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German interaction and interface designer Martin Frey created some wonderful projects like CabBoots (the shoes with integrated navigation system) and the JITWatch (the "smart" watch that knows your next appointment and calculates when you should get going based on how long it takes to get there)
This one above is SnOil, Martin’s project on creating a physical display using programmable ferromagnetic fluid.
Link – Thanks Martin!
Thierry plays the Mario music on classical guitar.
Push play or go to Link [YouTube] .
It seems to be right out from a Tim Burton movie, but it actually comes from Meywa Japanese electronics company. Its eyes glow when plugged in!
Am I too late for Halloween posts?
Link – via Tokiomango
POP Montreal [wiki] is an annual music festival occurring in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in the early fall, usually at the end of September or the beginning of October. More than 200 acts are scheduled to play in more than 20 venues across the city, mostly located in the Mile End area. Along with music, POP Montreal has film, art events as well as a conference and a cultural fair called Puces POP.
Since its creation by Dan Seligman, Noelle Sorbara, and Peter Rowan in 2002, POP Montreal presented concerts of important rock, indie-rock, alternative, hip hop and folk artists from North America and Europe as Beck, Billy Childish, Interpol, TTC or Franz Ferdinand along with local favorites The Dears, Les Breastfeeders, We Are Wolves or The Unicorns. In 2006, POP welcomed the Future of Music Policy Summit and continues to challenge industry standards while staging an incredible array of international and local talent.
Back in 2003, Canadian independent filmmaker Hart Snider made a documentary short about Montreal’s indie music scene, shot at the first edition of the POP Montreal International Music Festival . Click Play or go to Link [YouTube] .
A mini behind-the-scenes POP doc also came out in 2006, click here [YouTube] for that one .
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At nine o’clock on the clear morning of Tuesday, January 20, 1606 (1607)*,
a massive flood swept up the Bristol Channels, completely without
warning, devastating the countryside over 400 km and killing between
500 and 2000 people. A contemporary pamphlet called Gods Warning to His People of England records the event:
Then they might see & perceive a far of as it were in the Element, huge and mighty Hilles of water, tumbling one over another, in such sort as if the greatest mountaines in the world, has over-whelmed the lowe Valeys or Earthy grounds. Sometimes it so dazled the eyes of many of the Spectators, that they immagined it had bin some fogge or miste, comming with great swiftnes towards them: and with such a smoke, as if Mountaynes were all on fire: and to the view of some, it seemed as if Myliyons of thousandes of Arrowes had bin shot forth at one time, which came in such swiftnes, as it was verily thought, that the fowles of the ayre could scarcely fly so fast, such was the threatning furyes thereof. (quoted in the 400-year Bristol Flood Retrospective, a PDF document)
A site devoted to the history of Burnham-on-the-Sea, quotes another contemporary source filled with "human interest stories." In the following excerpts, a chicken and a cat (respectively) are credited with saving the lives of two children:
A maide child, not passing the age of foure years: it is reported
that the mother thereof, perceiving the waters to breake so fast
into her house, and not being able to escape with it, and having
no clothes on, set it upon a beame in the house, to save it from
being drowned. And the waters rushing in a pace, a little chicken
as it seemeth, flew up unto it [the child], (it being found in
the bosome of it, when helpe came to take it [the child] downe)
and by the heate thereof, as it is thought, preserved the childe’s
lifeAnother little childe is affirmed to have been cast uppon land in a cradle, in which was nothing but a catte [cat], the which was discerned as it came floating to the shoare, to leape still from one side of the cradle unto the other, even as if she had been appointed
steresman to preserve the small barke from the waves furie.
Some scientists believe the flooding was the result of high spring tides combined with a storm surge, and others believe it was a tsunami. Whatever the cause, the Bristol flood was one of the greatest natural disasters in British history. It occurred at just around the time that scholars were researching the King James Bible and Shakespeare was writing Antony and Cleopatra.
*The year was 1606 according to the calendar used at the time and 1607 according to the one we use now.
Malajube [wiki] is an indie rock band from Montréal, Québec. Their video for “Montréal -40°C” (directed by Montrealer Louis-Philippe Eno) is pretty special.
Click Play or go to Link [YouTube] .
In 1935 Walt Disney and his brother Roy travelled to Europe for the first time, bringing back to the U.S. some 300 illustrated publications in order to build up a library of images to inspire their drawings and films. The aim of the exhibition is to present the sources that inspired the world of Disney alongside certain modern and contemporary works derived from Disney’s creations. More particularly, it will focus on the literary and iconographic sources of Disney’s most important animated feature films, from the launching of the Walt Disney Company until Disney’s death in 1967. The show will comprise some 300 to 350 pieces: original works by Disney studio artists selected from the Disney archives and from private collections together with paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs, film clips and other items. By bringing Disney studio drawings together with the Western European artworks, from Middle Age to Surrealism, that inspired them, the exhibition will reveal a continuous exchange of influences and will illuminate one of the deep cultural ties that link Europe and North America through some of the most original and popular artistic products of our day.
The exhibition Once upon a Time Walt Disney: The Sources of Inspiration for the Disney Studios takes place from March 8 to June 24, 2007. Image courtesy of The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts .
For more info, click here [Montreal Museum of Fine Arts] .
Comments Off We went to such far-flung locales as the Pygmy villages of the Congo, the radioactive ruins of Chernobyl, and the bomb-pocked refugee camps of Beirut so that you never, ever have to go for yourself as long as you live. We took cameras so that we could prove that we went.
That’s what The Vice Guide to Travel is all about. It’s not traditional journalism.
Warning: PG-NSFW (couple of f-bombs). Click Play or go to Link [YouTube] .
You can view more clips on their YouTube page, click here .
Doctor Snuggles [wiki] is a animated series about a friendly and optimistic inventor named Doctor Snuggles who has unusual adventures with his friends in a slightly psychedelic world. The show featured fantastical scenarios which usually involved Doctor Snuggles inventing something outlandish such as a robot helper or diamond-making machine, and had a variety of supporting characters who were mostly anthropomorphic animals.
The show followed the adventures of Doctor Snuggles, a kind old gentleman who lives in a comfortable home with his elderly housekeeper, Mrs. Nettles. Doctor Snuggles spends most of his time inventing, and throughout the series creates: a housekeeping robot in, a wormmobile, a machine to restore the colours of the rainbow, a gadget to fight depression and a time machine, amongst others.
Click Play or go to Link [YouTube] .
Admit it. You’ve always wanted to wax David Hasselhoff’s chest hair. Ok. Maybe not. But now you can virtually. Just click here
Photo: David Shale
New Scientist has five amazing pictures of the most bizarre creatures unveiled at the 11th International Deep-Sea Biology Symposium in Southampton, UK. Link
This one above is the Dumbo Octopus (see the ears?) | See also: Cute Piglet Squid
What do you get if you combine a Kuka Robotics industrial KR-16 robot with bluetooth and a Wii controller? A tennis racket and sword wielding robot that will help you take over the world (as soon as it gets some legs)!
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via Robot Gossip
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This is probably the geekiest book title ever:
IF(Sid_Vicious == TRUE&& Alan Turing == TRUE) } ERROR_Cyberpunk() }
Written by Jason Rogers and Jason Earls.
Link – via Cliff Pickover’s RealityCarnival
Patrick Lawler went to the dentist because of a persistent toothache on the roof of his mouth. The dentist soon found out the cause: a four-inch nail the construction worker had unknowingly shot into his skull almost a week earlier!
This, and more bizarre X-rays can be found at 2Spare: Link – via Eduyayo
What, don’t believe the story above? Here’s the full story: Link
In her book I Like You: The Art of Hospitality Under the Influence, Amy Sedaris [wiki] dished up tips on how to be creative at home. Now, she has issued a craft challenge: make food come alive with googly eyes.
See what people have submitted so far: Link [Flickr pool] – via Miss Cellania
Is this what the politicos have been talking about? Sending Coca-cola Surge to Iraq? Don’t they know that Iraqis prefer orange soda?
Actually this is just one of the soft drinks featured in X-Entertainment’s Dead Sodas: A Tribute to Soft Drinks No Longer With Us: Link – via Gorilla Mask
Photo: George Fetting
Australian amateur pilot and flight sim enthusiast Matthew Sheil spent 10 years and $230,000 to create a homemade flight simulator that precisely mimics the 747 cockpit down to the last dial, knob, and switch!
Link | Matthew’s website (tons more photos, but I can only see ‘em in IE, not Firefox)
Fish and Game brought a young moose who lost its mother too soon to Wendall and Debbie. They bottle fed and took care of him, and after a while they fed him with their cows.
After it was old enough, they let him loose in the wild and the moose stayed gone all summer but the moose soon got lonely and went back to be with the cows!
More pics and story at Cellar IotD.
From the website:
Fire helmet? Check. Gloves? Check. Axe? Check. Pet oxygen masks? Check.
Increasingly, little oxygen masks for pets are becoming standard equipment for firefighters. Hoping to save cats, dogs and other pets caught in house fires, animal advocacy groups and pet-products suppliers are equipping departments all over the country with them.
The cone-shaped plastic masks, which come in three sizes and fit snugly on snouts, can resuscitate animals suffering from smoke inhalation. They can be used on dogs, cats, ferrets, rabbits, guinea pigs, even birds.
Sooooo… how does that bathroom for the handicapped work again? Found at Factum
In 1950 (before helicopters had a long enough range), CIA inventor Robert Edison Fulton, Jr. devised a method to "extract" a person from the surface using an airborne plane:
Skyhook testThe person would climb into the harness, and connect it to the balloon with the nylon wire. With the simple pull of a ripcord, the balloon would inflate from the helium bottle, and would thus rise. The line was marked with flags or lights to help the airplane find the target.
… A mechanism would snap closed when the line was caught, releasing the balloon and anchoring the line to the aircraft. As the target was lifted from the ground, the line streamed back into the aircraft’s wake. The crew in the back of the plane would use a long hook to catch the line, and the target would then be winched into the bay.
The first live test was conducted with a pig as the target. Due to some stability issues, the pig spun in the 125 mph wind, and arrived on the plane dizzy and discombobulated. It recovered, however, and promptly attacked the crew.
Links: Damn Interesting | Wikipedia – via raincoaster
Weird: Police caught Edward Hutcheson shaving while driving 70 mph.
Weirder: Hutcheson also leaning across the car at an awkward angle so he could see past a dozen of mannequins he had stored in the back of his car.
Precious: Hutcheson is a health and safety expert, who claimed he was late for his first aid class!
This picture, from NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, shows a coronal mass ejection taken from NASA’s sun-orbiting SOHO spacecraft. You can read more about this particular event at NASA’s APOD, or view a darker, but equally stunning, sun picture that Neatorama showed last year.
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From National Geographic News:
These particular sauropod eggs were found in clusters of six to eight, one of the discoverers told the Hindustan Times. The eggs were laid during the Cretaceous period, roughly 146 to 66 million years ago, by dinosaurs between 40 and 90 feet (12 and 27 meters) long, he added.
Socrates’ [wiki] belief that we must reflect upon the life we live was partly inspired by the famous phrase inscribed at the shrine of the oracle at Delphi, “Know thyself.” The key to finding value in the prophecies of the oracle was self-knowledge, not a decoder ring.
Socrates felt so passionately about the value of self-examination that he closely examined not only his own beliefs and values but those of others as well. More precisely, through his relentless questioning, he forced people to examine their own beliefs. He saw the citizens of his beloved Athens sleepwalking through life, living only for money, power, and fame, so he became famous trying to help them.
Commonly known as Ockham’s razor, the idea here is that in judging among competing philosophical or scientific theories, all other things being equal, we should prefer the simplest theory. Scientists currently speak of four forces in the universe: gravity, the electromagnetic force, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force. Ockham [wiki] would certainly nod approvingly at the ongoing attempt to formulate a grand unified theory, a single force that encompasses all four.
The ultimate irony of Ockham’s razor may be that some have used it to prove God is unnecessary to the explanation of the universe, an idea Ockham the Franciscan priest would reject.
Referring to the original state of nature, a hypothetical past before civilization, Hobbes [wiki] saw no reason to be nostalgic.
Whereas Rousseau said, “Man is born free, and he is everywhere in chains,” Hobbes believed we find ourselves living a savage, impossible life without education and the protection of the state. Human nature is bad: we’ll prey on one another in the most vicious ways. No doubt the state imposes on our liberty in an overwhelming way. Yet Hobbes’ claim was that these very chains were absolutely crucial in protecting us from one another.
Descartes [wiki] began his philosophy by doubting everything in order to figure out what he could know with absolute certainty. Although he could be wrong about what he was thinking, that he was thinking was undeniable. Upon the recognition that “I think,” Descartes concluded that “I am.”
On the heels of believing in himself, Descartes asked, What am I? His answer: a thinking thing (res cogitans) as opposed to a physical thing extended in three-dimensional space (res extensa). So, based on this line, Descartes knew he existed, though he wasn’t sure if he had a body. It’s a philosophical cliff-hanger; you’ll have to read Meditations to find out how it ends.
As an idealist, Berkeley [wiki] believed that nothing is real but minds and their ideas. Ideas do not exist independently of minds. Through a complicated and flawed line of reasoning he concluded that “to be is to be perceived.” Something exists only if someone has the idea of it.
Though he never put the question in the exact words of the famous quotation, Berkeley would say that if a tree fell in the forest and there was no one (not even a squirrel) there to hear it, not only would it not make a sound, but there would be no tree.
The good news is, according to Berkeley, that the mind of God always perceives everything. So the tree will always make a sound, and there’s no need to worry about blipping out of existence if you fall asleep in a room by yourself.
Voltaire’s famous novel Candide satirizes this optimistic view. And looking around you right now you may wonder how anyone could actually believe it. But Leibniz [wiki] believed that before creation God contemplated every possible way the universe could be and chose to create the one in which we live because it’s the best.
The principle of sufficient reason holds that for everything, there must be sufficient reason why it exists. And according to Leibniz the only sufficient reason for the world we live in is that God created it as the best possible universe. God could have created a universe in which no one ever did wrong, in which there was no human evil, but that would require humans to be deprived of the gift of free wills and thus would not be the best possible world.
Similar to “vision is 20/20 in hindsight,” Hegel’s [wiki] poetic insight says that philosophers are impotent. Only after the end of an age can philosophers realize what it was about. And by then it’s too late to change things. It wasn’t until the time of Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) that the true nature of the Enlightenment was understood, and Kant did nothing to change the Enlightenment; he just consciously perpetuated it.
Marx (1818 – 1883) found Hegel’s apt description to be indicative of the problem with philosophy and responded, “the philosophers have only interpreted the world differently, what matters is to change it.”
In a memorable scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indy deduced that the final step across his treacherous path was a leap of faith. And so it is in Kierkegaard’s [wiki] theory of stages of life.
The final stage, the religious stage, requires passionate, subjective belief rather than objective proof, in the paradoxical and the absurd. So, what’s the absurd? That which Christianity asks us to accept as true, that God became man born of a virgin, suffered, died and was resurrected.
Abraham was the ultimate “knight of faith” according to Kierkegaard. Without doubt there is no faith, and so in a state of “fear and trembling” Abraham was willing to break the universal moral law against murder by agreeing to kill his own son, Isaac. God rewarded Abraham’s faith by providing a ram in place of Isaac for the sacrifice. Faith has its rewards, but it isn’t rational. It’s beyond reason. As Blaise Pascal said, “The heart has its reason which reason does not know.”
Well, you might not hear this one in a graduation speech, but you’ll probably hear it in college. Actually, Nietzsche [wiki] never issued this famous proclamation in his own voice but rather put the words in the mouth of a character he called the madman and later in the mouth of another character, Zarathustra.
Nevertheless, Nietzsche endorsed the words. “God is dead” is often mistaken as a statement of atheism. It is not, though Nietzsche himself was an atheist. “Dead” is metaphorical in this context, meaning belief in the God of Christianity is worn out, past its prime, and on the decline. God is lost as the center of life and the source of values. Nietzsche’s madman noted that himself came too soon. No doubt Nietzsche, too, thought he was ahead of his time in heralding this news.
Camus’ [wiki] solution to the philosophical problem was to recognize and embrace life’s absurdity. Suicide, though, remains an option if the absurdity becomes too much. Indeed Camus’ own death in a car crash was ambiguous. Was it an accident or suicide?
For Camus, the absurd hero is Sisyphus, a man from Greek mythology who is condemned by the gods for eternity to roll up a stone up a hill only to have it fall back again as it reaches the top. For Camus, Sisyphus typified all human beings: we must find a meaning in a world that is unresponsive or even hostile to us. Sisyphus, Camus believed, affirms life, choosing to go back down the hill and push the rock again each time. Camus wrote: “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s
heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
Heraclitus definitely isn’t alone here. His message was that reality is constantly changing it’s an ongoing process rather than a fixed and stable product. Buddhism shares a similar metaphysical view with the idea of annica, the claim that all reality is fleeting and impermanent.
In modern times Henri Bergson (1859 – 1941) described time as a process that is experienced. An hour waiting in line is different from an hour at play. Today contemporary physics lends credence to process philosophy with the realization that even apparently stable objects, like marble statues, are actually buzzing bunches of electrons and other subatomic particles deep down.
If you fumble with a philosopher’s name, nothing you say afterward will sound credible. So, learn to pronounce these names correctly, then start worrying about their ideas.
(George) Berkeley is properly pronounced like Charles Barkley (bark-lee). This name is commonly mispronounced “burk-lee” like Berkeley, California, which, ironically, is named after George Berkeley.
(Friedrich) Nietzsche is commonly mispronounced as “nee-chee.” The correct pronunciation is “nee-ch-ya” and rhymes with “pleased ta meetchya.” “Pleased ta meetchya, Neechya.” Say it!
Lao-tzu (born ca. 604 BCE) is spelled several different ways in English transliteration from the Chinese. But no matter how you spell it, the proper way to pronounce it is “lau” (sounds like “ouch”)-“dsuh”. The stress goes on the first syllable.
(Charles Sanders) Pierce Peirce (1839 – 1914) is commonly mispronounced as “peer-s.” The correct pronunciation is “purse,” which is somewhat funny because Pierce Peirce rarely had a penny in his purse. Oddly, Pierce Peirce took his middle name, Sanders, as an anglicized form of Santiago, or “St. James,” in honor of a fellow pragmatist, William James (1842 – 1910), who helped him out financially.
(Ludwig) Wittgenstein (1889 – 1951) is a name that demands authentic German pronunciation, and there are plenty of ways to slaughter it. Here’s one that embodies all of them, “wit-jen-steen.” The correct pronunciation is “vit” (rhymes with bit)-“ghen” (rhymes with ken)-“shtine.” The first name is pronounced “lude-vig.” If you think it’s hard to pronounce his name, try reading his Tractatus.
___________
From mental_floss’ book Condensed Knowledge: A deliciously Irreverent Guide to Feeling Smart Again, published in Neatorama with permission.
[Update 3/15/07: Original article written by William Irwin, associate professor of philosophy at King's College in Wilkes-Barre, PA.]
Be sure to visit mental_floss‘ extremely entertaining website and blog!
From the website:
A NASA astronaut is being held without bail after police say she attacked her rival for another astronaut’s attention at Orlando International Airport Monday.
Lisa Marie Nowak drove more than 12 hours from Texas to meet the 1 a.m. flight of a younger woman who had also been seeing the astronaut Nowak pined for, according to Orlando police.
Nowak — who was a mission specialist on a Space Shuttle Discovery flight last summer — was wearing a trench coat and wig and had a knife, BB pistol, and latex gloves in her car, reports show. They also found diapers, which Nowak said she used so she wouldn’t have to stop on the 1,000-mile drive. Reports show that after U.S. Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman’s flight arrived, Nowak followed her to the airport’s Blue Lot for long-term parking, tried to get into Shipman’s car and then doused her with pepper spray.
Link – via Boing Boing
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Rich Legg took this fantastic photo of a light bulb burning out:
What you are seeing is a capture of a lightbulb in the process of burning out. To create the shot, my friend Harley and I removed the glass enclosure of a standard household lightbulb (while leaving the innards intact) and powered it up in a pitch black room. The result was an immediate burn-out, which we were all too ready to photograph.
At favicon2dots, you can convert your website’s favicon [wiki] into 3D blocks: Link
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From Fogonazos:
The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed about 250.000 people and became the most dreadful slaughter of civilians in modern history. However, for many years there was a curious gap in the photographic records. Although the names of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were incised into our memories, there were few pictures to accompany them. Even today, the image in our minds is a mixture of devastated landscapes and shattered buildings. Shocking images of the ruins, but where were the victims?
The American occupation forces imposed strict censorship on Japan, prohibiting anything "that might, directly or by inference, disturb public tranquility" and used it to prohibit all pictures of the bombed cities. The pictures remained classified ‘top secret’ for many years. Some of the images have been published later by different means, but it’s not usual to see them all together. This is the horror they didn’t want us to see, and that we must NEVER forget.
Check out the photos (warning: they’re gruesome): Link
Neatorama reader Lauren Beukes wrote:
At our post-elopement afterparty, we asked all our ridiculously creative friends to customise a paper bird for us. The end results were gobsmackingly gorgeous.
One of my favourites is the skeleton/unzip bird, which has a zip running down the centre on one side, and on the other, a teeny bird skeleton. We also had beaded birds, smashed pottery birds with sparkler tails, several feathered birds, tin birds, a burned book bird (very Fahrenheit 411) and genius robot birds various.
The template was designed by South African artist Heather Moore especially for us and she’s given us permission to share the love, so if anyone wants to use our idea for their own celebrations, you can get the template from my flickr site.
Link [Flickr] | The Template - Thanks Lauren!
