Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Funny dog in yellow shoes
It might look cute but I don't think Booba likes his yellow shoes.
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Sunday, November 28, 2010
Butterfly Macro Photography
Beautiful Macro Photography by Dmitry Monastyrsky from Rostov-on-Don, Russia.
Morning of a butterfly and seven little queers
While everyone is sleeping
Morning of a butterfly and seven little queers
While everyone is sleeping
Friday, November 12, 2010
St. Petersburg in miniature (tilt-shift video)
St. Petersburg Strikes Back: Yota advertisement using tilt-shift technology.
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The Sandpit: A day in the life of New York City, in miniature
An incredible tilt-shift movie of a day in the life of New York City.
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Thursday, November 11, 2010
Macro Photography by Dmitry Monastyrsky (Part 1, 30 photos)
Beautiful Macro Photography by Dmitry Monastyrsky from Rostov-on-Don, Russia.
After morning shower
Zerynthia polyxena
After morning shower
Zerynthia polyxena
Ladybird's morning
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Aleksandr Orlov - the world's most popular fictional meerkat
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| Meerkat. Photo by Itshears |
Aleksandr Orlov (Russian: Александр Орлов) is a fictional CGI anthropomorphic Russian meerkat. He is portrayed as being of aristocratic stock, and the founder of www.comparethemeerkat.com. The character is central to an advertising campaign on British commercial television for the comparethemarket.com price comparison website. It launched in January 2009 and centres on his frustration that people keep coming to his website looking for car insurance not meerkats, because 'Market' sounds similar to 'Meerkat' when spoken in a Russian accent. Orlov's catchphrase is 'Simples', pronounced 'Seem-pels'.
"It seem some people still visit this site for cheap car insurance deal, so this time I have make absolute clear difference. Only mongoose could not understand!"
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Old Russian alphabet illustrated by Elisabeth Bohm (27 pictures)
Old Cyrillic alphabet illustrated by Elisabeth Bohm (Елизавета Меркурьевна Бём; 1843-1914), a Russian painter and the most successful prominent author of postcards in 19th century Russia.
Monday, November 8, 2010
The Unseen Sea
A collection of time lapses taken around the San Francisco Bay Area roughly shot over the period of one year.
Author: Simon Christen
Similar: Abkhazia - beautiful video filming
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SunFlower: the Fibonacci sequence, Golden Section
The head of a flower is made up of small seeds which are produced at the center, and then migrate towards the outside to fill eventually all the space (as for the sunflower but on a much smaller level). Each new seed appears at a certain angle in relation to the preceeding one. For example, if the angle is 90 degrees, that is 1/4 of a turn.
Of course, this is not the most efficient way of filling space. In fact, if the angle between the appearance of each seed is a portion of a turn which corresponds to a simple fraction, 1/3, 1/4, 3/4, 2/5, 3/7, etc (that is a simple rational number), one always obtains a series of straight lines. If one wants to avoid this rectilinear pattern, it is necessary to choose a portion of the circle which is an irrational number (or a nonsimple fraction). If this latter is well approximated by a simple fraction, one obtains a series of curved lines (spiral arms) which even then do not fill out the space perfectly.
In order to optimize the filling, it is necessary to choose the most irrational number there is, that is to say, the one the least well approximated by a fraction. This number is exactly the golden mean. The corresponding angle, the golden angle, is 137.5 degrees. (It is obtained by multiplying the non-whole part of the golden mean by 360 degrees and, since one obtains an angle greater than 180 degrees, by taking its complement). With this angle, one obtains the optimal filling, that is, the same spacing between all the seeds.
This angle has to be chosen very precisely: variations of 1/10 of a degree destroy completely the optimization. When the angle is exactly the golden mean, and only this one, two families of spirals (one in each direction) are then visible: their numbers correspond to the numerator and denominator of 2 consecutive numbers in the Fibonacci sequence, which is proved to converge toward the Golden Mean value of 1.6180339... (in the picture we have 21/34, the 7th and 8th terms of the Fibonacci sequence).
These numbers are precisely those of the Fibonacci sequence (the bigger the numbers, the better the approximation) and the choice of the fraction depends on the time laps between the appearance of each of the seeds at the center of the flower.
This is why the number of spirals in the centers of sunflowers, and in the centers of flowers in general, correspond to a Fibonacci number. Moreover, generally the petals of flowers are formed at the extremity of one of the families of spiral (true, I count 34 for this sunflower). This then is also why the number of petals corresponds on average to a Fibonacci number.
[Photo, info: flickr.com/photos/lucapost Original description adapted from: www.popmath.org.uk]
Related story:
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Nature by Numbers
A short movie inspired on numbers, geometry and nature.
Go to etereaestudios.com if you are looking for more information: the theory behind the movie (Fibonacci, Golden Ratio, Delaunay, Voronoi…), stills and screenshots showing the work in progress.
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Sunday, November 7, 2010
Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent (Video)
Susan Magdalane Boyle (born 1 April 1961) is a Scottish singer who came to international public attention when she appeared as a contestant on reality TV programme Britain's Got Talent on 11 April 2009, singing "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Misérables. Her first album was released in November 2009 and debuted as the number one best-selling CD on charts around the globe.
Global interest in Boyle was triggered by the contrast between her powerful voice and her plain appearance on stage. The juxtaposition of the audience's first impression of her, with the standing ovation she received during and after her performance, led to an international media and internet response. Within nine days of the audition, videos of Boyle—from the show, various interviews and her 1999 rendition of "Cry Me a River" — had been watched over 100 million times. Her audition video has been viewed on the internet several hundred million times. Despite the sustained media interest she later finished in second place in the final of the show behind dance troupe Diversity.
Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent
There was a time when men were kind,
And their voices were soft,
And their words inviting.
There was a time when love was blind,
And the world was a song,
And the song was exciting.
There was a time when it all went wrong...
I dreamed a dream in time gone by,
When hope was high and life, worth living.
I dreamed that love would never die,
I dreamed that God would be forgiving.
Then I was young and unafraid,
And dreams were made and used and wasted.
There was no ransom to be paid,
No song unsung, no wine, untasted.
But the tigers come at night,
With their voices soft as thunder,
As they tear your hope apart,
And they turn your dream to shame.
He slept a summer by my side,
He filled my days with endless wonder...
He took my childhood in his stride,
But he was gone when autumn came!
And still I dream he'll come to me,
That we will live the years together,
But there are dreams that cannot be,
And there are storms we cannot weather!
I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living,
So different now from what it seemed...
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed...
Via: wiki, talent.itv.com
Similar story:
Aziza Ibragimova (Ukrainian X Factor Audition)
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Global interest in Boyle was triggered by the contrast between her powerful voice and her plain appearance on stage. The juxtaposition of the audience's first impression of her, with the standing ovation she received during and after her performance, led to an international media and internet response. Within nine days of the audition, videos of Boyle—from the show, various interviews and her 1999 rendition of "Cry Me a River" — had been watched over 100 million times. Her audition video has been viewed on the internet several hundred million times. Despite the sustained media interest she later finished in second place in the final of the show behind dance troupe Diversity.
Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent
I Dreamed a Dream lyrics
There was a time when men were kind,
And their voices were soft,
And their words inviting.
There was a time when love was blind,
And the world was a song,
And the song was exciting.
There was a time when it all went wrong...
I dreamed a dream in time gone by,
When hope was high and life, worth living.
I dreamed that love would never die,
I dreamed that God would be forgiving.
Then I was young and unafraid,
And dreams were made and used and wasted.
There was no ransom to be paid,
No song unsung, no wine, untasted.
But the tigers come at night,
With their voices soft as thunder,
As they tear your hope apart,
And they turn your dream to shame.
He slept a summer by my side,
He filled my days with endless wonder...
He took my childhood in his stride,
But he was gone when autumn came!
And still I dream he'll come to me,
That we will live the years together,
But there are dreams that cannot be,
And there are storms we cannot weather!
I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living,
So different now from what it seemed...
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed...
Via: wiki, talent.itv.com
Similar story:
Aziza Ibragimova (Ukrainian X Factor Audition)
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Saturday, November 6, 2010
Table Connect for iPhone
A large touchscreen table that enables you to control everything just like on the phone, only much larger!
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Woodland Hobbit Home
You are looking at pictures of a wooden house built by Simon Dale for him and his family. It’s located in Wales somewhere in the middle of the forest, and it looks like a little Hobbit house from the Lord of the Rings. It’s all built out of natural materials, and the main tools used were a chainsaw, hammer and 1 inch chisel.
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Friday, November 5, 2010
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Flu Attack! How A Virus Invades Your Body
When you get the flu, viruses turn your cells into tiny factories that help spread the disease. In this animation, NPR's Robert Krulwich and medical animator David Bolinsky explain how a flu virus can trick a single cell into making a million more viruses.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir
Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir - 'Lux Aurumque'
Eric Whitacre (born January 2, 1970 in Reno, Nevada) is an American composer, conductor and lecturer. He is one of the most popular and performed composers of his generation.
Whitacre's Virtual Choir projects began with Sleep in 2009 and was followed by Lux Aurumque in 2010. Combining 185 voices from 12 countries, the virtual choir has been described as a "musical experience that works better than anyone might have expected" (Gramophone, August 2010). Not only did it receive 1,000,000 hits in the first two months captured the attention of entrepreneurs and decision makers worldwide, from the United Nations to Google.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
World’s largest dancing fountain
Dubai Fountain - "Con te partirò" (Time to Say Goodbye - Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman)
Dubai Fountain - "Con te partirò" (Time to Say Goodbye - Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman)
Dubai Fountain - "Con te partirò" (Time to Say Goodbye - Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman)
The Dubai Fountain is a record-setting choreographed fountain system set on the 30-acre manmade Burj Khalifa Lake, at the center of the Downtown Dubai development in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It was designed by WET Design, the California-based company responsible for the fountains at the Bellagio Hotel Lake in Las Vegas. Illuminated by 6,600 lights and 25 colored projectors, it is 275 m (902 ft) long and shoots water 150 m (490 ft) into the air (equivalent to a 50-story building), accompanied by a range of classical to contemporary Arabic and world music. It was built at a cost of AED 800 million (USD 218 million).
The Dubai Fountains project water in the air in many different combinations and patterns. The beam of light from the fountain can be seen from over 20 miles away.
The fountain is animated with performances set to light and music. It is visible from every point on the lake promenade and from many neighboring structures. Performances take place every 20 minutes from 6 pm to 10 pm on weekdays, and from 6 pm to 11 pm on weekends.
Info: wiki
Big Fat Russian Wedding (funny video parody)
Wedding (the way Russians do) is a video parody made by Triod i Diod for KVN's* musical competition.
Tip: Please do not take it seriously! It's just a video joke about stereotypes attributed to the Russian wedding :)
*KVN is a popular Russian humor TV show where teams (usually students) compete by giving funny answers to questions, improvisations and prepared sketches.
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