Abe Lincoln’s Life Face Mask

Abe Lincoln's Life Face Mask - Based on a photo by M. Spencer Green

Lopsided Lincoln

gotta gut feeling...

That gut feeling may actually reflect a reliable memory

Considering that some scientists estimate that the human brain can calculate at the rate of 100 trillion bits per second* (some say more), intuition and even ‘psychic’ ability might very well be a product of this immense power of processing.

*Although computers can calculate at nearly the speed of light, they perform calculations one at a time. The brain, in comparison, calculates at a snail’s pace, but makes up for this by performing trillions of operations simultaneously.

Thomas Pynchon Age Progression

An age progression made from Thomas Pynchon's last known photograph.

Forensic Art (interesting site)

hat tip to pack-horse and carrier

Painting with ice and light

New Scientist:

The image, (above), is a frizion, and it was created by NASA scientist and artist Peter Wasilewski. Rather than painting on canvas like most artists, he creates his images with polarised light and ice.

To do this, Wasilewski takes a Petri dish of ice in the process of freezing, sandwiches it between two polarising filters and passes white light through. The first filter polarises the light, causing all the rays to vibrate in the same plane. Ice crystals split polarised light into two rays which travel at different velocities through the ice, so when the rays are recombined at the second polarising filter there is a phase difference between them. This causes interference, creating the startling colours in the image. The colours are determined not only by the lattice structure of the ice, but also by its thickness. By controlling the thickness, for example by varying the temperature of the surrounding water, Wasilewski produces a wide variety of different patterns.

See this photo gallery to find out more about how Wasilewski creates them.

Last One Out, Please Turn On The Light

Photographer Richard Nicholson presents Last One Out, Please Turn On The Light, a survey of London's remaining professional darkrooms.

Dead media?... or will there be an emergence of cottage industries catering to an adherence - and return - to the use of film? As we meet, someone has already acquired Polaroid's old equipment factory and seeks your support. (via)

via Super Colossal

History of the Internet

video: PICOL

In a nice little nutshell.

via Mia Makila's Blogorama!

Baby Walden

First Digitally Scanned Photograph, 1957

Top 10 Incredible Early Firsts In Photography:

Technically, this is the very first digital photograph - all these years later, digital cameras are only just beginning to have the full capabilities of film cameras. Russell Kirsch was a computer pioneer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the USA when he developed the system by which a camera could be fed into a computer. The photo is of Kirsch’s three month old son Walden and it measured a mere 176×176 pixels. Baby Walden now works in communications for Intel.

$2500 15 MB Radio Shack hard drive

I'm not sure when this dates from, but regardless, it's hard to imagine what people did with all that space!

I read somewhere that, back in the day (early '90s?), someone wrote a flight simulator program that was around 450K. I might be off on the exact figure, but it was less than a meg.

I also remember reading a William Gibson story (Johnny Mnemonic?) where a badass data courier had a whopping 100 megabytes of storage on his head chip!

I always figured that if one would write a spec-fic story featuring computer technology, jack your capacity and performance to well beyond what you will think it will be and then multiply that by a million. Then it might not seem so ridiculous to someone reading it 15 years later.

from Colt + Rane
via watcher of the skies

James Burke - Connections, ep.1 (clip)

See what your answers would be to these questions. I didn't like the answers I had.

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Foreign Policy: The Top 10 Stories You Missed in 2008 Don't miss them this time.

Briton saved dozens in hotel A millionaire private equity broker from London has emerged as a hero who stopped Islamic terrorists from massacring Britons and Americans in their attack on Mumbai.

LAX Tops Nation In Stolen, Missing Luggage Items "Easy pickings?" "Easy pickings." "I wouldn't put anything valuable in LAX" These two LAX employees would only talk if we concealed their identities. "I saw thefts within the first few weeks of working there." They both say there are organized rings of thieves, who identify valuables in your checked luggage by looking at the TSA x-ray screens, then communicate with baggage handlers by text or cell phone, telling them exactly what to look for. (via)

What is truth serum? Indian officials plan to inject captured Mumbai terrorist with the "truth serum," sodium pentothal, but history tells us that the technique isn't up to the task

Particulate Emissions From Laser Printers Do laser printers emit pathogenic toner particles into the air? Some people are convinced that they do. As a result, this topic is the subject of public controversy. Researchers have now investigated what particles the printers really do release into the air.

Black Garlic Introducing a simple food with a wonderfully complex flavor. Black garlic is sweet meets savory, a perfect mix of molasses-like richness and tangy garlic undertones. It has a tender, almost jelly-like texture with a melt-in-your-mouth consistency similar to a soft dried fruit. Hard to believe, but true. It’s as delicious as it is unique. (via)

also:
Two cases of compulsive swearing - in sign language
A Fragment Theory Of Deja Vu
Academics invent a mathematical equation for why people procrastinate (when they were supposed to be writing papers)
Ancient city discovered deep in Amazonian rainforest linked to the legendary white-skinned Cloud People of Peru
Prized sculpture destroyed on trip to Art Basel Miami
How to Stretch a Canvas

don't miss:
The ultimate fate of Mr. Pink in Reservoir Dogs (via)

viddy:
William Eggleston: I am at war with the obvious

correspondence

The funny thing about technology (in this case blogging, web 2.0 etc.), is that the early adopters are always looking to bail and find something new when the everyone else starts to catch on. In reality, sometimes a technology or a process works so well that it doesn't need to go much further.

That's why we don't have jet-packs and rocket ships and flying cars. Modern automobiles, airplanes and ships serve transportation needs just fine. Sure, we can make them cleaner and more efficient with better design, but in the end, they will still be cars and boats and planes.

Blogging is like the automobile. You can only tweak it. It's here to stay and no amount of Facebooks or Twitters will change that.

- Johny Zhivago in an email to The Mad Hillbilly

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Getting A Story Made at National Geographic After talking with several National Geographic photographers about shooting for the magazine I became intrigued with the process of getting a story made. The collaboration between the photo editors and photographers and then the photographers involvement in all the steps along the way is unique and important to how they make stories. More magazines should spend this kind of time with their contributors. The few times I’ve had photographer come into the office and present their images to us have been incredibly rewarding and certainly I think made the story that much better. I asked David Griffin, National Geographic’s Director of Photography about the process of getting stories made and the rumored years it takes for a story to go from idea to printed page... (via)

Jacking into the Brain--Is the Brain the Ultimate Computer Interface? How far can science advance brain-machine interface technology? Will we one day pipe the latest blog entry or NASCAR highlights directly into the human brain as if the organ were an outsize flash drive?

From Silver Lake to Suicide: One Family's Secret History of the Jonestown Massacre A cache of letters hidden in the basement brings to life a house, a family and the tragedy that would change everything (via)

Love story: The librarian, the postal worker and their art Art takes up all the air in Herb and Dorothy Vogel's cramped one-bedroom on the Upper East Side. Minimalist and conceptual works cover every inch of wall and dangle from the ceiling. Because there is no other place for it, a Richard Tuttle painting clings to the inside of a louvered door that leads to the tiny kitchen. Other pieces crowd shelves and table tops. And the Vogels, who are giving the Miami Art Museum and 49 other institutions around the country gifts of 50 artworks each and are subjects of a documentary that will screen in December during Art Basel Miami Beach, say there is plenty more under the bed and jammed into the closets of this modest, rent-stabilized space they have called home since 1963.

Library Ghosts: Northeastern U.S. Last year about this time (just in time for Halloween), I posted on this blog a list of libraries that are said to be haunted. Now the library ghosts are back, by popular demand...

also:
Stanislav Petrov, the man who could have started a nuclear war, but didn’t (via)
Know Your Intelligence Agencies: National Reconnaissance Office
Biology in Science Fiction: Erasing Memory
The History of Some of Today's Most Common Phrases (via)
Recent additions to the Chambers Slang Dictionary
Punctuation Game
1000 artworks to see before you die (via)
Podcasts from the University of Oxford (via)
Haruki Murakami interview (via)
Wayne Coyne interview
Aerial Phenomena Research: Selected Papers - Jacques F. Vallee (via)
Casting the Runes by M.R. James
Oboe Bong

Futility Closet: Over the Moon Jules Verne earned his title as the father of science fiction. His 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon contains eerie similarities to the Apollo program that unfolded a century later. (read more)

viddy:
The Anti-Fascist trailer
Parallel Universes, Parallel Lives 1/6 (Eels frontman Mark Everett in search of his father's brain. Dr Hugh Everett III proposed the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics.) (via)
Hog Hunting (A plague of feral hogs has descended on the American South. They've been spotted here in Savannah.) (via)
The Real Secret Of The Matrix: The Haunting Sound Of The Waterphone (You'll know it as soon as you hear it.)
Daily (kinda sorta) Weather with David Lynch (via)
Angkor Wat, Cambodia (1930s newsreel)

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Pentagon plans ‘spaceplane’ to reach hotspots fast The American military is planning a “spaceplane” designed to fly a crack squad of heavily armed marines to trouble spots anywhere in the world within four hours.

The History of the India-China Border There is no territorial dispute which has been, and still is, more susceptible to a solution than India’s boundary dispute with China. Each side has its non-negotiable vital interest securely under its control. India has the McMahon Line; China has Aksai Chin. Only a political approach, climaxed by a decision at the highest level, can settle the matter. In a couple of months it will be half a century since the issues were joined. (via)

Debt Collection, Outsourced to India With her flowing, hot-pink Indian suit, jangly silver bangles and perky voice, Bhumika Chaturvedi, 24, doesn't fit the stereotype of a thuggish, heard-it-all-before debt collector. But lately, she has had no problem making American debtors cry. (via)

Biology in Science Fiction: Big Giant Heads Before transhumanism became all the fashion, science fictional depictions of far future often gave our human descendants fantastic mental powers along with giant brains. But there is a serious problem with that idea: human brain size at birth is limited by the size of the opening in the pelvis, and those far future women never seem to have extra-wide hips to go along with their giant heads. (excellent post)

also:
Stone Age man took drugs, say scientists
NASA sends probe to study edge of solar system
Books: Umberto Eco - Turning Back the Clock
Britain to get first glance at author Burroughs' paintings
Showcasing 'Hidden Treasures' from Afghanistan
Eight Reasons Why You Can't Pay Attention (via)
How to Stay Awake at Work (via)
In the computer age, handwriting is a lost art
20 Places Where Bookworms Go to Read and Socialize Online (via)
Idea Generation (visual arts) (via)
Complete Spy Cam Smaller Than an Eyeball
Open Yale Courses: Introduction to Ancient Greek History with Professor Donald Kagan (via)
Photo Gallery: Hackers delight - A history of MIT pranks (via)
List of common misconceptions (via)

viddy:
17 months and 14'000 km away from technology Swiss adventurer Sarah Marquis, who travels by foot around Europe, Australia and America, explains what happen when you reconnect with nature and try to be autonomous, finding water, getting some electrical energy, collecting food were some of the topics discussed during her presentation.
Ivo Niehe Meets Frank Zappa (’91) (narration in Dutch, interview in English)
Presenting the instrument of the moment (beautiful music on the kora)
Brainwave Synthesis With Percussa AudioCubes
D.W. Griffith's Abraham Lincoln
Insane Train Stunt (completely nuts)
Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot" (montage)
Order of the Knights of Malta
Boring Books
The Ruts - Babylon's Burning
Run DMC on Reading Rainbow (via)
Do the Hustle

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Bringing a Trove of Medieval Manuscripts Online for the Ages One of the oldest and most valuable collections of handwritten medieval books in the world, housed in the magnificent baroque halls of the library in this town’s abbey, is going online... (roughly 7,000 handwritten manuscripts, many over a thousand years old)

Martin Scorsese and me - mentored by a master Celina Murga has experienced what all young film-makers must dream of – being mentored by Martin Scorsese. The master craftsman of American cinema explains why fostering talent is important to him, while Murga reveals what it’s like to be on set with a legend.

Black and white TV generation have monochrome dreams I'm not from that generation, but I watched a lot of B&W growing up. I have no recollection of any monochrome dreams. The white in B&W television always looked blue to me. I have an aunt that can tell what color something is in black and white. The family always razzed her for it, but I think maybe she could.

Obscure History: Let The Military Help In A Heist On October 17th, 1906, Wilhelm Voigt, a 57-year-old German shoemaker, impersonates an army officer and leads an entire squad of soldiers to help him steal 4,000 marks.

also:
Home Movie Day!!
The Invisible Library (list of fictional books from fiction) (via)
Giant Plush Microbes (all the favorites) (via)
FACT mix: Murcof
Black Swan Glossary (Taleb) (via)
Penguin Cover Notebooks (via)
Qwitter e-mails you when someone stops following you on Twitter...

viddy:
The Power of Art: Caravaggio (via)
Jim Henson - Ripples (via)
Diego Stocco: DIY Musical Machines

Mary Texanna Loomis: 1921

Shorpy:

December 31, 1921. "Miss Texanna Loomis." Mary Texanna Loomis, founder and proprietor of the Loomis Radio School in Washington, D.C. National Photo Company Collection glass negative, Library of Congress.

Mary Texanna Loomis (short bio)

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Top NSA Scribe Takes Us Inside The Shadow Factory No outsider has spent more time tracking the labyrinthine ways of the National Security Agency than James Bamford. But even he gets lost in the maze. Despite countless articles and three books on the U.S. government's super-secret, signals-intelligence service — the latest of which, The Shadow Factory, is out today — Bamford tells Danger Room that he was caught off guard by revelations that the NSA was eavesdropping on Americans. He remains confused about how the country's telecommunications firms were co-opted into the warrantless spying project. And he's still only guessing, he admits, at the breadth and depth of those domestic surveillance efforts. In this exclusive interview, Bamford talks about how hard it is, after all these years, to fit together the pieces at the NSA's "Puzzle Palace" headquarters.

The Programming Aphorisms of Strunk and White If I could take ten software development books to a desert island, The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White would be one of them. (via)

Making A Living From Music For Picture Writing music for picture seems like the ideal career. You get to work in your studio for a living, you can earn good money, and there's so much potential work: action films, travel and nature documentaries, romantic comedies, cartoons, low-budget sci-fi, even breakfast cereal ads. But how do you break into this lucrative world? As we find out in the first part of this new series, the first thing you need is determination... (links to pts. 2-9) (via)

Talk to Elbot I did. For way too long. It was interesting, but I could tell it wasn't human, although I was probably biased because I already knew. It was a decent conversation and was quite funny at times. Elbot can be a bit of a wise-ass. (prev)

also:
New audio tapes of JFK released (via)
World Chess Championship 2008 (wiki) (more)
Searching for Robert Johnson (third photo?)
Project 10^100 is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible (Google is giving out 10 million for the best ideas, deadline Oct. 20)
Invention: Natural colour underwater photographs
Sleep-deprivation is a myth, expert claims
How to Survive a Grizzly Bear Attack
The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan (via)

viddy:
Photojournalist on the frontline
Inside The Actor's Studio: Dennis Hopper (1994)
Fernando Botero Interview 1/2 2/2 (prev)
Márta Sebestyén and the Sebő Ensemble: Sándor Weöres poems (lovely)
Hairyman (animated interpretation of an African-American folk tale from the South)
Do you know the first ten elements of the periodic table?
Gijs Gieskes beautiful spinning photoelectronic acid machine (synthporn)
Zombie Robots!

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Mafiaboy grows up; a hacker seeks redemption The Internet attack took Yahoo Inc. engineers by surprise. It came so fast and with such intensity that Yahoo, then the Web's second most-popular destination, was knocked offline for about three hours. That was on the morning of Feb. 7, 2000. A few months later, 15-year-old Michael Calce was watching Goodfellas at a friend's house in the suburbs of Montreal when he got a 3 a.m. call on his cell phone. His father was on the line. "They're here," he said. A hacker seeks a career. This seems to be the standard arc: make news, get busted, do time, write a book, become a security consultant.

Follow up: Almost human: Interview with a chatbot No machine has yet passed. But the winner of the Loebner Prize at the weekend – Elbot, brainchild of Fred Roberts at Artificial Solutions in Germany – came close, according to the contest's rather generous rules.

Ocean Containers To Bury According to most survivalist sites, ocean containers can be buried, hidden away under the ground outfitted with electricals, rudementary plumbing, and all the food and water you can store for several months of keeping a low profile. While we at American Steel have seen it done, I'd like to give a word of caution.... Anyone planning to use a container for anything should take note. (via)

Downloads soar despite crackdown Music downloads among US adults have risen sharply during the past several months, despite a crackdown by the music industry to curb such behaviour. Few I know could afford their music collection. (via)

also:
Recurring science misconceptions in K-6 textbooks (via)
First look at Downey Jr and Jude Law as Holmes and Watson
$56,000 Turntable Only An Audiophile Could Love
Surrealist techniques (via)

viddy:
Buffalo Dance featuring Hair Coat, Last Horse, and Parts His Hair
Trio: Da Da Da
Alien Contact: What will happen on October 14 (thx, dave)

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Marcin Mazurkiewicz FotoBlog's photostream

found using Flickr Leech

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Lawrence Lessig - In Defense of Piracy Digital technology has made it easy to create new works from existing art, but copyright law has yet to catch up.... Copyright law must be changed. Here are just five changes that would make a world of difference... (via)

3-D Printing on Demand Shapeways.com is beta testing a new service allowing people to print three dimensional models. Customers can upload designs or use a creation tool hosted at the Shapeways website then order a printed model of their designs for less than $3 per square centimeter. The printed items are shipped to the customer in ten days or less, bringing 3-D printing to consumers and not just companies large enough to afford their own printers. It will be very interesting to see what happens when affordable 3-D printing becomes commonplace. (via)

also:
Extreme IT: Hurricanes, high winds and heavy seas in the Gulf of Mexico
Dalkey Archive Press Author Interviews (via)
Mia_Farrow's photostream (via)

viddy:
Banjo used in brain surgery (don't miss it) Bluegrass musician Eddie Adcock underwent brain surgery to treat a career-threatening hand tremor. He played his banjo throughout to help doctors determine the success of the procedure. The squeamish can make it through in good shape. (via)
Expedition 18 / Soyuz Rocket Launch - October 12th, 2008
National Geographic Music
Hunter, Ralph and 3 bottles of whiskey
Reductive Waves, a meditation on the visualization of sound, via contrasting natural and human-crafted environments.

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At Home With Wayne Coyne
When trees grew in Antarctica (via)
Emily Dickinson's Secret Lover! (via)
Historical Fiction for Teenage Girls
Historical Fiction for Teens
Create your own search engine
FM 100-30 Nuclear Operations (via)
Make Your Own Hard Cider (via)

viddy:
Daedelus Talks Vinyl And Culture (crate-digging)
Jack Kerouac - American Haikus
Laptop Orchestra
Che - Steven Soderbergh @ NYFF Q&A
How cocaine is made
Motoman: Robot Bartender