Cooper Griggs

Partial Moon - part of an #experimental #long #exposure #series
#moon #night #losangeles #california #canon #650d #t4i (at Culver City Park)

Butterflight part of an #experimental #long #exposure #series
#moon #night #losangeles #california #canon #650d #t4i #butterfly #poi #led (at Culver City Park)

Electrons part of an #experimental #long #exposure #series
#moon #night #losangeles #california #canon #650d #t4i #poi #led #color (at Culver City Park)

Fire Hands - part of an #experimental #long #exposure #series
#night #losangeles #california #canon #650d #t4i #fire #dance (at Culver City Park)

I’m completely in love with these bicycle murals from Argentinian artist Mart who began painting on the streets of Buenos Aires in the 1990s at the tender age of 12. His whimsical imagination is expressed through vibrant colors and stunning line work that flows freely from cans of spray paint. You can see much more of his work on Flickr, and read more about him over on Graffitimundo.

50 Cent dubbed over a Jehovah’s Witnesses trying to get deaf people to stop masturbating

“You can’t travel through Scotland without admiring the stunning mountains, the vast and beautiful glens, the breathtaking scenery and anything else that makes up the land that attracts so many cameras.” This description statement makes a whole lot of sense, after seeing photography in the Scotland’s Landscapes group pool.

What’s there to photograph in Scotland? Plenty. Check out the About page for a list of nearly 100 groups focused on everything Scottish, from castles to isles.

The country of over 30,000 square miles consists of many medieval monuments, hundreds of islands, and the Grampian mountains.

Photos from Hazel^, Optionrider, davixhunter, ian-mcintosh, and Swordale Gallery.

via http://www.cambrianyoga.com/massage.htm

Car? What’s a car, anyway, but a thing with wheels?

While you probably have that one friend who insists, “No, it’s fine — I’m way more focused on the road when I’m stoned!”, Colorado disagrees: The state is spending $1 million on TV ads for the Colorado Department of Transportation’s new “Drive High, Get a DUI” campaign that make fun of pot users who already space out under normal circumstances.

The point there being that driving a potentially deadly hunk of metal around other people could be a really bad time to space out. For example — one ad shoes a guy (with huuuuge hair, because obviously the more cartoonish of a character, the better comedic value!) trying to operate a grill while high and not realizing what the problem is, because he’s stoned. The idea being, you wouldn’t want him driving a car if he can’t turn a grill on.

It’s the first time since marijuana was legalized in 2012 that Colorado has pushed such a campaign to remind drivers to treat marijuana like alcohol, reports the Associated Press. The state has also recently started tallying impaired driving violations due to marijuana, while in previous years those just fell under the same category as drunk drivers.

And also? The ads are actually pretty funny:

You can follow MBQ on Twitter if you can find her oh wait, here: @marybethquirk

Colorado launches campaign to stop stoned driving [Associated Press]

“Memory Wound” is a visually striking memorial to the victims of the Utøya island massacre (part of the 2011 Norway terrorist attacks) that takes the form of an 11-foot-wide excavation cutting through a point of land near the island. The memorial, which was designed by Swedish artist Jonas Dahlberg, is meant to resemble a wound or cut in the landscape. Visitors to the memorial will be able to walk to the edge of the excavation. Out of reach, on the far side of the excavation, will be the names of the 69 victims of the massacre. “Memory Wound” and Dahlberg’s proposal for a second memorial in Olso were both recently selected in a competition hosted by Public Art Norway (KORO). “Memory Wound” is scheduled for completion in 2015.

images via Jonas Dahlberg

via ArchDaily

In this dog adoption ad for the The Mayhew Animal Home in London, England, we see three people having extremely frustrating days at work A rugby ump gets manhandled, a doorman is threatened by young thugs and a young woman with a clipboard is completely ignored despite her best efforts. At the end of the day, however, each of them find at home a dog who is so very happy that their human has arrived home and with unconditional love like that, nothing else matters.

via AdWeek

via http://theemitter.tumblr.com/post/9587263592/bunuel-and-king-solomons-table-01

via http://www.dezeen.com/2008/09/19/wood-house-by-ondrej-and-josef-chybik/

via http://thisisnthappiness.com/page/2

What created this unusual hole in Mars?

via http://1990-1999.tumblr.com/

via http://blog.yimmyayo.com/

[This post was originally published on SciStarter on February 3rd, 2014]

The non-profit Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science (Public Lab) previously won a Knight News Challenge in 2011 and received $500,000 to fund a tool kit and online community for citizen-based, grassroots data gathering and research. The second Knight News Challenge the group won, a $350,000 Knight award focused on health data, will allow the group to build and deploy inexpensive technologies for monitoring.

Connections between the hacker culture of the 1970s and emerging DIY science continue with the funding of the Homebrew Sensing Project. Born of Public Lab, this project aims to create low-cost sensor technologies for environmental research and monitoring. Following its namesake’s (the homebrew computer club) lead, this project’s participant composition complicates distinctions between expert and hobbyist or amateur.

The three individuals leading up the project are Shannon Dosemagen, Jeffrey Warren, and Mathew Lippincott. I was able to chat with Dosemagen, also a co-Founder of Public Lab, via email. Situating the Homebrew Sensing Project within the Public Lab’s effort tells us a lot about the motivations behind the project. “Public lab,” Dosemagen writes, “isn’t just a nonprofit that creates tools, we’re interested in creating a community.” Connecting with community organizations, NGOs, and research institutions they have created an extensive network that helps connect with a community and connect communities.

Connecting communities and providing a space for them to interact, Public Lab provides what Dosemagen describes as “a space where people with different expertise can interact.” This is a particularly important interaction among different kinds of expertise, including specialized technical as well as local knowledge, and reflects the efforts of Public Lab, Dosemagen tells us, to “recognize that not only researchers linked to academic institutions bring value and expertise to projects such as this, but that everyone can bring something to the table through the experience and knowledge sets that they have.”

Engagement among experts is demonstrated through the “barn raising” activities, events where members of the community come together to create something (be it tool or tutorials), Public Lab undertakes. Winning a another Knight Challenge means that the group can continue such efforts with the Homebrew Sensing Project. This project aims to address growing concerns about exposure to various human-made hazards and the associated risks, including health risks. To do this, the group wants to create inexpensive tools that can be used with mobile devices, allowing community members to take readings and analyze the information without the high costs associated with traditional lab testing. The group will undertake these efforts by refining their hardware and software platforms and developing new ones. As well, Dosemagen writes that a “portion of this grant will go towards supporting an outreach role and community partners,” which means that further community building and crossing of boundaries between communities will be part of this important initiative. If you’re interested in learning more about Public Lab or following this project you can find more information about the project in their news release.

Public Lab’s Homebrew Sensing Project extends their work on a DIY spectrometry project. The initial project, Dosemagen noted, began a few years ago and publicly “launched in 2012 with a Kickstarter” and the results have been impressive. To date, she tells us, Public Lab has ”over 2,000 accounts on SpectralWorkbench.org, over 14,000 spectral samples uploaded, [and] 750 members in the spectrometry Google Group.” In addition to all of this work, the group has “shipped 3,500 spectrometers worldwide that range between a price point of $10 and $70,” with the price point being a particularly notable feature in how accessible that is when compared with traditional spectrometers that typically begin at several thousand dollars.

The post Homebrew Sensing Project: DIY Environmental Monitoring appeared first on CitizenSci.

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