Look! Over there!

This is an amazing photo. And it’s a good reminder that one of the biggest skills a photographer can possess is knowing where to look.  Allen Hughes was at Steamer Lane in Santa Cruz to photograph a surf contest. While everyone else was watching the surfers out at sea, he noticed this guy running. Apparently, he was late for his heat. Knowing the area, Hughes was ready for what was to come next. Sure enough, the surfer leapt off the bluff and into the ocean. It looks a bit more dramatic than it actually is. As Hughes notes on his facebook page, it isn’t unusual to see someone make this leap. Still, when stopped in time, it looks incredible. Click the photo above to see the full, wide-angle, view of the scene.

Visit the Getty, from your desk

The future is now where art is concerned. The technology in today’s world is astounding. For most of us, if we think back to when we were youngsters, the thought of being able to call up thousands of high resolution images of the great artistic works of the world was the stuff of pie-in-the-sky sci fi. But here it is.

The Getty Museum has been adding thousands of documents from their collection to the Open Content program. In a nutshell, this springs from the idea that the problem with studying art has always been access. You have to get to where that art is, and gain access to it. They’ve summed up this new direction well in a blog post on The Getty Iris.

“Art institutions, including the Getty, are redefining the relationship between their collections and their publics. Instead of looking at ourselves primarily as the owners of the objects under our safekeeping, we are conceiving of ourselves as stewards engaged in active collaboration and engagement with multiple communities who are discovering myriad new uses for images and documents. It is a very exciting time for art history.”

There are now over 10,000 images, with more on the way, all searchable through the Getty Search Gateway. And these are not just little JPGs suitable for your monitor. The images in this post look good, but they have been drastically scaled. The full size file for that Rembrandt at the top is 6525×8325. Here is a 100% crop from Adoration of the Shepherds, to give you an idea of the scale.

 

It really is an amazing thing. And it is only going to keep getting better. This is just the beginning for the Open Content program at the Getty. Even better, one would think that others will join in as the program continues to mature. As that collection at large grows, so to will the tools to access it. It’s cool, living in the future.

 

Paris… in China

Do you like crazy architectural projects? Things like the World islands in Dubai? Or Habitat 67 in Montreal? Well, here’s another one for you. Tianducheng, China, was developed as ‘the Paris of the east’ in 2007, complete with its own copy of the Eiffel Tower. It was reported to be able to house 100,000 residents. There were also plans for a country club, a school, and a hospital.

Unfortunately, these big projects go wrong as often as they go right. Much like the World islands (look at it on Google Maps and marvel at the lack of actual development), Tianducheng never really took off. At last count, there were about 2000 people living there, making it something of a ghost town. Business Insider has a great slideshow of pictures showing the city.

Tianducheng from caspar stracke on Vimeo.

Chasing comets with Rosetta

Rosetta, from the European Space Agency, is incredible. If you don’t know about the mission, the Rosetta craft was launched in 2004. It’s mission is to rendezvous with Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, in 2014. That kind of stuff always amazes me. They threw a dart at a target that was billions of kilometers, and ten years, away. And as of now, it looks like things are on target. Rosetta is in deep sleep for the coldest part of its journey, near Jupiter, but set to wake up in January.

To really appreciate it, you need to watch the video at the ESA website. It shows the path Rosetta has taken to get to where it is, complete with multiple gravity assists from Earth and Mars. They also detail some of the plans for what happens once the rendezvous is made. The idea of a craft traveling with, and on, a comet as it makes its closest pass of the Sun is the stuff of sci-fi. Apparently, the future is now. Or, at least in 2014.

Lost episodes of Doctor Who found in Nigeria

More Doctor Who is always a good thing. But that’s getting the cart ahead of the horse. The really interesting bit of this story is that it shows the crazy march of technology and entertainment. Can you imagine, for example, MGM just tossing out the old copies of Stargate SG-1, losing them forever? With today’s DVD, Blu-ray, Streaming, and Syndication of old television shows, that is just unthinkable. But that’s exactly what happened with Doctor Who at the BBC.

In the late 60s and early 70s a large amount of archived recordings were destroyed or wiped at the BBC tape and film libraries. Among those were over 100 episodes of Doctor Who. Slowly but surely, those missing episodes are being recovered as copies are found tucked away at remote stations in all parts of the world. Most recently, 11 episodes were recovered at a television relay station in Nigeria, bringing the total of missing episodes down to 97.

The latest discovery has allowed them to release two six episode stories, The Enemy Of The World and The Web of Fear, from the second Doctor’s run. Both are now available on iTunes. It’s great timing as the series is just over a month away from the 50th anniversary of the first broadcast. Here’s the trailer for The Enemy Of The World.

More fun with Google Maps

Let’s go to the Lamborghini museum! The Google Maps easter egg in London that let you walk inside the TARDIS was fun. But this completely blows it out of the water. It’s a similar exercise, but the execution is leaps and bounds beyond what we saw in that earlier example. Click here to go to the Lamborghini museum in Bologna. Rather, to go inside the musuem. This street view drops you inside the museum that is filled with classic and modern Lamorghinis. They even have the Estoque (pictured above), which was the four door Lamborghini concept. And, I would argue, the best looking car they have ever made. But that’s not all. Keep an eye out for cars with open doors. You can climb inside and get a 360° view of the interior.

HP and Google team up for Chromebook 11

The latest Chromebook looks like a winner. HP and Google worked together and came up with a super-bright IPS display, an ultra-portable weight of just 2.3 lbs, and a price point under $300. That last bit is especially interesting given that this new unit was based off of the very expensive Pixel. The rest of the specs, while not groundbreaking, look solid. You can see all the details at the official sites from HP and Google.

Oddly enough, the thing I am most excited about is the charger. Finally… someone did the most logical of things. The Chromebook used the same Micros USB charger as the majority of Android phones. Chances are, unless you are an iPhone user, you already have these scattered around your world. One at home, one at work, one in the car… One less dongle to wrangle is always a plus.

The Campagna T-Rex

Here’s a car that you don’t see every day. In fact, I’d never even heard of the Campagna T-Rex. It comes out of Quebec, and is a three wheeled bit of crazy based around the drivetrain from a BMW motorcycle. The fun comes from the fact that the 1.6 liter motor makes 160 HP and the T-Rex only weighs 1100 pounds. That’s not motorcycle level power-to-weight, but it’s a far sight better than you’ll find in most cars. Unfortunately, as you’ll see in this T-Rex review on Jalopnik,  it sounds like the fun never gives way to any sort of practicality, making the T-Rex kind of hard to live with. And given the price, something in the Atom or Caterham vein is probably going to be a better choice. Still, it’s always good to see someone trying something new.

Wildcat is coming to get you

Beware the rise of the machines! Do you ever have the experience where you look at something in our technology and you remember back to flashes of that in fiction, long before it became a reality? Gibson writing about cyberspace… Stephenson’s metaverse… the self driving cars of Total Recall… 2001’s video phone… There are loads of examples where fiction gets the future right. And that can be a horribly frightening thought.

Case in point, meet Wildcat. Surely you have run across a story (or a dozen) about computers/machines taking over the world and wiping out/enslaving humans. Wildcat is the foot soldier of our evil, mechanical, AI overlords. Look at that thing. And then imagine the self-driving technology/GPS/face recognition/NSA data mine/wirelessly networked possibilities. You can’t hide from Wildcat. Now would also be a good time to recall rat-thing from Snowcrash…

Admittedly, it’s totally possible that the machines don’t ever take over the world. A swing and a miss is a pretty regular thing in fiction. After all, we still don’t have those flying cars, there is no path to immortality, and our cities are still 100% zombie free. That being said, this is something to consider the next time you marvel at how powerful Siri or the Google voice search is. And if you still aren’t frightened by the possibilities of Wildcat, have a look at this video.

Is that a Huayra in your pocket?

The Pagani Huayra is an amazing car. 720 HP… active aerodynamics… a top speed of 231 mph… 0-60 in 3.3 seconds… quickest ever around the Top Gear test track. The numbers and details are just astounding. Then there is the key. The entire idea just boggles me. This is one of the most advanced vehicles in the world, and the key is this giant lump of aluminum that only gets worse when you actually use it. Given the technology of the modern supercar, I’d more likely expect it to be able to sense the unique chemical signature of the methane in your own personal exhaust to enable ignition than this pocket bulging monstrosity. Or, more realistically, perhaps NFC with your phone or some sort of biometrics. But this? Here is what it looks like in practice.

And here is a video with a look at the whole thing.