Russian Sledges

[Chris Thorpe] is a model railroading aficionado, and from his earliest memories he was infatuated with the narrow gauge locomotives that plied their odd steel tracks in northern Wales. Of course [Chris] went on to create model railroads, but kit manufacturers such as Airfix and Hornby didn’t take much interest in the small strange trains of the Ffestiniog railway.

The days where manufacturing plastic models meant paying tens of thousands of dollars in tooling for injection molds are slowly coming to an end thanks to 3D printing, so [Chris] thought it would be a great idea to create his own models of these small locomotives with 3D laser scanners and high quality 3D printers.

[Chris] started a kickstarter to fund a 3D laser scanning expedition to the workshop where the four oldest locomotives of the Ffestiniog railway were being reconditioned for their 150th anniversary. The 3D printed models he’s able to produce with his data have amazing quality; with a bit of paint and a few bits of brass, these models would fit right in to any model railway.

Even better than providing scale narrow gauge engines to model railway enthusiasts around the world is the fact that [Chris] has demonstrated the feasibility of using modern technology to recreate both famous and underappreciated technological relics in plastic for future generations. There’s a lot that can be done with a laser scanner in a railway or air museum or [Jay Leno]‘s garage, so we’d love to see more 3D printed models of engineering achievements make their way onto Kickstarter.

Filed under: 3d Printer hacks, laser hacks

Snowy Bean - @haleyloklokb

Parallax 3D images use two photos captured from slightly different vantage point to create the appearance of depth. In astrophotography, however, the distance between human cameras and distance objects are so great that real parallax generally cannot be achieved.

Finnish astrophotographer J-P Metsavainio has developed a brilliant experimental technique that overcomes this (kinda): he converts astrophotographs into 3D volumetric models, and then uses those models to create dazzling 3D animations of nebulae.

Metsavainio tells us that his technique is a mixture of science and art. He first gathers specific information about the nebula in his photo prior to doing the 3D conversion. More important is the distance information of known stars, which allows him to place them at correct relative distances from one another in his resulting model.

If distance information about certain stars cannot be obtained, he falls back on a rule of thumb he has developed: “brighter is closer.” It may be a very rough approximation, but so far it has worked well. He also tell us that many shapes in a nebula can also be determined by simply studying the photos carefully. It also helps that many nebula share similar features, such as stellar wind blowing gas away from the cluster and forming an empty space around it.

How accurate the final model is, depends how much I have known and guessed right. The motivation to make those 3-D-studies is just to show, that objects in the images are not like paintings on the canvas but really three dimensional objects floating in the three dimensional space. This generally adds a new dimension to my hobby as an astronomical imager.

Here are some of the animated GIF he has created so far:

Want to know more details about how the 3D conversion is done? Here’s what Metsavainio tells us,

After the first step [gathering the info about the stars], the nebula layer of the image get splitted to an elemets by it’s structure. Then a 3d-mesh is made by the brightness of the nebula. This can be done since the gas in the nebula emits a light of it own and the thickness of the nebula can be estimated by the amount of light.

Then I split the star image to a separate layers by the star brightness and the color index. If there are stars with a known distance, like ones coursing the emission of the nebulosity, I separate them to a different layers, all the steps are done “semi automatic”.

At the final step all the image information, nebula and stars, are projected to complex 3D-suffaces and some tweaking can be done three dimensionally.
Rest of the work is traditional animation work.

You can find more of Metsavainio’s work over in his portfolio and on his blog. He is also sharing animations as videos through a YouTube channel, and you can follow along with his work through Facebook as well.

(via Gizmodo)

Image credits: Photographs by J-P Metsavainio and used with permission

Smith and his partner Tony Tellin first began experimenting with aging their tea in local Pinot Noir barrels. Their Méthode Noir ($18 for 2 ounces) is a subtle blend; the flavors from the barrel are like grace notes of oak and spice, close to what you might find in a great Oregon Pinot. On the other side of the spectrum, Marcus makes a piney, smok-y and lush Willet Rye barrel-aged lapsang souchong called Forbidden Forest. It evokes that teenage summer when you stole a bottle of booze and made out with your crush from across the lake.

A group of fan translators spent three years translating a game they could already read pretty well. Why? Because Ocarina of Time looks stunning in Arabic.

newscloud writes "Seattle will soon shut down its popular phonebook opt-out website as a result of a costly settlement with Yellow Pages publishers. Going forward, the only way to stop unwanted phonebook deliveries will be to visit the industry's opt out site and provide them with your personal information. They will share it with their clients, most of whom are direct marketing agencies, who in turn commit not to use it improperly. The Federal Court of Appeals ruled in October that The Yellow Pages represent protected free speech of corporations (including Canada's Yellow Media Inc.); defending and settling the lawsuit cost Seattle taxpayers $781,503. The city said the program's popularity led to a reduction of 2 million pounds of paper waste annually."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Midrash Manicures has created an ingenious set of nail decals to keep the Ten Plagues at your fingertips for your Passover Seder. They are available to purchase online. Passover 2013 begins in the evening of Monday, March 25th and ends in the evening of Tuesday, April 2nd.

You won’t want to Pass-over these Ten Plagues Nail Decals! These adorable frogs, flies, and locusts are bound to be a hit at your Seder.

Thanks Lori Dorn!

The term "social jet lag" suggests someone rich and famous, probably with a posse — Solange, perhaps? But according to Elizabeth Kolbert's New Yorker piece on the science of sleeplessness, even us commoners suffer from the affliction: More »

Psych, but we really had you going, right? (Sorry, that wasn't cool.) More »

(via mokulock)

Japanese wooden LEGOs

Green box Renovation in Italy by Act_Romegialli via designboom

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican is now waiting for five more cardinals to reach Rome before setting the date for the conclave to elect a new pope. The Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said another handful of cardinals had arrived Monday night, bringing the number of voting-age cardinals up to...

Orcutt allegedly stated that biking was harmful to the environment because of a cyclist’s “increased heart rate and respiration.”  “That means that the act of riding a bike results in greater emissions of carbon dioxide from the rider,” the email from Orcutt reportedly read. “Since CO2 is deemed to be a greenhouse gas and a pollutant, bicyclists are actually polluting when they ride.”

The fake bishop snuck into the Vatican along with dozens of cardinals who were there making preparations to elect a new pope later this month, according to Italian news agency ANSA. Though he managed to go unnoticed for a time, even posing for a photo with Cardinal Sergio Sebiastiana, he was "eventually identified and kicked out to the visible amusement of journalists nearby," ANSA reported.

When most people think of the Mad Men opening sequence, the first thing that comes to mind is Don Draper's silhouette falling through the sky. But Gita Hall May sees something else: herself. The former model is suing distributor Lionsgate Entertainment for using her likeness without permission or compensation. May claims the photo in question was lifted from a 1960s Revlon ad without her knowledge. "At no time did she agree to allow, forty years later, her image to be cropped from the photo, in secret, and inserted as a key element in the title sequence of a cable television series."

According to the complaint (which describes May as "the top model of her time"), she was only made aware of her presence in the titles last year — May's attorneys say the delay was because Mad Men airs only on cable rather than network TV. The document describes Mad Men's opening, which won an Emmy in 2008, as "integral" to the success the AMC series has enjoyed since its debut. May's likeness has been included in the sequence for the entirety of the series thus far, and as you'd expect she's seeking monetary relief for those airings.

• Via DeadlineABC News
• Source Court Filing (PDF)
• Related Items mad men gita hall may model lawsuit title sequence amc don draper

letsbuildahome-fr:

Construction of Neuschwanstein Castle 1868-1884

Architect: Eduard Riedel

Location: Schwangau, Germany

Last Photo by David Henderson

 

The Zoological Society of London has launched its Cat Map, a global, searchable map of all the world’s cats. You can search for cats by age, gender, color, and name, and even add your own cat to the map, complete with a picture and description. The Cat Map was created to raise awareness of the London Zoo’s Tiger Territory, which opens on March 22nd.

via Wired UK, Geekosystem

MWD pays tribute to some of our favorite fans. Keep doing you.

(RNS) “In the church,” Chicago Cardinal Francis George once said, “everything has happened at least once!” That’s no surprise given that the Catholic Church is a nearly 2,000-year-old institution that has adapted to radically different epochs.

But electing a new pope while the former pope is still alive? That’s rare.

Indeed, this colorful and curious history continues to be written in today’s headlines, as George and 114 other cardinal electors gather in Rome to choose a successor to Benedict XVI – the first pope to resign in six centuries, and after a troubled papacy that has many historians reaching back to the Renaissance for apt comparisons.

So what are some other firsts and lasts, quirks and facts of papal history that you should know about? There are plenty, and Religion News Service has compiled a handy guide:

Pope Fabian was declared pope in 236 A.D. when a dove (a symbol of the Holy Spirit) landed on his shoulder, even though he wasn’t even a priest. RNS photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons/ Public Domain (http://bit.ly/XOw5u0).

This image is not available to download. For questions, contact Sally Morrow.

• Cardinals picking a pope in a conclave held in the Sistine Chapel is actually a (relatively) recent development. In the early centuries of the church, the pope — who is the Bishop of Rome — was elected in various ways, though usually by the clergy of the diocese, a choice that was then affirmed (or rejected) by the people.
• In 236 A.D., a man named Fabian – not even a candidate – was acclaimed pope after a dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit, landed on his shoulder.
• For several centuries, the Roman aristocracy and secular rulers often controlled the process. The College of Cardinals wasn’t given the principal right to elect the pope until 1059.
• In 1179, the College of Cardinals was given the exclusive right to choose a new pope, and a two-thirds majority was set as the threshold for a winning vote (later changed to two-thirds plus one).
• Until modern times, a pope could also be elected by a compromise among the cardinals or by “acclamation,” which means that all of the cardinals would have to unanimously declare their support for a single candidate. Now a candidate must win a secret ballot, no matter how long it takes.
• At times there have been as few as a dozen cardinals voting in a conclave. Pope Sixtus V (1585–1590) set the top number at 70, and that was not changed until the 20th century when the ceiling was gradually raised to 120, though John Paul II often surpassed that limit.
• In 1970, Pope Paul VI ruled that cardinals who were more than 80 years old when a pope died could not take part in a conclave; there are  a total of 207 living cardinals, but 90 of them are more than 80 and cannot vote. Two others have said they cannot take part, leaving 115 electors.
• The longest interregnum between popes lasted two years and nine months, between 1268 and 1271. During that time, the cardinals meeting in Viterbo, a town outside Rome, could not agree on a candidate until they were forced to do so by the king of France and other rulers.
  

  Pope Gregory X standardized the practice of locking cardinals in a conclave (Latin for “with a key”) until they chose a successor. RNS photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain (http://bit.ly/12oOLFc).

  This image is not available to download. For questions, contact Sally Morrow.

• After the Viterbo debacle, Pope Gregory X in 1274 established what we know today as the conclave (Latin for “with a key”), in which the cardinals are essentially locked inside a room – and in olden times deprived of meals – until they settle on a successor.
• In modern times, conclaves usually last less than a week, and often no more than a day or two. The last long conclave was in 1740 and lasted six months.
• The last conclave held outside of Rome was in Venice, in 1800.
• Ballots have been burned since the 1417 conclave, but the practice of using white smoke – created by adding dry straw to the ballots, or, more recently, chemicals – to signal the election of a pope was first recorded in 1914. Before that, church bells were rung and cannons fired to signal the election of a pope.
• Technically, any baptized male can be elected pope, but the last time the cardinals reached outside their ranks was in 1378, when they chose Urban VI.
• The last pope who was not a priest when elected was Leo X (1513-1521). He had to be ordained before taking office.
• A pope must also be a bishop. The last cardinal elected pope who was not a bishop was Bartolomeo Cappellari, a monk who became Pope Gregory XVI in 1831. He was made a bishop four days after his election and then became pope.
• The first pope to change his name: a fellow named Mercury, elected in 533, didn’t think it was a good idea to be named after a Roman god so he became John II.
• The last pope to keep his name: Marcello Cervini, elected in 1555, called himself Marcellus II. His mother must have been happy.
• Two popes named Peter changed their name out of respect for the first pope: John XIV (983-84) and Sergius IV (1009-12).
• There have been three father-son combinations, the last when Sergius III (904-911) was later followed by his illegitimate son, John XI (931-35).
• The first pope to live in the Vatican: Nicholas III (1277-80).
  

  Pope Pius V was a Dominican and made the white cassock standard attire for future popes. RNS photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain (http://bit.ly/104REtA).

  This image is not available to download. For questions, contact Sally Morrow.

• Why do popes wear white? It started when a Dominican priest, an order known for its distinctive white habit, was elected Innocent V in 1276 and kept his old clothes. The white cassock became standard for all popes after another Dominican, Pius V, was chosen in 1566.
• Three popes were under the age of 25. The last was Pope Gregory V, who was 24 when elected in 996.
• Only three popes were over 80 when elected. The last, chosen by the conclave of 1406, was Gregory XII, at age 81. Benedict XVI was 78 when he was elected in 2005.
• The last non-Italian before John Paul II was elected in 1978 was Hadrian VI, a Dutchman chosen in 1522. John Paul II was also the first and only Slavic pope.
• The first pope to travel by airplane: Paul VI (1963-78).
• The longest reigning pope was, by tradition, St. Peter, the first pope. He is said to have served a term of 35 years, from the death of Jesus to his own crucifixion in Rome when he was in his 60s. Pope Pius IX (1846-1878) comes in second at nearly 32 years. John Paul II went just over 26 years.
  

  Pope Urban VII holds the record for the shortest papacy, at just 12 days. RNS photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain (http://bit.ly/Vv863x).

  This image is not available to download. For questions, contact Sally Morrow.

• The shortest papacy belongs to Urban VII, who died after just 12 days in office, in 1590. John Paul I died in 1978 after 33 days.
• There have been three popes from Africa (all from what is now considered North Africa), the last being Pope Gelasius, who was elected in 492. Gelasius was also the first pope to be called the Vicar of Christ.
• The first and only pope to have ordered the murder of his predecessor was Sergius III (904-11), who had Leo V killed.
• If you become pope, you have a 1-in-3 chance of becoming a saint. Out of 265 popes, 81 are saints – though most pope-saints came in the early centuries of the church, when many were martyrs, which is a fast-track to canonization.
• The last pope to be recognized as a martyr: Martin I (649-54), he died in exile in Crimea, imprisoned in brutal conditions.
• Some want the late John Paul II to be known as “John Paul the Great.” Three other popes in history have been given that honorific: Leo I (440-61), Gregory I (590-604) and Nicholas I (858-67).

BONUS: Was there really a Pope Joan? No, but it’s too good a story not to keep coming up.

Sources: “101 Questions and Answers on Popes and the Papacy,” by Christopher Bellitto; “Lives of The Popes: The Pontiffs from St. Peter to John Paul II,” by the Rev. Richard P. McBrien; Catholic News Service, Salvador Miranda of Florida International University.

KRE/LEM END GIBSON

 

 

The post Everything you need to know about popes and conclaves appeared first on Religion News Service.

current workaround is to associate .mhtl and .mht files to Excel 2007 to force them to open outside of your b rowser window on the client workstations, and then to run the reports i n Excel 2002 format.

Forever

The Danish band Efterklang literally went to the ends of the earth — an arctic island 400 miles north of mainland Europe, to be exact — to make its album Piramida.

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CANTERBURY, England (RNS) Days after pulling out of the conclave to elect the next pope and vowing to fight the charges against him, disgraced Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien admitted Sunday (March 3) to inappropriate “sexual conduct.”

O’Brien, who until a week ago was the highest-ranking Roman Catholic cleric in England and Scotland, had served as archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh for the last seven years and was made a cardinal in 2003.

After a week of turmoil among Scotland’s 700,000 Catholics, the cardinal said in a statement released by the Scottish Catholic Media Office in Glasgow that “there have been times that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal.”

He asked for forgiveness for those he had “offended” and from the entire church.

“I will now spend the rest of my life in retirement,” O’Brien said. “I will play no further part in the public life of the Catholic Church in Scotland.”

O’Brien resigned on Monday after explosive charges from unnamed accusers that he had made “inappropriate” sexual advances to four men, three of them priests and one now a former seminarian, starting in the 1980s.

Pope Benedict XVI accepted O’Brien’s resignation — which was already on file and due to take effect within a matter of months — with unusual haste in one of his last official acts before resigning the papacy on Thursday.

O’Brien said he would skip the upcoming conclave to elect a new pope in order to avoid becoming a distraction or media spectacle, leaving Catholics in the United Kingdom without a vote in the conclave.

“In recent days certain allegations which have been made against me have become public. Initially, their anonymous and non-specific nature led me to contest them,” O’Brien’s statement said. “However, I wish to take this opportunity to admit that there have been times that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal.”

Archbishop Philip Tartaglia of Glasgow has taken over temporary leadership of O’Brien’s former archdiocese, calling the revelations “painful and distressing.”

KRE/LEM END GRUNDY

The post Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien admits to sexual misconduct appeared first on Religion News Service.

NS Newsflash / flickr

A copyright battle between The Associated Press and an online news-clipping service is reaching a climax, and the case could have significant implications for fair use. AP sued Meltwater Group last year, arguing the "reputation management" company had a "parasitic business model" that violated copyright. Meltwater is defending the case, arguing that it is merely a search engine.

Meltwater News is a media-monitoring service that helps corporations track what's being said about them in press outlets online. The company boasts that it can "track keywords, phrases, and topics in over 192,000 sources from over 190 countries and 100 languages" throughout the day. It doesn't send its subscribers full articles, but does copy snippets and headlines then provide links to full stories—like Google News.

Last week, the nation's largest newspapers lined up to tell the New York federal judge considering the case that they support the AP. An amicus brief [PDF] was filed by The New York Times, The McClatchy Company, Advance Publications, and the Newspaper Association of America, which represents 200 newspapers around the country. In the brief, they argue that Meltwater isn't a search engine—it's a competitor.

Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

NPR (blog)

Scientists Report First Cure Of HIV In A Child, Say It's A Game-Changer NPR (blog) Scientists believe a little girl born with HIV has been cured of the infection. She's the first child and only the second person in the world known to have been cured since the virus touched off a global pandemic nearly 32 years ago. Doctors aren't releasing the ... Scientists say Baby Born with HIV Apparently CuredKAALtv.com Baby HIV 'Cure' Promising For African CountriesHere And Now Early ART may achieve 'functional cure' in children with HIVHealio 89.3 KPCC (blog) -The Hindu -CBS News all 419 news articles »

Nothing is true

As I get ready to (finally) return home from a month-long tour, I'm taking stock of the gifts I scored for my daughter Poesy on the road. First up is this Toysmith Blooming Flower an incredibly clever little papercraft toy. It consists of a complex of folded and cut tissue paper, sandwiched between two plastic rods. When you open out these rods, the tissue paper fans out to make a lovely paper flower.

But that's just for starters. If you give the flower a shake, it "blooms," as other paper fans, in contrasting colors, emerge from the insides of the first-order flower. Each shake or sharp tap creates a new structure, each more lovely than the last. It's difficult to explain, but itsmecharlee posted the above YouTube video in which a charming little girl masterfully demonstrates.

This is the second time I've brought these home (I discovered them thanks to a tip from Bettina Neuefeind, who sent me to the amazing Black Ink, near Harvard Square in Cambridge, Mass). The first one lasted for more than a month, which is pretty good for a mess of fragile, glued-together tissue paper in the hands of a then-four-year-old. They're only $4, and the kid is five now, so this time I'm bringing home two. They're really lovely and cool.

Blooming Flower from Toysmith