Archive for November, 2007

A few weeks ago ManyBooks.net started to make available a number of SciFi books in PDF format and without any unreasonable restrictions (this is copyrighted material that has been left in the public domain).

Decided to give it a try and not knowing these books, I chose (randomly) to download Space Prison from Tom Godwin (published in 1958 in the middle of the Golden Age of Science Fiction).

I don’t know if it is similar to the other books found on this web site, but I can give you an idea of what I found. First, I noticed that the writing is simplistic (it won’t create any difficulty for non-English speakers digging into this English book). Then, I noticed how much the science was weak (or even shallow): For example, the derelict exiles attempt (and succeed) to build a hyperspace transmitter out of iron, copper and aluminium while their best technological success is a fast-reloading crossbow (that could not make a more-or-less reliable gun).

However, this is a nice story about men been exiled and living through generations for one single goal. Stamina and pure will transcend them leading to a quite predictible end. Despite all its shortcomings, it’s still a nice story. 80 pages is a little too long for what should have been a good short story, but I read it with pleasure.

It probably means that ManyBooks.net is publishing second-grade SciFi matter (unfortunately not some of the best works of a genre which has so few real gems), but it’s still worth the price you pay for it. You should stop there and download a couple of the most interesting books.

PS: For those of you who would be interested, I read the novel on my Palm T|X using the Adobe PDF reader: Adobe Reader for Palm OS. Very good.

“Project management is an important part of the senior design process. For the most part, teams manage projects in an informal way: They have a deadline to meet, and they monitor progress of the project as it moves along. However, computer resources are available for managing team projects more formally. This tutorial [Microsoft Word] will introduce you to Microsoft Project, a software package that helps to plan and track projects. You will walk through instructions for project planning, and then for project tracking and finally communicating progress.

In managing projects, there are essentially two steps: project planning, and project tracking. Projects consist of several tasks, each of a certain duration, that are to be carried out in a certain sequence. Project planning happens at the start of a project; at this stage the team identifies the tasks involved, estimates task duration, and guesses at task sequence. As the project progresses, some of this may change: task sequences may have to be altered, and tasks may take longer or shorter than originally planned. Project tracking involves recording these various changes, and making appropriate changes to the proposed schedule; tracking must take places throughout the life of the project.”

Highly recommended reading from the University of Idaho for all senior project managers.

John Obadiah Westwood (1805-1893), after obtaining a law degree, fell in love with entomology and archeology.

Thanks to the Oxford Digital Library, volumes 1 & 2 of his ‘Arcana Entomologica‘ are now witnesses of his passion-filled activity (both scientific and artistic).

Source: BiblioOdyssey.

I have always a little in love with old manuscript decorations. They form a nice example of a tightly codified elegance and of a technique serving art purposes. Thanks to BibliOdyssey, we can see a very nice sample of it.

Source: Plimpton MS 296 from the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University (in Digital Scriptorium).

The top losanges are of a darker grey than the bottom ones, are they?

Furthermore, you will find more and more of these examples of optical illusions in this web site in the next months. I even opened a specific thema just for that since people seem to love finding them here. You can come back (or subscribe to my RSS feed).

Iguazu Falls (Foz do Iguaçu) are, at border between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, the place where the Iguaçu river, draining into Parana, rushes from the top of a volcanic plateau through more than 250 water falls spread over a circus of nearly three kilometers (Wikipedia information).

Two days of visit were welcome to get the following images (I have to admit that I shot much more than my normal habit for a single subject, I felt elated).

Note: Just click on the thumbnail images to reach the larger-size photos.

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Even more photos of Iguaçu hereafter.
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Two tigers, actually brothers, bron together on 31st May 2007 in Tianjin zoo, China. But they don’t have the same color.

Source: Daily Mail.

About a month ago, I was invited by a friend to a music workshop where he is participating in the Cultural center of the Gazometro in Porto Alegre (Brazil). I had brought my digital camera et here are some of the images produced then despite the awfully limited light.

Note: Just click on the thumbnails below if you want to see the larger photos.

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No doubt the lack of light limited the possibilities (slow speed, high sensitivy and hard lights all compete to produce movement blurs, digital noise and high contrasts) but with some attention you may bring back some images nearly acceptable even if they would not be printed in large format (or you have to love blurred and grainy photos).

My prefered ones are marked with ***

An excerpt from Julian May’s Orion arm (second book of the Science-Fiction Rampart Worlds series):

Dr Crystal diagnosed Matsukawa as a cretinoid coprocephalic -helpfully translating the medical terminology into its Standard English equivalent of ‘stupid shithead‘- who was lucky to be alive.

French translation: “crétinoïde orchydocéphalique“.

Italian firm HAL9000 has a neat technology to shoot very high definition images. They apply it to antique art masterworks like Leonardo’s major painting “The last supper” (of recent cinematographic fame): An incredible 16 gigapixel resolution to get down to the finest cracks in the paint.

Another previous work from HaltaDefinizione (with only 8.6 billion pixels).

A masterpiece of Japanese painting is now available online since the Brooklyn Museum published brilliant reproductions of these exceptionnal prints that deeply impressed the European impressionists.

Brooklyn Museum - One hundred famous views of Edo

Since it appears that finding this information about the Crysis video game is a bit difficult, you can follow the link to Crysis minimum requirements here.