Artist studio porn

The Automata / Automaton Blog:

Artist Blair Somerville (above) sits in a green bus in Papatowai, a small settlement in the Catlins district of the southeastern South Island of New Zealand. The bus is home to The Lost Gypsy Gallery, a collection of Somerville's quirky work.

It looks like he's resting on some sort of kneel-board. I count three fire extinguishers.

more photos

stray bullets

Zodiac Killer's Identity And Weapon Uncovered? "The identity of the Zodiac Killer is Jack Tarrance. He's my stepfather," says Dennis Kaufman. (via)

'Space Cube' could be world's smallest PC Measuring just 2 inches by 2 inches, the Space Cube is roughly the size of a large die. However, the cube is actually a tiny PC, developed by the Shimafuji Corporation in Japan.

Computer meltdowns in space: a short history New Scientist highlights a few of the more prominent – and messy – failures of the past.

also:
The World's Richest Dropouts
oddmusic links
Where to Find Great Dinosaur Pictures
A photo story of the first pig to fly (I have no idea what the backstory for this is. Anyone?) (via)

viddy:
Richard Alpert on LSD (on as about, not on as in under the influence)
Non-circular Gears & Uncommon Planetary Gears
Los Po-boy-citos "Entierro" (from my homies back in The Big Easy, y'all take care, now)

If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads. I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you. May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories — science fiction or otherwise. Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world. -- Ray Bradbury (via)

stray bullets

N Korea struggles to control changing economy "In 1999, even in Pyongyang, people were exhausted, malnourished, feeble... In 2004, the situation was very different - the whole city looked like one big market."... "There was activity everywhere, on streets, under the bridges, from the windows of apartments," It is my firm conviction that when left to ourselves, we (humans) become the hunters, gatherers, hoarders and purveyors of stuff that we are. We become consumers and merchants and we create markets. The mammalian hoarding instinct runs strong in us and explains much about things like capitalism and binge shopping.

Soon to be available on the Web: Dead Sea Scrolls In a crowded laboratory painted in gray and cooled like a cave, half a dozen specialists embarked this week on an historic undertaking: digitally photographing every one of the thousands of fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls with the aim of making the entire file - among the most sought-after and examined documents on earth - available to all on the Internet.

Executed Today - 1979: Eleven by a Firing Squad in Iran On this date in 1979, the only anonymous photograph to win a Pulitzer Prize captured nine Kurdish rebels and two of the Shah’s policemen executed by firing squad in revolutionary Iran. I debated whether or not to post this photo. I decided to let the reader choose whether or not they wanted to view it. This photo always affected me strongly. The two figures in the forefront of the image are the most striking.

also:
Sign language over cell phones
In Pictures: The Frugal Billionaires (there's an old saying to the effect that they're rich because they're tight) (via)
Cuba detains leading punk rocker (on charges of "dangerousness")
Networks - a set on Flickr (design types take note, too) (via)
One hundred one hours of Dada and Surrealism on KBOO (starts tonight, listen live on the website) (via)

viddy:
The Cat House on the Kings (no-cage, no-kill, lifetime sanctuary, don't miss it)
The Church of Bones - Czech Republic (via)
Paper Rad - P-Unit Mixtape 2005 (NSFWeird)
"Our ways are not your ways" - Surreal Automaton

stray bullets

Update: Best Western refutes story claiming 8 million customer records were breached Hotel chain confirms intrusion, but says that only 13 records at a single hotel were exposed.

Giant Galaxy Cluster Seen in Early Universe The discovery of this far-off group, estimated to contain as much mass as a thousand large galaxies, offers further proof of the existence of the enigmatic force called dark energy.

Daphne Oram – Oramics (Drawing sound) A lesser known but important contributor in the field of ‘drawn’ electronic music is British composer Daphne Oram who worked at the legendary BBC Radiophonic workshop in the late 1950’s. Oram dreamed of making a machine that directly translated graphical notation into sound and this dream came to fruitful realisation with her technique of Oramics. (prev)

also:
Surviving the Biggest Wave Ever (via)
Volcanos in Our Times (photo essay)
Bigelow Aerospace Advances Work on Full-scale Space Habitat
How the Roaring Twenties Changed the World
10 Top Spectacular Festivals in the World
Greg Egan interview

viddy:
Luc de Heusch - Tracking the Pale Fox (mythology and rituals of the Dogon)
Experts' memory: Not as expert as they think (take the test)
Thomas Kuntz Incredible Decapitation Automaton (creepy)
Outrageous My Little Pony collection

Why can we remember the tiniest detail that has happened to us, and not remember how many times we have told it to the same person? — François de la Rochefoucauld (1613-80) (via)

The Wooden Automata of Peter Lennertz

Peter's Wooden Automata

via The Automata / Automaton Blog