uh, cool.

so can i, like, print it out on something…
like maybe,
a real wall?

Thank god for complicated diagrams! Now I understand everything.

The background.

…it was in the stomach of this baby albatross. Photographer Chris Jordan explains:

The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.

He and a team of creative folks are documenting what they find in the Midway Atoll and posting their work on a blog. It’s devastating.

Serge Brunier has created an incredible 360-degree panorama he calls “The Sky of the Earth:”

The images were collected from two exceptional astronomical sites, the Atacama Desert in the southern hemisphere and the Caldeira de Taburiente in the Canary Islands in the northern hemisphere.

It is the sky that everyone can relate to that I wanted to show — its constellations, its thousands year old stars, whose names have nourished all childhoods, its myths and stories of gods, titans, and heroes shared by all civilisations since Homo became sapiens. The image was therefore made as man sees it, with a regular digital camera.

You have to check this out.

Part 2 is still a work in progress. This is another multiple-exposure view from my back porch last night.

I created this image last night from multiple exposures taken from my back deck. It was foggy, and I like how the depth of the various trees on the hill came out. This was just my first experiment.

(full-sized version).

Apropos of this post, this:

(h/t: Mutt)

Enjoy the artwork of Mark Weaver.

Enjoy the beautiful design and music at ISO50.

Enjoy the generative art of Robert Hodgin at Flight 404.

Enjoy the inspirations and artwork of James White at Signalnoise.com, who compiled this collection of design inspirations from the 70’s and 80’s:

I’m not sure I can explain what it is, but Magical Nihilism makes for some fascinating reading.

Graphic novel creator Warren Ellis never fails to amuse, enlighten, or dismay, depending on your tastes.

Tellart Labs in Providence, RI makes physical interfaces for computing devices… they take mashups to the physical plane!

The Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science has an amazing library of works on line, including this article on urban design innovator Kevin Lynch.

I meant to post about this when it was first published back in April: Steve Crocker’s Op-Ed in the New York Times marking the 40th anniversary of the RFC, the process by which Internet protocols are standardized. It makes for some great reading. Also interesting is Crocker’s RFC 1, the initial Request For Comments that described the HOST software requirements for machines connected to the brand-new ARPA Network… which laid the foundations for this vast series of tubes we know today as teh Internetz.

I’ve been meaning to tag these music blogs as favorites, rather than just keeping a Firefox window with them open forever (“Why is my computer so slow? Oh, right… Firefox has been running for 27 days!”)

First up is DJ Rupture/Jace’s blog mudd up!. He’s an associate of Professor Wayne Marshall, better known perhaps as Wayne’n’Wax, himself the proprietor of another fine music and theory blog. I believe that both of these cats are alumni of Mass Art; in fact, if I’m not mistaken, Jace was the crepe-maker at the Toneburst Collective’s Sci-Fi Lounge party in 1997 (where he also performed as /rupture). In fact, here’s a photo of him DJing at that very event!:

And here’s a photo that captures part of the Noise Laboratories installation at that same event (note Matt in the foreground, and my long-haired self in the background, making video feedback):

(For those interested, you can browse Toneburst’s photo archives.)

Rupture’s blog is equal parts insight, music, geek, and culture, and is not to be missed. I also want to tag a long-form article of his, all about Auto-Tune and its influence on pop music.

Next up, the fine folks at Dutty Artz, a Brooklyn-based collective of musicians, producers, DJs, etc. Interesting stuff, especially the Jahdan Blakkamore stuff.

Also not to be missed: The Heatwave! This is a London-based crew that makes terrific dance hall-style music, promotes events, and also has a wealth of useful information and links. Particularly good: their Rowdy Bashment 2008 mix. You know you understand Jamaican patois if you start blushing when you listen!