New Interpolated HD Video of Curiosity Mars Rover Descent Depicts Real-Time Landing:

I’ve seen several different videos of Curiosity’s descent down to the Mars, and while incredible because of what they depict, none approached the frame-rate we might normally expect from an actual film. Using footage provided by NASA, Reddit user Godd2 just spent the last four days on behalf of all humankind creating a stunning interpolated HD version of the descent. In layman’s terms interpolation involves taking a choppy video, in this case NASA’s 4 frames-per-second video, and rendering the “missing” frames in between resulting in an incredibly smooth 25 frames-per-second video. This is, I believe, the closest approximation ever of what it might feel like to land on another planet in real time using actual footage. Amazing. Here it is on YouTube.

[Oooooooh. -egg]

Unusual Long Exposure Firework Photographs by David Johnson:








While attending the International Fireworks Show in Ottawa, Canada earlier this month photographer David Johnson had his camera in hand to document the night. When Spain’s entry into the competition begin he decided to try something a little different resulting in the photos you see here which are unlike any long exposure firework shots I’ve ever seen. Via email David tells me how he accomplished the effect:

The technique I used was a simple refocus during the long exposure. Each shot was about a second long, sometimes two. I’d start out of focus, and when I heard the explosion I would quickly refocus, so the little stems on these deep sea creature lookalikes would grow into a fine point. The shapes are quite bizarre, some of them I was pleasantly surprised with.

What’s interesting is that unlike usual firework photos that seem to make long trails across the sky, Johnson’s photos look like flowers with little triangular plumes coming to a point. Pretty amazing. You can see several more photos here.

Black Cloud: Carlos Amorales Adorns Gallery Walls with Thousands of Black Paper Moths:

Black Cloud, 2009, Espacio AV

Black Cloud, 2009, Espacio AV

Black Cloud, 2009, Espacio AV

Black Cloud, 2009, Espacio AV

Black Cloud, 2007, Yvon Lambert Gallery

Black Cloud, 2007, Yvon Lambert Gallery

Black Cloud, 2007, Yvon Lambert Gallery

Black Cloud, 2007, Yvon Lambert Gallery

Black Cloud, 2007, Yvon Lambert Gallery

Black Cloud, 2007, Yvon Lambert Gallery

Black Cloud is an installation by Mexican artist Carlos Amorales involving tens of thousands of black paper months affixed to the walls of large interior spaces. The piece was first installed at Yvon Lambert in 2007 and then in a different configuration at an old baroque church in Spain that was converted to a multi-use space called Espacio AV in 2009. Gorgeous. See much more here. (via feul)

Welcome to the jungle: The best tech when going off the grid:

Daniel Noll, half of the Uncornered Market travel team, used an iPhone to locate himself outside Srimongal, Bangladesh

Uncornered Market

Last Christmas, my cousin Martin do Nascimento received a Kindle 3G as a gift from my brother, Alex.
At the time, we all figured it would be a nice way for Martin to read books while serving in the Peace Corps Nicaragua on the Caribbean coast. But what we didn’t know at the time was exactly how indispensable it would be to him as he lived in a town so small that it barely has a Wikipedia entry. It turns out that this little, relatively cheap device has been a godsend for him in 2012, with its worldwide 3G Internet. Even though Martin lives in a remote area, I hear from him nearly every day by e-mail.
“Most of my e-mails I write on my Kindle,” he told me recently (by cell phone this time). “I use it to stay in touch with friends, even [through] Facebook. The Kindle’s not fantastic by any means, but I can read my e-mail reliably. It loads within a minute. Even with a 3G [USB modem] stick, [service] came in and out—I gave the modem away.”
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September 16, 2012:

Holy hell, that was the end of my hand.

beautiful failures | accidental 3D Prints | cunicode

On the path to get the perfect 3D-Print, many…:

beautiful failures | accidental 3D Prints | cunicode

On the path to get the perfect 3D-Print, many meters of filament get piled up as discarded disappointments,
as bastard objects that never were,
as unborn half-things…
… and they are beautiful:

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-ultimate-guide-to-writing-better-than-you-normally-do

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/hello-stranger-on-the-street-could-you-please-tell-me-how-to-take-care-of-my-baby

iPhone “oil paintings,” animated GIFs of artful screen smudges:

A little gross, a little genius. iPhone Oil Paintings (by JK Keller via Gautam Ramdurai).