HDR Skies: Beautiful Time-Lapse Film of the French Countryside

in Art, Technology | December 9th, 2011

French pho­tog­ra­ph­er Tan­guy Lou­vi­gny cre­at­ed this time-lapse film of bucol­ic Nor­mandy and Brit­tany using High Dynam­ic Range (HDR) imag­ing tech­niques.

From for­est floor to set­ting sun, Lou­vi­gny’s shots ren­der fine detail across an extreme­ly wide range of lumi­nos­i­ty. To achieve this he used the auto-brack­et­ing fea­ture of his Canon EOS 400D and 60D cam­eras to cre­ate three dif­fer­ent expo­sures for each frame in the film. (At 30 frames per sec­ond, that’s 90 expo­sures for each sec­ond of screen time.) Lou­vi­gny then merged each set of three expo­sures into one image using Pho­toma­trix Pro 4.0 soft­ware, selec­tive­ly tone map­ping each sequence to hold detail in some areas while allow­ing oth­ers to go dark.

To cre­ate the mov­ing-cam­era effects, Lou­vi­gny designed and built his own robot­ic three-axis motion sys­tem using Tetrix motors and a LEGO Mind­storms con­trol sys­tem, which he pro­grammed in ROBOTC lan­guage. This allowed him to auto­mate the tor­toise-like dol­ly, pan and tilt move­ments. Lou­vi­gny edit­ed the dig­i­tal film in Adobe Pre­miere and After Effects soft­ware. To top it off he com­posed his own music on a Roland MC-808 groove­box. For more infor­ma­tion, go to the pho­tog­ra­pher’s web­site and Vimeo page.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Invent­ing the Dig­i­tal Cam­era: A Short Por­trait of Steven Sas­son

Darren’s Big DIY Cam­era

Walt Dis­ney Presents the Super Car­toon Cam­era

Philip Glass & Lou Reed at Occupy Lincoln Center: An Artful View

in Current Affairs, Music | December 9th, 2011

Last week, com­pos­er Philip Glass and rock leg­end Lou Reed embraced the Occu­py Wall Street move­ment. Ini­tial video & audio clips cap­tur­ing their appear­ances were shod­dy at best. Now Jean Thevenin (who joined the protest at Lin­coln Cen­ter Plaza) has giv­en us a bet­ter view, pro­duc­ing a short, ele­gant film sim­ply called Vis­i­ble Shape. The accom­pa­ny­ing music is “Protest” from Satya­gra­ha, writ­ten by Philip Glass and per­formed by New York City Opera Orches­tra.

High School Student Talks Symbolism with 75 Big Authors (1963)

in Literature, Writing | December 8th, 2011

Let’s let The Paris Review give you the back­sto­ry:

In 1963, a six­teen-year-old San Diego high school stu­dent named Bruce McAl­lis­ter sent a four-ques­tion mimeo­graphed sur­vey to 150 well-known authors of lit­er­ary, com­mer­cial, and sci­ence fic­tion. Did they con­scious­ly plant sym­bols in their work? he asked. Who noticed sym­bols appear­ing from their sub­con­scious, and who saw them arrive in their text, unbid­den, cre­at­ed in the minds of their read­ers? When this hap­pened, did the authors mind?

Of the 150 authors McAl­lis­ter solicit­ed, 75 wrote back, and most offered the young­ster some sub­stan­tive thoughts. Over at The Paris Review, you will find replies by Jack Ker­ouac, Ayn Rand (above), Ralph Elli­son, Ray Brad­bury, John Updike, Saul Bel­low, and Nor­man Mail­er. Not bad for a kid who sent out a form let­ter … and nev­er both­ered to send a thank-you let­ter.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Paris Review Inter­views Now Online

Down­load 20 Pop­u­lar High School Books Avail­able as Free eBooks & Audio Books

Life-Affirming Talks by Cultural Mavericks Presented at The School of Life

in Life, Philosophy | December 8th, 2011

Since the late 1990′s, Alain de Bot­ton has been break­ing down dif­fi­cult philo­soph­i­cal and lit­er­ary ideas and see­ing how they apply to people’s every­day lives. He did this with his 1997 best­seller, How Proust Can Change Your Life. And he took things a step fur­ther with his tele­vi­sion series called Phi­los­o­phy: A Guide to Hap­pi­ness.

Then, in the sum­mer of 2008, de Bot­ton and some col­leagues set up The School of Life, a Lon­don-based insti­tu­tion that offers cours­es “in the impor­tant ques­tions of every­day life,” in areas we all tend to care about: careers, rela­tion­ships, pol­i­tics, trav­els, fam­i­lies, etc. The school also hosts a series of “Sun­day Ser­mons” that fea­ture “mav­er­ick cul­tur­al fig­ures” talk­ing about the virtues they cling to, and the vices to be wary of.

Today, we’re fea­tur­ing sev­er­al of these ser­mons. Above, the actress, writer, and direc­tor Miran­da July takes an off­beat and endear­ing look at strangers, and the role they play in our lives. Then come some notable men­tions:

Physi­cist Lawrence Krauss on Cos­mic Con­nec­tions. (Also don’t miss this oth­er unre­lat­ed but splen­did talk by Krauss.)

Author Rebec­ca Sol­nit on Hope.

And Alain de Bot­ton him­self on the impor­tance of defy­ing pes­simism.

Again, you can find the full list of ser­mons orga­nized chrono­log­i­cal­ly here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es

Philosophy in Prison: Weighty Conversations about Right and Wrong

in Life, Philosophy | December 7th, 2011

When not found­ing tech com­pa­nies, Damon Horowitz teach­es phi­los­o­phy through the Prison Uni­ver­si­ty Project, bring­ing col­lege-lev­el class­es to inmates of San Quentin State Prison. In three min­utes, Horowitz raps about phi­los­o­phy meet­ing real life — about how pris­on­ers con­vict­ed of seri­ous crimes come to terms with Socrates (who fin­ished his days in prison), Hei­deg­ger, Kant, cat­e­gor­i­cal imper­a­tives, ques­tions of right and wrong, and the rest. The “talk” was orig­i­nal­ly pre­sent­ed at TED 2011 last March.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load Free Cours­es from Famous Philoso­phers: From Bertrand Rus­sell to Michel Fou­cault

Noam Chom­sky & Michel Fou­cault Debate Human Nature & Pow­er (1971)

The His­to­ry of Phi­los­o­phy With­out Any Gaps

Bertrand Rus­sell & Oth­er Big Thinkers in BBC Lec­ture Series (Free)

Can Ants Count? Do They Have Built-In Pedometers? Animated Video Explains

in Animation, Video - Science | December 7th, 2011

Saha­ran desert ants are known to wan­der great dis­tances in search of food. Twist­ing and turn­ing on their way, the ants man­age to return to their nests along sur­pris­ing­ly direct paths. They sense direc­tion using light from the sky, but how do they judge dis­tance? By count­ing steps, appar­ent­ly.

As Nation­al Pub­lic Radio sci­ence cor­re­spon­dent Robert Krul­wich explains in this engag­ing lit­tle car­toon, a group of Ger­man and Swiss sci­en­tists have dis­cov­ered that by manip­u­lat­ing the stride of the ants halfway through their trip–by either length­en­ing or short­en­ing their legs–the ants would invari­ably over­shoot or under­shoot their return des­ti­na­tion. As Prince­ton biol­o­gist James Gould told NPR, “These ani­mals are fooled exact­ly the way you’d expect if they were count­ing steps.”

The exper­i­men­tal results were orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in 2006. You can lis­ten to Krul­wich’s radio report on the research here.

via Phi­los­o­phy Mon­key

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ant Archae­ol­o­gy

Fire Ants Cre­ate Life Raft in 100 Sec­onds Flat

Ryan Adams Live at the Ed Sullivan Theatre (Free Pass)

in Music | December 7th, 2011

The Live on Let­ter­man con­cert series has brought you Peter Gabriel, Cold­play and Wilco (click to watch con­certs), and now it returns with Ryan Adams play­ing solo at the Ed Sul­li­van The­atre in New York city. Dur­ing the 70-minute con­cert record­ed Mon­day night, Adams per­formed “Lucky Now” from his new album Ash­es and Fire, plus some fan favorites “Oh My Sweet Car­oli­na” and “New York, New York.” Enjoy, and don’t miss Adams on his tour that kicks off Thurs­day in Boston.

Animated Video Shows Curiosity, NASA’s Mars Rover, in Dramatic Action

in Astronomy, Science, Video - Science | December 6th, 2011

In late Novem­ber, NASA’s Curios­i­ty, the world’s biggest extrater­res­tri­al rover, began rock­et­ing toward Mars (see pho­tos of the launch here) in search of any hint that the red plan­et might have pro­vid­ed a home for micro­scop­ic life. The Curios­i­ty will even­tu­al­ly reach Mars in August after cov­er­ing 345 mil­lion miles. Ear­li­er this year, an artist released a rather dra­mat­ic ani­ma­tion depict­ing key moments in the mis­sion — the voy­age, the land­ing (don’t miss this part!), the explo­ration, and all of the rest. It’s anoth­er can­di­date for our col­lec­tion of Great Sci­ence Videos.

via Coudal.com

Miniatur Wunderland: The World’s Largest Model Railroad

in Video - Arts & Culture | December 6th, 2011

The con­struc­tion began in the year 2000, and over the years, Miniatur Wun­der­land, locat­ed in Ham­burg, Ger­many, has staked its claim as the largest mod­el rail­way in the world. Watch as you take a ride across the sev­en sec­tions: Harz, the fic­ti­tious city of Knuffin­gen, the Alps and Aus­tria, Ham­burg, Amer­i­ca, Scan­di­navia, and Switzer­land.

As the video attests, it took more than 500,000 work­ing hours to cre­ate this mas­sive minia­ture world. The most recent addi­tion is the Knuffin­gen air­port, locat­ed on 150 square meters, and boast­ing 40 air­planes that can taxi, take off, and land.

Miniatur Wun­der­land is con­stant­ly evolv­ing: the final phase of the project is slat­ed to be com­plet­ed in 2020, by which time the mod­el area will grow to near­ly 25,000 square feet. No won­der Miniatur Wun­der­land is Ham­burg’s most pop­u­lar attrac­tion.

via Giz­mo­do

Eugene Buchko is a blog­ger and pho­tog­ra­ph­er liv­ing in Atlanta, GA. He main­tains a pho­to­blog, Eru­dite Expres­sions, and writes about what he reads on his read­ing blog.

Crowded House: How the World’s Population Grew to 7 Billion People

in Current Affairs, History, Video - Politics/Society | December 6th, 2011

This fall, the world’s pop­u­la­tion reached sev­en bil­lion. A sober­ing thought. How did we get to this point? Pro­duc­er Adam Cole and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Mag­gie Star­bard of Nation­al Pub­lic Radio have put the world’s accel­er­at­ing pop­u­la­tion growth in per­spec­tive in a two-and-a-half minute video, above.

In those two and a half min­utes, 638 babies will be born world­wide, accord­ing to sta­tis­tics from the Unit­ed States Cen­sus Bureau, and 265 peo­ple will die. That’s a net gain of 373 peo­ple, just while you watch the film. The biggest growth, accord­ing to NPR,  is hap­pen­ing in sub-Saha­ran Africa, where access to fam­i­ly plan­ning is low and infant mor­tal­i­ty rates are high.

It may seem counter-intu­itive that pop­u­la­tion growth rates are high where infant sur­vival rates are low, but as Swedish glob­al health expert Hans Rosling put it dur­ing a recent TED talk, “Only by child sur­vival can we con­trol pop­u­la­tion growth.” Because pop­u­la­tion growth and infant mor­tal­i­ty rates are both cor­re­lat­ed to pover­ty rates, he argues, elim­i­nat­ing pover­ty is the key to achiev­ing a sus­tain­able world pop­u­la­tion. You can learn more in our Novem­ber 1 fea­ture,  “Hans Rosling Uses IKEA Props to Explain World of 7 Bil­lion Peo­ple.”