Over at Crabfu SteamWorks an artist named I-Wei Huang is showing off some really fantastic and amazing steam powered model vehicles. He has created walkers, tanks, 4×4 trucks, 6 wheel rovers and more very cool stuff. I have always been fascinated by the basic nature of steam engines. You can make a fire, and it will move your vehicle. I also love the sounds, the deep throaty CHUFF of a really big old steam tractor.
My son drew this cool alien. Apparently he has a hard shiny exoskeleton similar to metal.
His kind is very good at bio-engineering (the alien, not my son.)
I recently learned some fun facts about Niagara falls that I had not known. First of all, as amazing as it appears now, apparently the current flow of water over the falls is a mere fraction of what was witnessed by the first europeans to discover the falls. Between 50% and 75% of the flow is now diverted through huge tunnels to hyrdoelectric plants. Second, the falls are slowing moving upriver due to erosion. They used to recede an average of 3 ft per year until the major diversion was done in the 1950’s to produce electricity. They now recede around 1 ft per ten years. Learn more at Wikipedia.
Space now “too awesome” for space-art realists
Snip from an L.A. Times article about new challenges faced by artists whose chosen theme is space. What do representational artists do when science-reality becomes more exotic than science-fiction? Some respond by making art that is less representational:
Even space artists, who have spent their careers imagining the universe, reel at the photos of boulders on Saturn’s moon Titan or star clusters 270 million light-years from Earth. Reality, [astronomical artist Don] Dixon said with a sigh, has gotten too awesome. “NASA has overtaken us.”
Just as the development of photographic cameras in the 19th century set fine artists on the road to abstraction, new astronomical technologies are shaking the world of space art, spurring space artists to seek out new subjects and experiment with new styles.
For decades, the field was dominated by the “rock and ball” school, named after the traditional space-art approach of meticulously drawing every detail science can glean about a place — the shape of craters, the angle of light, the hue of the sky, the position of stars. Now a new school is rising, synthesizing the awesomeness of space with modern art genres. Some have dubbed the school “cosmic expressionism” or simply the “swirly” school, after the swirling sky in Vincent van Gogh’s “Starry Night.”
This afternoon something black and white moving under a tree caught my eye out the window. I grabbed the binoculars and immediately identified three small skunks exploring an area near the back of the yard. I live in a small town (5600) but I am not used to seeing skunks in town, and I have no experience with them on a first hand basis. Seemed like I should let someone know about this… but who.
I tried a neighbor (who happens to be a wildlife educator also), but they weren’t home. I tried the humane society to see if they had someone who took care of these things, no one was home. After seeing the neighbors cat come to explore these new visitors, it really seemed like I should tell someone about this. I eventually gave in and called the local police. I guess I must have been naively thinking they would rush out some highly trained professional with just the right gear and equipment to safely trap and relocate these poor little critters to some beautiful baby skunk relocation park, or something. The person who answered the phone didn’t know and called the “officer on duty”. He came on and said he understood I had a rodent problem. Yes, three young skunks. His answer, “We don’t pick up dead animals”. Confused, I answer, “they are not dead animals, they are exploring my yard”. His answer, ” well… I mean…. if they become dead animals…we can’t pick them up”. Um that wasn’t actually what I had in mind. “become dead”, like some kid telling his parents…”well I was just playing with it…and it became dead”. He went on to say something to the effect that I could get permission to shoot them if I had a rifle. I don’t. and didn’t want to. There was nothing more to say. Later we saw a back neighbor out in his yard with what I hope was a pellet gun, but I don’t think he got them. I am only sorry I didn’t get close enough for a good picture of them, maybe tomorrow….
