chaoticutopia
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If 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…
If 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…
Is there hope for our children’s education? Last week, I questioned the direction our public schools were heading, expressing quite a bit of frustration. Yet, while I’ve been frustrated, along with many others (judging by the response to that post) we might be missing a possible solution, sitting…
This song has always brought tears to my eyes. It discussed events that occurred before I was born, but which triggered changes that have been unfolding since, throughout all of our lifetimes. Now, this video has filled in all the holes in my contextual understanding, and made me more emotional…
ScienceBloggers 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…
I sometimes wonder if people who are unfamiliar with science are afraid to learn about it. It seems ridiculous, on the surface--"I don’t know much about science, so I’m not capable of learning about it"--but I suspect it is a common attitude. (It’s even worse when it comes to philosophy, but I’ll…
I’ve never liked the taste of cream in my coffee, but I like to watch the way it swirls as you add it in. Such elegant forms appear when you add one liquid to another, especially when they are contrasting colors. It seems like the viscosity of the cream adds more complexity to the patterns than…
Omnibrain started it, and now everyone is making their own Simpsons avatar. Mine found its way into the bar:
You can make your own (and catch a beer with Homer) at the official Simpsons Movie site.
My son has been asking if I’ll take him to see the movie. Earlier this week, I was letting him watch…
Having a cold sucks. (After being sick for the past week, I feel I can say that with some confidence.) While they usually don’t kill us, a cold can make us feel miserable enough that we wouldn’t wish it on anyone else. So why do we? I’m not saying we wish it on others, but we happily pass it along…
After talking about eagles yesterday and mimicking parrot plumage last week, I decided to stick with a feathery theme for this week’s fractal. To color this layered fractal set, I pulled the hues from the tail of a red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) and a few shades from a cloudy sky. Then, I wove…
You’ve probably heard that the Bald Eagle was removed from the endangered species list this week. The announcement was rather timely, allowing the media to paste patriotic eagle pictures all over the place around the Fourth of July. It also came not too long after Rachel Carson’s 100th birthday.…
Finally, our fourth and final Independence day treat--Make your own fireworks!
This fun little flash tool from Fireworks.com lets you create your own fireworks display, with your choice of backdrop. There are a number of city skylines available, including Denver, New York, and San Francisco, as…
I couldn’t go through a series of 4th of July fun without including a little science education. I must admit, I don’t remember a whole lot of my high school chemistry class. (I remember the chemistry, bonding and whatnot, so it couldn’t have been a total loss.) But... the day we got to play with…
We declared independence, formed a country, and have been celebrating on the fourth ever since. Here is the second in our series of Fourth of July treats, a glimpse back to the early 20th century, with, yep, you guessed it, pictures by Charles S. Lillybridge:
About 100 years ago today, City Park in…
Who went and put a holiday in the middle of the week? Here it is Wednesday, and instead of work, we have a day off, BBQ, and pyrotecnics... I guess I won’t complain.
I figure most of the local wildlife is hiding from the sounds of explosives, so I’ll skip photography for the time being. Instead,…
Fractals must lend themselves well to feathery forms. Last time, I used a Mandelbrot set to mimic the soft leaves of the Yarrow plant. Here, I decided to use the same Mandelbrot set to create feathery forms of a different sort:
These varying shades of gray were borrowed not from a plant, but…
Ice 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…
I usually try to stick to PG topics around here, and try to include a picture in every post. Well, I'm about to break both of those rules. Actually, I had plans to write about beavers this week... but this (coincidentally?) came up instead. ScienceBlogs has gone a-buzz over bikini waxing, …
I sent this petroglyph photograph to SmartGirlsRock for my recent interview, despite the fact that I've never posted it on my site. There is a bit of background story to it. My mom, who teaches high school anthropology, has always been a big fan of ancient rock art. A few summers ago, we…
It isn't hard to spot the aphids in this picture:
Aphids feasting on a maple leaf.
But, we aren't the only ones checking them out:
The aphids are spotted. So is the lady beetle.
(Two-spotted Lady Beetle, aka Adalia bipuncta).
In a matter of minutes, the lady beetle devours half of the…
I watched the translucent white balloon, perhaps escaped from some baby shower or wedding, float against the clear blue sky. If it had been a cloudy day, I might not even have noticed it up there. It was one of those clear Colorado days, with nothing to stop the incessant waves of heat, pouring…
It's summer... right smack in the middle of nearly the longest day of the year. Even though the Front Range is scattered with thick cloud cover, it's hot... just about too hot to blog.
Luckily, I don't need to; you can hop over to SmartGirlsRock.com instead. There, you can…
There I was, after moping all Monday and trying to catch up on Tuesday,I found myself looking at Wednesday. Somewhere in there, I had planned to get a few posts up. I may suggest to everyone else that life thrives on the edge of chaos (and we ought to ride the waves) but I often forget to remind…
What a busy Sunday... I seem to have a lot of little things to post about, but I didn't want to forget to wish all the dads out there, especially my own, a happy Father's Day. I owe my Dad thanks for many things, including instilling my strong love for science.
I have this early memory of my dad,…
I've had a link to the original zoomquilt on my blogroll for as long as I've had a blogroll. The idea of a collaborative online art project has always intrugied me. Can a dozen plus different artists around the world paint the same canvas, and still have a cohesive work of art? The first zoomquilt…
I have another game review posted at JayIsGames.com. If you've wondered why I posted lightly over the last week, now you'll understand. Alice Greenfingers sounded interesting at first glance. Just check out the manufacturer's description:
Alice's big dream is to run her own businesss, growing…
This 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…
Here we are, at my 50th Friday Fractal. I have yet to tire of the beautiful spiraling and branching forms of the Mandelbrot set. I've found no shortage of matching forms in nature, either. Even in my own garden, I find lovely fractal shapes, some as delicate as a feather, but as hardy as a weed.…
Dad and the Dog
I get the feeling that the little girl wasn't posing for this picture, rather, she seems content just to watch her father and the dog create a spectacle for Lillybridge's camera. While the outfits, especially the hats and suspenders, suggest this picture was taken sometime in the…
Nut or Grain Weevil (Probably Curculio, unknown species)
Weevils wobble but they don't fall off the lampshade.
I found this little guy wandering helplessly in circles around the top of my lamp. His long, skinny snout is a handy tool for boring into nuts and acorns. Typically, in a forest, that's…