Illum

Illium, the pro version of Lytro's light field system, is, IMHO, a stealth vehicle for video as the tech allows interactive focus to be done on every still shot taken with the camera, something that could be moved into video if there is enough compute power to do the deed, thus transforming video into an art form able to be manipulated in ways impossible to do with todays existing technology. From this perspective, it wouldn't surprise me if Apple bought Lytro because the science behind the tech is really cool and disruptive, notions that would have intrigued Steve Jobs to no end. 

Grand Illusions

3D CG and projection mapping, amazing when done right as seen in Box by
Bot & Dolly, an incredible video without question.

Betrayal

Like the Supreme Court in Citizens United and McCutcheon, the FCC also plays favorites after violating it's strongly held beliefs as stated back in 2010.

What are the consequences of this decision? Let's ask the 2010 version of the FCC, led by previous commissioner Julius Genachowski. Here are some relevant quotes from the Open Internet Order. ("Edge providers" are companies that offer services over the Internet, such as Netflix or Skype.)

[I]f permitted to deny access, or charge edge providers for prioritized access to end users, broadband providers may have incentives to allow congestion rather than invest in expanding network capacity.

Broadband providers would be expected to set inefficiently high fees to edge providers because they receive the benefits of those fees but are unlikely to fully account for the detrimental impact on edge providers’ ability and incentive to innovate and invest, including the possibility that some edge providers might exit or decline to enter the market... Moreover, fees for access or prioritized access could trigger an “arms race” within a given edge market segment. If one edge provider pays for access or prioritized access to end users, subscribers may tend to favor that provider’s services, and competing edge providers may feel that they must respond by paying, too.

Systematically, the principles of this once great nation are being hijacked by the oligarchs via the courts and congress while the middle class is being crushed out of existence. Everywhere around us, we see our environment being destroyed, our food compromised by GMOs, college education priced out of existence, our civil rights being violated 24/7 and healthcare devolving into a ridiculously expensive and inefficient system increasingly unable to meet the needs of the public, conditions that could become the start point of a revolution as seen by an all too relevant quote by Thomas Paine when seeing what is transpiring today in a country called America. 

A nation under a well regulated government, should permit none to remain uninstructed. It is monarchical and aristocratical government only that requires ignorance for its support.

Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1792

Les français ont du style

The French have such style in 3D animation as seen in this wonderful short titled
Minuscule - Lady Bug. Enjoy :)

Amelymeloptical Illusion - très cool sans question

Yours truly loves art like this. I think you will too. :)

Free the Seed

Open Source rules, something techies like yours truly have been talking about for quite some time as open source code evolves in concert with how tech and nature evolve, something some really cool people are doing with seeds, where no restriction applies vis a vis patents (Monsanto anyone?) in terms of growing things that benefit us all. :)

Members of the Open Source Seed Initiative this week held a rally and seed giveaway event. The group is concerned over restricting access to seeds through patents. They are stirring up public awareness over their mission to model a new crop system of seed-sharing in the spirit of open source software. On Thursday the OSSI group gathered at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to give away a set of seeds that can be used by anyone. The seeds are unrestricted by patents or intellectual property barriers. They released 29 new varieties of crops under an "open source pledge" for farmers, gardeners and plant breeders. The new varieties involved broccoli, celery, kale, quinoa and other vegetables and grains released under their novel Pledge, to be printed on all OSSI seed packets.

It's a 10 without question!

State of Confusion :)

Any Questions?

Fox News - It's NCAA, It's NCAA :)

Words cannot describe...

Kelvin Wave

Anomalies, anomalies, the more the merrier as they are prime drivers in showing that GW's alive and well, particularly when considering just how hot the world's going to get, thanks to a monster Kelvin Wave coming our way this summer, AKA El Nino. 

(Kevin Wave continues to strengthen and propagate across the Pacific Ocean. Image source: NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.)

Record global temperatures, extraordinarily severe storms for the US West Coast and telegraphing on through the Central and Eastern US, a disruption of the Asian Monsoon and various regional growing seasons, record heat and drought in Northern Australia, severe drought and fires in the Amazon, the same throughout Eurasia and into the Siberian Arctic, another potential blow to Arctic sea ice. These and further extreme impacts are what could unfold if the extraordinarily powerful Kelvin Wave now racing toward the Pacific Ocean surface continues to disgorge its heat.

The most recent update from NOAA shows that the monster Kelvin Wave we reported on last week has continued to grow and intensify even as it shows no sign of slowing its rather ominous emergence from waters off the west coast of South America.

The pool of 4-6+ degree Celsius above average temperatures continues to widen and lengthen, now covering 85 degrees of longitude from 170 East to 105 West. Perhaps more disturbing is the fact that the zone of extreme 6+ C temperature anomalies has both widened and extended, covering about 50 degrees of longitude and swelling to a relative depth of about 30-40 meters. This is an extraordinarily intense temperature extreme that well exceeds those observed during the ramp-up to the record 1997-98 El Nino event.

The collapse of the Antarctic Bottom Water anyone?

And So It Begins

Phase Transitions, as BRT readers know, are a big deal on this blog as they are exponential and, when the transition is ready to go, just a little push, makes it real. In the case of the Petrodollar and the Ukraine, the push has just happened and, So It Begins.

The existence of "petrodollars" is one of the pillars of America's economic might because it creates a significant external demand for American currency, allowing the US to accumulate enormous debts without defaulting. If a Japanese buyer wants to buy a barrel of Saudi oil, he has to pay in dollars even if no American oil company ever touches the said barrel. Dollar has held a dominant position in global trading for such a long time that even Gazprom's natural gas contracts for Europe are priced and paid for in US dollars. Until recently, a significant part of EU-China trade had been priced in dollars.

Lately, China has led the BRICS efforts to dislodge the dollar from its position as the main global currency, but the "sanctions war" between Washington and Moscow gave an impetus to the long-awaited scheme to launch the petroruble and switch all Russian energy exports away from the US currency .

It gets better.

Russia’s trade in hydrocarbons amounts to about a trillion dollars per year. Other countries, especially the BRICS and BRCIS-associates (BRICSA) may soon follow suit and join forces with Russia, abandoning the ‘petro-dollar’ as trading unit for oil and gas. This could amount to tens of trillions in loss for demand of petro-dollars per year (US GDP about 17 trillion dollars – December 2013) – leaving an important dent in the US economy would be an understatement.

Added to this is the declaration today by Russia’s Press TV – China will re-open the old Silk Road as a new trading route linking Germany, Russia and China, allowing to connect and develop new markets along the road, especially in Central Asia, where this new project will bring economic and political stability, and in Western China provinces,where “New Areas” of development will be created. The first one will be the Lanzhou New Area in China’s Northwestern Gansu Province, one of China’s poorest regions.

Let's see if the mainline press covers this.