Author Archives: Chompsky
talented guitarist Luca Stricagnoli performs a multilayered cover of Coolio’s ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ with a respectful nod to the Stevie Wonder original ‘Pastime Paradise’.
Previously: Slim Shady On Guitar
Wrist Candy
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Behold: the Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime Steel watch ( ref. 6300A-010) – a thing of beauty and great mechanical subtlety.
Its stainless steel reversible case has two dials. One tells the time, date, and moon phase – all rendered in rose gold. the opposing ebony dial displays calendar information. There are twenty complications, including five acoustic functions, an alarm that strikes the preprogrammed time and a repeater that sounds the date on demand. The strap is hand-stitched black alligator leather.
But never mind all that.
Last Friday, it sold at auction for €28 million, (the previous record, for a Rolex Daytona being €16.1 million) making it the world’s most expensive wristwatch.
Hot Wheels
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Behold: the Pininfarina coachwork and Kammback profile of the 1965 Ferrari 500 Superfast Coupe – in its day, the flagship of Ferrari’s ‘America series’. The Superfast, with its 395bhp, 5.0l V12, was capable of 280km’h.
This model – one of only 36 painted black at the factory – comes complete with a full engine restoration, matching numbers and Ferrari Classiche Red Book certification.
Yours for a mere €2,270,000 plus change.
Another fascinating animation from German educational design studio Kurzgesagt – this time, the most full-on astronomical things that are not black holes. To wit:
Neutron stars are one of the most extreme and violent things in the universe. Giant atomic nuclei, only a few kilometers in diameter but as massive as stars. And they owe their existence to the death of something majestic.
Previously: What If A City Gets Nuked?
Behold: the glowing gas and dust clouds of NGC 3572 – a beautiful emission nebula and star cluster of the Southern skies. So much to see. To wit:
…the region is often overlooked by astro-imagers in favour of its brighter neighbour, the nearby Carina Nebula. Stars from NGC 3572 are toward the upper left in the telescopic frame that would measure about 100 light-years across at the cluster’s estimated distant of 9,000 light-years. The visible interstellar gas and dust is part of the star cluster’s natal molecular cloud. Dense streamers of material within the nebula, eroded by stellar winds and radiation, clearly trail away from the energetic young stars. They are likely sites of ongoing star formation with shapes reminiscent of the cosmic Tadpoles of IC 410 better known to northern skygazers. In the coming tens to hundreds of millions of years, gas and stars in the cluster will be dispersed though, by gravitational tides and by violent supernova explosions that end the short lives of the massive cluster stars.
(Image: Josep Drudis)
The MIT Biomimetics Robotics department unleashes its pack of frisky miniature cheetah quadruped robots – each weighing about 9kg and capable of all manner of not-yet-killing-all-humans-but-let’s-face-it-its-just-a-matter-of-time shenanigans.
Behold: M45 – the lovely reflection nebulae of the Pleiades star cluster, 400 light years away. To wit:
It lies in the night sky toward the constellation Taurus and the Orion Arm of our Milky Way Galaxy. The sister stars and cosmic dust cloud are not related though, they just happen to be passing through the same region of space. Known since antiquity as a compact grouping of stars, Galileo first sketched the star cluster viewed through his telescope with stars too faint to be seen by eye. Charles Messier recorded the position of the cluster as the 45th entry in his famous catalog of things which are not comets. In Greek myth, the Pleiades were seven daughters of the astronomical Titan Atlas and sea-nymph Pleione. Their parents names are included in the cluster’s nine brightest stars. This deep and wide telescopic image spans over 20 light-years across the Pleides star cluster.
(Image: Adam Block, Steward Observatory, University of Arizona)
The launch of an Antares rocket (packed with three and a half tonnes of supplies for the International Space Station) from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia captured earlier this month in all its fiery glory by photographer John Kraus.
