A collection of digital wonders and some other stuff
After running Lundbreck Falls in my kayak last month, the sport of running big waterfalls has been on my mind. I’m not too interested in doing anything bigger or scarier just yet, but the photos in this news story are even more awesome after having experienced my own little 30 foot drop over some falls.
Just to be clear, that’s not me in the photo, nor anyone I know. See more here.
I’ve been looking forward to meeting up with the U of L Cross Canada Bike Team, Vanessa Esau, Brett Holmes, and Kelly Kennedy. They began their ~60 days of cycling across Canada on June 21 and plan to finish the 7,500 kilometres on August 29.
I know Brett from the U of L Water Polo league, and Kelly from my involvement as a director in the Alumni Association and I just happened to be in a first-aid class with them last month as they prepared for the trip. I’ll be over at the University while they are in Lethbridge for the meet and greet at noon to cheer them on (and serendipitously a free lunch).
The Sea 2 Sea cross-Canada biking team is making their way to Lethbridge!
All friends and family of the University of Lethbridge are invited to the Atrium on Wednesday, July 2nd at 12:00 noon for a FREE BBQ to cheer on the team as they arrive on campus and make their way down the pathway to the Atrium.
The Sea 2 Sea cycling group consists of U of L fourth-year student Vanessa Esau, employee and alumnus Brett Holmes (BMgt/BA 2008) and 2007/08 Students’ Union President Kelly Kennedy. The bikers are followed by U of L student Allan Hall in a noticeably decaled SEA 2 SEA van.
To learn more about the team, visit the notice board or to follow along on their journey and plan to meet up with them on their way see their blog University of Lethbridge Cross Canada Bike Tour (hint: check out the individual blog list in their sidebar).
The following video was made in real time by dividing the screen into discrete but related horizontal lines with each line delayed by one frame more than the last.
The image is digitally manipulated by fragmenting it into horizontal lines and then combining lines from different frames in the display. The result is a distorsion of the figures caused by their motion in time, or, as Brazilian researcher Arlindo Machado calls it: chronotopic anamorphosis.
The effect was completely based on Zbigniew Rybczynski’s “The Fourth Dimension”, but transposed to Processing programming environment and performed in real-time.
The effect is mesmerizing—don’t miss the fascinating twirl as the subject slips through the door near the end.
[Chronotopic Anamorphosis from Marginalia Project – Vimeo]
(via)
When these adventurous adrenaline junkies first started using the flying squirrel suits in base jumping, it was to see how far away from the cliff they could get. But then things got “boring” and now the idea is to get as close to the edges without actually touching.
[Flying Suit – Extreme Base Jumping – YouTube]
Greenpeace has launched a tongue-in-cheek website touting the tourism potential of the Alberta oil sands. The Greenpeace-produced site, travellingalberta.com, has an address similar to Alberta’s official tourism page, travelalberta.com, and is the conservation group’s response to the province’s $25-million campaign to improve the environmental image of Alberta’s energy industry.
[Explore Alberta – YouTube]
Minister of Tourism, Parks and Recreation Cindy Ady was not impressed with the website.
“I’m a bit disappointed mostly on behalf of those who work so hard in this industry, but I also would say it’s not an accurate representation of this province.”
Every five years my dad’s side of the family holds a “Milner” family reunion. I’ll be up in the mountains this week to celebrate. Here are some historic Milner photos that were recently scanned by my uncle that I posted for this weekend.
These are interesting as just a collection of old photographs, aside from the obvious groove that I get from the fact that I’m related to these folks.
Play this audio clip again after it finishes and hear it continue to “creep up”.
See Wikipedia’s entry on Shepard Tone for the full scoop.
A Shepard tone, named after Roger Shepard, is a sound consisting of a superposition of sine waves separated by octaves. When played with the base pitch of the tone moving upwards or downwards, it is referred to as the Shepard scale. This creates the auditory illusion of a tone that continually ascends or descends in pitch, yet which ultimately seems to get no higher or lower.
I’m not sure I could do this myself, but it’s something for possible consideration in dealing with my continuously overflowing inbox: Sentenc.es — A Disciplined Way To Deal With Email.
There are a number of different sentence numbers for your own response policy at http://two.sentenc.es/, http://three.sentenc.es/, http://four.sentenc.es/, or http://five.sentenc.es/.
Steven Levitt, of Freakonomics fame, at a 2005 TED Talk speaks about the economics of car seats. His data lead him to ask the morally difficult question, are children’s car seats worth the time and expense it takes to use them?
[ted id=30]
Hit play or watch Steven Levitt on child car seats at TED.com.