Eclectic junk from the four corners of the ‘Net. And pictures too!
A single sheet of A4 paper can be used in so many ways…
I find the A4 sheet of paper interesting to work with, because it probably still is the most common and consumed media and format for carrying information today, and in that sense it is something very loaded. This means that we rarely notice the actual materiality of the A4 paper.
[via Ezprezzo.com]
Today was the first photo outing of the four white walls photography group. We all met up in beautiful downtown Phoenix at 6:00 am today to go take photos of all the old buildings that won’t be around much longer. Turns out all the old warehouse and art gallery spaces down there will bring big bucks when sold to people that want to build parking lots, sports bars (that’s so 90’s) and Starbucks. Anyhow, here are my photos and here are the photos from the group. I’m looking forward to the next event, whatever that may be.
Holy heavy hardware Batman! These Russkie mice are the pinnacle of Soviet technology in their day.
[via Digg]
The husband and wife team of Peter Meder and Chris Chomick who these fanciful sculptures and automata are masters of their art. After starting out in the special effects business they found their calling as artists. These one of a kind creations use everything from common R/C servos to hand cranks to give life to their creations. This kind of work simply amazes me.
My wife, who works for an airline, will occasionally go to cities on her day off. It’s a nice perk for working in the airline business. Well today she went to San Francisco with some friends and had a rather annoying run in with the guardians of the airways, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). You have to understand that my wife collects snow globes. She loves the things. In recent months she’s been buying one from each city that she visits. As each visit is just one day she just carries her purse. It’s best to travel light you know. Today when she was going back home the TSA stops her and tells her that her snow globe is not to be allowed on the plane. The liquid inside of it might be some deadly weapon that just happens to have little bits of glitter floating around in it. She shows them her employee badge and tried common sense on them. She’s dealt with officials before and she should have known that this was an exercise in futility. She asked why couldn’t she bring the show globe on board? If someone was going to mess with the aircraft wouldn’t they stash whatever it was in the luggage and just use a transmitter? I’ll give her this, she has guts. That’s why I love her. I wouldn’t have even begin to think of stating the obvious to someone that could chuck me in a secure room for hours and hours. The guard said that she could bring it on board if she was wearing her uniform or, get this, if she were to ask an employee to carry it through for her. Huh? If she gets a uniformed employee to walk the snow globe through security it goes from being a device that might kill hundreds back to it’s natural state of a fancy dust catcher? Needless to say she didn’t have her uniform on her (it was, after all, her day off) and she didn’t see any airline employees that she knew. Gee, I wonder why? Maybe it’s because San Fran isn’t her home base? Wow…
I will have to side with the TSA drones decision to not allow the snow globe on the aircraft. It does after all contain liquid. And as we all know all non-life essential liquids are strictly forbidden. (Remember to chuck the bottle of water you just bought from the cafe right next to your gate in the trash before you get on the plane. You’ed think there would be a sign in the shops reminding passengers of this.) But why can this written in stone rule be broken if you just hand the liquid to a uniformed employee? She had all her badges with her, they have her photos all over them. She has all sorts of security endorsements on them and everything, it’s quite impressive. Anyway, she lost her snow globe and has decided to bring her lunch box with her next time so she can check it in and have it ride in the hold.
I can’t wait until the next plot is uncovered so we can lose granola bars, pens, and pocket combs
Reminds me of a certain flying camera that I blogged about a while back. Except the part about shooting molten metal at the targets that is…
"The 3-D maneuverability of the Frisbee-UAV [unammned aerial vehicle] will provide revolutionary tactical access and lethality against hostiles hiding in upper story locations and/or defiladed behind obstacles," the company promises. The circular drones will be lanuched "from munitions dispensers or by means of a simple mechanism similar to a shotgun target (skeet) launcher," Triton adds. Once in the air, they’ll be tele-operated by soldiers on the ground. Or, if needed, the fightin’ frisbees will pilot themselves as they hunt for guerrillas. Once they catch up to the baddies, the drones will use a series of armor-piercing explosives, shooting jets of molten metal, to eliminate their targets.