Quadrotors designed and built at the University of Pennsylvania perform the James Bond Theme by playing various instruments including the keyboard, drums and maracas, a cymbal, and the debut of an adapted guitar built from a couch frame ... These flying quadrotors are completely autonomous, meaning humans are not controlling them; rather they are controlled by a computer programed with instructions to play the instruments.
An Expedition 30 crew member aboard the International Space Station took this nighttime photograph of much of the Atlantic coast of the United States. Large metropolitan areas and other easily recognizable sites from the Virginia/Maryland/Washington, D.C. area are visible in the image that spans almost to Rhode Island. Boston is just out of frame at right. Long Island and the New York City area are visible in the lower right quadrant. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are near the center. Parts of two Russian vehicles parked at the orbital outpost are seen in left foreground.
How many? We don’t know. Our best guess is five million to six million prints and contact sheets (each sheet, of course, representing many discrete images) and 300,000 sacks of negatives, ranging in format size from 35 millimeter to 5 by 7 inches — at least 10 million frames in all. The picture archive also includes 13,500 DVDs, each storing about 4.7 gigabytes worth of imagery. When the Museum of Modern Art set out to exhibit the highlights of the Times archive in 1996, it dispatched four curators. They spent nine months poring over 3,000 subjects, working with two Times editors, one of whom spent a year on the project. In the end, they estimated that they’d seen only one-quarter of the total. If we posted 10 new archival pictures every weekday on Tumblr, just from our print collection, we wouldn’t have the whole thing online until the year 3935. That’s a bit too ambitious. Instead, we’ll be dipping in and publishing several photographs each week, some of which will be available for purchase and some of which will be accompanied by a more extensive back story posted on the Lens blog. As we do so, we’ll gradually digitize at least the tip of the iceberg of this enormous trove, guaranteeing its continued utility and accessibility in the future ...Toll auch, dass man per Klick auf die Fotos deren Rückseite einblenden kann, die mit Anmerkungen, Notizen und Datum versehen sind. Alles in allem ein prima Projekt – auch wenn ich eine Lösung wie das Google gehostete LIFE Foto-Archiv besser gefunden hätte.
"Der Grund, weshalb organisierte Religion offene Feindschaft verdient, ist, dass Religion, anders als der Glaube an Russells Teekanne, mächtig, einflussreich und steuerbefreit ist und systematisch an Kinder weitergegeben wird, die zu jung sind, sich dagegen zu wehren. Kinder sind nicht gezwungen, ihre prägenden Jahre damit zu verbringen, verrückte Bücher über Teekannen auswendig zu lernen. Staatlich subventionierte Schulen schließen keine Kinder vom Unterricht aus, deren Eltern das falsche Aussehen der Teekanne bevorzugen. Teekannen-Gläubige steinigen keine Teekannen-Ungläubigen, Teekannen-Renegaten, Teekannen-Ketzer und Teekannen-Lästerer zu Tode. Mütter warnen ihre Söhne nicht davor, Teekannen-Schicksen zu heiraten, deren Eltern an drei Teekannen statt an eine glauben. Leute, die ihre Milch zuerst einschenken, schießen nicht jenen, die den Tee zuerst einschenken, die Kniescheiben weg."
Kinshasa, 2010. Eight million inhabitants, thousands of shegués (street children), hundreds of wrestlers and their brass bands. Edingwe, Dragon, City Train, Mbokotomo : the “legends” of Congolese wrestling invent themselves on a daily basis in the outskirts of Kinshasa. Body-building, and even black magic enthusiasts fight for glory in makeshift rings. They come from the streets and their charisma commands respect and admiration. But the heros of the ring are modest in victory : « Kobeta libanga papa mundele » [we manage, white man]. In the last hours of the day, when they have hung up their everyday “occupations”, they put on masks and wrestling kit ready to fight. The motorised parade of wrestlers attracts crowds from the dusty streets of Massina, Ngili and Matete, towns round the Congolese capital. In back yards, on the tables of the street cafés, or even in the street, the spell casters warm up over primus stoves and cannabis. The ring is hastily set up, the judge climbs onto the ropes. “Let the match begin!” The fight starts and is usually more or less fixed. Rounds follow one another until the final spell is cast, until the adversary is floored, until the next fight.
