This is an incredibly incredible use of long exposure light art photography. None of the light paintings are done in post production.
Author: Nathan Campbell
Nathan runs St Eutychus. He loves Jesus. His wife. His daughter. His son. His other daughter. His dog. Coffee. And the Internet. He is the pastor of City South Presbyterian Church, a church in Brisbane, a graduate of Queensland Theological College (M. Div) and the Queensland University of Technology (B. Journ). He spent a significant portion of his pre-ministry-as-a-full-time-job life working in Public Relations, and now loves promoting Jesus in Brisbane and online. He can't believe how great it is that people pay him to talk and think about Jesus. If you'd like to support his writing financially you can do that by giving to his church.
The pixels will inherit the earth
They are coming. Watch out. I make a resolution to stay in high resolution.
Generation Next: Coupland on the future
Douglas Coupland coined the named Generation X and wrote some books that I like. He’s put forward forty five theses on the future. That are interesting and thought provoking. Here are some of my favourites.
8) Try to live near a subway entrance
In a world of crazy-expensive oil, it’s the only real estate that will hold its value, if not increase.
9) The suburbs are doomed, especially thoseE.T. , California-style suburbs
This is a no-brainer, but the former homes will make amazing hangouts for gangs, weirdoes and people performing illegal activities. The pretend gates at the entranceways to gated communities will become real, and the charred stubs of previous white-collar homes will serve only to make the still-standing structures creepier and more exotic.
17) You may well burn out on the effort of being an individual
You’ve become a notch in the Internet’s belt. Don’t try to delude yourself that you’re a romantic lone individual. To the new order, you’re just a node. There is no escape.
21) We will still be annoyed by people who pun, but we will be able to show them mercy because punning will be revealed to be some sort of connectopathic glitch: The punner, like someone with Tourette’s, has no medical ability not to pun.
33) People who shun new technologies will be viewed as passive-aggressive control freaks trying to rope people into their world, much like vegetarian teenage girls in the early 1980s
1980: “We can’t go to that restaurant. Karen’s vegetarian and it doesn’t have anything for her.”
2010: “What restaurant are we going to? I don’t know. Karen was supposed to tell me, but she doesn’t have a cell, so I can’t ask her. I’m sick of her crazy control-freak behaviour. Let’s go someplace else and not tell her where.”
35) Stupid people will be in charge, only to be replaced by ever-stupider people. You will live in a world without kings, only princes in whom our faith is shattered
A dash of nostalgia: Comic Book Ads
Once (or twice) upon a time I seriously coveted the awesome stuff advertised in the comic book classified ads. Who doesn’t want x-ray glasses? This Flickr collection is fun.
U-G-L-Y: You might have an alibi afterall
20th century prophets Daphne and Celeste had it wrong when they sang:
“U.G.L.Y
You ain’t got no alibi
You ugly!”
The science of economics proves it.
A new(ish) study published in The Review of Economics shows that ugly people are actually more likely to be criminals. (PDF of the actual study here). Probably because there are only two paths – model citizen and criminal. And they’re not pretty enough…
It’s not a new idea…
The BBC describes the findings as being significant in “the new field of anthropometrics”, suggesting that this could be a handy profiling tool. In fact, anthropometry, in particular detecting criminal tendencies by the measurement of facial characteristics, is a very old discipline. It was previously condemned as pseudoscience – could it be making a comeback?
But they have the numbersTM:
“It is based on an anonymous questionnaire combined with equally anonymous ratings of the subject’s attractiveness. It shows a small but significant correlation between attractiveness, or the lack of it, and criminality. The most unattractive segment are 1.5 per cent more likely to have committed robbery, 2.2 per cent more likely to have committed assault, and 3 per cent more likely to have sold drugs. Or to have been caught doing so, at any rate.
The authors note previous work showing how more attractive people are more successful in their careers and earn more. This puts less attractive people at a disadvantage in the world of work and nudges them towards criminal alternatives.”
Ugliness is also not entirely subjective. Apparently (according to a video essay I made at uni that I have since deleted from memory and existence) it is all about symmetry. Or lack thereof.
If you are feeling unsymmetrical today then you need to kick start your criminal career – there are a few posts about how to rob a bank in these here parts that might help.
Sorry. It’s science.
Patents are a virtue
This is a fascinating feature on the guy who invented the intermittent windscreen wiper and sparked decades of patent lawsuits against major motoring companies. It delves into the murky depths of patent infringement and what does and doesn’t constitute intellectual property in the United States (and globally).
Copyright and Intellectual Property stuff gets really murky. And I think is a product of selfishness. On both the part of the infringer and the producer.
“In the last decade or so, the boundaries of what is patentable have expanded. In 1972, a molecular engineer named Ananda Chakrabarty applied for a patent on a microbe he had engineered that would help break down crude oil. The Patent Office rejected his application, citing a clause in the patent code which says that life forms are not patentable. Chakrabarty appealed, and in 1980 the Supreme Court ruled in his favor, 5-4, creating a brand-new sector of intellectual property: life. Last February, the National Institutes of Health applied for thousands of patents on human genes. The prospect that the United States government may soon own the gene that causes, say, green eyes has naturally created a certain amount of controversy, with some people predicting a kind of land grab at the cellular level–the Japanese patenting brown eyes, Swedes patenting blond hair, Italians patenting Roman noses.”
The story of Ford’s (and plenty of other motor companies’) infringements of Robert Kearns’ windscreen wiper patent is a sad one. He lost his marriage and possibly his sanity in the singleminded pursuit of justice. And what Ford did was wrong.
“Roger Shipman, a Ford supervisor, announced to Kearns that he had “won the wiper competition.” He told Kearns that his wiper would be used on the 1969 Mercury line. Kearns was given the prototype of a windshield-wiper motor to commemorate the occasion. The other engineers welcomed him aboard Ford’s wiper team. Then, according to Kearns, Shipman asked him to show his wiper control to the rest of the team. Wipers were a safety item, Shipman explained, and the law required disclosure of all the engineering before Ford could give Kearns a contract. This sounded reasonable to Kearns, so he explained to the Ford engineers exactly how his intermittent wiper worked.
About five months later, Kearns was dismissed. He was told that Ford did not want his wiper system after all–that the other engineers had designed their own. Kearns remembers that one of the engineers taunted him as he was leaving. “
But that was possibly the result of a systemic flaw in Ford’s thinking – from the founder himself.
“Henry Ford loathed patents. One of Ford’s lawyers once boasted, “There is no power on earth, outside of the Supreme Court, which can make Henry Ford sign a license agreement or pay a royalty.” Ford thought that the patent system should be abolished, because, he said, it “produces parasites, men who are willing to lay back on their oars and do nothing,” and because patents afford “opportunities for little minds, directed by others more cunning, to usurp the gains of genuine inventors–for pettifoggers to gain a strategic advantage over honest men, and, under a smug protest of righteousness, work up a hold-up game in the most approved fashion.””
Inventors are cool though.
“The lawsuit against Ford became Kearns’ life. He put every penny he had into it. He was driven by an uncynical, almost spiritual belief in justice and an equally pure hatred of the automobile industry. At a hearing in 1980, Kearns said, “I want you to understand that I am wearing a little badge here, and that badge says that I am an inventor, and it says I am a net contributor to society. And it is like maybe you can’t see the badge, and these other gentlemen can’t see the badge, and I don’t think anybody is going to be able to see the badge until my trial is finished in this courtroom and I will find out whether I am wearing the badge or not.”
The West Wing v The Wire
Nothing gets media studies students salivating like The West Wing. Except The Wire. They’re a bit polarising – it’s like the Canon v Nikon, or Mac v PC debate. Two products of similar qualities targetting similar demographics with slightly differently nuanced tastes.
It’s about user experience. Do you want to watch TV to feel smart? Then watch the West Wing, do you want to watch TV to feel superior to the dirty criminals running the streets and the beat-cops paid to curb the uncurbable? Then watch the Wire. Do you want wit or grit? Macroeconomics or microeconomics? Barksdale or Bartlett? McNulty or Ziegler?
A couple of people dialoguing a review of the new Facebook movie The Social Network described the difference nicely, I’ve edited out the swearing for those for whom that sort of thing is an issue:
“SFJ: Let’s compare “The West Wing” and “The Wire.”
NVC: I’d love to!
SFJ: Sorkin talk makes everybody feel smart and makes the s***y world look OK because making money and being an a*****e is fine as long as a deserving nerd wins. This appeals to nerds and anybody who fancies themselves as SMARTS. Further, he goes in hard on lexis—the act of delivering words—and lets the characters walk you through everything that would either be the job of a) acting or b) the audience using their heads. It is a way to load middlebrow content into totally fun speed talk that saves many people some hard work while feeling highbrow, because only smart people can talk that quickly. It’s like associating athletic skill with height, de jure.
SFJ: Think of how many Sorkin characters are sort of Flat Erics who talk, rapidly describing every idea that could have been acted out. The advantage is you can cram a lot of action into one episode. The downside is a weird, Aspergersy sameness to every project. Actors become court stenographers in reverse, spitting out Sorkinese and then stepping aside to let the next block of text barrel through.
NVC: Agreed.
SFJ: “The Wire,” on the other hand, doesn’t mind alienating you. It eliminates spoken exposition (lexis) in favor of mimesis. This is an entire world, it is full, and you had better take notes if you want to keep up. You have to WORK. People who don’t look like you may be in charge for a minute, maybe for a long time, and nobody has the moral high ground.
NVC: THERE IS NO PRESIDENT BARTLET IN BALTIMORE.
SFJ: Sorkin loves the abasement that is a by-product of believing in the high ground. It’s in everything Sorkin does.”
Cool stuff from Google
Google put together this presentation of cool stuff from around the web. I’ll no doubt blog some of it – but if you want an advanced screening and haven’t seen this yet check it out.
EyeQ?
I saw this ad the other day. I think. I can’t be sure, because I’m colourblind. Which apparently makes me dumb.
A cacophony in B Flat
Inbflat collects musical pieces in B Flat from YouTube and allows you to create your own aural arrangements.
Mythbusting in the Kitchen
Kenji Lopez-Alt is an online cooking superstar. He’s the guy who reverse engineered Maccas fries and so owns a special place in all our hearts.
He combines science and cooking and writing like a chef combines ingredients…
So when he says “these are the six biggest myths in food preparation” then I believe him. And I post a link to them.
Some surprises, like the idea that you can flip steaks over and over again during cooking (I’m of the only flip once school).
Common backyard know-how dictates that burgers and steaks should only be flipped once, half way through cooking. But has anyone ever bothered questioning why we do this? Does it actually create a noticeable improvement in the way your meat comes out?
Turns out the answer is an emphatic no! Flipping your meat multiple times produces meat that’s noticeably more evenly cooked (there’s about 40% less overcooked meat in a burger flipped every 15 seconds vs. one flipped once), browns just as well (just don’t expect distinct hash marks), and to top it all off, ends up cooking in about 2/3rds of the time. Faster and better? You betcha!
Females of Fiction Flowchart
This Overthinking It flowchart is cool. Maybe slightly PG.
What Greek Teachers Won’t Tell You
When it comes to the Greek Language (at QTC at least) David Allen Black wrote the book. Literally. We use his introduction to Biblical Greek as our textbook. So I enjoyed this post of things your Greek teacher won’t tell you. If you haven’t got a Greek teacher then they’re still interesting. Sort of.
I think there’s some sort of double negative going on here. The list is a mix of Greek fallacies, and truths that you might not have heard. Anyway.
Here’s one of my favourite things from Greek (and Hebrew) this year.
“Greek words do not have one meaning. Yet how many times do we hear in a sermon, “The word in the Greek means…”? Most Greek words are polysemous, that is, they have many possible meanings, only one of which is its semantic contribution to any passage in which it occurs. (In case you were wondering: Reading all of the meanings of a Greek word into any particular passage in which it occurs is called “illegitimate totality transfer” by linguists.)”
Mad Skillz Round Two
Getting other people to write content for one’s blog is an awesome strategy for blogging regularly, and before Ben’s book review Wednesday there was Mad Skillz week.
I’d urge you to contribute a book review for Ben’s sake (I haven’t told him yet, but I’m going to review something really exciting).
But I’m also wanting to tap into your repository of awesome, but possibly as yet undiscovered, skills that can be of benefit to others. Have a read of some of the old posts – examples included how to take low light photos, how to play roller hockey for Australia, how to argue with me, how to survive in regional ministry, how to write Christian parody songs, how to be poetic, how to supply teach, how to do graphic design, how to appreciate opera, and how to make an animation story board.
So if you’ve got a niche skill, or just something that’s generally awesome, that you’d like to share with a very small segment of the world, and google, and you’d like to write a guest post, just hit me up by email at nm dot campbell at gmail.com.