Taken with a beer can that has been converted into a pinhole camera, this image compresses three months into one instant.
The glowing paths show how, from our point of view, our closest star’s travels across the sky change with the seasons. Variations in cloud cover cause the gaps in the silvery trails that form each day.
Justin Quinnell left the “can cam” near Antony Gormley’sThe Angel of the North, the iconic 200-tonne, 20-metre-tall steel structure near the A1 road just outside Gateshead in the north of England.
After three months, Quinnell removed the photographic paper the can contained, which now held a negative latent image of the apparent movements of the sun, which are caused by the Earth spinning on its axis. “The image forms with time, like a suntan,” he explains.
The paper was then scanned into a computer and the image inverted using software to create the positive version shown here. This type of photography is known as solargraphy.
The highest path represents the sun’s “peak”, when it appears highest in the sky, which takes place on 21 June in the northern hemisphere. After this day the trails grow shorter and climb lower in the sky, revealing the approach of winter.
Together, the 23.5-degree tilt in the Earth’s axis and its revolution around the sun are what give us our seasons. This striking image illustrates these changes and reveals the passage of time.
Music, motorsports and well-executed videography are an irresistible cocktail. Just ask The Piano Guys. The group has made a name for itself by composing beautiful classical arrangements and pairing them with well-shot videos, and their latest effort took the group to the Spring Mountain Motorsports track just outside of Las Vegas. With three percussion tracks, six piano tracks, a staggering 43 acoustic cello tracks and 48 vocal tracks, The Piano Guys created a flawless arrangement of Carl Orff’s “O Fortuna,” the first movement of “Carmina Burana” that plays well against the raucous noise of a couple of Radical SR3 racers screaming their way around the desert track.
According to the YouTube description, The Piano Guys created the arrangement in just three days. Orin Harker and Simon Shepherd were kind enough to lend their behind-the wheel talent for the on-track shots, and the finished product will make your hair stand on end. Hit the jump to enjoy the video for yourself.
Lego are less a toy and more a medium for inspiration. The plastic masons behind Legoland Florida’s Miniland were inspired enough by the shape and power of the Bugatti Veyron über-car, that they snuck a brick version into their miniature world for little gearheads and their parents to find.
A main attraction of Legoland is its tiny version of our big old world, complete with a minifig-sized White House, Eiffel Tower, and even a miniature golf course for “mini mini golf.” The Lego maniacs who built it call it “Miniland.”
We’re guessing it isn’t worth the $1.6 million a regular Veyron costs, but the tiny Lego supercar looks right at home at a golf course and is an impressive facsimile given the size limitation, and, of course, the bricks available at such a “Mini” level.
It’s time to get the kids to Legoland Florida and start the indoctrination now.
Water and electronics are not good bedfellows, but a new silicon-based sprayable coating that makes gadgets completely waterproof has me even more excited for its other applications. Like making clothing impervious to food stains, as demonstrated in this video.
The miracle product that makes this possible is called NeverWet, developed by Ross Nanotechnology to allow liquids and heavy oils to slide off machinery and electronics. Upon application, the superhydrophobic silicon-based coating creates a 160 to 175 degree contact angle, making it nearly impervious for liquids to gain a foothold. Chocolate syrup, the mortal enemy of white fabrics, basically slides off a pair of Keds without leaving a mark. And an even more dramatic video on the company’s website shows a working iPhone submerged under water for half an hour. A test that usually results in failure after just a minute.
Ross Nanotechnology is hoping to break into the coatings market with their new product, but admits it’s not easy given how long other products have already been on the market. So worse comes to worse, they can always set up a booth at county fairs, carnivals and other local exhibitions where products like this seem to always start their life.
With content pouring in from cameras and smartphones all around the world, it’s not surprising that Flickr gains over a million new photos every single day. It’s a fact you probably wouldn’t give much thought to, until you see photographer Erik Kessels’ latest exhibit where he printed and filled a gallery with a day’s worth of Flickr uploads.
The installation, which fills multiple rooms at the Foam gallery in Amsterdam, illustrates how digital photography, and sites like Flickr and Facebook, have literally flooded the internet with photos. To the point where we’re “drowning in representations of other peoples’ experiences” according to Kessels. Like doing a photo search on Google, the mountains of photos in the gallery are overwhelming, making it almost impossible to take them all in. But, like with Scrooge McDuck and his money bin, I like the idea of being able to dive and swim around in a room filled with photos. Paper cuts be damned!
Blame it on our Rust Belt sensibilities, but we can’t think of anything cooler than rally cars racing full-bore around a steel mill. The video after the jump is about as heavy metal as it gets, and the gritty action is coming to your television in a new Speed TV series called Battle Cross. The steel mill pilot shown here – airs on November 17 at 10 pm Eastern. That’s this Thursday, kids, so set your DVR now, or ask your parents for permission to stay up late.
This first episode features 2011 Rally America Champion David Higgins driving against Subaru Rally Team USA teammate Dave Mirra. The competition is a two-round affair, the first a standard fastest-time-wins, autocross-style challenge, while the second is a judged “freestyle session.” Think: figure skating – but with sequins and feathers replaced by popping wastegates and two-foot wings.
A whole host of other names are attached to the series. Rally driver Andrew Comrie-Picard and Stacy Keibler, she of WWE and girlfriend of George Clooney fame, will co-host the show. Drifting star Samuel Hubinette and rally driver Stephan Verdier will serve as judges. Battle Cross is produced by The Fast and the Furious director Rob Cohen, so if nothing else, we can at least expect it to look great.
If you miss the premiere, Battle Cross will be rebroadcast on Nov. 18 at 1:00 am EST and 10:00 am EST, and Nov. 20 at 2:30 pm EST. Click through the jump to see the trailer.
It’s unclear whether Illinois moron Michael Alan Skopec was drunk beyond belief or had just returned home from a lobotomy, but either way, he was angry! Why? IPHONE NO WORK. So, naturally, he called 911. Repeatedly. Here are the tapes.
Possibly fueled by the same geeky instinct that pushes our kind to build SD card readers for ancient game consoles and port Doom to just about everything, YouTube user Napabar recently bridged the 27 year gap between the Macintosh 512k and the iPhone 4S. That’s right, Siri and the Fat Mac are talking. Sort of. Most of the heavy lifting is being done by a pair of intermediary machines, an iMac that’s been configured to run an AppleScript upon receipt of a Siri dictated email, and a bridge computer that passes on the resulting text file to the Mac 512K’s floppy drive. Result? Dictate an email to Siri, get a text file with its contents on the Mac 512k. Old and new technology, talking like old pen-pals. And to think, all it took was two middlemen.
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