Projo Subterranean Homepage News

11 fans greet Colts on return to Indy

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:05:03 -0500

The Indianapolis Star reports (A few fans brave cold to welcome Colts),

The end of the Indianapolis Colts' season came down to 11 people.
Not the 11 players on the field during the Super Bowl, but the 11 who showed up at Indianapolis International Airport on a cold, snowbound Monday afternoon, when the team returned after its 31-17 defeat Sunday by the New Orleans Saints in Super Bowl XLIV in South Florida.

"Win or lose, they're still our team," said Karen Calhoun, Brownsburg, who carried a "Where's the parade?" sign...

Even this rabid Patriots fan can feel a little bad for them.

The Star's Colts pages are a saga of misery, woe, and hubris.

The Who at the Super Bowl: Video in 2 parts

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:29:01 -0500

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6Io05fTLSg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCqgtb3Nby4

They seemed to get better after they warmed up, like the Saints.

1906 San Francisco traffic video, shot from the front of a streetcar

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 16:07:25 -0500

San Francisco in 1906.

My brother sent a link to this historical footage, writing, "Things like this fascinate me." Me too. It's Market Street in San Francisco as filmed from the front of a streetcar a few days before the 1906 earthquake. (The four-points button under the "You" in YouTube at the bottom of the video will display it full-screen.)

Traffic is willy-nilly -- horse-drawn wagons and open automobiles, bicycles and pedestrians all cross paths at random angles, scurrying over cobblestones and tracks, often just ahead of an oncoming streetcar. A newspaper seller works the strip between the parallel sets of tracks in the center of the wide street. Knots of people wait for streetcars at trackside in the cars' part of the road, forcing oncoming autos to hang a left onto the tracks.

Text on the video's Flixxy page notes that,

This film, originally thought to be from 1905 until David Kiehn with the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum figured out exactly when it was shot. From New York trade papers announcing the film showing to the wet streets from recent heavy rainfall & shadows indicating time of year & actual weather and conditions on historical record, even when the cars were registered (he even knows who owned them and when the plates were issued!).. It was filmed only four days before the quake and shipped by train to NY for processing.

Film historian William M. Drew writes (California's first narrative film),

"A Trip Down Market Street," shot in April of 1906 with the camera mounted on a trolley car, used one continuous take in a full reel of film to provide a vivid depiction of San Francisco's bustling thoroughfare. Historian David Kiehn, who identified the film as a Miles Brothers production, also discovered through his research that Harry Miles put his technical ingenuity to good effect by equipping the camera with a thousand foot magazine capable of shooting the entire journey down the long street without need of reloading...
...on April 18, 1906, just four days after the brothers had shot their Market Street film, the studio, along with all its plans and even photographs of the building, went up in flames during the cataclysm that devastated the entire city. Despite their own terrible loss, the Miles Brothers were on the spot, racing across San Francisco and the Bay Area to chronicle the dramatic events with their movie cameras for a film that played around the nation, bringing widespread recognition to the brothers for their heroic endeavors and their skill as documentarians.
The music behind the silent footage is "La Femme D'Argent" from the Moon Safari album by Air which that Amazon page describes as "a superlatively happy collection of experimental disco-mood sound nestled between ambient soundscape and breathy pop."

Wild music, public art: Birds on electric guitar

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:42:39 -0500

40 wild birds play a Gibson Les Paul guitar. Here's the installation, which the BBC thinks is "very Marcel Duchamp, the French artist who started the conceptual art ball rolling nearly a hundred years ago. "

YouTube - Céleste Boursier-Mougenot at Barbican Centre, London

For his installation in The Curve, Boursier-Mougenot creates a walk-though aviary for a flock of zebra finches, furnished with electric guitars and other musical instruments. As the birds go about their routine activities, perching on or feeding from the various pieces of equipment, they create a captivating, live soundscape.

The birds do not seem startled by the sounds they make on the strings.

A Soundblog review after an indoor exhibit of the birds in 2008 dwelled on the constricted setting, perhaps driving Mr. Boursier-Mougenot outdoors this time, from Feb. 27- May 23 at The Curve, Barbican, London.

The artist is also exhibiting in New York this month: harmonichaos at the Paula Cooper Gallery

consists of vacuum cleaners outfitted with harmonicas, lights and sound-frequency analyzers. As the vacuums turn on and off, the harmonicas fill the darkened space with sound. The installation will make use of architectural space to explore the viewer's relationship to sound and sculptural objects.

This runs Feb. 19 - March 17, overlapping the birds.

Another reason to dislike the Colts: Bad Super Bowl party food

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 09:34:04 -0500

Breaded and deep-fried pork tenderloin sandwich is a Hoosier specialty.

For Patriots fans, it's a lackluster Super Bowl. The best we can do is root for the Saints.

But while oyster po' boys aren't our idea of easy munchies, we'd never eat that monstrosity above, beloved though it may be in restaurants throughout Indiana. If you must, there are Breaded Pork Tenderloin Sandwich Tutorials illustrating a recipe made from these ingredients.

1 pork tenderloin (about 20-24 oz.)
4 sandwich buns or kaiser rolls

1 gallon canola oil if deep fat frying

1 quart buttermilk for the marinade

2 whole eggs for the marinade (optional)

1/4 cup of white flour for the marinade

Pinch of salt and black or white pepper for the marinade

1 tablespoon dry mustard for the marinade

1 or 2 cloves of freshly chopped garlic for the marinade

Pinch of Emeril's Original Essence seasoning or Cayenne for punch for the marinade

1 package of Japanese bread crumbs for the breading (or Saltine crackers)

1/4 cup yellow corn meal for the breading (optional)

Sliced tomato, sliced onion, lettuce, mustard, mayo, and pickle condiments to suit

We're thinking crab cakes and BLTs at our house Sunday.

'State of the Internet': Who's here, how fast

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:36:27 -0500

Key statistic: U.S. Internet speeds are really slow.

The State of the Internet. from Focus Research. Data is presented with colorful, easy-to-digest graphics.

Here we take a look at exactly who is using the Internet the most, how they are using it and how much the amount of usage is increasing. At a glance, we can see that there are the same number of men and women who use the Internet. However, their age, educational background and level of income may influence how much time they spend online.

Live TV Web cam on a nesting Va. bald eagle, egg

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:02:40 -0500

Eagle Cam by WVEC.com documents bald eagles nesting at the Norfolk, Va. Botanical Garden.

First egg laid Sunday, Jan. 31

It's quite amazing, TV-quality. When I first came on it, the lens was zoomed up close; it has since pulled back to show the nest, quite high up in a tree.

Today, only mom was in the nest while I watched. "Bald Eagles typically lay a clutch of two eggs although nests of one or even three eggs occur as well. In fact this pair has a history of three egg clutches. The eggs are typically laid over a period of 3-6 days," writes a state wildlife biologist in a blog about Eagle Cam.

The color camera switches to black and white at night with an infrared illuminator. A chat runs along the right side of the live video, and informed people are often there quelling rumors and answering questions in a relaxed, low-key way.

The photo is a screen capture I made from the stream late this afternoon, cropped but not enlarged.

Drawing a woman from the inside out

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:40:24 -0500

It's gotten 20 million pageviews and more than 15,000 comments since it was posted in 2005 to a Russian Flash drawing site.

How to "draw a woman from the inside out" starts with a skeleton:

You see -- and can pause to examine -- every line the artist, identified only as gg, drew or erased to clothe that framework with flesh, skin and, finally, clothing:

The top image is linked to the Flash page, the bottom one to the image in context, with comments, via Google translate.

Hat tip to my daughter for passing this one on. (She gave me the hat, too.)

Digital painting by an artist whose day job is game developer

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 08:42:48 -0500

Daniel Lieske, The Journey Begins, 2006. (enlarge).

"The image was created in 2006 for the 19th CG Challenge 'The Journey Begins' on CGSociety.org and it eventually won the second prize in this competition," Lieske write on a page entirely devoted to the making of this work.

The eminently browsable site of Daniel Lieske also includes a retrospective gallery that's interesting especially for the evolution of a comic-book style into more finely detailed and rendered work.

...is a Digital Artist located in the small town of Warendorf, Germany. Born and raised at the Teutoburger Forest, he holds lots of childhood memories of adventures in the woods. His passion for trees and nature themes is visible through his artwork and still keeps to inspire him. Daniel started to work in game development in 1999 and today works as a Concept Artist for a big german game studio.
Bio from his commercial portfolio at Digital Decoy

The self-portrait above is from his blog.

Transcript and video of Obama's Q&A with House GOP members

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:11:21 -0500

President Obama's Speech at the House Republican retreat in Baltimore.: Bigger video.

If you'd rather read it, there's a transcript at WaPo. And a story: Obama talks to House Republicans in rare, televised debate in Baltimore.

Our government talks amongst itself as we watch.

How (long) to boil an egg: An interactive YouTube egg timer

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 23:35:18 -0500

Egg Watchers: the egg timer that entertains you. Interactive, simple and Webby, with YouTube entertainment while you wait. It's perfect for folks who just want their egg to work without having to think about it.

You may choose timing for a cold egg, a large or small egg, a firm or runny or squidgy egg. You must decide for yourself what "squidgy" means to you. Depending on your answers, the time measured from when you drop your egg in boiling water will vary, as will the length of the YouTube animation that will time it for you.

End of movie, egg is cooked. It's remedial without being condescending.

'Word cloud' of Obama's State of the Union speech

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 07:01:57 -0500

Jason Putorti of Novaurora.Blog made a "word cloud" from President Obama's State of the Union speech last night: The most frequent spoken words -- excluding articles and pronouns, and other lightweights -- are weighted to appear more prominent in the display.

Tuesday night, R.I. Gov. Donald Carcieri gave his final State of the State address, and my colleague Tim Barmann generated a word cloud for that one -- and of all seven previous ones by the term-limited Republican.

If you'd like to make your own word cloud, Wordle describes itself as "a toy for generating 'word clouds' from text that you provide." The resulting clouds look like Putorti's.

Police whistleblower Serpico, 38 years later: no regrets

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 01:33:43 -0500

NYT video: Watching Serpico with Serpico. Frank Serpico watches Al Pacino play him on a reporter's laptop.

This is the man whose long and loud complaining about widespread corruption in the New York Police Department made him a pariah on the force. The patrolman shot in the face during a 1971 drug bust while screaming for backup from his fellow officers, who then failed to immediately call for an ambulance. The undaunted whistle-blower whose testimony was the centerpiece of the Knapp Commission hearings, which sparked the biggest shakeup in the history of the department.

Good read: Frank Serpico, Police Officer Played by Al Pacino, Looks Back, but the video above, of his life now in upstate New York and his realtime comments as he watches the 1973 movie (trailer), is even better.

"I had gone through a near-death experience," he explained, "and that gives you an insight into how fleeting life is, and what's important."
After he settled here, his journey turned inward. He eschewed what he sees as an ugly American addiction to consumerism and media brainwashing. He eats mostly vegetarian and organic food, cooking on the wood-burning stove that heats the cabin, where there is neither television nor the Internet. "This is my life now," he said. "The woods, nature, solitude."

Mr. Serpico relies on Chinese medicine, herbs and shiatsu. He practices meditation, the Japanese Zen flute and African drumming, and dance: ballroom, tango, swing. He takes long walks at sunrise and rescues wounded animals. He raises chickens and guinea hens. He has a girlfriend: she is French, a schoolteacher, age 50.

None of which has exorcised the demons of being Serpico.

The story makes him sound bitter, but the terrific video of this soft-spoken man doesn't convey exactly that. He was shunned ("Not one of New York's 39,000 (police officers) showed up to give me blood") but concludes, "I've taken my knocks but i feel I'm a better person for it... You have to go up against the odds to do the right thing. I certainly don't have any regrets," he says.

Eye candy: When astronomy looks like biology

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 21:12:08 -0500

NASA via AP
The Cartwheel galaxy as seen by the Galaxy Evolution Explorer's Far Ultraviolet detector, the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory

On a far smaller scale, that form is a jellyfish. And the branching of vegetation and capillaries happens in a massive nebula too.

The Crab Nebula, from Chandra.

More Pictures of the year 2009: space images at the Telegraph.

Jazz, cuban sandwiches and black bean soup

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 22:50:50 -0500

roio » Blog Archive » THE AACM - UMBRIA JAZZ 2009: PROGRAMME 4

Programme 4 starts with Ann Ward's piano piece, Promises, which will lull the unwary into thinking that this is just another stroll in the park. But be prepared for another hour of challenging music that will leave you breathless.

After a lot of football that walk in the park sounds just fine.

Cuban sandwiches, black bean soup auditioned at our family get-together today for Super Bowl consideration, both are finalists. We roasted a 5-lb.pork shoulder in a 325 oven, marinated and basted by a slurry of garlic, onions, oregano and sour Seville orange juice sauteed in olive oil. The sandwiches -- pork slices, ham, Swiss cheese and bread-and-butter pickles on French bread, pressed and grilled in a frying pan -- were sublime, more than the sum of the parts.

We doubled the bean soup recipe to have leftovers and doggy bags, and used half a mild dried ancho chile, with seeds, instead of jalepeno in deference to those who don't appreciate hot-spicy.

The pure energy of the jazz and the elegant simple food are fine together.