Manicone in a n’i-ce-pace
March 19th, 2007
Manicone is a new work by Tim and me (daytar). It is a sketch of a humanoid form in fourdimensional space. It is also a sketch in the sense that we kept the technical realization as simple as possible, i.e. with the application there comes (sofar) no Wii remote or wand, no 3D glasses, no virtual cave like environment etc. – just mouse pointer and sliders.
The modularity of the underlying software jreality however allows in principle for all these extensions (even if Open GL doesn’t have the same transparency capabilities as Tims software viewer). A real 3D immersion in e.g. a cave-like environment with a nice input device may lead to a more direct perceptional access however it is not necessarily allways needed.
An advantage of the simplicity of the application is that it allows for putting Manicone as a Java applet or webstart application on our website (which we will do soon).
Further technical extensions are then a question of the given architectural, technical etc. circumstances. Manicone is a sketch – in any aspect but the work it took to do it.
underestimated instruments 2
March 16th, 2007
Following a long tradition (one post long at the moment, but quite a while ago) we present more music instruments that deserve more attention (together with the reason for that):
the octobass and the subcontrabass tubax: size does matter – finally
the nano guitar: Nanotechnology is the future. Build in ’97 it took 6 years until they were able to play it (well an other model, but they sure did not want to claim that stratocasters are unplayable in contrast to flying Vs).
from the cakepiland
March 14th, 2007
Today I got a parcel with yummy looking cakes piled up in two tin boxes. Unfortunately the senders adress is unreadable, so I actually don’t know whom to thank for this nice gift. The tin boxes carry nostalgic swedish and british designs. Its a sunny spring day today in Berlin so I will eat from them now.
Elegantes 3D Stadtmodell Berlin
March 13th, 2007
Berlin Potsdamer Platz
If it comes to 3D in google earth most cities are still more or less little grey bricks. Berlin however has lately provided a quite detailed view of itself. The software based on the LandXplorer technology was developped by the Potsdam Company 3D Geo GmBH together with the Hasso-Plattner Institute. It was produced by Berlin Partner GmBH and works with the newest version of google earth together with a link to www.3d-stadtmodell-berlin.de.
via Berliner Zeitung
Wiitality
March 9th, 2007
->A funny script for the Wii remote called Wiitar by Jordan Sanborn available at WiiLi.org (see also this old randform post)
->another sportive Wii remote application: Tennis with a Wiibot
if you dont have a wiimote but just a brain then this artistic communication with an industrial robot may be interesting:
->empathizer by robotlab
out side in side out
March 7th, 2007
show me your prefrontal cortex
March 6th, 2007
Together with collegues from London and Tokyo neuroscientist John-Dylan Haynes did an experiment (however up to now only with 21 test persons as it seems), where a person had to choose wether he/she wanted either to add or to substract two numbers. And even before the test persons saw the numbers and before they started to compute it was possible – by using a MRI brain scan – to tell with a 70% chance, what kind of desicion the person was going to make, or in other words: using the MRI the scientists could “read the mind” of the test persons (with a 70% chance). Freely chosen decisions are usually happening in the prefrontal cortex.
Le manoir du diable
March 5th, 2007
update 22.02.2011: the above image is a mashup of a photoshopped poster for the below referenced film starring at theatre Houdin from an unknown author and some fotoshopped rainbow colors from some astrophysics film.
In 1896 Georges Méliès produced with “Le manoir du diable” the first horror movie in film history. And even more this 2 minute stop-motion special effects film was also the first colour film in film history. The colouring in this film was done by hand on each single image. Colouring black and white films can be seen as a kind of “branding” . It actually took quite a time until it was possible to automatically color films with a -more or less- full color spectrum. This was achieved in 1932 with the Three-strip Technicolor process in the animation “Flowers and Trees”. The first colored feature film in film history was then “Becky Sharp” of 1935 displaying the typical bright technicolor colors.
I was always wondering why films and images of cosmological events like e.g. about the big bang or supernovae look as if they were shot in technicolor, although they were digitally processed.
The reason for this is that the unvisible light spectrum (and the brightness) gets transferred into a visible spectrum via a human interference:
-> Where do those images come from