Eclectic junk from the four corners of the ‘Net. And pictures too!
Brighten up your desktop with stunning shot of science imagery. Over 80 to choose from at various dimensions to fit even the most ’embiggened’ of monitors. There are even instructions on how to apply this as a desktop to your computer if you were wondering how that sort of thing was done. Space craft, planets, satellite pictures of Earth, there are enough pretty pictures to make most everyone happy.
Space Wallpaper, Earth, Mars, Saturn, Moon, Stars and Galaxies – NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Grab your 3D glasses and have a look at the Boeing 787 Dreamliner as it takes to the air.
First Flight – a set on Flickr.
Multi camera madness to be sure…
So, what does this thing do? The primary function of this array is to capture the Light Field, a four-dimensional function that is capable of describing all rays in a scene. Surrounding you, now, and always, is a reverberating volume of light. Just as sound echoes around a room in complex ways, bouncing from every surface, so does light, creating a structured volume. Traditional, single-lens cameras project this three dimensional world of reflected light onto a two dimensional sensor, tossing out the 3D information in the process, and capturing only a faint, sheared sliver of the actual light field. By taking many captures at slightly shifted locations, it is possible to capture a crude representation of the light field. The number of slices determines the resolution of capture; our 12 captures at 7cm separation is a bare minimum. What can you do with a light field? The lowest hanging fruit is computational refocusing. By computational refocusing, we mean focusing the image AFTER it is captured.
As most people have herd, the Myans of ancient times predicted that the year 2012 would be the end of the world. Earth’s poles would shift, ‘Planet X’ would return, solar storms will torch our planet and kill us all, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria… With it being less than three years before this fateful day (12/12/2012 or 12/21/2012, if you want to mark your calendar) it might be time to start stocking up on solar storm resistant seeds and laying in a supply of ammo to kill the other survivors, if there are any after we get our celestial clocks cleaned. Or… Maybe everyone should take a look at the ‘dire warnings’ and see if this anything to them. The nice people over at Information Is Beautiful has made us this handy chart to do just that. I’ll let you make up your own mind as to if the world is coming to an end in 2012, but I can tell you that I won’t be cashing in on my long term investments any time soon because it it.
[via Boing Boing]
Over the years I have put together a few costumes for Halloween. Some took a few hours, some took days to build. The DIY Cricket bat and the robot costume have been my favorites:
Continue reading “It’s Halloween Again!”
In 2008 I needed a costume fast. I had a party to go to in a few days and I was at a loss as to what I should make. I was half way through moving and money and time were both in short supply. I built this passable version of the Arc Reactor from the film ‘Iron Man’ in about three hours. As I wasn’t going to take it out from under the shirt it didn’t need to be near film accurate, just look the part. Ah, the magic of Hollywood…. I got dozens of great complements about it from the various parties I went to…”
Continue reading “Tony Stark / Arc Reactor Iron Man Costume of 2008”