Mauthner cell are so powerful that a single action potential gives rise to a major behavioral response: within milliseconds the fish curves its body into a C-shape, then straightens, thereby propelling itself rapidly forward. Functionally this is a fast escape response, triggered most easily by a strong sound wave or pressure wave impinging on the lateral line organ of the fish."
via. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nervous_system
"Every fish has two Mauthner cells, located in the bottom part of the brainstem, one on the left side and one on the right.... The synapses generated by a Mauthner cell are so powerful that a single action potential gives rise to a major behavioral response: within milliseconds the fish curves its body into a C-shape, then straightens, thereby propelling itself rapidly forward. Functionally this is a fast escape response, triggered most easily by a strong sound wave or pressure wave impinging on the lateral line organ of the fish."
via. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nervous_system
May 30, 2011
May 29, 2011
Ryno - Future Transport?
Seems pretty reasonable:
Longer/annoying brit show... good footage of it's first time use:
Longer/annoying brit show... good footage of it's first time use:
to fascinating places
Walking along the paths of others to fascinating places:
Standing on places that people have trodden, snaking their way to the most beautiful waterfalls that you have ever seen.
The path upon which you stand there is worn by the feet of others, and it is wider here, were groups of people have stood for a period of time: and they all, as you, stopped at this place before this waterfall to watch it too.
May 28, 2011
Genetic Shapes
Premise: Start with the most simple relationship: a doubling, from that thought, a massive polar iteration seeking to arrive at a sphere through a multiplicity: to arrive at an approximation of a perfect point, a black dot via a process of infinite complexity, as opposed to unity. This is sphere as the most complex shape: through intense iteration and inextricable interaction.
Eventually, as I have over 6000 lines, strange optical effects reminiscent of the corona's of the sun begin to appear. At further iteration the blackened centers continues to grow larger.
The first image is how I began. The rest of the images are out-of-order, but the hierarchy of complex vs. non.complex should be seen. I started with an exponentially decreasing fractal.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)