Tuesday, January 31, 2012

after the dentist January 31st 2012



Flying People in New York City

Cat on a subwoofer


Beckham, a Brittany Spaniel, Discovers a Door Stop



Optical trick
Instructions: 1. Stare at the red dot on the girl’s nose for 30 seconds. 2. Turn your eyes to a plain surface (your ceiling or blank wall). 3. Blink repeatedly and quickly. 4. WTF!

A dog sleeping with his KITTENS

love on the beach fantasy, January 31st 2012


Ok, this is one of my recent favorite awww mixed with tears of laughter videos. A romance between a donkey and a dog on the beach. 
And the dog looks a lot like my late and much loved, little dog, Norbu. 

The First Woman To Go 'Round The World Did It As A Man (Fascinating reading about a botanist, adventurer, French woman, Jeanne, in the 1700's. Loved the tidbit about Bougainvillea.)

Recycled Coke bottle trumpet in Mexico


How to build an igloo - A Boy Among Polar Bears - BBC

Another instant house, this one in Mongolia, The Nomad's Ger,
with cool Tuvan throat singing background music




Cool way to do work 


90's Megamix


This is what a scientist looks like. (Great blog showing that real life scientists do NOT look like the clichéd idea of how a scientist is supposed to look.)

Glass harp final fantasy

A homeless man creates a €1.4billion house

The Best Game Of Tennis Ever?

Oh yay, finally a young person on the hippie hating topic


That amazing building is the Borgund Stave Church in Norway. About 900 years old.

About Borgund Stave. There are quite a few stave churches in Norway. After seeing this amazing building I was curious about the history of Christianity in Norway.
A panoramic view of Borgund Stave

Monday, January 30, 2012

in the middle of the night, January 30th 2012

The French photographer, Laurent Laveder, specializes in image of the sky, especially the night sky. What a wonderful work. One of his series of pictures is called Moon Games. Some of those images are below. He has a great online gallery of pictures, a feast of blissful photographs, called PixHeaven, with mostly pictures of the sky.













Friday, January 27, 2012

Thursday January 27th 2012



Motion sensitive art by Tim Lewis. This creation, which looks like a glove ostrich, is called Pony.



Even the lowly worm, such a simple sentient being I thought before this, can be an amazing communicator! (I wonder if they have a hundred different words for earth?)
These small, transparent roundworms have a highly evolved language -- they combine chemical fragments to create precise molecular messages that control social behavior
(These worms are called  Caenorhabditis elegans. They must have been named elegant for some good reason.) But where is their brain? Or do they communicate without one? 




Okay, so Eskimos do not really have 100 different words for snow. But this guy made some up. Very funny.

The Eskimos' Hundred Words for Snow

by Phil James


tlapa           powder snow
tlacringit      snow that is crusted on the surface
kayi            drifting snow
tlapat          still snow
klin            remembered snow
naklin          forgotten snow
tlamo           snow that falls in large wet flakes
tlatim          snow that falls in small flakes
tlaslo          snow that falls slowly
tlapinti        snow that falls quickly
kripya          snow that has melted and refrozen
tliyel          snow that has been marked by wolves
tliyelin        snow that has been marked by Eskimos
blotla          blowing snow
pactla          snow that has been packed down
hiryla          snow in beards
wa-ter          melted snow
tlayinq         snow mixed with mud
quinaya         snow mixed with Husky shit
quinyaya        snow mixed with the shit of a lead dog
slimtla         snow that is crusted on top but soft underneath
kriplyana       snow that looks blue in the early morning
puntla          a mouthful of snow because you fibbed
allatla         baked snow
fritla          fried snow
gristla         deep fried snow
MacTla          snow burgers
jatla           snow between your fingers or toes, or in groin-folds
dinliltla       little balls of snow that cling to Husky fur
sulitlana       green snow
mentlana        pink snow
tidtla          snow used for cleaning
ertla           snow used by Eskimo teenagers for exquisite erotic rituals
kriyantli       snow bricks
hahatla         small packages of snow given as gag gifts
semtla          partially melted snow
ontla           snow on objects
intla           snow that has drifted indoors
shlim           slush
warintla        snow used to make Eskimo daiquiris
mextla          snow used to make Eskimo Margaritas
penstla         the idea of snow
mortla          snow mounded on dead bodies
ylaipi          tomorrow's snow
nylaipin        the snows of yesteryear ("neiges d'antan")
pritla          our children's snow
nootlin         snow that doesn't stick
rotlana         quickly accumulating snow
skriniya        snow that never reaches the ground
bluwid          snow that's shaken down from objects in the wind
tlanid          snow that's shaken down and then mixes with sky-falling snow
ever-tla        a spirit made from mashed fermented snow,
  popular among Eskimo men
talini          snow angels
priyakli        snow that looks like it's falling upward
chiup           snow that makes halos
blontla         snow that's shaken off in the mudroom
tlalman         snow sold to German tourists
tlalam          snow sold to American tourists
tlanip          snow sold to Japanese tourists
protla          snow packed around caribou meat
attla           snow that as it falls seems to create nice pictures
  in the air
sotla           snow sparkling with sunlight
tlun            snow sparkling with moonlight
astrila         snow sparkling with starlight
clim            snow sparkling with flashlight or headlight
tlapi           summer snow
krikaya         snow mixed with breath
ashtla          expected snow that's wagered on (depth, size of flakes)
huantla         special snow rolled into "snow reefers" and smoked
  by wild Eskimo youth
tla-na-na       snow mixed with the sound of old rock and roll
  from a portable radio
depptla         a small snowball, preserved in Lucite, that had been handled
  by Johnny Depp
trinkyi         first snow of the year
tronkyin        last snow of the year
shiya           snow at dawn
katiyana        night snow
tlinro          snow vapor
nyik            snow with flakes of widely varying size
ragnitla        two snowfalls at once, creating moire patterns
akitla          snow falling on water
privtla         snow melting in the spring rain
chahatlin       snow that makes a sizzling sound as it falls on water
hootlin         snow that makes a hissing sound as the
  individual flakes brush
geltla          snow dollars
briktla         good building snow
striktla        snow that's no good for building
erolinyat       snow drifts containing the imprint of crazy lovers
chachat         swirling snow that drives you nuts
krotla          snow that blinds you
tlarin          snow that can be sculpted into the delicate corsages
  Eskimo girls pin to their whale parkas at prom time
motla           snow in the mouth
sotla           snow in the south
maxtla          snow that hides the whole village
tlayopi         snow drifts you fall into and die
truyi           avalanche of snow
tlapripta       snow that burns your scalp and eyelids
carpitla        snow glazed with ice
tla             ordinary snow

Lips of Babel - multilingual tongue twisters in lipstick


Awwww. Smitty must watch Marmaduke


Intense, funny, cat peekaboo



Whoa. Ready for something REALLY trippy!?
Stare at the center for 20 seconds, then look away. 
Ooooooooh. The world is all wavvvvvy.


Right on doll protestors! Occupy Barnaul, Siberia!
Police in Siberia are going nuts over dolls being used to protest. Dolls.

View Larger Map
Police in Siberian city ask prosecutors to investigate legality of protest involving display of toy figures holding miniature placards



Enjoyed this Reddit thread: I understand how mass is converted into energy (nuclear bomb), but how is energy converted into matter? 



a little kid holding a little kid

As a Buckyballs (ooh, new Buckycubes!) fanatic I loved this vid
How to make an EXPLODING Zen Magnet Top



One of my fave vids, love the graphics and amazing song/singing


A 96-year-old Samuel J. Seymour appeared on the TV game show I've Got A Secret in 1956 with a doozy of a secret. At age five, he witnessed the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and still managed to stay away from cigarettes.




Okay, when I was a kid, growing up in Jamaica (age 4-1/2 to almost 9 years old), I started to get a Jamaican accent. The ex-momster was terrified I'd sound like a local, so she bullied me daily into AR-TIC-U-LAT-ING each consonant, each damn syllable, until I ended up sounding like frikking Mary Poppins or some ridiculous version of Mrs. Doubtfire. But anyway, I came across this vid and this is what I suppose I would have sounded like, if I'd stayed in Jamaica and not come to NYC in 1962, because not only all the black people I knew in Jamaica sounded like this but almost all the white people too.


It's from this cool collection: 4 Eco-Friendly Inventions You May Not Know Exist



Ultra Mapping. Fascinating graphics. Way cool for map lovers.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

pillow talk, mid-winter reveries January 22nd 2012

It's an Albrecht Dürer  Six Pillows kind of day here in Hell's Kitchen, this mid-Winter afternoon.




A moving song I've been listening to all afternoon
Fleet Foxes - Montezuma

"So now I am older than my mother and father
when they had their daughter
now what does that say about me


Oh how could I dream of such a selfless and true love
could I wash my hands of
just looking out for me?

Oh man what I used to be
Oh man oh my oh me
Oh man what I used to be
Oh man oh my oh me

In dearth or in excess 
both the slave and the empress
will return to the dirt, I guess, naked as when they came

i wonder if I'll see any faces above me
or just cracks in the ceiling
nobody else to blame?

Oh man what I used to be
Oh man oh my oh me
Oh man that I used to be
Oh man oh my oh me

Gold teeth and gold jewelry
every piece of your dowry
throw them into the tomb with me
bury them with my name

Unless i have someday
Ran my wandering mind away

Oh man what i used to be
Montezuma to Tripoli
Oh man oh my oh me"



Favorite video of the day, a bird lands on a singer mid-concert and he enjoys it a lot
Josh Williams - Mordecai



More about I Gusti Nyoman Lempad, that 116 year old man

More about the wonderful Lorne Blair, who created that film about  I Gusti Nyoman Lempad, one of the creators of the astounding film, Ring of Fire: An Indonesian Odyssey

I love the art by Lorne Blair's life partner, Sophia Anastasia, who I have not met but imagine we have many Bali friends in common

Love this video of hers, which reminds me of Escher's Three Worlds

Three Worlds by M. C. Escher

Okay on to various things around the world...



Archery - Fast Shooting (Murmansk)


It's Vihart again. I love how she looks into the heart of the ways things work in the universe...
Doodling in Math: Spirals, Fibonacci, and Being a Plant [Part 3 of 3]


Doodling in Math Class: Spirals, Fibonacci, and Being a Plant [2 of 3]


Doodling in Math: Spirals, Fibonacci, and Being a Plant [1 of 3]


Fearless Man Riding His Motorcycle On Top Of The Mountain


Most needles threaded with the mouth in one minute


Snow Kite Boarder Goes 200+ Feet High CRAZY!


SpiderRider


Dear reader, please be politically pro-active for cyber rights: Stop ACTA!
Acta explained



A fabulous archive of Historical Anatomies on the Web

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Moiré, January 21th 2012





"In physics, a moiré pattern is an interference pattern created, for example, when two grids are overlaid at an angle, or when they have slightly different mesh sizes. The term originates from moire, a type of textile, traditionally of silk but now also of cotton or synthetic fiber, with a rippled or ‘watered’ appearance."




To see this moire circle animated, go to this link and hold your cursor over the image.


http://www.cutoutfoldup.com (lots of fun stuff to check out)



To see the moire circle above animated (really cool), go to this link and hold your cursor over the image.







Paul Nylander
Julie Oppermann
A wonderful blog page to check out:
 Watered Silk or Moire




Another great blog page:
The history of moire fabric





"The History of Art...." inner boards, with green watered (moire') silk endpapers and inset inner-board panels; wide dentelles with four widely-spaced gilt rules, and a further double-rule at board edges. © Jeff Stikeman



http://ascaniotrojani.posterous.com/bibliodyssey-marbled-paper-designs