Tonight!!! "The Saddest Object in the World," An Illustrated Meditation, Observatory

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Tonight! Evan Michelson on "The Saddest Object in the World," as experienced at this years Congress for Curious People.

Full details follow; hope to see you there!

The Saddest Object in the World
An Illustrated Meditation by Evan Michelson, Obscura Antiques and Oddities, Morbid Anatomy Library Scholar in residence
Date: TONIGHT! Friday, May 7th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Location: Observatory

“The Saddest Object in the World” is a meditation on one particular artifact; an exercise in Proustian involuntary memory, aesthetic critique, and philosophical bargaining.

Sometimes objects have consequences.

Evan Michelson is an antiques dealer, lecturer, accumulator and aesthete; she tirelessly indulges a lifelong pursuit of all things obscure and melancholy. She currently lives in another place and time.

You can find out more about this presentation here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

72 Hour Forecast Expects No Oil on Florida Beaches

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National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 72 hour forecast (as of noon Saturday May 8, 2010) indicates that no oil is expected on any of Florida’s beaches during the next 72 hours.
The oil is currently 70 miles from Pensacola and 265 miles from St. Petersburg, Florida.
Keep up with the latest Gulf oil spill reports and forecasts.

Rumor: HP’s WebOS Tablet "Hurricane" Coming Out In Q3 2010 [Rumor]

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Here's a brief history of the internet's infatuation with the idea of a Web OS tablet: First we heard that HP was buying Palm. Interesting! Then we heard that the Windows 7-running HP Slate was canceled. Very interesting. Now, a post on the Examiner citing "industry insiders" says that a WebOS tablet dubbed "Hurricane" could be arriving as soon as Q3 of this year. It certainly seems like HP would try to get such a product out as quickly as possible, though there's nothing in this report that's substantial enough to get too excited about. Still, I want to believe, and so I will. [Examiner via Engadget] More »




Tablet - Slate - Hewlett-Packard - Apple - Microsoft

Recording 1.3 GB ISO Download

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I recently purchased a download as an ISO that came as 1 CD and 1.3 GB.

I now wonder how I can burn it to a disc.

CD-R or CD-RW is too small.

What do I do now, since I cannot break it down into 2 CDS?

Actually the whole set will be 4 CDS and I do not want to purchase anymore if I

Photo safari – lionfish | Not Exactly Rocket Science

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LionfishI’ve just come back from a week holiday in Jordan, culminating in a few nights at Aqaba, a town bordering the Red Sea. On the first night, my wife and I walked to the jetty of our hotel and spent a glorious half-hour dangling our feet over the edge, toes tickling the water.

There was a school of small fish milling about the water beneath us but after about 15 minutes, a handful of them would periodically jump out of the water. They all seemed to be jumping in the same direction, and I suspected that a predator was behind it. Following the direction of the fish, we saw a small red blob in the water. The light wasn’t good enough to make a confident identification but the combination of size, shape and colour, and the fact that it was a very slow-moving predator screamed out “lionfish” to me.

Two days later, we went back to the jetty at sunset and saw the same school of fish being stalked by the same predator but, this time, in plentiful light. It was clearly a lionfish, and these photos were taken from the jetty looking downwards, hence the ripple distortions. Nonetheless, the water was clear and still enough to take some pretty cool snaps. In the one below, you can clearly see the small fish keeping their distance from the predator.

Lionfish_huntin

In this shot, you can just about make out the boundary of the school, with the lionfish at the middle of an empty circle. The edge of the school starts about halfway between the lionfish and the left edge of the photo and continues upwards and rightwards in a large sweeping arc.

Lionfish_hunting

Those beautiful fins aren’t just for show – those on the back are sharp and tipped with a very powerful venom. I’m just glad we didn’t dive into the water straight on top of it.

Lionfish_portrait

And then there were two. As a final treat, a second fish turned up, which I take to be a different species of lionfish. By this point, the water was getting choppier and this is the least distorted shot I could take of the two fish, practically on top of one another. If anyone can identify the exact species, I’d be grateful.

Lionfish_two_species