Walter, of Fractal Fame, wore an excellent shirt to the Baloney gathering yesterday. It had the silhouettes of 51 different robots. Of course the Baloneys had to swarm around Walter and try to identify the various images. As we stared intently at his chest, he remarked “This must be how women feel”. We identified a few and insisted he send us a link to the shirt source (Click here to see because I’m about to copyright violate).

Here is the shirt image:

I can’t find a list of the robot names, so I’ve numbered the images and am hoping Baloney.Com readers will fill in the blanks:

a tooth is like a twip
five percent of a cent
an improvement on thou

Google:
“http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=petulant+finger+pointing+scold&btnG=Google+Search”

sepsis prolepsis:
I will counter in advance
objections to soap

Beginning with a single triangle, replace that triangle with three half-size copies arranged so that their outer border form a new triangle of the same size as the original. Then, replace each of those three triangles with three triangles half that size, and so forth. (Turns out of course, that the fractal pattern is due to the algorithm of shrinking and positioning the shapes, not due to the fact that the initial shape that we began with was a triangle– any plane figure can be used.) This algorithm is easy enough to implement directly and physically, using a flexible medium like polymer clay.

The 2007 Materials Research Society Fall Meeting concluded in Boston on November 30. This was the first time that the popular Science as Art competition was held at an MRS Fall Meeting. Three first place and three second place winners were selected from the various entries. Some of the images are from the nanotechnology domain but most are micro-scale.

What distinguishes fractal geometry within mathematics is an exceptional and uncanny characteristic. Its first steps are not tedious, hard, and unrewarding, but playful and extraordinarily easy, and provide rich reward in terms of stunning graphics. To the mathematician, they bring a bounty of very difficult conjectures that no one can solve. To the artist, they provide backbones around which imagination can play at will. To everyone, a few steps in about any direction bring extraordinary pleasure. Nothing is more serious than play. Let’s all play.—Benoit Mandelbrot

twelve horizontal stories

are enough for human magic

some would say ten or sixteen

but ten’s not enough for music

and for every sixteen-division-mentat

minutiae dominate negatively

a poem is like

an optical illusion

but with more axes

Bitching about the Christ in the Mass

Is like bitching about Freya in Friday

Thor in Thursday - you get what I mean

And giving a shit about the bitching?

Delusional fucktard!

Nice photo of said mountain shadow

My new desktop picture

“The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) have successfully performed the world’s first high-definition image taking of an Earth-rise* by the lunar explorer “KAGUYA” (SELENE,) which was injected into a lunar orbit at an altitude of about 100 km on October 18, 2007 (Japan Standard Time. Following times and dates are all JST.)…The image taking was performed by the KAGUYA’s onboard high definition television (HDTV) for space use developed by NHK….” Full Slice

“A…researcher has developed a powerful and innovative health advocacy program that uses photovoice, a combination of digital photography and storytelling, to empower minority teens to identify and address important health problems in their communities.

“Photovoice confronts a fundamental problem of community assessment: What professionals, researchers, specialists and outsiders think is important may completely fail to match what the community thinks is important,”…“Photovoice goes beyond the conventional role of community assessment by inviting people to promote their own and their community’s well-being,”…” Full Slice

“SABLE-3 was launched on Saturday, August 11th, 2007, at 9:31 AM with a payload…that the Kaysam 1200 gram balloon carried to over 117,597 feet…” Full Slice (w/photos !) - Good science learning project for just about anyone.