Ancient Computers are Awesome!

In what seems like the ultimate in fantastic invention is the true story of the Antikythera mechanism, a 2,000 year old Greek astronomical computer capable of computing the position of the sun and moon, and possibly planets, and predicting eclipses.

No earlier geared mechanism of any sort has ever been found. Nothing close to its technological sophistication appears again for well over a millennium, when astronomical clocks appear in medieval Europe. It stands as a strange exception, stripped of context, of ancestry, of descendants. [2]


Clockwise from top left - one part of the ruin as discovered; rendering of assembled mechanism; x-ray of one piece - hot gears!; 3D rendering of gear system.

Discovered in 1902, in the remains of a Roman shipwreck, the mechanism is potentially one of several, as mentioned by Cicero:

"And when Gallus moved the globe, it was actually true that the moon was always as many turns behind the sun on the bronze contrivance as would agree with the number of days it was behind in the sky. Thus the same eclipse of the sun happened on the globe as would actually happen"

Archeoastronomy is so, so, so very cool. Read more in the Nature magazine feature.

In a similar theme, check out The Book of Ingenious Devices: Kitáb al-Hiyal. By The Banú (sons of) Músà bin ShákirKitáb al-Hiyal: The Book of Ingenious Devices, an illustrated book of mechanical devices and automata, published in 850 by three Persian brothers. It contains the first mention of a robot.

Stupidly, I mixed up the book above - published in 850 and selling for around $300, with a similarly titled book published in the 1200's and retailing for around $60. So... if anyone wants to borrow this second book, let me know in 10 - 14 business days.

Non-newtonian fluids!

So when you were younger, did you ever play with a non-Newtonian fluid?

I remember our enrichment teacher having us make 'magic mud', which was a mixture of cornstarch, water and food colouring. What was really cool, is that it hardened into a thick solid when you squeezed it, but relaxed into a fluid when the pressure was off.

Yup, that's a non-Newtonian fluid for you - something that changes hardness in relation to pressure. Now imagine filling whole pool with a non-Newtonian fluid. You can run right across the surface, but if you stop for even a moment you sink right in. This video, showing just that, is pretty f'ing cool.



Cool practical applications include the material d30, used in the suits worn by Canadian and American alpine skiiers in this past Olympic games. It is totally flexible, but hardens into armour upon impact, protecting these guys like only a futuristic mind-blowing fabric can.

On another note, could non-Newtonian fluid technology be behind the remarkable properties exhibited by the T1000?


If only John Connor had known...

Vik Muniz. Of medium and message...

While we were in Seattle, KT and I were able to catch a fantastic retrospective of an artist I've been meaning to blog about for a while - Vik Muniz - at the Seattle Asian Art Museum.

Vik Muniz was born in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1961. Muniz started out as a sculptor, but successively became more interested in photographs of his sculptures than in the sculptures themselves.

So he basically creates images using highly perishable or unstable media, and photographs them. A direct descendant from Warhol, his interests in mass production and popular culture drive the subjects of his work - largely reproductions of famous images or artworks. His technical execution is amazing, and the relationship between medium and subject are insightful and clever.

Enough gush - just check some of it out:


Some guy checking out Portrait of Alice Liddell, after Lewis Carroll [Alice in Wonderland], which is made completely from toys and candy.


Saturn, after Goya, contrasted with Goya's original work.


A shot from one of my favourite series - Pictures of Clouds


Double Mona Lisa, after Warhol, done in peanut butter and jelly.


Part of the Sugar Children series, reproductions in sugar of photographs taken of the children of sugar plantation workers in St. Kitts.

This whole 'Look at me! I'm drawing with peanut butter!' thing could come off as contrived, but Muniz is really insightful and painstaking in his execution, which keeps the dialogue at a higher level.

His work reminds me of a passage in a book I am reading (and looooving) right now - Ghostwritten by David Mitchell:

The last of the cherry blossom. On the tree, it turns ever more perfect. And when it's perfect, it falls. And then of course once it hits the ground it gets all mushed up. So it's only absolutely perfect when it's falling through the air, this way and that, for the briefest time...'

I guess what I'm suggesting is that Muniz would agree, and that he works to create and then capture these brief moments of constructed perfection. The show's on until January 14th. If you're in Seattle over the next month or so, try to check it out.

Tom Waits on hip hop...

Hip-hop is still kind of the Old West. It's a reasonably unsettled territory and truly the cutting edge of blues. They're still trying to put hot sauce in a milkshake. No one is going to pull you over and give you a ticket for it because it's still defining itself.

From an interview with the Chicago Tribune

Blood, sweat and tears...

... at the 2006 Seattle Marathon. Oh yeah - and booze. Lots and lots of booze.

Let's let the photos do the talking, aiight?


Yup, that's what running twenty-six miles'll do to you. Also crazy gross - the guys with bleeding nipples. Uh... ewwww.


Two of the most hardcore people of all time. Seriously - these two are my heroes.


Hey! It's the Beckstar, rounding out the contrived post title during a ridiculously hung over viewing of Prime on the hotel TV Monday morning.

And the debauchery continued all weekend. Some of the most delightful memories weren't caught on tape... a fact for which my blood-relation readership will be grateful I'm sure.


As if! The Marriott supplies this enlightened text along with the bible and book of mormon.



Round one: Post-race mimosas and bloody marys in the hotel bar.



Round two: A celebratory bottle of Cristalina up in the room.



Round three and four: free-pour highballs and tequila shots in the red-lit Mexican bar.



Round five: te-quila! Shots with strangers are always fun.



Round therve... Seriously. No SERIOUSLY. I love that hat on you soooo much. Shut up! For se-rious!



And here we are at the Drunk Girls in a Gay Bar series. Make sure you click the link - it's a photo essay unto itself.



By the way, it snowed.



And to me the drive home, although long and hungover, was absolutely majestic.

Violence in vertigo.

This Saturday was the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. A clearly worthy cause.

Here is a impactful campaign done by J.W.T.'s Lisbon office, promoting awareness of this day.

The tagline is: As you can’t feel what they feel, see what they see.







Not to bum you out or anything, but the following statistics are sad and scary:

- 700,000. Women raped or sexually assaulted each year in the U.S.
- One in Seven. U.S. women reporting having been raped before the age of 17.
- One in Five. Ninth-grade girls reporting at least one incident of physical sexual abuse, in a randomly selected study of nearly 1,200 ninth-grade students in Geneva, Switzerland.
- 50 percent of the women who die from homicides that are killed by current or former partners.
- 130 million. Girls and women alive today that have undergone female genital mutilation. Although the Raelians are doing what they can with Clitoraid, it's still an important issue.
- Half a million. Women raped during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

All stats from United Nations Development Fund for Women. So so sad.

It rubs the lotion...

So yeah, I've been a bit remiss on the ol' blogging this week. Why you ask? Partly because I've been buried neck-deep in work, and have been forced to use my nightly laptop hour for job-related tasking. Partly because we bought a wii on Tuesday, and it's sucking our lives away in a glorious flurry of Nintendo magic.

Or... could it be that I am stuck down a hole, rubbing lotion on my skin?


...or else it gets the hose again.

A video tribute...

... to someone that I love a lot, and who really doesn't need the drama.


Life's hard when you're a glorious creature of magnanimous love.


What insights can Chi-Ali offer? Let us see.


No comment required.


That's right - it's time to shake it off girl.


You said it Nancy.


And the longest inside joke post ever [dick]whips to a close.

'I don't like reggae...

...I love it!'

Where has this totally rad video been all my life?

Let me get this straight, people. You knew there was a white reggae version of R Kelly, and you didn't tell me? You know who you are, and you're on my blacklist forever. No wait.. you buy me fun toys and dance in snakeskin bras. Actually, I ain't mad atcha.

Plus, Friday reggae night at the Anza Club? Mad fun boi! This is a dedication to all the old friends I saw winding it down there this week. Boo yah!

Wii don't need no hi def.

So the Wii, Nintendo's newest hottest console launched today.

Scott and I were going to line up and buy one, but he had to work so we didn't have a chance to. We probably will, despite KT's strong resistance, although since finding out Super Mario Galaxy isn't launching until March, the Beckstar isn't so sure she needs to get down on it immediately.

So yeah... I have a bunch of other reasons that this gaming system is totally rad, and why Nintendo rocks, but frankly, I've been loading content into a website for about 9 hours now. Let's call this a placeholder until my hands are no longer hardening into qwerty-claws.

BOTTLED WATER!!! SOS!!!

Okay, so you know you are living in a pampered first world nation when a mere boil-water advisory can induce fistfights among grown adults.

It's so ridiculous. I fear the day when we face a real emergency.

Although, I must say that the slob in me is greatly enjoying the 'guess we can't do dishes or laundry' perk of the whole situation.


Bottle on right: filtered and fresh. Bottle on left: EBOLA! HIV! MALARIA! PLAGUE! TYPHOID FEVER!


Guess which bottle is the demented homocidal maniac!


I'll do it! You can't stop me! I'll totally ingest 1/800000th of a lethal dose of contaminants!

Now the real question here is why is my new digital camera being used for these ridiculous 2am photo shoots, and not shooting events like Friday night's off-the-hook partystravaganza, with moments like Joni dancing on stage with Kool Keith in one of the $5 bras he threw into the crowd while chanting 'Bra Adjustment'?

Kaikai Kiki!

So Takashi Murakami, that demented disco dwarf, has been furtively putting together a totally amazing collective of Japanese pop artists, called Kaikai Kiki. Check it out:


Murakami, with part of his Balloons series, which were hung in Grand Central Station.


All of the artists in the collective are worth checking out. Clockwise from top-left:
I'm sure they love you: Rei Sato
Elephant Underpants vs. Apple Half: Chinatsu Ban
The Scene: Mahomi Kunikata
Moon: Aya Takano
Kuwanetto: Mr.

But I have to highlight one particular member of the Kaikai Kiki Krew, namely Chiho Aoshima, who does incredible, ethereal digital illustrations and installations. Her City Glow, Mountain Whisper installation, seen below as it appeared in the Union Square subway station in NYC, and the Gloucester Square station in London is totally breathtaking.


City Glow...


Mountain Whisper.


Another Chiho work, called Magma Spirit Explodes. Tsunami Is Dreadful

Finally, very cool, is this ad campaign for Louis Vuitton featuring Takashi Murakami's characters.


This is a collaboration between Louis Vuitton, obviously, and Takashi Murakami, in a pleasing little animated short based on Alice in Wonderland.

Ligers and Tigons and Cuppies; oh my!

Madness!

So when you saw Napoleon Dynamite, did you have any idea that ligers were real? Yeah, me neither.

The product of a tigress and a lion (a tiger and lioness offspring is called a tigon), ligers are way bigger than either lion or tiger, standing up to 12 feet, and they love to swim.

Seriously? They've been bred (usually by accident) in captivity since the early 1800's, and no one was going to tell me?


This is Hercules the liger. He lives at The Institute of Greatly Endangered and Rare Species (T.I.G.E.R.S.).


Kinky nineteenth Century painting of an animal trainer with lion, tigress and three hybrid liger offspring.

I found out about ligers while linking about looking into the puppies born to a cat this week in Brazil. The DNA still needs to be confirmed, but, if it is verified, it would be one of the most genetically dissimilar hybrid parentings since the Chicken Lady.


These are the puppies and their mom.

And how about the other magical hybrids that are legitimately happening around the planet?


A wolphin!


A zony! Cross between zebra and Tony Danza!

Also noted: when I told KT about this breaking story, she claimed that her mom had a cabbit as a child - a cat/rabbit hybrid. Searching about, I found a persuasive case that they don't exist, and are actually cats with malformed hindquarters. I wouldn't recommend pressing the subject with her though... it's best not to mess with family legend.


Some alleged cabbits! Veeerry curious.