I’ve always been a fan of No Doubt, so while compiling a study playlist today, I kept wanting to listen to this track over and over again — I may have gotten more study out-of-the-way if I wasn’t grooving so much, hmmm — totally digging the massive chorus:
No Doubt have a great ska sound and are one of the coolest bands on the planet in my (biased) opinion. Formed in 1986, the band lineup consists of mostly parents now which adds to their charm and all-round coolness. Although I never got into Gwen’s solo material, I’m glad her and the original gang are back together.
Push and Shove is the band’s much anticipated sixth studio album since Rock Steady in 2001. Not their most energetic album, but a damn-well-accomplished comeback.
A supercell is a thunderstorm with a persistently rotating updraft. ~ Wikipedia
After four years of trying, Arizona photographer and storm chaser Mike Olbinski, with the help of his friend Andy Hoeland, finally captured what he was searching for — an incredible supercell: (you should full-screen it)
“The timelapse was shot on a Canon 5D Mark II with a Rokinon 14mm 2.8 lens. It’s broken up into four parts. The first section ends because it started pouring on us”
First three clips were at 1-second intervals = 880ish photos. The last sequence was around 90, 5-second exposures. Music by Kevin MacLeod – incompetech.com/
“It took four years but I finally got it. A rotating supercell. And not just a rotating supercell, but one with insane structure and amazing movement.
I’ve been visiting the Central Plains since 2010. Usually it’s just for a day, or three, or two…but it took until the fourth attempt to actually find what I’d been looking for. And boy did we find it.
No, there was no tornado. But that’s not really what I was after. I’m from Arizona. We don’t get structure like this. Clouds that rotate and look like alien spacecraft hanging over the Earth.
We chased this storm from the wrong side (north) and it took us going through hail and torrential rains to burst through on the south side. And when we did…this monster cloud was hanging over Texas and rotating like something out of Close Encounters.
One thing to note early on in the first part is the way the rain is coming down on the right and actually being sucked back into the rotation. Amazing.
A few miles south is where part two picks up. And I didn’t realize how fast it was moving south, so part three is just me panning the camera to the left. During that third part you can see dust along the cornfield being pulled into the storm as well…part of the strong inflow.
The final part is when the storm had started dying out and we shot lightning as it passed over us.
Between the third and fourth portions we drove through Booker, Texas where tornado sirens were going off…it was creepy as all heck. And intense.
I hope you enjoy this. Once thing I’ve learned about timelapsing is that I always wish it would be longer or wouldn’t end. I wish I had been south and been able to record this storm come at me for 45 minutes.
But I love it the way it is. I wasn’t ever certain I’d see structure like this even though it’s been such a goal of mine. But we did it. … And by we, I mean myself and my buddy Andy Hoeland.” ~ Mike Olbinski
I’m not usually a fan of pranks because not everyone has a tasteful sense of humor. Most unfunny people tend to think that pranks must involve some sort of violent scenario or someone getting hurt, which is not cool. This prank made me laugh:
Japanese animation is called anime, which is the abbreviated pronunciation of “animation” in Japanese (of course), and unlike western animation, themes in anime can range from ultra cute and colourful to explicitly disturbing, dark and/or philosophical. Themes vary depending on the context of the narrative which is why anime is so diverse and forever expanding and contesting the conventions of animation — the Japanese know how to tell a great story and aren’t necessarily bound to adhere to western standards.
Anime background artists are dedicated to their craft, and much of their details don’t even get acknowledged fully; just look at the amount of TLC that went into these backgrounds and know that some of these are only getting less than five seconds worth of screen-time! That’s devotion for you, literally. One Tumblr user has set out to give credit where credit is due by displaying photos of anime backgrounds with the main characters digitally omitted, so we can all marvel at their textural splendor. A neat idea I think. Not every anime TV-series or film is great (there are a hell of a lot of duds out there), but some animes are masterpieces in their own right:
Akira. Directed by Katsuhiro Otomo
Created by Tatsunoko Production, TMS Entertainment.
Paprika. Co-written and directed by the late Satoshi Kon. Created by Madhouse.
Magnetic Rose, from Memories. Directed by Kōji Morimoto and animated by Studio 4°C
Script by noted anime director Satoshi Kon, based on a story by Katsuhiro Otomo.
Metropolis. Loosely based on the 1949 Metropolis manga by the late Osamu Tezuka.
The anime had an all-star production team, including renowned anime director Rintaro, Akira creator Katsuhiro Otomo as script writer, and animation by Madhouse Studios with conceptual support from Tezuka Productions.
Tales From Eathsea. Directed by Gorō Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli.
Psycho Pass. Directed by Naoyoshi Shiotani — Created by Production I.G.
The Wolf Children Ame and Yuki. Directed by Mamoru Hosoda
Created by Studio Chizu and Madhouse.
Another. Directed by Tsutomu Mizushima. Created by P.A. Works. – 06
Ghost in the Shell. Directed by Mamoru Oshii — Created by Production I.G
Let me get this straight, some knucklehead gamer had an Xbox overdose and for some reason now believes he has something to look forward to in jail? What a tough guy, then again, I suppose his ass would have to be.
That’s right, a 19-year-old Whangarei man under house arrest had pleaded with police to serve the rest of his 11-month sentence in jail because he was “sick of playing Xbox.” Funny part is, he was granted his wish:
A Whangarei man who said he was “sick of playing Xbox” while on home detention has got his wish to serve the rest of his sentence in jail after calling police to tell them he was going to breach detention.
Senior Constable Paul Nicholas, of Whangarei police, said the Hikurangi man rang police on Tuesday to say he was bored serving home detention, was sick of playing Xbox and would rather serve the rest of his sentence in jail instead.
Mr Nicholas said the 19-year-old had already served 10 months of an 11-month home detention term and with one month to go “had run out of Xbox games to play.”
He said the man told police he would breach his home detention if he wasn’t picked up and taken to jail. The man got his wish and is now in Ngawha Prison.
Data journalist, Matt Stiles, compiled a data chart for each day of the year ranking how many babies were born in the United States on each date from 1973 to 1999.
“Apparently, people like to make babies around the winter holiday season because a large proportion of babies are born in September.”
It seems climate does indeed affect our behavioral patterns, which is understandable, just keep in mind that this data is from the United States alone. Even though this chart claims my DOB is uncommon, I was born on an island and not in America so I don’t think I’m represented here. Nevertheless, this is an interesting trend to monitor:
Disclaimer: There isn’t any actual academic advice for you here. It just made a good title and stuck. …I dunno, drink lots of water. 😀
Had my last meeting with Dr Sophie Eliza Tomlinson this week. I am relieved* our meetings are over but also kind of sad. It was suggested to me that I see an adviser by an on-campus organisation but doing so was not mandatory, and since then no one from that organisation has even contacted me or Sophie about it, which is weird and/or just lazy. I’m still not 100% certain why I was chosen and given an academic adviser in the first place, but I am glad to have met Dr Tomlinson. She is interesting. The first meeting felt a little like I was on parole (I’m generalizing of course) and the second time felt a bit like going to see a personal psychiatrist. Our last meeting felt like both of those, only I had a lot more to say about my university experience thus far, to which Sophie had much more helpful and encouraging advice to impart.
Also in the week gone by, I collected an essay I had written one night before its due date and received an ‘A-‘ for it — lulz — and a lecturer from a different course asked if he could use one of my tutorial assignments as an example text in one of his classes next semester. Not bad for one week. I think I’m just going to play it cool from here on and ease-up with the stress. Self-doubt is not healthy.
In regards to an earlier post; I stopped my lecturer after class and asked about her personal view on the usage of a scientific term for a non-scientific paper. She said, ‘consider it like freeware.’ I’m not cool with that explanation, but at least now I am assured of her standards for marking the upcoming exam. I may choose not to wholeheartedly believe everything that is taught, but exams are about conveying what I have learnt and convincing my grader I understood what was taught. If using scientific jargon is what it takes to pass, why fight the system? OK, I may still have a few of lessons to learn about being confident with myself and my own words enough to contest and persuade people’s expectations, but good things take time. I am an astute learner after all.
I like the revision process of writing, but writing freehand for marking purposes truly frightens me. Do you see the irony here? A writer who is afraid of his work being read. Essays are one thing but exams have me worried, and in my head, I’m still trying to pinpoint why this is. I guess it’s because I think my unrefined thoughts are messy, but I have to accept this process as an unavoidable part of academia — you have to be vulnerable enough to allow the right people to see you. Through your work, I mean.
The ethics surrounding future “killer robots” or LARs (lethal autonomous robots) was recently brought to the fore at the United Nations in Geneva. Christof Heyns, Professor of Human Rights Law, presented a special report on 30 May 2013 which he warned that LARs — none currently deployed in any battlefield but very much in development — could blur the lines of command in war crimes cases. He added that action must be taken before the technology overtakes existing legislation.
Heyns made a logical appeal to ban the development of robots that could kill without any human input. Hayns gives a great abstract argument about future technology and how failure to define or comprehend its implications will result in… anarchy, I suppose. Here’s the full audio report from UNOG:
I’m not convinced that a law ban will phase-out the development of LARs, but I am convinced that Heyns has many more proposals for the UN to consider in regards to “autonomous systems” and their protocols for saving lives and killing them. Perhaps this is the first stepping stone towards creating a few robotic laws of some sort, “hint hint:”
Anarchy, not revolution ^ Not yet anyway.
Basically, new laws are destined to be made in order to define what these new weaponized robots are — killer rombas or killer garden-sprinklers — and who will be accountable for their actions and lack of programming should something go wrong. Whose to say that a robot malfunction doesn’t fall under the legal term, act of God? Hopefully these laws, as Heyns suggested, are created and pass before LARs become a reality. You can’t prosecute a robot, so surely a new level of weaponry deserves new legislation to safeguard the possibility of their being any victims injured in the event of robotic deployment, implicit or not. LARs sound to me like a deterministic excuse, and man must remain responsible (see Jean-Paul Sartre‘s definition of anguish — Existentialism and Humanism), otherwise, what on Earth are we living for? Create robots to find and f-over so man can forget it ever happened and feel nothing? Any mechanism that comes between a man and his moral judgements removes sincerity from accountability — the psychology of morality in other words. I’m astounded at how genius robotics experts and UN officials can be so naive. Christof Heyns makes absolute sense to me and I truly hope people in power take him seriously. I doubt me blogging about the topic is going to effect any change.
The only reasonable justification I see for manufacturing autonomous weapons is ‘kill or be killed,’ which taken out of context of human self-defense, doesn’t justify the development of LARs. Robotic deterrents for the sake of intimidation is a pitiful use of science and technology. I don’t approve of weapons of war, but unmanned-drones at least have an operator making reasoned decisions with the knowledge of the worth of a human life.
If this reminds you of every movie you’ve ever seen with a robot in it, that’s because speculative science fiction has always simulated the future, and technology in its state of perpetual growth always catches up to those speculations allowing for those clever geniuses in reality to imitate fiction in miraculous ways. The significance of this event is the fact that the UN will have to at some point create new laws to define and support the use of LARs if their development is not banned outright for the reasons stated above, because sadly, we are all of us living in a gun-toting, human-fearing world.
A lethal automaton would make no sense* of that part of our illogical psychosis: the benefit of someone’s death.
After thanking Sir Patrick Stewart for his work with Amnesty International, Heather Skye, who is a major Star Trek fan, asked a personal and majorly cool question; what is he most proud of outside of acting — not such a common query at Comicpalooza and events of that like. Patrick Stewart’s insightful response showed great dignity in regards to his family and violence against women, and for Heather, it came with a hug:
What a great man, and that was extremely brave of Heather to raise the issue of domestic abuse in a public Q&A forum. You can read Heather’s personal response about the experience @ her blog: lemonsweetie.tumblr.com. I also feel like I should point out that Heather’s cosplay and face markings of Jadzia Dax — from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fame — are out of this nexus. Very cool:
No Doubt have a great ska sound and are one of the coolest bands on the planet in my (biased) opinion. Formed in 1986, the band lineup consists of mostly parents now which adds to their charm and all-round coolness. Although I never got into Gwen’s solo material, I’m glad her and the original gang are back together.
🎭 