metafold.:.currency

great smoky says only your panoramas can prevent wildfires caused by pyrophoric liquid metals

admin — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 01:48:14 +0000

promised panoramas are below. i’m working on getting them to link directly to image files so that you can appreciate them in all their rather large (for the internet) splendor. also, let’s talk about mathematics briefly. i was riding my bike home today and thinking about the lock on my bike. it’s four digits. a four digit combination, assuming about a second per guess, takes only about half and afternoon to brute force. actually, it takes 1.38 hours. you could do that while watching the professional. which is a great movie. that i just watched. point is, four digit codes are pretty fast to break. what surprised me, though, was that by adding just six little digits the time for brute forcing the combination goes to about 4.5 lifetimes. exponents are just awesome like that, i guess.

also, i’ve been thinking about making another short film. i’d really like to use liquid metal, but it’s quite difficult to get a hold of . there are only five metals liquid at or near room temperature: mercury, gallium, caesium, rubidium, and francium. since caesium is highly reactive and pyrophoric (aka spontaneously combustible), rubidium oxidizes almost instantly in air, mercury is highly toxic, restricted, and expensive, and francium is the second rarest naturally occurring element on the planet, that pretty much leaves gallium. which has its own problems (one of which is that it isn’t actually liquid at room temperature. at least not outside of houston, where room temperature is a bajillion degrees). anyway if i make a cool movie or ever shut up, i’ll let you guys and mlles know.

the long road south

admin — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 00:42:13 +0000

well, it was a long trip but we reached houston on friday afternoon. i stopped in philly to visit with a Great Person on my way there. it was smashing. from philly, we drove mostly south and west; quickly out of pennsylvania and through maryland and then on skyline drive and through the vast tractless swathes of virginia proper. “gentleman farms”, my father called them. and he was right, especially when compared with the acres and acres of truly utilitarian cultivation we saw in louisiana. we passed directly into the mountains of tennessee from virginia; i regard that as the high point of the trip. the smokies are aptly named (see below). after clingman’s dome in tennessee, we drove diagonally across alabama (which, truthfully, reminded me of a poorer, incredibly humid, vastly more conservative version of new jersey). we were in mississippi briefly, though only the most sparsely inhabited parts of it. the towns were very creatively named (including “quitman”, “cuba”, “chunky”, “pachuta”, and “wiggins”). louisiana was some sort of hybrid between florida and texas–which i guess makes sense. new orleans was a blast and i wish i’d had more time there, but it was also still kinda dicey. so i probably would’ve only visited if i had a place to stay and a guide (not to mention not having a car full of stuff). then texas.

i’ve only posted photos of a small sort below. i’ll put up the panoramas soon, so check back. some of them are pretty cool. in the meantime, i have to get ready for classes. i’ll be in french 1 with all the freshman! ha ha. i am excited. also, if you haven’t checked out ben gibbard’s “farmer chords”, written for home volume V, you should. if you want to feel sad. hope you’re all doing great–

four tet: the hypothetical concert

admin — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 13:27:37 +0000

as previously mentioned, i’m a huge four tet / kieran hebden fan. i was pretty sad when i missed him at le poisson rouge last year (since he doesn’t seem to come to the us of a that often). anyway, point is, i designed a couple of posters promoting theoretical concerts of his at RISD. i already put up the second one, but i thought i’d also upload the first one. we were asked to work only with type and “graphic elements” (i.e. no imagery) and in greyscale. so that was a good challenge. in his own literature, kieran hebden has a lot of very clean, geometric design, so i was trying to access that with these designs. in other news, gearing up for the drive south. soon, so long. i hope all of you are out there doing great, keeping busy and happy and healthy.

ps: requiescat in pace, kyrsta-cat.

there’s always more to do

admin — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 01:32:02 +0000

people (or at least movies) make out that vertigo is synonymous with a fear of heights. now that i’m experiencing it firsthand, i can vouchsafe that this is entirely not the case. as a matter of fact, it’s a great deal more like being on a boat all the time. on the bright side, it’s a lot less acute than it was a few days ago when i woke up with severe (new vocab word!) nystagmus, nausea, etc etc. apparently this is all triggered by a condition called labyrinthitis, which is an infection or just the presence of debris in one or more of the semicircular canals of the inner ear. trying to visualize what the hell i’m talking about? imagine a slinky with only three ribs. each rib is a canal. or maybe it’s like a torus knot. ugh. forget it. just look at some pictures (they’re from a young person’s birthday party):