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I came across some amazing photos of the F-117 Stealth Fighter today. They were taken at the Royal International Air Tattoo in 2002 in England.

From the site:

The F-117 is a little bigger than the initial impression you get—it’s about the same size as an F-15 Eagle. It has a whole range of tricks to make it stealthy, starting with the dark, low contrast paint scheme which makes it so difficult to see at night (or photograph during the day), it’s covered in radar-absorbent materials and its very shape is intended to deflect radar away from the radar station. Its two jet engines are quiet and produce very little smoke, and the outlets from the engines, visible at the rear of the aircraft, mix cool air with the hot exhaust to reduce the type of heat signature that a heat-seeking missile could lock on to. The unusual “butterfly” tail is designed to shield the exhausts so missiles can’t see them.

See some more cool F-117 Stealth Fighter photos at RIAT 2002. If this topic interests you, you might want to check out Richard Seaman’s index of airshow photographs.

New Scientist put out an article outlining 11 steps that you can take to improve your brain. I might be a little skeptical of any panacea like pills, but some of their tips seem downright inspired. From the article:

It doesn’t matter how brainy you are or how much education you’ve had—you can still improve and expand your mind. Boosting your mental faculties doesn’t have to mean studying hard or becoming a reclusive book worm. There are lots of tricks, techniques and habits, as well as changes to your lifestyle, diet and behaviour that can help you flex your grey matter and get the best out of your brain cells. And here are 11 of them.

11 Steps to a Better Brain.

Last week Slate’s Seth Stevenson published an article about Spike Jonze’s “Pardon Our Dust” Gap ad. There are two versions of this ad—the much cooler Jonze-approved version that I found on the internet and which never played on TV, and the totally gutless Gap-marketing-execs approved version, (linked in the Slate article) which uses a musical cut called “Don’t Stand Still” instead of Edvard Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” the mischievous scoring from Ibsen’s “Peer Gynt” that Jonze used.

Stevenson explains that a Gap spokesperson claimed to have “tried several variations” of the ad, settling on the one they thought worked best. But it causes me to wonder, did The Gap not use Jonze’s version because they thought it was too much on its own wavelength? Perhaps it just plain scared them.

Admittedly, Jonze’s version doesn’t really deal with, much less convey excitement about, the idea of a forthcoming renovation of the Gap stores. What it does is comically express a fierce loathing of the Gap brand and, as some have suggested, a distain for all corporate chain stores everywhere.

However, Stevenson feels that “what the company needs is a piece of marketing that suggests radical changes are afoot—that the Gap brand is about to tear itself down to its foundations and be reborn” He boldly wonders, “Did Gap not see the possibilities? Were they too scared to go for broke?” The answer is that Gap executives saw exactly what the ad portrayed and consequently squashed it’s distribution. They aren’t ready for a complete brand restructuring—which this ad would have been perfect for. With that in mind please enjoy the internet leaked and Spike Jonze approved, Director’s cut Gap Ad.

A folk/rock singer named Jonathan Coulton has created a really cool music video using Creative Commons licensed Flickr Photos. It’ll put a smile on your face.

Jonathan Coulton’s Flickr.mov

Wishing you all the best! I hope you have a Merry Christmas—or whatever holiday you celebrate in your part of the world.

Here is a photo of the “not-so-white” Christmas that we’re having in Southern Alberta.

There are about a dozen people in the world who have done it—cloud surfing on a wave of air which forms around a cloud called the morning glory.

“The cloud is in the shape of an enormous tube and rolls in at first light over the coast of Queensland. It offers what some call the most exciting gliding experience in the world.”

Cloud Surfing.

I know a least a couple of movie addicts that will just love the Double Feature Finder. It’s a service that allows you to find movies in your area that start back-to-back. It appears to only work with American Zip codes, but if your in the states and love movies… enjoy!

I’m off to Medicine Hat for the next week enjoying time with my family over the Christmas holidays. Please feel free to share what you’re doing to celebrate the holidays in the comments. You don’t even need a Blogger account!

Some of you may have noticed some weirdness with the blog today. I’m switching from Blogger to Wordpress and I couldn’t be happier! Hopefully it won’t take too long to import everything and to get all the bugs worked out.

Reuters has a flash based collection of their pictures of the year 2005. It’s worth a look—there are plenty of photos that will make your jaw drop.