Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Beautiful Mathematics

At Random Website  I came across a site called uncontrol. Uncontrol is dedicated to mathematical image creation. That is images that are created by formulas. The above is part of an experiment in making a "wormy shape".

Monday, February 27, 2012

Broadcast Engineers Get Higher (video is available again)

One time in my youth my friends and I climbed a tower, that is to say they climbed a ladder contained within the tower and I didn't. I am not ashamed to write that this video made me scared, and physically sick. At the thread at AH.com where I got this video, This guy gets so high it has me scared, the link to the video merely said, "This link may not be suitable for all viewers". I was expecting something about Charlie Sheen, like the very funny Charlie Sheen Quotes As New Yorker Cartoons.

Looking at this I know how right I was to have some fear of heights. Acrophobia is not an irrational fear when you see the climbing conditions that these engineers have to deal with. A couple of years I blogged about a guy walking the Caminito del Rey, Extreme Hiking. That was pretty scary but this is worse. The other video was about an amazing trail this many people walk once as an adventure from their regular lives. This video is about guy doing something as part of his "regular life".


Video from Russel Brown of/at TheOnLineEngineer.Org.

Update 2012/2/11
Unfortunately the video is offline.
The image above is a frame grab from the video
showing the curve of the earth.

Update 
I have rediscovered this video, only the video,
 somebody took it and added "Spirit in the Sky".

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Pejorative Terms for Geologists

Gravel Monkeys
and
Geo loving Feldspar Jockeys

Dr Sheldon Cooper,
The Big Bang Theory S05E17

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Alternative Washingtons



In the movie Fatherland 1960's Berlin was furnished with buildings designed, but not built, by Speer. Not to compare the two capitals but here is alternative but here is a short video of alternate designs for Washington.

(link from oshronin in AH.com in 

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Rick Santorum Promotes Heavy Metal to Today's Teens

News reports, actually one blogger,  have him denouncing heavy metal as "satanic".  He goes on to condemn "new' bands such as Black Sabbath (founded 1969). This is probably satire, highly plausible satire. However Santorum (NSFW) is known for taking extreme positions. 

This is the best thing that has happened to Heavy Metal for a long time.

Modern Day Russians Build German Panzer


When WWII war movies were made in the immediate decades afterwards there was enough existing materiel to provide for many movies. Catch-22, filmed in the late '60s, found enough working, flyable B-25, to fill a squadron. This was beyond military surplus that dressed their set. Other movies were made with authentic equipment to save money not stress realism. Now such film must be shot as period pieces with nearly everything reproduced at enormous cost and bother. 

A Russian film about the Great Patriotic War/Eastern Front is being made, here is their webpage in Russian. They can find enough T34s to use, 90K were built. But only a little more than 1300 Tigers were built. They had to build their own Tiger I. They built a panzer.

Friday, February 10, 2012

Dancing as Athletics

Here is a spare little ad highlighting the principal dancer at the National Ballet of Canada. This ballet company like many other national institutions in Canada is from Toronto. The late animation touches and the subject matter brings to mind Norman McLaren's Pas de Deux.

Monday, February 06, 2012

Friends and Allies

Are we to be friends then?
Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham


We are allies, my dear. Which can be a good deal more effective.
Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham

Friday, February 03, 2012

Thursday, February 02, 2012

One Line Description of Jobs the Monster

...Jobs could be charming to people he hated as easily as could be insulting to people he liked.

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

Bad Pun from Romney

“I saw the young man over there with eggs Benedict, with hollandaise sauce,” he said. “And I was going to suggest to you that you serve your eggs with hollandaise sauce in hubcaps. Because there’s no plates like chrome for the hollandaise.”


from Dana Milbank article in
The Washington Post,
A day of awkwardness with Mitt Romney.