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Conceptual photography

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 23:07:41 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth

Conceptual photography

Conceptual photography is a photography genre in which the artists makes a photograph of a concept or idea. Usually the conception of the idea precedes the realization of the photography. This kind of photography often involves use of computer editing, to achieve the desired effects.

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Earth

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My Butterflies

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God's Canvas

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another world

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Neither One of Us Can Be Found

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Yellow Smile

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wall of glass flowers

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We Are So Tiny

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lucky love

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down + up

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Dancing Shoes

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Waiting In The Light

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Dreams

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kindly unspoken

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Perception

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Autumn

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being drunk or being in love

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freedom

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colors of life

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Extinguished but not Forgotten

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personal orchestra

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he loves me

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as far away as possible

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sorrow

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between heaven and hell

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Waiting for rain

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Optimal solution

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please don't fall, cloud

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Chasing pavements

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Feeling Empty

‘Leopard Behind You!’

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 21:06:44 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: A human in a blue shirt is announced differently from a human in a yellow shirt.

In and of itself, it’s not surprising that the sounds animals make are not just noise, or a reflection of the state an animal’s in (scared, happy and so on). But the subtlety of the calls — the full amount of meaning they contain — is only now being appreciated.

Animals of one species often respond to the alarms of another. In a small way, it’s like those childrens’ stories that have rats talking to toads, or elephants arguing with ostriches.

Predators sometimes respond too. After all, alarm calls don’t just let other animals know there’s danger in the area. They can also let a predator know that it’s been seen. Ambush predators, like leopards, often give up and go away once an alarm has been sounded. <<

Clip Source: judson.blogs.nytimes.com

one of the more intriguing effects that predators can have on their prey: the development of a vocabulary of alarm

This isn’t a complicated vocabulary, with thousands of words. Nonetheless, it’s clear that for many animals, alarm calls are more than simple squawks of fear. Vervet monkeys, for instance, use different sounds to warn of different types of predator. “Leopard!” is not the same as “snake!” or “eagle!”

If you hide a loudspeaker in the bushes, and startle unsuspecting monkeys by playing recordings of “snake!” at them, they will look around at the ground. “Eagle!” makes them look up. “Leopard!” sends them scampering to the trees.

Vervets aren’t unique. Other primates — including Diana monkeys and Campbell’s monkeys — also distinguish between eagles and leopards.

Some animals make rather subtle distinctions. Gunnison’s prairie dogs have a different sound for each of coyotes, dogs, hawks and humans. More impressive, they describe what a particular dangerous animal looks like

Tags: wild, animals, survival

A long,melancholy roar

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 20:48:09 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: Of our ancient enemies, microbes are now the most fearsome.HIV/AIDS chalked up 2 million deaths across the planet in 2007 alone; tuberculosis was close behind, with more than 1,700,000.The year before, malaria escorted almost a million people to their graves. We should be far more scared of mosquitoes than we are of bears; but we’re not.

More recently, however, it’s been the case that the mammal most likely to kill a human is: a human. Murder and war have long been more important causes of death for us than predatory wild animals.

But here’s the thing. Today, in many parts of the world, the human being most likely to cause your violent death is: you.

Yes. You are the person most likely to kill yourself violently and on purpose. Suicide rates have risen dramatically over the past 50 years.

Clip Source: judson.blogs.nytimes.com

A Long, Melancholy Roar

October 13, 2009

On a recent evening at twilight, I was sitting on the grass in Regent’s Park — one of London’s most manicured public spaces — when I heard the fierce, melancholy sound of a lion’s roar.

I wasn’t dreaming: it was coming from the zoo. Listening to it, I began to reflect on predators — and us.

On returning home, I did some reading. I discovered that between 1990 and 2004, lions attacked 815 people in Tanzania, killing 563.

It’s hard to imagine how terrifying such a death must be.

For many of our fellow creatures, such terrors are part of daily life: other animals exist in a world of threat that humans today rarely glimpse. These days, thankfully, we are not used to being hunted. Most of us are more likely to be struck by lightning than we are to die at the paws of a bear or the teeth of a shark. And so we spend little time in that dark, primeval place of alarm, fear, adrenaline and (perhaps) gory death. For us, death usually comes in other forms.

The death of language?

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 20:39:29 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: "What we lose is essentially an enormous cultural heritage, the way of expressing the relationship with nature, with the world, between themselves in the framework of their families, their kin people," says Mr Hagege.

"Its also the way they express their humour, their love, their life. It is a testimony of human communities which is extremely precious, because it expresses what other communities than ours in the modern industrialized world are able to express."

For linguists like Claude Hagege, languages are not simply a collection of words. They are a living, breathing organisms holding the connections and associations that define a culture. When a language becomes extinct, the culture in which it lived is lost too.
____

According to Ethnologue, a US organisation that compiles a global database of languages, 473 languages are currently classified as endangered.
____

"Most people are not at all interested in the death of languages," Claude Hagege says.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

The death of language?

17 October 2009

An estimated 7,000 languages are being spoken around the world. But that number is expected to shrink rapidly in the coming decades. What is lost when a language dies?

In 1992 a prominent US linguist stunned the academic world by predicting that by the year 2100, 90% of the world's languages would have ceased to exist.

Far from inspiring the world to act, the issue is still on the margins, according to prominent French linguist Claude Hagege.

WAR OF WORDS

6% of the worlds languages are spoken by 94% of the world's population

The remaining 94% of languages are spoken by only 6% of the population

The largest single language by population is Mandarin (845 million speakers) followed by Spanish (329 million speakers) and English (328 million speakers).

133 languages are spoken by fewer than 10 people

SOURCE: Ethnologue

What is lost?

What we lose is essentially an enormous cultural heritage

Cross words

As cultures evolve

groups

naturally shift their language use

Breathtaking cloud formations

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:27:50 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth

Clip Source: www.womansday.com

8 Breathtaking Cloud Formations

Look up at these beautiful sights in the sky

Florence, Italy

As Frank Slack stood over the Arno river, the combination of the setting sun and clouds rolling in produced this magnificent yellow and gray sky. Photo courtesy of Frank Slack via Flickr.com

Huntsville, Alabama

New York, New York

While walking the Brooklyn Bridge, Ben Brown captured this red sky moment minutes after a summer shower soaked the city. Photo courtesy of Ben Brown via Flickr.com

Rio Vista, California

Walla Walla, Washington

Valencia, Spain

According to Marialuisa Wittlin, these lens-shaped clouds loomed over the mountains all day and she was able to get a shot of them before the sun finished setting—when this lovely scene disappeared. Photo courtesy of Marialuisa Wittlin via Flickr.com

Buskerud, Norway

Central Illinois

When sunlight is diffused through thin clouds with uniform water droplets, it produces vivid colors like these in the photo above—a phenomenon called iridescence.

Tags: photos, photography, clouds

The A-B-C-D-E of Travel Photography

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:22:01 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: At first glance, the picture above depicts a nun walking. But as you look at more details within the picture, you get a full sense of where she is.

She isn’t carrying a bag or other personal effects which suggests she is someplace familiar. The direction and length of her shadow suggests mid to late afternoon, and the Slavic-type text on the walls suggests somewhere in Central or Eastern Europe. So the picture transports you to a monastery or nunnery in Eastern Europe around late afternoon.
__________________________________

Ever glanced in exasperation at travel photographs wondering why yours taken of the same landscapes or subjects never turn out as stunning?

Great travel photographs share a few similarities even though their subjects may be as different as a sweeping landscape or a brooding portrait.

Above are a few primer concepts that will guarantee better travel shots from even a simple point-and-shoot camera.

Clip Source: thetravelersnotebook.com

“A” for Action

Travel photographs that always work portray some sort of action. It could be a soft glance over a steaming coffee mug or an aggressive rugby match on a muddy pitch.

I could have easily taken a snapshot of the girl walking away, but sooner or later, I knew she’d turn back. Call it the sixth sense, but people subconsciously know when they’re being watched.

“B” for Balance

“framing” or “rule of thirds”

symmetrical and aesthetically attractive in the framing of its subjects

can be achieved without putting subjects right in the center of the frame

Using natural frames like arches, doorways or windows can also balance your photographs.

“C” for Composition

mentally map out what story you want your photo to tell

Composition means looking for patterns, textures, angles, vivid colors, placing of your subjects, close-ups, framing, and other visual cues to help tell your story.

“D” for Depth of Field

is the range of distance within the subject that is acceptably sharp

“E” for Evocation

Do our brains interpret our values and beliefs as facts (objective truths)?

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:48:24 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: Such messages caused activation in the brain region that is responsible for error detection. So in other words (and yes, I am grossly simplifying here), it was as if people's brain's were indicating "error, error, error; this message does not compute."

This is consistent with research by Emily Pronin (psychology professor at Princeton University), which shows that people of all beliefs see their own beliefs as LESS biased than others. In other words, republicans see themselves as less biased, and so do democrats, and for that matter, so do mailman, coperate CEO's and homeless people.

I think this goes a long way in explaining the depth and extent to which people defend their beliefs. Perhaps, Berger and Luckmann are right; we do live, in some sense, in alternative forms of reality. Sure, we all know a rock won't bite us and 2 + 2 = 4, but what I "know" (George W. Bush was lousy) is not what many Republicans "knows" (George W. Bush was a good president).

Clip Source: www.psychologytoday.com

Do Humans Percieve Other People's Beliefs as Errors?

Decades ago, sociologists Berger and Luckmann argued just this. From their perspective, successful socialization occurs when an individual internalizes a given group or culture's beliefs/norms/values to such an extent that these are "reality" for them.

So in other words, just as this Pepsi can I am drinking is blue and red, so to, for me, was George W. Bush a lousy president (and of course, if you believe the opposite, it is a fact for you that he wasn't). I must confess that even after pondering these ideas for so long, I still get queasy thinking that "George W. Bush was a lousy president" is just an opinion. I cannot shake it. It is like there is an automatic impulse that I have to fight to realize it isn't a fact.

Recent research explored this sort of automatic impulse. Hooked up to an FMRi, participants listened to arguments that were against their political beliefs. The results were quite interesting.

Gadgets to unleash your inner James Bond

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:54:27 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth

Clip Source: matadorgoods.com

10 Gadgets to Unleash Your Inner James Bond

09/16/09

Introducing real-life gadgets that trounce some of 007’s most outrageous toys.

Avatar Digital Spy Camera

Flameless USB Lighter

The Moshi Voice Activated Alarm Clock

LG Watch Phone

Bluetooth Laser Virtual Keyboard

Stash Card Secret Laptop Drawer

Memorize Written Data with the C Pen

Solar Powered Laptop Case

Car Key Security Camera

The sQuba Car

Based on the Lotus Esprit Bond took for a dive in the 1977 classic The Spy Who Loved Me, Rinspeed’s sQuba car is a fully submersible, all-electric convertible with an onboard breathing system that enables passengers to breathe with a design similar to scuba gear.

The sQuba’s two extra engines are used to run a pair of screw drives, which, combined with jet drives that ‘breathe’ through special rotating louvers, help the car maneuver underwater.

Rinspeed had the foresight to include a salt-water resistant interior and a laser sensor system for driverless motoring.

Price: Not in a million years

Ten things we"ll say to our grandkids

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:39:00 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth

Clip Source: www.bspcn.com

10 Best Things We’ll Say to Our Grandkids

1. Back in my day, we only needed 140 characters.

2. There used to be so much snow up here, you could strap a board to your feet and slide all the way down.

3. Televised contests gave cash prizes to whoever could store the most data in their head.

4. Well, the screens were bigger, but they only showed the movies at certain times of day.

5. We all had one, but nobody actually used it. Come to think of it, I bet my LinkedIn profile is still out there on the Web somewhere.

7. Our bodies were made of meat and supported by little sticks of calcium.

8. You used to keep files right on your computer, and you had to go back to that same computer to access them!

9. Is that the new iPhone 27G? Got multitasking yet?

10. I just can’t get used to this darn vat-grown steak. Texture ain’t right.

Written by Streeter Seidell

Illustration: Nishant Choksi

* Translation: "English used to be the dominant language. Crazy, huh?"

Conditional parenting

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:47:12 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: In 2004, two Israeli researchers, Avi Assor and Guy Roth, joined Edward L. Deci, a leading American expert on the psychology of motivation, in asking more than 100 college students whether the love they had received from their parents had seemed to depend on whether they had succeeded in school, practiced hard for sports, been considerate toward others or suppressed emotions like anger and fear.

It turned out that children who received conditional approval were indeed somewhat more likely to act as the parent wanted. But compliance came at a steep price. First, these children tended to resent and dislike their parents. Second, they were apt to say that the way they acted was often due more to a “strong internal pressure” than to “a real sense of choice.” Moreover, their happiness after succeeding at something was usually short-lived, and they often felt guilty or ashamed.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

More than 50 years ago, the psychologist Carl Rogers suggested that simply loving our children wasn’t enough. We have to love them unconditionally, he said — for who they are, not for what they do.

As a father, I know this is a tall order, but it becomes even more challenging now that so much of the advice we are given amounts to exactly the opposite. In effect, we’re given tips in conditional parenting, which comes in two flavors: turn up the affection when they’re good, withhold affection when they’re not.

Conditional parenting isn’t limited to old-school authoritarians.

Conversely, “positive reinforcement” teaches children that they are loved, and lovable, only when they do whatever we decide is a “good job.”

The primary message of all types of conditional parenting is that children must earn a parent’s love.

A steady diet of that, Rogers warned, and children might eventually need a therapist to provide the unconditional acceptance they didn’t get when it counted.

But was Rogers right?

Tags: psychology, mental health, kids, children

Why all cities are haunted

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:24:58 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: megalopolisomancy...

Clip Source: io9.com

Megalopolisomancy, Or Why All Cities Are Haunted

Your city seethes with ghosts. Its impossibly twisted streets stream with magic, and its chimneys exude smoke of a decidedly hallucinatory nature. Why do modern, urban places feel as if they are home to so many unexplainable, otherworldly forces?

History and the Unknowable

Why are vampires' mythical, bloodstained faces hidden in trashed alleyway shadows in your city? Because most cities aren't just packed with people. They are layered with history - sometimes many thousands of years of it. Even in relatively new cities like San Francisco or Toronto, several dead generations have walked the streets before you. They've lived in your houses, and gone to your favorite shops.

Like vampires, these unknowable phantoms of history are hidden. But their influence lingers in the present. When you go into the buildings they built, buy their used clothing at the Goodwill, and eat in the dining rooms where they once did, you brush shoulders with the dead.

Tags: fritz lieber, "our lady of darkness", megalopolisomancy-the magic of big cities, novels

Jupiter turned Comet into "Moon" for 12 years

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:20:21 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: Between 2068 and 2986, comet 111P/Helin-Roman-Crockett is expected to be captured and complete six laps around Jupiter, the astronomers say.

Earth Unlikely to Gain Extra Moon

It's doubtful that our own planet would have the gravitational pulling power to add a temporary satellite to the night sky, Asher said. <<

Too bad.I wouldn't mind an extra moon...

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

Jupiter Turned Comet Into "Moon" for 12 Years

September 14, 2009

Sixty years ago, Jupiter carried on a 12-year fling with an extra "moon" then casually cast it aside—and the gas giant will likely do it again within decades, scientists announced today.

In 1949 the massive planet's gravity pulled in comet 147P/Kushida-Muramatsu and held it in orbit until 1961, according to an international team led by Katsuhito Ohtsuka of the Tokyo Meteor Network.

"We can be fairly sure that the comet orbited Jupiter once or twice before escaping it," said

David Asher

Temporary "Moon" Ended With a Bang

Only one temporary satellite has been observed falling prey to a planet's pull: comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which broke apart and crashed into Jupiter in 1994.

Unlike those objects, comet Kushida-Muramatsu eventually escaped Jupiter's gravity. It currently circles the sun in the solar system's asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

Before long, though, another comet is destined for moondom.

Tags: astronomy, space, science

Epic migration seen "through eyes of" antelope

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:00:21 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: Photographer and biologist Joe Riis hopes to raise awareness of the animals' epic, ancient migration and to encourage action to protect it.

"It's pretty incredible, because it's happening right in the middle of the United States," Riis said. "It seems like this type of stuff is long gone, and maybe most of the long migrations are. But this one is [still going], and I think it's worth protecting."

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

PHOTOS: Epic Migration Seen "Through Eyes of" Antelope

September 11, 2009--Pronghorn antelope tangle with a fence in Wyoming's upper Green River Basin in fall 2008.

Last fall and spring, biologist and photographer Joe Riis, funded by the National Geographic Society's Expeditions Council, became the first to document the entire pronghorn migration on foot. The experience made clear just how arduous human-made hurdles--fences, roads, natural gas fields, housing developments--are making the journey.

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

Three stragglers are part of a group

that began their annual migration late and were forced to deal with heavy fall snows in 2008.

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

Wyoming is home to half a million pronghorn--nearly outnumbering the human population.

residential developments were the biggest threat

Pronghorns hate being around dogs

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

pronghorn have tremendous vision and are not fond of strangers

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

During the 2009 spring thaw, Wyoming pronghorn retrace their autumn steps

to return to the Grand Teton National Park region.

Clip Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

Convergent evolution

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:38:06 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: The huge fossil teeth of megalodon had been known for centuries and were once believed to be the fossilized tongues of dragons. Agassiz, noting that great white shark teeth and the fossil megalodon teeth were both serrated, lumped megalodon into the same genus, Carcharodon, (from the Greek karcharos, meaning sharp or jagged, and odous, meaning tooth).

Agassiz was not, however, making an evolutionary judgment. In 1835, a young Charles Darwin was just then visiting the Galapagos Islands. There would be no theory of evolutionary descent for nearly 25 years. In fact, the brilliant Agassiz, who later became a professor at Harvard and the leading figure of natural history in the United States, forever resisted Darwin’s revolutionary ideas. Rejecting biological evolution, Agassiz defined species as a “thought of God.” His classification scheme signified nothing about shark origins.

But over the next century, the idea that great whites evolved from megalodon took hold. <<

more at the

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

In a Shark’s Tooth, a New Family Tree

September 14, 2009

a simple and long-established idea: that the most feared predator in the ocean today, the great white shark, evolved from megalodon, the most fearsome predator of a few million years ago

That is how the two species had been viewed, until recently, when new ways of looking at shark teeth, and new shark fossils from a Peruvian desert, convinced most experts that great whites are not descended from a megatoothed megashark. Rather, they evolved from a more moderate-size, smooth-toothed relative of mako sharks.

If true, then the mouth full of flesh-ripping razor blades that are the stuff of nightmares, and box-office blockbusters, are also a great example of one of the most interesting phenomena in the story of life, convergent evolution — the independent evolution of similar adaptations by different creatures.

The idea of a close relationship between great whites and megalodon started in 1835, when Louis Agassiz

named the giant species.

Women still trail in pay stakes

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:22:17 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: Grrrr...

Clip Source: thebigchair.com.au

Women still trail in pay stakes

August 31 2009

A woman starting work today will retire having earned $1 million less than a man doing the same job, and with less than half the superannuation of her male counterparts.

While women are now more likely to have a tertiary qualification than men, women graduates will earn $2000 less than their male counterparts on entering the workforce. By the fifth year after graduation, the gap will have widened to $7400.