Giseli.ramos

Iceland, with its extreme landscapes, jagged lava fields and Northern Lights, is arguably one of the most photogenic countries in the world. So it’s no surprise that over half a million tourists flock there every year to shoot the landscape. But UK-based photographer Andy Lee, on his first visit to the country, came back with a series of photos titled “Blue Iceland” that captured the waterfalls, peaks and roads in, literally, a whole new light. Using infrared photography to pick up invisible light rather than visible light, Lee transformed Iceland into a series of stark, moody and somewhat dreamlike silhouettes. At times the austere rock formations and glowing waterfalls almost appear to be painted. You can see much more of Lee’s work over on his portfolio site. In the words of Lee himself, “Infrared and Iceland, a match made in heaven.” (via PetaPixel)

At the break of dawn, many of you are already up and busy shooting landscapes bathed in dramatic sunlight. There’s a staggering abundance of exceptional pictures from a “morning landscape” image search, and we can only highlight a portion of the ones we appreciate, including a few captions from the photographers:

“I’m lucky enough to live about 30 minutes away from Dockey Wood, which is well regarded as on of the finest bluebell woods in England. As part of the Ashridge Estate, it is owned and managed by the National Trust and offers clean and uncomplicated woodland views full of bluebells.” – Damian Ward

“A classic spot at Lake Constance. The Turmhof castle in Steckborn, Thurgau, Switzerland” – Philipp Häfeli

“This morning I finally managed to get back out there and experience the odd euphoria of having made it to the top of a hill at 5am as the sun rises, knowing that a world of more sensible people are still asleep. Bit of a mixed bag of conditions today so I didn’t quite get what I wanted, although this little burst of early light through the mist was kind of spectacular for a few minutes.”

“Squint and you can just make out Firle Tower amidst the furthest clump of trees, a squat little castle turret folly that was built as a gamekeepers watchtower in the 1800s. I think its now a house.” – Finn Hopson

Sunrise in Taiwan.

“After I took the long way from Buttermere to Crummock which involved scrabbling up the hillside to escape a herd of cows and calves who were unimpressed with my presence (cows can be scary), I finally emerged by Crummock Water as the morning light began to catch, revealing the ridges and rolls of the landscape, almost flowing down the hillside.” – Vemsteroo

National Carillon tower, Canberra, Australia.

“A day after my last post … couldn’t resist shooting again because of the denser layer of river mist.” – David Dean

“Last shot from the series I took a few weekends ago from the South Downs on a beautiful misty Spring morning.” – Richard Paterson

Morning mist in Gloucestershire, England.

“Cranes along the River Thames during sunrise.” – Dave Banbury

See, and share, more photography in the Morning light gallery and Morning Glory group.

Lord of the cats

Rest in peace, H.R. Giger

A group of Richard Feynman’s friends and fans are working to restore the Nobel laureate’s most famous vehicle.

martinlkennedy:

Pages from the Star Wars Question and Answer Book about Computers (1983). I’ve learned that C-3PO is good at designing Joy Division album covers and that in the future there will be giant mechanical mice!

Images courtesy of Paxton Holley. You can see the full set here

ricktimus:

Neil deGrasse Tyson is not impressed with all your sexism.

Edit: This post made it to the Science tag! As a science aficionado, this of course makes me happy.

So lots of people have reblogged pointing out the irony that I didn’t even include the names of the scientists in my original post. This is mostly true. I did include their names on my post, but that was only in the tag section, and even then it was for my own reference purposes. Had I known this was going to be reblogged like mad and added to an educational category I, would have at least included links to their respective biographies and stuff, instead of only just my glib commentary.*

But that is what the edit feature is for, I suppose. SO HERE ARE SOME LINKS:

• Annie Jump Cannon
• Henrietta Swan
• Cecilia Payne

AND ALSO:

• Harvard Computers
• Edward Pickering
• Women in Astronomy

* Not that I will ever regret writing glib commentary about Neil deGrasse Tyson throwing some serious shade at the past.

1. What do you call a rigorous demonstration that a statement is true?
   1. If “proof,” then you’re a mathematician
   2. If “experiment,” then you’re a physicist
   3. If you have no word for this concept, then you’re an economist

2. What do you call a slow, painful, computationally intense method of solving a problem?
   1. If “engineering,” then you’re a mathematician
   2. If “mathematics,” then you’re an engineer

3. What do you call a person who is in their first job after a PhD?
   1. If “postdoc,” then you’re a mathematician or physicist
   2. If “assistant professor,” then you’re an economist
   3. If “wealthy,” then you’re a computer scientist
   4. If you have no word for a job after a PhD, then you’re in the humanities, and you have our condolences

4. What do you call a calculator with graphing capabilities?
   1. If “an antique,” then you’re a computer scientist
   2. If “my precious,” then you’re an engineer
   3. If “the poor man’s Wolfram Alpha,” then you’re a mathematician
   4. If “kinda hard to use,” then you’re an honest mathematician
      

5. How do you pronounce “Pythagorean”?
   1. If you pronounce it “pithAGorEan,” then you’re a mathematician
   2. If you pronounce it “PITHaGORean,” then you’re a physicist
   3. If you just mumble the word and hope no one notices, then you’re a TA

6. What name do you use for the person who invented calculus?
   1. If “Leibniz,” then you’re a mathematician
   2. If “Newton,” then you’re a physicist
   3. If “magical wizard,” then you’re probably not ready for grad school

7. What do you say after successfully proving your point beyond all doubt?
   1. If “QED,” then you’re a mathematician
   2. If “the prosecution rests,” then you’re a mathematician with a flair for drama
   3. If you do not believe proof beyond all doubt is possible, then you’re a scientist

8. What do you call a simplified representation of reality, such as imagining a physical system with no friction or air resistance?
   1. If “a model,” then you’re a computer scientist
   2. If “an approximation,” then you’re an engineer
   3. If you call this “reality,” then you’re an economist

9. How do you refer to a piece of work that suffers from one small but visible mistake?
   1. If “rough,” then you’re an engineer
   2. If “as good as it’s going to get,” then you’re a computer scientist
   3. If “worthless,” then you’re a mathematician

10. What do you call a formal gathering of professionals from your field?
    1. If “a conference,” then you’re a physicist
    2. If “a start-up,” then you’re a computer scientist
    3. If “an advisory panel to the president,” then you’re an economist
    4. If “a game of D&D,” then you’re a mathematician

Thanks for reading! If you prefer bad gifs to bad drawings, you might also check out The Math Aficionado’s Guide to High Fives.

A 1978 information brochure for ARPANET, the packet switching network created in 1969 that evolved into the Internet, provides a description of the project as well as policies and procedures governing its use. The brochure, which is hosted on the Defense Technical Information Center’s website, includes a number of fascinating diagrams and maps.

images via Paul Mison

via Matt Biddulph, Paul Mison, Buzz Andersen, Coudal Partners

ultrafacts:

What Cat Behaviors Actually Mean

More facts on Ultrafacts

Momentum is a project by artist Alejandro Guijarro who spent three years traveling to the quantum mechanics departments of Cambridge, Stanford, Berkeley, Oxford and elsewhere to shoot large format photographs of blackboards just after lectures. Completely removed from the context of a classroom or laboratory and displayed in a gallery, the cryptic equations from one of the most formidable branches of physics become abstract patterns of line and color. Via the artist’s statement:

Before he walks into a lecture hall Guijarro has no idea what he will find. He begins by recording the blackboard with the minimum of interference. No detail of the lecture hall is included, the blackboard frame is removed and we are left with a surface charged with abstract equations. At this stage they are documents. However, once removed from their institutional beginnings the meaning evolves. The viewer begins to appreciate the equations for their line and form. Colour comes into play and the waves created by the blackboard eraser suggest a vast landscape or galactic setting. The formulas appear to illustrate the worlds of Quantum Mechanics. What began as a precise lecture, a description of the physicist’s thought process, is transformed into a canvas open to any number of possibilities.

Guijarro graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2010 with a MA in fine art and now lives
and works in both London and Madrid. He’ll have work later this year at PhotoEspaña. (via Not Shaking the Grass)

The folks over at Science Friday made this fascinating video about the Leidenfrost Effect, where water dropped on an extremely hot surface is capable of floating instead of immediately evaporating. While studying the bizarre effect, physicists at the University of Bath realized that not only does the water float, but under the right conditions and temperatures it can actually climb upward. The playful experiments lead to the creation of an incredible superheated maze. (via The Awesomer)

jtotheizzoe:

sci-universe:

Technology at it’s cutest — The Bipedal Cycling Robot

In 2011, robot creator Masahiko Yamaguchi demonstrated a robot which can balance, steer and correct itself while riding a fixed-gear bike.

Full video with more information here.

Hipster-Bot 5000

oh, my, god. 

tldr est une application (un module npm plus exactement) qui permet d'obtenir des infos de type "man" sur une commande, mais uniquement des exemples clair et utiles dans la vie de tous les jours, sans tout le blabla technique (qui a aussi son utilité dans d'autres cas évidemment). C'est du spécial n00b pressé et c'est top !

Par exemple, si de manière classique vous faites un "man tar", vous obtenez ceci :

Mais si vous utilisez à la place un "tldr tar", vous obtiendrez ceci :

Pour info, tldr est une abréviation connue d'Internet qui signifie "Too long; didn't read", soit "Trop long; pas lu".

Pour l'installer, vous devez avoir npm (Node Packaged Modules) et lancer la commande suivante :

npm install -g tldr

Plus d'infos ici

Cet article merveilleux et sans aucun égal intitulé : Too long; didn’t read pour vos man pages ; a été publié sur Korben, le seul site qui t'aime plus fort que tes parents.

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Mathematician Edward Frenkel writes in the NYT that one fanciful possibility that explains why mathematics seems to permeate our universe is that we live in a computer simulation based on the laws of mathematics — not in what we commonly take to be the real world. According to this theory, some highly advanced computer programmer of the future has devised this simulation, and we are unknowingly part of it. Thus when we discover a mathematical truth, we are simply discovering aspects of the code that the programmer used. This may strike you as very unlikely writes Frenkel but physicists have been creating their own computer simulations of the forces of nature for years — on a tiny scale, the size of an atomic nucleus. They use a three-dimensional grid to model a little chunk of the universe; then they run the program to see what happens. 'Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom has argued that we are more likely to be in such a simulation than not,' writes Frenkel. 'If such simulations are possible in theory, he reasons, then eventually humans will create them — presumably many of them. If this is so, in time there will be many more simulated worlds than nonsimulated ones. Statistically speaking, therefore, we are more likely to be living in a simulated world than the real one.' The question now becomes is there any way to empirically test this hypothesis and the answer surprisingly is yes. In a recent paper, 'Constraints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation,' the physicists Silas R. Beane, Zohreh Davoudi and Martin J. Savage outline a possible method for detecting that our world is actually a computer simulation (PDF). Savage and his colleagues assume that any future simulators would use some of the same techniques current scientists use to run simulations, with the same constraints. The future simulators, Savage indicated, would map their universe on a mathematical lattice or grid, consisting of points and lines. But computer simulations generate slight but distinctive anomalies — certain kinds of asymmetries and they suggest that a closer look at cosmic rays may reveal similar asymmetries. If so, this would indicate that we might — just might — ourselves be in someone else's computer simulation."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

lenaprado:

Power Structure of Oppression

it8bit:

MODERN DAY CLASSICS GONE CLASSIC

OTLgaming: DeviantART user Bunnelle has a vision for the future of gaming that doesn’t include HD graphics and surround sound, but instead features a bountiful harvest of 8bit goodness.

Or, she simply had the idea of taking modern day games and re-envisioning them in the style of classic Atari cartridge art. It’s definitely one of the two.

As someone who is quiet at school or anywhere else, this basically sums it up.

veeoneeye:

cats r so ridiculous 

I don't know who Seiji is or whether anything other than "it'd look cool" prompted them to illustrate Game of Thrones as if it took place in feudal Japan. I don't care. I just want more of these. I'm staring at my screen and drooling. (via: ForeverGeek)

Timothy Ferriss is an author, entrepreneur, blogger and television host. He’s best known as the 4-Hour guru who helped pioneer the ‘lifestyle design’ movement. This quote is taken from Ferriss’ first book, The 4-Hour Workweek, which I read when I was in the middle of my career change and helped motivate me to eventually start this website. The book teaches people to rethink the outdated idea of working a 9-5 job and to use today’s technology to find the perfect work/life balance.

Ferriss recently debuted his new TV show, The Tim Ferriss Experiment, where he applies his life-hacking rules to a number of different disciplines.

I was fortunate enough to meet Tim and contribute some illustrations to his latest book, The 4-Hour Chef. Here’s a blog post I wrote about it with some behind-the-scenes sketches.

RELATED COMICS Chris Guillebeau: 11 Ways to be Average. Terence McKenna: Nature Loves Courage.

- Zen Pencils was named one of PCMag’s top 100 websites of 2013!
- Yay, it’s finally the first comic of 2014. It’s taken me longer than I had planned to update the site again, but I’m happy to say my holiday really energised me for the year to come and I’ve already got a couple months worth of ideas for comics that I can’t wait to start drawing. Thanks for your patience.

An anonymous reader writes "Kazakh news site BNews.kz reports that Mukhtarbay Otelbaev, Director of the Eurasian Mathematical Institute of the Eurasian National University, is claiming to have found the solution to another Millennium Prize Problems. His paper, which is called 'Existence of a strong solution of the Navier-Stokes equations' and is freely available online (PDF in Russian), may present a solution to the fundamental partial differentials equations that describe the flow of incompressible fluids for which, until now, only a subset of specific solutions have been found. So far, only one of the seven Millennium problems was solved — the Poincaré conjecture, by Grigori Perelman in 2003. If Otelbaev's solution is confirmed, not only it might be the first time that the $1 million offered by the Clay Millennium Prize will find a home (Perelman refused the prize in 2010), but also engineering libraries will soon have to update their Fluid Mechanic books."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Just a cursory glance at a few storm photos by Mike Hollingshead and it’s clear this guy has probably seen it all, and probably put his life at risk to do so. The intrepid storm chaser has been enduring foul weather since the late 90s, clocking some 20,000 miles a year in his car as he stalks thunderstorms and other extreme weather occurrences waiting to capture the perfect shot. Hollingshead shares his story with Jakob Schiller over at Raw File, and you can see hundreds of his photos, many available for purchase as prints, over on his website. All images courtesy the artist. (via Raw File)

m1ssred:

chemical reaction

wasbella102:

:))