27 October, 2006

Mars Express

Like Pizza Express - but with less garlic bread - Mars Express is a planetary orbiter launched a few years ago by The European Space Agency (ESA) to map the Martian surface and analyse its atmosphere. Fantastic new high-res images have now been released by ESA, including ones of the infamous face in the Cydonia region, now proven to be caused by a trick of the light.



Browse images on a rotating martian globe at the ESA site. Or, you can view similar (false colour) images at Google Mars.

Tankball!

Paintball? running around in forests playing soldier? Nah... it's all about the heavy artillery now, in the form of Tankball. Pay £75 and you get 2 hours in a tank, driving round trying to beat another tank by firing paint-filled shells at it. Find out more, and book a session at Funday.com

And, on an ever-so-cleverly related note, BBC News have an article on how to drive a tank; inspired by the hijacking of a tank by protestors in Budapest recently, a journalist went to find out how easy it is to drive one with no training. Ideal for prospective tankballers...

Chlorophyll Art

One of my top bookmarks is Found magazine, which exhibits and describes found items - letters, cards, ticket stubs, doodles, anything that gives a snapshot of someone else's life. Recently, i came across Vietnamese artist Binh Danh, who has invented a technique of printing found photographs on leaves.























He takes the photo, digitally renders it into a negative and then presses a leaf against the negative and exposes it to light. The leaf will produce chlorophyll and photosynthesise in the light areas of the negative more than the dark areas and gradually, the photo will be transfered to the leaf. Once 'developed', the leaf is removed, preserved in resin and hey presto - you have a chlorophyll print.

Fascinating stuff! See some examples at his Haines Gallery profile.

19 October, 2006

Ice Fountains!

I have a bit of a thing for Saturn. It's the show-off of the Solar System with it's beautiful rings and fascinating moons. Browsing on Neatorama, i came across a new picture of the Rings taken by the Cassini orbiter from the dark side of the planet. It shows the rings really vividly, especially the outermost E-ring which is created by the Ice Fountains of the moon Enceladus...



Ice Fountains?! Apparently Enceladus (named after one of the giants who sprang from the union of the blood of Uranus and the Earth) has warm polar regions where ice and ice-water are heated and ejected into space in massive eruptions. The water then freezes back to ice and forms a ring held in orbit around Saturn.

18 October, 2006

Sony splashes out

Three things i love: colours, paint and pyrotechnics... along came Sony and put them all together in a new ad for Bravia TVs. Excellent!



Take a Scottish council estate, 70,000 litres of paint, a lot of explosives and then set it all off in a symphony of exploding colour. The ad can be viewed and downloaded on the Bravia website.

It follows on from the award-winning Bouncing Balls/José Gonazlez advert which captivated me from the first time i saw it. The Bravia Balls website has plenty of pics and the extended version of the ad. Well worth a look!

13 October, 2006

Jet - Shine on



Jet. oooh-ooh-ooh-oohh... Actually, not the Paul McCartney song, but the Australian Band last seen with their debut Get Born three years ago. Where have they been? I'm guessing Australia, but wherever, they've been making great music! The new album is ace! I got it in ASDA on a whim, but it was definitely worth it.

Get Born was a great album, they were amazing when i saw them at V 2005 and the new material doesn't disappoint. It's got slower tracks, fast and furious tracks, a really great rounded sound. The central tracks Come on Come on, Stand up and Rip it Up are brilliant Indie-Rock tunes. Makes me think of The Strokes and Oasis at their best, with a hint of the Rolling Stones.

Highly recommended! Listen to tracks on their MySpace page.

Lego ice cubes!

Says it all, and what could be better?! Love Lego? Love drinks? Love Lego ice cubes!

They look so cool... and only 4 quid!


Geowanking

Getting my daily BoingBoing digest, through NetVibes, i saw an article on Geowanking... now, i love new words i haven't seen before so this one caught my attention. The question i have to ask is - what does wanking mean to Americans? because i'm hoping it doesn't mean the same as it does in the UK... or maybe it does and that's the point...

There's no wikipedia entry to make explaining geowanking short and sweet, but basically it's to do with mapping, and the way online maps are revolutionising cartography - making it more interactive and democratic. Geowankers are "high-tech map enthusiasts": Article on AlterNet.

It's something that really interests me, i've always been fascinated by maps - road maps, world maps, old maps. When i first discovered google maps i was enthralled - the aerial photos are amazing. 6 years ago i spent a fortune on a book that comes up to my knees with aerial photos of England, now it's all there and more for everyone, for free. Geo-tagging is something i'd love to get into properly as well. My Flickr account would be so much more interesting with proper tagging...