The Beauty Of Physics, Ctd

More incredible computer rendering:


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Picture Of The Day

Simply amazing:

Many artists have used pencils to create works of art – but Dalton Ghetti creates miniature masterpieces on the tips of pencils.

Dalton, who works as a carpenter, has been making his tiny graphite works for about 25 years...

The 49 year old said: “At school I would carve a friend’s name into the wood of a pencil and then give it to them as a present. Later, when I got into sculpture, I would make these huge pieces from things like wood, but decided I wanted to challenge myself by trying to make things as small as possible. I experimented sculpting with different materials, such as chalk, but one day I had an eureka moment and decided to carve into the graphite of a pencil”.

Dalton uses three basic tools to make his incredible creations – a razor blade, sewing needle and sculpting knife. He even refuses to use a magnifying glass and has never sold any of his work, only given it away to friends. He said: “I use the sewing needle to make holes or dig into the graphite. I scratch and create lines and turn the graphite around slowly in my hand”.

You can view more examples of Ghetti's incredible artwork here.

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The Beauty Of Physics

Seen through advanced computer rendering:


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Capitalism On Crack

An art project:

Fabian Brunsing’s public art installation “Pay & Sit: The Private Bench” imagines a dystopian tomorrow in which even the most quotidian of conveniences — resting a moment on a park bench — have become soulless objects of enterprise.

Park benches that everyone can sit on for free? That's socialist bullshit, man (at least that's what I've gathered from listening to political discussions lately).

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Picture Of The Day

An illustration from artist Josh Cooley's Golden Book parody "Movies R Fun" (part of the Lil' Inappropriate Book line) which will be available at Comic-Con this year. You can see a few more examples from The Professional and The Godfather: Part II at the link.

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Comedy Central And Religious Hypocrisy

So it seems that certain religions are still acceptable for ridicule by Comedy Central:

Comedy Central might censor every image of the Prophet Muhammad on "South Park," yet the network is developing a whole animated series around Jesus Christ.

As part of the network's upfront presentation to advertisers (full slate here), Comedy Central is set to announce "JC," a half-hour show about Christ wanting to escape the shadow of his "powerful but apathetic father" and live a regular life in New York City.

In the show, God is preoccupied with playing video games while Christ, "the ultimate fish out of water," tries to adjust to life in the big city.

"In general, comedy in purist form always makes some people uncomfortable," said Comedy Central's head of original programming Kent Alterman...

Like all Comedy Central executives, Alterman declined to address the recent controversy over "South Park," where the network aired a heavily redacted episode after the show's creators were threatened by an extremist Islamic Web site.

I'm sure what Alterman meant to say is that "comedy in purist form makes some people uncomfortable but the fact that it makes a certain group of people uncomfortable is unacceptable and so it must be censored". Again, this isn't about making fun of one particular religion but rather the un-American idea that one particular religion should be off limits from being made fun of when doing so to all the others. Nobody in this world has a right not to be offended.

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The 3D Truth In Old Masters

This is a Samsung viral video pimping their new 3D television technology by showing the secret world behind the works of the old school two dimensional masters. Cool, and kinda funny:


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Some Things Someone Else Austrian Said

Yes, 160 of the greatest Arnold Schwarzenegger quotes:

The greatest lines from the greatest actor ever. Taken from 25 movies: Around the World in 80 Days, Batman & Robin, Collateral Damage, Commando, Conan the Barbarian, Conan the Destroyer, End of Days, Eraser, Jingle All the Way, Junior, Kindergarten Cop, Last Action Hero, Predator, Pumping Iron, Raw Deal, Red Heat, Red Sonja, The Running Man, The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Total Recal, True Lies, Twins, The 6th Day

"Considuh dat uh divohse!" has always been my favorite but "Get to deh choppah!" is a close second. If only he could govern this well:

Picture Of The Day

OK, go ahead and forget everything I said about the painting of Batman fighting a shark with a lightsaber redefining the word "awesome" because this painting of him fighting motherfucking Darth Vader just claimed that distinction.

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Picture Of The Day

Just go ahead and forget everything you know about the word "awesome" because this painting of Batman fighting a shark with a lightsaber just redefined it.

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Lady Gaga's "Telephone" Video Controversy

At my book club meeting yesterday some of my friends were discussing Lady Gaga's newest controversial video "Telephone" featuring Beyoncé, which has apparently been banned on MTV and has been widely discussed in the media lately. Check it out (fair warning, it's rather longish):


Yeah, it's somewhat racy and overtly sexual but I honestly can't say that it's all that shocking or even anything I haven't seen many times before in other venues. In fact, in addition to the obvious Tarantino and Ritchie directorial influences it borrows quite heavily from already established pop culture (MTV's site has a handy guide), whilst also including some not too subtle capitalistic product placement. Now I don't claim to be a Lady Gaga expert (truth be told, I might not even know who she was if not for Internet memes) so I honestly don't know if this is typical of her videos or a radical and tangentially newsworthy departure but regardless, anything deemed controversial by those who know better than you what you should be watching/reading/ingesting/inserting must of course be rightfully decried and destroyed for your own good.

One of my favorite (and I'm assuming somewhat typical of many on the political and social right in this country) reactions comes from Sandy Rios, a FOX News contributor and the president of Culture Campaign, an Illinois-based organization whose mission is "to engage Christians in actively living out and declaring biblical truth in a secular, humanistic American culture" commenting on Megyn Kelly's "news" program America Live today (transcribed by me):

It's the kind of thing we shouldn't even be discussing, much less thinking about from my perspective.

Quite right. Who am I as a rational adult to decide for myself what I should be discussing or even thinking when there are religious folks like Sandy Rios around to tell me what to think? And I'm sure you all remember the clause in the First Amendment to the American Constitution that mentions how free speech that anyone else finds objectionable should be censored for everyone's protection by our nanny state government, right? Oh wait, that clause doesn't exist because that line of thought is total bullshit and just this side of fascist totalitarianism.

But Sandy Rios and her conservative Christian ilk think that it definitely should exist (apparently governmental overreach into the lives of American citizens only exists when it comes to taxes and health care). Here's her reaction to Megyn's incredibly obvious and frankly very patriotic statement that this is art and if you don't like it you should just change the channel and not watch it rather than trying to get it banned for everyone:

You know I'll tell you, I'll give a real simple answer to that: you know that our world is filled with sexual predators. You talk about this every day in the news, these girls that are molested and killed and I don't know if you know this or not Megyn but they've done surveys to find out the men who do these kinds of things to these young girls, something like 85% of them, are involved in some sort of porn. So you may not watch it, your kids may not watch it, but I'm telling you the man next door who's a sexual predator probably does watch it and it has an effect on all of us. This should be outlawed, it should be banned.

What is the phrase "involved in some sort of porn" supposed to mean? Since it seems pretty unlikely that 85% of sexual predators have actually appeared in pornos (not a smart move if you're trying not to get arrested for molestation or rape) I'll assume that she means that 85% of those guys have merely used or seen pornography at some point. Now I have neither research nor polling numbers to back this up but I'd be pretty surprised if someone told me that less than 85% of all men had used or seen porn of some sort or another, much less those who are sexual predators. What kind of sheltered, wishful thinking version of reality is this woman living in where she's this ignorant of the fundamental underlying aspects of human nature and sexuality?

And I think I've heard this argument for why adults shouldn't be allowed to participate in adult behaviour and commit victimless "crimes" with other consenting adults somewhere before. Oh, yeah:


Be it tobacco, alcohol, drugs, gambling or sex I'm sick and tired of hearing the excuse that these things must be forever expunged from every facet of our society because someone else can't or won't be a responsible parent and teach their kids the difference between what's appropriate for children and what's appropriate for adults. Say it with me, soccer moms: "That's only for grown ups!" The problem of course is that for people like Sandy Rios that distinction just isn't enough; adults must also be protected from all things adult because we're just bigger children with the same intellectual and moral deficiencies as our smaller versions.

On that note, one of my favorite quotes/rants ever is by Denis Leary's character Edgar Friendly from the movie Demolition Man:

You see, according to Cocteau's plan, I'm the enemy, 'cause I like to think; I like to read. I'm into freedom of speech and freedom of choice. I'm the kind of guy who likes to sit in a greasy spoon and wonder, "Gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the jumbo rack of barbecued ribs with the side order of gravy fries?" I WANT high cholesterol. I wanna eat bacon and butter and BUCKETS of cheese, okay? I want to smoke a Cuban cigar the size of Cincinnati in the non-smoking section. I want to run through the streets naked with green Jell-o all over my body reading Playboy magazine. Why? Because I suddenly might feel the need to, okay, pal? I've SEEN the future. Do you know what it is? It's a 47-year-old virgin sitting around in his beige pajamas, drinking a banana-broccoli shake, singing "I'm an Oscar Meyer Wiener.

Word. Keep your goddamn government hands off my Medicare and just do your job: telling me and other free adults what thoughts we can have in our heads and what substances/objects we can put into our bodies. That's the American way.

[Update: You can watch an edited clip of the FOX News interview here. And it appears that the reports of MTV banning the music video were false. Good on them for supporting free speech rights.]

Picture Of The Day II

Some of the major events discussed in the Bible seen from outer space:

A group of Australian artists called The Glue Society has recently displayed a project that will surely be controversial. The work consists of a set of digital pictures that try to represent a series of biblical episodes just as they would be seen through a satellite, such as with Google Earth.

I of course don't believe in any of the magic portrayed here but I do like the concept. The project is called God's Eye View and the other works can be viewed here.

Hold Your Horses: 70 Million

A tribute to hundreds of years of classical art in this video:


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OK Go: This Too Shall Pass

Regular readers might recall that I loves me some Rube Goldberg machines. This video by OK Go features one of the coolest and most elaborate I've ever seen (good song, too):


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[Update: I just rewatched the video. Regarding this reader's comment and my subsequent response, at approximately 2:40 in take note of the pile of destroyed television sets in the background. Have I mentioned that I love this kind of shit yet?]

Picture Of The Day

17 museum admission buttons from around the world. Posted merely because I like these things.

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Picture Of The Day

It's a space station. Ah, the treachery of satellites...

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Picture Of The Day

"Ubiquitous" by Naoko Ito. I both like and dislike this piece for pretty much the same reason. What do you think?

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Pachelbel's Canon In D

Overlaid with a graphical scrolling score. Beautiful:


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Parkour Flip Book

Regular readers will be familiar with my interest in the sport of parkour so know that this is quite an impressive piece of artwork:


On a related note, comes this guy out of India:

Christ, I need to get back into shape...

Stormbirds Concept Air Warfare Animation

This is a concept animation film featuring dogfighting and aerial bombers produced by some British guys I know nothing about. It's not that long but the visuals and effects are beautifully stunning:


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