The Masks We Wear

Posted on July 19, 2014 by karmakatspice

Saul Steinberg’s Mask series in the Foam Magazine by Inge Morath 1962 1

“Slap a mask on a drunk and you’re going to have trouble. It’s like having a live reenactment of anonymous forum comments.”
-Randy K. Milholland

Saul Steinberg’s Mask series in the Foam Magazine by Inge Morath 1962 4

“Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.”
-W. Somerset Maugham

Saul Steinberg’s Mask series in the Foam Magazine by Inge Morath 1962 12

“Now what else is the whole life of mortals but a sort of comedy, in which the various actors, disguised by various costumes and masks, walk on and play each one his part, until the manager waves them off the stage?”
-Erasmus

Saul Steinberg’s Mask series in the Foam Magazine by Inge Morath 1962 13

“We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.”
-John W. Gardner

Via the Mask Series with Saul Steinberg photographed by Inge Morath.
Quotations via The Quotations Page.

The Sunken Nazi Submarine Off the Coast of Texas

Posted on July 19, 2014 by

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[A] German U-boat has been visited by marine archaeologists working off the shores of Texas in the Gulf of Mexico.

[I]n addition to marauding merchant shipping in the North Atlantic, Nazi naval commanders dispatched 22 U-boats to the Gulf of Mexico.

Historians claim that U-boats sank at least 50 American ships in the Gulf — including one in the very mouth of the Mississippi River. The U.S. Navy was only able to sink one U-boat in the Gulf.

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Via io9 for the full article and additional photos.

The Giant Dead Parrot

Posted on July 19, 2014 by

Giant_dead_parrot_unveiled_in_London_to_pay_tribute_to_Monty_Python

A 50 foot fibreglass bird was hung upside down by a crane at London’s Potters Fields to mark the TV screening of Monty Python’s live show.

The world famous dead parrot sketch, in which John Cleese attempts to return a deceased “Norwegian Blue” parrot to a pet shop, features in the current Monty Python Live (mostly) farewell show.

Via RadioTimes.

Squishybots

Posted on July 18, 2014 by

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In the movie “Terminator 2,” the shape-shifting T-1000 robot morphs into a liquid state to squeeze through tight spaces or to repair itself when harmed.

Now a phase-changing material built from wax and foam, and capable of switching between hard and soft states, could allow robots to perform the same feat.

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The material could be used to build deformable surgical robots. Robots built from the material could also be used in search-and-rescue operations to squeeze through rubble looking for survivors.

The wax coating can change from a hard outer shell to a soft, pliable surface with moderate heating.

This could be done by running a wire along each of the coated foam struts and then applying a current to heat up and melt the surrounding wax. Turning off the current again would allow the material to cool down and return to its rigid state.

They’re also looking into other, even stranger materials – basically anything that can change state from liquid to solid and back again.

As described by Anette Hosoi in the journal Macromolecular Materials and Engineering via MIT News.

Please Excuse The Dust…

Posted on July 18, 2014 by

Hey guys,

I am in the process of moving over the site to another provider, so there may be a little disruption in the Sunday to Tuesday timeframe, so if you see anything irregular, that is likely why.

Specifically, this will mean there will be no posts on Monday while this happens.

Many apologies for any inconvenience,
Geoff Tuffli

Madagascar Stick Bug

Posted on July 18, 2014 by

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The [A fallax] males are a bright electric blue and have two rows of reddish orange spines along the edges of the femur.

Females have a duller outlook. They are a light brown with red spines covering the entire thorax and the top of the head.

The male grows up to 13 cm in length while the female is much bigger and can grow up to 18, 5 cm in length.

The wings are non-functional for flight.

Thankfully, they’re vegetarians.

Or tree-etarians, as in captivity they will survive happily on bramble, raspberry, eucalyptus, or oak; it’s not entirely clear what their primary source of food is in the wild.

Via Wikipedia.

Robot Farmers

Posted on July 18, 2014 by

robot-pepper-picker-1

At the turn of the last century, nearly half of the American workforce was dedicated to agriculture. Industrial inventions like the steel plow had made farming easier, but it was still grueling labor performed by men, women, and work animals.

Farm robots are increasingly capable of autonomously performing complex tasks including plowing, plant and soil surveillance, and even the harvesting of fruit and vegetables.

WP5 picks peppers in a greenhouse using a robotic arm equipped with a rubber gripper, two cameras, and a pair of clippers. The arm is attached to a moving apparatus that includes lighting, a compressor for the pneumatics, control electronics, sensors, and a computer to drive it all.

wp5_final_integrated_robot

WP5 via Singularity Hub for the full article.

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The Masks We Wear

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The Sunken Nazi Submarine Off the Coast of Texas

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The Giant Dead Parrot

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Squishybots

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Please Excuse The Dust…

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Madagascar Stick Bug

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Robot Farmers

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