THE GOLDEN AGE -The Simulation from Paul Nicholls on Vimeo.

Architect Paul D. Nicholls has just released a stunning animated concept video called The Golden Age: The Simulation, the first in a two part series of visualizations of what he calls an “artificial intelligence within a simulated architecture.” The gorgeous one-shot journey captures the process of abstract elements as they are constructed into larger golden structures. The gold matter then liquefies before disintegrating into darkness. Its soothing ambient soundtrack gives the video an ephemeral, dreamlike quality that perfectly accompanies the lush, brilliant visuals.

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in october, or was it sept? we started financial counseling - we're STILL not ready for the hubby's retirement. he retired in march, 2009. the experience has been... interesting.

before our first meeting, i had nightmares she would just throw her hands up in the air and inform us "you're doomed!" it wasn't QUITE that bad, but close. now, at the end of the year, after 6 or 7 meetings, we've consolidated our bank accounts, and several mutual fund accounts, and converted two IRAs into two new ones with better management over all. we've actually made a little profit. we've also put more effort into governing our spending, cancelled a few subscriptions and unnecessary services - we're closer to a manageable budget. still not entirely out of the woods, but it looks promising.

the past six weeks, we've concentrated on family. we've seen a lot more of my mom, and actually managed to get in a visit with my brother and his wife. everyone's health is on the upswing - weight is down, glucose levels are better controlled, we're all walking more and eating better.

of course, this month, we've been planning for christmas. #2 son has escorted me on three different shopping excursions, and we've managed to get everything we wanted for the people on our lists. i finished wrapping most of it, yesterday. today, we'll head to the UPS store to ship the two packages that are headed out of town and we can relax this last week before christmas day. it's completely out of character for me. i'm usually still shopping the day before (as i didn't even create a list 'til then) and wrapping 'til 4:00 am on christmas eve. what AM i going to do with my time?

i know! i'll send a greeting out to you :-) this video is a bit long, but it's from a "local". the creator is from sherman oaks, CA. christmas lights are always pretty, and home computing makes it much easier to actually create a "show" for the neighborhood.

Lights On Display 2010 from Lights on Display on Vimeo.

"at long last, a new version of star wars i can get excited about
Everything about this is just beautiful."

original post at Geekosystem

a fire truck named "dragon slayer"
(click on the thumbnail to view it larger)

"When the individual words are writhing across the screen there's barely a trace of the iPad that made them. But my favorites are the final shots, where all three words appear together and you can see the ghostly forms of the people that are moving around the space to create them. Kinda spooky, very beautiful. [BERG and Dentsu London]"

Making Future Magic: iPad light painting from Dentsu London on Vimeo.

This film explores playful uses for the increasingly ubiquitous ‘glowing rectangles’ that inhabit the world.

We use photographic and animation techniques that were developed to draw moving 3-dimensional typography and objects with an iPad. In dark environments, we play movies on the surface of the iPad that extrude 3-d light forms as they move through the exposure. Multiple exposures with slightly different movies make up the stop-frame animation.

We've collected some of the best images from the project and made a book of them you can buy: http://bit.ly/mfmbook

Read more at the Dentsu London blog:
http://www.dentsulondon.com/blog/2010/09/14/light-painting/
and at the BERG blog:
http://berglondon.com/blog/2010/09/14/magic-ipad-light-painting/

Most surveys of the US public indicate that scientists are popular, trusted figures. The same, however, cannot be said about some of their conclusions, as topics like climate change and evolution remain controversial with many segments of the population. A recent Pew survey gives an indication of why: even though the scientific community's opinion is largely unified on these topics, the public thinks that there is significant dispute among the researchers. A study published by the Journal of Risk Research attempts to explain why this might be the case.

The people behind the new study start by asking a pretty obvious question: "Why do members of the public disagree—sharply and persistently—about facts on which expert scientists largely agree?" (Elsewhere, they refer to the "intense political contestation over empirical issues on which technical experts largely agree.") In this regard, the numbers from the Pew survey are pretty informative. Ninety-seven percent of the members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science accept the evidence for evolution, but at least 40 percent of the public thinks that major differences remain in scientific opinion on this topic. Clearly, the scientific community isn't succeeding in making the public aware of its opinion.

According to the new study, this isn't necessarily the fault of the scientists, though. The authors favor a model, called the cultural cognition of risk, which "refers to the tendency of individuals to form risk perceptions that are congenial to their values." This wouldn't apply directly to evolution, but would to climate change: if your cultural values make you less likely to accept the policy implications of our current scientific understanding, then you'll be less likely to accept the science.

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we'll be meeting with her again the third week in september. in the meantime, we get to go through our budget and figure out what we can clean up by ourselves. i'm sure there's plenty of non-essentials in there. i'm not sure there are enough of them to really pull us out of the fire. we're going to have to work on that.

i'm still sorting clothes. i've loaded up four more boxes worth for goodwill. the mountain is gradually being eroded down to what's beginning to look as a manageable wardrobe. i plan on whittling away at it until it's all in the closet or in drawers. it's kind of nice. i'm finding shirts i really liked, but lost track of, and suits i never really cared for. clothes that are too big, and clothes that are too small (but i like them enough to hold on to - just in case).

i also found a box that looked like it might hold my old copies of "nutshell news". i had the hubby reach those down off the top shelf of the bookcase. the box was just a fraction of an inch too small, but hubby found a box that would do. next thing you know, we were cleaning the shelves. 15 feet of floor to ceiling shelving, and we completely reorganized them! now that's quite an event.

this becoming an obsession. 

it started with a visit to my mom's financial advisor. her estate is set up as a trust, and her advisor will be the trust administrator when mom passes on. the visit was for my brother and i to have clear in our heads what my mother's intentions are. the administrator's role will be to oversee the estate and ensure it continues to provide us with an income as opposed to us receiving it in a lump and having it disappear in too short a time. statistically, this is a sound move, as most estates do tend to disappear the way lottery winnings do within just a couple of years.

so, my husband and i took the opportunity to schedule an appointment of our own to try and get our own affairs in order. hubby retired 18 months ago. we weren't ready for it. we're still not ready for it. things are getting pretty serious. COBRA is due to run out in just another 6 weeks. we recently tried to refinance our mortgage and were turned down because there are repairs needed on the house. just those two bills alone are more than hubby's retirement income. we're digging a deeper hole. is there any way for us to keep hubby in retirement?

our appointment is next wednesday. the advisor needs certain paperwork to evaluate where we stand and what resources we have to draw upon. we have lots of files; they're in about 5 different locations around the house. i spent two days going through the files in my office. i've pulled out all the files for 2009 and most of the files for 2008. they're now boxed with the tax forms for their respective years and ready to be stored. the file drawer in my desk is now well-ordered; all the folders are labelled and sorted chronologically. whew! hubby's files are another matter, completely. that's going to take both of us a couple more days.

while i was sorting the files in the office, i kept looking at the closet in the bedroom (there are two more file cabinets in there). i tend to stack stuff wherever there's a level surface. the tops of the cabinets were piled high with clothes and the space in front of them was blockaded with more boxes of clothes and books. time to clear out the clutter. so far, i've given away 6 boxes of clothes, packed another box of "skinny" clothes i hope to use again, and thrown away at least two bags of things that were past hope. i've given away a floor fan, a toaster oven, and two more boxes of books as well. one of the file cabinets has been emptied, and the other is now accessible. woohoo!

in the meantime, hubby decided he just couldn't stand the lamp/table he's been using on the loft one more night (the lamp just doesn't work well any more). so, today, we moved that table off the loft, and rearranged the furniture and my papercrafting supplies to accomplish his space requirements. it was sort of a side-track from the files and the closet, but it's still a sorting adventure. he now has access to a bank of DVD storage, and the space under the futon has been cleared out, too.

and do we hoard much? going through the files i found files as old as 1982! and not even our own files - they were my mother-in-law's tax returns and social security statements. needless to say, we really don't need to keep those any longer. i've also managed to throw out about 4 boxes of old magazines.

i think we're going to keep working on this. it's probably a good thing he's retired - now we've got time to clean up.

how many of them know how you struggle with your glucose levels, or your weight loss, or your eye strain. how many of them congratulate you when you've learned a new trick with code? how many of them know how much you love your mother? or how much she doesn't even like your sister-in-law? does your next door neighbor know your favorite color is green? or that you collect dragons and frogs? or that you love old time radio?

for a long time, as a member of the Other Worlds Cafe chat group, I knew a man whose sign-on was BLRWIZ. outside the O*W*C chatroom, i usually greeted him with "hi, handsome". He was a friendly, funny fan of science fiction. we chatted online, nightly, for almost ten years before i finally learned his given name was Brad. that was probably about 6 or 7 years ago. we talked about science fiction (of course), science, fantasy, puns, magic and cats. He had a cat named Yoda, and, later, a cat named Zardoz. we talked about our family and friends, our dreams and our disappointments.

 Brad and i called ourselves "lost twins". our birthdays are just 6 days apart. we had a lot of similar likes and dislikes. we both liked to chat. and we both cared enough to listen. no matter what the time of day, Brad was always there when i needed to talk to someone. he listened to my gripes about my sons, or my husband. he listened to my praise for them, too. we shared happy events, sad events, stories we were reading or listening to, and movies we had seen. we often chatted online all night.

nearly every day there was at least one e-mail from Brad with jokes, or pictures of cats, or links to videos of magic tricks. i don't know how he kept track, but it seems there was very little repetition, even though some of these things roll around the internet for years. i've kept all of them. some are inspirational, some are just "too cute", some are simply amazing. and there are a few personal notes that are encouraging or just "checking in".

he is gone, now. he fell. he didn't get back up. he tried. we prayed, and hoped, and we sent words of love and encouragement. i dearly hope they helped him in his struggle to recover. but he didn't get back up, and he is gone.

i will never again be able to greet him online ("hi, handsome"). i will never again receive an email from him with the latest LOLcats, or internet meme. i will never have the chance to meet him in person.

i am so terribly lucky to have known him. i was blessed that he considered me friend and called me "twin". i miss him.

Brad was my friend.