Siftables

http://www.ted.com/talks/david_merrill_demos_siftables_the_smart_blocks.html

Warren Zevon

One of the greatest folk singers of all time is Warren Zevon. You remember him as the voice behind "Werewolves of London". Warren was capable of writing a song on the spot...for instance, on the David Letterman Show, he wrote and composed "Licked by a Stranger" in response to some banter with David. (The link shows that episode) Oh sure, we all know and love Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner and the possibly autobiographical song "Send Lawyers,Guns and Money and get me out of this!" But to my mind, his finest effort was the hockey song. Oh, no, not the Stompin Tom Conners "Hockey Song", but rather, Warren Zevon's "Hit Somebody, the Hockey Song".

An acquaintance in the beautiful country of Cyprus told me that the warning phrase becoming popular around the world is "Better watch out or I'll go Canadian on ya! Hmmm. Wonder if this is the reason why.

When Warren was diagnosed with terminal cancer, he and his friends all recorded an album. If I was dying of cancer, I don't know if I would be able to record "Knock knock knockin' on heaven's door, but Warren did. Far from being a depressing recording session, it turned out to be one almighty awesome party.




I'll leave you with Jackson Browne's version of "Roland".

Music for a Friday Night

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=huRwBFmAx78&feature=related


So do ye do young Willy McBride
Do ya mind if ah sit here down beside yer grave side
And rest for awhile in the warm summer sun
I bin walkin' all day and I'm nearly done.

And ah see by yer gravestone that ye were only nineteen
When ye joined the great fallen in nineteen fifteen
Well I hope ye died quick and I hope ye died clean
or Willy McBride was it slow and obscene


Did they play the drum slowly and did the play the fife lowly
did they sound the death march as they lowered ya down
did the band play the last post and chorus, and
did the pipes play "The Flowers of the Forest"?


And did ya leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
in some loyal heart is your memory enshrined
And though ya died in nineteen sixteen
ta that loyal heart you are forever nineteen.

Or are you a stranger without even a name
forever enshrined behind some old glass pane
in an old photograph torn and tattered and stained
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame?

Did they play the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly
did they sound the death march as they lowered ye down
Did the band play the Last Post and Chorus,
Did the pipes play "The Flowers of the Forest".

The sun shinin' down on these green fields of France
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance
the trenches have vanished down under the ground
No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now.

But here in this graveyard it's still no man's land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
When a whole generation were butchered and damned


Did they play the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly
Did they sound the death march as they lowered ye down
Did the band play the Last Post and chorus
And did the band play "The Flowers of the Forest".



And I can't help wonder now young Willy McBride
do all those who lie here know why they died
Did ya really believe them when they told ya the cause
Did ya really believe that this war would end wars

Well the sufferin' the sorrow, the glory, the shame
the killlin' an' th' dyin', it was all done in vain
Oh Willy McBride it all happened again
And again and again and again


Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly
Did they sound the "Death March" as they lowered ya down
Did the band play the "Last Post" and chorus,
Did the pipes play "The flowers of the Forest".



The tune is "The Green Fields of France", and the band is "The Drop Kick Murpheys".

Mushrooms to the rescue

Paul Stamets is a biologist who specializes in, of all things, mushrooms. He feels that his field is greatly underappreciated. For instance, he discovered that some species of mushroom will destroy termites and carpenter ants, (which may put paid to the pesticide industry!). However his biggest contribution to history may well be the question he asked himself when he was kid...."what eats crude oil".
I mean, something must eat it....something eats most everything! He discovered that ordinary oyster mushrooms love salt water, and thrive on crude oil. Other mushrooms might work better, and from such questions are research projects made from. He is working on moulds and mushrooms which can turn cellulose (corn stalks, sawdust) into ethanol. His research may well be the most important scientific endeavor in the world today.

Here is the link to Paul's TED talk.
Its only 20 minutes.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_can_save_the_world.html

Be prepared to be gob smacked.

Red Bay Ship

Way back when in history, the Basques chased whales all over the Atlantic Ocean, and long before Chris Columbus and even John Cabot made their famous trips to the new world, the Iberian whalers built settlements at Red Bay, Labrador. The reason for living in such a black fly and mosquito infested place? Well, there was lots of wood to put under cooking pots to render down whale blubber into whale oil, and lots of privacy. Especially privacy, since whale oil was a VERY valuable material. Also, it was on a migratory route for whales, the place where the gulf stream meets up with the Labrador current, creating a food supply second to none for shell fish in the world. And whales eat shell fish, so there were lots of whales. The heyday for whale hunting was during the 16th century, and thousands of whales were killed and rendered down into oil.
The basques hunted whales in a manner which remained unchanged for centuries...a shallop (rowboat for about 7 men) went out to the whale, and stabbed it with a harboon. The whale would take off, dragging the row boat in what was referred to much later as a "Nantucket sleigh ride". The whale could not sound (dive deep) because the water was comparatively shallow here. If he had been able to, he would have dragged the whalers to Davy Jones' Locker. As it was, the poor animal bled to death, and floated to the surface.
In the Parks Canada building, there is a room set aside that is like a museum. (Actually it resembles nothing so much as a self-congratulation room, and is about the same size as the Arthur Evans Room in the Ashmolean Museum in England, but doesnt contain nearly as much stuff) In there you find the paintings, several artifacts from the wreck, some models. The models pictured here are from the San Juan, a ship which came to grief in Red Bay.

The model above is of the sloop San Juan. The earliest Atlantic Ocean boat ever found.
The San Juan sank in fairly shallow water, and settled on its keel. Swimmers at the time yanked out the cross beams which formed its deck in order to salvage masts, decent sized wood, and of course, the expensive cargo. The sides of the ship folded outwards like the leaves of a book and settled on the bottom. Eventually, they were covered in silt, thereby preserving it to the present day.
Canada became a world leader in under water archeology, partly as a result of this wreck, among others. As I talked to the present day diver-archeologists, they told me that they much prefer under water archaeology to conventional land based research because "we are not standing on the artifacts when we are in the water".
This was not your nice Carribean or Great Barrier Reef diving experience either...this water was cold-cold-cold! Its the Labrador current after all, that is so cold that icebergs (being made from fresh water) don't melt in it! The divers gave up on using dry suits, and went to wet "hot water" suits, where hot water was pumped into their suits down the same umbilical which brought their air. The visibility was problematic since they were actually digging into that silt! Hoses were brought down to do the "digging", which had air blown into them in order to cause a flow of water, like a vacuum cleaner....the silt was brought up to the surface, and passed through screens so that nothing would get missed. So when this operation was going on, you saw your assigned aluminum taped square and that was about it.

Parks Canada

During the "Doors Open" event here in Ottawa last weekend, one of the places we got a chance to visit was the Parks Canada archaeology rooms. The lady above is a scientist, and she is showing a re-build of a turn of the century collection made by the curator from an old fort out west. The collection of buttons, shako badges, flints and assorted thing were looking really thread bare, and so they re-mounted it all. After de-rusting and stabilizing the collection of course.

The boot they dragged up off the bottom of the St. Lawrence looks ready to wear! But it is nearly 300 years old, and has undergone some fairly extensive restoration.

Above is another one. Click on the images to see them a bit bigger.

Above is one of the scientists who is showing off a cup that was found in a wrecked ship that was lost in a raid on Quebec City during King Philip's War.
Below is a drawing of the ship, and the archaeology which was available. The picture on the table is the grid site map.



The public is not generally allowed to see what goes in the back rooms of places like this, and I feel that it was a special privilege to get the chance.

My friends call me Paddy

Convention

A man boarded an aircraft at London 's Heathrow Airport for New York , and
taking his seat as
he settled in he noticed a very beautiful woman boarding the plane.

He realised she was heading straight toward his seat and bingo - she took
the seat right beside him.

"Hello", he blurted out, "Business trip or vacation?"

She turned, smiled, and with an enchanting lilt in her voice
said, "Business. I'm going to the annual nymphomaniac
convention in the United States ."

He swallowed hard.

Here was the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen sitting next to him, and
she was going
to a meeting for nymphomaniacs!

Struggling to maintain his composure he calmly asked, "What's your business
role at this convention?"

"Lecturer," she responded." I use my experience to debunk some of the
popular myths about sexuality.."

"Really", he smiled "what myths are those?"

"Well," she explained, "one popular myth is that African-American men are
the most well endowed,
when, in fact, it's the Native American Indian who is most likely to possess
that trait.

Another popular myth is that French men are the best lovers when actually it
is the men of
Greek descent.

We have also found that the best potential lovers in all categories are the
Irish."

Suddenly the woman became uncomfortable, and blushed. "I'm sorry, l do
apologise"

She said. "I really shouldn't be discussing this with you, I don't even know
your name!"

"Tonto," the man said. "Tonto Papadopoulos, but my friends call me Paddy."

Rick Wakeman got a haircut!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olJKxQ0NNxg&feature=related


(music to play when pounding on an anvil)

Virtual Tours

I rather like virtual tours. Often you can see more in a virtual tour than you can in the actual visit...for one thing, there is no time limit.
I found that Rome was so intense that I could not comprehend the half of it! The brain would go into overload, and nothing more would filter in! The Vatican and the Vatican Museum is a fine example of a place that one could spend a lifetime and still not have it all sink in. For instance, as you follow the "green path" on your guide through the Vatican Museum, you go through a dozen huge rooms, all decorated in frescoes by great masters like Titian and Michelangelo. But everybody rushes past them as if they were tiles on the subway because at the end of the "green path" is the ultimate room, the Sistine Chapel.
I lingered over the path and saw (and photographed) many great masters. You can see them up close, and I am sorry to say that many have been damaged by hand prints and finger stains, not all of them at two year old level!
Frescoe art is actually done by slathering on a thin layer of plaster, and blowing powdered paint onto it through straws. The effect is that of airbrushing. The soft lines and rich light and shadow effects were not achieved again until the invention of the airbrush in the early twentieth century. All those pictures of Michelangelo on his back with a paintbrush in his hands...well now you have to re-thing that!
They would usually have a "cartoon" made from paper which they would pin to the wall, that had the outline of the picture. Then a star wheel would be wheeled through the paper to leave a row of dents in the soft plaster. Often the artist would "pounce" the paper. Pouncing is when you take a little cloth bag containing charcoal and bang in onto the paper...this would allow some of the dust to come through the holes made by the star wheel and mark the outline.

Anyway, the result of a good technique combined with genius will give you this...

http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/index.html

I hope that you don't spend more than two or three hours on that link....evil grin!

Roadwork

Click on the pictures to enlarge. There must be a full yard of earth in there!

He was scooping it out pretty quick, two to three scoops per minute.

You get an idea of the size of this excavator when you see the dump trucks...those are full size tri-axle dump trucks!

The "little" machine is the one the operator brings up to jack hammer the rock. This jack hammer is more than eight feet high.

Roadwork in front of my house. The tricky part is to dig the twelve feet down to lay in the storm sewer. Considering this is a bank of limestone, it takes fairly big tools to do this.



This has got to be the biggest tool I have ever seen!

Here, when you click on the images, you can see the kids coming out to see what is going on.


Oh...and they scooped up that annoying cross walk sign...grin!

Anniversary Day

Well, today is Brenda and my 31st anniversary. Gracious me...how time flies. Oh well, its been a great trip so far! You figure thirty one years ago I was a newly minted corporal in the military, and now, four postings, five moves later and two career changes later, I can look back and state positively that the love enabled me to deal with the career that I hated.



We never had kids, they did not seem to be as important as each other, and the fact of a child free life allowed us a chance to travel. Some travel experiences were bittersweet, and some just weird. But all were eye opening and really interesting.


I am really glad I had my little turtle dove to share this thirty one years...time is resolute and marches on. As Bill Cosby said "you will ALL be here, eventually". And I am so looking forward to another 31 years.
So today, we will be motorcycling to the Village Treats chocolate factory outlet store in Lanark. Sound like a good use of a day!

Lexophiles unite!

For lovers of words (Lexophiles)

1. A bicycle cannot stand alone; it is two tired.
2. A will is a dead giveaway.
3. Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.
4. A backward poet writes inverse.
5. In a democracy it's your vote that counts; in feudalism, it's your Count that votes.
6. A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion.
7. If you don't pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.
8. With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.
9. Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft and I'll show you A-flat miner.
10. When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.
11. The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered.
12. A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France and resulted in Linoleum Blownapart.
13. You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.
14. Local Area Network in Australia : The LAN down under.
15. A calendar's days are numbered.
16. A boiled egg is hard to beat.
17. He had a photographic memory which was never developed.
18. The short fortune teller who escaped from prison: a small medium at large.
19. Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end
20. When you've seen one shopping centre you've seen a mall.
21 If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine.
22. When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.
23. Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.
24. Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.
25. Acupuncture: a jab well done.
26. Marathon runners with bad shoes suffer the agony of de feet.
27. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.
28. She was only a whisky maker, but he loved her still.
29. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption.
30. No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.
31. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.
32. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.
33. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.
34. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
35. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other, 'You stay here, I'll go on a head.'
36. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.
37. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab centre said: 'Keep off the Grass.'
38. The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.
39. When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.
40. Don't join dangerous cults: Practice safe sects.

(Thanks Judy for this! It tickled my fancy!)

Music for a Friday night

Over the Hills and Far Away Tanja with Nightwish.

Artist Frank Frazetta died

Marshalls Creek artist Frank Frazetta with one of his paintings on Oct. 24, 1994.
Pocono Record file photo



By HOWARD FRANK
From the Pocono Record
May 14, 2010

He stands atop a mountain of carnage with his sword held before him. Rippling muscles stretched over a tall, athletic frame, with long black hair and a piercing stare.

Conan the Barbarian was one of the late fantasy artist Frank Frazetta's best-known works. Like some of his characters, Frazetta's magic reigned over the world of serpents and heroes he created.

Frazetta died Monday of complications from a stroke he suffered in his Boca Grande, Fla., home Sunday.

"To the world, Frank Frazetta was a world-class artist. But to us, his children, Frank Frazetta was a wonderful and loving father whose first joy was his family," said Heidi Frazetta Grabin, one of his two daughters.

Frazetta's family still mourns the passing of his wife, Ellie, last June. Now they have to deal with the loss of a man many consider a legend.

"He was full of life, energy and humor," Grabin said. "His wit was as quick as his fastball. He was a kind soul who respected and appreciated people, but he never suffered fools gladly."

The master fantasy artist was known around the world for his unique sword-and-sorcery themes.

"He has inspired artists, directors, film people of all sorts including George Lucas, creator of 'Star Wars,'" Peterson added.


It's not yet known exactly what the family has planned for Frazetta's artwork or intellectual property rights. Frazetta sold few of his paintings, electing to hold on to most of them. A few weeks ago son Bill said they planned to put the collection, much of which was housed in a Marshalls Creek museum that now stands empty, on the road so more fans could see the originals.

"There's nothing like seeing Frank's artwork up close. You've got to see it to believe it," Peterson said.



Full Story here.

Ancient Kourion

There is nothing so boring as other people's holiday snaps. But once in a while, its nice to be able to vicariously visit (or re-visit) places of interest. This was a nice place I visited last winter in Cyprus....interesting particularly because it is pretty much off the beaten track.

Kourion is a Roman city on the south coast of Cyprus. It is situated way up on the top of a cliff overlooking the ocean, which means a bit of a trek to get fresh water. The cliff seems to have a tendency to break away during the frequent earthquakes, nibbling the city away. It was abandoned along with the rest of the Latin Roman Empire because...well...the harbour filled up, and its economic role was replaced by Famagusta on the East, and Paphos on the West, Limasol and Larnika just down the road from here, and Kyrenia on the North. This place, Kourion, became a religious centre, the temple to Apollo was here. Thats it, down below. And when it shook one last time in the earthquake, the people just decided to say to heck with this, and went back to Rome.


Random ruins above, and the wall on the right is to prevent tourists from slipping over the edge.
Above is a fine hypocaust. The little pillars would have had a floor laid over top of them, and they would have built a little fire to warm the floor. Sort of central heating. I note that unlike other hypocausts I have seen, there does not seem to be a lot of soot staining the bricks. Perhaps that is because there is not a lot of need for central heating in Cyprus? Just a guess.
Above is the cross street. All Roman cities have a main east-west street, and north south street. This is the crossroads. The cross street here was actually pretty steep, and it was in steps, like Halifax or St John Newfoundland, or come to think of it, most of Malta. I don't think they had a lot of wheeled traffic here. Not because it was too small...this place is just as big as Pompii, and you can see the cart ruts in Pompii. No, this seems to be pretty much a walking town.
A visit to the theatre is always nice. That wooden part in back is where the stage used to be...it seems to have found a stable location at the foot of the cliff. There are still plenty of foundations under the wooden part that people are standing on over in back there. They put on rock concerts now...and its all electrified and there are big mounts for speakers. What an awesome place to have a concert!

This place has some of the nicest mosaics! Standard shapes, mostly, like the interwoven links above, the labyrinths below, and the inscriptions. These mosaics are designed to have a couple of inches of water on top of them. This makes the colours really pop!


Above is a nice bath. One would need a bath after lugging all that water all the way up here!


Hope you enjoyed them.

Another OK-Go video

If you have the monday morning blues, then really dude, ya gotta watch OK-GO's colourful Monday morning video.

OK GO is an alternative rock band. They did the famous "treadmill" video, and the rube goldberg inspired "This Too Shall Pass".

So brighten up your day, and be prepared to grin!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E4wL2JiuJs&feature=related

Garage door Posters.

A German firm called Style Your Garage creates posters for garage doors that make it look as if your garage is where the action is. F1 car, F-18 Hornet, exotic dancers -- these are some of the things you can put "in" your garage. If you've got a two-car garage, no worries: you can try out the quarry dump truck or biplane that will span both doors.

Made for the up-and-over garage doors common in Europe, they mount with velcro, can be adapted to fit sectional garage doors, and come in a standard size of 2.10 meters by 2.45 meters. Prices range from €199 to €399 for the double-door motifs, which isn't that much for a giant piece of wall art. The company can also turn a photo of yours into a garage poster, but you'll want to be careful with this; not everything can be blown up to 6.5 feet without looking... creepy. You can have a gander at some of the factory options in the gallery below

Post Secret

Found on Post Secret.

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

Not sure if this is inspirational, or just creepy.

Winter sux

Snow can be pretty cool.
And maybe not so cool.
The snow fairy has come to Ottawa this morning!
It is not as nice as this
But I still say screw it!

This morning we got 3 inches of the white stuff. And I have to be way the heck out in the other end of the city to give a school demo.

I would rather stay in, eat pancakes and bacon, curl up in front of the fire. Ahh well...duty calls.