I grew up in the suburbs which is to say that I knew that there were stars in the sky, but they were never very bright. On those infrequent occasions where I got to sleep under a real night sky, I have always been amazed at how many stars there are to see.
The Night Sky is a neat, little instructional site that covers the basics of finding constellations. By the end of it, you'll be able to identify the constellations Orion, the Big Dipper, and Cassiopeia, as well as the particular stars Betelgeuse and Polaris (from which you can derive north).
Mark Rosewater, who is one of the major creative forces behind Magic: The Gathering, has a saying that restrictions breed creativity. It would appear that Chuck Jones, who was arguably the driving force behind Warner Brother's Looney Tunes cartoons, would agree. Here are the nine rules which governed the creation of the Roadrunner and Coyote series of classic cartoons.
1. The Road Runner cannot harm the coyote except by going "Beep-beep!"
2. No outside force can harm the coyote—only his own ineptitude or the failure of the ACME products.
3. The coyote can stop any time—if he were not a fanatic.
4. There may be no dialogue ever, except "beep-beep!" The coyote may, however, speak to the audience, occasionally with his own voice or through wooden signs that he holds up.
5. The Road Runner must stay on the road—otherwise, logically, he would not be called "Road Runner".
6. All action must be confined to the natural environment of the two characters—the southwest American desert.
7. All materials, tools, weapons, or mechanical conveniences must be obtained from the ACME Corporation.
8. Whenever possible, gravity should be made the coyote's greatest enemy.
9. The coyote is always more humiliated than harmed by his failures.
(source: Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist)
Food advertising is an art. I'm sure we've all heard how, when photographing cereal, they'll dot the flakes with Elmer's glue, along with all sorts of similar tricks. Well, someone took this observation to the next level and decided to do comparative photos of food ad copy and the actual food that you get from fast food joints.
The one caveat that I would make is that some of the difference is due to the differences between professional lightning and natural light. That said, the results are certainly interesting.
Have you ever wondered what the flag might look like if we were to add an additional state? One of the proposals is a circular arrangement as depicted below. An alternative version has rows of nine stars interleaved with rows of 8 stars.
Scott McCloud thinks a lot about comics. He's got an excuse given that this is how he makes his living; however, it the depth and creativity of his thoughts that make him stand apart. A while back, he wrote a book (in comic form) called Reinventing Comics in which he analyzed the art-form and then speculated on its future. He was one of the people who, early on, saw the potential for the web and advocated the idea that the web could allow comic artists to employ what he described as an infinite canvas.
When you look around at most online comics, most of them look a lot like traditional print comics. Very few people are really taking advantage of the new medium and, sadly, many of those who are trying to do so aren't, frankly, doing a very good job.
Scott McCloud is more than just a theorist. He's created some truly innovative comics and have them available for viewing on his site. My personal favorite is an autobiographical one called My Obsession with Chess. For sheer beauty of form, I would recommend Zot, which is a kind of superhero story. He uses the idea of a story trail to connect his panels which vary greatly in size per the needs of the story. It's worth taking a look at.
This week I thought that I'd go retro. Very, very retro. Long before computers and calculators, many people used abacuses (or abaci if you're fond of pretense) to perform complex calculations.
I've often played with abacuses (for some reason, a lot of dentists that I've gone to have had them in their waiting rooms) but I've never really understood how one is supposed to use them.
If, like me, you've been curious about this, the Abacus: The Art of Calculating Beads site will not only teach you how to use an abacus but it also provides an excellent history of the abacus as well as links to various abacus related sites, including a great Feynman anecdote and a truly nifty Java applet of an abacus.
