Author Archives: Chompsky

Phil Edwards from the Vox Almanac series explores the origins of the oldest form of filmed animation – favoured by Aardman, Terry Gilliam and Wes Anderson but first popularised over a century ago by insect collector Wladyslaw Starewicz . To wit:

His 1912 film, The Cameraman’s Revenge, was the most significant of those early experiments. By that time, he’d been discovered as a precocious museum director in a Lithuanian Natural History Museum, and that enabled him to make movies. The Cameraman’s Revenge was his boldest experiment yet, depicting a tryst between star-crossed (bug) lovers.

kottke

Behold: the Delfast Offroad – a softail e-bike with a 5000W hub motor capable of 80km/h and 180km on a full charge.

The Offroad has three levels of ‘pedal assist’ for tricky terrain, all manner of Bluetooth/GPS/security features, hydraulic disc brakes, fat tyres and full suspension to smooth out the Xcountry/urban trail.

Yous from the Dover UK-based manufacturer from seven grand.

uncrate

Behold: Hoag’s Object – an unusual extragalactic thingy we still don’t know a great deal about despite it  being discovered by astronomer Arthur Hoag in 1950. What is it? One galaxy? Two? The Eye of Sauron? The Doughnut Of Doom?  To wit:

On the outside is a ring dominated by bright blue stars, while near the center lies a ball of much redder stars that are likely much older. Between the two is a gap that appears almost completely dark. How Hoag’s Object formed, including its nearly perfectly round ring of stars and gas, remains unknown. Genesis hypotheses include a galaxy collision billions of years ago and the gravitational effect of a central bar that has since vanished. The featured photo was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and recently reprocessed using an artificially intelligent de-noising algorithm. Observations in radio waves indicate that Hoag’s Object has not accreted a smaller galaxy in the past billion years. Hoag’s Object spans about 100,000 light years and lies about 600 million light years away toward the constellation of the Snake (Serpens). Many galaxies far in the distance are visible toward the right, while coincidentally, visible in the gap at about seven o’clock, is another but more distant ring galaxy.

(Image: NASA, ESA, Hubble; Processing: Benoit Blanco)

apod

YouTube’s over-the-top copyright policing makes it very difficult for remixers like Jonny ‘Eclectic Method’ Wilson to post content.

So what he’s done in this Red Hot Chili Peppers mashup is to extract samples so short, they’re unrecognisable. The result: a RHCP mashup with all the texture but none of the melody.

awesomer

Behold: a close-up of the eastern Veil Nebula and – within it – NGC 6995, aka the Bat Nebula. Smaller, but perfectly formed. To wit:

The Veil Nebula itself is a large supernova remnant, the expanding debris cloud from the death explosion of a massive star. While the Veil is roughly circular in shape and covers nearly 3 degrees on the sky toward the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus), the Bat Nebula, NGC 6995, spans only 1/2 degree, about the apparent size of the Moon. That translates to 12 light-years at the Veil’s estimated distance, a reassuring 1,400 light-years from planet Earth. In the composite of image data recorded through broad and narrow band filters, emission from hydrogen atoms in the remnant is shown in red with strong emission from oxygen and nitrogen atoms shown in hues of blue.

(Image: Josep Drudis)

apod