It’s hard to bargle nawdle zous with all these marbles in my mouth.

—  Weird Al Yankovic

Information Curation

Sept. 30, 2011

 

Looking for Hidden Treasure

You Have to Polish It Yourself

You Have to Polish It Yourself

Historically, the two main types of obstacles to information discovery have been barriers of awareness, which encompass all the information we can’t access because we simply don’t know about its existence in the first place, and barriers of accessibility, which refer to the information we do know is out there but remains outside of our practical, infrastructural or legal reach.  What the digital convergence has done is solve the latter, by bringing much previously inaccessible information into the public domain, made the former worse in the process, by increasing the net amount of information available to us and thus creating a wealth of information we can’t humanly be aware of due to our cognitive and temporal limitations, and added a 3rd barrier — a barrier of motivation.  Information curators cross-pollinate accessibility and access, availability and actionability, guiding people to smart, interesting, culturally relevant content that “rots away” in some digital archive, just like its analogue versions used to in the basement of some library, museum, or university.  Knowledge is not a lean-back process; it’s a lean-into activity.  Just because public domain content is online and indexed doesn’t mean people will ever discover it and engage in it.  We can’t outsource curiosity, the highest form of motivation.  And curiosity is the gateway to access.  Someone who simply shares a link to a beautiful illuminated manuscript from the 13th century might grab your ephemeral attention for a moment of visual delight, but someone who shares it in the context of how it relates to today, bridges your curiosity and your motivations to truly engage you with the content.  [This is the direction I prefer FlatRock to go – but the time needed to research, correlate, and deduce generally eludes me.]


The Top 10 Countries Using Geothermal Energy (highest to lowest):

United States   Philippines     Indonesia       Mexico          Italy           New Zealand      Iceland         Japan          El Salvador     Kenya          

The US is the leader by far in geothermal energy countries, and in 2010 its 77 power plants produced a total of 3,086 megawatts of installed capacity.  A geothermal field in California called The Geysers holds the largest cluster of geothermal power plants on Earth.  The second country after the US is the Philippines, with an online capacity of 1,904 megawatts.  About 18% of the total electricity generated in the Philippines comes from geothermal power.  You may not have expect Kenya to have made this list, but this country is at the forefront in Africa when it comes to renewable energy.  24 countries currently produce power geothermally, but there are currently 70 countries that have geothermal projects under consideration.

Venezuela is #4 in the list of oil exporting countries to the US, after Canada, Saudi Arabia and Mexico, at more than 900,000 barrels a day.  Just below Venezuela in the rank of oil exporting countries to the US, is Nigeria.  Nigerian oil is known for its excellent quality, perfect for producing high grade gasoline.  But the good news ends there.  Behind Somalia, it is officially the most corrupt country in Africa.  Militants sometimes attack oil refineries and kidnap foreign oil workers.  These local militias and are heavily armed.  Most people in the business consider this source of oil to be particularly unstable.  The 6th biggest oil exporter to the US, with about half a million barrels a day, is Iraq.  Many pundits believe Iraq will break up in the next few years, as violence between different ethnic groups continues.  The combination of external interference and internal fragmentation is unfortunately leading this country to the scrap heap — another huge exporter of oil to the US which is incredibly unstable.


Strokkur

The Resting Crater

The Resting Crater

A Second before Eruption

A Second before Eruption

A Bubble Forms

A Bubble Forms
The Boiling Begins

The Boiling Begins

The Eruption Begins

The Eruption Begins

The Eruption Gathers Force

The Eruption Gathers Force

About a 2-hour drive from Reykjavik, Iceland is a geothermal area called Geysir after the most famous hot spring there.  (The English word geyser is drawn from the name of this hot spring, which means “gusher”.)  Today, Geysir lies dormant but a smaller geyser beside it named Strokkur is currently active and sends its contents to the sky regularly.  Strokkur (Icelandic for “churn” or “piston”) erupts regularly every 4-8 minutes.  Strokkur has a long history of activity, beginning in 1789, after an earthquake unblocked the plumbing system of the geyser.  After another earthquake in 1896, it subsided completely, but again rallied somewhat in 1907, yet not to its previous glorious state.  But by 1920, it had expired again.  On the recommendation of the Geysir committee, in 1963, a 40-metre-deep hole was drilled from the bottom of its basin, after which it has spouted (or at least squirted merrily) ever since.  Water at a depth of 23 metres (75 feet) is around 120°C, but cannot boil because of the weight of the water pushing down on it from above.  When this water is forced up to around 16 metres (52 feet), some of the water may be above the boiling point, which sets off a chain reaction: the pressure decrease allows more water to boil and flash boil into steam, which drives the unboiled water further up the conduit.  As this happens closer and closer to the surface, with increasing velocity, the water and steam is forced out.  It’s this mixture of water and steam that forms the eruption.

 

The Peak

The Peak

Every few minutes it does this?


This photo was taken on 26 September 2009 in Papa`anui Ahupua`a, Kula, Hawaii, USA.  For a huge version, go here.  I thought it must be from an airplane or balloon, but no.  Did the photographer climb to the top?  With his gear?  (Perhaps there’s a gondola?)

What might it feel like to fly over the earth?  Millions of people have viewed a variation of this video on YouTube.  (Perhaps it has been broadcast on tv as well — I wouldn’t know anything about that.)  This version has been “smoothed” so it isn’t jerky but is otherwise the same.  The reason I feel it’s worth watching (more than once) is because of the dynamic view it gives of global lightning (the large white splotches to the right in the picture).  The lightning bolts look like neurons firing.


Caves Big and Small

Big Sur, California

Big Sur, California

Devetashka Cave, Bulgaria

Devetashka Cave, Bulgaria

Phraya Nakhon, Thailand

Phraya Nakhon, Thailand

  • Pfeiffer Beach is one of the favourite beaches in all of Big Sur.  To help keep it secluded, there are no signs from the main highway.  Getting there involves an extremely acute turn onto a mostly single-track road that meanders for a few miles to the trailhead.  The big attraction for photographers is a rock formation just beyond the low-water line that is pierced by a square-cut arch.  In winter, the setting sun aligns to cast a shaft of light through the arch highlighting (depending on the tide) the breaking surf or the sandy beach.  Even at the right time of year, much depends upon the particular conditions of weather and sea.  In November 2009, the sky was clear, a heavy surf was running, and sunset coincided with high tide.  As each wave hit the rock it would completely fill the arch, transiently blocking the sun, but then leave a fine mist that became beautifully backlit.  This is a composite, created by blending 3 successive exposures of a single wave.
  • Devetashka Cave is situated 18 kilometres northeast of Lovech, between the villages of Doirentsi and Devetaki in Bulgaria.  It was discovered in 1921 — one of the biggest caves in Europe.  In 1996, the cave was officially made a nature landmark.  The cave is impressive with its enormous size.  This natural phenomenon is about 1,500 metres long and has a huge entrance (35 metres high and 55 metres wide).  The cave has 11 underground lakes and beautiful cave formations.  One of the ceiling openings (41 metres high) is used for bungee jumps inside the cave.  According to archæological research, it has sheltered people since the late Paleolithic era.
  • Kuha Karuhas pavilion, located inside the Phraya Nakhon cave, in the Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park, in Prachuap Khiri Khan Province, located 300 kilometres south of Bankok, Thailand.  There are a couple of natural ventilation holes in the roof of the cave that allow sunlight to enter.  The pavilion was built in 1890.  The park was established in 1966, the first coastal national park of Thailand.  The name Khao Sam Roi Yot means “Mountains with 300 Peaks”, which describes the landscape of the park quite well.  The limestone hills rise directly at the shore of the Gulf of Thailand.  It was probably the site where King Mongkut convened with European guests on 18 August 1868 to observe a total solar eclipse.  The king was very interested in astronomy and had correctly calculated the date and location of the eclipse himself.  However he contracted malaria during that event, and died shortly thereafter.


Ficus benjamina, often sold in stores as just “ficus”, is a species of fig tree native to south and southeast Asia and Australia.  It’s a topiary tree reaching 30 metres (98 feet) tall in natural conditions, with gracefully drooping branchlets and glossy leaves.  In its native range, its small fruit are a favourite food of birds such fruit-doves and pigeons.  It’s a popular houseplant in temperate areas due to its elegant growth and tolerance of poor growing conditions; it does best where it’s bright and sunny but will also tolerate considerable shade.  It requires a moderate amount of watering in summer and only enough to keep it from drying out in winter.  The plant is sensitive to cold and should be protected from strong draft.  The leaves are sensitive to small changes in light — when it’s turned around or relocated it reacts by dropping many of its leaves and replacing them with new ones adapted to the new light conditions.  It effectively filters indoor air toxins.  The United States Forest Service states: “Roots grow rapidly, invading gardens, growing under and lifting sidewalks, patios, and driveways.”  They conclude its use in tree form is much too large for residential planting and it should only be used as a hedge or clipped screen or else grown outdoors in a large pot.  I have one outside in a large pot which is doing quite well.  I recently contemplated digging a hole and planting it in the garden.  Perhaps I’ll hold off.  Indefinitely.  (It’s penetrative root system does mean it is seldom blown over.)

The Great Smoky Mountains in the spring.  I don’t know what kind of tree this is, however, it probably won’t matter to anyone.  Unless it’s a sourwood tree and there are bees nearby.  In my opinion, sourwood honey is the best in the world.  Others must think so, too as it’s won “Best Honey in the World” twice at the presitigious Apimondia World Honey Show — but if you don’t live in the area (upland forests of southern Pennsylvania to northern Georgia), you’ve probably never tasted it. It’s so rare that years can go by between good crops.  I bought every bit I could find while I lived in North Carolina and it lasted us for years.  To me, no other honey comes close.


Living Tunnels

Entrance to the Castle

Entrance to the Castle

Wisteria Walk

Wisteria Walk

The Dark Hedges

The Dark Hedges
Tunnel of Trees

Tunnel of Trees

Misty River

Misty River

The Canal du Midi

The Canal du Midi

  • I could find nothing about this photo (and I really tried).  But notice that I included it anyway.
  • The wisteria walk at Hermannshof in Weinheim, Germany, 1995.  The walk is 75 yards of Wisteria floribunda Macrobotrys longissima.
  • On the wild and beautiful North coast of Northern Ireland.
  • Characteristic of the scenic roads in St Remy, France.
  • This is the Medina River in the Texas hill country.  The weather was drizzling with fog in the distant riverbed.
  • In the south of France just outside Beziers in Languedoc.  The canal was constructed in the 17th century as a shortcut from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic in order to avoid the long sea voyage around hostile Spain in pirate-infested waters.  It was built by a rich farmer from the Languedoc region and opened in May of 1681.  The canal has 103 locks that raise or lower traffic as necessary.


This is a time-lapse video of a tomato plant growing.  You may initially file that into the same category as “watching paint dry” (as I did when first asked to watch it).  But there’s a bit of the same feeling as watching a fire — you can learn something about the underlying nature of a tomato plant (there’s a rhythm to the growth spurts) or maybe just learn something about certain classes of plants in general.  The value of that infomation is uncertain.  (Meaning?  Could be a waste of time but at the least has some amusement value.)

Niagra Falls does sometimes freeze.  Click on the photo for a large image where you can notice the women’s hats, especially the one on the right.  Women’s hats were a good indication of social status or class.  This is one wealthy family, from back when most of the money flowed upward.  There was a small middle class (doctors were the low end of the wealthy, for example), and everyone else was working to survive.  In a pre-FDR world, the 90% or so of “everyone else” disappears, since the subjects (or heroes) are usually upper class in one of its flavours.  The family in the picture likely had money to travel.  And notice that despite the abundance of ice visible, water can still be seen flowing over the falls.  Only once in recorded history has freezing weather actually stopped water from flowing over the falls.  This instance occurred in March 1848, when a preponderance of ice above the falls reduced the flow of water over the falls to a trickle.  As reported in the Buffalo Express newspaper: “The Falls of Niagara can be compared to nothing but a mere mill dam this morning.  In the memory of the oldest inhabitants, never was there so little water running over Niagara’s awful precipice, as at this moment!  Hundreds of people are now witnessing that which never has, and probably never may again be witnessed on the Niagara River.  Last night at 11 o’clock the factories fed from the waters of this majestic river were in full operation, and at 12 o’clock the water was shut off, the wheels suddenly ceased their revolutions, and everything was hushed into silence.  Various are the conjectures as to the cause, the most reasonable of which is that Lake Erie must be making a grand delivery of ice, and the Niagara, although large, is not quite enough to take in the whole at once.”  Much of the Niagara River around the falls was frozen in early 1912 (presumably about when this picture was made) resulting in tragedy when an ice bridge across the river broke free from its shoring as several people were traversing it.  Three people were unable to make it back to shore and were killed as the loosened ice plunged down the river.


Ceiba Trees

Tree in Frankfurt Germany

Tree in Frankfurt Germany

Tree in Andalusia, Spain

Tree in Andalusia, Spain
Tree in Southern California

Tree in Southern California

Tree in Madeira, Portugal

Tree in Madeira, Portugal

The silk floss tree, Ceiba speciosa, is a species of deciduous tree native to the tropical and subtropical forests of South America.  It is also called the palo borracho (in Spanish literally “drunken stick”).  It belongs to the same family as the baobab and kapok.  Its natural habitat is the northeast of Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and southern Brazil.  Resistant to drought and moderate cold, it grows in spurts when water is abundant, sometimes reaching more than 25 metres (82 feet) in height.  Its trunk is bottle-shaped, generally bulging in its lower third, measuring up to 2 metres (7 feet) in girth.  It is studded with thick conical prickles which store water for dry times.  In younger trees, the trunk is green due to chlorophyll, making it capable of performing photosynthesis when leaves are absent; with age it turns to gray.  Branches are horizontal, also prickled.  Fruits are pods 20 centimetres (8 inches) long, containing bean-sized black seeds surrounded by a mass of fibrous, fluff like cotton or silk; although not of as good a quality as that of the kapok tree, silk floss is used as stuffing for pillows and thermic insulation.  The wood is light, soft and flexible; it’s employed in packaging, to make canoes, as wood pulp for paper, and for ropes.  From seeds comes vegetable oil (both edible and industrial).


I sit in one of the dives
On 52nd Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade.

— W H Auden, “1 September 1939”

If Auden were around today looking back at the events of 11 September 2001 and considering both the decade that preceded it and the one that followed, he might be tempted to label both the 1990s and the first decades of the 21st century “low dishonest decades.”  The line “We must love one another or die” that concludes Auden’s poem, was deleted from The Collected Poetry of W H Auden, published in 1945.  In fact, Auden would come to distance himself from the entire poem — he came to regard it as trash he was “ashamed to have written.”

The Jones case (Do the police need a warrant to attach a GPS device to a suspect’s car and track its movements for weeks at a time?) requires the Supreme Court to decide whether modern technology has turned law enforcement into Big Brother, able to monitor and record every move we make outside our homes,” said Susan Freiwald, law professor.  “Repeated visits to a church, gym, bar or bookie tell a story not told by any single visit, as does one’s not visiting any of those places in the course of a month,” wrote Judge Douglas H Ginsburg.  He added: “A person who knows all of another’s travel can deduce whether he is a weekly churchgoer, a heavy drinker, a regular at the gym, an unfaithful husband, an outpatient receiving medical treatment, an associate of particular individuals or political groups — and not just one such fact about a person, but all such facts.” Judge Richard A Posner was cautious regarding institutionalised mass surveillance.  Magistrate Judge James Orenstein of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn wrote last year, “Technology has progressed to the point where a person who wishes to partake in the social, cultural and political affairs of our society has no realistic choice but to expose to others, if not to the public as a whole, a broad range of conduct and communications that would previously have been deemed unquestionably private.”  The Supreme Court warned that “24-hour surveillance of any citizen of the country” using “dragnet-type law enforcement practices” may violate the Fourth Amendment.  A decade ago, the Supreme Court ruled that the police needed a warrant to use thermal imaging technology to measure heat emanating from a home.  The sanctity of the home is at the core of what the Fourth Amendment protects, and imaging technology had not been in widespread use at the time.  But Justice Scalia has observed, “It would be foolish to contend that the degree of privacy secured to citizens by the Fourth Amendment has been entirely unaffected by the advance of technology.”


Wadi Rum, Jordan

Satellite View Wadi Rum

Satellite View Wadi Rum

From Atop Rum Mountain

From Atop Rum Mountain

Khazali Ravine

Khazali Ravine

In southwestern Jordan lies an unusual landscape.  Mountains of granite and sandstone rise next to valleys filled with red sand.  Some of the mountains reach a height of about 1,700 metres (5,600 feet) above sea level and many have near-vertical slopes.  So alien is this landscape, it’s nicknamed “Valley of the Moon,” and it has served as the film set for a movie about Mars.  Yet nomadic people have lived here for thousands of years.  Declared a protected area in 1998, this unearthly landscape is Wadi Rum.

  • The Advanced Land Imager on NASA’s Earth Observing satellite captured this natural-colour image on 27 July 2001.  The scene includes part of Wadi Rum and an adjacent area to the east.  East of the protected area, fields with centre-pivot irrigation make circles of green and brown (upper right of the first image).  As the earth tones throughout attest, the area is naturally arid, receiving little annual precipitation and supporting only sparse vegetation.  Between rocky peaks, the sandy valleys range in colour from beige to brick.
  • Ancient granite rocks dating from the Precambrian underlie younger rocks, and some of these basement rocks have eroded into rugged, steep-sloped mountains.  The granite mountains have risen thanks partly to crisscrossing fault lines under the park.  Overlying the granite are sandstones from the Cambrian and Ordovician Periods, as well as loose sands.  The middle photo was taken from the top of Rum Mountain.  The name Rum most likely comes from an Aramaic root meaning “high” or “elevated”.  The village of Wadi Rum consists of several hundred Bedouin inhabitants with their goat-hair tents and concrete houses, one school for boys and one for girls, a few shops, and the headquarters of the Desert Patrol.
  • Lawrence of Arabia, who fought in the Arab Revolt of 1917–1918, made frequent references to Wadi Rum in his book The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.  Likewise, a prominent feature of the protected area is named after the book.  Several popular sites in Wadi Rum bear Lawrence of Arabia’s name, but whether he actually visited those sites is uncertain.  The influx of tourists to this once-isolated area has substantially increased the financial fortunes of the Bedouin people, and it is not uncommon to see locals using mobile phones and driving expensive 4-wheel drive vehicles; many also have wi-fi and computers to run their adventure tourism businesses.  The photo on the right was taken by one such entrepreneur.  The entrance to the ravine is hidden between two trees.  It is rather cold as sunlight can’t get down into the narrow canyon.


A year ago, when chemotherapy stopped working against his leukemia, William Ludwig signed up to be the first patient treated in a bold experiment at the University of Pennsylvania.  Mr Ludwig, then 65, a retired corrections officer from Bridgeton, New Jersey, felt his life draining away and thought he had nothing to lose.  Doctors removed a billion of his T-cells — a type of white blood cell that fights viruses and tumours — and gave them new genes that would programme the cells to attack his cancer.  Then the altered cells were dripped back into Mr Ludwig’s veins.  At first, nothing happened.  But after 10 days, hell broke loose in his hospital room.  He began shaking with chills.  His temperature shot up.  His blood pressure shot down.  He became so ill that doctors moved him into intensive care and warned that he might die.  His family gathered at the hospital, fearing the worst.  A few weeks later, the fevers were gone.  And so was the leukemia.  Scientists say the treatment that helped Mr Ludwig may signify a turning point in the long struggle to develop effective gene therapies against cancer — training a person’s own immune system to kill cancer cells.

The Bettmann Archive is a collection of 19 million photographs and images, some going back to the US Civil War and including some of the best known US historic images.  The Archive also includes many images from Europe and elsewhere.  It was founded in 1936 by Otto Bettmann (1903–1998), a German curator who emigrated to the US in 1935 with his personal collection of 15,000 images which he brought with him in suitcases when he escaped from Nazi Germany.  In 1960, Bettmann moved his collection from his apartment in New York City to the Tischman building on West 57th St.  In 1981, he sold the archive to Kraus Thomson.  In 1995, the archive was again sold — this time to Corbis, a digital stock photography company founded by Bill Gates.  Issues arising from this sale regarding the restriction of access to the collection were described in the editorial “Goodbye to All That” in American Heritage magazine, May 2001.  In 2002, to preserve the photos and negatives, Corbis moved the archive from Manhattan to the Iron Mountain National Underground Storage Facility, a former limestone quarry located 220 feet (67 metres) belowground in western Pennsylvania.  The temperature of the storage room is gradually being lowered to -4°F (-20°C), which was determined by film preservationist Harry Wilhelm to be the optimal temperature for the long-term storage of the archive.  At this temperature, the collection will degrade 500 times slower at Iron Mountain than it did in Manhattan.  Meanwhile, Corbis has been scanning the negatives into digital form as copies are ordered by clients.


Getting An “Up” by Looking Down

Note the “Hello Up There” Message

Note the "Hello Up There" Message

Workers Repair Empire State Antenna, 2000

Workers Repair Empire State Antenna, 2000

Rooftopper Tom Ryaboi

Rooftopper Tom Ryaboi
Worker, Chrysler Building, NY, 1962

Worker, Chrysler Building, NY, 1962

Building the Empire State, 1930

Building the Empire State, 1930

Acrobats on Edge, Empire State

Acrobats on Edge, Empire State

Acrophobia is an extreme or irrational fear of heights.  It belongs to a category of specific phobias, called space and motion discomfort.  Acrophobia sufferers can experience a panic attack in a high place and become too agitated to get themselves down safely.  Between 2 and 5% of the general population suffer from it (twice as many women as men).  “Vertigo” is often used (incorrectly) to describe a fear of heights, but it is more accurately a spinning sensation that occurs when one is not actually spinning.  It can be triggered by looking down from a high place, or by looking straight up at a high place or tall object.  True vertigo can be triggered by almost any type of movement (standing up, sitting down, walking) or change in visual perspective (squatting, walking on stairs, looking out a moving vehicle window).  Fear of heights is an instinct found in many mammals, including humans.  Experiments have shown infants and toddlers (and animals of various ages) are reluctant to venture onto a glass floor with a view of a few metres of apparent fall-space below.  Human balance integrates proprioceptive, vestibular and visual cues to reckon position and motion.  As height increases, visual cues recede.  Balance then becomes poorer, even in normal people.  Most people respond by shifting reliance to proprioceptive and vestibular data.  An acrophobic continues to over-rely on visual signals, perhaps due to an inadequate vestibular function.  But locomotion at a high elevation requires more than normal visual processing — the visual cortex thus becomes overloaded and this results in confusion.


“Standing in lonely dignity in the midriff of Manhattan, a sentinel by land, a reassuring landmark by air, the Empire State Building is the quadri-faced pharos of the city.  Its 102 floors were the highest in New York.  Though designed at the end of the so-called Art Deco period in the 1920s, when zigzagged appliques were prominent, its exterior shows little of the frippery characteristic of that 'decorated’ period.  It is, moreover, one of the very few skyscrapers with four façades, not just one facing the avenue.  Zoning required several setbacks, but these were given a skillful buildup of scale at the lower levels, while the tower itself rises unflinchingly.  Indented setbacks in the centre of each of the long sides help lateral scale.  An observation platform and a pylon topped by a tv transmission antenna crown all.” — from G E Kidder Smith, Looking at Architecture, page 152.  The project involved 3,400 workers, mostly immigrants from Europe, along with 100s of Mohawk iron workers.  The whole building was completed in only 16 months (a feat that couldn’t be duplicated today, largely due to regulations).  The building’s opening coincided with the Great Depression in the US, so much of its office space went unrented.  In its first year of operation, the observation deck took in over $1,000,000 — as much money as it made in rent that year.  New Yorkers derided the building as the “Empty State Building”.  It didn’t become profitable until 1950.  Its famous 1951 sale was brokered for a record $51 million — at the time the highest price ever paid for a single structure in real estate history.  The building’s spire was originally to be a mooring mast and depot for dirigibles.  The top floor was a landing platform with a dirigible gangplank.  A particular elevator was to transport passengers after they checked in at the observation deck on the 86th floor.  However, the idea proved dangerous after a few attempts with airships, due to powerful updrafts caused by the size of the building itself.  The T-shaped mooring devices remain in place but a broadcast antenna was added to utilise the spire in 1952.

The Empire State Building cost $24.7 million to build in 1931 (not including the cost of the land).  Today, that would be $336.2 million.  What’s it worth?  Rents matter more than legend.  The building has issues, including a decades-long battle to attract tenants.  Owned by a partnership between Peter Malkin and Leona Helmsley, the building is undergoing extensive makeover.  Nevertheless, it’s still the city’s trademark skyscraper — and has 2.77 million square feet.  It could crack the $2 billion sales barrier soon.  Much depends on its looks post-renovation.
Now compare that scenario with this one:
The Brent Spence Bridge is a 48-year-old structure spanning the Ohio River between Kentucky and the state of Ohio.  It lies on a critical commercial route, carrying an average of 172,000 vehicles each day, more than double its designed number.  Authorities have worked for nearly a decade on a plan to replace it with an entirely new structure, part of a broader initiative to alleviate vehicle congestion in the area.  Project analysis began only recently, and its not yet to the public comment stage.  Even if all the necessary funding were in place (which it’s not), the earliest possible start date for construction is estimated to be 2015, with completion in 2022.  Why?  Various noise and environmental studies are still being conducted to ensure compliance with state and federal regulations.  According to a 2004 agreement between Ohio and Kentucky, the “environmental phase” of the project was estimated to cost $18 million.  As for the funding, on its price tag of $2.4 billion, as is typical, the federal government provides 80% (or $1.9 billion), with state and local governments pitching in the remaining $500 million.  So far, only about $90 million of the state and local share has been allocated.  Even if paid tomorrow, actual construction wouldn’t begin for at least another 4 years.  President Obama himself admitted one of the flaws of the stimulus package was the fact that shovel-ready wasn’t as shovel-ready as expected.

 

Another example — Obama recommended in a recent speech spending billions on refurbishing public school classrooms to make them more energy efficient.  One person replies: “I’ve worked in the construction business for a long time — but I learned the specifics of school district capital spending in the summer of 2008 when we started refurbishing school classrooms to demonstrate energy saving.  We essentially gave the equipment to the first 50 schools, paid contractors to install the equipment, and even provided classroom curriculum on energy conservation and the physics of light.  And then we learned that no matter how good the product, how fast the return on investment, how politically popular we might be — nothing, nothing, could get a capital expenditure through the process in less than 2 school years.  In my opinion — my expert opinion — if Obama’s [Fix America’s Schools Today] FAST plan were to be embraced by Congress tomorrow, you’d be lucky to see more than a handful of jobs by May of 2013, and you would not see 90% of the projects hire a single worker before mid-May of 2014, almost 3 years from now.”


Anæstheia and Consciousness

Maybe I Shouldn't Be Awake

Maybe I Shouldn’t Be Awake

The Anæsthetists

The Anæsthetists

Pain Map

Pain Map

  • Worldwide, it’s estimated that over 200 million general anæsthetics are given each year.  In this country alone it’s something like 40 or 50 million per year.  Really, only 30-40% of people make it through life without experiencing a general anæsthetic.  Based on the safety profiles, the bad things that happen and are directly attributable to anæsthetic are very rare.  But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  We don’t know what else we’re doing long term.  
    • aeon 24 August 2011 in reply to Todd Fiske: “The automatic functions are governed by deeper, more primitive parts of the brain which are more difficult to anæsthetise.  Plus the heart and other organs pretty much regulate themselves with a bit of oversight from the brain, rather than there being direct control of every aspect of their function.  Your body is a collection of complementary, parallel, homeostatic auto-regulatory mechanisms with the consciousness you think of as the essential 'you’ merely being the icing on the cake.  And it’s remarkably easy to mess with the icing…  That said, most anæsthetic drugs will affect basic functions if enough is given.  The older, frailer and/or sicker you are the more likely that is to be a problem and that’s where the real skill and art comes in my job as an Anæsthesiologist.”
    • Antinous [Moderator] 24 August 2011 in reply to ultranaut: “I asked my doctor a few years back if he thought that I have Marfan’s.  He then asked me if, when I go to the dentist, it takes forever for the Novocain to work.  I asked him if he was psychic, but it turns out to be a classic symptom of Ehlers-Danlos, which otherwise can look like Marfan’s.  I get shot up 45 minutes before the procedure and then again when the dentist is ready to start.  That seems to work.”
  • Top Five Things You Don’t Want to Hear When Regaining Consciousness:
    • I don’t know what it is, but hurry up and pack it in ice.
    • Blink once for yes.
    • I didn’t even know one could bend that way, let alone both.
    • I’m sorry, but we were only able to thaw your head.
    • Hold still, we’ve almost pried its jaws open.
  • What Is Pain? Acute pain can be defined as pain that lasts less than 6 weeks, or is directly related to tissue damage (a paper cut or standing on a tack is acute pain).  Pain after an operation is acute — severe, but expected to go away.  Chronic pain is pain that lasts longer than 3 months.  There are at least two different types of chronic pain — pain that has an identifiable cause (an injury), and pain with no longer an identifiable cause (injury has healed).  Most chronic pain is musculoskeletal.  If it has no identifiable cause, it is often termed “chronic benign pain.”  Pain can set up a pathway in the nervous system; in some cases this becomes the problem itself as the nervous system sends signals even though there’s no longer tissue damage — it misfires and creates pain.  Then, pain itself becomes the disease rather than a symptom of injury.  This is often called neuropathic pain and common pain killers can be ineffective.  Mechanical pain is back or neck pain caused by abnormal stress on spinal muscles.  Inflammatory and chemical pain occur in response to insult to tissue at a cellular level leading to chemicals released that activate local pain receptors and cause inflammation.  Somatic pain originates from ligaments, tendons, bones and blood vessels — often a dull ache.  Visceral pain is felt in bodily organs — an ache difficult to pinpoint.  Ischaemic pain can be very severe and is caused by a reduction in blood flow, commonly felt in legs but can occur anywhere — a sign that muscles are not getting enough oxygen.  Chest pain caused by a heart attack is ischaemic.

More on anæsthesia and consciousness.


UC Berkeley graduate students held a contest “to redesign the Nutrition Facts Label to make it easier to read and more useful to people who want to consume healthier, more nutritious and wholesome food.”  Renee Walker had this winning entry.  The labels work as a system, using colour to indicate food groups, a mathematically proportionate representation of ingredients by order of listing, and the calling out of important nutrition facts using colour of ingredient to which it references.  Simple iconography is introduced to indicate serving size and a thumbs up or thumbs down for whether an excessive amount of an ingredient is good or bad.  Overall, it’s meant to bring important information to the forefront, closer to an at-a-glance approach.

A familiar tale told many times by writers and filmmakers: A dynamic thinker sets out on a career and makes an impact almost immediately, bringing new ideas to the table, seeing angles others don’t, and shooting up the ranks to become leader.  After experiencing initial success in the new role, however, something happens.  The world begins to change, but this person seems blind to the transformations taking place.  The one-time innovator becomes calcified and defensive, refusing to accept criticism and becoming isolated.  Pretty soon the new empire starts to crumble, and everything accomplished comes crashing down.  In the movies the leader usually fails because “absolute power corrupts absolutely,” a la Charles Foster Kane.  Or, as in the case of Macbeth, the leader is tortured by thoughts of a sin for which he can never atone.  In real life, however, many managers face similar problems even when they have committed no major sins and when their power is far from absolute.  Indeed, becoming isolated and self-obsessed is something every business leader should fear — even middle managers and owners of small companies.  Many cling to techniques that got them to the top — techniques that no longer work.  High achievers, while intelligent and hard working, are often terrible at taking criticism and examining their own weaknesses.  Driven by a need for tangible accomplishments, they end up managing their images at the expense of the company’s overall needs.


Disney Princesses

It’s interesting to see that the cartoon princesses all seem to have bigger eyes and longer hair than the real models.  In the photo are Jasmine (from Aladdin 1992), Aurora (from Sleeping Beauty 1959), Pocahontas (from Pocahontas 1995) and Snow White (from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 1937).  Among those I didn’t include were Rapunzel (not an official princess), Ariel (too-fake-looking hair), and Jessica Rabbit (not a Disney princess nor any kind of princess that I know of).  I also suspected that the Jessica Rabbit analogue image was photoshopped.  But it seems I was wrong…  The photo was taken by photographer Ryan Astamendi and the model is Courtney Elyse Black.

Jessica Rabbit

Jessica Rabbit

Courtney Black

Courtney Black


Born Melvin Jerome Blank in San Francisco, California, to Jewish parents, when he was 16, he changed the spelling from “Blank” to “Blanc” because a teacher told him that he would amount to nothing and be, like his name, a “blank”.  (Nice teacher!)  Mel Blanc is best remembered for his work with Warner Bros during the “Golden Age of American animation” (and later for Hanna-Barbera tv productions) as the voice of such well-known characters as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Sylvester the Cat, Tweety Bird, Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam, Wile E Coyote, Woody Woodpecker, Barney Rubble, Heathcliff, Speedy Gonzales, Tom Cat, and hundreds of others.  He earned the nickname “The Man of a Thousand Voices.” In 1961, a near-fatal head-on collision on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood left Blanc with a triple skull fracture and fractures of both legs and his pelvis.  He received over 15,000 get-well cards from anxious fans, including some addressed only to “Bugs Bunny, Hollywood, USA”.  He was in a coma for 3 weeks.  A clever doctor helped him to come out of his coma by talking to him as if to Bugs Bunny after futile efforts to talk directly to Blanc.  The doctor was inspired to ask him, “How are you today, Bugs Bunny?” and Blanc answered in Bugs’ voice.  Blanc thus credited Bugs with saving his life.  Blanc is regarded as one of the most influential people in the voice-acting industry.  It was estimated that 20 million people heard his voice every day.  He was the first voice actor to get his name in the film’s ending credits; he ushered in a new era for voice actors where they were regarded as a significant part of the creative process, rather than mere easy-to-replace finishing touches.

Okay, you may not enjoy watching this video — it’s a guy modelling a bee.  I was asked to watch it and did, but assumed I would be somewhat bored (and I even like to model in 3D).  The details may not ne riveting, but Andrew Browne is a fantastic modeller, and the bee he ends up with is completely riggable and realistic.  I was way impressed.


The Power of Waves

Wave Power

Wave Power

Empty Wave

Empty Wave

Inviting Wave

Inviting Wave
Backwash

Backwash

Rip Wave

Rip Wave

Delicate Wave

Delicate Wave

One of the biggest tidal-and-wave energy advantages is that this alternative energy source is predictable (not true of most alternative sources).  Waves will continue to form and move — and severe weather in the ocean only increases the energy potential.  It’s completely renewable and sustainable, with no effort made on the part of humans to make sure this cycle continues.  There’s enough energy in the oceans of the world to power the globe many times over each year.  Recovering this power does not cause massive damage to the earth.  (Recovering fossil fuels can be very damaging, and leave large holes or craters and other damage to the land.)  Capturing the movement of the ocean doesn’t damage surrounding areas.  This power source doesn’t release any particulates or greenhouse gases which contribute to smog and global warming.  With power from the ocean there’s no need to rely on foreign supplies of fossil fuels, or to experience price fluctuations due to global concerns.  This source can be utilised domestically instead.  A long-term problem is making the technology work at a cost-of-power which a consumer is willing to pay.  Environmental and æsthetic concerns combined with expensive intermittency problems will be serious obstacles to significant wave power use for some time.

  1. Powerful ocean wave approaching coast at sunset.
  2. Teahupoo, Tahiti Iti, French Polynesia: A mix of south west and west swell in the 4-foot range hits the main reef at Teahupoo.
  3. It is possibly Mona Vale, on Sydney’s Northern Beaches (though no information was supplied and the photographer has also taken photographs in Hawaii, Canada, France, Spain, Italy, Fiji, Indonesia, the US, and most parts of Australia.
  4. Taken at Snapper Rocks during cyclone Ului recently which battered the Queensland Coast, Australia.
  5. Dawn Rip-Wave No.2, Atlantic Ocean, 2 March 2007 5:42am.  At this location under certain conditions, huge and powerful rip-tides develop.  Going back out to sea, these rip-tides crash into incoming waves.  This produces tremendous energy and and, occasionally, rare waves.  Conditions here were perfect for rip-tides: wind, high tide, very rough surf due to a big coastal storm and a full moon that produced extra high and low tides.  Great sunrise light also helped in capturing a rare event.
  6. Backwash at Mona Vale, Sydney.


This photograph was taken during the tidal surge 11 September 2007.  The couple and their kids got soaked even though the kids got to the top of the steps.  Taken at Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex, UK.

This Curriculum Vitae appears to be authentic.  If not, I hope the job the writer is applying for is stand-up comedy.  An excerpt:
Ever had my own girlfriend, wife or child: I’m not now having, I’ll never have, I’ve never had sex activities with an animal that’s not a female human being, unrelated, weighs under 75 kilograms, is 16 years old or older, is not Down syndrome, is taller than 169 centimetres.  Now I wouldn’t have sex activities with a female that’s older than 40.  I now own none of each.
Criminal History: I’ve never been in jail.  I’ll never go to jail unless to do taxable work.  I’ve done roughly 200 hours of community service work that was given to me with force by a Ministry of Justice court judge.  I’m now not, never will and never did commit a crime that was pre-planned.  I’ve been convicted for drink driving and for urinating on a vacant public bush at night.
Glad we got THAT explained!


Ink and Oink.

Why Not Add Pain to a Short Life?

Why Not Add Pain to a Short Life?

Once That Look Was Real

Once That Look Was Real

What's the Point?

What’s the Point?

Belgian artist Wim Delvoye launched an Art Farm Pigs Growth Fund whereby people can invest in his swine farm outside Beijing in China.  This farm, established in 2005, has 9 boars and sows which are tattooed with a variety of designs created by Delvoye and 3 other tattooists in residence.  “I tattoo pigs because they grow fast and they’re so much better to tattoo than fish.  [ Fish? ]  I tattoo them when they’re young and I like the way the artwork stretches and distorts over time.  Essentially, we invest in small tattoos and we harvest large paintings.  To tattoo a pig, we sedate it, shave it and apply Vaseline to its skin,” says Delvoye.  “But I’m a vegetarian.  I’m also very, very clean.  I wash my hands like 100 times a day.”  [This seems an odd bit of information to share.]  All 3 pigs are almost certainly stuffed: “There are two schools of thought about how the pigs should be exhibited.  Some people like the flat skins hanging on the wall because you still see bits of the head and legs.  Others prefer the hairy skins stretched like a canvas.  If I have a complete skin with hooves and ears intact, and I like the tattoo, then I stuff it.  It becomes more sculptural that way.  I used to have the stuffed pigs standing, but now I prefer them sitting, like a stone lion outside a Chinese restaurant.”


This cat, however, is very much alive.  I presume it was sedated — but why put it through that for your own vanity?  It MUST be photoshopped.  Mustn’t it?  Although this site has several more tattooed cat pictures, so it looks to be real.  Apparently it’s become a fad in Russia.  Via Neatorama.

The substance that makes the cat glow in the dark is a version of the green fluorescent protein (GFP) that lights up a US West Coast jellyfish.  By inserting a version of GFP along with the gene of choice they are attempting to insert into cells, scientists can easily see success because the organism then glows.  Researchers have now made many glowing animals, including pigs, mice, dogs, even fish you can buy in the pet store.  GFP inserted into the eggs of a cat produce kittens that glow green.  The glowing cats produce glowing kittens without any further intervention.  Cat owners might find a glow-in-the-dark kitty to be fairly useful — you’ll never trip over the cat at night again.


“They Never Brought Our Drinks, So No Tip!”

"Oh, no!  I think I left my wallet at home!" "Oh, no!  I think I left my wallet at home!"

You (and 5.5 million other people) have no doubt already seen this video.  It’s cute — though a bit too long, in my opinion.  Roll over the picture for a different frame.  The dogs are a Danish broholmer and a yellow Labrador (if it matters).  These are screen snaps from the video.  By Septimus Krough, Denmark.


The Giant Devil’s Flower Mantis, Idolomantis Diabolica, is one of the largest species of praying mantis that mimic flowers.  The video of its defensive posture is fascinating.  It is native to Tanzania.  Via Tywkiwdbi.

New York is a major stopover for migratory birds.  Every year, an estimated 90,000 birds are killed by flying into buildings in NYC.  Often, they strike the lower levels of glass façades after foraging for food in nearby parks.  Some ornithologists and conservationists say such crashes are second to habitat loss for migrating bird death.  At the Morgan mail processing centre in Chelsea, more than 300 dead birds were discovered in 2006 alone.  A row of London plane trees, reflected in the mirror-like, south-facing facade, was luring the birds to their deaths.  There are no easy fixes, however.  A few manufacturers are exploring glass designs that use ultraviolet signals visible only to birds, but they are still in their infancy.  Opaque or translucent films, decals, dot patterns, shades, mesh screens — even nets — are the main options available.  And they’ve been a tough sell in the high-design world.  “I hope there will come a time when putting up an all-glass building is like wearing a fur coat,” said Glenn Phillips, executive director of NYC Audubon.  “Not that no one will do it, but maybe they’ll think twice about it.”  The San Francisco Planning Commission adopted bird-safety standards for new buildings in July, and laws are pending in Washington requiring many federal buildings to incorporate bird-friendly designs.


What Your Choice Says about You

Square

Square

Diamond

Diamond

Combo

Combo

We all know intellectually that emotive manipulations are used to sell products – playing on the viewers fears, guilt, envy and other feelings.  For years advertising companies have exploited psychology to work out the best way to increase sales, sometimes pushing the boundaries of the fair and truthful.  Indeed, advertising could be viewed as the antithesis of science; in science every effort is made to remove bias, to be objective and to focus on the facts.  Advertising attempts to introduce favourable bias towards the product, encourages beneficial subjective views and glosses over inconvenient facts.  Via Sciblogs.  [It helps to have a sense of humour.]


Are introverts arrogant?  Hardly.  This common misconception has to do with being more intelligent, reflective, independent, level-headed, refined, and sensitive than extroverts.  [Do I see myself as an introvert?  Why, what makes you ask?]  Also, it is probably due to a lack of small talk, a dearth that extroverts often mistake for disdain.  Introverts tend to think before talking, whereas extroverts tend to think by talking.  “Introverts,” writes a perceptive fellow named Thomas Crouser, in a review of a book called Why Should Extroverts Make All the Money?, “are driven to distraction by the semi-internal dialogue extroverts tend to conduct.”  Just so.  The worst of it is that extroverts have no idea of the torment caused by the fog of their 98%-content-free talk.  Do they even listen to themselves?  Introverts can only dream that someday, when the condition is more widely understood, it will not be impolite to say “I’m an introvert.  You’re a wonderful person and I like you.  But now please shush.”  Being an introvert is not a choice.  It’s not a lifestyle.  It’s an orientation.  When you see an introvert lost in thought, don’t say “What’s the matter?” or “Are you all right?”  It’s probably best if you don’t say anything.

“Many people have solved the problem of what to do when a thousand pairs of eyes are looking their way.  And some of them, for whatever reason, are natural performers.  From childhood, they have wanted nothing more than to display their talents to a crowd.  Many of these people are narcissists, of course, and hollowed out in unenviable ways.  Where your self-consciousness has become a dying star, theirs has become a wormhole to a parallel universe.  They don’t suffer much there, perhaps, but they don’t quite make contact here either.  And many natural performers are comfortable only within a certain frame.  It is always interesting, for instance, to see a famous actor wracked by fear while accepting an Academy Award.  Simply being oneself before an audience can be terrifying even for those who perform for a living.  Short answer?  Admit that you have a problem, get some tools (classes on speaking, medication, meditation), agree to speak when the opportunity arises, accept your anxiety, prepare what to say, prepare your delivery (get feedback from someone you trust) and, finally, just do it.  You are merely having a conversation with your fellow human beings.” — Sam Harris


Maybe “the Embarrassed Squid” Would Be Better?

He Looks Almost Cuddly

He Looks Almost Cuddly

Defensive Mode Begins

Defensive Mode Begins

Glowing Clouds of Sparklers to Follow

Glowing Clouds of Sparklers to Follow

When the vampire squid, Vampyroteuthis infernalis, was first discovered, it was said to be a slow, possibly passive, predator — until scientists saw it in action.  Besides being able to dart away from enemies, it can fold inside out, showing inner spines to make itself look dangerous.  Vampire squid are small, with a maximum size of 30 centimetres (1 foot), and bright red (hence their name).  They are gelatinous in composition, almost like a jellyfish, and are more similar to squid in body shape than octopi.  Between their arms is an extensive membranous webbing.  On the underside of the webbing are spike-like projections called cirri (though they are as soft as the rest of the organism).  They have very large eyes — perhaps the largest eye-to-body ratio in the animal kingdom.  Vampire squid have poorly-developed chromatophores and are thus unable to produce the complex colour changes of squid and cuttlefish.  They also lack ink sacs.  But no problem!  As they live in deep, dark environments, they instead have complex photophores to scare off predators or to attract prey.  These photophores are located on the tips of each arm as well as at the base of the fins.  Additionally, clouds of glowing particles are ejected from the tips of the arms, functioning similarly to ink in squid, to startle any predator that comes too close.  If some fearless predator were to bite off an arm tip, the vampire squid can regenerate it.


Humans are widely believed to be poor at tracking scents, especially when compared to other mammals such as dogs and rodents.  But few had ever put that idea to the test.  A research team dipped 10 metres of twine in chocolate essence and laid it in a field to form two straight lines connected at a 135° angle.  Then they blindfolded 32 undergraduate students and had them don earmuffs, thick gloves and kneepads to prevent them from using sensory cues other than smell.  When set loose in the field, 2/3rds of the subjects successfully followed the scent, zigzagging back and forth across the path like a dog tracking a pheasant.  People use two strategies to localize smells: comparing the odour intensity between subsequent sniffs and comparing the odour intensity at the two nostrils during single sniffs.

From a review of the book Loyalty: The Vexing Virtue by Eric Felten: Family — built love, shared suffering, history, and biology — is one of the strongest ties between individuals.  Intense familial obligation goes in all directions.  One first learns the value of loyalty from the household.  But if family is above all else, what value do other commitments have?  How does society avoid universal adoption of the Tony Soprano Family and Business Programme?  Is family “the foundation of all other loyalties, or a grubby sort of me-and-mine selfishness?”  Moral treatment of loyalty is of 2 types: Universalists are concerned with justice in its most abstracted sense, the type of impartial reasoning found on the courtroom floor.  Thus, “acting morally requires acting impartially.”  Particularists are those who stay true to their kin regardless of circumstance.  “Loyalty is not impartial” nor should it be.  But this will eventually land one in precarious, possibly illegal situations; loyalty is a virtue that often finds itself on the brink of becoming a vice.  “The virtue of family loyalty,” for example, “remains virtuous only within reasonable bounds.”  Life is a collection of connections of various degrees of fidelity, including including love, war, patriotism, business, and leadership.  Every interaction — whether social, economic, or professional — becomes an exchange in the “loyalty economy.”  Some are profitable in the long run, others land you in moral poverty.  If you’re looking for the answer to whom or to what you ought to be loyal, you won’t find it in this book.  Conflicts can’t be avoided by simply prioritising loyalties.  Loyalty is about finding the right boundaries.  It may be acceptable to stick up for a friend when he has been unfaithful to his wife, but not when he is digging a 6-foot-deep hole in his backyard at midnight.  Invest your loyalty judiciously.


The Wrap

Drill Down

Drill Down

Hate Mail

Hate Mail

Their Most Famous (Unborn) Son

Their Most Famous (Unborn) Son

  • “Picture of You” — nested family photo.  I’m not sure the technique used to achieve this effect, but whatever it was, it undoubtedly took a lot more time and care than a more traditional photo would.
  • An Australian frilled lizard.  When the frill is up it’s giving you a very strong warning.  It’s a fairly large species of lizard that can grow to nearly a metre in length.  The long tail and sharp claws help it climb the trees where it spends most of its time.  I’ve seen rubber versions of frilled lizards that look like the one in the mailbox — so I’m betting that’s what it is.
  • The tiny town of Riverside, Iowa (population 1,008), located along the banks of the English River, is incredibly proud of its most famous yet-to-be-born son, James Tiberius Kirk.  So proud in fact, that they decided to erect a monument to mark his (future) birth.  What I want to know is: “How many boys actually born on that date, particularly in Iowa, will be named James Tiberius Kirk because a few of the parents will still remember?”  (Possibly a couple of girls as well.)


Thaumaturgy Studios, Home of Animators with Imagination

Our newest character is Michael Fore, contractor.  If you haven’t seen our website yet, please visit.
And if you’re in need of training or safety videos, we’re running a special in October – ask us for a quote.


Black holes are what you get in black socks.


There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
 
— Roger H Lincoln