My Blog

I must admit that, having played the game and paid the price, this Valentine’s Day (business) affair is all good by me. But what they don’t tell you on those cheerful cards is that Saint Valentine was eventually imprisoned, beaten, stoned, and beheaded. Swedes got it right, they call the day Alla hjärtans dag, or Day of all hearts. Sounds much safer, right? Right.

The Known Universe takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang. Every star, planet, and quasar seen in the film is possible because of the world’s most complete four-dimensional map of the universe, the Digital Universe Atlas that is maintained and updated by astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History.

Back on the 4th of February of 2006, this blog, in its current configuration, debuted. It has been an interesting ride, even with the two year hiatus in between. Looking now at the blog statistics, we’ve had 218 unique users in the last 24 hours. And that is quite an accomplishment for something that started more as a personal exercise than anything else. I feel happy for this acomplishment. Thank you to all you readers.

Oh, and my friends got me cake today. With candles. Few things beat cake with candles as a surprise. Having friends does.

CONFORMITY
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.

Artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot devotes himself to transforming the visual world into sound. Underneath you can see an example of precisely that. To tell you the truth, if I didn’t know any better I would believe Frank Zappa had reincarnated as a bird.

“I hope to hell that when I do die somebody has the sense to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetary. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you’re dead? Nobody.”

(J.D. Salinger)

PS: J.D. Salinger has died at age 91.

In 1998, Mark Osborne created what is considered by many to be one of the best short movies ever made. It is called MORE, and brings us the tale of an inventor who lives in a drab, colorless world. The soundtrack, Elegia, is another masterpiece, and was written mid-eighties by New Order in memory of late Ian Curtis.

Color printers are everywhere, nowadays. We no longer think much about them. We just click the print button (or press the CTRL+P keys, as some do), and wait for the results. But what would you say if we could print a 3D object, wait, and after some time be able to hold it in our hands, with (more or less) the same ease as we print a photo?

Yes, technology has progressed to that point. And, courtesy of Paulo Kiefe, from Creative Tools, had access to a ZPrinter 650 from Z Corporation, and was able to try it for myself. We chose a violin model, to test the limits of the device. It was expected that the bow and strings would be tremendously thin due to the scale of the model, so it was fun to see how it would come out. The entire process lasted around two hours, and included preparing the 3D model in a graphic workstation. It must be said that half of that time was waiting for the model to dry out.

Enjoy a sample of the photos. And if you hover over them you will be able to read some captions, by the way.

(click to zoom)

Each year, John Brockman of Edge.org asks a question of a number of science, tech, and media personalities, and compiles the answers. This year’s question: “How is the internet changing the way you think?“. Lots of gratifying responses that make for great reading, from interesting people: Kevin Kelly, Jaron Lanier, Linda Stone, George Dyson, Danny Hillis, Esther Dyson, Tim O’Reilly, Doug Rushkoff, Jesse Dylan, Richard Dawkins, Alan Alda, Brian Eno, and many more.

(Katinka Matson, Question 2010)