Wingsuit Base Jumping Video

Seems so uplifting.


wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

Saw it on boingboing.

Science Commons and Why They Matter in 120 Seconds.

Two minutes to knowin'.



Amazing!

Check out ScienceCommons.org

Thanks to boingboing for the heads up.

Downwind Faster Than the Wind - Epic Conversation!

Here's a question:

Can a wind-powered vehicle travel faster than the wind that is propelling it?

Common sense would say that would be impossible.

And yet...



I just heard mention of this phenomenon (and the MASSIVE argument/conversation that accompanies it) on boingboing.

I'm not sure what exactly to think. The laws of physics are unbreakable. Until they are broken, that is.

Just last year our species realized for the first time that hitting salt water with radio waves makes it flammable. We obviously have much to learn.

Thoughts? Ideas? Theories? We love 'em!

Science is fun!

Emmanuel Guibert's Magic Trick.

Just got this in from SuperForester Christine!
Be sure to watch until the end.



"Emmanuel Guibert, as he creates the art for ALAN’S WAR with water and an eye dropper."

Here's a tasty boingboing article about Alan's War, if it tickles your fancy.

Special thanks to "X-tine 2 tha Norrie."

Seth Brau: "Universal Declaration of Human Rights"

Just found this incredible video piece by Seth Brau over at boingboing.

"To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, CH friend and colleague Seth Brau recently completed the rather daunting task of bringing the words to life with motion graphics. The result is on one hand elegant — using a two-tone palette, linear — and on the other an experimental take on scale, the use of typography and symbolism.

Given complete creative freedom and a little over a month's time, Seth used a mix of After Effects and Illustrator to seamlessly connect the 30 articles of the document into a captivating piece. In this case, no plan was the best plan. Seth comments, "There were times when I had no idea what I was going to do for the next section of the document. I would churn out something that I would hate but in that process I would come up with the idea, layout or imagery for something I ended up developing and liking."

-Tim Yu @ Coolhunting

MGMT - "The Youth"

Directed by Eric Wareheim, of Tim & Eric.

Made me smile and then grin, then chuckle, then smile again, then more grinning. Then I laughed out loud. Then silently to myself, then out loud again.

Love,

Jackson

(Alert: We were alerted to this fabulousness by boingboing.)

President Obama

An amazing thing just happened.

I was sitting at home, watching some TV on the internet, when all of a sudden I got a warm fuzzy feeling inside, and I knew, right then and there, that Obama was going to be president.

And then I checked boingboing:


It's all over the web. Sarah Palin believes that men and dinosaurs once coexisted.

Big thanks to Xeni over at bb for the heads up.

Obama/Biden '08.

Love to All,

Jackson & Team SuperForest

BoingBoing - Star Simpson's Story!

"One year ago, a 19-year-old MIT engineering student named Star Simpson got dressed to go pick up a friend at Boston's Logan airport. She pulled a hoodie out of her closet, a wearable tech design she'd made with a light-up LED-circuit on the chest. In her hand was a small pink rose she'd crafted from hardened clay, a gift for her friend.

A few hours later at the airport, after an airport employee mistook her sweatshirt for a bomb and the rose for an explosive implement, Star found herself surrounded by 40 armed police who believed she was a suicide bomber. She was arrested for "possessing a hoax device," and an unprecedented media frenzy ensued."

Star Simpson's story, in her own words, for the very first time.

(via boingboing)

D.I.Y. Vacuum Tubes

This amazingly talented craftsman makes his own vacuum tubes by hand.

Fabrication d'une lampe triode
by F2FO

(also from the wonderful boingboing.)

Steady BigFootage!

"The infamous Patterson-Gimlin bigfoot film has been stabilized frame-by-frame to give you a better view of the lumbering woodland beast."

-Mark Frauenfelder

Saw this on boingboing.

David Van Tieghem (This Cat's Science is too Tight!)

Amazing.
From boingboing:

"In 1982, performance art percussionist David Van Tieghem coaxed sounds out of New York City streets. The resulting film, directed by John Sanborn and Kit Fitzgerald and aptly titled "Ear To The Ground," is a masterpiece. You might also remember Van Tieghem's name from his collaborations with Laurie Anderson. Ear To The Ground (YouTube)"

Boingboing, sooooo quality.

Old Crayons Reborn!

How to make new crayons out of old crayons:

Step one: Get a bunch of old crayons and de-wrapper 'em.



Step two: Place crayons in baking tray and bake at 350º for 10 minutes, or until all are melted together into one large crayon-mass.



Step three: While said crayon-mass is still warm, use a cookie cutter of your choice to cut it into fun shapes.



Step four: give fun shapes out to all your friends!

Thanks to boingboing for the tip via Daily Danny.

Large Hadron SuperCollider Rap

The Large Hadron SuperCollider is a multi-billion dollar machine whose sole purpose is to slam tiny chunks of metal together and record the results.

Okay, we're over simplifying. Perhaps this awesome rap song by the intelligent and verbose AlpineCat will help explain things more accurately.



Delicious. Saw it first over at the incredible, endlessly delightful boingboing.

And here's a great piece the New Yorker wrote about the LHC.

Go CERN!

Wee Little Car Round-up!

Just saw this over @ boingboing.

haha.nu has posted a delicious collection of little tiny cars! So cute! Pop one in your mouth and wash it down with a big glass of water and just go on a journey, man.
Wow!

Check it:





SmartCar you plagiarizin'!

JK, we love you SmartCar!

Slo-Mo Baby Laugh!

Sometime in our journeys across the net, we stumble upon things that are really cute, or really funny. And sometimes we get both.

Slow Motion Baby Laugh


Laughter is the best medicine, they say.

Have a great day.

Thanks to boingboing for alerting us to the cuteness.

2005 Simi Valley Forest Fire Time Lapse!

Firestorm from powrslave on Vimeo.
(video via powrslave)

Just saw this over at boingboing. Gorgeous.

Phoenix Mars Lander: (photo by the Mars Orbiter)

Just saw this on boingboing.

See that blurry white smudge against the blackness?

This is a picture shot by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter of the Phoenix Lander parachuting down to a safe landing on the surface of the planet Mars.

One probe films another on the surface of an alien planet...

That is simply too cool for words, but let's try anyway.

In the words of Cory Doctorow:

"How badass awesome is it to be a human? Super badass awesome."

Darn right.

Our probes are so cool, they need myspace pages.

Oooooh, watch this:

"Little Brother" - Cory Doctorow

"Marcus, a.k.a “w1n5t0n,” is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works–and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school’s intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems.

But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison where they’re mercilessly interrogated for days.

When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself."

Little Brother could be one of the most important books I've read all year.
This book is like a primer on free thought and the Bill of Rights. I just wish that i could be thirteen and reading this for the first time.

The thing I liked best about it it is that the book deals a lot with shades of grey. As the idea of a monolithic morality degrades and is replaced with something new, it is refreshing to read a book in which there are no real villains or heroes, just people doing what they can, with the tools they've got, with the inevitable friction those circumstances produce.

If you liked "Ender's Game" or "The Diamond Age", you'll love "Little Brother"

Little Brother on Amazon

Who Watches the Watchmen? Now, Everybody.

Good Morning All!

Jackson here.

Just saw a very interesting post on boingboing.net

NYPD cops videoed illegally warring on photographers

Posted by Cory Doctorow, April 28, 2008 8:43 PM | permalink

"In March 2007, a free speech and free assembly rally was held in Union Square to protest a new NYPD rule of dubious constitutionality instituting a permit requirement for any assembly of 50+ people on foot or on bike in NYC.

While the restriction would apply to any assembly of 50 or more people, it was enacted as transparent attempt shut down, harass or frustrate the Critical Mass bicycle rides that have occured monthly in Manhattan for at least ten years.

After the rally proper, a Critical Mass ride (accompanied by citizen videographers from the Glass Bead Collective and other groups) set out north from Union Square, only to be subjected to outrageous and illegal treatment by NYPD officers in Times Square under the supervision and instigation of Sgt. Timothy Horhoe.

Despite the numerous video-verified complaints of unlawful arrest and the numerous provably false sworn statements in police reports documenting the incident, the Civilian Complaint Review Board said in March of this year that they cannot act to punish the officers involved for their willful perjury."

So, to distill: bunch of bicyclists were exercising their right to ride around and snap pictures of stuff. The NYPD, apparently under orders to do so, were knocking cats off of their bikes and arresting those who dared photograph or videotape the arrest proceedings.

The arrests did not go smoothly. But the NYPD couldn't arrest everybody, and so there is much video evidence of the arrests. Lots of screaming and flailing, you get the picture.

Not surprisingly, the videos tell a tale much different than the arrest reports.

So now we have an interesting conjunction of forces. The police doing their job, and citizens filming them doing it. What it boils down to is transparency and accountability. Video evidence provides us with both.

As history has shown us time and time again, put a person in a position of power over others and they will abuse that power. They will do it because they can. This doesn't mean that they're bad people, it just speaks to the intoxicating nature of power.

John F. Kennedy once said: "Secrecy is the enemy of Democracy." (I paraphrase)

For a true democracy to exist, the watchers must be watched, and allow themselves to be watched, for the good of both the state and society.

The rumblings of the people's wishes for an accountable and transparent society have begun, and that rumbling is getting louder.

Sites like RateMyCop, and PoliceWatch allow users rate their local police and upload videotapes of questionable police activity. While this is currently viewed as radical and incendiary, it is well within our constitutional rights and an absolute necessity to ensure a democratic and free society. (Does it not speak volumes about the way we currently live that transparency and accountability should be considered incendiary?)

Why should this be an issue?

If a policeman or woman is acting within the letter of the law, acting truly as a Peace Officer, then they should have no qualms about being taped while carrying out their duty. It is only when the rights of citizens are being trampled in order for the police to "control the situation" that being filmed becomes an issue.

In a world where everyone is a cameraman, this issue is not going away anytime soon.

This little issue is going to force us to reevaluate our stance toward Control and Power.
Who should have control or power over another?
Why should they have it?
What manner of accountability should those doing the controlling have to those who are controlled?

Lest anyone get the wrong idea, I am deeply compassionate to the job the NYPD do. The insanity of what they are required to do on a day to day just boggles my mind. Imagine spending your morning talking to a group of schoolchildren about drug safety and your evening having bullets flying by your head. That's an incredible disparity of function, and quite a thing to ask of someone. The police are good and necessary, as long as they are acting with peace and the public good in mind.

Here's a beautiful (paraphrased) quote that I think sums things up nicely:

"In an era when everything can be observed, all we have left is politeness."
-Neal Stephenson

We the citizenry must treat those entrusted with the act of controlling us with compassion and manners, and they must treat us exactly the same way.

Improve your environment. Treat those around you with compassion and respect.
When tempers flare and things get intense, that's when you need manners and respect the most.

Love to all,

Jackson

Graffiti Research Lab - The Movie

This is off of boingboing.tv



"The Graffiti Research Lab is dedicated to outfitting graffiti writers, pranksters, artists, and protesters with open source tools for urban communication."

Marvelousness.

GRL is great. Here's the GRL wiki.

Would you like to make your own LED throwie?

Here's how: Instructables - DIY LED throwie



Pretty colors!

This land is your land, decorate it as such.