Artistic works traditionally carry significance beyond their physical beauty, but a new sculpture in the McAllister Building headquarters of the Penn State Department of Mathematics may carry that tradition to its limits.

Very very cool...

3D sculpture depicts 'shadow' of a 4D object

Julian Beever is an English artist who is famous for his art on the pavements of England, France, Germany, USA, Australia and Belgium. It's peculiarity? Beever gives his drawings an anamorphosis view, his images are drawn in such a way which gives them three dimensionality when viewing from the correct angle.

[Fucking rad. -k]

3D street drawings. Too cool!

Friends, let us speak candidly:

Could is possibly be worth $12 and a 45-minute drive to watch Batman Begins on IMAX?

My vote is yes. The series starts over again, they get the killing of Batman's parents correct (insofar as the comics are concerned) and, let's be frank, the previews look kick ass. We've been let down in the past by guns-blazing previews (Blade II, Star Wars Episodes I and II, Transporter,...well, the list goes on and on), but are we so jaded as to allow our entrenched cynicism to preclude us a truly awesome, once-in-a-lifetime experience? Does it matter since I'm only working part time this summer and would have nothing to stop me from trekking up there on Wednesday the 15th?

These are the questions that DEMAND answers.

-janelane, mirthfully

[ Count me in, unless it starts before 6 or something. -k]

Batman Begins: Notions of the Experience

] Greetings! You have found the home of the 133t version of
] the Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith trailer. Only 15 hours
] after I put this file online, it has already sucked up over 23 GB
] of bandwidth. At this rate I'll be in the poorhouse before
] nightfall.

Heh. Watch it once just to see the trailer. Then watch it again and laugh at the 133t subtitles. ;)

[ "Stop TK'ing, you f4g!" Priceless. -k]

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith - 133t trailer

] Arthur Miller, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright
] whose most famous fictional creation, Willy Loman in
] "Death of a Salesman," came to symbolize the American
] Dream gone awry, has died. He was 89.

It's a sad day for the theater.

Playwright Arthur Miller Dies at 89

] In the stairway, I said, "You couldn't just watch a porn
] channel?"
]
] "It's not the same," she said. "That's all packaged and
] commercial. I wanted to interview them before and after.
] I have to know -- what it's like."
]
] "Why?"
]
] She paused on the stairs, and I stopped too. The
] muscleboys, muttering, went out onto the street, and we
] were alone in the flashing green and red light.
]
] "Suze, I'm going to start the clock."
]
] Like she'd poured a bucket of ice water down my spine.
] "You're what?"
]
] "I'm going to take the treatments." She spoke quickly, as
] if afraid I'd interrupt her. "They've gotten much better
] in the past couple of years, there are basically no side
] effects. They're even making headway with infants. In
] five years, it looks like most babies won't have any
] arrestation effects at all, and -- "
]
] Tears had sprung to my eyes. "What are you talking
] about?" I cried. "Why are you talking like them? Why are
] you talking like being like us is something to be cured?"
] I punched the wall, which hurt my hand. I sat down on the
] step and cried.
]
] "Suze," Abby said. She sat down next to me and put her
] hand on my shoulder. "I love being like us -- but I want
] --"
]
] "That?" I shouted, pointing up to the top of the stairs,
] where they were grunting again. "That's what you want?
] You'd rather have that than us?"
]
] "I want everything, Suze. I want every stage of life --"
]
] "Oh, every stupid stage, as designed by stupid God, who
] also gave us death and cancer, and --"
]
] She grabbed my shoulders. "Suze, listen. I want to know
] what that up there is like. Maybe I won't like it, and
] then I won't do it. But Suze, I want to have babies."

A neat new short story of Sci-Fi released under the Creative Commons license.

Fiction: Start the Clock, by Benjamin Rosenbaum

] Because now I've finally read Red Mars, and I am agog at
] what may be the finest sf novel I've ever read. Red Mars
] has all the hard-sf window-dressing that many of us
] imagine when we think of sf: great and accessible tours
] through speculative cog sci, geology, astronomy,
] rocketry, physics, biology, genetics, and so on, until
] the head swims with the sheer scope of the research task
] Robinson set himself in this book.

[ I read this some time ago, and recall liking it very much... i didn't read the sequels however, for no clear reason... -k]

Boing Boing: Red Mars: a very belated appreciation

] Through early October, 99.9 percent of indecency
] complaints --- aside from those concerning the Janet
] Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" during the Super
] Bowl halftime show broadcast on CBS --- were brought by
] the PTC, according to the FCC analysis dated Oct. 1. (The
] agency last week estimated it had received 1,068,767
] complaints about broadcast indecency so far this year;
] the Super Bowl broadcast accounted for over 540,000,
] according to commissioners%u2019 statements.)
]
]
] The prominent role played by the PTC has raised concerns
] among critics of the FCC's crackdown on indecency.
] %u201CIt means that really a tiny minority with a very
] focused political agenda is trying to censor American
] television and radio,%u201D said Jonathan Rintels,
] president and executive director of the Center for
] Creative Voices in Media, an artists' advocacy
] group.
]
] PTC officials disagree.
]
] "I wish we had that much power," said Lara
] Mahaney

Activists Dominate Content Complaints

I believe all code is dead unless executing within the computer. For this reason I distribute the source code of my programs in modifiable form to encourage life and spread love. Opening one's code is a beneficial practice that both helps the community and grows the strength of the programmer.

[ This is some really good stuff. I want a 30 x 50 quality print of "subtrate" to put on my wall. Alas, the work he's chosen to offer for sale is not his best, in my opinion. Still, all very cool. -k]

Gallery of Computation | generative artifacts

A quick, entertaining piece. What M.C. Escher would do with flash.

[ Yeah, M.C. Escher, combined with with a little Dali and Bosch. Very cool. -k]

The Zoom Quilt: A collaborative art project