Many more for sale here (no affiliation)
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Shiba Ryotaro Memorial Museum and Library (narrative and photos)
Ryotaro Shiba started writing historical novels after World War II and won the prestigious Naoki Prize for his 1959 novel, "Fukuro no Shiro" ("The Castle of an Owl").
His best-selling books include "Ryoma ga Yuku" ("Ryoma Is Going"), about the life of Ryoma Sakamoto, a major figure in Japan's transformation from feudal military rule in the 1860's.
For the last quarter-century, Mr. Shiba's articles on his travels around Japan were printed weekly in the magazine Shukan Asahi in a series that reached 1,146 installments. He received the Government's Order of Cultural Merit in 1993.
The Museum in his honor consists of two parts, his former house and a museum newly built after his death. You can walk around the garden and see the author's study from outside. The author lived here until his death, 12th. Feb. 1996.
Inside one sees the huge bookshelf(11 meters high) housing his more than 20,000 books.
The building was designed by Ando Tadao.
His best-selling books include "Ryoma ga Yuku" ("Ryoma Is Going"), about the life of Ryoma Sakamoto, a major figure in Japan's transformation from feudal military rule in the 1860's.
For the last quarter-century, Mr. Shiba's articles on his travels around Japan were printed weekly in the magazine Shukan Asahi in a series that reached 1,146 installments. He received the Government's Order of Cultural Merit in 1993.
The Museum in his honor consists of two parts, his former house and a museum newly built after his death. You can walk around the garden and see the author's study from outside. The author lived here until his death, 12th. Feb. 1996.
Inside one sees the huge bookshelf(11 meters high) housing his more than 20,000 books.
The building was designed by Ando Tadao.
Artist Marco Brambilla's F1-Inspired Short Gets Behind Ferrari's Wheel
Video artist Marco Brambilla shares his densely hypnotic and kaleidoscopic 3D film RPM, commissioned by Ferrari in celebration of their latest auto masterpiece, the 458 Spider, and premiering at Art Basel Miami tonight. Assembling footage shot on location over several months at the Italian Formula One Grand Prix in Monza with imagery from the Scuderia Ferrari archives and the artist’s own recordings, RPM is a visceral, cubist representation of a Formula One driver’s state of mind during a race. “I wanted to make a portrait of speed,” says Brambilla, a life-long F1 fan. “Something as subjective as can be, that explores the connection of man and machine and tests the limits of human endurance.” Featuring Möbius strip racetracks, wind-gritted teeth and a howling soundtrack of throttling engines, RPM accelerates in complexity with every turn of the circuit. “[The film is] always accelerating,” says the artist, “just building, no payoff, no win.” The New York-based Brambilla, who created the digital tableau vivant for Kanye West’s “Power” and the 3D videos Evolution and Civilization, wanted to push the limits of his own aesthetic vocabulary with this project. “This one is a little bit different in that we used 3D as an editing tool,” he says. “As the piece speeds up, the multi-planing—the foreground, mid-ground and background objects—all cycle through each other to create an acceleration in 3D space.”
Formula One Stats
An F1 driver loses on average 5 kilograms in weight during a Grand Prix race and burns approximately 600 calories.
Drivers' heart rates reach peaks of 190 beats per minute during a Grand Prix.
A typical F1 car is made up of 80,000 components, in a package weighing less than 550 kg—less than half the weight of a Mini.
When an F1 driver hits the brakes, he experiences deceleration comparable to a regular car driving through a brick wall at 300kmph.
An F1 car can go from 0 to 160 kph and back in 0 to 4 seconds. During the 2004 Italian Grand Prix in Monza, the record top speed for an F1 car was set at over 360 kph.
Top F1 pit crews can refuel and change tires in around 3 seconds.
An F1 car generates enough downforce that it could drive inverted at top speed. In a street course race, this is enough suction to lift manhole covers, which have to be welded down before each race.
Scuderia Ferrari, founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1932, is the oldest and most successful F1 team in history with a record of 15 drivers’ championships and 16 constructors’ championships.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
"Who owns the fish?" - a brain teaser from Einstein
This brainteaser, reportedly written by Einstein is so difficult that Einstein said 98% of the people in the world could not figure it out. This should give you something to do over a long Thanksgiving weekend.
The solution is here, though it is nearly as complicated as the puzzler!
There are five houses in a row and each house is a different color. In each house lives a person with a different nationality. The five owners drink a different drink, smoke a different brand of cigar and keep a different pet, one of which is a fish.
The question is-- who owns the fish?
Hints:
1. The Brit lives in the red house.
2. The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
3. The Dane drinks tea.
4. The green house is on the left of the white house.
5. The green house owner drinks coffee.
6. The person who smokes Pall Malls keeps birds.
7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhills.
8. The man living in the house right in the center drinks milk.
9. The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
10. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the one who smokes Dunhills.
12. The owner who smokes Bluemasters drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Princes.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.
There are no tricks; pure logic will get you the correct answer. And yes, there is enough information to arrive at the one and only correct answer.
If you get the correct answer, congratulations, you are one of the exclusive group of 121,348,731 people in the world who can.
The solution is here, though it is nearly as complicated as the puzzler!
There are five houses in a row and each house is a different color. In each house lives a person with a different nationality. The five owners drink a different drink, smoke a different brand of cigar and keep a different pet, one of which is a fish.
The question is-- who owns the fish?
Hints:
1. The Brit lives in the red house.
2. The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
3. The Dane drinks tea.
4. The green house is on the left of the white house.
5. The green house owner drinks coffee.
6. The person who smokes Pall Malls keeps birds.
7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhills.
8. The man living in the house right in the center drinks milk.
9. The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
10. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the one who smokes Dunhills.
12. The owner who smokes Bluemasters drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Princes.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.
There are no tricks; pure logic will get you the correct answer. And yes, there is enough information to arrive at the one and only correct answer.
If you get the correct answer, congratulations, you are one of the exclusive group of 121,348,731 people in the world who can.
Anne McCaffrey: 1 April 1926 – 21 November 2011
McCaffrey was the first woman to win a Hugo Award for fiction, the first woman to win a Nebula Award, and the first author to hit the New York Times bestseller list with an SF title (The White Dragon).
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Macy's launches mobile parade app for iOS and Android
Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade has launched its first official mobile app powered by MyCityWay. The app, available now for iOS and Android, gives spectators access to a route map, a list of participants, the line of the march (apparently only available on the day of the parade), and practical travel and tourism information.
Downloads at the link.
via psfk
Literary Turducken
Today Doubleday launched a Thanksgiving Twitter tradition, asking readers to combine three classic book titles in a crazy new book. Follow the Literary Turducken for some funny ideas.
For example:
The Sun Also Rises As I Lay Dying On The Road
How Green Was My Valley of the Doll's House
For example:
The Sun Also Rises As I Lay Dying On The Road
How Green Was My Valley of the Doll's House
Kindle Fire review - I sent it back
When it arrived I was initially pleased. Its size was nice - about the same size as my Kindle – and it was very well made feeling very solid in my hand. Firing it up I was offered a Cover Flow-like interface that was preloaded with every Kindle book I had ever purchased. There was a "favorites" shelf below that held four of my favorite apps, books, magazines - whatever. More on that later.
I poked around its features and was initially impressed with the quality of the display, the variety of offerings and its seemingly simple interface. I made a Facebook post exclaiming its merits – going so far as to call it a "keeper". I even ordered a case for it. Then the romance waned.
Over the next weekend I put the Fire through its paces downloading every possible form of media, surfing the web on its "Silk" browser, downloading a few apps – some free and some paid. I set up my email accounts including my Exchange account at my office. The bugs began to crawl out.
On the home screen there is a Cover Flow-like interface for my books and recently used apps and media. I noticed that it was almost impossible to access my desired item among the "covers" on first try. The interface is so sensitive that I repeatedly went past my selection - coming and going - before I could at last get the item to stop where I could "click" on it. Frustrating.
The "favorites" shelf below the scrollables only held four items. It looks as if it should be scrollable to hold more than four, but it was not – you only get four. And, if you send a new favorite to the shelf you bump one already there off the shelf (of course), but I could never figure out how to keep the three I wanted and bump the fourth I wanted to replace. It seemed random and pointless. I also noticed that if you wanted to delete a book, app, magazine - whatever - from the home screen the icon for the item remained displaying a "download now" arrow. I deleted it. Why would I want to reload it now? So I ended up with several "ghost" icons taking up space on my home screen. That is just dumb. Give me an archive (like on my regular Kindle) but get the icons out of my way!
Navigation - I began to notice that many of the virtual buttons, like the back button and home button, would often be unresponsive and would require multiple clicks to work correctly. There was no "throbber" image that would indicate that a function was running so I had no choice but to repeatedly press the button until it cooperated. Also frustrating. Oddly, on some screens the buttons were so super sensitive that just brushing one accidentally would open an unwanted item. Go figure. The keyboard works at least as well as that of an iPhone.
Magazines - I downloaded a magazine - Car and Driver for which I also have a print subscription - to see how it compared to the physical copy. It was exactly like the print magazine page for page only much, much smaller. So small that it was impossible for me to read without enlarging the page to the point that I could only see a small portion of a paragraph and none of the images on the page. There is a "read" mode that is text only, but frankly that defeats half the purpose of a magazine. Enjoying the images along with the copy is what makes the magazine experience so enjoyable. That is almost impossible on the Fire. The table of contents was not "clickable" so I had to manually scroll through 59 pages to get to the first article I wanted to read. Also dumb - it is as if they just scanned the images and put them up (which is probably what they did do). A PDF would have been more useful. At least it has navigation!
Movies - the display is excellent and the quality of the movie image was superb (depending on its original quality I imagine). I loaded Elizabeth from my free Amazon Prime collection and was blown away by the quality of playback. Unfortunately, from the very limited selection of free Amazon Prime movie offerings, I could find nothing else I cared to watch. Most of the free movies are years old and of genres that do not appeal to me - teen comedies for example. Another disappointment. (There is a Netflix app that I did not try as I have no Netflix account - maybe that could fill the gap).
Apps - I will admit that I am an Apple user and the Apple app store is extensive and well managed (meaning you have to get past Apple's sometimes Byzantine approval process before an app is accepted). Most of the apps in the Apple store are uniform, useable and tested. Not so with the Kindle Fire (Android) store. I found many of the apps poorly designed and in some cases downright infantile. Not to say there aren't gems, but I found both the selection and quality lagging. I admit that may be an Apple bias, but I felt it nonetheless.
Books - The Amazon book store can not be beat. Almost everything ever published is at your finger tips. As mentioned, I have a "regular" Kindle which I love. The reading experience on the Fire is identical to that on the iPad and Nook. Meaning it is OK, but no where near the quality of the regular Kindle's ePaper experience. It will get you by in a pinch, but long reading sessions on a back-lit screen (just like your laptop or desktop) are tiring and less than enjoyable. Had I kept the Fire, I would also have kept my Kindle 3.
Browser - It works and works reasonably well. Not as quick as my laptop, but not too bad. Flash does work.
Battery life - OK, I only used it a little less than a week, but in my limited experience there is no way the battery will last the predicted 7 hours under anything other than minimal usage. I did nothing out of the ordinary and found that after a couple of hours the on-board battery life indicator (in the settings module) would indicate a remaining battery strength of only a couple of hours - less than 40 percent. Perhaps it would have lasted longer, but that is what the display indicated, so back to the charger. I charged it three times over the course of the weekend. Under moderate use viewing a few magazines, playing a game or two and maybe a movie I would estimate more like four hours.
Conclusions - The Kindle Fire is very well constructed. It feels solid and substantial in my hand and is the perfect size to hold. Its display rivals the iPad and iPhone in quality - may even be better. At $199 it seems to be a great value for someone looking for a media device. The deal breaker for me was the clunky navigation, the limited movie offerings,the less than ideal magazine experience and the disappointing app store. Your mileage may vary.
The worst passwords of 2011 (list)
SplashData, a company that makes password management tools, has released a roundup of 2011's "25 worst passwords," gleaned from password-dumps posted by "hackers" (presumably, sources like the Lulzsec Sony password files). The actual study and its methodology can not be located (are these passwords "worst" because they're the most common, or because they contain the least entropy? Is the sample set representative?) but the list is still informative.
1. password
2. 123456
3.12345678
4. qwerty
5. abc123
6. monkey
7. 1234567
8. letmein
9. trustno1
10. dragon
11. baseball
12. 111111
13. iloveyou
14. master
15. sunshine
16. ashley
17. bailey
18. passw0rd
19. shadow
20. 123123
21. 654321
22. superman
23. qazwsx
24. michael
25. football
Via Boing Boing.
1. password
2. 123456
3.12345678
4. qwerty
5. abc123
6. monkey
7. 1234567
8. letmein
9. trustno1
10. dragon
11. baseball
12. 111111
13. iloveyou
14. master
15. sunshine
16. ashley
17. bailey
18. passw0rd
19. shadow
20. 123123
21. 654321
22. superman
23. qazwsx
24. michael
25. football
Via Boing Boing.
My Week with Marilyn
From ruby lipstick application to shimmering backstage solitude, Michelle Williams’s transformation into the world’s most iconic sex symbol during the filming of My Week With Marilyn is intimately documented in this personal project by Brigitte Lacombe. “Michelle was as close as you can get to becoming Marilyn; aware of my presence, but really in Marilyn 's world,” says the noted photographer, who has worked on the movies of Martin Scorsese, Spike Jonze and Quentin Tarantino. Lacombe flew to London at Williams’s invitation, for a dressing room portraiture session with the Oscar nominee just after the wrapping of the Simon Curtis-directed drama. The plot follows the bombshell’s troubled relationship with co-star and director Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) while filming The Prince and the Showgirl on her honeymoon with playwright Arthur Miller. It hinges on Monroe’s unexpected kinship with Olivier’s third assistant, Oxford graduate Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne), whose memoir forms the basis of the story. “I was there for the very last scene on the very last night of filming, in this tiny pub just outside of London,” says Lacombe. “It was very intense and taut, [the crew was] almost delirious with fatigue—it was a smokey, crowded and elated atmosphere.”
Via Nowness.
Via Nowness.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)