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
July 25, 2011
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.
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