Colorado
chaoticutopia | October 14, 2007I suppose, if I wanted to make things easier, I would just start calling these the "Weekend Fractal" but it just doesn’t have the same ring. Besides, this week, Carl Zimmer beat me to the Friday Fractal, on naked skin even. (The owner of the fleshy fractal shares some interesting insights on his Julia set; be sure to check it out.) Still, I had this section of a Mandelbrot set lying around, whose autumn hues would be ill fit if posted later in the season:
You can see where this slice fits in to the entire set in this short movie:
     
Here, if…
terrasig | October 9, 2007
The monthly Denver mag, 5280, made its way to Chez Pharmboy last week with a very familiar face staring back - and not because I've had a cardiac cath...yet!
w00t!
For our readers in the Queen City of the Plains, read more here about your favorite cardiologist.
chaoticutopia | July 25, 2007If you’re somewhere in the Denver metro area tonight, consider dropping by the Tattered Cover in Lodo to hear my fellow ScienceBlogger Chris Mooney discuss his new book, Storm World. I’ll be there, sipping a cup of mocha and pondering the future of our climate. The festivities begin at 7:30pm. I hope you can join us!
chaoticutopia | July 21, 2007If we look at the natural world around us, fractals abound. Sometimes, not. This is the greatest puzzle to me... not that fractals appear in nature, but the fact that not everything is a fractal. Working on this week’s layered set (which took a while, mostly due to unrelated circumstances) I found myself questioning that inconsistency.
As I try to imitate some iterative, aperiodic pattern with my computer, I often find myself layering one fractal on top of another, to match the foreground and background (i.e., tree and sky, or clouds and land.) Sometimes, I’ll use more than a couple. This…
chaoticutopia | July 16, 2007ScienceBloggers get on some strange topics of conversation, sometimes. Recently, we were discussing bizzarre road signs. Take my favorite, for instance:
Who makes Colorado boring? You! Thanks...
Actually, who could call Colorado a boring place, when there are assassination attempts being made on our Governor?
chaoticutopia | June 28, 2007Ice cream soda, lemonade, milkshakes, lunch, cigars and tobacco:
A summertime park picture by Charles S. Lillybridge
Summer at the park in Denver was a little different 100 years ago. I'll never understand how they beat the heat in those long sleeves and skirts. We certainly can't blame them for hanging around the Ice Cold Drink Stand.While I'd probably pass on the cigars, an ice cold lemonade would be wonderful right about now. Unfortunately, you only find these sorts of stands in theme parks anymore. Between the admission price, obligatory souvenirs, and the overpriced drink itself, you…
chaoticutopia | June 15, 2007This is a nice, pretty leech:
This is a not-so-nice-and-pretty, content-stealing leech:
And, of course, when you find one leech, there's probably more lurking around. Sure enough, there are others trying to suck off of the content you see on this page. (You know who you are, COLORADOHOMECLUBINFO and isadamlari.org!) If you are reading this on someone else's blog, and it doesn't say it is "by Karmen", and it isn't making any sort of unique comment on the content, then you are reading stolen words. Please do not patronize these sites; they steal content, often without giving any credit to the…
chaoticutopia | June 7, 2007
Strong winds rustle the grass along the dam at Calkins Lake in Colorado.
Don't see the lake in this 360 degree panorama?
Well, that's because it isn't here anymore. In this small patch of open space, the prairie is being reclaimed. This land was once plowed by a farmer named Henry Calkins. In order to keep his fields as green as you see in the video, he had to store water in a small reservoir. Calkins dug a ditch from the nearby Farmer's Highline Canal (shown here on Monday) and built a dam from locally produced brick and concrete.
The lake may have once been calm and still, but it wouldn't…
chaoticutopia | June 6, 2007
Now who was supposed to keep this park clean?
While gathering in a Denver park, picnickers pause to pose for Charles S. Lillybridge.
Photographer Charles S. Lillybridge lived along the Platte River near the Archer Canal, by the Alameda Avenue bridge, in Denver, Colorado. In the early 20th century, he took thousands of pictures of his working-class neighborhood. Today, the Archer Canal has been replaced by Interstate 25. Supermarkets have replaced small shops. Something about the people, however, remains the same. It is still a working class neighborhood, and the same trees grow along the…
chaoticutopia | June 4, 2007
Raindrops fall into the Farmer's Highline Canal in Westminster, Colorado.
Here, cottonwood trees, coyote willows, and town homes sprout along a canal, once primarily used for agricultural purposes, now supporting these suburban communities. Not too long ago, this was a dry ridge, and the only cottonwoods in the area were found along Big Dry Creek below.
All photos by the author, unless otherwise noted.
chaoticutopia | May 3, 2007
As my week of bioblitzing was wrapping up, so were my classes. Add to that an eager 6-year-old, who wanted to help with spring preparations by cleaning the pond-with windex-and you can see, I've been busy.
I never did get around to counting the flora in my two bioblitz locations, but I have no regrets. This has been a wonderfully enlightening experience for me. While my counts don't show it, I managed to stumble onto one of the richest ecological niches in my area. I've visited site A at Standley Lake regularly since moving to this part of town. Now, I'll be visiting site B (B is for…
chaoticutopia | April 30, 2007
Geese at Standley Lake (soft pastel and charchol on canvas) by Karmen Lee Franklin, 2007
It seems that in life, nothing ever turns out as expected. Over the past week, which was, of course, National Wildlife Week, I participated in the Blogger Bioblitz. The experience was loads of fun, quite educational, and full of surprises. By the last day, I'd sort of given up on counting (overwhelmed by the diversity I'd discovered) and switched into artistic mode... but the surprises kept coming.
I dropped by both sites A and B over the weekend. I completed a small count at the beaver ponds at site B…
chaoticutopia | April 27, 2007
Tracking wildlife in my neighborhood wetlands this week made me reflect on the complex network of organisms in a habitat. Everything in an ecosystem is so intimately tied together, that a single species can have drastic effects on the entire habitat. The ecosystem, like all systems containing that elusive chaotic aspect, has sensitive dependence on the initial conditions... like a fractal. In the fractal or in nature, one small change can ripple through the entire set. For an example, I took two copies of the classic Mandelbrot set, and laid one atop the other. Then, I used slightly…
chaoticutopia | April 24, 2007
In theory, conducting a bioblitz was going to be a simple enterprise. I would go to one of my chosen spots, count the organisms as I went along, noting them in my book and, if possible take a photograph. I figured the two places I'd chosen would be relatively barren. In the tall grass prairie (especially one that has been mowed) you expect lots of grass, the occasional shrub or succulent, and the standard plains fauna, mostly passing birds and a profusion of prairie dog mounds. Site A is one of my regular haunts, and I knew I'd spot, at best, some waterfowl or wildflowers there.
I chose…
chaoticutopia | April 22, 2007
Today is Earth Day, the perfect holiday to kick off a little Blogger Bioblitzing for National Wildlife Week. All around our bumpy sphere, people are going out and getting intimate with nature. Like many other bloggers, I've been scouting out the perfect places to bioblitz.
In Colorado (as everywhere else) ecology depends on the water... and there just isn't much to go around. The earliest humans who lived along the Front Range kept constantly moving, letting the limited natural resources replenish as they went along. Later, fur trappers and miners settled in the region, and eventually…
terrasig | April 20, 2007If you've been to Aspen, Colorado, for a scientific conference you have no doubt made the bike ride down valley to the venerable Woody Creek Tavern for margaritas and such. (The ride back to town is a wee bit more challenging, by the way.) The Aspen Times now reports that the Tavern is up for sale:
The Woody Creek Tavern is located along Upper River Road, adjacent to the Woody Creek Trailer Park. It has been a local hangout for about 27 years. It also has provided liquid refreshment, food, gossip and political cover to many diverse and famous personalities, including the late writer Hunter…
chaoticutopia | April 9, 2007What is sprouting this spring on the Denver art scene? This past month, the botanical illustrations of Susan Rubin were on display at the Spark Gallery, in the Santa Fe art district. This area, along one of the oldest stretches of road in the west, recently experienced urban renewal and has grown to become one of Denver's hippest new cultural scenes. The gallery, one of the oldest installations in the area, is the perfect fusion of classic southwest and contemporary art. Outside, the stucco walls have been painted a deep grey, while the indoor space is light, open and airy. The setting was a…
chaoticutopia | April 6, 2007While here in Colorado, freezing rain and snow is drizzling from the skies, spring is sweeping across the northern hemisphere. In celebration, I designed this petal-like Julia set and laid it on top a wavy Mandelbrot set, creating this arousing union. (What can I say? It's spring!)
In creating the fractal, I used the colors from this native Colorado wildflower, which will be blooming here, very shortly:
Bell's Twinpod (Physaria bellii)
These pretty little blooms are only found in Colorado, and even then only in certain areas. Specifically, the plant grows in sandstone or shale formations (…
chaoticutopia | March 26, 2007I suppose I can't lurk on my own blog forever. As you know, I've been trying to hide from the pollen unsuccessfully--and antihistamines can only do so much. Then, while preparing last Friday's fractal, I hit sort of an existential wall. The fractal was fine (I'm still saving it) but my interpretation wasn't going well. Eventually, I decided to leave it until next week, and try to work it out in the meantime. I might seek other opinions, perhaps start an open thread aimed at the question.
Aside from that, I have a pile of less-ambiguous miscellany to share--nature photos, art reviews, game…
chaoticutopia | March 23, 2007Are you curious about the future of energy use? Will you also be in Colorado this weekend? If so, this is one meeting you won't want to miss:
The Colorado New Energy Summit of 2007 is being held this weekend at the Wells Fargo Theatre in the Colorado Convention Center in downtown Denver.
Join business, scientific and government leaders and members of Colorado's energy community for an update on developments in renewable energy, emerging technologies, state and national energy policies and opportunities for tax incentives and financing options for residences and businesses.
The Colorado New…