25 October 2009
07 October 2009
03 October 2009
30 September 2009
28 September 2009
27 September 2009
How to add a USB port to your Alarm clock as a Power outlet
From Engadget.com is an article on How to Add USB power to your alarm clock, so that you can attach USB powered devices such as lights, etc. McGyver, eat yer heart out!
Movie Trailers
Mashup trailers for modern movies in the style of movies from the 40s and 50s:
I can't imagine how much work and time went into these! Pretty cool...
I can't imagine how much work and time went into these! Pretty cool...
25 September 2009
Helmet Cam of Being Buried in an Avalanche
A skier with a helmet cam gets caught in an avalanche.
Read the story here.
Avalanche Skier POV Helmet Cam Burial & Rescue in Haines, Alaska from Chappy on Vimeo.
Read the story here.
How to Cross the Ocean on a Freighter Ship
The romantic idea of crossing the ocean in a freighter ship, explained, from The Art of Manliness blog post.
At the Port of Long Beach, California, I boarded a freighter named the Punjab Senator. Twenty-two days later I got off the ship in Singapore after a winter crossing of the Pacific. This trip wasn’t for everyone, but it was definitely an adventure I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
If you’re tired of ho-hum traveling by plane and want to experience a trip aboard a freighter ship, here’s what you need to know to get started.
First Things First: Common Misconceptions About Freighter Travel
1. Freighter travel is a cheap alternative to flying on a plane. The popular old-school romantic notion of showing up penniless at a dock with a rucksack and then “earning” your passage by swabbing the decks will have to remain in Robert Louis Stevenson novels. Traveling on a freighter requires advanced booking and it is generally more expensive than flying. A fifteen day cruise from Oakland to Shanghai will cost about $2000 (US). When traveling on a freighter ship you are essentially paying for many days and nights of food and accommodation in addition to the transportation.
2. Freighter travel is similar to being on a cruise. The purpose of a cruise ship is to provide a relaxing and enjoyable time for everyone on board. The purpose of a freighter is to get cargo from point A to point B as quickly as possible. Cruise ships troll around tranquil seas, with stabilizers so that you barely know you are moving. Freighters haul at a breakneck pace across the open ocean, often through storms. A cruise will be populated with thousands of people, whereas a freighter is often a larger vessel with only 20 or so people on it. While a cruise ship has restaurants, spas, gymnasiums, and tons of activities, a freighter will have a TV with a DVD player, a radio, and if you’re lucky, an old Nautilus machine for working out.
3. You can ride a freighter from anywhere to anywhere. Most freighter ships follow well defined shipping routes and make stops at the large port cities (Long Beach, Oakland, Singapore, Hong Kong, Kaohsiung, etc.) But if your dream is to catch a freighter from the Jersey shore to Isla Mujeres, Mexico….it’s not going to happen.
Now that we’ve gone over the negatives, here’s how you can get started. There are several companies that book freighter cruises – just google freighter travel. I used www.freighterworld.com and I was extremely happy with them. If you browse the site you can get a good idea of the duration, cost, and ports that you can travel to and from. Their FAQ section contains a wealth of information. As a further affront to your Kerouac dreams of spontaneous adventure, you will have to book your passage at least a month in advance and proof of insurance is also necessary.
If you decide to go for it, here are some tips:
1. Bring Seabands. I had spent a significant amount of time on fishing boats, cruise ships, and sailboats without ever getting seasick. However, when the Punjab Senator cruised out of the Port of Oakland into the open Pacific, I felt my stomach turn. I used sea bands which are little wrist bands that exert pressure on your wrist to alleviate the effects of nausea. I am unsure if the seasickness was psychosomatic or real – the idea of trudging straight into the Pacific during winter was slightly unsettling – but the seabands definitely made me feel better when I was wearing them. During a storm, our ship hit a roll of 20 degrees, which is a tremendous amount of motion. The good news is that by the end of the trip I was able to sleep through motion that left my belongings scattered about my room.
2. Bring books. I am not a fast reader, but during this trip I completed some monster works by Dostoyevsky, Ayn Rand, Solzhenitsyn, and John Steinbeck. The ship had a good library, but many of the works were in German since the crew was mostly German. On a typical day I worked out twice, watched a DVD or two, wrote extensively, took two naps, ate three meals, and still had enough down time to finish four novels.
3. Understand that you must entertain yourself. On my ship the officers consisted of 7 Germans and 4 Russians, and the remainder of the crew consisted of 10 Kiribati. English is the language of the sea, but no one else on the boat was a native English speaker. Additionally, in spite of the friends I made on the ship, the seamen are there to work, and there were many times when everyone was too busy to hang out. At the majority of the ports we stopped at, I went to the shore alone because the entire crew was busy supervising the loading and unloading of cargo.
4. Special diets are not accommodated. The hardest part about freighter traveling (for me) was the food. As a passenger you eat with the officers-on my boat they were German and Russian. They ate a meat intensive, diet and I am a vegetarian. On land, it is never a problem for me to find acceptable cuisine anywhere, but in the galley you can’t simply choose somewhere else to eat. For me, that meant many weeks of eating cheese sandwiches. Thank goodness I brought a tub of peanut butter.
5. Know where your ship is. Some of the ports are HUGE, as in miles across…a seemingly endless maze of containers stacked four stories high. If you go onshore alone, it is much easier to get out of the port than it is to come back to the port to re-board. There are often several exits for a port and not knowing where to go can be extremely frustrating. I was lost in the port of Singapore for a significant amount of time trying to find my way back to my ship.
6. Freighter room etiquette. In general, the setting is informal and the rules are similar to college dorm room etiquette. If someone’s door is open, you are welcome to go in. If someone’s door is shut, they are either not there or they would like privacy.
In this article, I tended to focus on some of the negative aspects of freighter travel. To be best prepared, you should know about the difficulties. You don’t need instructions on how to drink gin and tonics while celebrating an International Date Line crossing. Overall, I really enjoyed the unique experience of freighter travel. I have an understanding and appreciation of the ocean I would not have otherwise. The informal atmosphere that allowed you to sit in the bridge while the first mate navigated was matchless. Finally, freighter travel gives some adventure street-cred that is tough to get. When you’re drinking a beer in Phnom Pehn, Cambodia and some backpacker asks you where you flew into, it feels pretty manly to look up and say, “I didn’t.”
The World of Yet Also
Never land.
(First published on Click Opera March 13th, 2005.)
One of the reasons the Michael Jackson trial is so unfortunate is that the world of Either-Or will pass judgment on a creature of Yet-Also. The world of clear, unambiguous categories will pass judgment on someone who flies Peter-Pan-like over the binaries that confine and define the rest of us.
When we look at Michael Jackson, I believe we're looking at the future of our species. Michael is a creature from a future in which we've all become more feminine, more consumerist, more postmodern, more artificial, more self-constructed and self-mediating, more playful, caring and talented than we are today. But it's hard to use those adjectives, because they're Either-Or adjectives and he's from the world of Yet-Also, a world I believe we will all come to live in if we're lucky, a world where there is no more authenticity-by-default-through-brute-necessity and no more "human nature". A world of pure synthesis, pure self-creation.
Jackson is what all humans will become if we develop further in the direction of postmodernism and self-mediation. He is what we'll become if we get both more Wildean and more Nietzschean. He's what we'll become only if we're lucky and avoid a new brutality based on overpopulation and competition for dwindling resources. By attacking Jackson and what he stands for -- the effete, the artificial, the ambiguous -- we make a certain kind of relatively benign future mapped out for ourselves into a Neverland, something forbidden, discredited, derided. When we should be deriding what passes for our normalcy -- war, waste, and the things we do en masse are the things that threaten us -- we end up deriding dandyism and deviance. And Jackson is the ultimate dandy and the ultimate deviant. He can fly across our Either-Or binaries, and never land. It's debateable whether he's the king of pop, but he's undoubtedly the king of Yet-Also.
Consider all the extraordinary ways in which Michael Jackson is Yet-Also. He's black yet also white. He's adult yet also a child. He's male yet also female. He's gay yet also straight. He has children, yet he's also never fucked their mothers. He's wearing a mask, yet he's also showing his real self. He's walking yet also sliding. He's guilty yet also innocent. He's American yet also global. He's sexual yet also sexless. He's immensely rich yet also bankrupt. He's Judy Garland yet also Andy Warhol. He's real yet also synthetic. He's crazy yet also sane, human yet also robot, from the present yet also from the future. He declares his songs heavensent, and yet he also constructs them himself. He's the luckiest man in the world yet the unluckiest. His work is play. He's bad, yet also good. He's blessed yet also cursed. He's alive, but only in theory.
There's one way in which Michael Jackson is not Yet-Also though. He's not famous yet also ordinary. Almost all the other stars in the world, the stars of Either-Or world, anyway, make an exception to Either-Or's categorical thinking in this one instance: given the choice between being either famous or ordinary, they all insist they're both. It's the one instance in which hardline Either-Ors will accept a Yet-Also answer. It's an answer they like because it fills the positions of talent with the representatives of the untalented. It affirms them as they currently are rather than challenging them to become something else. They want affirmation, not aspiration. They don't want their artists and celebrities to embody the values of worlds they don't understand. Ambiguous worlds, future worlds. They want to walk, not moonwalk, and they want their stars to walk too.
And so our creature of Never-Land will be judged by the creatures of Never-Fly. They will almost certainly throw him into jail. Their desire to see him as grounded, categorised and unfree as they themselves are is overwhelming. The grounded, situated, unfree creatures of Either-Or are baying for the clipping of fairy wings. Knives, hatchets and scissors glint in Neverland. There's an assembly of torch-bearing witchfinders. Peter Pan must be ushered back from fiction to reality, from the air to the ground. Back into a race, back into a gender, back into a confined clarity. Assuming he doesn't commit suicide, as he threatens in Martin Bashir's documentary, by jumping from a balcony, Jackson will be ushered away from the fuzzy subtle flicker states of our future, back to the solid states of our past and present. Either-Or will have its triumph over Yet-Also. Yet it will also, unknowingly, "triumph" over its own better future.
(First published on Click Opera March 13th, 2005.)
One of the reasons the Michael Jackson trial is so unfortunate is that the world of Either-Or will pass judgment on a creature of Yet-Also. The world of clear, unambiguous categories will pass judgment on someone who flies Peter-Pan-like over the binaries that confine and define the rest of us.
When we look at Michael Jackson, I believe we're looking at the future of our species. Michael is a creature from a future in which we've all become more feminine, more consumerist, more postmodern, more artificial, more self-constructed and self-mediating, more playful, caring and talented than we are today. But it's hard to use those adjectives, because they're Either-Or adjectives and he's from the world of Yet-Also, a world I believe we will all come to live in if we're lucky, a world where there is no more authenticity-by-default-through-brute-necessity and no more "human nature". A world of pure synthesis, pure self-creation.
Jackson is what all humans will become if we develop further in the direction of postmodernism and self-mediation. He is what we'll become if we get both more Wildean and more Nietzschean. He's what we'll become only if we're lucky and avoid a new brutality based on overpopulation and competition for dwindling resources. By attacking Jackson and what he stands for -- the effete, the artificial, the ambiguous -- we make a certain kind of relatively benign future mapped out for ourselves into a Neverland, something forbidden, discredited, derided. When we should be deriding what passes for our normalcy -- war, waste, and the things we do en masse are the things that threaten us -- we end up deriding dandyism and deviance. And Jackson is the ultimate dandy and the ultimate deviant. He can fly across our Either-Or binaries, and never land. It's debateable whether he's the king of pop, but he's undoubtedly the king of Yet-Also.
Consider all the extraordinary ways in which Michael Jackson is Yet-Also. He's black yet also white. He's adult yet also a child. He's male yet also female. He's gay yet also straight. He has children, yet he's also never fucked their mothers. He's wearing a mask, yet he's also showing his real self. He's walking yet also sliding. He's guilty yet also innocent. He's American yet also global. He's sexual yet also sexless. He's immensely rich yet also bankrupt. He's Judy Garland yet also Andy Warhol. He's real yet also synthetic. He's crazy yet also sane, human yet also robot, from the present yet also from the future. He declares his songs heavensent, and yet he also constructs them himself. He's the luckiest man in the world yet the unluckiest. His work is play. He's bad, yet also good. He's blessed yet also cursed. He's alive, but only in theory.
There's one way in which Michael Jackson is not Yet-Also though. He's not famous yet also ordinary. Almost all the other stars in the world, the stars of Either-Or world, anyway, make an exception to Either-Or's categorical thinking in this one instance: given the choice between being either famous or ordinary, they all insist they're both. It's the one instance in which hardline Either-Ors will accept a Yet-Also answer. It's an answer they like because it fills the positions of talent with the representatives of the untalented. It affirms them as they currently are rather than challenging them to become something else. They want affirmation, not aspiration. They don't want their artists and celebrities to embody the values of worlds they don't understand. Ambiguous worlds, future worlds. They want to walk, not moonwalk, and they want their stars to walk too.
And so our creature of Never-Land will be judged by the creatures of Never-Fly. They will almost certainly throw him into jail. Their desire to see him as grounded, categorised and unfree as they themselves are is overwhelming. The grounded, situated, unfree creatures of Either-Or are baying for the clipping of fairy wings. Knives, hatchets and scissors glint in Neverland. There's an assembly of torch-bearing witchfinders. Peter Pan must be ushered back from fiction to reality, from the air to the ground. Back into a race, back into a gender, back into a confined clarity. Assuming he doesn't commit suicide, as he threatens in Martin Bashir's documentary, by jumping from a balcony, Jackson will be ushered away from the fuzzy subtle flicker states of our future, back to the solid states of our past and present. Either-Or will have its triumph over Yet-Also. Yet it will also, unknowingly, "triumph" over its own better future.
24 September 2009
Show Caves of the Nouveau Riche
I came across the words of the title of this post in a post at i09.com but it really didn't satisfy my want to see show caves. I have long been interested in grottoes and hidden gardens of the rich.
The Wieliczka Salt Mines http://www.cyf-kr.edu.pl/krakow_i_okolice/?a=wieliczka
http://www.forestiere-historicalcenter.com/
http://www.bacchuscaves.com/Portfolio_mod-1.asp
http://io9.com/367910/show-caves-of-the-nouveau-riche
The Wieliczka Salt Mines http://www.cyf-kr.edu.pl/krakow_i_okolice/?a=wieliczkahttp://www.forestiere-historicalcenter.com/
http://www.bacchuscaves.com/Portfolio_mod-1.asp
http://io9.com/367910/show-caves-of-the-nouveau-riche
22 September 2009
13 September 2009
The Paper Architect
A pretty amazing set of structures made out of cutting paper by the artist Ingrid Siliakus.
via the Daily Icon blog.
via the Daily Icon blog.
05 September 2009
Chalk Stomp
Imagine the performers from Stomp were murdered and turned into chalk outlines, then animated with music from one of their performances. What you you get? This: http://uploads.ungrounded.net/221000/221483_Play.swf
04 September 2009
02 September 2009
Faster Evacuation? Put an obstacle at the exit.
It seems that wide open exits cause slower evacuations than an exit that is partially blocked according to an article in Scientific American:
If you find yourself in a crowded building during an emergency, perhaps the last thing you want to see is an obstructed exit. But a new study by a group of Japanese researchers shows that wide-open exits are not always the most efficient at speeding pedestrians through. A judiciously placed obstacle, such as a column, can actually reduce bottlenecking and evacuation times.
Daichi Yanagisawa, a graduate student in the School of Engineering at the University of Tokyo, and his colleagues examined various ways of reducing conflicts—friction, essentially—between individuals as they try to squeeze through an exit.
In research set to appear in the journal Physical Review E, Yanagisawa and his co-authors tested various theories using a model incorporating both the friction of conflicting pedestrians and the slowing effects of obstacles that they must circumnavigate. The researchers also ran evacuation drills with 50 human subjects working toward a narrow exit.
The research team found that the problem with wide-open spaces in front of exits is that evacuees can approach from all sides, allowing the maximum number of pedestrians to enter into conflict at the exit. Reducing exit access with an obstacle can pare down the severity of those conflicts. "When a proper obstacle is set up at an appropriate position in front of the exit," Yanagisawa says, "it blocks a pedestrian moving to the exit and decreases the number of pedestrians moving to the exit at the same time."
Not just any old obstacle will do, of course. Yanagisawa notes that its size, shape and orientation has to be tailored to the space and to the width of the exit itself. In general, however, off-center obstacles are more effective than those placed directly in front of an exit. "When an obstacle is set up at the center of the exit," Yanagisawa says, "it makes pedestrians detour and slows down the evacuation." An obstacle placed to one side, on the other hand, "decreases the probability and the impact of conflicts without making pedestrians detour a lot," he explains.
Andreas Schadschneider, a professor at the University of Cologne's Institute of Theoretical Physics in Germany who has studied pedestrian and traffic flows, says that the obstacle effect has popped up occasionally in the literature for several years. But the new work is, to his knowledge, the first time it has been empirically tested. "So, it no longer remains a vague theoretical prediction, but should be considered a serious effect that might be used for substantial increase in the safety of sports arenas and other large public buildings," Schadschneider says.
He adds that even empirical tests with human subjects cannot fully replicate the conditions of an evacuation, however. For one thing, real-world evacuees might be discouraged by the appearance of an obstacle and retreat toward a different exit, which could negate the obstacle's benefits. Real evacuation simulations are extremely difficult to carry out and can be extremely dangerous, Schadschneider says, pointing to a 2006 test of Airbus's A-380 aircraft in which one subject suffered a broken leg and dozens of others sustained lesser injuries.
The researchers also note that their model does not yet compensate for the intelligence of real-life pedestrians, and Yanagisawa cautions that the new results do not imply that building managers should start blockading fire exits. The findings, he says, merely suggest that researchers should start to "consider installing obstacles as one option which holds potential to shorten a total evacuation time."
If you find yourself in a crowded building during an emergency, perhaps the last thing you want to see is an obstructed exit. But a new study by a group of Japanese researchers shows that wide-open exits are not always the most efficient at speeding pedestrians through. A judiciously placed obstacle, such as a column, can actually reduce bottlenecking and evacuation times.
Daichi Yanagisawa, a graduate student in the School of Engineering at the University of Tokyo, and his colleagues examined various ways of reducing conflicts—friction, essentially—between individuals as they try to squeeze through an exit.
In research set to appear in the journal Physical Review E, Yanagisawa and his co-authors tested various theories using a model incorporating both the friction of conflicting pedestrians and the slowing effects of obstacles that they must circumnavigate. The researchers also ran evacuation drills with 50 human subjects working toward a narrow exit.
The research team found that the problem with wide-open spaces in front of exits is that evacuees can approach from all sides, allowing the maximum number of pedestrians to enter into conflict at the exit. Reducing exit access with an obstacle can pare down the severity of those conflicts. "When a proper obstacle is set up at an appropriate position in front of the exit," Yanagisawa says, "it blocks a pedestrian moving to the exit and decreases the number of pedestrians moving to the exit at the same time."
Not just any old obstacle will do, of course. Yanagisawa notes that its size, shape and orientation has to be tailored to the space and to the width of the exit itself. In general, however, off-center obstacles are more effective than those placed directly in front of an exit. "When an obstacle is set up at the center of the exit," Yanagisawa says, "it makes pedestrians detour and slows down the evacuation." An obstacle placed to one side, on the other hand, "decreases the probability and the impact of conflicts without making pedestrians detour a lot," he explains.
Andreas Schadschneider, a professor at the University of Cologne's Institute of Theoretical Physics in Germany who has studied pedestrian and traffic flows, says that the obstacle effect has popped up occasionally in the literature for several years. But the new work is, to his knowledge, the first time it has been empirically tested. "So, it no longer remains a vague theoretical prediction, but should be considered a serious effect that might be used for substantial increase in the safety of sports arenas and other large public buildings," Schadschneider says.
He adds that even empirical tests with human subjects cannot fully replicate the conditions of an evacuation, however. For one thing, real-world evacuees might be discouraged by the appearance of an obstacle and retreat toward a different exit, which could negate the obstacle's benefits. Real evacuation simulations are extremely difficult to carry out and can be extremely dangerous, Schadschneider says, pointing to a 2006 test of Airbus's A-380 aircraft in which one subject suffered a broken leg and dozens of others sustained lesser injuries.
The researchers also note that their model does not yet compensate for the intelligence of real-life pedestrians, and Yanagisawa cautions that the new results do not imply that building managers should start blockading fire exits. The findings, he says, merely suggest that researchers should start to "consider installing obstacles as one option which holds potential to shorten a total evacuation time."
01 September 2009
Spaceship Size comparison
comparison.gif (GIF Image, 2000x2000 pixels)
http://io9.com/5290455/the-evolution-of-space-cruiser-design-a-gallery
http://io9.com/5290455/the-evolution-of-space-cruiser-design-a-gallery
Swing Fail
If you are going to yell like Tarzan you better be ready to swing through the trees like Tarzan...
14 August 2009
A Stunning Shrimp Video
A species of shrimp stuns its prey using shock waves created by it's claw.
Wow!
Wow!
11 August 2009
09 August 2009
A Birthday Lesson
A guy becomes a human candle:
Maybe it was a subtle hint from his loved ones... ouch! (Either that or his family was a big fan of Michael Jackson's Pepsi commercial)
Maybe it was a subtle hint from his loved ones... ouch! (Either that or his family was a big fan of Michael Jackson's Pepsi commercial)
01 August 2009
Russian Dekotora
Some one is afraid of the dark... from English Russia.
For sure the owner of this highly modded Russian car would light his way up the Russian roads with so much additional stuff installed on the vehicle.
31 July 2009
See-Through, Light-Transmitting Concrete
A pretty cool article about concrete embedded with optic fiber that allows light to be transmitted through it all. From dornob.com:
Concrete has a sometimes-bad reputation as a harsh, rigid, cold-to-the-touch and straight-edged material. Litracon is doing a great deal to change that image of concrete through a score of creative and sustainable applications for their patented light-transmitting concrete.
Filled with optical fibers that run from one end of a poured piece of concrete to the other, these prefabricated blocks and panels effectively transmit light from one side to the other. Colors and light remain remarkably consistent from end to end, but with a natural variation from the pouring process that actually softens the effects considerably.
The fibers can transmit light to over 50 feet and, as they occupy only a small percentage of the total concrete block or panel, they do not significantly effect the structural capabilities of the poured pieces.
One could imagine all kinds of artistic as well as functional applications for this new-and-improved form of concrete. Daylighting possibilities abound and all with potentially much lower heat loss and cost and with greater durability.
Perhaps best of all it puts another broad-ranging, highly versatile material choice in an architect’s or builder’s structural tool kit – what designers do with this solid-but-see-through substance ultimately will probably surprise us all.
30 July 2009
The Ultimate Convertible
A Russian pilot flying a jet without a glass canopy for a film (I wonder which one!). CRAZY! From English Russia:
Those photos are real and were made during the filming of the Russian movie involving jet fighter stunts. In one episode they had to film the jet without a canopy, so rather to film it on the ground they decided to hire a high-class pilot to make a real flight without that glass thing. He had to take off a few times on such plane in order to film enough material to be included in the final footage.
“The maximum speed I achieved on the jet plane without a canopy glass was around two times greater than speed of sound. While on this speed I even managed to pull out my fingers in glove for an inch or two outside - it became heated very fast because of immense friction force plane undergoes with the air.“, writes the pilot.
“Usually such tests were conducted in winter time, so it was deadly cold without a canopy and I was pretty glad when this heating began, counting minutes before the plane would reach enough speed/velocity so that the air around becomes hot enough. But it wasn’t the main problem for me. In my personal rating of the dangers connected with such tests one of the most bad sides was the extreme roar. Because of this extreme roaring you couldn’t hear the radio so you were flying in deaf mode, you were afraid to pull throttle harder just because going faster was meaning going louder.“, he continues.
Harry Potter in Russia
Harry Potter's populartiy has sprung a lot of brazen imitators in Russia, as can be seen from this post from English Russia:
In Russia Harry Potter is popular too, in fact it was way too popular so some book publishing companies came up with their Harry Potter clones, trying to make it sound close to original even in naming the characters, so the most two popular ones were (and still are) the Porry Gatter with its first book “Porry Gatter and the Stoned Philosopher” - you can see it’s cover above, and the girlish series “Tanya Grotter” - like if Harry Potter was a girl (on the photo below).
Each series got a few sequels and got appreciated greatly by the readers.
Russian Helicopter Stunt
If this is real footage, then the chopper pilot has real brass balls. Saw the original video at English Russia, but there aren't any other details there either.
29 July 2009
Eccentricity
Someone at work called me "eccentric" the other day, so I guess this is what lies in my future.
The weird thing is -- I actually DO think this is kind of awesome, LOL.
The weird thing is -- I actually DO think this is kind of awesome, LOL.
28 July 2009
Stephen Barnett’s Photographic Sculpture
Stephen Barnett is showing his work at Papouli's (9 Hyatt Street) through until September 30, 2009. Stephen is an artist and a friend from Staten Island, so if you have some time, go show some love! Here is an example of his work, and the related press release:
25 Years: Photography and Sculpture Alike
Staten Island, New York: August 3, 2009 -Papouli’s, (9 Hyatt Street), is pleased to present Stephen Barnett’s quarter-century culminated thesis works of, Photographic Sculpture; which are manifestations of the symbiotic relationship between realism and formalism. These works play with the three-dimensional quality of a two-dimensional world. The exhibition will continue through until September 30, 2009.
This commemorative hallmark of Mr. Barnett’s work as an artist honors his perseverance in forging a new syntax into the language of visual art. These exhibited works represent his interpretation regarding, “the art of symbiosis; with nature and humanity both holding the familiarity that ultimately grounds the work,” said Mr. Barnett. “I begin with traditional Black and White film, processing, and printing of Silver-Gelatin Prints, which are the realist elements of the relationship. I then juxtapose the mounted and framed images with gestures of lattice-cut Poplar wood, then usually incorporate found objects, such as: rusted nails, bent wire, and hairpins. Occasionally, I will include a touch of color to draw a line or to highlight. These, ‘added materials,’ are the formalist elements, which spark a harmonized relationship between themselves and the traditional photographed images,” said Mr. Barnett. As a result, his work reminds us of the sentiment within the symbiotic relationship between Yin and Yang.
The project is made possible in part by a Staten Island Creative Communities Grant from the Council on the Arts & Humanities for Staten Island, and with public funding from the New York State Council on the Arts.
26 July 2009
Great Creations Of Bento Food Art
25 July 2009
Opportunities for Art in Stalled Sites
With many buildings slowed down or outright canceled by the economic downturn, there are a lot of vacant lots. Rather than leave these as scars in an urban context, some people have been proposing that they be used for interim art installations. One of these is a Sebastapol artist Ned Kahn who wants to turn an empty construction site at 535 Mission St. in San Francisco (one of the hardest hit markets for construction and development), now covered by gravel, into what he calls "Memory of Water" -- a lake bed of sorts, created by shimmering metal discs.
Kahn glimpsed the 535 Mission parcel, "the white field reminded me of Mono Lake ... what a cool opportunity to squander the better part of a city block on something useless but glimmering, for reasons of beauty and aesthetics."
This impulse translated into a scheme that would take the concave concrete seal on the excavated site and use it as the frame for what Kahn likens to "a trampoline for the wind, a soft and compliant surface."
Hooks along the perimeter of the cap would support a taut net of thin steel cables; that delicate grid in turn would brace a field of grainy metal discs that move independent of one another, the shimmer from a passing breeze likely to ripple across the rectangular lot.
The concept is distilled yet alive, one that if constructed would offer an ethereal counterpoint to the financial district swirl. And not just for pedestrians: "It'd be very entertaining for all the people in the buildings that look down" on the site, Kahn said. "There are a lot of eyes up there."
24 July 2009
John Pugh's Trompe l'oeil Murals
Some of these murals definitely fooled me! I particularly like the quote in the article that said firemen rushed to save the children from the wave before realizing it was a painting. That is verisimilitude! Taken from an article in The Daily Mail.
----------
At first glance, it looks as if some natural disaster has shaken away the walls of these buildings to reveal architecture hidden for thousands of years.
And at second and third glance, it looks like that too.
But these spectacular images are not the unexpected result of an earthquake.
The incredibly lifelike scenes are actually huge works of art, painted on the side of perfectly intact buildings. Even that woman peering into the ruin above is not real.
The paintings, which have fooled many, were created by John Pugh, who specializes in trompe l'oeil - or 'trick of the eye' - art. He uses his skills to delude the viewer into seeing 3D scenes painted on flat surfaces. The Californian-born artist said: 'It seems almost universal that people take delight in being visually tricked.'
His works can been seen all over the world, including in the artist's home state. The 'earthquake' work shown here is located on Main Street in the town of Los Gatos and was created following a genuine earthquake in 1989. The temple-like interior apparently exposed features jaguar gods, regarded as the creators of earthquakes by the Mayans.
Another picture is of Taylor Hall at the California State University, Chico, where Pugh studied. The mural features Doric-style Greek columns behind the seemingly shattered wall and is called Academe.
Another work, featuring a colossal wave about to crash on to a pavement in Honolulu, Hawaii, took two months of studio work to plan and a further six months to execute with the help of 11 other artists. Queen Lili'uokalani, the last monarch of the Hawaiian Islands with Duke Kahanamoku - the ultimate father of surf. The scene is so realistic that just as it was near completion, it attracted the attention of the fire brigade, which stopped its truck in the middle of traffic. Mr Pugh said: ''They jumped out to rescue the children in the mural. They got about 15 feet away and then doubled over laughing when they realized what it was.'
This is the desired effect and Pugh enjoys the community-bonding properties of his public works. He works on a large scale in public and residential areas and his paintings can be seen all over the world from New Zealand to Hawaii - with many telling a story of the area where they are positioned.
Pugh is used to people's amazed reactions when they pass his murals. He said: 'They say "wow did you see that. I thought that was real."
'Public art can link people together and stimulate a sense of pride within the community. These life-size illusions allow me to communicate with a very large audience. It seems almost universal that people take delight in being visually tricked.'
Pugh is currently working on a mural for a police station in California and also one for a recreation centre in Calgary, Canada.
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At first glance, it looks as if some natural disaster has shaken away the walls of these buildings to reveal architecture hidden for thousands of years.
And at second and third glance, it looks like that too.
But these spectacular images are not the unexpected result of an earthquake.
Treasure trove: An Egyptian style mural adorns a wall in Los Gatos, California. Pugh paints people into the mural to heighten the 3D effect
Greek tragedy: But the Doric-style columns apparently exposed in this university hall are nothing but paint.
The incredibly lifelike scenes are actually huge works of art, painted on the side of perfectly intact buildings. Even that woman peering into the ruin above is not real.
The paintings, which have fooled many, were created by John Pugh, who specializes in trompe l'oeil - or 'trick of the eye' - art. He uses his skills to delude the viewer into seeing 3D scenes painted on flat surfaces. The Californian-born artist said: 'It seems almost universal that people take delight in being visually tricked.'
His works can been seen all over the world, including in the artist's home state. The 'earthquake' work shown here is located on Main Street in the town of Los Gatos and was created following a genuine earthquake in 1989. The temple-like interior apparently exposed features jaguar gods, regarded as the creators of earthquakes by the Mayans.
Wonder wave: John Pugh's Mana Nalu mural in Honolulu. Fire crews rushed to save the children from the mighty wave - before realizing it was an optical illusion
Blurring the lines: A mural entitled Art Imitating Life Imitating Art Imitating Life, at the Cafe Trompe L'oeil, in San Jose, California
Another picture is of Taylor Hall at the California State University, Chico, where Pugh studied. The mural features Doric-style Greek columns behind the seemingly shattered wall and is called Academe.
Another work, featuring a colossal wave about to crash on to a pavement in Honolulu, Hawaii, took two months of studio work to plan and a further six months to execute with the help of 11 other artists. Queen Lili'uokalani, the last monarch of the Hawaiian Islands with Duke Kahanamoku - the ultimate father of surf. The scene is so realistic that just as it was near completion, it attracted the attention of the fire brigade, which stopped its truck in the middle of traffic. Mr Pugh said: ''They jumped out to rescue the children in the mural. They got about 15 feet away and then doubled over laughing when they realized what it was.'
Having a cow: Valentine's Day, a mural unveiled during the Global Mural Conference in Twentynine Palms, California
Trick of the eye: John inserts a passer-by into the mural painted in Santa Cruz, California, entitled Bay in a Bottle, who is watching the ocean scene
Take a pew: This looks like a nice spot to rest your weary feet on a sidewalk in Sarasota County Health Center, Florida
Artist's impression: John Pugh hard at work. He is currently working on murals for a police station in California and a recreation centre in Calgary, Canada.
This is the desired effect and Pugh enjoys the community-bonding properties of his public works. He works on a large scale in public and residential areas and his paintings can be seen all over the world from New Zealand to Hawaii - with many telling a story of the area where they are positioned.
Pugh is used to people's amazed reactions when they pass his murals. He said: 'They say "wow did you see that. I thought that was real."
'Public art can link people together and stimulate a sense of pride within the community. These life-size illusions allow me to communicate with a very large audience. It seems almost universal that people take delight in being visually tricked.'
Pugh is currently working on a mural for a police station in California and also one for a recreation centre in Calgary, Canada.
Typography for Lawyers
I have always enjoyed typography, and am a closet collector, and some times even a designer, of fonts. Typography for Lawyers is a great introduction to typography for those who have never really thought about how they construct their documents and how to improve relaying your message to your audience through something as simple as font choice and proper typography. It covers such personal pet peeves things as why no one should double space after periods anymore, why typing in all caps is bad and making that bold is worse, and many more. Highly recommended site for everyone, not just lawyers.
23 July 2009
17 July 2009
14 July 2009
A Home Cooked Meal for the Family
Until now, my blog hasn't shown much of my deep interest in cooking. Those who know me, know that I love to eat as well as cook, and I wanted to share the menu, and some pictures of the meal I made for my family this past Sunday. I hope also to post more of my eating and cooking adventures here in the future.
Having traveled widely, and being fortunate enough to live in New York, I have experienced a great deal of good food, and from that I became interested in cooking early on. A few times a year, though less frequently in the last few years because I haven't had the facilities to do so, I come up with a gourmet meal that pushes my abilities to cook, plate and serve a meal that aims to come as close to a high end restaurant meal as possible.
In the past, these meals have ranged from parties with as many as 16 diners with lots of "flair" (custom hand made invites and menus, floral arrangements, specialized place settings, etc.) to something far more intimate like the one this past Sunday with just my nuclear New York family where the other restaurant trappings are discarded and the focus is solely on the food.
We started off with three small dishes, really each an hors d’oeuvres / amuse bouche. The first was a variation of a dish created by José Andrés of Zaytinya in Washington, DC called "Pinchitos de tomate con sandia 'Ferran Adria'” or "Tomato and Watermelon Skewers 'Ferran Adria'."
As the name of the recipe states, the dish was itself inspired by Andrés' mentor, Ferran Adria, the chef at El Bulli in Spain and a pioneer in the world of molecular gastronomy. I put the dressing for these skewers in plastic pipettes, so that my diners could squeeze it into their mouths after first getting an uninterupted taste of the watermelon and tomato "filets" (the gelatinous seed packets that were bursting with tomato flavor).
The skewers were followed by Panko Crusted Meatballs Stuffed with Foie Gras.
These tasty mouthfuls were quite a crowd pleaser, though they did not quite meet my standards in terms of execution and presentation. in the future, I need to increase the heat during frying so that less of the foie gras dissolves before it is cooked, and I might consider dipping the meatball into a second coat of panko. I would also prefer these be served on a skewer for easier handling. For a first try though, they turned out well enough.
The last of the amuse bouche was a dish called Bacon and Eggs, which is a surprisingly simple dish from Thomas Keller's French Laundry.
The dish is a simple mouthful of just a soft poached quail egg, some bacon, and a little brunoise (a micro-dice of carrots, turnips and leeks) all arranged on a spoon, and yet the taste is quite magical.
Another celebrity chef in the world of molecular gastronomy is Grant Achatz of the Chicago restaurant Alinea. I had the good fortune of dining there a couple of years ago, and it is a truly amazing experience which challenges a diner's very concept of how and what to eat to the edge. A more luxurious version of this soup, called Hot Potato Cold Potato, is served at Alinea where they have the ability to make the soup with a base of black truffle stock, and serve with a bit of black truffle, all arranged and served on custom made serving pieces.
I was unable to find fresh black truffle at several of the gourmet stores I went to when shopping for this meal (it's the Great Recession, stupid!), so I substituted a fresh Morel mushroom from Oregon instead. What is not clear from the picture is that the cold soup, a truffled mushroom and potato cream, is served with a hunk of black truffle butter which is under the cube of Parmasean cheese at the center of the photo. The hot potato spheres provide a surprising contrast in temperature for the diner.
Somewhat unusually, I chose to stick fairly closely to published recipes for this meal rather than come up with original recipes, in part because I had a limited amount of time to come up with my menu. However, the next course was something that I put together myself after refining the recipe from a dinner for my mother's friends in St. Petersburg, FL. This dish, Diver scallops with caramelized banana, bacon, thyme, smoked sea salt and grapefruit, is seen here before the final presentation was put together.
I have had a healthy interest in smoking things over the last few years, and one of the new toys that I came across recently is called The Smoking Gun made by a company called PolyScience. The compact handheld unit allows you to create a good quantity of smoke to apply directly to foods. I used the unit to add a bit of extra smokiness to this dish as well as a good deal of drama and diner interaction by pumping smoke into a glass dome (a.k.a. an inverted wine glass) that covered the scallop before serving.
I like the fact that the diner is presented with a dish that is at first shielded from full view by the shroud of smoke under the glass, then is treated to a burst of smoke for the senses when the uncover the dish to reveal what is inside, and finally gets to taste the flavor of the smoke as a part of the dish. As a personal recipe, the dish still requires a good deal more refining, but it was definitely coming closer to what I wanted. My uncle mentioned that this was like a genie in a bottle, which is an interesting idea for a name for the dish.
The next course was a Roulade of Duck Breast with Creamed White Sweet Corn and Morel Mushroom Sauce, another French Laundry recipe, which I very much enjoyed. The photo shows the dish just before it was finished with a glaze and some black Hawai'ian sea salt.
The dish was simple in its ingredients, pleasing to the eye, and tasted fantastic, with lots of good contrast in flavors.
For the next course, I made a small portion of Seared Salmon with Salmon Skin Chicharon that was based on something I had tried well over a decade or more ago from Chef Michael Trama.
At this point, dinner was to continue with the final course, Porcini Encrusted Lamb, but even with the far smaller portions that I had prepared compared to what I would prepare for other parties, my diners were already quite satiated, so I skipped this course (more for me over the next few days!). It is interesting to note that our family, a family known for its great appetites, has matured and continues to winnow down portion sizes as we all are increasingly conscious of our health.
No meal would be complete without a salad, but rather than the normal leafy greens, I wanted to use it as a palate cleanser between the main course and dessert.
To that end I presented my guests with this frozen salad of spinach, romaine lettuce, and arugula with a sherry and walnut vinaigrette. This tart entre'act definitely cleansed the palate quickly, but also challenges everything you know and expect from a salad from its ice cold temperature, to it crunchy crystal texture.
To bring the meal to a close I served a Chocolate meringue cake with Rose Cream andRose Granitas.
In terms of presentation, this was the dish I was least happy with. The flavors in the dessert were astounding, but to me the dish needs some serious revamping to make it as pleasing to the eye as it was to the palate. In making the dish however, I did gain quite a bit of knowledge about what is possible with and how to handle chocolate couveture.
In making dessert I also encountered an interesting thing: Heavy Cream that fails to whip into whipped cream. After searching around the internet a little, apparently this is something that happens. There seems to be no real idea why this occasionally happens, though some posit that it happens more with ultra-pasteurized heavy cream. I checked the carton yesterday, and sure enough it was ultra-pasteurized, though that is not enough to convince me that that is the issue. The brand, Tuscan, is one I haven't used before for heavy cream, but it didn't look like there should have been an issue.
My guests enjoyed the meal, both in terms of taste, and in terms of being entertained by the novelty of many of the dishes. Watching them be entertained by the final preparation of the dishes in the kitchen and then enjoying the results at the table was a great reward for me, and made all the hard work definitely worth the while!
My guests enjoyed the meal, both in terms of taste, and in terms of being entertained by the novelty of many of the dishes. Watching them be entertained by the final preparation of the dishes in the kitchen and then enjoying the results at the table was a great reward for me, and made all the hard work definitely worth the while!
09 July 2009
Tallinn City Hall
Some pictures and text from various sources of the winner of the competition for the City Hall of Tallinn, Estonia, which I think looks pretty fantastic.
These images are from the Architechnophilia blog:
![[BIG+Tallinn+City+Hall+3.jpg]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NjNaVK75Wp8/SkOCdC3kC6I/AAAAAAAABDw/JJfqW6CRp-o/s1600/BIG%2BTallinn%2BCity%2BHall%2B3.jpg)
![[BIG+Tallinn+City+Hall.jpg]](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NjNaVK75Wp8/SkN-TQF0Y_I/AAAAAAAABDo/PGcpwE1SydI/s1600/BIG%2BTallinn%2BCity%2BHall.jpg)
![[BIG+Tallinn+City+Hall+2.jpg]](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_NjNaVK75Wp8/SkN99RHxbXI/AAAAAAAABDg/hSWp0D6oJw4/s1600/BIG%2BTallinn%2BCity%2BHall%2B2.jpg)
The Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) came to the design through the principle of rationalized organization with a focus on maximizing natural lighting by breaking up the building function into small blocks allowing courtyards to be created at various levels as well opening up the ground floor as an extension of the city.
These images from the AMNP Blog:
These images are from the Architechnophilia blog:
![[BIG+Tallinn+City+Hall+3.jpg]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NjNaVK75Wp8/SkOCdC3kC6I/AAAAAAAABDw/JJfqW6CRp-o/s1600-h/BIG+Tallinn+City+Hall+3.jpg)
The Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) came to the design through the principle of rationalized organization with a focus on maximizing natural lighting by breaking up the building function into small blocks allowing courtyards to be created at various levels as well opening up the ground floor as an extension of the city.
These images from the AMNP Blog:
The cluster of volumes houses different administrative offices which interconnect to form atria and courtyard spaces that connect to more public plazas surrounding the structure.
From BIG: The design emphasizes openness, and connections with the surrounding city. Located within the tower/spire shown, the city council looks out onto the city and outdoor public spaces - while at the same time, those outside can get a glimpse at the inner workings or the city’s government. To give those inside, and out, a better/more interesting view, the ceiling of the tower is to be tiled with a reflective surface - creating a kind of ‘periscope’ effect. This gives the city council a reflection of the city overhead - maybe a constant reminder of who/what they’re working for - and possibly gives the average citizen the ability to look in on meetings as they’re taking place, as if looking over the shoulders of their representatives.
The SKIRA yearbook of architecture blog:
08 July 2009
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