The Space Elevator Reference TEDx Talk: An Elevator to Space © Alan Chan Space Elevator and Earth. Is a Space Elevator pure fantasy or just a technological leap from reality? 2012 Space Elevator Conference Proceedings Available The proceedings for last year's Space Elevator Conference are available at the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC) Store. Concept: Dirigible Space Elevator A Dirigible Space Elevator, a unique combination of aerospace design and geodesic geometry, has many monetary, efficiency and energy saving uses. ISEC Releases Space Elevator Concept of Operations Report The International Space Elevator Consortium has a released a 46 page report titled Space Elevator Concept of Operations. 2013 Space Elevator Conference Set for August in Seattle The annual Space Elevator Conference will once again be held in Seattle and for the second year in a row at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. Annual Space Elevator Conference Set for August 25-27 Conference events to include: Google X and the Space Elevator
Algorithmicity, Islamic Art, and Virtual Philosophy: Thoughts on Laura Marks’ ‘Enfoldment and Infinity’ « Networkologies One of the most incredible works of architecture I've ever seen: The Hall of the Two Sisters in the Alhambra, Granada. The dome is composed of a multitude of tiny, pixel-like cells known as muquarna. “The universe is not dualistic, but folded, so spirit is separated from matter only by degree” - Laura Marks, Enfoldment and Infinity: An Islamic Genealogy of New Media Art (2010, p. 271). As someone deeply invested in using networks to understand a wide range of phenomenon, I was thrilled to see Laura Marks’ new book Enfoldment and Infinity: An Islamic Genealogy of New Media Art. But I had little sense of just how amazing this book was going to be. Beyond art, this is a work of philosophy, and I’ll get to Marks’ ontology shortly. How sameness can give rise to diversity: Interactive architecture that changes shape as you move within it, my own photograph, from the great mosque of Cordoba, Spain. Marks’ Algorithmic Ontology: Infinity, Information, and Image
Amazing science: Levitation becomes reality in quantum physics Who says there's no magic in science? The latest development at the Tel Aviv University effectively erodes the boundaries between science and science fiction. Taking a crystal sapphire wafer and coating it with a superconductor material has created amazing results – it made the sapphire wafer levitate! ‘Yttrium barium copper oxide’ was the material used to coat the wafer in the experiment. The wafer’s own magnetic field gets trapped inside the thin layer of superconductor suspending it in mid-air. If the scientific description is not going blow a brain-fuse, here it is: “the superconductor material being thin in the above experiment, allowed some magnetic field to penetrate, but in discreet quantities. The successful experiment was conducted by a TAU team of physicists comprising Prof. Watch their videos A similar experiment was conducted in the Superconductor Laboratory in Oslo, Norway. Please help spread the word by sharing this article with your friends. digg
Firefly's 15 Best Chinese Curses (and How to Say Them) In just 14 episodes, Joss Whedon's sci-fi masterpiece Firefly managed to build one of the most devoted fanbases in all of nerd-dom. Properties like Star Trek or Doctor Who may have it beat in sheer numbers, but the Browncoats make up for this with their loyalty and tenacity. What is the secret of the show's appeal? Fans can and will explain the show's engrossing plotlines, fascinating characters, brilliant performances, realistic effects, and a unique visual aesthetic -- but if we had to choose one reason, it'd be the dialogue. Whedon created a vision of a human future where mankind speaks English primarily, with Mandarin Chinese added, as one might say, for "flavor" (i.e., profanity). Not only did the use of Mandarin help inform Firefly's future setting, it also often allowed the characters to express themselves in terms too absurd, obscene, or outrageous to be spoken in English. 15) Stupid Inbred Stack of Meat 笨天生的一堆肉。 More links from around the web!
Illustrating with Thread and Pins The images within post are from various art installations and projects by Debbie Smyth. View more of the artist’s work at her blog. Notes about Smyth (from bio published at New British Artists): Debbie Smyth graduated with a First Class Honours Degree in Contemporary Textiles in 2008. Artwork © Debbie Smyth Link via Designaside Quantum levitation demo proves floating cars are on the way The dream of riding in floating cars like The Jetsons is one of the oldest dreams presented in science fiction movies, but now a group of researchers have unveiled a demonstration that makes such a reality seem tantalizingly close. Researchers from Tel-Aviv University recently showed off their Quantum Levitation project at the ASTC Annual Conference, and the performance is simply stunning. The group coated a thin superconductor layer on a sapphire wafer which is then penetrated by discrete flux tubes. The superconductor strongly pins these tubes, allowing the wafer to float, or achieve "quantum levitation." The coolest part of the demo is when the wafer is set on a track and propelled smoothly around it, floating in midair, while mist trails behind it! Via Quantum Levitation
Periodic Table of the Elements Es ist nicht tot, was ewig liegt, bis dass die Zeit den Tod besiegt… « Zechelon’s Weblog Es ist nicht tot, was ewig liegt, bis dass die Zeit den Tod besiegt… 02Nov09 So – nach quasi ewigen Zeiten finde ich mal wieder die Muße einen Eintrag in meinem Blog zu schreiben :-) Das hat mehrere Gründe – erstens, dass ich ziemlich direkt nach meinem Diplom einen festen Job gefunden habe (man hat doch wirklich dann weniger Freizeit ;-) ) und zweitens bin ich dann endlich aus dem Studentenwohnheim in eine größere Wohnung gezogen… Eine Sache für Rhino die ich vor einiger Zeit entdeckt habe, will ich aber hier niemandem vorenthalten. Hier mal als Beispiele ein paar Rot/Cyan-3D-Bilder meiner Diplomarbeit (eine entsprechende Brille wäre schon ganz praktisch ;-) ) Zwar sieht man mit diesen 3D-Brillen am Kopf aus wie der letzte Schnittlauch, aber die Möglichkeit gemoddelte Situationen wirklich “räumlich” zu erfahren & zu begreifen ist schon verdammt cool… In diesem Sinne, in hoffentlich nicht allzulanger Zeit ;-) Gefällt mir: Gefällt mir Lade...
james joyce | molly bloom’s soliloquy « poetry dispatch & other notes from the underground Poetry Dispatch No. 242 | June 16, 2008 Molly Bloom’s Soliloquy – The Art of Writing: Lesson #336: Read Molly Bloom’s Soliloquy quietly on your screen or on the page. Read it aloud to yourself, to someone else. Listen to a recording of it read by a fine actress. First Part: Angeline Ball in her Irish Film and Television Award for Best Actress winning role in Bloom. Second Part: Angeline Ball in her Irish Film and Television Award for Best Actress winning role in Bloom. It’s Bloomsday on which Joyceans all over the world celebrate the day in 1904 that the events of Ulysses take place on. The first Bloomsday celebration was in Paris 1929. Dublin continues to have the largest Bloomsday celebration of any city in the world, and this year it will have lasted one week and included various walking tours of Joyce-related sites of the city, musical performances, pub crawls, and museum exhibitions. One of the hallmarks of Bloomsday celebrations everywhere is dramatized readings of Ulysses.
Fascinating Lamps by Calabarte | Pondly Calabarte is the pseudonym of a Polish artist named Przemek Krawczynski, whose art takes on a peculiar but incredibly beautiful form: cool lamps. The name itself is a portmanteau of two words – art (obviously), and calabash, the fruit that carries his imagination. The calabash is a bottle gourd originating in India, although Calabarte gets his supply from Senegal. Due to ancient domestication and usage, the bottle gourd has an incredibly tough outer shell. In the past, the gourd’s usage was defined mostly as a water container, due to having a tough, smooth shell with an ergonomic shape for handling, and natural buoyancy on water. Due to the combination of dark, thick material with a light source within, the primary art of his work, however, shines in the dark. Hard work, beauty, an exceptional degree of detail and a marriage between mathematical geometry and a rampant imagination – all imprinted onto the husk of a Senegal calabash. Website
Vipassana Meditation Website 10 excellent blogs about industrial design Most of you are probably not industrial designers, as topics on Designer Daily are more often about graphic and web design. Howeve it would be a bad attitude to totally ignore what goes on in the world of industrial design, even if you never do a product design. To keep up-to-date with the world of industrial design, these blogs should give you more information than you need. 1. Yanko Design Website – RSS feed Web magazine dedicated to introducing the best modern international design, covering from industrial design, concepts, technology, interior design, architecture, exhibition and fashion. 2. Website – RSS feed Started in 1995, it is probably the oldest of the industrial design sites in this post. 3. Website – RSS feed Product Design Hub is an online community place where industrial designers come together to socialize and to create, share and find useful resources. 4. Website – RSS feed Behance’s inspirational site for industrial design, a real goldmine for inspiration. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
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