Thu - October 11, 2007

Arthropods from here and there

I have been remiss in posting the images of various arthropods I have encountered in my travels.
Here are a select few:



A jumping spider from Japan -- I found 4 or 5 of these in my hostel room in Yokohama. One clearly spent the night with me under the futon - he was right there when I woke up. They continually palpitate their chelicerae, perhaps that's how they smell...


A dragonfly, in Tokyo, held by the wing by my brave companion.


A huge spider in 新宿御苑(Shinjuku Gyoen), easily a 6cm legspan.


Back home, a more familiar spider was helping deal with an ant invasion...

Posted at 10:03 PM     Read More   |

Wed - May 16, 2007

Sceadugenga

Com on wanre niht scrithan sceadugenga*, wrote the author of Beowulf... and the gruesome visions of monsters that inspired him can be found even this day. Behold, a fell fiend from the foulest fen, scouring the ground for the souls of men! Or is it just a Jerusalem cricket, neither from Jerusalem nor a cricket? This was the sight that greeted me upon my return from San Francisco to what I thought was the idyllic shire of Berkeley. Stepping lightly over the sidewalk last Sunday, in a semi-Dionysian rapture, I chanced to glimpse this *shadow-goer making its way from one patch of earth to another. I took its image in the dark (I had plenty of time to run inside, get my camera, then run back outside to where I saw it last...these guys are slow.)
...

As I followed closer, it crawled on and onward, and at last, it once more stood on the soil; and I witnessed it gathering other hideous, slithering forms unto itself. At this point I could only run in terror.



The beast could have devoured me in an instant; but I escaped my fate by swearing an oath of fealty, that I would be its messenger to the doomed throng who sleep while it stalks. All ye who slumber in innocence: Beware, take care!

...

So, it's another day, and we seem to be safe.. for now. But I see I am not alone in experiencing the Visitation: the fine magazine Cabinet has also been touched by the child of the earth. And I, for one, welcome our Stenopelmatian overlords.

Posted at 11:29 PM     Read More   |

Mon - April 16, 2007

Back from Europe

....the view from my table at Airbrau, Munich airport, as I waited for my luggage to catch up with me (lunch courtesy of Lufthansa)...
(The incident was to repeat itself upon my return to NYC, but then it wasn't so bad -- in fact it's quite nice not to have to "schlep", as they say there, another bag through the subway..)

..the spire of Ulm Münster, amazingly the tallest cathedral in the world. I walked here the morning I was to speak at the "High Performance Fluorescence Imaging in the Life Sciences" conference... then I walked back. It was a brisk morning, and Ulm seems like a good little town. I suppose little Albert saw this sight more than once...

...Stephansplatz in Vienna, normally full of tourists, on my way to Café Hawelka (a dank, musty alternative to the traditional bright & snappy Vienna coffeehouse)

...a busy resident of Schloss Schönbrunn, Vienna. Her remote ancestors probably enjoyed the scraps from the Emperor's table. That's probably more than some peasants got.

Posted at 09:39 PM     Read More   |

Tue - March 6, 2007

Etched Brass Plate

I followed the instructions on the Steampunk Workshop and am quite pleased with the results.. I used only vinegar and salt as the etching solution, no nasty EBMUD-disallowed copper sulfate.
This image is taken from Robert Hooke's Micrographia; I plan to use it and some other of his illustrations on notebooks of mine..
(By the way, the entire free text of Micrographia, including the illustrations, can be found here.)

Posted at 09:51 PM     Read More   |

Sat - February 24, 2007

Sectoral Heterochromia

---this is my left eye. See the brown patch? It turns out that this striking state of affairs is called sectoral heterochromia, and Wikipedia naturally has all you need to know about it..but I see there is a need to start a new article on just the sectoral type.


..for a better illustration (as in, more aesthetically pleasing), this is actress Kate Bosworth's right eye.

Posted at 12:54 AM     Read More   |

Fri - December 17, 2004

Holy crap

This is the most amazing optical illusion I've ever seen (from illusionsetc.blogspot.com):

Posted at 11:09 PM     |

Fri - November 12, 2004

More Mosaic Madness

This mosaic is from 1660 images on "Sorry Everybody"..
their image collection keeps growing, and I keep running through the process of downloading all the images and making a new mosaic..

This one is based on the map from this site showing how even at the county level there is a lot of heterogeneity.
I also have the original image (6.2Mb .jpg file) on this page.


(UPDATE, 11/14/04): image changed to include Alaska and Hawaii, and duplicate images swapped out..

Posted at 03:50 PM     |