Category Archives: fun

Practice

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During idle moments, when nobody is looking, we professors of the Dark Arts are known to practice various techniques. Just for fun, and to stay sharp, you understand. This was during the wait for the USC Presidential inauguration march to begin a couple of weeks ago. (See posts here and here.) As you can see, Nick Warner (right) and I (middle) are engaged in trying different approaches to a remote influence technique as Krzysztof Pilch (left) looks on at the results, somewhat amused. (Click for slightly larger view.)

inauguration_antics

All in good fun.

-cvj Click to continue reading this post →

CicLAvia Report

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ciclavia2010_4Well, it is not often I get to say this, but Sunday’s CicLAvia event was, for me, completely perfect. It was simply about community, family, and enjoying the streets. It did not have an overtly political or activist vibe to it (as is often the case when you try to do some things a little differently from others in this town, like ride the bus or walk to the grocery store), and I saw a lot more people simply enjoying (and remarking on it out loud) the fact that they were out on the streets of the city than I saw people proclaiming rabid anti-car sentiments, as I’ve seen at bike-centric events before. I think the former feeling will go a lot further in making lasting change than the latter in the long run. There was some political content around, but it was largely confined to the steps of City Hall, where (when I passed) there were endearingly naive chants being led by a bloke with a microphone about “LA saying no to oil!’ and “no to coal!”. Don’t get me wrong – naive is not necessarily used as a derogatory term here. Noble dreams begin with a heavy dose of naivete, I believe. Hope, against the odds, for significant change, and so forth. (I could use the fully decorated version, naïveté, but it looks a bit pretentious to me today…)

So the event was mostly about people getting out there and enjoying the city streets, and sharing their enjoyment by doing it together. I was impressed with the turnout […] Click to continue reading this post →

Off to CicLAvia…

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Getting ready to disappear off to explore. the route. Should be fun, although it is a tad too hot a day for it to be perfect for cycling and wandering long in the sun. On the other hand, that will bring a lot of people out to enjoy their Sunday outdoors, I hope, walking, cycling, rollerblading, skateboarding, running, etc. […] Click to continue reading this post →

Quark Constituents

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quark_cheeseNoticed this on the shelves in a supermarket yesterday. (I was hunting for clotted cream, but that’s another story.) I can’t recall if I’ve known before that “quark” was also a kind of cheese.

I suspect that this might have potentially amusing physics joke uses in the future.

To further my education, I looked up quark cheese on Wikipedia. All very interesting. […] Click to continue reading this post →

Glow

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glow_festival_5_bannerLast night, Glow, the biennial evening to late night gathering down on Santa Monica beach, was fun. There were even some interesting exhibits to look at and interact with, as sort of a bonus! Below (and above) are a few images I took while down there. Click for larger view. Look at the guide on the website to figure out which piece you might be viewing, and go here for links to more photos and so forth. The piece captured in the photograph above, Day for Night, (Santa Monica pier and the carousel in the background) was one of my favourites. See description and information about its creators here. […] Click to continue reading this post →

Inception, Abridged!

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So have you seen Inception yet? Recall my discussion of it in an earlier post. I thought it was excellent. Ok, so if you have not seen it, scroll on to another post. If you have, then you might love this**. I found it hilarious and quite brilliant. It’s a very funny idea worthy of wider recognition, and so I thought I’d share with you and hope you share it with others. Now, it is sort of important to know that you have to bear with the video quality and also let yourself get used to Steven Beacon (the performer) and his somewhat frenetic delivery for several minutes so that the actual Inception part (and how he performs it) that comes later is properly appreciated. So stick with it (and you don’t have to understand all he says in the leading up parts of the act)… it’ll be worth it. (Jump to about 07:30 if you are really busy…) Remember, it probably won’t make any sense or seem the slightest bit funny if you’ve not seen the film.

Ok. That’s enough intro. The video is just after the fold. Enjoy!

[…] Click to continue reading this post →

Perseids Galore!

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perseidmap_stripThe Perseid meteors are reported to be really good viewing this year.

As I said a few years ago in anticipation of a similar nice Perseid meteor shower:

Concerned that you don’t know enough astronomy? No idea in any amount of detail where these constellations are? Don’t worry! Basically, all you really have to do is find a place where the sky is reasonably dark, look [North] East, and wait. As your eyes acclimatise to the dark, and with a bit of luck, you’ll see some, and zero in on where to look.

There’s more at the NASA news site, from which I borrowed the image above. The peak is around these few nights (12th August or so) and there’s no moon, so if you’ve got some dark (ish) skies and a bit of patience, you should see some. Yes, this includes viewers in cities. Don’t be pessimistic. You might be able to find patches of dark enough sky, especially if you can go near to an edge of the city, or a park, and look away from the bulk of the lights. It does not have to be perfect viewing […] Click to continue reading this post →

Revisiting Shine a Light

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One of last year’s crazy Big Projects was filmmaking, you may remember. I just noticed that a little over a year has gone by since I premiered the first of the short science films I wrote, directed, co-produced… etc. Doesn’t hurt to look at it again. If you have a good connection, go to YouTube and select the option to watch it in HD and blow it up to full screen, and crank up the volume for the fun music!

Here’s Shine a Light:

It was brought to you by the NSF and USC’s iOpenShell Center. Visit the latter to learn more!

Don’t forget to share it! (Lots of people have viewed it (over 16,800 to date) shared it, and used it in their teaching, etc. It has been translated into a number of other languages, etc.)

Now, back to working on this year’s Project….

-cvj Click to continue reading this post →

Come On LA!

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p-2048-1536-5f4d380e-a365-44ad-9eb7-fc7a9f2c2bf3.jpegPerhaps ironically, since I tune into BBC Radio 4 every day when in Los Angeles, I’ve not been listening to it or any other UK radio or news source while here in London at all. So imagine my pleasant surprise on Thursday when I came across what clearly looked like a docking station for bikes (as opposed to super-fancy bike racks, which I thought it was at first)! Sure enough, once I got closer I confirmed it – a bike sharing scheme was starting in London. By the next day I saw some more stations on my walks, and a truck driving along full of the bikes, presumably going to load up the stations. As it turned out, I learned later that the scheme started that very next day, and today I saw several people out riding on them!

I am a little disappointed about one thing. I wanted to try them out and be out there seeing the streets of the city from one of these bikes instead of on foot (as I have been doing a lot in the last several days), but guess what? […] Click to continue reading this post →

Ten

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five_finger_shoes_in_actionWell, I got some. I recall blogging about seeing these some time back, and am impressed with them now that I’ve been trying them out for a week. Let me say however a couple of things. I’m not going to spout all the stuff being said about how this is all so much more “natural” than shoes, and so on and so forth. There’s a lot of that being said and I find myself generally deeply suspicious of the way the word “natural” is used to sell products, especially to a certain type of crowd who falls for this stuff. What does “natural” even mean, anyway?

I like these because they are like being barefoot without the pain and discomfort that often comes with it (stubbing toes, icky or sharp things underfoot, etc). I do not think these “five-finger” shoes (as they are called) will replace shoes for me in most circumstances. Apparently people are running in them, hiking, even mountain climbing. Good for them. I want much more support on my feet when I’m doing those things and that is why shoes were invented. Marvellous invention, shoes. Not clear to me shoes are any less “natural” than these are. They’re just different. Like cycling is not “natural”, but is a rather splendid thing humans came up with that I see nothing wrong with on the “natural” vs “non-natural” front.

See also shirts, pants, skirts, etc. Same thing.

But, in short – these are great. I was told by the fellow in the shop that they are becoming hugely popular now, although I am not sure I believe that since I’ve only ever seen one person out there wearing them, and that was a while back. (It is in shoe-sellers’ interest to make these claims.) I got them because I’ve a bit of a heel […] Click to continue reading this post →

Tales From The Industry XXXII: A Matter of Time

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patzcuaro_clocksHere are some clocks I saw at the House of Eleven Courtyards (Casa de los Once Patios) in the historic town called Pátzcuaro (at the aforementioned lake of the same name). It was a convent, and is now a place to go and see lots of arts and crafts in action, as well as buy some. The clocks, housed in copper, mark the entrance to an entire room of copper workmanship in various forms.

The clocks have reminded me to give you an update on something else. Through some of May and June, I did a lot of work for the show The Universe, which airs on the History Channel (as you probably already know from reading here over the years. See here.). There will be, as usual, several topics covered over the upcoming season, and it will be interesting to see how the various filmmakers put together their episodes. It is worth noting that the History Channel have done something remarkable here. This is now the longest run that any cable channel has had for a science show. They built an audience with a solid show, and kept producing good episodes and gathering more (and it is worth saying, an admirably diverse set of) viewers over the years.

In fact, the show has been so successful that they are going to, I predict, pay an […] Click to continue reading this post →

Laserfest Videos

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laser_beamI think I mentioned a while back that as a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Laser, there was a video competition on Physics Central to make a fun video about the Laser. They were put on YouTube (tag is laserfest, I think) and then there was voting at some point (I imagine), and winners were chosen. You can see them here. Congratulations to the winners!

Actually, I think the whole playlist of Laserfest video entries is here, and you can jump through them by clicking the link to the next one in the top right hand area.

Are you aware of Laserfest, by the way? Go and check out the website and join in the celebrations of the Laser!

I should mention that the competition has all meant good news for my work as well. I […] Click to continue reading this post →

Alternative Synopses

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Will is annoyed by the Karate Kid (2010 version, not the 1984 version), not the least because with Jackie Chan involved, you’d be expecting… Kung Fu right? Weren’t we supposed to have stopped confusing the forms back in the 70s or so? People are up in arms about this all over the web it seems. I’ll lay off the whole thing since I’m not an expert in the etymology of the terms anyway, but more to the point I’m just tired of having my childhood memories cynically smacked around by pointless remakes, if the truth be told.

Anyway, to help himself vent, Will wrote some amusing synopses for other remakes Hollywood might do where the details are… modified. Here are a couple I liked: […] Click to continue reading this post →