Until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 Balaklava was one of the most secret towns in Russia. 10km south eas of Sevastopol on the Black Sea Coast, this small town was the home to a Nuclear Submarine Base.
Almost the entire population of Balaklava at the time worked at the Base, even family members could not visit the town of Balaklava without good reason and identification. The base remained operational after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 until 1993 when the decommissioning process started and the warheads and low yield torpedos were removed. Then in 1996 the last Russian Submarine left the Base, and now you can go on Guided tours round the Cannel System, Base and small Museum, which is now housed in the old weapons stowage hangers deep inside the hillside.
Short on space in your kitchen? You need Compact Concepts’ Circular Kitchen:
The inner core rotates 180 degrees and is equipped with all the conveniences of a conventional kitchen, including a stainless steel sink with chrome single lever mixer, a waste bin and drawers. The upper circular shelf rotates through 360 degrees to house crockery, glasses, etc. Inside it has its own lighting, electrical sockets, electronics, water and waste disposal.
By utilising the volume of the circular kitchen fully, it has been possible to offer a storage capacity equivalent to that of a large conventional kitchen. "It contains the equivalent of 12 cupboards from a conventional kitchen", says designer Alfred Averbeck.
There’s also the facility to specify the Circular Kitchen with all the appliances necessary – refrigerator, dishwasher, microwave, fully integrated coffee machine, ceramic cook top with 2 or 4 cook zones, a built-in microwave/oven-combination and a Range hood.
If you like Virgin’s "Flex Your Music Muscle" viral ad (blogged here before), you’ll probably like Lonely Planet’s "Cities". There are 45 cities represented in this picture, can you find them? Link (via Ursi’s Blog)
Hod Lipson of Cornell University and colleagues invented a robot that can (somewhat) self-replicate:
Their robots are made up of a series of modular cubes — called "molecubes" — each containing identical machinery and the complete computer program for replication. The cubes have electromagnets on their faces that allow them to selectively attach to and detach from one another, and a complete robot consists of several cubes linked together. Each cube is divided in half along a long diagonal, which allows a robot composed of many cubes to bend, reconfigure and manipulate other cubes. For example, a tower of cubes can bend itself over at a right angle to pick up another cube.
You just have to see the video clip: Link (Thanks D. Meloney!)
This one is called Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island by Istvan Orovitz. At first glance, the image looks like a shipwreck on a weird-looking island. When a cylinder is put on the print, the reflection looks like Jules Verne!
A great (and famous) example of anamorphotic art (from Wikipedia):
In other anamorphisms, an anamorphoscope (a conical or cylindrical mirror) is placed on the drawing or painting to transform a flat distorted image into a three dimensional picture that can be viewed from many angles. The deformed image is painted on a plane surface surrounding the mirror. By looking uniquely into the mirror, the image appears undeformed. Current in the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries, this process of anamorphosis made it possible to diffuse caricatures, erotic and scatologic scenes and scenes of sorcery for a confidential public. Anamorphoscopes were invented in China and brought to Italy in the 16th century, about the time Renaissance artists like Leonardo da Vinci were mastering 3-D and discovering slant anamorphosis.
This one is "Escher I: Double Reflection", based on Escher’s famous drawing.
This one is "Escher II: Infinite Reflection", a very unique "continuous infinite image":
A cylindrical mirror provides a way of bending the picture plane similar to the method described by Escher. By using anamorphic techniques, it is possible to form a continuous infinite image in three dimensions without changing the shape of the paper. The cylindrical anamorphosis shown here is based on a photograph of Escher looking at his own reflection in a spherical mirror.
Posted by Alex in Pictures on May 10, 2006 at 2:06 am
Yes, yes, they’re not new pictures, but they’re still very, very funny. For more redneck pictures, check the motherload mother lode: Dave’s (World Famous) Redneck Photos.
Doc Ock would be proud: US scientists funded by DARPA have created a tentacle-like arm:
Most robots rely on mechanical gripping jaws that have difficulty grabbing large or irregularly shaped objects. Replacing these with tentacle-like manipulators could make robots more nimble and flexible, say the scientists.
"An elephant’s trunk can pick up a peanut or a tree trunk," says Ian Walker, a member of the project team from Clemson University in South Carolina. "This ability, inherent in the OCTOR robots, gives OCTOR arms a huge advantage over conventional industrial robots."
Just like a real tentacle, an Octarm simply wraps itself around an object in order to manoeuvre it. This allows it to grasp objects of various sizes and shapes and could let robots deal with unpredictable real-world situations, the researchers say.
Artex’s Photo to Text software allows you to convert any photo into text arts. From the website:
What makes our software unique is that you can type any message that you want, the converted image will become a full colour, readable text version of your original colour photo.
From a distance it looks like a photo, up close you can read the text with your words, thoughts or story.
RSS
Comments Off
