Mind-Bending archetecture

"Venice Architecture Biennale: Dutch architects NL present this series of images in the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale."
(From De Zene)

For example :

What if airliners flew in the same V-formation as most birds?



And how would YOU feel if you saw THIS coming at you down the highway?


These are just two small snapshots of the complete works, which are all very well-done and really cool to look and think about. See the full images here :
http://www.dezeen.com/2008/09/12/virtual-realities-by-nl-architects/

Lolcat of the day!

more animals

See-Through Skyscraper

The folks over at the New York Times caught this photo of 7 World Trade Center almost completely disappearing into the New York Skyline.

Check out the full-size photo and article here
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/the-see-through-skyscraper/

Summer!

Summer Time from Mars on Vimeo.

"Exploded iPod"

"I love exploded diagrams of objects where you see every piece of the thing. I had the idea to try and make a real life version of one, and picked my iPod to be the victim. The catch was, I wanted it to work even in its exploded form." ~ Billy Chasen, exploded iPod creator.

Take a look at more photos of this iPod (which STILL works) here
http://anerroroccurredwhileprocessingthisdirective.com/2007/11/10/
exploded-ipod-still-works/

Models dress up as lamps for art exhibit

Unfortunately I haven't been able to find much more information on this yet, other then this one link and image.

" Artist Marianne Maric has dressed up models in lamps and switches for her display in Nancy, France."

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=234230&in_page_id=34

When I find more information on this, I'll post an update.

Really cool airplane cabin photos!

Ever wondered what the pilots see while coming in for a landing at a busy airport?
Isn't it just the worst to find out you've got the window seat, then realize that the wing blocks your view of anything interesting?

Take a look at this list of 10 really cool photos of airplane cabins in different situations - from night landings like the image above (by Ismael Jorda, link inlcuded in the top 10 list), to acrobatic airplanes with nothing but the ground above and the sky below (upside-down).

View the top 10 list, along with links to the original images here
http://www.canadabizmart.com/bootstrapper/collection/spectacular-cockpit-photos/

Steam at Night

View full-size image here
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=198946

Photo by AndrewBlaszczyk

"Part II of my "K4's from Above" series. While the others chose to set up their tripods on the ground, the photographer took the opportunity of being inside the gates to climb up PRR 6755, the M1b 'Mountain' locomotive. With very few flat surfaces on the top of the locomotive, a shirt and a hoodie would be used to sturdy the camera."

Lego Artist Repairs Holes in Italian Walls - with Lego blocks

"...Artist and lego enthusiast Jan Vormann went around the quiet little town of Bocchignano, Italy filling its decrepit walls with lego pieces. The work was done as part of an Italian group project “20 Eventi.” A group of artists developed projects in the Sabina region to create a open-air museum that spans four villages."

Information (and ofc more photos) from here
http://gizmodo.com/5014234/artist-repairs-walls-in-italy-with-lego-bricks

more cat pictures

New York City Waterfalls

"The New York City Waterfalls was conceived by artist Olafur Eliasson.
Eliasson was born in Copenhagen in 1967, and grew up in both
Iceland and Denmark. He attended the Royal Danish Academy of
Fine Arts in Copenhagen and currently divides his time between
his family home in Copenhagen and his studio in Berlin. Throughout
his career, he has taken inspiration from natural elements and
phenomena to create sculptures and installations that evoke
sensory experiences. "

"What inspired Olafur Eliasson to make the Waterfalls and to
build them in New York City?

Olafur Eliasson has been traveling to New York since he was a
student in the late 1980s, and he is inspired by the waterways that
surround and flow through the City. The Waterfalls address his
interest in highlighting our relationship to our environment. The New
York City Waterfalls integrate the spectacular beauty of nature into
the urban landscape on a dramatic scale. While Eliasson has built
waterfalls before, he has never created them on such a grand scale. "


Read more about the four man-made waterfalls (pumping almost 2 million gallons of East River water each day), where you can see them, why and how they were made, and where you can view them from here

http://www.nycwaterfalls.org/

(All quotes and images from http://www.nycwaterfalls.org/ )

Tricked-out golf carts

Time for a little bit of an "automotive" link here :P
I found this blog with even examples of cool golf cat modifications, like the firetruck below
(from http://www.streetrodproductions.com/firetruck.php )


Check out the other examples (including a bentley, a bus, a Hummer, and more) here
http://jalopnik.com/396587/
hot-rods-fire-trucks-and-more-seven-crazy-golf-cart-mods

more cat pictures

"A Segscellent adventure"

I found this really neat article about Segways, and one reporters journey to learn to ride one on a tour of Baltimore.

I've posted the intoduction to the article, read the rest (and view the photos) in the link.

"Throughout history, mankind's lust for locomotion has propelled many an extravagant invention. In His Infinite Wisdom, God gave man two legs and unprecedented bipedalism, allowing man to literally rise above his quadrupedal ancestors. But then man said to the Lord, "eh, shove it, Pops," and sated his inner-speed demon. He tamed and rode horses; he designed wheels and popped mad wheelies; he egregiously underpaid some folks to build railroads. Then, in 1919, he wrought the Pogo Stick, which has since reigned as the undisputed King of Transportation.

Until now.

The future of travel is here, friends, and its name is Segway. Did you know that these two-wheeled, counterbalanced godsends have arrived in Charm City, thanks to a futuristic company known as Segs in the City? Did you know that for $45, you can experience the future today? And did you know that Metromix had the cojones to pay me to ride one of these things around, despite my well-known ties to the Official Society of Pogo Stick Enthusiasts?

These facts, and others equally useless, await you just beyond the precipice of the present. Join me for the journey of a lifetime, or at least the journey of a lunch break, as I infiltrate this forward-thinking cabal. Call it a segsual rite of passage. They made me wear a helmet, but you, dear reader, can go without."

Read the rest here
http://baltimore.metromix.com/events/article/a-segscellent-adventure/464422/content

Rain! (photos)

The windows in the kitchen - its not blurry, thats how hard the rain was falling and streaking down the glass.


Safe to say we got just a little bit of rain the other day. . .
So, as usual, I grabbed my camera, and shot a few photos.
Not the best, but I'm happy enough with the results. It was too dark to do much more anyways, and I didn't exactly have all evening to spend shooting photos of the rain.



The view out my front door. ^




The rain coming down on the old pickup outside the kitchen door ^

Life-size baloon characters

As usual, I was doing my trolling of the internet for random links, and I stumbled upon this guy, who does life-size ballon figures - like Elvis, Master Chief (from Halo), and Mario.





View more photos of his work here
http://www.balloonguyentertainment.biz/Archives/FeaturedImages/html/0.htm

Visit his website here
http://www.balloonguyentertainment.biz/

View Earthrise from Mars

"The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera would make a great backyard telescope for viewing Mars, and we can also use it at Mars to view other planets. This is an image of Earth and the moon, acquired on October 3, 2007, by the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

At the time the image was taken, Earth was 142 million kilometers (88 million miles) from Mars, giving the HiRISE image a scale of 142 kilometers (88 miles) per pixel, an Earth diameter of about 90 pixels and a moon diameter of 24 pixels. The phase angle is 98 degrees, which means that less than half of the disk of the Earth and the disk of the moon have direct illumination. We could image Earth and moon at full disk illumination only when they are on the opposite side of the sun from Mars, but then the range would be much greater and the image would show less detail.

. . .

On the Earth image we can make out the west coast outline of South America at lower right, although the clouds are the dominant features. These clouds are so bright, compared with the moon, that they are saturated in the HiRISE images. In fact the red-filter image was almost completely saturated, the Blue-Green image had significant saturation, and the brightest clouds were saturated in the infrared image. This color image required a fair amount of processing to make a nice-looking release. The moon image is unsaturated but brightened relative to Earth for this composite. The lunar images are useful for calibration of the camera."


It may not look like much, but on that one tiny blue and green orb exists all six billion or so of us - and has existed, as far as we know, every human being ever made/created/evolved/whatevered. Everything that we know, and everything that we ever have known is contained on that little sphere.

Whats even more amazing is that twelve people from that little blue-green orb in the bottom left have actually managed to travel through space and walk on the surface of the moon, all the way on the other side of the picture. If that isn't amazing, then I don't know what is.


Image, caption, and full-size photo from
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/
multimedia/mro20080303earth.html

Lolcat of the Day

more cat pictures

The Lolcats explain the difference between color, grayscale, and matte.

19 Famous Photos - in LEGO

"Recreation of Henri Cartier-Bresson's "Behind the Gare Saint Lazare" in Lego"

Photo (above, and in link) by Flikr member Balakov.
View the other 18 images here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/balakov/sets/72157602602191858/

In Honnor of the long weekend. . .

"Men of War"
22 images from Time Magazine depicting soldiers from the past 100 years.

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1682713_1483727,00.html



I'll get back to doing daily updates soon, I need to get some blog readership before I run myself out of posts, although I keep finding new things, and I've got a good-sized reserve of interesting things saved on my computer for future use.