Left field

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Mark
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Left field

Post by Mark » Thu Dec 13, 2007 5:15 pm

How I feel most days.
http://tinyurl.com/22v77s
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Mark
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Left field

Post by Mark » Sun Dec 16, 2007 9:39 pm

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Mark
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Left field

Post by Mark » Tue Dec 18, 2007 3:18 pm

Maybe because I work in a library, I found this satire funny. The internet is becoming/has become the new library. Just about everything can be transmitted to your home. I still like books but for many reasons, libraries as we know them are falling by the wayside.

"After I got my MLIS degree I thought I would be around creative, inspiring people who love books; but, as I realized even during my graduate program, I am environed by people just like this, weathered and grimly cadaverous. Thank you for this video. It helps put my 40 hours a week of library drudgery--reinforced by my insipid colleagues and condescending patrons--in perspective. Librarians: society's exemplars of alienation and purposelessness." ha

"I really liked it, libraries are wonderful places but can be quite sad.. this was excruciating like 'the office' is excruciating.. in an entertaining and satyrical way. I too would prefer a search engine called goggle - now there's a niche in the market! :) "

http://youtube.com/watch?v=p4fil1LlUgo&feature=related

And this spoof is kind of funny too. I liked the ending. What a riot of insanity. I love the part about the manual/policy.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=7XvAakX__cQ
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Mark
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Left field

Post by Mark » Wed Dec 19, 2007 5:17 pm

Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth, are never alone or weary of life. ~Rachel Carson
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Mark
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Re: Left field

Post by Mark » Mon Jun 02, 2008 5:21 am

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marksteamnz
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Re: Left field

Post by marksteamnz » Wed Jun 04, 2008 9:27 pm

Thanks Mark. That's what still gets me excited.
Cheers
Mark Stacey
www.cncprototyping.co.nz

Mark
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Re: Left field

Post by Mark » Fri Jun 13, 2008 10:24 pm

"... the most beautiful experience we can have is that of the mysterious. I believe that most scientists are motivated more by the desire to find new mysteries than to solve know problems."
Just a thought I read out of this book I am reading today on hurricanes.
http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/s ... 0195149416#
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Mark
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Re: Left field

Post by Mark » Sun Jun 15, 2008 10:07 pm

"I loved that man very much and respected him as a guide, a father in the best sense of the word, yet there he goes, all his personality and works and words and concerns, dissipating into the background hiss of the universe, someday to be lost to all."
"And so it will be for us, too. You and I will be gone some day, and be realistic — a few generations beyond that, and we will be unknown, forgotten, unimportant to anyone."
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008 ... hought.php
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Mark
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Re: Left field

Post by Mark » Sat Jun 28, 2008 8:08 pm

A few crumbs out in left field. Yawn.

"Boredom’s doldrums were unavoidable, yet also a primordial soup for some of life’s most quintessentially human moments… A long drive home after a frustrating day could force ruminations. A pang of homesickness at the start of a plane ride might put a journey in perspective.
Increasingly, these emtpy moments are being saturated with productivity, communication, and the digital distractions offered by an ever-expanding array of slick mobile devices…
But are we too busy twirling through the songs on our iPods–while checking email, while changing lanes on the highway–to consider whether we are giving up a good thing? We are most human when we feel dull. Lolling around in a state of restlessness is one of life’s greatest luxuries–one not available to creatures that spend all their time pursuing mere survival. To be bored is to stop reacting to the external world, and to explore the internal one. It is in these times of reflection that people often discover something new, whether it is an epiphany about a relationship or a new theory about the way the universe works. Granted, many people emerge from boredom feeling that they have accomplished nothing. But is accomplishment really the point of life? There is a strong argument that boredom–so often parodied as a glassy-eyed drooling state of nothingness–is an essential human emotion that underlies art, literature, philosophy, science, and even love."
“The Joy of Boredom,” by Carolyn Y. Johnson, The Boston Globe

"If you think of boredom as the prelude to creativity, and loneliness as the prelude to engagement of the imagination, then they are good things," said Dr. Edward Hallowell, a Sudbury psychiatrist and author of the book "CrazyBusy." "They are doorways to something better, as opposed to something to be abhorred and eradicated immediately."
"Public health officials often bemoan the obesity epidemic, the unintended consequence of a modern lifestyle that allows easy access to calories. Technology seems to offer a similar proposition: a wide array of distractions that offer the boon of connection, but at a cost."
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Mark
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Re: Left field

Post by Mark » Sun Jun 29, 2008 3:51 pm

Reflections on how things change.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008 ... a_1975.php

Someone wrote in the comments ...
"You Can't Go Home Again".
Another...
"Perhaps it was the lack of chemical enhancement as was the norm back then?"
Last edited by Mark on Sun Jun 29, 2008 10:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Mark
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Re: Left field

Post by Mark » Sun Jun 29, 2008 7:04 pm

I was watching a few clips on youtube from an old movie I saw in my film history class. There are parts that have quite a bit of irony and satire, especially on how corporations and government work, how in the movie they are portrayed as sneaky and completely uncaring. I'm surprised episode/part 5 is still up, it's rather risque'.
It's a strange/surreal movie, but still relevant I think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPUlCzns ... re=related
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Mark
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Re: Left field

Post by Mark » Thu Jul 03, 2008 1:13 am

Fish out of water

Lucky pet goldfish are getting a penthouse view in their new 'supmarine'. The inverted submarine, an upside-down, water-filled glass bowl was invented by a Dutchman for his son. It sits above the water level, so fish can swim up into it and look out.

Sources: Reuters, PC Magazine, Census of Marine Life, Wired
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larry cottrill
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Re: Left field

Post by larry cottrill » Thu Jul 03, 2008 12:27 pm

Mark -

It is interesting that fish cannot see a true panoramic view of what is beyond the glass wall of their tank. This is because of the "angle of total internal reflection" that occurs from the INTERIOR of the water-air interface (the effect of the glass panel nulls out). So what a fish sees is a circular "porthole" that moves around with him as he swims. The porthole decreases in size as he gets closer to the glass wall, although its total subtended angle stays essentially constant. The angle of this cone (whose apex is at the eye of the fish) can be calculated from the refractive index of water (since the refractive index of normal air is usually taken as 1.0).

There is no corresponding angle of total reflection from the air side of the interface (as in the case of a diver looking out through a diving mask or the ports of a helmet), although there IS the effect of refraction itself (i.e. objects appear nearer than they are). This effect would be reversed for the fish looking out through his limited "porthole" in the glass wall: objects would appear farther away than they really are, and within the "porthole" there would be a sort of "wide angle" view -- the water between the fish and the glass wall acting something like a "fisheye lens". Ha.

L Cottrill

Mark
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Re: Left field

Post by Mark » Fri Jul 04, 2008 11:44 pm

I was reading a book on the history of chess today. There's a near infinite abstraction/variations in design and themes. So naturally it came to me that there could be a pulsating combustion chess set. Have jam jars as pawns, the bishops could be cone topped Reynst pots, the knights a folded valveless something like an upside-down J to suggest a horse's head, the queen a svelte waist Schmidt tube, the king a V-1, and anyone have a suggestion for a castle/rook? Or maybe make the bishops a stylish Marconette and the Reynst Pot a squat rook/castle.
Be the first on your block to design a working set. ha
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0670893 ... eader-link
http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/pha0062l.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cygnoir/10946846/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stowegarth/2610417695/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/maddog71/574067271/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/heraldk/2381366917/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arimoore/83870224/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10460255@N03/1142965961/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9141209@N08/584821269/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisinside/2211582136/
"In a recent match, Deep Fritz vs. Vladimir Kramnik in November 2006, the program ran on a personal computer containing two Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs, capable of evaluating only 8 million positions per second, but searching to an average depth of 17 to 18 plies in the middlegame."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_ ... omputer%29

And on and on ...
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Mark
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Re: Left field

Post by Mark » Sat Jul 05, 2008 4:21 am

A vast amount of creativity I suppose.
http://sixthousand.blogspot.com/
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