Build A Life-Size Phone Controlled BB8 Droid (Full-DIY-Tutorial)

Teaching

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

Had to update my weebly with some of my favorite quotes,  like this one:

This is pretty over the top

New US Spy Satellite Features World Devouring Octopus

The NSA Speech: Obama Accepts the Logic of Staying Terrorized

If the vision he laid out Friday prevails, mass surveillance on innocents will continue and we'll never enjoy pre-9/11 privacy again.

videos

A speech from Carl Sagan that will make you cry

The makers of The Sagan Series bring you The Feynman Series

Richard Feynman waxes scientific about a flower, touches your freaking soul

More People Need To Know About Carolyn Porco

subway car

It's rare that I get on a subway car that's empty so I thought I would take a picture... The last stop in this case is Times Square, although since we were headed in the direction of Queens it became the first stop.

Also had a little fun photoshopping some art into this one ;)

Lightmatter_Sistine_Chapel by Aaron Logan" used under a creative commons license

Visit to the MET 12/27/18

Going to the MET with a friend tomorrow, my list of things to check out...

SPECIFIC ITEMS

Bacchanal: A Faun Teased by Children by Bernini (sculpture)

Viewpoint:  “The action unfolds as you encircle the piece.”  Very cool, one of the things that I like about his sculpture of Daphne and Apollo is that as you walk around the sculpture story is brought to life, action is given form.  

I’m excited that I’m going to get a chance to see one of his works in NYC. 

Aside from Daphne and Apollo at Villa Borghese, my other favorite Bernini pieces I saw in Rome:  Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi nella Piazza Navona, St. Peter's colonade, the angels on the Ponte Sant'Angelo, Ecstasy of St Teresa in the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria

The Denial of Saint Peter by Caravaggio (painting)

I am also excited that I will be able to see one of Caravaggio’s works at the Met.  Caravaggio is best known for his technique of chiaroscuro.  I saw many of his paintings in Italy:  the works in Cappella Contarelli in the church San Luigi dei Francesi on the theme of St. Matthew, David with the Head of Goliath and Saint Jerome Writing in Villa Borghese

If there’s time, I’d like to see paintings by Velázquez, Goya (or this one) and El Greco and some works by Rodin (or the Hand of Rodin, Study for Obsession, Pygmalion and Galatea or The Hand of God)

EXHIBITS

Dutch Masterpieces

- The Disillusioned Medea - Curiosity - Young Woman with a Water Pitcher

Everything is Connected:  Art and Conspiracy

And then depending on what my guide is interested in viewing, perhaps something from one of these exhibits?

Dangerous Beauty:  Medusa in Classical Art Relative Values:  The Cost of Art in the Northern Renaissance Celebrating Tintoretto:  Portrait Paintings and Studio Drawings The Poetry of Nature:  Edo Paintings from the Fishbein-Bender Collection Children to Immortals:  Figural Representations in Chinese Art Streams and Mountains without End:  Landscape Traditions of China Epic Abstraction

Links to exhibits on the Met website with information and digital resources

The World Wide Web, AR, VR, and MR

 “Technologies like Magic Leap’s will enable us to generate, transmit, quantify, refine, personalize, magnify, discover, share, reshare, and overshare experiences. This shift from the creation, transmission, and consumption of information to the creation, transmission, and consumption of experience defines this new platform. As Magic Leap founder Rony Abovitz puts it, “Ours is a journey of inner space. We are building the internet of presence and experience.”

We haven’t yet fully absorbed the enormous benefit that the internet of information has brought to the world. And yet we are about to recapitulate this accomplishment with the advent of synthetic realities."

The Untold Story of Magic leap, the World’s Most Secretive Startup by Kevin Kelly via Wired. This is a looooong article, but a must read.  

On a side note, Kevin Kelly (founding editor of Wired) is one of my favorite futurists.... check out some of his other stuff:

We Are the Web (Wired timeline/feature)

The Next 5,000 Days of the Internet (TED talk)  

One more must read from today’s surfing (much, much shorter!) is a piece from the NYT:  The Web’s Creator Looks to Reinvent It.  

See also The Internet Part II from my wiki for related info and articles as well as my page on Privacy.

The 'pre-Holocene' climate is returning - and it won't be fun

Now, however, carbon dioxide has reached levels not seen for at least 3 million years, and fossil fuel emissions have become the dominant driver of the changes to our climate. In a world potentially several degrees warmer than the one that spawned our civilization, we had better ready ourselves for some surprises.

This isn’t alarmism; it’s just sensible risk management. Retired US Navy Rear Admiral David Titley, now head of Penn State’s Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk, pointed out that governments still spend money on defence, despite the declining number of people killed worldwide in war. He told the US Congress that “we rightly invest in our security and defence as one component of hedging against unknown or unlikely security risks”. Inaction on climate change violates that same fundamental risk-management principle.

What is the Anthropocene, and are you living in it?