Category: Preservation

Cotton Candy Lobster?

~ mehopper

Okay, what’s that?

I overheard someone say something about “cotton candy lobster” today, and I couldn’t imagine what in the world they could be talking about.

Is it a delicacy at some state fair in New England made out of bright red gummy lobster candy?

Or maybe someone put “make a picture of a lobster made of cotton candy” into an AI image generator and got a (probably) funky result?

Either way, not appetizing!

Still, curiosity got the better of me.

I Googled it and found out that it was ‘probably” a conversation about a rare lobster.

It Just Glowed: Lobsterman Finds Rare ‘Cotton Candy’ Lobster in Searsport Trap (Josh Gabbard and Mark Rediker, WABI 5)

Of course, stories about rare, oddly colored lobsters appear on a regular basis in this area.

For example, here is a story about a blue lobster.

WCVB Channel 5 Boston (YouTube Channel)
WCVB Channel 5 Boston (Official Website)

This is a link to the press release about it.

Rare Blue Lobster – Only 1 in 2 Million in the Wild – Donated to Aquarium (New England Aquarium)

Here are other similar stories from Boston.com.

Weirdest Lobster I’ve Ever Seen: Maine TikToker Shares Extremely Rare Two-Toned Lobster (Molly Farrar, Boston.com)
A Rare Yellow Lobster Joins New England Aquarium’s Multicolored Collection (Erica Yee, Boston.com)

Seasonal versions pop up around this time of year.

Ghostly, Translucent Lobster Hauled from Ocean Off Maine (AP via Boston.com)

The New England Aquarium even has had a Halloween lobster!

New England Aquarium (YouTube Channel)
New England Aquarium (Official Website)

Sometimes a story goes into more depth about the range of lobster colors.

Orange, Yellow, Blue, and Even Halloween: The Rarest Lobster Colors, Explained (Nik DeCosta-Klipa, Boston.com)

After a while it is easy to see that these stories are a way of bringing the scientific work that the New England Aquarium does with lobsters to the public’s attention as a form of outreach. Here is a video that explains the chemistry behind the colored shells as well as why they have a lab where they grow different colored lobsters in an effort to understand shell disease.

BytesizeScience

Now, inquiring minds NEED to know, how many colors are there and how rare are they?

You can find that on the handy dandy coloration section of Wikipedia’s Lobster page!

Neat!

All of this inspired me to “spruce up” the Lobster page on Cosma — check it out to find out why lobsters are weird and “sort of” immortal!

Find out more about lobsters, crustaceans and animals in general …

You can also click on objects in this Toy Worlds to learn more about lobsters and their friends!


You can also explore it on Kuula.

Cosma | About | Worlds | Adventures | Contents | Index

Cosma is not a funded project — money is neither requested nor accepted, so there is no budget for publicity.

The only request is that you please tell other people about it.

Thank you!

© M. E. Hopper

Cosma’s Golden Jubilee!

~ mehopper ~ 1 Comment

It’s Cosma’s Birthday!

Cosma came into being through an accident of confluence fifty years ago.

I happened to be working in a library, and I got deeply enamored with the power of using the Dewey Decimal System to navigate it.

Then I was also exposed to the spatial game Empire on the PLATO system.

Viola!

It struck me that it would be SO cool to make a game where “knowledge is a place” that you can navigate with addresses like you can in “planned cities” like Indianapolis where I grew up.

It would be a fictional city using Dewey Decimal for addresses so that everyone could navigate knowledge as naturally as they do planned cities.

Making knowledge a place would democratize it!

I’ve been working on making “knowledge a place” ever since. The concept has evolved a LOT over the years, but this was the original spark. Of course, I also found out along the way that I am not the only one with an idea like this — there’s a very, very long history of such things.

I noticed that the anniversary of my “big idea” was approaching while I was working on Cosma’s new Welcome Area that I dubbed Knowledge Lobby.

I got nostalgic and played around with what a “real life” exhibit about Cosma might look like. Then that thought experiment snowballed into an exercise in visualization.

Note that most objects are visual links to the Web!


You can also explore it on Kuula.

This week I got even more nostalgic and decided to write a post to share a bit more information about the history and evolution of Cosma.

Oooops, I did it, again — it snowballed, too 🙂

Check out the results on the new Timeline page!

So, how will we celebrate this Jubilee?

Take a short break and get back to expanding and posting on Cosma!

Happy Birthday to Cosma & Cheers to You!

Cosma is not a funded project — money is neither requested nor accepted, so there is no budget for publicity.

The only request is that you please tell other people about it.

Thank you!

Visit     About | Worlds | Adventures | Contents | Index

© M. E. Hopper

Find YOUR Cool Museum!

~ mehopper

It’s officially summer, and baby it’s HOT outside!

Hot Outside

Stories like this are everywhere.

A Potent Heat Dome is Building Over the US, Sending Temperatures into the Triple Digits (Luke Snyder and Mary Gilbert, CNN)

Thus there are also many stories like this one about how to stay cool.

Here are 7 Fun Ways to Beat the Heat this Summer (Kelly Chan, Boston.com)

I was surprised to see that the above story didn’t mention museums, though.

Of course, I’m probably biased about this because I just updated my New Media Museum’s guide to learning about media and computing in the Boston area (NMM@Boston).

New Media@Boston
Media & Perception
Harvard’s Mark I & Hopper
MIT’s Whirlwind & Forrester
Artificial Intelligence & Robots
Logo & LEGO
Games & Immersion
Micro Center & MIT Flea

Not everybody is going to want to geek out to my guide.

Most folks are likely to opt for well-known museums like those in this article.

12 Boston Museums Everyone Should Visit at Least Once (Kristi Palma, Boston.com)

There’s actually a whole website devoted to the Museums of Boston.

If you’re further afield, here’s a website for finding somewhere to enjoy cooling off.

Museums & Galleries in New England (Visit New England)

Finally, if you’re nowhere near Boston, then there’s a site for you, too.

The 51 Best Museums in the United States (Condé Nast Traveler)

If you’re lucky, you may even have get free admission if you are a member of a museum in the North American Reciprocal Museum Association.

“The North American Reciprocal Museum (NARM) Association® network is a mosaic of 1,470 art museums and galleries, historical museums and societies, botanical gardens, children’s museums, zoos, and more. When you sign up with your favorite participating NARM institution, you can receive reciprocal membership benefits across the United States, Bermuda, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Mexico, and Puerto Rico.”

My membership to Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) includes it. If you have a museum membership, it’s worth checking.

Perhaps you’re feeling adventurous and want to try a museum that’s a bit off the beaten path, but is specific to your interests.

For example, if you’re into sports, there’s a Sports Museum located in Boston’s TD Garden (which is above where I catch the commuter rail).

Sports Museum

In fact, there are other sports museums here in this state.

Sports Museums in Massachusetts (Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism)

There are also hundreds of them around the country. You can find them here.

Sports Museums in the US (Museums.US)

Museums.US is a great place to find all sorts of museums.

Here’s a page with links to well over a hundred categories.

Museums in the US (Museums.US)

Although, I couldn’t help noticing that “illusions” wasn’t a category on the list.

This means that you wouldn’t find some of the experiences described in this post.

Perception, Illusions & Holograms@Boston (New Media Museum)

One of the experiences covered in the post is the Museum of Illusions, Boston.

It has illusions galore, and many of them are mind-bending!

Museum of Illusions, Boston

This museum displays a variety of well-known optical illusions.

Example Exhibits, Museum of Illusions, Boston

It also has many more elaborate exhibits such as an Ames Room.

Ames Room, Museum of Illusions, Boston
 
If you’re not in Boston, there are plenty of other neat museums out there.

Here’s a story about some of them.

10 of the Most Unique Museums In the United States (Nina Derwin, MSN)

The post includes the Idaho Potato Museum in, where else, Idaho. It covers the Neon Museum in Las Vegas, and last, but not least, the Spam Museum in Minnesota.

Of course, if you live anywhere near them, you’ve probably already heard of them.

Here’s a “somewhat” obvious trick for finding museums near you that you haven’t heard of yet.

Google “Unusual and Weird Museums, and then add your location to the search.

For example, my search for Unusual and Weird Museums in Boston included this article.

11 Quirky and Unusual Museums in Greater Boston (Celina Colby, The Boston Calendar)

The search also included this article from Atlas Obscura.

Unusual Museums in Massachusetts (Atlas Obscura)

If you’ve never hear of Atlas Obscura, then you MUST check it out!

Atlas Obscura: The Definitive Guide To The World’s Hidden Wonders

You’re bound to find something interesting near you.

Finally, it’s only fair to mention the museum that inspired this post.

Ice Cream Museum Boston

The Museum of Ice Cream is a “cool” and “instagrammable” place (and yes that’s a real word according to the Cambridge Dictionary).

One just opened in Boston, and there’s one in New York where it originally started.

You can also find one in Chicago, Miami, Las Vegas, Austin and even Singapore!

There you have it. I hope this inspires you to find a cool, refreshing experience near you!

However, if you prefer to stay ensconced in your air conditioning, then perhaps you might enjoy exploring this “Web World” with links to hundreds of virtual 3D and 360° experiences!

Click on objects to see 3D and 360° experiences, and click doorways to go to other Web Worlds.

If you can’t see it, or it isn’t working, you can also see it directly on Kuula.

You can find out more about “Web Worlds” in this post …

Hike, Wander & Walk-in the Web!

Stay Cool & Happy Summer!

Find out more about Museums@Cosma …

Walk-in-Art & Museums!

~ mehopper

Last week I wrote Enchanted Beach Houses where I explained how I was inspired to create the Wanderlust Magic Travel Villa. It’s a “virtual travel” application with a visual interface to over a hundred 3D and 360° experiences.

In case you didn’t see it, here it is again.


You can also explore it on Kuula.

You can use the above interface or these posters to visit all seven “Web Worlds.”

           

One thing that I regretted was that I couldn’t include more 3D and 360° experiences.

There just wasn’t enough room in the Villa to link to the hundreds of experiences that I’ve included on the pages on Cosma.

For example, I had to decide whether to include the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre?

I ultimately decided to leave off the Louvre.

That means that there are links to virtual experiences on the page about France on Cosma that are not in the Europe Room in the Wanderlust Magic Travel Villa.

Here are examples of experiences that you will see links to on Cosma that are not in the Villa.

Virtual Tours (Louvre, Official Website)
Louvre Museum (360 Stories)
The Louvre Museum a 360° Experience (Escape Now, YouTube 360° Video)

I found myself leaving out a lot of museum experiences, and I was particularly sad to leave out experiences for some of the greatest art museums. That’s why I decided that this old Toy World Walk-in-Art could use an upgrade.

This is the old world. Click on paintings to see 3D and 360° experiences.


You can also explore this Toy World on Kuula.

Now welcome to Walk-in-Art & Museums!

Touch art and doorways to visit 360° experiences.


You can also explore it on Kuula.

Here are links to some other, related posts on Cosma.

Walk-in-Art
Art Revisited
Dive-in-Art
Leonardo Lately
Magical Paintings
Into Van Gogh

Enjoy, but beware, it’s easy to get lost in 360° art!

Find out more about the visual arts and museums …

Little, Big, Old & Spooky Libraries

~ mehopper

I take a lot of walks in the towns along the coast north of Boston, and along the way I take pictures of things that catch my eye. Lately, those things have included Little Free Libraries.

They are the sort of thing that, once you’ve noticed them, they seem to be everywhere.

One of the neat things about them is that they are all decorated in different, fun ways.

For example, here is one of the first ones that I noticed in Marblehead.

Some of them are in beautiful, eye catching locations like this one in Swampscott.
Little Library, Swampscott Fisherman's Beach

They often reflect their surroundings, sometimes literally.

Little Library, Swampscott Commons

I also walk in Salem from time to time, and there are quite a few there. Here is one that is particularly appropriate for this season.

Little Library, Salem

After a while, I realized that Little Free Libraries was rapidly becoming one of my art projects.

That’s when I decided to check out their site.

Litle Free Library: Take a Book. Share a Book.

It was great to see how vast the movement has become — it’s truly a world-wide phenomenon!

It also turns out that the site has a map of all of the locations, and the descriptions often include pictures. I encourage you to take a look at what’s near you and participate.

It was fun to explore them, but I realized that taking tons of pictures and posting them would be unnecessarily duplicative. I abandoned my little, rapidly burgeoning art project.

On the other hand, I decided to add Little Free Libraries to Cosma’s library page.

I did that, and then I got wrapped up in adding more links to the page.

One detour I took was watching a YouTube video about the World’s Most Beautiful Libraries.

That led to trying to find 3D “virtual field trips” to each of them.

Sure enough, there were some. Best of all, I even found a 360° video tour of the spooky library that was used for filming scenes in the Harry Potter movies.

After I finished adding links to all of the “virtual tours” of libraries that I could find, I realized it would be even better to go a step further.

I’ve been making 3D spaces with “doors” to virtual field trips on the Web, posting them on the 3D image sharing site Kuula, and then embedding them on the pages on Cosma.

The first one I made was the Computer Museum Lobby, and then I made one that I dubbed Transit Paradise and then another one called Space Depot.

Why not do one for big, old, spooky libraries?

Voilà – here it is!

Welcome to The Great Libraries Antechamber.

Touch doors to enter the virtual tours, and touch the bookshelves to open Web sites.

You can also see the Great Libraries Antechamber on Kuula.

Finally, here’s a tiny “scavenger hunt” to get you started on exploring the libraries.

These are arranged “roughly” in order of difficulty.

1. Which library has a famous Long Room with two floors?
3. Which library was used for filming in the Harry Potter films?
2. Which library has 1,348 miles of bookshelves?
4. Which library houses the Book of Kells?
5. Which library has murals that illustrate the Evolution of the Book?

I hope you enjoy exploring the libraries, and thank you for joining me on this journey through little, big, old and, most importantly, spooky libraries.

Have a great Halloween!

F.L.Wright (De)Tours

~ mehopper

It never ceases to amaze me how clicking on an innocent little link to a news story can turn into an unexpected, intriguing adventure.

For example, I clicked on a link to this story about a Frank Lloyd Wright house that will be going on the market.

A Frank Lloyd Wright Home in N.H. Will Hit the Market for $850,000 (Brittany Bowker, Boston.com)

The house is known as the Kalil House, and as is generally the case with Wright houses, there’s an interesting aspect to the architecture. In this case the house is one of seven “Usonian Automatic Houses” that Wright designed. They were intended to be moderately priced and used concrete blocks that could be assembled in a variety of ways.

That sounded like a sort of “LEGO” house, so I wanted to know more!

First, I found this video that shows the house.

Paula Martin Group (YouTube Channel)
Paula Martin Group (Official Website)

Interesting concept, but not my personal favorite example of Wright architecture.

However, while I was trying to find out more about how the house looked, something else caught my attention. The website for the sale of the house had a 3D tour.

Neat! Of course, I had to check that out!

That tour was created using a platform called Matterport. The core of their business is that they do a 3D scan of a space and host the 3D model on their platform so users can navigate by simply matching a blue circle attached to their cursor to white circles on the 360° image and clicking.

Matterport is clearly used for selling high-end real estate, but it’s also been used for other types of spaces, and their website has a gallery of interesting tours. The Arts & Culture and Historic sections feature hundreds of great sites. No surprise, I took some (de)tours.

I also accidentally tripped over something else.

There’s another Wright house up for sale, or in this case auction, in October. It’s in Phoenix, and it’s known as the Circular Sun House or the Norman Lykes House.

Heritage Auctions (YouTube Channel)
Heritage Auctions (Official Website)

Better yet, there was another 3D tour of it!

Once I found that, I decided a try a simple Google Search to find out if there were any other 3D tours of Wright houses
.
Sure enough, there were, which also meant more (de)tours for me!

There was even a tour of Taliesin West, which was Wright’s desert laboratory that was mentioned in the video about the Norman Lykes House.

Then my journey took yet another unexpected turn due to this article.

Take A 3D Virtual Tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West (Katharine Keane, Architectural Digest)

That article was innocent enough, but it had a link to this article from a few years ago.

10 Facts About Frank Lloyd Wright You Didn’t Know (Carrie Hojnicki, Architectural Digest)

Here’s a sample of what’s in the article.

For all the praise Frank Lloyd Wright garnered in his 70-year career, the architect was equally a magnet for controversy in all its forms. With three wives and eight children (seven biological, one adopted), the architect spent much of his adult life racking up sensational, though not untrue, headlines like “SUIT ENDS WRIGHT ROMANCE; Sculptress Who Fled With Architect to Japan Obtains Alimony” (New York Times) or “ISSUE WARRANT FOR WRIGHT; Architect’s Wife Seeks to Re-enter Their Wisconsin Home” (also New York Times), each referring the personal tumult that seemed to follow the architect through much of his adult life.

Wow, so Mr. Wright wasn’t boring!

I did a tad more research about Wright’s life and found a trailer for a documentary about him entitled Frank Lloyd Wright: Murder, Myth & Modernism. It starts out covering his architecture, but it doesn’t end there!

Movies & TV (YouTube Channel)

I found out more about the “Murder” in the title of the movie in a YouTube video from the Smithsonian Channel entitled A Horrific Tragedy at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Home, but it was so gruesome that I could not bring myself to include anything but a link to it here. I will caution you that you should take the word “horrific” seriously as you decide whether or not to click the link and watch the video!

I’ll stop sharing my own (de)tours here, but if you want to take some further ones on your own, then there are plenty of places to find out more about Wright’s work and his extraordinary life. You can check out the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust (YouTube Channel). The Architectural Digest has a very nice section. Then, of course, there’s good old Encyclopædia Britannica and last, but not least, Wikipedia.

Finally, on a brighter note, according to an article on Atlas Obscura, the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy says that there tend to be between 15 to 20 properties for sale at any one time. These days, a fairly high percentage of those are bound to have 360° tours to explore, so that means that Wright fans can enjoy some new Wright architecture (de)tours with just a bit of clicking.

Find out more about architecture and arts in general…

Strange Stays

~ mehopper

I concluded my last post about Sand Art with highlighting how Booking.com offered the chance to stay in a sandcastle as a promotion for Coney Island’s Sand Sculpting Competition. Here’s a link with more on that unusual “opportunity.”

Giant Coney Island Sandcastle Offers Sleepovers (Summer Delaney, WPIX)

That may have sounded like a one-off type of oddity, but in truth, it wasn’t.

Booking.com is known for cooking up some “unique” promotions. For example, here’s a silly clip on what they did for that illustrious holiday, National Avocado Day.

Buzz60 (YouTube Channel)
Buzz60 (Facebook)

The aren’t alone in promoting atypical places to stay. In fact, far from it!

There are also a bevy of travel articles about a broad array of places to stay.

17 Weird and Wacky Hotels Across the United States (Violet Kim, CNN Travel)
22 Weird, Wonderful and Unique Hotels in the World (Stine Gjevnøe Sørensen, momondo)

No matter what your passion happens to be, there’s bound to be a place to stay for it.

The reason that I’m so aware of this is because awhile ago, with amusement, I realized that there’s some sort of lodging related to almost every subject on Cosma. Sometimes those experiences end up as adventures like Sand Art. That’s why I have a huge stash of links to “thematic” lodging that range from mildly amusing to pretty wild.

For example, there’s some kind of place to visit for what ever kind of transportation.

If you like trains, then you might enjoy a say at the Featherbed Railroad (Upper Lake, California). If you’re into cars, then you might want to book a night at V8 Hotel Motorworld (Stuttgart, Germany).

DIRS21 by TourOnline AG (YouTube Channel)

Are planes more your thing? There’s quite a few adventures ranging from sleeping in a Plane Airbnb (St Michel Chef Chef, France) to a 727 Airplane Fuselage (Costa Verde, Costa Rica).

If you’re into boats, then try a stay at The Queen Mary Hotel (Long Beach, California).

If you prefer an even more aquatic experience, then there are undersea hotels like these.

Atlantis – The Palm (Dubai, United Arab Emirates)
The Manata Resort (Psv-zanzibar, Tanzania)
Jules’ Undersea Loadge (Key Largo, Florida)
The Muraka (Rangali Island, Maldives)

Let’s say you are into trees, then how about staying in a tree house? There are many places to consider. Here are links to a few of them.

Out’n’About Treehouses Treesort (Takilma, Oregon)
Azulik Resort (Tulum, Mexico)
Treehouse Lodge Resort (Iquitos, Peru)

Less run-of-the-mill tree houses include Freespirit Spheres (Vancouver Island). Here’s a link to a video about them.

Free Spirit Spheres Ultimate Treehouses (Animal Planet, YouTube)

Trees are nice, but what if you prefer animals?

Dog lovers might get a kick out of cuddling up inside a beagle at Dog Bark Park Inn (Cottonwood Inn, Idaho).

KTVB (YouTube CHannel)
KTVB (Official Website)

If you love giraffes, there’s Giraffe Manor (Nairobi, Kenya). Here’s a virtual 360° visit.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Photos of Africa (YouTube Channel)
Photos of Africa (Official Website)

Do you long to see polar bears in the wild? Then climb on the Tundra Buggy Lodge (Churchill, Manitoba).

Amanda Williams (YouTube Channel)

There are some places where you can take shelter in ice. The two most famous are Hôtel de Glace (Quebec City, Canada) and Icehotel, Sweden (Jukkasjärvi, Sweden).

There’s also a place called Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort in Saariselka, Finland where you can have all sorts of winter fun and then chill in glass igloos and watch the northern lights.

Goway Travel (YouTube Channel)
Goway Travel (Official Website)

So there you have it — there really is a place for about any interest that you can imagine, and also some that you might not expect.

For example, there are places where dyed in the wool Tolkien fans can live like hobbits!

5 Places Where You Can Vacation Like a Hobbit on Hobbit Day (A. Pawlowski, USA Today)

You might think that nobody would want to stay in a jail, voluntarily, but that’s not so.

While people do pay to stay in an ex-jail here in Boston called The Liberty Hotel, that’s a tame example. A far more extreme and bizarre experience can be found at the Karostas Cietums aka Karosta Prison (Liepāja, Latvia)!

Monta Krafte (YouTube Channel)

I hope you’ve enjoyed this adventure in strange places to stay around the world.

Now you know that whatever your passion, there’s bound to be some lodging where you can revel in it.

Here are still more sites where you can find unusual lodging organized into handy categories.

Unusual Places to Stay and Unique Holiday Accommodation (CoolStays)
The Most Unique and Unusual Places to Stay (Host Unusual)

If something isn’t covered in this post or those sites, then you can probably find something with a search for “Your+Interest+Hotel 🙂

That’s how I found a place for my inner librarian called the Library Hotel. It’s on Madison Avenue in New York City, and the rooms are organized by Dewey Decimal! Here’s a link to a video about it.

Library Hotel New York (NY) (HotelReviews, YouTube Channel)

So, next time you are booking lodging, I hope you will consider looking for something a bit less “traditional” that will fit your interests and maybe even become an adventure in its own right!

Find out more about travel, adventure, the World and knowledge in general…

The Maya Underworld

~ mehopper

Chichén Itzá is a fascinating place, and believe it or not, it’s just gotten even more so!

But let’s start from the beginning.

In case you aren’t familiar with it, here’s a link to a 360° video that will give you a sense of why it is considered a World Wonder.

Seven Wonders of the World: Chichén Itzá | 360 Video (The New York Times, YouTube)

It’s hard to believe that such a place could become more intriguing, but I just stumbled across another 360° video in which archaeologist Guillermo de Anda explains how there’s more below El Castillo than meets the eye — a lot more!

Inside Chichén Itzá | 360 Video (National Geographic< YouTube)

That video hardly scratches the surface of what Guillermo de Anda and Gran Acuífero Maya are discovering about underwater caves and their importance to the Maya.

Not only was Chichén Itzá built over a cave, but that cave is connected to Sistema Sac Actun which is now considered to be the largest underwater cave system in the world. In addition, sinkholes called cenotes serve as a network of entrances to the cave system!

Al Jazeera (YouTube Channel)
Al Jazeera (Official Website)

The most mind boggling thing of all is that divers are finding both Maya relics and much, much older human artifacts in the the underwater caves. Here’s a link to a video about the discovery.

Divers Discover 215-Mile-Long Cave in Mexico Full of Mayan Relics (Business Insider, YouTube)

Here are links to where you can learn more about these discoveries!

Remains of Maya Underworld Found in World’s Longest Submerged Cave (Megan Gannon, Live Science)
Cave Full of Untouched Maya Artifacts Found at Chichén Itzá (Jason Daley, Smithsonian Magazine)
World’s Largest Underwater Cave System Discovered in Mexico (Jason Daley, Smithsonian Magazine)

Follow these links to learn more about Chichén Itzá!

City of Chichén Itzá (UNESCO World Heritage Centre)
Chichén Itzá (National Geographic)

Find out more about Mexico, the Americas, the World and History …

Lunar Landings

~ mehopper

Saturday, July 20th is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing, and there’s a massive media blitz surrounding the occasion. Pretty much every major news outlet is covering it in some way, and it’s no surprise that NASA is leading the publicity frenzy.

On Friday at 1 p.m. (EDT) NASA is broadcasting 50 Years Ago Apollo 11 Launches Into History on NASA Live.

NASA (YouTube Channel)
NASA (Official Website)

There are also a ton of related events going on all over the place — there’s bound to be something going on near you!

For example, here are a few links to stories about how the restored Apollo Mission Control Center at NASA Johnson Space Center is opening this weekend.
Restoring Apollo Mission Control Center (NASA)
Apollo Mission Control Reopens in All Its Historic Glory, July 20 (NASA)

In honor of this momentous occasion, and being the total space buff that I am, I couldn’t resist dipping into my personal trove of “Moon Media” and rummaging around to find a few tidbits that might not show up in mainstream news stories.

Let’s start with the Apollo 11 Command Module that \resides at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. A team there did a full 3-D scan of it, so among other things, you can tour it online (Smithsonian fully digitized the Apollo 11 Command Module).

Here’s a link to a trailer about the project.

Smithsonian Gives Virtual Look Inside Apollo 11 (Wall Street Journal, YouTube)

You can explore it here!

Here’s an article some of the neat details that you can see in the module.

Apollo 11: The Writings on the Wall (Allan Needell, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum)

If you’re a computer buff, then you might get a kick out of this video.

How Did the Apollo Flight Computers Get Men to the Moon and Back? (Paul Shillito, YouTube).

The website Virtual AGC — AGS — LVDC — Gemini also has tons of information about computer simulations of the guidance computers used in the Apollo lunar missions.

If you want a glimpse into at least part of the calculations that the Apollo computers had to do to get humans to the moon, then try your hand at the game Lunar Lander. There’s an example of it on the Web thanks to the artist Seb Lee-Delisle who created it as part of his Lunar Trails exhibit. His version is called Moon Lander.

Of course, my archive happens to have a few relevant 360° videos 🙂

My favorite one is this two minute simulation of Apollo 11’s landing and the first moonwalk.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Seymour & Lerhn (YouTube Channel)
Seymour & Lerh (Official Website)

That’s great, but it’s a tad short on realism.

Here’s a link to a more realistic 360° video about Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan’s last walk on the moon in 1972 that has a panorama created from photos that he took at the time.

VR Walk on the Moon with Gene Cernan (USA TODAY, YouTube)

Here’s another one minute 360° video of the same stills where you can look around and feel as if you are really standing on the Moon!

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Apollo 360 (YouTube Channel)

If you want to experience some more “real” moon imagery, then try out Google Moon!

Hardcore Apollo 11 fans might also enjoy the two plus hours of NASA’s restored video Moonwalk, and NASA even uploaded all of the 9,000 hours of audio from the Apollo 11 mission to the Internet Archive.

Cool stuff!

However, if you’re only looking for a fun way to kick off the weekend, then take a ride on this Space Mountain-esque 360° video complete with audio from the Apollo 11 Mission!

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

VR 360 TV (YouTube Channel)
VR 360 TV (Discord)

Happy Moon Adventures!

If you want to learn more about space and space travel, explore Space Depot!

Touch the 360° image to begin exploring, touch the objects and doors to enter virtual 360° experiences, and touch “i”s to learn about the experiences.


You can also explore it on Kuula.

Find out more about the Moon and space travel…

Into Van Gogh

~ mehopper

It’s not unusual for one artist’s work to serve as the grist for another artist’s mill. However, few artists have their works “reimagined” as frequently or as creatively as Vincent van Gogh. Artists all over the world are still very much into making works based upon his iconic paintings.

For example, check out this surreal 360° video of a hot air balloon that’s a faithful 3D reproduction of Van Gogh’s famous Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

DiscGolfVR360 (YouTube Channel)

Here’s the article with more background about the ballon.

Giant Hot Air Balloon with the Face of Vincent van Gogh Sails through the Skies of Melbourne (Adam McCleery, Daily Mail Australia)

There is also an exhibit at the Atelier des Lumières in Paris that invites attendees to walk “into” Van Gogh’s Starry Night and other works. Here’s a one minute promo.

France 24 (YouTube Channel)
France 24 (Official Website)

That clip was a good introduction to the exhibit, but it didn’t convey the atmosphere of the experience as well as this next clip featuring Don McLean’s Vincent.

Ine RP Braat (YouTube Channel)

If you’re sad that you can’t step into that Starry Night exhibit, then let me introduce you to some artists that strive to take you “into” Van Gogh’s Starry Night via YouTube videos.

The first one of these types of videos I ever saw was this one by Robbie Dingo from 2007. He used SecondLife to “build” the painting, and then he filmed it.

Share Festival (YouTube Channel)

Here’s a link to Robbie Dingo’s post about the video.

Watch the World(s) (Robbie Dingo, Digital Double)

I also came across this 360° video with a similar mission in 2016.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Motion Magic (YouTube Channel)

Then I found this awesome 360° video in 2018.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Youtube Trendz (YouTube Channel)

The highlight of that clip was going into Van Gogh’s Bedroom in Arles, which is one of his works that’s been “reimagined” almost as often as Starry Night.

The Art Institute of Chicago had quite a bit of fun with “recreating” that painting when they were promoting their exhibit Van Gogh Bedrooms. They went so far as to create a replica of Van Gogh’s bedroom and then list it on Airbnb. Here’s a story about how thousands of people got into van Gogh’s bedroom.

Art Institute Re-Creates Van Gogh’s Bedroom to Rent on Airbnb (Corilyn Shropshire, Chicago Tribune)

Alas, that opportunity is no longer available, but you can step into this 360° video now.

Rendr (YouTube Channel)
Rendr (Official Website)

That video is actually a recording of a 3D model that Sokolovsky Ruslan posted on Sketchfab.

His model was also used to create a “virtual door” into Van Gogh’s bedroom with the augmented reality app ARLOOPA. Here’s a short clip of users stepping into the painting.

ARLOOPA (YouTube Channel)
ARLOOPA (Official Website)

Finally, the above examples have gone hand-in-hand with some creative uses of technology, but now here’s a fun low-tech take on Starry Night by YouTube sensation FlippyCat.

FlippyCat (YouTube Channel)
FlippyCat (Facebook Page)

Here are links to some other, related posts on Cosma.

Walk-in-Art
Art Revisited
Dive-in-Art
Leonardo Lately
Magical Paintings
Walk-in-Art & Museums!

Enjoy, but beware, it’s easy to get lost in 360° art!

Find out more about visual arts and media …

Periodic Party

~ mehopper

Hey, it is the Periodic Table’s Birthday!

Dmitri Mendeleev sketched his first draft of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements on February 17, 1869.

Notice that this year’s a “big one” for the Periodic Table — it’s 150 years old!

In fact, it’s such a big deal that the United Nations General Assembly and UNESCO have gone so far as to declare this the International Year of the Periodic Table (2019 IYPT).

Of course, unless you’re a chemist by trade, it’s fairly unlikely that you’ve heard about this.

That’s a shame, too — who knows where we would all be without the handy dandy thing.

So celebrate!

Here are some suggestions for how to do it…

First off, rather than sing Happy Birthday, you could try to sing Tom Lehrer’s The Elements.

Here’s a link to a video of Daniel Radcliffe pulling it off in about a minute.

Daniel Radcliffe sings “The Elements” (The Graham Norton Show, YouTube)

In case you’re not familiar with Tom Lehrer’s music, here’s a link where you can learn more about the awesome guy.

Tom Lehrer at 90: a life of scientific satire (Andrew Robinson, Nature)

I also found a video where someone created an animation to go with Tom Lehrer’s version

Timwi Terby (YouTube Channel)

Here’s different fun one you could try to sing.

Partha Pratim Manna

Lest you believe that caring about such things is for boring old, incredibly geeky grown-ups, here’s a link to a segment from The Ellen Show where a 3-year old shows she knows her stuff.

Adorable 3-Year-Old Periodic Table Expert Brielle (The Ellen Show)

Slightly older children might enjoy a tradition of reading Harry Helium and the Noble Gases Party (Good Reads).

For the more intellectually minded, you could hold a discussion about the alternative life stories of the Periodic Table.

Here are some resources to get your started.

The periodic tables we almost had (Mark Lorch, Quartz)
Alternate Periodic Table Designs (Western Oregon University)
The Internet Database of Periodic Tables (The Chemogenesis Web Book)

Finally, if you do want to throw a party, Etsy’s got you covered.

Periodic Table Party (Etsy)

Here are more resources to help you celebrate…

The International Year of the Periodic Table (2019 IYPT)

An unelementary affair: 150 years of the periodic table (Robert P Crease, Physics World)
How the Periodic Table Went from a Sketch to an Enduring Masterpiece (Tom Siegfried, Science News)

Setting the Table (Phillip Szuromi, Science Magazine)
Ordering the Elements (Michael D. Gordin, Science Magazine)

The Periodic Table of Elements in Pictures and Words (Keith Enevoldsen, Elements.wlonk.com)
This Awesome Periodic Table Tells You How to Actually Use All Those Elements (BEC CREW, Science Alert)

Periodic Table of Elements (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry)
Interactive Periodic Table of Elements (Los Alamos National Laboratory)
Periodic Table (American Chemical Society)

Find out more about the periodic table …

Disgusting Food

~ mehopper

At the end of my last post, I pointed out that there are a ton of leftover Halloween candy recipes on YouTube, and I singled out this particularly outlandish, unappetizing example.

Leftover Halloween Candy Pie (Bite-Size Glam, Inc.)

It occurred to me after the fact that a far simpler and quicker solution would be to just put all of the leftover candy into a food processor. The results would probably be equally “interesting” and inedible.

So along the same lines, here’s something else hot off the press that is likely to keep you from wanting to gorge on Halloween candy… or anything else for that matter.

Check out this link to a Buzz60 feature about the Disgusting Food Museum that has just opened in Malmö, Sweden.

The Disgusting Food Museum Will Let You Try Gross Foods From Around the World (Buzz60, YouTube)

The Disgusting Food Museum is being brought to the public by Samuel West. Not so surprisingly, he also happens to be the guy behind the Museum of Failure. Here’s a link to a video about it.

The Museum of Failure (Tom Scott)

One has to wonder if the Disgusting Food Museum will end up in the Museum of Failure, right?

The Disgusting Food Museum isn’t quite as unique of an idea as you might think, though. There’s also an “official” SPAM Museum. Here’s a video about it.

SPAM Museum (Hormel Foods)

I even found a nice, folksy 360° video tour.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Nomadic Hippie Daredevil Puppet (YouTube Channel)

Odd, but fun stuff!

Finally, in case you’re wondering, there’s also a more traditional Museum of Food and Drink in New York, and here’s a link to video about it.

What a Food Museum Looks Like (MOFAD)

Find out more about food …

Creepy Old Bots

~ mehopper

Before there were robots, there were automata.

Automata are old-fashioned robot like contraptions, and they tend to make the news from time to time.

The latest example is a 360° video featurette from the BBC about The House of Automata. Here’s a link to that video.

The Strange Dolls That Come to Life (BBC Global)

Personally, I find the creatures like the ones in that video a bit creepy.

It turns out that I’m not alone. Here’s a whole video about creepy automatons.

Slapped Ham (YouTube Channel)

The thing I find even creepier than the bots in the video is what people paid for them!

It must be an acquired taste.

While many automata of a certain age tend to be kind of creepy, some aren’t so bad. In fact, they come in all shapes and sizes, and some of them can be quite pretty as well as fascinating.

A great place to see that as well as to learn about automata is at the Morris Museum in Morristown, NJ. That’s because Murtogh Guinness, of Guinness beer fame, was an avid collector of automata and their close relatives, mechanical musical instruments. He left his entire collection of more than 700 gadgets to the Mooris Museum.

Here’s a video and link about that motherload of automata.

The Midnight Archive (YouTube Channel)
The Midnight Archive (Official Website)

Musical Machines & Living Dolls: Mechanical Musical Instruments and Automata from the Murtogh D. Guinness Collection (Morris Museum, Morristown, NJ)

Here’s a link to the history of Pierre Jaquet-Droz’s lovely artists mentioned in the video.

Pierre Jaquet-Droz’s Writer, Lady Musician and Draftsman (History of Computers)

While it doesn’t always make the news, there is a surprisingly large community of fans of both old and new automata. There’s even a yearly AutomataCon at the Morris Museum.

Find out more about automata and bots in general …

Magical Paintings

~ mehopper

Two earlier posts on Cosma entitled Walk-in-Art and Art Revisited covered a trend for new immersive 360°/3D/VR technologies to be used to revisit and add new dimensions, literally, to classic art masterpieces. Some examples covered in those posts included three-dimensional reimaginings of van Gogh’s Starry Night, the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium explicating Bruegel’s A fall with the Rebel Angels and the Salvador Dalí Museum’s experience entitled Dreams of Dalí: A Virtual Reality Experience that allowed visitors to use a VR headset to step into Dalí’s painting entitled Archeological Reminiscence of Millet’s Angelus..

Now there’s a new, fantastical twist on reimagining classic paintings on the block.

Remember those nifty magical paintings in Harry Potter where the people in the paintings move around, interact with people in other paintings as well as people in the real world? (Muggles’ Guide to Harry Potter)

Well I’ve just stumbled across a 360° video that takes the concept to a whole nother level. There’s nothing else to say that doesn’t spoil the fun, so just watch and be sure to look around!

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

SoKrispyMedia (YouTube Channel)
SoKrispyMedia (Official Website)

That’s just awesome I had to share it!!!

Here are links to some other, related posts on Cosma.

Walk-in-Art
Art Revisited
Dive-in-Art
Leonardo Lately
Into Van Gogh
Walk-in-Art & Museums!

Enjoy, but beware, it’s easy to get lost in 360° art 😉

Find out more about the visual arts …

Milky Way Lost & Found

~ mehopper

Have you seen the Milky Way?

You may think that you have, but are you sure?

Unless you live in an extremely remote area, or you’ve visited one, then you probably haven’t seen our own galaxy, the Milky Way, very well, or at all.

Worse yet, you may not even realize that it’s missing.

The New World Atlas of Artificial Sky Brightness demonstrated that vast swaths of people have never seen the Milky Way due to Light pollution. Here’s a link to a video and some articles about the the atlas.

We’re Missing More And More Of The Night Sky (Newsy, YouTube)

Light Pollution Limiting Night-Sky Views (Brady Dennis, Portland Press Herald/Washington Post)
The New World Atlas of Artificial Night Sky Brightness (Fabio Falchi et al., Science Advances)

You can learn a lot more about the unexpectedly scary effects of light pollution on animals and us humans in a longer, more in-depth video from Seeker.

Light Pollution Is More Dangerous Than You Think (Seeker, YouTube)

Here’s a link to a 360° video from CNN that discusses the problem and explains how a group called the International Dark Sky Association is trying to improve the situation by establishing Dark Sky Places in remote locations like Utah’s Zion National Park.

The Endangered Starry Sky 360 Video (CNN, YouTube)

Here’s a story about a viral video that shows how the sky over New York City would look without the glow of lights blocking out the view.

Here’s What the Stars Above NYC Would Look Like If We Could See Them (Talia Avakian, Fortune)

That viral video was the work of filmmakers Harun Mehmedinovic and Gavin Heffernan, and it was just the latest addition to their Skyglow Project. They were inspired by the Dark Sky Movement, and they’ve published similar videos featuring Los Angeles and other places. Here’s is a link to a video that explains more about their work.

Skyglow Illuminating The Night Sky Talking Pictures (Wired, YouTube)

Now, back to how well you have seen the Milky Way.

For that, it is useful to know about the Bortle Dark-Sky Scale (Wikipedia). It’s used to rate the sky’s brightness on a scale of 1 to 9.

Here’s a link to a beautiful film entitled Lost in Light by Sriram Murali that shows the night sky as seen at different levels of the Bortle Dark-Sky Scale. Notice the Milky Way is increasingly prominent as it gets darker.

Where Are the Stars? Lost in Light, See How Light Pollution Affects Night Skies (Sriram Murali National Geographic, YouTube)

Now that you know how to quantify what you can or can not see, here’s a Interactive Light Pollution Map where you find out how well you can see the sky from where you are now or where you’ve been. To learn about how it works, check out the Help.

If you find that you have lost the Milky Way where you are, then you can figure out the nearest place to find it by using the International Dark Sky Association’s list of International Dark Sky Parks and their handy dandy Dark Sky Place Finder.

Finally, while I was doing research for this post, I tripped over this folksy music video about light pollution. Enjoy, and don’t forget, turn the lights down, or better yet, off!

Dark Skies: The Light Pollution Song (Matthew Dimakosm, YouTube)

Find out more about our galaxy …

Méliès Doodled!

~ mehopper

You’re almost certainly familiar with Google’s Doodles. They’re an excellent, entertaining way to spend some time learning something new, in passing, every day. They also almost always point to some little known, but interesting backstory. Today’s Doodle is a particularly beautiful example of that. It celebrates Georges Méliès, and it is special for many reasons.

One reason is that it’s Google’s first Doodle that’s a 360° video. Here is a link to see it.

360 Google Doodles/Spotlight Stories Back to the Moon (Google Spotlight Stories, YouTube)

If you’re reading this after the Doodle’s gone, then check out the archived version of Celebrating Georges Méliès. As always, it looks better if you increase the video quality to the highest level that your viewing device will support, and you might need to watch it a few times through to catch all of the action and detail.

The video is fun on its own, but it is guaranteed to send cinema history buffs over the moon. If you don’t happen to be a cinema history buff, then it will take a bit of explaining to help you see why the Doodle is SO awesome. However, I’ll confess that, having taught cinema history at MIT and then other places in Boston over the years, it’s hard to know where to begin. It could easily be a semester long course, but here’s the shortest version I can manage.

The best place to start is with explaining why Georges Méliès was so special. Here’s a mini-documentary I use to introduce him. It’s kind of hokey, but it gets the job done.

DYnazty (YouTube Channel)

If you happen to have seen Scorsese’s Hugo, then you’re already way ahead. That movie was a tribute to cinema history in general as well as Méliès specifically. Here’s a review by that explains the myriad of ways that is true.

Jack’s Movie Reviews (YouTube Channel)
Jack’s Movie Reviews (Twitter)

By the way, here’s Hugo’s fantastic introduction to cinema history.

TheAOL102 (YouTube Channel)

It can’t be done any better than that! Now that you’re up to speed on Méliès and his role in cinema history, here’s a link to a “behind the scenes” look at how the Google’s Doodle, Spotlight Stories and Arts & Culture Teams collaborated with Cinémathèque Française (Wikipedia).

Behind the Scenes Back to the Moon (Google Spotlight Stories, YouTube)

This isn’t the first time that Google collaborated with Cinémathèque Française to create a 360° video celebrating Méliès and his role in cinema. Here’s a link to a video where the Google Arts & Culture Team also worked with them to create a piece entitled Kinoscope.

Kinoscope – A Virtual Reality Journey into the World of Cinema (Google Arts & Culture, YouTube)

The video was created in conjunction with the exhibit The Cinema Machine: from Méliès to 3D that ran at Cinémathèque Française. The show is no longer there, but here’s a nice review.

Critic’s Notebook: Exploring the Nuts and Bolts of Filmmaking at the Cinematheque Francaise (Jordan Mintzer, Hollywood Reporter)

You can also see Cinémathèque’s Collection on Google Arts & Culture.

Finally, as a bonus, here’s another interesting 360° video clip I stumbled across that shows the history of VR in movies in a VResque format.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Raging Cinema (YouTube Channel)

Find out more about cinema and art in general …

Dinos for Geeks

~ mehopper

There’s been a lot of cool news for dinosaur lovers lately.

The most bizarre story is about an extinct lizard called Saniwa ensidens that had four eyes.

Here’s Why an Ancient Lizard Had 4 Eyes (Laura Geggel, Live Science)

Creative-Tube (YouTube Channel)

There are also some massive 170 million year old dinosaur footprints from the Jurassic period that have been discovered on Scotland’s Isle Of Skye.

Huge Dinosaur Footprints Discovered on Scottish Coast (Michael Greshko, National Geographic)
A sauropod-dominated tracksite from Rubha nam Brathairean, Isle of Skye, Scotland (Paige E. dePolo, et. al., Scotish Journal of Geology)

That’s cool news for dinosaur lovers, but it’s not all that geeky.

Before we dive into the really geeky stuff, check out this 360° video from the American Museum of National History in which Mike Novacek describes how Roy Chapman Andrews led an expedition to the Gobi Desert back in the 1920s.

American Museum of Natural History (YouTube Channel)
American Museum of Natural History (Official Website)

You can find out a ton more about the expeditions and dinosaurs in general on the American Museum of National History YouTube Channel series Dinosaurs Explained.

That’s probably the kind of methodology that you think of when you think about paleontology. Paleontologists do still use those traditional field methods, but they also use some fairly geeky technology these days. Here’s a video in which paleontologist Ken Lacovara explains how his field uses laser scanning and 3D modeling.

Live Science (YouTube Channel)
ive Science (Official Website)

Here’s a link to an even geekier video and related story about how the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History is scanning and printing fossils.

How to 3D Print a Dinosaur (Mashable, YouTube)
Hold a T-Rex Bone in Your Bare Hands, Invites Smithsonian (Eric Larson, Mashable)

Doesn’t all that talk about 3D dinosaur parts make you just itch to see a complete one?

Here’s a 360° video in which paleontologist Dr. Ken Lacovara “shows” us a giant dinosaur called Dreadnoughtus while he explains how it was discovered. If you have a powerful computer, change the quality setting on the video to 1080s for a more impressive experience.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Jaunt XR (YouTube Channel)
Jaunt XR (Facebook)

This wasn’t the first neat 360° video about dinosaurs. Over a year ago Sir David Attenborough worked with BBC One to make a 360° video to introduce the biggest dinosaur ever discovered. Here’s a link to that video, and again, increase the video quality for a better experience.

Meet the Largest Dinosaur Ever Discovered – Attenborough and the Giant Dinosaur (BBC One, YouTube)

The BBC also published a website with more backstory about the project. If you follow the link, be sure to also click the tabs for more information.

BBC Taster Attenborough 360 (BBC)

Here’s another story about the project.

Sir David Attenborough set to Reveal the Biggest Dinosaur Ever to Walk the Planet in Upcoming BBC Show (Doug Bolton, The Independent)

Finally, I saved the geekiest stuff for last. If you crave realistic extinct creatures, how about some real ones? Impossible, you think? Not necessarily! De-extinction is a real thing that is being actively explored, and while true dinosaurs are still far fetched, species that only went extinct within the last 500 years or so are not all that far out of reach.

Here’s a link to a video and news story about the state of the art in resurrecting extinct species as well as the complex pros and cons of doing so.

How Close Are We to Resurrecting Extinct Species? (Seeker, YouTube)
The Increasingly Realistic Prospect of “Extinct Animal” Zoos (Christine Ro, BBC)

Find out more about dinosaurs …

Dogs at Museums

~ mehopper

Dogs and museums are things that you don’t expect to see in the same sentence very often. However, if you live in the Boston area, then you might have seen them together in the cute story covered by most local media about Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts “hiring” a 12 week old Weimaraner puppy named Riley to protect their collections from unwanted visitors. Here’s a clip from the local CBS News channel and their news story about the little guy.

CBS Boston (YouTube Channel)
CBS Boston (Official Website)

Museum Of Fine Arts Welcomes New Pest Detection Dog (CBS Boston)

So, dogs and museums aren’t as incongruous as they may seem at first.

In fact, there’s also a Museum of the Dog in St. Louis, MO backed by the American Kennel Club. Here’s a local news clip about that museum.

Nine PBS (YouTube Channel)
Nine PBS (Official Website)

Last year the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis also hosted an exhibit entitled Dogs: Faithful and True. Here’s a clip from the local news channel about it.

WRTV Indianapolis (YouTube Channel)
WRTV Indianapolis (Official Website)

Here’s a longer, more in depth piece made in connection with the exhibit that features a chat with a musher from the Iditarod.

Pet Pals TV (YouTube Channel)
Pet Pals TV (Official Website)

The Smithsonian even has a whole page dedicated to dogs entitled Dog: Museum’s Best Friend. So dogs and museums aren’t incongruous, and this is all even fairly down to Earth stuff as far as the conservative world of traditional museums go.

A bit further off the beaten path was a contemporary art show that premiered in London in 2016 that featured interactive sculptures by Dominic Wilcox as well as wall based paintings, drawings and collages that dogs would appreciate. The paintings were even created in colours dogs can see and scented in the subject matter of the art work.

Onlooker (YouTube Channel)

The literary minded geeks might also be itching to thrust their hands into the air. Yes indeed, there is a quirky novel by Jonathan Carroll entitled Outside the Dog Museum.

Of course, the less intellectually inclined readers amongst you are probably disappointed because this post hasn’t been about what you thought it was going to be about. You thought it was going to be about C.M. Coolidge’s series Dogs Playing Poker colloquially known as Dogs at Cards, didn’t you?

Don’t fret — here are a few morsels for you 🙂

HighRollerRadioTV (YouTube Channel)

15 Things You Should Know About Dogs Playing Poker (Kristy Puchko, Mental Floss)

Find out more about dogs, museums and, of course, just a tad o’ humor 😉

Maya Megalopolis

~ mehopper

You may remember learning about the Maya in school, and you may have heard of Chichén Itzá (UNESCO) because it is often included on recent lists of “World Wonders” (as well as being a convenient day drive from Cancún). Here’s a link to a 360° video that will give you a sense of what it’s like to see Chichén Itzá.

Seven Wonders of the World: Chichén Itzá | 360 Video (The New York Times, YouTube)

There are also other less heavily promoted places where you can see Maya ruins, and one of the most impressive and famous is in Tikal, Guatemala (UNESCO). Here’s a link to a 360° video that will give you a sense of what it’s like to visit those ruins.

Tikal, Guatemala 360 VR Temple Number 2 (Miguel Barreto MAC, YouTube)

It is actually these ruins that are receiving more attention right now, and that is because an organization called Fundación Patrimonio Cultural y Natural Maya (Pacunam) backed a project to use a “laser” technology called Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) to discover and map what is being called a “megalopolis” built by the Maya from 250 to 950 CE. Here are links to a video and two news stories about it.

Lasers On Planes Used To Reveal Massive Complex Of Mayan Ruins (NBC Nightly News, YouTube)

Sprawling Maya Network Discovered under Guatemala Jungle (BBC)
Laser Mapping Uncovers Dozens of Ancient Mayan Cities (Oscar Holland, CNN)

Here is a link to a slightly longer, in-depth story that also mentions a nifty Augmented Reality (AR) application that makes it possible to “navigate” LiDAR data.

Scientists Use Laser Technology to Uncover More Mayan Ruins (CBS Mornings, YouTube)

Find out more about the Americas, the World and History …

Leonardo Lately

~ mehopper

Leonardo da Vinci sure gets press for a gentleman who hasn’t been around for five centuries! That’s not to say that it’s not well deserved. Here’s a brief video that gives just a glimpse of why he was such an amazing guy.

Past Vault (YouTube Channel)

The Smile

Of course, one perennial reason for Leonardo’s popularity is the never ending fascination with how he achieved Mona Lisa’s smile. This video is about just one study about it.

Newsy Entertainment (YouTube Channel)

Here’s a link to a video that further explains the fantastic techniques that Leonardo used to create the illusions that make the painting so enigmatic.

How Leonardo Da Vinci Augmented Reality More Than 500 Years Ago (The Atlantic)

Unfortunately, it’s hard for an average person to actually experience the effect for themselves. In case you’ve never been to the Louvre and tried to see the original, here’s a 360° Video that will give you a sense of what you will probably encounter (skip to 2 minutes into video).

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

360 Vacation VR (YouTube Channel)

The Genius

One of the above videos was made to accompany a story by Walter Isaacson about Leonardo da Vinci in the The Atlantic, and that story is a sample of the book Leonardo da Vinci that Isaacson has just added to his pantheon of biographies about geniuses (Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs).

Here’s an inspiring 2 minute video where Isaacson talks about Leonardo’s creativity.

New Scientist (YouTube Channel)
New Scientist (Official Website)

Here’s a link to another video where Isaacson discusses the book.

Walter Isaacson on Accessible Genius of Leonardo da Vinci (CBS, YouTube)

The Auction

It is probably no coincidence that Isaacson’s book was timed to coincide with the auction of Leonardo’s last painting in private hands — the Salvator Mundi was auctioned at Christie’s.

Associated Press (YouTube Channel)
Associated Press (Official Website)

Here’s a link to a video from Christie’s that explains the importance of the painting.

In truth, though, the authenticity of the painting still remains controversial in some circles.

Mystery over Christ’s orb in $100m Leonardo da Vinci painting (Dalya Alberge, The Guardian)

The painting ended up going to Saudi Arabian Prince Badr bin Abdullah, and the Wikipedia page about it keeps tabs on its whereabouts and exhibition status.

The Movie

Good news — Leonardo as Leonardo may be coming to a screen near you! Leonardo DiCaprio, who is named after da Vinci, is going to be starring in a movie about his namesake, and it will be based upon Isaacson’s book.

Here’s a link to a story about about the project.

The Role Leonardo DiCaprio Was Literally Born to Play (Yohana Desta, Vanity Fair)

Given what Leonardo da Vinci himself documented about his own exotic exploits, well, that should be “interesting” — it would be hard to be boring. Okay, it has the potential to be pretty gruesome, but fascinating nonetheless.

If you want to know about Leonardo da Vinci, but can’t wait for the movie, here’s a link to an older documentary.

Leonardo’s Universe (National Geographic, YouTube)

You can also find out a ton more about Leonardo on The History Channel and Wikipedia.

Find out more about the time I met Walter Isaacson at Harvard…

Finally, here are links to some other, related posts on Cosma.

Walk-in-Art
Art Revisited
Dive-in-Art
Magical Paintings
Into Van Gogh
Walk-in-Art & Museums!

Enjoy, but beware, it’s easy to get lost in 360° art!

Find out more about the arts and history…

Sexagesimal

~ mehopper

If you don’t happen to know the definition of Sexagesimal (Wolfram, Wikipedia), you might think it could be some strange kind of activity that goes on at festivals like Burning Man (Wired, Wikipedia). If you happen to be a computer geek, you might have guessed it has something to do with numbers (as in binary, hex, etc.), and you would be right. If you’re a numbers geek or a mathematician, then you probably already know the cool research that this post is going to be describing.

But first, here’s a bit of review for those who are neither numbers geeks nor mathematicians. You were probably taught in school that there are different ways of counting. We use “base 10”, but there are other number systems. For example, computers are based on binary (base 2), and there is a group of people who would like to revolutionize the world by using duodecimal (base 12). Here’s a nice video that explains all about “Base Number Systems.”

Macmatics (YouTube Channel)

Well, the ancient Babylonian’s used sexagesimal (base 60), and some new research suggests that they not only beat the ancient Greeks at inventing Trigonometry (Wikipedia), they also may have been able to do it better. Here’s a video and story about the research that was conducted by Daniel F. Mansfield and N.J. Wildberger from the University of New South Wales and published in Historia Mathematica.

University of New South Wales (YouTube Channel)
University of New South Wales (Official Website)

Plimpton 322 is Babylonian Exact Sexagesimal Trigonometry (Daniel F. Mansfield & N.J. Wildberger, Historia Mathematica)

Here are more videos and articles about the research.

Science Magazine (YouTube Channel)
Science Magazine (Official Website)

This 3,700-Year-Old Babylonian Clay Tablet Just Changed The History of Maths (David Sield, Science Alert)
Math Whizzes of Ancient Babylon Figured Out Forerunner of Calculus (Ron Cowen, AAAS Science Magazine)
Ancient Babylonian Astronomers Calculated Jupiter’s Position from the Area Under a Time-Velocity Graph (Mathieu Ossendrijver, AAAS Science)

So, there you have it, sexagesimal is neat stuff!

Find out more about math …

Dive-in-Art

~ mehopper

Check out this video from the Lower Keys Underwater Music Festival.

FloridaKeysTV (YouTube Channel)
FloridaKeysTV (Official Website)

There are a ton of YouTube videos about the annual fest, and here’s an article about it.

Watch An Underwater Music Festival ‘Make Waves’ for Reef Protection (Florida Keys News Bureau)

You might think that this event is fairly unique, but it turns out that there are lots of divers who are also fans of the arts, so “arts under the sea” is not nearly as rare as you might think. For example, underwater art museums are thriving. Here’s an article about where you can find your nearest “dive-in” art museum.

Underwater Museums of the world: Immerse Yourself in Art in the Depths of the Sea (Ukranian Shipping Magazine)

Here is a video about the Museo Subacuático de Arte (MUSA) mentioned in the article.

Dmitriy (YouTube Channel)

There are even some artists who are specifically known for exhibiting underwater. The photographer Andreas Franke once made news by staging an art exhibit on the Vandenberg battleship that was deliberately sunk off the coast of Key West to create the second largest man made reef on the planet (watch the Vanderberg sink). Here’s a 360° video of the exhibit.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Subsurface Media (YouTube Channel)

The pictures from the exhibit were brought up to create a landlubber’s exhibit. Franke moved on to create an exhibit on the SS Stavronikita off of Barbados, and then he went on to create another exhibit on the USS Mohawk CGC off the coast of Sanibel Island.

Barbados Property Search (YouTube Channel)

Ghostly Underwater Art Gallery Breathes New Life to Sunken Ship (Sheena McKenzie, CNN)

Jason deCaires Taylor is another artist who is known for his underwater work, but he specializes in sculpture rather than photography. Here’s a TED talk where Taylor provides insights about what motivates his work.

TED (YouTube Channel)
TED (Official Website)

The eclectic multimedia artist Doug Aitken worked with LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art to construct a large-scale underwater installation entitled Underwater Pavilions off of Catalina Island. Here’s an official video from MOCA about the work.

The Museum of Contemporary Art (YouTube Channel)
The Museum of Contemporary Art (Official Website)

Here’s a cool 360° video that gives a great sense of what it’s like to visit the exhibit.
Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Superswell VR (YouTube Channel)

The current that tends to run through all of the underwater artist’s work is the appreciation and preservation of the Earth’s ocean environments, so please share this to support their work!

Here are links to some other, related posts on Cosma.

Walk-in-Art
Art Revisited
Leonardo Lately
Magical Paintings
Into Van Gogh
Walk-in-Art & Museums!

Enjoy, but beware, it’s easy to get lost in 360° art!

Find out more about the arts and the ocean …