Tactile Drawing Invention

James Gurney, artist and illustrator of the 'Dinotopia' books, has posted about a great, although simple little invention: The Lensen Tactile Drawing Kit.
I was fascinated and thought how useful this could be for the sight impaired.

As the pen is pulled over the page, a spindle unwinds wool which is drawn out and sticks itself to the velcro surface.  This creates a tactile drawing that is 'feelable' to those who don't see well.  The uses are numerous and beyond just art.  For example, as shown on the video clip, cursive writing can be created,  geometry shapes and other maths too.

And it's just made of wood!

  Video link

Here is the link to their 'Start some Good' crowdfunding page.
There are only nine days to go for them to reach their target.

Time-Lapse - Google Street View.

I can waste hours on Google maps.  I love to travel along French roads, soar over the Australian outback, 'climb' mountains in Patagonia or amble along London streets.

Here at last is the result of someone's long hours compressed, so I can enjoy it quicker!


Google Street View Hyperlapse from Teehan+Lax Labs on Vimeo.

Thanks  for the link Flatattack

Oh Lawdy! Grandmother looks at 3-D Game

This is what I am like already!  What will I be like (and what wonders will I be seeing!?) when I am 90?



A Comment off YouTube:
This woman is my mother, and believe me, she has been young as long as I have been alive. Until last year she drove a red mustang convertible and got pulled over a lot for speeding. She would always tell the officer,"Really? Do I look like somone who would drive that fast? I think your radar is broken." Most of the time she got away with it...I love my mom. I'm glad so many people loved the video.

Note:  This video has, as of today, been viewed more than 1.5 million times.  It was posted 10 days ago.

Mathematics

When I was a kid, I was scared of maths.  To use a metaphor, it was a mysterious dark lake with a couple of bloated bodies, dead sticks, decomposing leaves, and lurid green duckweed* floating on the surface.
My teachers would smile excitedly at the beginning of each new type of maths, sit me on the ducking stool and and entice me under the surface with happily familiar words, teasingly offered bait, like 'triangle' and 'x' and 'origin'. But below the surface these words were appended to really scary new words like 'cosine' and 'calculus' and 'vector'.

When I got to university, carefully choosing geography, zoology and psychology for their presumed total lack of maths content (having gained a dismal 24% on my university bursary mathematics paper), I was confronted with not one term each year of the dreaded Statistics, but three!

But there is a happy ending to this story.  The patient support of my tutors and thrice repeating the same information each year was all I needed.  By the end of my fourth year, and four times three equals twelve terms of stats, I was top of my class and swimming joyfully in the crystal clear, albeit refreshingly icy, lake of maths.

Of course I have forgotten ninety percent (plus or minus three standard deviations) of all the stats I ever knew, but I am now completely unalarmed by it.

I have recently stumbled upon a short vid clip that echoes my feelings towards maths these days. So, I invite you to sit back, get a warm beverage of your choice, have the sound on, smile and plunge in, clicking on the clip below.  Be not afraid.  It's pretty.




* Lemnoideae spp.

Are You Mad?

When I was about 13, being a child prodigy, I invented the ink blot test long before Rorscharch thought of it. I made some symmetrical prints and surreptitiously tested my family's sanity  because I had some leftover tubes of watercolour paint and they just looked pretty.

I recently discovered them again.  Here they are, as much for my personal record as for anyone's viewing pleasure.  Although I hope you do enjoy them, on some deeply disturbed level.

PS. I have numbered them, in case you have some reaction to any/some and cannot restrain yourself from sharing it in the comments.

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The Night Watch Reenactment

Here's a post for Ben and Renée, since Amy Walker didn't do a Dutch Accent.




For those unfamiliar with it, here's the original of Rembrandt's humungeous military portrait commonly known as 'Der Nacht Wacht' ('Night Watch').
It is very dark due to the varnish, and was apparently probably not intended as a night scene at all.

Rembrandt van Rijn. 1642.  
(363 cm × 437 cm (11.91 ft × 14.34 ft))
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Watch

Being Happy 2

Have you a set of those fridge magnets that consist of itty-bitty words that you can put together?
We do.
It seems to take very little effort to make poetry-of-a-kind.*  Sort of like colour-by-number paintings, only not quite.  Because unlike colour-by-number paintings, the finished product takes shape much more spontaneously, which is odd, considering there are only about 200 words one can use.

Anyhoo, somehow, quite pleasing verse can be composed by the most unlikely guests, seemingly painlessly, possibly because there are a limited number of words, and therefore necessity is the mother of invention.

The only problem is, because of the lack of joining words, the results are treacly-thick with adjectives and whey-thin on verbs.

But, and this is the most important thing, it makes me happy!

Fridge poem.  By Me.

Improved version:

Colour is My Inspiration

Be it
Floating cherry haze in spring, or
Golden dusk: autumn orchard shimmers as
A dark ruby sunburst spear ignites a plum.

See the
Orange ginger exotic idol shine against a
Dusty indigo empire army uniform,
or that
Ghostly cream feather float down in a sultry jungle night.

Above
An ebony lunar eclipse poised amid ethereal cloud's veil,
or there
Silent turquoise skyline silhouette
And
Bright violet moonlight cloaks a chill northern night.

In the garden a feisty crimson silken dragon lily glows.

In the forest a tender moss froths the plummeting waterfall.

Colour, pray absolve, dissolve me.
Delight my soul.
Carry my intoxicated spirit.

Dusk from the front garden, one evening last week.

* Probably wouldn't win any literarary∞ competitions...
∞ literarary is one of those words that's easy to say, but difficult to stop.  Like cinnaninnamon.


Today's post is inspired by Jay of the Depp Effect.