chaoticutopia | July 25, 2007If you’re somewhere in the Denver metro area tonight, consider dropping by the Tattered Cover in Lodo to hear my fellow ScienceBlogger Chris Mooney discuss his new book, Storm World. I’ll be there, sipping a cup of mocha and pondering the future of our climate. The festivities begin at 7:30pm. I hope you can join us!
chaoticutopia | July 21, 2007If we look at the natural world around us, fractals abound. Sometimes, not. This is the greatest puzzle to me... not that fractals appear in nature, but the fact that not everything is a fractal. Working on this week’s layered set (which took a while, mostly due to unrelated circumstances) I found myself questioning that inconsistency.
As I try to imitate some iterative, aperiodic pattern with my computer, I often find myself layering one fractal on top of another, to match the foreground and background (i.e., tree and sky, or clouds and land.) Sometimes, I’ll use more than a couple. This…
chaoticutopia | July 20, 2007Is there hope for our children’s education? Last week, I questioned the direction our public schools were heading, expressing quite a bit of frustration. Yet, while I’ve been frustrated, along with many others (judging by the response to that post) we might be missing a possible solution, sitting right under our noses:
The computer.
Depending on who you talk to, the computer may represent the best or the worst of our futures. In a child’s hand, the computer can be a distraction or a frustration... or it can be a source of fun and knowledge. It is up to us, as parents and teachers, to show our…
chaoticutopia | July 17, 2007This song has always brought tears to my eyes. It discussed events that occurred before I was born, but which triggered changes that have been unfolding since, throughout all of our lifetimes. Now, this video has filled in all the holes in my contextual understanding, and made me more emotional about "the Day the Music Died" than ever:
But perhaps the most disturbing discovery was not in the video, but in the comments on YouTube. Most were quite complimentary. A few others questioned the veracity of the chosen images. But this one just about killed me:
i always thght it was a maddona song…
chaoticutopia | July 16, 2007ScienceBloggers get on some strange topics of conversation, sometimes. Recently, we were discussing bizzarre road signs. Take my favorite, for instance:
Who makes Colorado boring? You! Thanks...
Actually, who could call Colorado a boring place, when there are assassination attempts being made on our Governor?
chaoticutopia | July 13, 2007I sometimes wonder if people who are unfamiliar with science are afraid to learn about it. It seems ridiculous, on the surface--"I don’t know much about science, so I’m not capable of learning about it"--but I suspect it is a common attitude. (It’s even worse when it comes to philosophy, but I’ll get to that later.) Why are people afraid to learn science? I used to feel that way, and I love the subject. I spent 10 years thinking I shouldn’t go to college because I wasn’t prepared.
That misconception started with my math education. I gave up on math back in high school, in the middle of…
chaoticutopia | July 13, 2007I’ve never liked the taste of cream in my coffee, but I like to watch the way it swirls as you add it in. Such elegant forms appear when you add one liquid to another, especially when they are contrasting colors. It seems like the viscosity of the cream adds more complexity to the patterns than milk. Since the cream is poured in at a slightly different rate, or in a slightly different position each time, the patterns are always unique. Consistant in shape, but inevitably varied... you guessed it, I see fractals in my coffee.
Here’s a Julia set that has been modified with artificial symmetry…
chaoticutopia | July 12, 2007Omnibrain started it, and now everyone is making their own Simpsons avatar. Mine found its way into the bar:
You can make your own (and catch a beer with Homer) at the official Simpsons Movie site.
My son has been asking if I’ll take him to see the movie. Earlier this week, I was letting him watch Tom & Jerry cartoons on Youtube, when he found this clip from the Simpsons, and asked me if it was ok to watch:
I’ve watched plenty of episodes, but I hadn’t seen that one. So, I said, "sure, you can. Can I sit in your chair and watch too?"
So, thanks to both Omnibrain and my son! Oh, yes,…
chaoticutopia | July 11, 2007Having a cold sucks. (After being sick for the past week, I feel I can say that with some confidence.) While they usually don’t kill us, a cold can make us feel miserable enough that we wouldn’t wish it on anyone else. So why do we? I’m not saying we wish it on others, but we happily pass it along. You know, we’ll grab that wadded up hanky out of our pocket, sneeze into it, smearing bacteria, viruses, and filth around our palms, then stuff it back into the pocket. Then we take the same hand, and press it against others in greetings, use it to bring food to our mouths, open doors, pick up…
chaoticutopia | July 6, 2007After talking about eagles yesterday and mimicking parrot plumage last week, I decided to stick with a feathery theme for this week’s fractal. To color this layered fractal set, I pulled the hues from the tail of a red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) and a few shades from a cloudy sky. Then, I wove them together to create this:
A Fractal Dreamcatcher
I must confess, I think I’m coming down with a cold, so I’m going to leave this fractal as it is, without any explanation. Instead, I’m about to curl up on the couch and try to catch a few dreams of my own.
All fractals made by the author using…
chaoticutopia | July 5, 2007You’ve probably heard that the Bald Eagle was removed from the endangered species list this week. The announcement was rather timely, allowing the media to paste patriotic eagle pictures all over the place around the Fourth of July. It also came not too long after Rachel Carson’s 100th birthday. Carson, author of Silent Spring, was the driving force in saving the eagles, when she showed how pesticides were responsible for thinning raptor eggshells. She passed away several years after Silent Spring was published, so she couldn’t see the eagle’s victorious recovery. Should we be celebrating in…
chaoticutopia | July 4, 2007Finally, our fourth and final Independence day treat--Make your own fireworks!
This fun little flash tool from Fireworks.com lets you create your own fireworks display, with your choice of backdrop. There are a number of city skylines available, including Denver, New York, and San Francisco, as well as some fun sights like the Egyptian pyramids. So, if you live in an area where fireworks aren’t allowed, or just want to blow things up online, then click away!
chaoticutopia | July 4, 2007I couldn’t go through a series of 4th of July fun without including a little science education. I must admit, I don’t remember a whole lot of my high school chemistry class. (I remember the chemistry, bonding and whatnot, so it couldn’t have been a total loss.) But... the day we got to play with fire is a clear memory. No, I wasn’t a budding pyromaniac. I was just fascinated that different chemicals could produce different colors of flame.
Nova is refreshing my happy memories with a periodic table of pyrotechnic elements. While this interactive table doesn’t actually let you set anything on…
chaoticutopia | July 4, 2007We declared independence, formed a country, and have been celebrating on the fourth ever since. Here is the second in our series of Fourth of July treats, a glimpse back to the early 20th century, with, yep, you guessed it, pictures by Charles S. Lillybridge:
About 100 years ago today, City Park in Denver was shrouded in flags:
Folks came out to picnic, bringing little flags and box lunches:
Everyone, including, happy babies and grumpy old men:
Charles S. Lillybridge often brought this patriotic fervor to his own studio, along the banks of the Archer canal and the Platte river. Girls would…
chaoticutopia | July 4, 2007Who went and put a holiday in the middle of the week? Here it is Wednesday, and instead of work, we have a day off, BBQ, and pyrotecnics... I guess I won’t complain.
I figure most of the local wildlife is hiding from the sounds of explosives, so I’ll skip photography for the time being. Instead, there’s so much fun stuff to play with. So, without further ado, here is the first of four fun goodies for the fourth.
Check out the paper that started it all:
The Declaration of Independence
Hear it in the fashionable 21st century way, via podcast,
Or sign your name alongside our forefathers, and…
chaoticutopia | June 29, 2007Fractals must lend themselves well to feathery forms. Last time, I used a Mandelbrot set to mimic the soft leaves of the Yarrow plant. Here, I decided to use the same Mandelbrot set to create feathery forms of a different sort:
These varying shades of gray were borrowed not from a plant, but from one of our most intelligent feathered friends:
A close-up view of the feathers under the eye of an African Gray parrot (Psittacus erithacus). Photo by Martin Richard.
What a marvelous creature the African Gray is--not only can it posses an extensive vocabulary, but it displays beautiful…
chaoticutopia | June 28, 2007Ice cream soda, lemonade, milkshakes, lunch, cigars and tobacco:
A summertime park picture by Charles S. Lillybridge
Summer at the park in Denver was a little different 100 years ago. I'll never understand how they beat the heat in those long sleeves and skirts. We certainly can't blame them for hanging around the Ice Cold Drink Stand.While I'd probably pass on the cigars, an ice cold lemonade would be wonderful right about now. Unfortunately, you only find these sorts of stands in theme parks anymore. Between the admission price, obligatory souvenirs, and the overpriced drink itself, you…
chaoticutopia | June 27, 2007I usually try to stick to PG topics around here, and try to include a picture in every post. Well, I'm about to break both of those rules. Actually, I had plans to write about beavers this week... but this (coincidentally?) came up instead. ScienceBlogs has gone a-buzz over bikini waxing, since Tara wrote about a young woman who suffered painful complications and infections after a "Brazilian" wax. Her post and the article she cites are not for the squeamish, so beware before you click the link, or continue below.
To make a long story short, this young lady had a bikini wax, and later…
chaoticutopia | June 26, 2007I sent this petroglyph photograph to SmartGirlsRock for my recent interview, despite the fact that I've never posted it on my site. There is a bit of background story to it. My mom, who teaches high school anthropology, has always been a big fan of ancient rock art. A few summers ago, we drove cross country to California, and stopped in Utah to check out a few carvings along the way. While we were there, I found a lizard warming himself on a rock, not too far from a rock covered in petroglyphs. The clearest picture on the rock was a lizard. I was delighted to find prehistory repeating. This…
chaoticutopia | June 26, 2007It isn't hard to spot the aphids in this picture:
Aphids feasting on a maple leaf.
But, we aren't the only ones checking them out:
The aphids are spotted. So is the lady beetle.
(Two-spotted Lady Beetle, aka Adalia bipuncta).
In a matter of minutes, the lady beetle devours half of the aphids.
If the lady beetle is lucky, it will keep on eating aphids. There are plenty more on other leaves in the tree. Of course, it is not alone. There are other lady beetles around, as well. There are also eggs and larvae, promising new swarms to come. They aren't exactly free to take over the tree…