Jack Horkheimer, beloved TV personality and executive director of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium, has died, age 72. Countless legions of us grew up watching the gruff-voiced, wide-eyed astronomer hosting Star Gazer and Star Hustler on public television. Week after week, decade after decade, he’d walk in front of that green screen and excitedly tell us what we could expect to see in the evening sky. His enthusiasm was deeply infectious. He taught us all sorts of things about the universe, and he made us smile.
Farewell, farewell fellow star gazer. We’ll keep looking up.
We haven’t mentioned “punk rock mathematician” Tom Henderson here before, have we? Gotta fix that, pronto.
First, go here to read a fantastic interview at Technoccult to get a sense of Henderson’s deeply personal and accessible philosophy of mathematics. After that, if you find that your brainy bits are delightfully fizzy, go to the Mathpunk site to read MORE fizzmaking stuff, or listen to the Math For Primates podcast. And then, if you find Henderson to be just as badass, brilliant and MAXIMUMADORBZ as so many of us already do, head over to Kickstarter to watch his deeply endearing pitch video for the Punk Mathematics book project:
Punk Mathematics will be a series of mathematical stories. It is written for readers who are interested in having their minds expanded by the strange metaphors and implications of mathematics, even if they’re not always on friendly terms with equations. Better living through probability; the fractal dimension of cities and cancers; using orders of magnitude to detect bullshit; free will and quantum economics; and the mathematics of cooperation in a networked world on the brink of a No Future collapse.
It looks like Henderson’s more than reached his financial goal, but don’t let that dissuade you from tucking some more money into his punk-as-fuck fanny pack. Every little bit helps, and this book sounds unlike anything else that’s being published these days.
Good morning, loves. How was your weekend? I spent most of mine stumbling around the San Mateo county fairgrounds, gaping at the endlessly astonishing/inspiring/overstimulating 2-day geextravaganza that is Maker Faire. Still feeling a bit fried. Pleasantly so. Speaking of getting fried at Maker Faire, here’s a glimpse of what the ArcAttack! performances on the appropriately named “Tesla Stage” looked and sounded like:
Yes. That’s what a man in chain mail wrangling pure lightning looks like. His name is Patrick “Parsec” Brown. He’s ArcAttack’s MC. I sincerely hope that dude gets hella laid. That goes for ALL the guys on the ArcAttack crew. Way more groupie worthy than the average rock band, if you ask me.
Based in Austin, Texas, ArcAttack’s been developing their tech and stage shows for the better half of a decade now. For their astounding audio/visual displays, ArcAttack has invented a completely original DJ setup:
HVDJ pumps music through a PA system while two specially designed DRSSTC’s (Dual-Resonant Solid State Tesla Coils) act as separate synchronized instruments. These high tech machines produce an electrical arc similar to a continuous lightning bolt and put out a crisply distorted square wave sound reminiscent of the early days of synthesizers.
ArcAttack performing the Doctor Who theme song at Maker Faire, 2010. Photo by darthdowney.
First and foremost, ArcAttack is all about putting on a show that is not just a concert, but an otherworldly experience. In doing so with the technology that we’ve created, we hope to inspire minds, the young and the old, to take up an interest in science, the arts, and their applications, to examine where they intersect, where they are going, and to re-examine the works of past researchers and performers such as Nikola Tesla and Delia Derbyshire in light of the ever evolving face of this amazing world. Maybe they’ll have as much fun as we have. But either way, we want them all to enjoy the show, and maybe, just maybe, be inspired to help to leave the world a little better than the way they found it.
Are you awake yet? Are you in love yet? Many more ArcAttack clips after the jump.
The Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull has received a fair bit of attention of late. Not unexpected, considering that its insidious ash cloud momentarily brought air travel in the vicinity of Europe to a standstill. No doubt, this is some sort of evil, Nordic plot, the ins and outs of which are of no concern here. What we wish to call attention to here is the footage above, a bit of geological geekery. As the volcano continues to erupt one can see the shock waves from each explosion of magma ripple through the plumes of smoke and debris. Such is nature that it can be so beautiful and fascinating in its destruction.
Ah, the legendary 14th episode of Nu Pogodi (“You Just Wait!”), a ’70s/’80s children’s cartoon outlining the tormented, love-hate, co-dependent relationship of Zayatz and Volk (bunny and wolf), the Wile E. Coyote & Road Runner of the USSR. Their relationship spanned 16 “classic” episodes (from 1969 to 1986) and included plenty of substance abuse, violence, “bad touches,” and one very awkward romantic dinner.
The 14th episode – with its murderous rabbit simulacrum, metrosexual hair-cutting/pants-pressing robots, junky schteeempunk Volkswagon (YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE?!), and zero-G flight simulators that play Space Race-inspired Soviet pop music. Episode 14 – my first exposure to electronic music of any sort. The techno kicks in at 2:57, when the main Space/Technology portion of the episode begins. In this episode, the wolf chases the rabbit around the “Dom Yunogo Technika,” which translates roughly to “House/Society of Young Tech-heads.” (That’s my best 5 AM translation, at least). Before 2:57, there’s a short mini-episode in which Rabbit & Wolf share a dinner together – the aforementioned date, which ended in hilarious tragedy and made the show go down in Russian gay animation/film history, as both Rabbit & Wolf are male.
As with all episodes of Nu Pogodi, which can be found on YouTube, the wide-ranging music is one of the best parts. This episode is one of the best examples of that. The tracklist of Episode 14, which includes some appearances by Western artists, is this:
1. Alla Pugachova – Million Alyh Roz
2. Digital Emotion — Get Up, Action
3. Digital Emotion — Go Go Yellow Screen
4. Bonnie and Clyde – Leroy Holmes
5. Methusalem (Empire) – Black Hole (Bavarian Affair)
6. Digital Emotion — The Beauty & The Beast
7. Zemlyane – Trava u Doma
8. VIA Leisya Pesnya – Kachaetsya Vagon
BERG co-founder Matt Jones just forwarded me a missive from one Ms. Daisy Ginsberg, an artist and scholar who uses design concepts to “explore the implications of emerging and unfamiliar technologies, science and services. She is fascinated by the macroscopic view, the larger-scale social, cultural and ethical consequences of engineering invisible organisms.”
Ginsberg and a handful of fellow researchers are putting out a call for artists, designers and scientists to collaborate on a well-funded synthetic biology exchange program called “Synthetics Aesthetics“. The project sounds like it will offer immense potential for personal growth, as well as aid other up-and-comers from a wide range of disciplines in developing completely new ways of thinking about and approaching the relatively newborn field of creative synthetic biology.
What is synthetic biology, exactly? Read on:
Synthetic Biology is a new approach to engineering biology, generally defined as the application of engineering principles to the complexity of biology. Biology has become a new material for engineering. From the design of biological circuits made from DNA to the design of entire systems, synthetic biology is very much interested in making biology something that can be designed.
Traditional engineering disciplines have tackled design by working alongside designers and developing longstanding and mutually-beneficial collaborations. Synthetic Aesthetics – a research project jointly run by the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and Stanford University, California – aims to bring together synthetic biologists, social scientists, designers, artists, and other creative practitioners, to explore existing and potential collaborations between synthetic biology and the creative professions. Interaction between these two broad fields has the potential to lead to new forms of engineering, new schools of art and design, a greater social scientific understanding of science and engineering, and new approaches to societal engagement with synthetic biology.
This website provides detailed information on the project… and useful information on synthetic biology and its relationship to art and design. As the project develops, the site will feature the results of our work and track the collaborations we establish.
Intrigued? Read their FAQ here. Specifically, they are looking for twelve people: six synthetic biologists and six designers/artists to take part in collaborative two week residencies. You have until March 31st to apply.
Penn and Teller do a magic trick with James Randi. Unrelated… but cute.
Via John Brownlee, who posts on Twitter, “my hero James Randi just came out of the closet… although I wonder why he waited this long, or chose to come out now.” Normally, a famous person’s coming-out announcement wouldn’t really feel like big news to post about here, but something about Randi’s news struck a cord. Perhaps it’s his age; James Randi is 81 years old, and, according to his blog post, this is the first time he’s officially told even his closest friends. Perhaps it’s the fact that he’s also originally from Toronto; an antidote to Margaret Wente.
James Randi dropped out of school at age 17 to perform in a carnival roadshow as a turban-wearing stage magician and escape artist. He holds two Guinness records: one for being encased in a block of ice for 55 minutes, the other staying locked in a casket for 1 hour and 44 minutes, breaking Harry Houdini’s record from 1926. Bigger than his accomplishments in magic and escapology is his career as a skeptic/author. He entered spotlight for challenging the claims of spoon-bender/psychic Uri Geller in the 1972. Since that time, he’s made it his business to debunk those who prey on gullible people, especially for financial gain: televangelists, psychic surgeons, dowsers, vibrational healers, and the like. Randi runs an educational foundation (the JREF), which offers scholarships to a younger generation of skeptical thinkers. An excerpt from Randi’s coming-out post:
From some seventy years of personal experience, I can tell you that there’s not much “gay” about being homosexual. For the first twenty years of my life, I had to live in the shadows, in a culture that was — at least outwardly — totally hostile to any hint of that variation of life-style. At no time did I choose to adopt any protective coloration, though; my cultivation of an abundant beard was not at all a deception, but part of my costume as a conjuror.
Gradually, the general attitude that I’d perceived around me began to change, and presently I find that there has emerged a distinctly healthy acceptance of different social styles of living — except, of course, in cultures that live in constant and abject fear of divine retribution for infractions found in the various Holy Books… In another two decades, I’m confident that young people will find themselves in a vastly improved atmosphere of acceptance.
Before publishing this statement, I chose to privately notify a number of my closest friends and colleagues — none of whom, I’m sure, have been at all surprised at this “coming out.” I’m prepared to receive the inevitable barrage of jeers and insults from the “grubbies” out there who will jump to their keyboards in glee to notify others of their kind about this statement, which to them will be yet further proof of the perfidy of the rationalist mode of life that I have chosen. Those titters of joy will be unheard over the murmur of acceptance that I confidently expect from my friends.
This declaration of mine was prompted just last week by seeing an excellent film — starring Sean Penn — that told the story of politician Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California. I’m in excellent company: Barney Frank, Oscar Wilde, Stephen Fry, Ellen DeGeneris, Rachel Maddow, are just a few of those who were in my thoughts as I pressed the key that placed this on [the JREF blog] and before the whole world…
I should apologize for having used [this blog] as the venue to publish this note, an item that is hardly the focus of what we promote and publish here, but I chose the single most public asset I have to make this statement. It’s from here that I have attacked irrationality, stupidity, and irresponsibility, and it is my broadest platform. Here is where I have chosen to stand and fight.
And I think that I have already won this battle by simply publishing this statement.
It just goes to show that it’s never too late to step forth, never too late to declare visibility. Thank you and congratulations, James Randi!
Who else from the US is long-toothed enough to remember those bunged up old Sterling Educational Film reels that lazy or under-prepped public school teachers often showed in place of real lessons? They were short, vaguely informative features on anything from personal hygiene, to parameciums, to overviews of friggin’ dairy production in Wisconsin. And of course, there was plenty of morbidly fascinating “duck and cover” fare:
I’d all but forgotten watching Tommy and the Atom one morning in my 1st grade homeroom class (this would have been early in Reagan’s first term) until now. But the minute that electrified fox showed up, it all came flooding back: the Rasputinian magician with his beard of lightning, the impassive narrator’s description of good versus bad atoms, the malignant black atom thrashing inside of a bomb, intimation of worldwide destruction at the hands of evildoers… This is one beautifully creepy, potent little slice of cold war propaganda.
Hey, guess who else was born on Jan 8th? World-renowned theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking. He turns 68 today. Here’s a small assortment of reverent (and not so reverent) clips and quotes concerning a brilliant and resilient man whose mind is arguably Teh Sexiest human organ on this entire planet:
“Unfortunate little tumbleweave that met an unhappy end on V Street, NE Washington, DC. Tumbleweaves thrive here in DC, their numbers are great. She was one of the unlucky few.” - Urban Tumbleweave
A tumbleweave is the part of a hairstyle that, once mature and dry, disengages from the host and tumbles (rolls) away in the wind, seeking its own fortunes. The tumbleweave habit is most common in urban areas, such as PHILLAY. However, the ripe specimen of tumbleweave pictured below was sighted by intoallthat in Baltimore. Some thorough scientific analysis yields the following theory: “possibly originating continents away in a proto-religious Eurasian hairletting ritual, [this tumbleweave] found itself hopelessly and aimlessly clinging to a patch of concrete in downtown Bowtimo. Possibly looking for a cameo on The Wire.”
The blog Urban Tumbleweave seeks to further chronicle tumbleweaves discovered in Philadelphia, West Oakland (“the Philly of the West Coast”) and beyond. Each tumbleweave is like a snowflake, representing a particular genus, such as the exotic Synthetica Prolifera. Tumblewave sightings can also be submitted to this excellent Flickr pool.
