this is … amazing.

（ ゜-゜）> ┬───┬ (゜-゜ )

（ ゜-゜） ┬───┬ <(゜-゜ )

（ ゜-゜）> ┬───┬ (゜-゜ )

（ ゜-゜） ┬───┬ <(゜-゜ )

（ ゜-゜）> ┬───┬ (゜-゜ )

（ ゜-゜） ┬───┬ (゜‿゜ )

（ ゜.゜） ┬───┬ <(^‿^ )

( ಠ_ಠ) ┬───┬ (^‿^ )

( ಠ_ಠ) ┬───┬ ¯_(ツ)_/¯

（╯°益°）╯︵ ┻━┻ (°□°╬)

It’s from the comment thread at Shamus’ latest autobiographical post. I have serious issues with that post, but that’s not really any of my business, so I’m just going to gape in awe at the ASCII art instead.

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Steven is a bit harsh on Brickmuppet, who was complaining that we haven’t escaped low-earth orbit in four decades, and how that represented a betrayal of our generation’s birthright. Steven argues that the past 40 years, dominated by unequivocally successful space probes throughout the solar system and (in the case of Voyager) beyond, have been anything but a betrayal, but I think Steven misses the point.

Steven is right, that the best way to do science is via unmanned probes. You can pack more sensors and bring back more data without the need to keep a human being alive – this is just the simple reality of biology, information theory, and physics. But the space program was only partly about science, it was also about something more primal, about something that is unique to the human animal, the need to explore and understand. That indefinable wanderlust has been the subject of artistic exploration as well as physical – I think it’s best captured by Romanticist art, in particular the famous painting The Wanderer (1818) by German artist Caspar David Friedrich:

I’ll leave the meta-analysis to Wikipedia but I think anyone will recognize a familiar emotion in this work – the same emotion that makes us receptive to 2001: a Space Odyssey, or Star Trek, or even Lord of the Rings. The space program was the ultimate expression of this wanderlust because it was real – the possibility existed that we might actually follow where our imaginations have lead. All of us wanted to be an astronaut, and most of us still do. Maybe our children will yet be, one day.

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This post: "the Romanticist astronaut" was originally posted at Haibane.info - a celebration of science fiction, anime, and geek culture. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission. You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Haibane.info at http://haibane.info/feed/

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Content at this blog is licensed by Aziz Poonawalla under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

I am geeked out by this – finally, formal recognition for the number pi!

An irrational number that has been calculated to more than 1 trillion digits, pi is a concept not totally foreign to today’s Washington. But in this case, the goal was to promote efforts by the National Science Foundation to improve math education in the United States, especially in the critical fourth to eighth grades.

Rounded off, pi equates to 3.14, hence the designation of March 14 as Pi Day under the resolution. Informal celebrations have been held around the country for at least 20 years, but Thursday’s 391-10 vote is the first time Congress has joined the party.

So who exactly were the ten who voted against? What are they, non-Euclideans or something?

Incidentally, one of my close friends from grad school is actually getting married today. Congratulations, Dustin and Gwen!

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This post: "Pi Day is March 14th (3/14)" was originally posted at Haibane.info - a celebration of science fiction, anime, and geek culture. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission. You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Haibane.info at http://haibane.info/feed/

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American artist Andrew Wyeth died last week at the age of 91. His paintings of rural American landscapes and farm life are described by most obsrvers as having a nostalgic tone, but the few of his works I have seen strike me as timeless in a sense, because these same landscapes are the ones I have been seeing in real life after having moved to Wisconsin last year. There’s a serenity and simplicity to such scenes that provokes a kind of introspection. Here’s one that struck me in particular:

Long Limb, by Andrew Wyeth (1999)

Related – posts about Wyeth’s art at Art News Blog and orDover. Also, the Wikipedia entry on Wyeth is worth a read – I didn’t know that Wyeth was often referenced in Peanuts!

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This post: "Long Limb by Andrew Wyeth" was originally posted at Haibane.info - a celebration of science fiction, anime, and geek culture. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission. You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Haibane.info at http://haibane.info/feed/

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Content at this blog is licensed by Aziz Poonawalla under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Is it just wrong that the first thing I thought of when I saw this was Read or Die?

Since Gandhi was a lawyer, you might argue that Gandhi did literally have to read, or die, for freedom.

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A while back, I mentioned the coast-to-coast Burrito Tunnel. Now comes word of a new tunnel, the Telectroscope, connecting New York and London:

The telectroscope, a looking-glass tunnel connecting New York and London has been completed at last, over 100 years after it was abandoned. The tunnel, which starts in Brooklyn, was designed and partly executed by late 1800s inventor Alexander Stanhope St. George. A series of mirrors, cameras and a large underground tunnel, connects the two cities.

More details at the New York Times (seriously). The telectroscope goes live on June 15th. Some photos of the terminal ends in London and New York:

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This is just cool.

There’s more than meets the eye to the wheelchair, too. Wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case in real life, too – that Hawking fellow is a smart fella, I hear.

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This is amazing – a photographer wanted the perfect photo of a sunset framed by a long pier. So, using math and information from websites like Google Maps and the US Naval Observatory, he calculated what day the Sun would appear at the ideal angle to catch the shot. And here’s the result:

Brilliant. This is the essence of Geek. See the original post for full details of the calculation.

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I saw Lost in Translation yesterday via Netflix. This movie was really a surprise, I think I was just expecting a light comedic drama without any real heft to it. The premise of the movie seems like a setup for comedy: an old actor and a young newlywed both arrive in Tokyo, stay at the same hotel, and experience culture shock together. But there’s so much more to this movie, especially as a commentary on marriage and relationships, that it transcends the level of ordinary pseudo-romantic comedy and enters into Artistic territory.

I haven’t seen Rushmore so this was my first exposure to Bill Murray playing a complex lead, and his performance was just .. well, there was no Bill Murray, there was only Bob Harris. You get inside his head and really, really understand him and who he is, even though 90% of his lines are wisecracks, and the lines themselves are only 50% of his acting. His expression, as he sees the elevator doors close on Charlotte at the end… I don’t think there are many actors who can communicate that kind of emotion with just a look, but you read it on his face like it was printed there.

The other half of this film is Scarlett Johansson, and she probably ranks as my favorite actress right now on the strength of her performance in this movie alone. Not just because she spends a few scenes sitting around in her underwear, though this helps. She has that kind of vulnerable courage in this film that I used to associate with Sandra Bullock. Again, with her performance, you simply understand her as Charlotte, like an open book – one which none of the other characters except Bob even bother to read, least of all her husband John (played with remarkable restraint^[1] by Giovanni Ribsi).

Tokyo itself, and the hotel in particular, are vibrant and fleshed out and almost characters in their own right. The movie does a masterful job of exposing the characters to all the wierd and wonderful, but unlike some critics I did not find it disrespectful. In fact there was an odd beauty to it, like the teenager simultaneously dancing while playing a video game, or the crazy talk show host, or even the hysterical scene in Bob’s hotel room with the call girl^[2].

I think I’ll take another run through this movie and grab some screenshots later. It was really one of the best movies I have ever seen. This film isn’t one that is content to play by the rules of romantic comedy. The two characters don’t do what you would expect them to do, which actually is how it would be in reality. And the two characters don’t keep up the facade about themselves that you expect them to, and which you yourself might maintain as well. And that too is more real, particularly in the context of the isolation that they both share, one exacerbated by being in a place so foreign, but still primarily deriving from their spouses’ neglect. I won’t spoil the ending but then again, the ending is almost impossible to spoil.

[1] Dude, you’re married to Scarlett Johansson sitting there in her underwear and all you can look at is your camera?? ahem.
[2] “lip my stocking!” omfg rofl. I laughed so hard I choked.

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Season 4. Unbelievable. I have never seen anything like this in animation before. The battle fetween light and dark, black and white, taken to a literal level instead of merely symbolic.

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This post: "Jack vs Shinobi" was originally posted at Haibane.info - a celebration of science fiction, anime, and geek culture. The RSS feed may not be used at other sites without permission. You can subscribe to this RSS feed for Haibane.info at http://haibane.info/feed/

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