Tempête sur la pointe de Bretagne

(video link)

Incredibly beautiful.

I’ve always thought it would be cool to be a lighthouse keeper, but this might try my nerves. I wonder what it’s like to be in there while this is going on?

via TYWKIWDBI

ice storm

Trees bent by the weight of ice from a winter storm line railroad tracks in Hinsdale, Mass., Friday, Dec. 12. The Berkshire Eagle / Ben Garver

70 degrees here in Savannah.

via The Frame

Snow crystals

Snow crystals:

Snow flakes highly magnified by a low-temperature scanning electron microscope (SEM). The colours are called "pseudo colours", they are computer generated and are a standard technique used with SEM images.

via kung fu grippe

weather

People walk in the center of Helsinki on November 2008 during the first snowstorm of the season.

photo: Martti Kainulainen

Winter descends on the Northern Hemisphere

stray bullets

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.

stray bullets

Lift could take passengers straight into space Japanese scientists are attempting to build a lift (elevator for us Americans) that will take passengers 62,000 miles into space.

MI6 agent's cover slips during BBC interview In his dangerous job the MI6 spy's identity needs to remain a closely guarded secret. So you can imagine his surprise when, during an interview with the national broadcaster, his carefully chosen disguise of a fake moustache failed him spectacularly.

Blogging about blogging What do young people think about blogging? Let’s have a look; here’s what one 18 year old has to say. This one happens to be my son, but I don’t think that prevents him from representing his generation: ‘People no longer are just able to blog, but blogging is increasingly becoming accepted as a legitimate medium of information; albeit quite different to others. At the cost of the credibility associated with major news services and other more traditional ways of getting our information, a whole new world is opened up- of personal opinion, a perspective into the lives and experiences of others and original creativity. When subjective experience and opinion is sought over objective fact, blogging becomes a medium very difficult to beat.’ Blogging is passé? I suspect that many of the old-timers have become a bit tired and unimaginative-- it's just getting started. (Let's encourage young bloggers instead of greeting them with statements like "Blogging is dead")

Ike Really Tore Up Louisville You will find a collection of pictures I took after the storm here. Unfortunately, some streets still look like this a week later. Though we got electricity back about 12 hours after it went out, most houses and businesses around us are still dark. LG&E, our local utility, has been saying it may be another week before all power is restored.

Au revoir to cool hand Luc Besson Luc Besson is in denial. The 49-year-old French film potentate and master of pop cinema (see Nikita, Léon, The Big Blue) has made yet another peerless action classic in the Paris-set kidnap drama Taken. Written and produced by Besson, it stars Liam Neeson as a semi-retired CIA hatchet man who will stop at nothing to bring his missing daughter back home, and send her captors to hell. It is directed by Besson’s former Steadicam operator Pierre Morel, but with its luxurious mix of slick style, emotional melodrama and bone-crunching thrills, it’s got Besson’s fingerprints all over it.

Art and Science, Virtual and Real, Under One Big Roof On a hillside overlooking this college town on the banks of the Hudson, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has erected a technological pleasure dome for the mind and senses. Eight years and $200 million in the making, the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, or Empac, resembles an enormous 1950s-era television set. But inside are not old-fashioned vacuum tubes but the stuff of 21st-century high-tech dreams dedicated to the marriage of art and science as it has never been done before, its creators say — 220,000 square feet of theaters, studios and work spaces hooked to supercomputers.

TinEye is an image search engine. Search the web for images using an image. Finally! It's still getting its legs-- a lot of images are still not indexed and it's difficult to find an original source, but this is certainly a start. (via)

Rainbow over the Leith Walk

DK Preston's photostream

via suwaowa.log

A sheen of oil is seen...

Photograph: Reuters

24 hours in pictures:

High Island, US: A sheen of oil is seen around a pump jack surrounded by floodwater after the passing of hurricane Ike.

stray bullets

Tinker, tailor, soldier, defector — John le Carré: I nearly left the West John le Carré, the espionage writer, has revealed that he was tempted to defect to the Soviet Union during the cold war.... Le Carré’s remarks are particularly intriguing because his own career as a secret agent was in effect destroyed by the treachery of Kim Philby, the double agent.

Briton was safe-cracker for Osama Bin Laden and Idi Amin He described the Al-Q'aeda head as "friendly" and the Ugandan dictator as "fun". I heard a rumor that when Osama was training with the CIA in the U.S. during the Russia-Afghanistan War that he was known as Tim Osmond. When the first "Wanted" photos were released in the late 1990s, some CIA officers were reported to have said, "Hey, that's Tim!"

Stephen Hawking to unveil strange new way to tell the time Prof Stephen Hawking is to unveil a remarkable £1 million clock with no hands that pays tribute to the world's greatest clockmaker.

Hurricane Ike's Sprawl a Meteorological Mystery Considering the vastly different dangers posed by these storms, it's natural to wonder just why some storms get so big while others stay small, despite having the same hurricane-force winds. Why, in other words, is Ike such a titan? also: History's Worst Storm Surges

also:
Vladmaster - Handmade viewmaster reels (via)
How to Draw Anything in One Step
How To Master Photoshop In Just One Week (via)

viddy:
The Peanut Vendor - Len Lye 1933 (via)
Kunstbar (careful what you drink at the Artbar)
Richie Hawtin 2008 DJ Setup
Bebe Barron on Anaïs Nin
The Natural History of the Chicken part 1/6 (via)

stray bullets

Gustav holdouts' tales give evacuees pause After curfew on Wednesday night, two National Guard soldiers traded their rifles for a guitar and some drumsticks....The night after Gustav came ashore, small squads of storm holdouts and National Guardsmen played an elaborate game of curfew cat-and-mouse. But they finally gave up as everyone ended up at the Maple Leaf lounge for a late-night gab session. (via)

The secret code of diaries A sampling of the more daunting diary codes, some taking many years to crack. (via) also: A high school teacher in Salinas, Donald G. Harden, and his wife cracked a code of a man threatening mass murder, a code which the Navy and FBI experts have failed to break in a week of effort. (read more and see the cracked message)

Elderly are more open-minded than young people People become confused more easily as they age because they succumb to distractions and not due to their brains slowing down, a new study shows.

Finding L.A.'s hidden homeless To most people, it's just trash: A scrap of dirty blanket visible under some stairs. A glimpse of blue tarp peeking out of a bush. A bag of recyclables parked discreetly behind a concrete column. But Courtney Kanagi, an outreach worker, has learned how to decode bits of urban detritus that most people ignore. She knows what these signs mean: the crawl space beneath the stairs was someone's home. When you're out there, you're acutely aware of many things that others miss completely, never noticing. (via)

Let's hear it for the autodidact Sean Connery's memoir is surprising, not least because the actor emerges from its thoughtful pages as self-taught.

also:
MIT-led Team Zooms in on Massive Black Hole at Center of Milky Way
Bare-breasted virgins compete for Swaziland king (photos!)
How to Create the Perfect Fake Identity
Archaeological Excavation Techniques
ClichéWatch: i.love.the.smell.of.*.in.the.morning (funny) (via)

viddy:
USCG Fly Over of New Orleans Post Gustav
Terry Gilliam on the Work of Roland Emmerich
Marshall McLuhan on the Today show (don't miss it)

All eyes on Hanna...

Now that Gustav has done his worst and New Orleans is in the clear, our attention is drawn to a lady named Hanna.

Although the storm has tracked a bit to the east, putting Savannah on the western edge of the projected path, we are still watchful. Hurricanes are unpredictable and can do crazy things at any moment.

Georgia has been very fortunate as far as hurricanes and tropical storms go. If you look at the map, you'll see that the Georgia coast is the westernmost piece of coastline along the Eastern Seaboard. Big storms tend to miss our little nestle and barrel right on up and slam the Carolinas.

Some say that we're blessed, some say that Gullah and Geechee Voodoo keeps the storms away. We'll gladly take all the help we can get, but regardless, candles, water, food, batteries and a new radio are in order for tomorrow's shopping list. I'm on relatively high ground, I have an upper floor in my apartment and my first floor is almost six feet up, so I'm not too worried about flooding. It would have to be an extreme event for me to take water. I am worried about a large, slouching tree in my yard. Lots of loose lumber up there and it's leaning right over me.

image from the National Hurricane Center

Gustav

Visible Satellite Image Courtesy of NOAA Satellite Services Division

Update: I'm communicating with a friend who is staying in New Orleans. He made it through Katrina in decent shape, so he's confident he'll be OK. My only concern is that where he is, in Uptown, New Orleans is most vulnerable to flooding from the river. Storm surges have been known to be sucked right up the Mississippi. I've seen the river run backward during Hurricane Georges, in 1998, and that was only a Cat. 1 when it reached us. If Gustav's surge breaches the levee, he could be in trouble.

via Crown Weather Services

stray bullets

Strapped for cash, some in New Orleans stay and hope Several New Orleans residents say they can't afford to leave-- for various reasons.

Serial killer on the loose in California, police say Los Angeles, California, police detectives are looking for a serial killer who they believe killed at least 11 people, many of them prostitutes, over a 23-year period. Just one? I always thought that it was policy not to talk about serial killers with the press. There must be some specific reason why their breaking protocol in this case.

Roald Dahl's seductive work as a British spy Old Roald seems to be getting around quite a bit these days... just like he did when he was alive, it seems.

also:
The son of John le Carré on ninjas, mimes and his first novel
Extreme Macro Photography on a budget (via)
Photo Tampering Throughout History (via)
iPosture Just over one inch in diameter, the iPosture automatically senses when the body slouches, and it alerts the user with brief vibrations to correct it. They also have the 'extreme tase' setting for hardcore slouchers. (via)

viddy:
The first few minutes of The Conversation (via)
The Moog Foundation YouTube page (via)

Gustav note

Have a look at the Crown Weather Services website for just about every possible link, map, chart, graph, notice or advisory on Hurricane Gustav. It's worth checking out just for how comprehensive it is. You can ignore the open .txt prompt, unless you're a total storm geek.

Gustav could very well be the Big One, making Katrina look like a warm-up. All indications are that the eye will pass to the west of New Orleans, which does not bode well for the city. The eastern side of a hurricane always delivers the worst of the wind and rain. We may very well lose one of the urban gems of our world. For real, this time.

Update: The page is loading slow. It must be getting hit hard. You'll have to wait a bit to get the maps.

Thanks, Crow!

stray bullets

Slow news day today, but we have a few items to mull.

More Miss Marple than 007: the true face of British espionage Like 007, they were licensed to kill, but they would never have dreamt of carrying a gun. “Obviously if your back was to the wall you would have done what was necessary,” Lady Ramsay says. “But we weren't like Rosa Klebb, we didn't have special shoes with poisoned daggers.” Her own firearms training was not a success. “The instructor told me, ‘You're not supposed to close your eyes every time you pull the trigger'.” Lady Park kept her gun in the safe. “In the Congo, I frightened an unwanted visitor away by pretending I was a witch. I shouted out of the window, ‘If you do not go away, your feet will fall off'. That was far more effective than a gun.” Much cooler than the mythology.

also:
Mark Twain's travels in India (via)
New Milky Way Map Reveals A Complicated Outer Galaxy
Canada seeks historic shipwrecks
The Fauxmaxion Map an interactive interpretation of Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion World Map. (read more) (via)
How To Hot Wire Your Car

viddy:
Phillip Glass composition for Sesame Street
Sesame Street - How Crayons Are Made
The Daredevils Who Chase One of the Sky's Greatest Mysteries
Romanian Gypsies (photomontage)

Bill Evans was born on this day in 1929. Bela Lugosi died on this day in 1956.

This is how I feel right now

It's supposed to cool off a little this weekend.

jean jullien

via suwaowa.log

stray bullets

The Truman Show Delusion Joel and Ian Gold, brothers and psychiatrists from Montreal, believe they have discovered a signature mental illness of the YouTube era: patients who claim they are subjects of their own reality TV shows. Can't lay claim to that one. (via)

Nixon's Presidential Daily Diary You'll get the idea after the first couple of pages. (via)

25 things you might not know about Tom Waits 6. He keeps a notebook full of interesting facts, including gems such as the fact that the average cockroach can live up to two weeks after decapitation. (via)

The following is a list of over 3600 titles recorded from my collection of 78 rpm records (via)

NOAA Photo Library (ht)

viddy:
The Mike Wallace Interview - Aldous Huxley (via)
Ray Bradbury Speaks at Writer's Symposium
Bill Hicks's Last Interview (via)
Early 60s Sci-Fi 'Shroom Self-Experimentation
Pablo Valbuena Installation At Sonar 2008 (via)
Pretoria Techno: DJ Mujava - Township Funk

How Flies Beat the Heat

SciAm:

Oh to be a fly during the heat wave that blanketed the U.S. east coast this week. Heat sensors in the insects' antennae help them navigate temperature variations in their surroundings by guiding them away from heat. Turns out those sensors weren't all: Researchers have identified four large heat-monitoring brain cells (seen here in turquoise) that switch on whenever the heat rises above the fly's favored temperature, according to research published in Nature. Combined with a cold-avoidance mechanism in its antennae, the heat sensors help a fly stay comfortable until the sticky weather passes.

Well, that's one less thing to worry about.

Stay cool, everybody!

Strange weather phenomenon video - 10 mins before the Sichuan earthquake

Looks like a fire rainbow to me.

More video and images

via LedgerGermane

Sunday Excursions: Beat the Sunday Blues

another usual morning
via FFFFOUND!

Do you get the Sunday Blues?

Years back, I always felt a little depressed on Sundays. When I was a kid it always meant I had to go back to school the next day. Years later, it meant work tomorrow. I always knew that it was just another day and it wasn't really that much different from Saturday... but it was.

Over the last 8 years or so, I've largely lived outside the 9-5/M-F world. In the interim I've managed to deprogram my reflexive Sunday Blues, but I still feel a twinge of it any odd week or another.
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Wetter-Foto.de













I have no idea what these guys are saying, but they have some magnificent weather photos.

via Ursi's Blog
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Sunday linkage:

Top 10 Myths About the Romans
via Interesting Pile

YouTube video timelines with Time Tube
via The Presurfer

Club Internet, a temporary “online gallery” of net art, is up now thru June 14. (Hit reload to view another work.)
via Delicious Ghost
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From the people who brought us GovernmentAttic.org
(I think):

Get Grandpa's FBI File

Get My FBI File

You can do it, and they'll help you. You can get other alphabet-soup files, as well. Very useful stuff if you'd like to be informed of the government's version of your personal and family history.

See also:

TV Show Complaints

See what uptight, no-life goobers have to whine about your favorite TV shows.
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I was just reading something about this optical illusion, but for the life of me I can't remember the details or find the source. If anyone knows what this is, and what it's origins are, I'd greatly appreciate any info.



Animated Optical Illusion
via Random Good Stuff
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Highlights of Digital Scriptorium

An impressive collection of medieval and renaissance manuscripts. I could look at this stuff for hours.

via MINDFVCK
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Cepolina Photo: 5800 free images for private/commercial use

Good ones, too.

via linkfilter.net
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Charles Schillings - Spin it right


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Rock on, everybody, and have a great week!