Sounds Cool
bushwells | September 19, 2007Via Technovelgy - Where Science Meets Fiction, here's an article on a wild display surface upon which small panels move with precision and "ripple," creating strange, almost biologically protoplasmic motion:
HypoSurface Walls Are Full of Life.
Bill Christensen, the author of the Technovelgy article on HypoSurface notes that this technology is a close approximation of science fiction writer J.G. Ballard's warped domiciles:
HypoSurface is a pretty good implementation of the plastex walls in J.G. Ballard's psychotropic houses from his 1960's Vermillion Sands stories:
It was a beautiful room all…
bushwells | September 1, 2007A new addition can be found in the sidebar. Yes, the Chimp Refuge has joined the OUT Campaign bandwagon. Click on the Scarlet Letter of Atheism, and you will be taken to the site for the campaign which includes a link to Richard Dawkins' introduction to the initiative.
Since it's a Saturday, and I'm in a frivolous frame of mind, I'll post some atheist-friendly graphics below the fold. They may be already known to many but there's nothing as comforting as friendly familiar faces. Pull up a chair, have a cup of coffee (the Official Beverage of the Devil and Atheists) and have a look.
(Hat…
jfiore | August 23, 2007Regular readers of the refuge know that I've got a "thing" for audio and music, and that I've had some harsh comments regarding the poor quality audio that so many people tolerate these days in the name of convenience. But what of the other extreme? Who are the audiophile extremists? To what lengths will they go in their search for audio nirvana? Is 230,000 Euros enough, and what do they spend it on? Check out this short film of the Audiophile Club of Athens:
Film about Audiophile Club of AthensUploaded by skaloumbakas
Up front, I've got no problem with someone spending six figures on their…
jfiore | January 2, 2007I'm what they used to call an audiophile. What with folks listening to music on cell phones, low bit-rate MP3's and the like, it's kind of out of fashion these days. That is, unless you're into music production. In that case, you can buy all manner of interesting goodies, including microphone preamps that will set you back a kilobuck and loudspeaker cables that could pay a semester's tuition. Unfortunately, just as it was true for hi-fi enthusiasts 30 years ago, there's a lot of misinformation floating around in the semi-pro or "prosumer" music field regarding audio circuitry.
I was reading…
jfiore | August 24, 2006My wife and I went to a Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young concert the other evening at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. It was a great show in spite of a little rain. You can read a local review of it here. What does this have to do with photons and pressure waves? I'll get to that in a minute.
First, a little about the show. This concert was part of their 2006 "Freedom of Speech" tour. They did two sets, each around 90 minutes long. We had lawn seats (if you're not familiar with SPAC, the facility is on a hillside with a portion of the seating on a grassy slope). The first half was…