Gotta love these mop headed blooms!
Friday, April 30, 2010
A fair voting system? The odds don't sum up
Chaos connoisseur Ian Stewart (Warwick university) explains in the New Scientist why a voting system that truly and fairly represents the electorate's choices is something of a mathematical unicorn. The UK, which will be voting in the general election on 6 May, uses the first-past-the-post or "plurality" voting system, along with (among others) the US, Canada, and India.
The first-past-the-post system, as mathematician Donald Saari (University of California) has demonstrated, favours the party that has even the slightest edge over its opponents in most electoral divisions, even if overall, i.e. when the results of all electoral divisions are taken into account, that party does not collect the majority of the votes. Sounds like a conundrum?
In fact, it's a question of reasonably simple arithmetic. And because it looks convincingly fair, even though it doesn't pass the litmus test of maths, it's frequently used. This systems is especially favourable to likely losers in touch-and-go elections, a notable example being the 2000 US presidential election, which G. W. Bush won by a slim margin over Al Gore.
Here's how it works: suppose that you ask 15 voters to rank their preference for milk (M), beer (B) and wine (W). Say that the ranking looks like this:
M-W-B: 6 people
B-W-M: 5 people
W-B-M: 4 people
According to the first-past-the post system, milk is the clear winner, while wine is the clear loser. In fact, 10 of the 15 voters would much rather drink wine (first and third sets) than beer, while 9 out of 15 rank wine above milk (second and third sets). Wine, not milk, is what these people really want (understandably too), except that the plurality system exploits the fact that alcohol drinkers almost inevitably will name their favourite booze as their first choice, and the closest alternative as their second choice (see second and third pairs). 'Similar things happen in politics', points out Ian Stewart, 'when two parties appeal to the same kind of voters, splitting their votes between them and allowing a third party unpopular with the majority to win the election.'
As you'd expect, the exploitable quirks of voting maths have not got lost on politicians. You've probably known this intuitively all along but Saari's calculations provide mathematical proof: 'given a set of voter preferences you can design a system that produces any result you desire'.
The first-past-the-post system, as mathematician Donald Saari (University of California) has demonstrated, favours the party that has even the slightest edge over its opponents in most electoral divisions, even if overall, i.e. when the results of all electoral divisions are taken into account, that party does not collect the majority of the votes. Sounds like a conundrum?
In fact, it's a question of reasonably simple arithmetic. And because it looks convincingly fair, even though it doesn't pass the litmus test of maths, it's frequently used. This systems is especially favourable to likely losers in touch-and-go elections, a notable example being the 2000 US presidential election, which G. W. Bush won by a slim margin over Al Gore.
Here's how it works: suppose that you ask 15 voters to rank their preference for milk (M), beer (B) and wine (W). Say that the ranking looks like this:
M-W-B: 6 people
B-W-M: 5 people
W-B-M: 4 people
According to the first-past-the post system, milk is the clear winner, while wine is the clear loser. In fact, 10 of the 15 voters would much rather drink wine (first and third sets) than beer, while 9 out of 15 rank wine above milk (second and third sets). Wine, not milk, is what these people really want (understandably too), except that the plurality system exploits the fact that alcohol drinkers almost inevitably will name their favourite booze as their first choice, and the closest alternative as their second choice (see second and third pairs). 'Similar things happen in politics', points out Ian Stewart, 'when two parties appeal to the same kind of voters, splitting their votes between them and allowing a third party unpopular with the majority to win the election.'
As you'd expect, the exploitable quirks of voting maths have not got lost on politicians. You've probably known this intuitively all along but Saari's calculations provide mathematical proof: 'given a set of voter preferences you can design a system that produces any result you desire'.
'Da Ya Think I'm Sexy'...
...but not as you know it. Rod Stewart's classic, re-invented by delightfully eccentric Tiny Tim.
The potion that makes 'men just as empathetic as women'.
Not my words, mind. "'Cuddle hormone' makes men more empathetic" reports the BBC. According to a team of German and UK researchers, a nasal spray containing the hormone oxytocin can make men more 'in tune with other people's feelings'. Inhaling the spray 'made men just as empathetic as women'.
The team are optimistic that the 'cuddle-hormone' therapy could prove beneficial for men with behavioural problems, but I suspect that the market for this empathy potion will prove much larger than suggested. Plenty of frustrated women out there...
The team are optimistic that the 'cuddle-hormone' therapy could prove beneficial for men with behavioural problems, but I suspect that the market for this empathy potion will prove much larger than suggested. Plenty of frustrated women out there...
Thursday, April 29, 2010
An ode to seafood
The Muppets' cover version of 'Hold Tight' - famously sung by the Andrews Sisters - featuring Rowlf, a shark, and a fishy trio.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
4/28/10 McNear Buildling
Snapped this pic of the McNear building, built in 1886, on my way to the hairdresser's today. Today it houses mostly professional offices on the upper floors, and a theatre and bar on the other side, where many musicians put on their shows. For example, I saw Todd Rundgren play there last year.
Greece will have to swallow 'bitter medicine', says the IMF's chief
According to the IMF head, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Greece will have to swallow a 'bitter medicine' and stomach the fact that without the IMF loans (to which many Greeks are opposed) there's no way out of the crisis. 'It would be an illusion to believe that one can be cured by firing the doctor who prescribes unpleasant medicine,' the IMF chief added (Reuters).
He did not mention anything about prescribing a wormicide to combat the parasitic effects of credit-rating agencies on the Greek and other ailing economies.
Apropos a bitter digestif for gastrointestinal discomfort, here's 'Fernet Branca', by gifted animator Giuseppe Ragazzini:
He did not mention anything about prescribing a wormicide to combat the parasitic effects of credit-rating agencies on the Greek and other ailing economies.
Apropos a bitter digestif for gastrointestinal discomfort, here's 'Fernet Branca', by gifted animator Giuseppe Ragazzini:
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Maternal instinct
Unbeknown to historians, Mrs William Tell practiced with Walter's younger sisters.
Clip from a 1950s newsreel, showing a knife-throwing mother. Spotted on Boing Boing
Happy birthday Post-it
Who'd pay money for sticky paper, when they can use scrap paper for free? Famous last words, uttered - in more or less that way - by the 3M marketing director who initially decided to scrap the idea of Post-it inventor, Art Fry.
Fry had decided to revamp scrap paper by applying on one side the new adhesive developed by his colleague Spencer Silver. Thanks to the tenacity of another colleague, Geoff Nicholson, who believed in Fry's invention, the proposed product eventually got the director's approval, and, as it turns out 30 years, umpteen sizes, shapes and colours, and zillions of notes later, the idea stuck. And if you thought that sticky notes are only good for office memos and to-do lists, have a look below, and think again.
(Source: BBC, the Guardian)
As you can see in Jeff Chiba Stearns's animated short 'Yellow Sticky Notes', you can actually document your life on Post-its (2,300 of them in this case).
Here's a stop-motion film on an incurable case of procrastination, despite large doses Post-its, which are often prescribed as effective anti-procrastinants. Made by Bang-yao Li.
Yes, you can try this at home. Here's a bedroom mural made with 10,000 Post-it notes.
You can see more Post-it murals in Russel Elbert's collection on Flickr.
Fry had decided to revamp scrap paper by applying on one side the new adhesive developed by his colleague Spencer Silver. Thanks to the tenacity of another colleague, Geoff Nicholson, who believed in Fry's invention, the proposed product eventually got the director's approval, and, as it turns out 30 years, umpteen sizes, shapes and colours, and zillions of notes later, the idea stuck. And if you thought that sticky notes are only good for office memos and to-do lists, have a look below, and think again.
(Source: BBC, the Guardian)
As you can see in Jeff Chiba Stearns's animated short 'Yellow Sticky Notes', you can actually document your life on Post-its (2,300 of them in this case).
Here's a stop-motion film on an incurable case of procrastination, despite large doses Post-its, which are often prescribed as effective anti-procrastinants. Made by Bang-yao Li.
Yes, you can try this at home. Here's a bedroom mural made with 10,000 Post-it notes.
You can see more Post-it murals in Russel Elbert's collection on Flickr.
At a pinch, you can even use Post-its to paper your walls, uholster your furniture, carpet your floors:
Image source
Image source
After Post-its, a stapler
Well, after all this Post-it stuff, an excerpt from the Post-it's natural habitat, the office - in this case, The Office seems most appropriate.
04/27/10
This hotel is so beautiful. But as hard as I try to take photos of it's beauty, they are never good enough! So, I guess we just have to meet here one day and enjoy it together!!!
From Russia With Love
Russia's been wooing Ukraine to extend the lease of a Russian naval base in Sevastopol by a further 25 years, promising to supply Ukraine with cheaper Russian gas in exchange for the favours tendered. The debate in the Ukrainian parliament over the deal proved appropriately passionate (details from the BBC and Reuters).
Monday, April 26, 2010
4/26/10 Peach Iris
Still working on those irises, especially after I spotted this lovely specimen at the Garden Valley Nursery. I liked the peach color on this iris, the colors were magnificent!
4/25/10 Busy Bee
I was sitting next to these coral bells on my deck, watching this bee gorge himself on every single blossom.
4/24/10 Poppies and Vines
Remember last year when we shot these vines after we went to Ferrari Carrano? Well, I was thinking that the poppies should be blooming there again right now, and so I got Craig to drive up there with me yesterday. We went to the exact spot, here are the poppies. But Craig was kind of skeptical that we should be basically taking these shots and parking in someone's driveway and back yard, since this was not really a public vineyard. I kept telling him it was absolutely fine!
The Kiss #1
Artist Giuseppe Ragazzini has made a subtly sensual collage-video called 'The Kiss' (the music is by John Surman).
His website is well worth a visit - lots of lovely drawings, as well as photos of his drawings and mixed-media works, plus a witty, and very stylish, self-portrait. I can't tell you much more about him, because, somewhat mystifyingly, his 'who am I' (indeed, phrased like a question) webpage is only in Italian (does 'Ragazzini' mean something like 'lad'? Or 'urchin'?).
Enjoy 'The Kiss'.
His website is well worth a visit - lots of lovely drawings, as well as photos of his drawings and mixed-media works, plus a witty, and very stylish, self-portrait. I can't tell you much more about him, because, somewhat mystifyingly, his 'who am I' (indeed, phrased like a question) webpage is only in Italian (does 'Ragazzini' mean something like 'lad'? Or 'urchin'?).
Enjoy 'The Kiss'.
The Birds Rock
After The Byrds, the birds.
Here's some automatic strumming (in the vein of automatic writing) by a flock of Zebra finches plucking at electric guitars in the walk-through aviary created by French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot at The Curve, in the Barbican (London; till 23 May 2010). The aviary has been equipped with various musical instruments, which the finches tickle and twang as they perch on them, feed, or perhaps even investigate.
You can watch a longer video here.
© Extracts from Ariane Michel's film, Les Oiseaux de Céleste. Copyright Galerie Xippas, Ariane Michel and Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, 2008.
Here's some automatic strumming (in the vein of automatic writing) by a flock of Zebra finches plucking at electric guitars in the walk-through aviary created by French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot at The Curve, in the Barbican (London; till 23 May 2010). The aviary has been equipped with various musical instruments, which the finches tickle and twang as they perch on them, feed, or perhaps even investigate.
You can watch a longer video here.
© Extracts from Ariane Michel's film, Les Oiseaux de Céleste. Copyright Galerie Xippas, Ariane Michel and Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, 2008.
The Alien Within
Projection, as Carl Jung defined it, is loosely understood as the unconscious, i.e. unintentional transfer of subjective ideas and emotions onto someone else - 'an outer object': when we 'project', we attribute to others motives they may not have or emotions they may not be experiencing. Most likely, those projected motives and emotions reflect what we've learned to expect from others, and our own motives and emotions.
In that sense, Professor Hawking's warning against seeking contact with aliens seems like a perfect example of species-wide projection: "We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet" warned Professor Hawking alien enthusiasts (BBC). In his view, while it's perfectly rational to assume that intelligent life must have evolved, and exist as we speak, on other planets, alien visitors might well turn out to be ruthless space conquistadors.
Stephen Hawking definitely has a point so far as 'we' and the way we've developed are concerned. And he may well turn out to have a point about those so far hypothetical aliens: as Jung stressed, 'projection' is not an arbitrary delusion. Very seldom is what we project all in our mind. Usually, there's at least a small element of what we attribute to another person actually there, except that we tend to blow it out of all proportion - and act accordingly.
Which makes Professor Hawking's argument against seeking contact with aliens all the more persuasive: even if alien visitors are not predatory conquerors, since that's what our species has learned to expect from its infancy, we're likely to treat them as such, and rush to apply the Bush Doctrine onto an intergalactic scale. That'd be fun.
In that sense, Professor Hawking's warning against seeking contact with aliens seems like a perfect example of species-wide projection: "We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet" warned Professor Hawking alien enthusiasts (BBC). In his view, while it's perfectly rational to assume that intelligent life must have evolved, and exist as we speak, on other planets, alien visitors might well turn out to be ruthless space conquistadors.
The German poster for War of the Worlds (1953), based on H.G. Wells's novel.
Stephen Hawking definitely has a point so far as 'we' and the way we've developed are concerned. And he may well turn out to have a point about those so far hypothetical aliens: as Jung stressed, 'projection' is not an arbitrary delusion. Very seldom is what we project all in our mind. Usually, there's at least a small element of what we attribute to another person actually there, except that we tend to blow it out of all proportion - and act accordingly.
Which makes Professor Hawking's argument against seeking contact with aliens all the more persuasive: even if alien visitors are not predatory conquerors, since that's what our species has learned to expect from its infancy, we're likely to treat them as such, and rush to apply the Bush Doctrine onto an intergalactic scale. That'd be fun.
Image: Stray Snippets
Sunday, April 25, 2010
4/20 Day
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, 20 April 2010: an XXL marijuana joint is lit to celebrate '4/20' day ('four-twenty day'; also, 'weed day' or 'pot day') the annual convention of pot fans and advocates for the legalisation of marijuana, held (obviously) on the 20th of April. Apparently, the name comes from the time at which back in 1971 a bunch of friends would meet regularly after school (San Rafael High School California), to have a joint.
Image source: METRO
Champagne & Reefer
Muddy Waters - Champagne & Reefer
'Well you know there should be no law
on people that want to smoke a little dope.
Well you know it's good for your head
And it relax your body don't you know.'
...
'Well you know there should be no law
on people that want to smoke a little dope.
Well you know it's good for your head
And it relax your body don't you know.'
...
...
'Well you know I'm gonna stick with my reefer
Ain't gonna be messin' round with no cocaine.'
Ain't gonna be messin' round with no cocaine.'
Sound man.
04/25/10
04/25/10
Inside The Brown Palace, Denver Colorado. The Brown Palace is this old hotel in downtown Denver built in 1872. It is sooooo beautiful. The lighting, the rod iron banisters and staircases under a Tiffany glass roof. I could live here!!!
04/24/10
Taken from the plane on our "flying nightmare" yesterday.... This was when the flight started to smooth out.....Traveling can be such a pain in the butt!
Alan Sillitoe dies aged 82
Alan Sillitoe (1928-2010), iconic author of kitchen-sink dramas such as The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner and Saturday Night, Sunday Morning, has died in hospital aged 82. Sillitoe, a prototypical Angry Young Man (although averse to the label), left his mark in British culture with his take on everyday dramas, concerning everyday, unglamorous people - hence the 'kitchen sink' label.
Born to a Nottingham working-class family himself, he began writing around 20, while convalescing from tuberculosis. He has published novels, short stories, plays, poetry, and essays, as well as an autobiography (Life without Armour, 1995).
Tony Richardson's The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962) was based on a short story by Sillitoe, which bears all the marks of the kitchen-sink drama: class consciousness, class identity, class conflict, all embodied in the figure of an Angry Young Man.
Although the film's handling of class conflict lacks the subtlety of more nuanced examples of the genre, Tom Courtenay is absolutely superb as Colin Smith, the young, working-class Nottingham delinquent, pitted by circumstance and choice against the marginalising system. And Colin Smith's choice, to let deliberately someone else win the race, remains a bold rejection of an entire package of principles that, in promoting all-or-nothing antagonism, have proved antagonistic to social cohesion. Effectively, in that story, Alan Sillitoe argues that, in fact, it is the establishment that is guilty of 'anti-social behaviour'.
For more biographical details and a list of publications see the British Council's entry; obituary in the Guardian.
Born to a Nottingham working-class family himself, he began writing around 20, while convalescing from tuberculosis. He has published novels, short stories, plays, poetry, and essays, as well as an autobiography (Life without Armour, 1995).
Image source
Tony Richardson's The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962) was based on a short story by Sillitoe, which bears all the marks of the kitchen-sink drama: class consciousness, class identity, class conflict, all embodied in the figure of an Angry Young Man.
Although the film's handling of class conflict lacks the subtlety of more nuanced examples of the genre, Tom Courtenay is absolutely superb as Colin Smith, the young, working-class Nottingham delinquent, pitted by circumstance and choice against the marginalising system. And Colin Smith's choice, to let deliberately someone else win the race, remains a bold rejection of an entire package of principles that, in promoting all-or-nothing antagonism, have proved antagonistic to social cohesion. Effectively, in that story, Alan Sillitoe argues that, in fact, it is the establishment that is guilty of 'anti-social behaviour'.
Excerpt from The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)
For more biographical details and a list of publications see the British Council's entry; obituary in the Guardian.
Colourful Nudibranchs
The WWF has posted photos (such as the one below) of vibrantly coloured Nudibranchs taken in Anilao, Batangas, in the Philippines. There are at least 3,000 known species of the soft gastropods, which take their name from their exposed gills.
Unlike other mollusks, Nudibranchs - often referred to as 'sea slugs' - have no shell to protect them. They are believed to rely on their often fabulous colours to either blend in with their environment or warn predators that their bodies contain chemicals that render them distasteful. Quite tasteful (if you're a mollusk predator) nudibranchs also display colourful warning signals, which mimic the patterns of genuinely inedible, related but distinct species.
You can find several examples of aposematic colouration, as the evolutionary strategy of using colour signals to put predators off making a meal of you is termed, here. Here's a pair of unrelated dead ringers below:
The flatworm of the genus Pseudobiceros (upper photo) mimics the colour pattern of Chromodoris magnifica (lower photo), which is known from Australia, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and the Philippines. (PHOTOS © Michael D. Miller, The Slug Site).
Saturday, April 24, 2010
This is Spinal Tape
Does for adhesive tape what This Is Spinal Tap did for rock-star mockumentaries.
Here's the official product description: 'A handy spinal cord on a roll. Use this tape to seal and stick with endless sacral style. Make your packaging go to 11! 25 meters of 2” wide packing tape.'
Available on Copernicus, spotted on Boing Boing.
This is Spinal Tap
Now, the spinal tap originally referred to the lumbar puncture - and still does in medical circles and contexts. But in 1984 all that changed: ever since director Rob Reiner's epic mockumentary This is Spinal Tap, Google's top results on 'spinal tap' refer to the film, not to the medical procedure (try it).
The wholly fake documentary about the rise and fall - and the bumpy ride in between - of the wholly fictitious heavy-metal band Spinal Tap is what you might call the perfect spoof: at the time, it convinced innocent (and perhaps a tad too trusting) filmgoers that they were watching a genuine documentary about a genuine rock band of pathetically pretentious, spoiled, capricious (and accident-prone) rock stars. You could say that it struck a chord among real-life rock stars though. Apparently, it made Tom Waits cry while watching it. Sting, on the other hand, didn't know whether to laugh or to cry, even though he's said to have watched it at least 50 times.
Rob Reiner, who had a real cinematic meta-moment directing himself as Marty DiBergi, the fictitious director of the Spinal Tap documentary, captured so accurately the glorification of the monumental silliness that inflates the images of rock stars to preposterous proportions that in the case of the recent Anvil! The Story of Anvil documentary it appeared that life imitated art (which imitated life to start with): viewers were convinced that the film, which recounts the sorry story of a failing Canadian heavy-metal band, was yet another cinematic prank on a Spinal-Tappesque scale. 'The music lasts forever. Maybe the debt does too' (see the closing credits) epitomises it all.
The name of Anvil! director Sacha Gervasi certainly compares well with Rob Reiner's alias 'Marty DiBergi'. But to top it all, uncannily enough, Anvil's drummer (one of the Spinal Tap's running jokes concerned the bizarre fates of that band's drummers) is named Robb Reiner. You really couldn't make it up.
The wholly fake documentary about the rise and fall - and the bumpy ride in between - of the wholly fictitious heavy-metal band Spinal Tap is what you might call the perfect spoof: at the time, it convinced innocent (and perhaps a tad too trusting) filmgoers that they were watching a genuine documentary about a genuine rock band of pathetically pretentious, spoiled, capricious (and accident-prone) rock stars. You could say that it struck a chord among real-life rock stars though. Apparently, it made Tom Waits cry while watching it. Sting, on the other hand, didn't know whether to laugh or to cry, even though he's said to have watched it at least 50 times.
Rob Reiner, who had a real cinematic meta-moment directing himself as Marty DiBergi, the fictitious director of the Spinal Tap documentary, captured so accurately the glorification of the monumental silliness that inflates the images of rock stars to preposterous proportions that in the case of the recent Anvil! The Story of Anvil documentary it appeared that life imitated art (which imitated life to start with): viewers were convinced that the film, which recounts the sorry story of a failing Canadian heavy-metal band, was yet another cinematic prank on a Spinal-Tappesque scale. 'The music lasts forever. Maybe the debt does too' (see the closing credits) epitomises it all.
The name of Anvil! director Sacha Gervasi certainly compares well with Rob Reiner's alias 'Marty DiBergi'. But to top it all, uncannily enough, Anvil's drummer (one of the Spinal Tap's running jokes concerned the bizarre fates of that band's drummers) is named Robb Reiner. You really couldn't make it up.
'Does for rock and roll what "The Sound of Music" did for hills'
The Anvil! The Story of Anvil trailer
Where is my mind?
You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.
~Chuck Palahniuk
Saturday night special: become an instant disco dancer!
Become an instant disco dazzler with this crash course in the art of shaking your booty, as demonstrated by a - sadly unnamed - 1980s Finnish disco master. A knowledge of Finnish is useful but not essential.
Discetiquette: The Disco Handbook
A step-by-step guide for the fashion-backward, with plenty of vintage advice on how to perfect your dance-floor dress sense, how to be cool, hot & bad - i.e. hot, cool, & good - and how to organise your DIY disco, from the discognoscenti: The Disco Handbook, fully scanned for your edification.
Friday, April 23, 2010
4/23/10 Deer
There are a couple deer in this field where I stopped to shoot some of these oak trees.
'I'll swallow a cassette of Donna Summer'
That (swallowing a cassette of Donna Summer) was plan B for the suicidal disco disciple of the innovatively titled 'Disco Suicide' from MAD's disco collection. The MAD Disco flexi-record came with a 1980 issue of the magazine.
Despite the morbid title of the song, the line 'that two faced Jekyll won't be able to hide' is immortal.
Disco balls - such as the one illuminating legendary disco dancer Alfred E. Neuman on the cover of MAD above - are a totemic symbol of the disco era. Nevertheless, contrary to what you might expect, your great-grandmother may have danced the Charleston under one, at least if she happened to have lived in a city in Europe or the US in the early 20th century. Although it wouldn't have been known as a disco ball at the time, the mirror ball (or glitter ball, ball mirror, or specular sphere) graced dance floors as far back as the late 19th century.
You can spot them in the still below from the nightclub sequence of the wonderful 1927 silent film Berlin: Symphony of a Great City, or, in the original German, Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt, directed by Walter Ruttmann, and scripted by none less than Karl Freund and Carl Mayer.
You can spot them in the still below from the nightclub sequence of the wonderful 1927 silent film Berlin: Symphony of a Great City, or, in the original German, Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt, directed by Walter Ruttmann, and scripted by none less than Karl Freund and Carl Mayer.
04/22/10
Once again, shooting and driving. Proabably not a good idea! But better than drinking and driving!!!! Well, maybe not! I might actually take the time to pull over and shoot if I had been drinking!
hahahaha
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Word of the day: Anemophobia
'Anemophobia' means fear of the wind or drafts, and is a proper, medically recognised phobia. 'Angst', is the animated story of an - understandably, as you will see - anemophobic boy.
Organic typography
Each year, the Creative Review runs a competition for the cover of its May Annual issue, which has to feature the capital letter 'A'. This year's winner is Craig Ward, who clearly has an interest in live culture: Craig's idea grew, well, in a culture dish, out of pollen cells, with the help of immunologist Frank Conrad (University of Colorado, Denver). More on the project in the Creative Review's article.
OK Corral court records discovered
The notorious 30-second OK Corral shootout in aptly named Tombstone, Arizona, which left the McLaury brothers and Billy Clanton - all 'Cowboys' - dead on 26 October 1881 caused quite a sensation in the press at the time. Court staff have now discovered records of the inquest following the gunfight while clearing out a storeroom (BBC).
The Cowboys' killers - Wyatt Earp, Morgan Earp, Virgil Earp, and Doc Holliday - were exonerated, but Virgil Earp, the town marshall, was discharged: the locals suspected that what was presented as crime fighting was, in fact, common murder, the bloody result of a feud between the Earps and the Clantons.
In the equally famous 1957 film version of OK Corral (Gunfight at the O.K. Corral), Wyatt Earp, who is described as a 'legendary frontiersman of the American West, [...] an itinerant saloonkeeper, gambler, lawman, gunslinger, and confidence man', is played by Burt Lancaster, while Kirk Douglas plays Earp's buddy, the consumptive drifter Doc Holliday, described as a 'gambler, gunman, and sometime dentist' (Britannica).
While, almost inevitably, the otherwise unremarkable town of Tombstone does its best to cash in on its now glorified Wild West notoriety by attracting tourists with tacky re-enactments of the gun battle (to which children are taken, if you listen carefully while watching the video below), the local governor's business sense is, to say the least, mercenary: as the BBC reports, 'Earlier this month Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, a Republican, signed into law a measure allowing Arizonans to carry concealed firearms without a permit.'
Newspaper cutting about the gunfight. Image source
The Cowboys' killers - Wyatt Earp, Morgan Earp, Virgil Earp, and Doc Holliday - were exonerated, but Virgil Earp, the town marshall, was discharged: the locals suspected that what was presented as crime fighting was, in fact, common murder, the bloody result of a feud between the Earps and the Clantons.
In the equally famous 1957 film version of OK Corral (Gunfight at the O.K. Corral), Wyatt Earp, who is described as a 'legendary frontiersman of the American West, [...] an itinerant saloonkeeper, gambler, lawman, gunslinger, and confidence man', is played by Burt Lancaster, while Kirk Douglas plays Earp's buddy, the consumptive drifter Doc Holliday, described as a 'gambler, gunman, and sometime dentist' (Britannica).
Image source
While, almost inevitably, the otherwise unremarkable town of Tombstone does its best to cash in on its now glorified Wild West notoriety by attracting tourists with tacky re-enactments of the gun battle (to which children are taken, if you listen carefully while watching the video below), the local governor's business sense is, to say the least, mercenary: as the BBC reports, 'Earlier this month Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, a Republican, signed into law a measure allowing Arizonans to carry concealed firearms without a permit.'
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Here comes the Sun
Today it's going to be a Sunny day. NASA has released the first public images and videos of the Sun, captured by its Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), which was launched in February and will be sending data to NASA hopefully for the next five years.
The high-resolution images and amazing close-ups of the Sun are awesome - in exactly the sense that this much-abused word best expresses. So, scroll down for more Sunny views.
The high-resolution images and amazing close-ups of the Sun are awesome - in exactly the sense that this much-abused word best expresses. So, scroll down for more Sunny views.
Sunflower!
Source: National Geographic
Extremely bright, and with plenty of flare: meet the Sun
Dreamy colours spiralling into each other. It's false, colour; I know. But still. The close-up of the Sun's flare in the last 20 seconds of the video is simply mesmerising - it feels more like art than astronomy.
NASA's description of the video:
'AIA multi-temperature images of eruption and flare - AIA: This movie shows a flare and blast wave from an eruption. The dark region is where the erupting material has evacuated. The sequences are made from combinations of different AIA wavebands into a single image, with different colors representing different temperatures and layers of the atmosphere.'
A temperamental star
This stunning, multi-temperamental image combines different wavebands into a single, beautiful portrait of the Sun. The coolest colours represent, in fact, the hottest temperatures, whereas reds represent a relatively comfortable temperature of 60,000 Kelvin.
' A full-disk multiwavelength extreme ultraviolet image of the sun taken by SDO on March 30, 2010. False colors trace different gas temperatures. Reds are relatively cool (about 60,000 Kelvin, or 107,540 F); blues and greens are hotter (greater than 1 million Kelvin, or 1,799,540 F). Credit: NASA'
Source: NASA
Most prominent: the SDO has captured a prominence eruption. Source: NASA
Here's an older image of coronal loops. The tiny blue blob is a proportional representation of the Earth.
From NASA:
'Coronal loops are fountains of plasma (a gas made up of electrically charged particles) trapped by the sun's magnetic fields. Coronal loops look like giant arches sticking out of the solar surface, and many are large enough to span several Earths.'
The unofficial father of Austrian cinema: Johann Schwarzer
Schwarzer began his brief career as a photographer who quickly found out that female nudity sold well. In 1906 he founded his Saturn-film production company, and, going one better than his contemporary Pathé brothers, instead of titillating gentlemen viewers with French ladies in various stages of undress, he enticed them with plenty of Austrian full frontal nudity (image source: Wikimedia)
Although by today’s standards Saturn films look innocuous, in 1910 some of Schwarzer’s strait-laced compatriots, including Catholic associations, demanded and obtained the enforced dissolution of the company, while most of the films, including negatives, were destroyed. Thanks to a few devoted Saturn fans, notably film collector Albert Fidelius, copies of some of those films were salvaged and eventually restored by the Filmarchiv Austria. As for Schwarzer, he was never able to resume work: he was among those killed in the first year of World War I (Source: Europa Film Treasures; Wikipedia, in German).
Below, Das eitle Stubenmädchen (The Saucy Chambermaid), one of Scwharzer's lighthearted short films:
Das eitle Stubenmädchen (1908).
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