Tour, with images, the Harbin Ice and Snow World 2005 from China.

America's leading edge membership in the scientific community seems to be declining - in it's prestige, in it's research funding and it's general contribution ranking. And it's not only because the rest of the world is catching up...

I've mentioned Gnod before(with Music Map) , for discovering similar and related music and musicians, and there is more...An AI (artificial intelligence) engine to "find things you don't know about". Discover books, movies as well as music.

a future timeline of humanity and the universe

lots of images from the Cassini-Huygens photo contest, gathered from the Nasa mission to Saturn and it's system of moons.

a few rants and tidbits on a variety of subjects, accompanied by some neat animation...

Creatures and such, fashioned from man-made elements and natural remnants. mostly bizarre looking beasts with dangerous looking jawbones....

From a site called Transfer, a gallery of photos recording a variety of anti-sit devices used in public areas in NYC.

Most are just jagged spikes laid down in strips or barred barriers, but some have attempted to hide the fact that they are devices intended to keep people from hanging around (and sitting).

link

entries from a Worth1000 contest for images of major destruction.

Photos and details of various human cannonballs from the past.

The most famous family, the Zacchini's, (over 35 members) devoted their entire life to this entertainment starting in 1922, coming to the US in 1929. At times, (1939 to 1991) they had as many as 5 traveling shows with 14 cannons. The Zacchini's introduced launching two people simultaneously from the same cannon. Aside from the original five brothers who took flight, eventually two of their daughters also became human bullets (Duina and Egle Victoria).

Pictured is the Marx Bros. version...

one of the more interesting protests (by parody) of an American state school board's decision to teach 'intelligent design' alongside of evolution in the school's science classes.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster is the deity of a new parody religion called 'Flying Spagetti Monsterism' with a growing number of followers sometimes referred to as 'Pastafarians'

In the spirit of equality, the leader of this new religion has requested to the school board that Flying Spaghetti Monsterism be given equal time in classrooms alongside of other religious creation beliefs.

link to Wikipedia entry on FSM

There has been a few other spinoffs....

Creationist Ken Hovind has published a standing offer of $250,000 to anyone who can prove to him the scientific evidence of evolution. However, the terms of the offer are not so simple. link

After a couple of entries and responses at the Boing Boing site concerning all of this, the folks there have come up with their own (counter)offer.......link

in a related way, another parody......an article detailing how Evangelical Scientists (from that same American location) have refuted gravity in favour of 'Intelligent Falling'.

"Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, 'God' if you will, is pushing them down," said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University.

Burdett added: "Gravity-which is taught to our children as a law-is founded on great gaps in understanding. The laws predict the mutual force between all bodies of mass, but they cannot explain that force. Isaac Newton himself said, 'I suspect that my theories may all depend upon a force for which philosophers have searched all of nature in vain.' Of course, he is alluding to a higher power."

from Wooster, some shots of graffiti art in Montreal.

link

from CitizenShift, a portfolio with images and videos of the stencil work of 'Roadsworth'

Shortly after the events of 9/11, Peter Gibson (a.k.a. Roadsworth) began a playful dialogue with the citizens of Montreal through a series of artistic interventions. Using stencils and paint, he set out to transform a crosswalk into a row of birthday candles, and double lines on the street into a zipper.

He is now facing up to $250,000 in fines for over 80 counts of mischief. His art has quietly aroused the imagination of passers-by, but media reports of his arrest thrust him into the limelight. What followed was a public dialogue on art and public space. Artistic communities support Roadsworth, but in the city's eyes, he has crossed the line."

an interactive program that displays a full-colour portrait of the English language.

from the site...

The artwork is an interactive map of more than 33,000 words. Each word has been assigned a color based on the average color of images found by a search engine. The words are then grouped by meaning. The resulting patterns form an atlas of our lexicon.

above image is a zoomed section of the results relating to 'pasta'.

Etsy is an online marketplace to buy and sell all things handmade. Browse by category, materials or keyword tags.

image is a CD case by 'kilterdesign' ,made with maple, cherry and cocobolo woods. $250 US.

Historical clothing gets a bit of help with modern tech.

1929 saw the performance of the "First Airphonic Suite" by newly arrived Russian Joseph Schillinger, but the show stealer was the featured soloist, Lev Theremin and his instrument, invented by him and named after him.

The reviewer for The New York Times, Olin Downes, described the contraption as "a sort of a box on a tripod, with antennae," and so it is today. Theremin, Downes wrote, "moved his hands and fingers in mystic passes in the air, and a tone like a purified and magnified saxophone soared through the atmosphere and through the very loudest fortissimo."

Theremin (the man), and the theremin (love it or hate it) have both had colourful careers. Pictured, is Lucie Rosen, a theremin virtuoso, and one of the founders of the Caramoor International Music Festival in Katonah, NY.

This month, at this years festival, Shillingers suite was given a rare performance with Theremin's great-niece, Lydia Kavina, as soloist.

Swedish photographer Kjell Sandved has painstakingly assembled more than one alphabet made up of images..... from the patterns on the wings of (live) butterflies.

At his site you can see details on each of of the images as well as his other collections of alphabets.

a survey of some of the instruments used by Bob Dylan over the years...

Did you ever think of the early Dylan as the scruffy little guy who came into town with a cheap and beat-up old guitar over his shoulder? Forget it. Some of them may have been beat up, and most were old, but cheap? He has had guitars in the top league for as long as there are specific records of it. When he first came to New York, he was carrying a Martin, and his acoustic guitars have, with a few exceptions, been Gibsons and Martins all along the way.

an online guessing game played with a random partner, where only a part of an image is shown, and the word that the full image represents is guessed at.

kind of like hangman with images

Guess who these lads grew up to be...

a couple of collections of business cards...

link to the Star trek crew

...a book by Al Seckel, contains a section on several projects by Shigeo Fukuda, who demonstrates and models illusions and deceptions.

This shadow sculpture of a motorcycle is built entirely out of welded forks, knives, and spoons. It is based on an earlier concept that Fukuda exhibited in his 1965 show, " Toys and Things Japanese". Fukuda wanted to create a three-dimensional object in which the shadow, as opposed to the actual form, represented the actual object. Fukuda was to remark that it is extremely difficult to create a three-dimensional object in this fashion that allows light to evenly penetrate in this fashion. Fukuda utilized 848 pieces of cutlery to construct this work.

"Lunch with a Helmut On," welded forks, spoons, 1987, 73 x 31 x 42

From a Cool Tools review of the book.

the weird and wonderful art of Laurie Lipton, online at her site. Left is "sandcastles", right is "the shout". Pencil/charcoal drawings.

The grand prize winner of the 2005 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for really bad opening lines to imaginary novels is Dan McKay of Fargo, North Dakota.

and his opener.....

As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg carburetors in his vintage Triumph Spitfire, highly functional yet pleasingly formed, perched prominently on top of the intake manifold, aching for experienced hands, the small knurled caps of the oil dampeners begging to be inspected and adjusted as described in chapter seven of the shop manual.

Something especially for the Finns I know .....what the fashionable Finlanders are flaunting on the streets of Helsinki.

From the site....

HEL LOOKS is selected street fashion from Helsinki, the capital of Finland. The pictures are taken in the streets and clubs of Helsinki from July 2005 onwards.

HEL LOOKS is a hobby project of Liisa Jokinen and Sampo Karjalainen. The project is a tribute to Fruits and Street magazines, the pioneers of street fashion photography.

A series of historical photographs depicting Russia in the last century, through two World Wars, and the transition into an industrial culture.

The collection was assembled as the Soviet Union tore itself apart leaving a tattered social fabric behind. Organized as a history of 20th century photography of the Soviet Union the collection focuses on the categories: Constructivism/Avant-Garde, Propaganda, Photo-Reportage, War Photography, and Socialist Realism which provide the most effective and complete view of one of the most incredible experiments in human history.

In contrast to the above post, a collection of pictures of the decay in modern day Russia...various institutions, industrial plants and installations, hospitals, playgrounds and schools that were either abandoned or never finished.

From abandoned.ru .....

Future is waiting for us. With hollow skeletons
or downsized ugly creatures with bulgy eyes - it's not important.
Important thing is that there will be a footprint left.
Footprint of civilization. Cement, metal and dust not claimed by anyone.

in this case, it is a Pigeon Horntail, a relative of the wasp and sawfly family.

What's that bug.com can help identify weird insects, if sent a picture...and there are lots of them sent.

Caterpillars, butterflies, centipedes, spiders, beetles and toe-biters, for just a few...

build your own bugs from adrianlafonde.com