Sky

Sky
Originally uploaded by metamerist.

Video Game Sound Quiz

I got 14/18.

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(ht: brainwagon)

Arkitus

Interesting Flash experiments...

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I’m for Demosthenes

"When Aeschines spoke, they said, 'How well he speaks.' But when Demosthenes spoke, they said, 'Let us march against Philip.' I’m for Demosthenes." -- David Ogilvy

What Bugs See

Most insects have bichromatic vision. Bees and butterflies have trichromatic vision like we do. Frequency response curves can be seen here. Because bugs see UV light, they see things we can't.

I found the site naturfotograf.com via del.icio.us. It has a lot of cool UV pictures of flowers that can give you a better idea of what bugs see.

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Fotoopa

An interesting photography site. Speeding bullets, high speed breakage, flying insects and other fun stuff.

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Prime Lime

I arrived home and found this Andrew King original on the wall.

Three cheers for Mrs. Metamerist!

Music

Songs I've been listening to lately...

Amazing Life - Jem
The Irish Keep Gate-Crashing - The Thrills
Don't Steal Our Sun - The Thrills
Deckchairs and Cigarettes - The Thrills
Run - Snow Patrol
Last Clown - Turin Brakes
Fishing For a Dream - Turin Breaks
Make No Sound - Gomez
Just the Girl - The Click Five
Good Day - The Click Five
Frame By Frame - The Honorary Title
Bridge and Tunnel - The Honorary Title
Breathe (2AM) - Anna Nalick
Novocaine For the Soul - The Eels
I Need Some Sleep - The Eels
Where's Bill Grundy Now? - Television Personalities
World - Mint Royale
I Want Wind to Blow - The Microphones

Sand Machinery

Sand Machinery
Originally uploaded by metamerist.

"It's Nice to See You're Copying Our Stuff"

Microsoft alpha blogger meets Steve Jobs.

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Paul Graham

Maybe it's been up for a while, but I just discovered it. Paul Graham's latest essay: What Business Can Learn From Open Source

Shoes that Glow in the Dark

Back in the good old days (in this case, 1920s-1950s) kids in shoe stores used to x-ray their own feet to make sure their shoes fit properly. By today's standards letting little Johnny wriggle his toes under a steady stream of radiation might seem a little imprudent, but these were the good old days. I mean, there's nothing worse than shoes that are too tight. What's a little radiation? It might even clear up the Athlete's Foot.

Until recently, I'd never actually seen the shoe store fluoroscopes, but they have one on display now in an exhibit at the Minnesota Science Museum (alongside all sorts of other wacky medical gadgets and phrenological devices). Here's a shot I took of it (after masking and adding a drop shadow). Notice the little slot on the bottom where the kids put their feet. The main viewer is in the middle. The two on the sides are for other observers (presumably one for Mommy or Daddy and the other for Al Bundy: shoe salesman / radiologist).


The interesting story about this baby is that it was actually in use in a Madison, West Virginia department store until 1981. Once word got around that they are dangerous and illegal, the store turned the device over to the FDA.

The exhibit included this handy chart of the roentgens per hour this baby leaked out at various distances.

Spider

Spider
Originally uploaded by metamerist.

On the Road

Over the weekend, I managed to find time for the first five chapters of Roger Penrose's Road to Reality. On the spectrum from pamphlet to thick-enough-to-stun-an-ox, it's closer to the ox side, so I purchased it with a certain sense of "as if" resignation (there are too many thin books time hasn't given me the luxury of finishing).

As far as it goes, I'm really enjoying the book, its insightful examples and interesting tidbits from the history of mathematics. For example, I'd never heard the story of Girolamo Saccheri's role in the development of hyperbolic geometry.

"It would seem that Saccheri himself must have ultimately thought his life's work a failure, constituting merely an unfulfilled attempt to prove the parallel postulate by showing that the hypothesis that the angle sum of every triangle is less than two right angles led to a contradiction... But in striving for it he, in effect, found something far greater: a new geometry, different from that of Euclid." (p. 42)

I can't help thinking of this poor old chap lying on an 18th century death bed pulling a mathematical George Bailey, thoroughly oblivious to the significance of his work. Bummer.

The Art of Science

The results of the first annual Art of Science Competition at Princeton.

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Faking the Lomo Effect

An old Kottke post I stumbled upon...

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Bauhaus - Archiv Museum of Design

"The Bauhaus Archive / Museum of Design in Berlin is concerned with the research and presentation of the history and impact of the Bauhaus (1919-1933)..."

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Ouch!

When Roger Ebert gets going...

"[She] is so remarkably uninformed that she should sue the public schools of Abilene, Texas, or maybe they should sue her. On the day he won his seventh Tour de France, not many people could say, as she did, that they had no idea who Lance Armstrong was."

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Andrew King

Drawn! is nearing pole position in my RSS reader. Kudos to a blog very well done! Highlighted today, Andrew King's transition from syndicated cartooning to fine art. New to me, I welcome his wry minimalism. I love the piece above titled Hockey Night in Canada. Here's a link to his site: Andrew King.

Katinka Matson

"What's new, however, is the technology that Katinka Matson uses to make her pictures. Instead of oilpaints or a camera she uses a regular scanner. And because the light scanning of such an office machine eliminates even the easiest distortion, she develops a naturalistic effect, which questions our way of seeing, because our eyes have long adjusted themselves long ago to the distortions of photo and movie cameras."

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(ht:Edge)

Logophiles

The other night it was Word Wars, a documentary covering the lives of SCRABBLE fiends going to the National Championship. There's nothing like an ethnography full of quirky characters, and this is the best I've seen since Trekkies. Running 80 minutes, it's a good choice when you don't barely have time for a movie.

Anything Else But the Truth

Lately, listening to Anything Else But the Truth by The Honorary Title. Check out this track, Bridge and Tunnel. Also, the track Frame by Frame, if you can find a sample. Sometimes lead singer Jarrod Gorbel's vocals remind me a little of Wheat, and maybe there's no rational reason whatsoever for it, but the guitar of Frame by Frame leaves me recalling New Order's Age of Consent.

Blogeometry

Geometry Junkyard curator David Eppstein has a new blog, 0xDE.

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(ht: Geomblog, Computational Complexity)

Interestingness

I feel a little slow on the draw with this one, but Flickr added a cool new Explore feature apparently based on tag clustering. If you want cat noses, they've got 'em.

Green Bicycle

Green Bicycle
Originally uploaded by metamerist.

particletree

"Particletree is the beginning of something. This place, this collection of knowledge, is a gathering of forces, a sharpening of skills. We believe both web applications and learning about how to create web applications can always be better. Because we know how hard it is to find information on the web that's both valuable and lucid, we're going to do our part to create and showcase ideas and resources that exemplify both."

Nice site in terms of layout and content.

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(ht: evhead)

Images of Aggregation

"These works come from a study of organic natural forms and their relationship to simple mathematical rules."

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(ht: spot blog)

information aesthetics

"inspired by Manovich's definition of information aesthetics, this weblog explores the symbiotic relationship between creative design and the field of information visualization, in an emergent multidisciplinary field what could be coined as 'creative information visualization'."

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(ht: kwc)

SIGGRAPH 2005 Blog Coverage

SIGGRAPH Blog Coverage is available at Millimeter.

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A Slideshow for Charlie Kaufman

Normy took a picture of his screen, and then Normy took a picture of himself looking at the picture of his screen, and then Kaddy took a picture of Kaddy looking at Normy looking at the picture he took of his screen, and then Yer Sister took a picture, and Tasken, and so on. It all makes for a cool Flickr slideshow.

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(ht: CrookedTimber)