5 Intriguing Things
"With 31 centimeter (12 inch) resolution, it will set a new record for image clarity from space. That’s just one of several groundbreaking features. The 31 cm pixels will provide sharpness that’s only available today in aerial imagery. As we demonstrated when DigitalGlobe was relicensed for 40 cm resolution, a decrease in the linear pixel size means an exponential increase in 2D resolution. At 50 cm, a given square meter is covered by four pixels, while at 31 cm, it’s divided into a little more than nine."
2. Instruments and musicianship in the future.
"'In fifty years’ time,' Linn told me, 'I think people will still be playing piano, guitars, and violins, but I also think they will be playing electronic instruments — actually performing virtuosic work upon them. What these will look or sound like, I don’t know.' What music can we expect to hear from these new digital instruments? If a generation of people who grew up listening to plugged-in instruments and guitar solos have moved onto the computer, what happens when a generation of musicians who have learned to sample and manipulate automated audio clips are given the tools for expressive digital instrumentation?"
3. A day in the life of a tech bus driver.
"Maerina works a split shift, so when his morning duties end around noon, he heads home to take a nap so he can be alert for the evening shift. By 5:15 p.m., Maerina is on the road again to take Facebook workers home. It's not until late evening that he gets home, in time to say goodnight to his kids, but not to eat dinner with them or help them with their homework. Maerina says he makes $18 an hour for nine hours of driving. Each paycheck covers his family's basic living expenses — mortgage, utilities, health insurance, a modest contribution to a retirement account — but not much more. 'We are just barely making it,' Maerina said."
"I'm listening to WGBH on 93.7 from Boston on my kitchen radio, on the low floor of an apartment building in Manhattan, thanks to an atmospheric condition called tropospheric bending, or 'tropo' for short... I would have loved the same thing back when I was (like John) a 'DXer' who logged about a thousand different FM stations from my house in the woods north of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in the late ’70s. 'Tropo' showed up in the mornings, and another more dramatic form of long-distance propagation called 'sporadic E' would appear in the afternoon and evenings, mostly in the late spring and early summer."
5. Dumb? Yes. Kind of hilarious? Also yes. #statueselfies.
"A user visited Ireland’s Crawford Art Gallery, where he cleverly manipulated his smartphone around Greco-Roman statues, many of which just happen to have their arms outstretched in an uncanny gesture of selfie-taking, to look like they are participating in the social media trend. By placing the camera just behind the hands of the figure’s elongated arms, the clever photographer was able to create hilariously realistic looking snapshots, and despite what he described as 'strange looks [from] the staff in that art gallery,' he soldiered on, taking four of the pictures."
Not "intriguing," but important: I'm disturbed by what's happening in Ferguson, MO. Police killed an unarmed teenager, and now, we're seeing the police on the streets acting like an occupying army. Many people are tying what's happening to the clear national trend of police militarization. Officers routinely carry more powerful weapons. SWAT teams are formed and deployed far more often than they used to be. And surplus military gear of all kinds lands in local precincts, thanks to Homeland Security grants. But not all police departments are the same. And all these national trends are merely context for how these particular St. Louis police departments came to have these weapons and employ these tactics. Individual people are making these decisions. So, last night, I helped jumpstart a wiki to collect and organize information about the police involved in the response to protests in Ferguson. I offer the link here in case you'd like to help with it.
Today's 1957 American English Language Tip
choice, adj. In good standing historically, but overworked commercially (choice fruits & vegetables, a choice selection, &c.). Hobson's choice, the option of the thing offered or nothing.
Tropo Showed Up in the Mornings