Steph´s - Hopefully Partly Amazing - Stuff

[StephL]

Ferrofluid is an amazing stuff, I find - watch these, if you want to see it move! This one is really great - with music - by an artist: This one shows how an amazing 3-D self-creating, transient sculpture is done - the fluid moving up on its´own - and along ridges and imperfections: Maybe somebody else likes, what I come across and find amazing - otherwise I also do not despair! wink.gif

[AnotherDreamer]

Hooooly shit. This is incredible I especially love that last one with the 3-D self-forming

[StephL]

Well - finally I have found the one video, which I was looking for with the ferro fluid flow - this is the best in my eyes: I came up with the others on my in vain search for that above one - it really looks alive - like some beautiful and creepy alien "whatever" .. Cool, that the effect, that the balls and connections seemingly live - and rush from here to there - comes from Brownian motion! Something else, I really like - Clint Fulkerson and his art: I have had a phase, where I did quite many of these 3-D seeming clouds of triangles myself - it did relax me - like origami also did for a while - I might dig out a photo of them arranged over a wall of a cabinet - too much action now - searching my camera for it - etc..

[AnotherDreamer]

That Voronoi Nebula mural put a big smile on my face I have had a phase, where I did quite many of these 3-D seeming clouds of triangles myself - it did relax me - like origami also did for a while - I might dig out a photo of them arranged over a wall of a cabinet - too much action now - searching my camera for it - etc.. Me too! the clouds of triangles and the origami. I used to do them both a lot when I was a little kid, and I still draw 3-D seeming clouds of triangles to relax me a little when I'm stressed. I still have a picture that I drew when I was about 7 of this giant egg that was covered in strange triangle patterns.

[StephL]

I found the Arthur C. Clarke documentary on Fractals anotherdreamer - it is really wonderful - but the youtube picture quality is bad - which is a shame with that subject. I post it as second one. The following has it´s little downsides - when they go about advertisement - you just go forwards to 2:35 minutes and that is over. And it is not Clarke doing it - but it also has Mandelbrot himself and many other cool people coming to word - and lots of background. Sharp and good optics - esp. from the middle onwards - that is really a downside with Clarke´s feature´s upload-quality. I learned several new things about fractals, too - in the end there are really amazing new ways to use fractal geometry - in medicine - everywhere. This is the Clarke one: Now I just need a good zoom - something purely optical, with good music.. Any suggestions? Otherwise I´ll edit one in - whenever..

[StephL]

That Voronoi Nebula mural put a big smile on my face Me too! the clouds of triangles and the origami. I used to do them both a lot when I was a little kid, and I still draw 3-D seeming clouds of triangles to relax me a little when I'm stressed. I still have a picture that I drew when I was about 7 of this giant egg that was covered in strange triangle patterns. Noo way!! Really? Was just posting the above without checking for an answer!!

[StephL]

If you happen to have a fondness of the fuzzy zone between art and just beautiful pure mathematics - like I do - I got some stuff there! Paul Nylander´s bugman123 Site On this site - you can enjoy looking at objects and watching animations of both kinds - art and pure maths/physics simulations. There is also included the code, how to set these up on your own pc, if you got "Mathematica" or something similar. Which I do - but I only use(d) it for statistics and regressions. Some stuff for inspiration to check the above site out - I have it bookmarked and rather went on an ad hoc selection - you go explore yourself: Fluid Motion: The below is artwork: A sphere is an elliptic surface with constant positive curvature. A pseudosphere is a hyperbolic surface with constant negative curvature. This pseudosphere is called a Breather. The animation shows how the surface changes from Kuen's surface into a breather with many ribs when the parameter is changed: This Boy’s Surface is a one-sided surface that was first parametrized correctly by Bernard Morin. The animation looks like it’s turning inside-out - although technically that’s impossible because it only has one side: The below animation shows the quantum mechanical probability distribution of an electron as it passes through two narrow slits. The electron itself is much smaller than its probability distribution cloud, which is dispersed over a large area, creating an interference pattern. However, as soon as the electron binds itself to an atom, then its probability distribution cloud will become small again:

[StephL]

I want to recommend a lecture series/book-reading - or the book - title see fattened in the below review from The Guardian. Listening to it is a wonderful way to spend some comfort-time with - and learn the most fascinating things from it. A lot of facts and findings me and my husband have never heard or read of before. He is a great lecturer - Nick Lane - maybe somebody will take a look or listen and be happy about this tip.. I certainly love it - my husband listens to such things about all sorts of topics a lot. Last before the last chapter on death - a chapter on consciousness - very fascinating - also reporting findings from my favourite neurobiologist Wolf Singer. The Guardian, Saturday 20 June 2009 Life began in a world that we would not now recognise. The skies were orange or dusty red, the oceans were certainly not blue, and almost certainly not salt. There would have been no significant land: just a scattering of volcanic peaks pushing above the dark waters that swirled over the whole globe. In the course of 3.8 billion years the atmosphere changed from mostly carbon dioxide and nitrogen to almost entirely nitrogen and oxygen. Around a third of the planet's surface emerged to become the shifting continents. The skies turned blue, and so did the ocean; dry land became dusty dun or red or glacial white or 50 shades of green. Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution by Nick Lane Buy the book The tenant that installed Earth's consumer-friendly air-conditioning system and then redecorated the premises in blue and green was life itself - respiring, greedily consuming, reproducing life - and the utility that delivered both life and the land that it colonised was quite possibly the same one that provided the planet's hot and cold running water: volcanic vents deep in the first ocean. Life's journey from primordial blob to planetary takeover involved a series of dramatic advances that first secured its tenure and then extended its living space. Each of these one-way steps represents a biochemical puzzle that may never be satisfactorily solved, but can at least be explored in convincing detail. In his latest book, Nick Lane has identified 10 of them, including the most profound of all: life's first successful act of self-invention. Charles Darwin famously conjectured that life may have emerged from an accidental soup of organic chemicals trapped in a warm pond, but that particular recipe now sounds improbable. The most likely birthplace for primordial life is now thought to be the fissures in the fresh basalt of the ocean floor through which, for billions of years, have gushed superheated brines rich in hydrogen sulphide and iron. These vents, first discovered little more than three decades ago, girdle the globe. From such cracks in the planet's crust emerged Iceland and St Helena and the islands of the Pacific, and probably all the seven continents as well. They provide the thermodynamic input and the primary raw materials for strange communities of microbes, tubeworms, blind shrimps and clams that flourish far from the sun's reach. Submarine sources of hot, alkaline water may have provided the chemical bricks, the energy and the catalysis for the first molecules of adenosine triphosphate, the universal currency of respiration and energy. These same hydrothermal vents may also have been the cauldrons that cooked up RNA, the molecular dance partner of DNA, the carrier of all life's information. Hydrothermal brines rich in manganese and iron may also have provided the stimulus for a magical piece of biochemical machinery called photosynthesis, on which almost all life now depends. Photosynthesis turns water, sunlight and carbon dioxide into oxygen and green, nourishing tissue: once photosynthesis had begun, the planet could be home to complex cells that would, through billions of years, generate the oxygen to scatter the sunlight and turn the air blue, and establish the ozone layer. Once this ultraviolet shield was in place, microbes could colonise the emerging land. Life itself, DNA and photosynthesis are the first three of Lane's 10 great inventions of evolution. The others are the complex cell, sex, movement, sight, hot blood, consciousness and evolution's trump card, death, the agency that permits more life and more variety. By boldly tackling some of these apparently irreducible complexities, Lane might be accused of having presented the biblical creationists and their fellow-travellers, the proponents of "intelligent design", with 10 handy arguments against Darwinian evolution. But that would be wilfully to misunderstand how science works. Four centuries ago, everything about life's emergence, survival and inheritance was a mystery. Systematic experiment and research have reduced most of the riddles to a smaller number of very precise questions involving biophysics, biochemistry and the ambient conditions 3.8 billion years ago, on a planet still feverish from its brutal birth. So life's sweet mystery has become a series of separate steps. How could a bacterium become the first complex cell, with nucleus and mitochondria? What combination of selective pressure and happy accident introduced sex as a means of reproduction, rather than the once more usual cloning? What happened at the end of the Permian that stimulated so many living things to evolve muscles and move on, rather than just drift with the tides? The first eyes - on fossil evidence so far - saw the light in the Cambrian explosion 540 million years ago, but there is more than one way of making an eye. Trilobites developed lenses of calcite; shrimps, scallops and lobsters use crystals of guanine; mammals exploit crystallins. The photoreceptor common to all sighted things, however, is based on the visual pigment rhodopsin, and evolved just once. This is a science book that doesn't cheat: the structure is logical, the writing is witty, and the hard questions are tackled head on. Lane makes clear distinctions between the science we can be reasonably sure of and reasoning that is only a step or two from conjecture. Homeothermy, or hot-bloodedness, is a relatively late innovation, and clearly confers an advantage in changeable weather; but when did it happen, and how? The costs are high - a short life, driven by hunger - but the rewards include stamina and a big brain, which brings us to evolution's next trick. If consciousness, that strange bundle of reason, memory, language and the emotions, is not a product of evolution, then how did we acquire it? But if it is a product of evolution, the question is the same: how did we acquire it, and how did we then become conscious that we had acquired it? This is the sort of question that could worry you to death. This last evolutionary invention is another terminally perplexing topic. Death pays, so handsomely that some bacteria actually choose suicide. Death may seem a cruel cosmic joke, says Lane, but ageing is mirthless. Medicine can prolong lifespan, but our brain cells are not replaceable, and will fail in the end. Without them, what kind of a life do we think we could have? Edit: I am only in the last third of consciousness by now - will update, if I find something, I want to mention especially. However I mean that by then.

[LouaiB]

Amazing stuff!! keep 'em coming Steph!

[StephL]

thank-you.gif Louai!! Will do from time to time! smile.gif

[StephL]

I want to make it clearer - I came to this evolution "lecture" - which it not primarily is - over my husband - who has the hobby of listening to lectures on all sorts of academic topics - also real lectures with audience. And when it's on something, he thinks I like - also evolution, obviously - I sometimes get one enthusiastically recommended and copied over! What I mean is - maybe a hard-copy would be a better idea, if you are so inclined as to want easy access to it. More or less just saying, it can be listened to in the first place - which was relaxing.

[LouaiB]

I love these evolution theories. I watch a lot of shows about them on the science channel. Definetly gonna buy that book. This science is a very interesting one, i love biology and all its related subject( but i love physics and mathematics equally and i want to go to engineering school in 2015, maybe telecomunication, then hopefully travel to europe the australia).

[AnotherDreamer]

I tend to somewhat obsessively listen to lectures online, so I LOVE that you recommended listening to Nick Lane. I'm listening to this one right now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCpq3ixgfnE Do you know of anymore great lecturers?

[StephL]

As said anotherdreamer - it's my husband who is the expert - which topics are you interested in especially? He has a lot of good stuff - on modern physics really in depths - also history of classical music was great - I listened in a bit. Solar system - all sorts of things. Ancient history. The last was comparative religious studies - he is an agnostic as well - but anyway fascinated - told me bout the Gilgamesh and how modern he finds it.. Yeah - also you other dreamers except anotherone - tell me a topic, if you wish - and I will ask him for it and the lecture-highlights all overall in his eyes! Got something - the Swiss have invented a Reaction Wheel-based 3D Inverted Pendulum - and called it - typically - Cubli:

[StephL]

Oooh - just came to my mind - there is a German bionics company - building the most astonishing things - here a bit of that: The most beautiful robotics I have ever seen - there of course is more - like robotic arms etc. - just check them out further, if you like it! Might edit in a bit more - they are called "smart" for a reason - they can learn after algorithms and if you put them somewhere confined - they fly or swim on their own, without bumping into each other or into things - totally fascinating, I find these creations!!

[StephL]

I tend to somewhat obsessively listen to lectures online, so I LOVE that you recommended listening to Nick Lane. I'm listening to this one right now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCpq3ixgfnE Do you know of anymore great lecturers? Thank you once more - great that you like Nick Lane - very interesting lecture! Bit too specialized maybe for some - but I enjoyed it! I have a little attack planned - soon I will try to argue the case, that like Lane explains on consciousness already - dreams, and later LDs are an evolutionary invention - selected for maybe even already. My husband is not yet convinced of LD being an invention - but I will test run my argumentation some more with him - and even if he keeps up his stubborn stance - thread will come sometime not so far away. The more I think about it - the more sense it makes to me. While being aware that a lot of people will not like the idea for various reasons - it could be immensely important to change the view on LD - in especially to foster and guide and bring it to bloom in children!!

[AnotherDreamer]

As said anotherdreamer - it's my husband who is the expert - which topics are you interested in especially? He has a lot of good stuff - on modern physics really in depths - also history of classical music was great - I listened in a bit. Solar system - all sorts of things. Ancient history. The last was comparative religious studies - he is an agnostic as well - but anyway fascinated - told me bout the Gilgamesh and how modern he finds it.. Yeah - also you other dreamers except anotherone - tell me a topic, if you wish - and I will ask him for it and the lecture-highlights all overall in his eyes! Ancient history, astronomy, all fields of physics, spirituality, biology, chemistry, music, innovative technologies, consciousness, sociology. Those are most of the topics I'm interested in As far as LDing being an invention, I get a sick feeling in my stomach when I think about it. That tells me that part of me thinks that it could be true but another part of me really doesn't want it to be true because it takes some of the magic out of it. But the idea that people evolved LDing is pretty damn magical too, would be really cool if that could be proven but we can't even prove that consciousness is local to the brain so that might be a little bit difficult. I really look forward to seeing your argument for it!

[LouaiB]

well, my argument is that we very well posibly have evolved to become sentience and capable of LDing. So, it is an ''invention''

[OpheliaBlue]

I want a pet AquaJelly naooo

[StephL]

Look at these too - no motor - they run on wind - and roam on their own: I want to have a pair of these:

[StephL]

Ancient history, astronomy, all fields of physics, spirituality, biology, chemistry, music, innovative technologies, consciousness, sociology. Those are most of the topics I'm interested in I'm on the case! smile.gif As far as LDing being an invention, I get a sick feeling in my stomach when I think about it. That tells me that part of me thinks that it could be true but another part of me really doesn't want it to be true because it takes some of the magic out of it. But the idea that people evolved LDing is pretty damn magical too, Oh yes - and if it really was so - we would be only beginning to see the light of what it can do.. would be really cool if that could be proven but we can't even prove that consciousness is local to the brain so that might be a little bit difficult. I really look forward to seeing your argument for it! Na - I think, we can be reasonably sure enough of the brain being the source of mind. Just because one can not finally disprove the opposite - that does not mean there would be any convincing evidence for an independent mind beyond the brain. There are tons of compelling, consistent and convincing evidence for the brain being the source of mind, though - just think about locally occurring disturbances in brain-function causing specific and sophisticated single functions to fall out - or think of the - up to deeply spiritual experiences - you can trigger with drugs - or even with direct stimulation with electrodes in patients being awake during neurosurgery for communication. But yeah - hope I find the vigour needed for that thread! I want a pet AquaJelly naooo How nice that you also love these!! More from the ultra-cute-department: Parapluesch - Psychiatry for Abused Cuddly Toys You have patients there - they are soo sweet - and the game is to heal them. Heartbreaking little stories are to be found out.. The crocodile is the nicest to try first - my husband even "bought the patient" as a present for me a while ago - but he has a mean look on this pic for some unfitting reason: kroko.jpg The sheep is quite tricky, by the way - but there is a book to consult - and a hidden electro-shocker to reset the poor things.. Soo - enjoy, whoever want's to help these little guys - just click on this sofa on the right from the link - choose English or whatever - and good luck! Edit: Thought Croco was easy going - just messed the little guy up big time.. too many drugs - not enough dream-analysis.. One more thing - my most favourite jewellery and other things designers: NERVOUS SYSTEM - OUR VISION We created Nervous System to explore a design approach that relates process and form in a context of interactivity and openness. Our trajectory focuses on generative design methods using both algorithmic and physical tools to create innovative products and environments. Formally we are attracted to complex and unconventional geometries. Our inspirations are grounded in the natural forms and corresponding processes which construct the world around us. From coral aggregations to interference patterns, a study of natural phenomena is an essential ingredient to our design process. To evolve such forms, we systematically engage in generative processes. Instead of designing a specific form, we craft a system whose result is a myriad of distinct creations. These systems are interactive, responding both to changes in specific variables and to physical inputs. There is no definitive, final product, instead the many designs created allow for mass customization. Our studio exploits this possibility by releasing our work online as a series of interactive applets which customers can use to craft their own personalized products. We also release our source code under a creative commons license to encourage others to work in this manner. Our products are designed to be affordably and ethically made. We use manufacturing methods that do not require large facilities or massive manual labor. Often we employ rapid prototyping methods by which all unique pieces can be manufactured at the same cost as cookie cutter ones. We use inexpensive materials and believe that the value of our designs comes from an intelligent and beautiful marriage of form and function, not the current price of currency standards. Hope it's okay to post this? Otherwise maybe just the pictures - oh well - I will edit it so that it is in order, if it is not - and I could understand, if it wasn't.. What is great is - for every theme/algorithm - there is a demo-run, where you can see, how the different patterns emerge and the pieces form themselves - here a link to a new algorithm since last I looked - watch the video - it's really cool: Nervous System | Kinematics Xylems: Hyphen: Cell cycle I want all of it!!! Their whole company actually - sort of ...rolleyes.gif

[LouaiB]

Nice peices of jewelry! But, there are farmore beautiful ones(but what do I know, I'm just a guy)

[StephL]

Weell Luoai - I like it a lot because of the way it is made - but I'd love to have some 3D prints, which are just for decoration too. While searching for my already posted pictures of such objects - I have decided to pack two posts over here from miscellaneous pictures - but there was another thread, where I put in my view "look-worthy" pics - got to go search for that one again.. But first this video I found some days back: It is really very interesting - a lot about mirror neurons and some really amazing experiments and lots of facts on what science got to say about the mind. This seems to be number 3 of a series - but I couldn't find the other two - or more - of them. So - me shamelessly (almost..) reposting some of my favourite pictures - with some of said sculptures: 3D printed art by Torolf Sauermann: 'Touch Me' 8-fold Klein bottle Some bio-beauties: Isolated blood vessels of the cochlea in the inner ear A "ping-pong-tree-sponge" living in the deep sea Red blood cells and one white one - Diatom - Functional depiction of pathways in the brain Electron microscopic picture of ??? "Fingersleeper" Jupiter´s great red spot (enhanced) Surface of the sun (NASA I think..) Algorithm generated - mathematical fire Fractalish stuff: Posthornwhirligig by Pharmagician Meltingpoint by Fractaldesire Golf player high-speed cam - fractal! by NichtLustig (NotFunny)

[kadie]

I LOVE this thread Steph. I was trying to find some kind of image or video that replicates what AP is to me and stumbled upon fractals. I have been watching videos for the most of 24 hours ( give or take a few hours...hehe) well for several hours anyway then decided to search DV for "fractals" hoping to findoutmore. i love this! thanks

[StephL]

Thank you kadie!! flowers (1).gif Makes me happy, when I can share such things with other at least partly amazed people! And - forgot - will come up with more lectures anotherdreamer - remind me if necessary!