March 8, 2011
Michel Fournier (b. 1944) is an adventurer and retired French Air Force colonel. He has been involved in planning several attempts to break freefall jumping height records, but has yet to be successful. In 1998, the French space agency chose Fournier to conduct a record jump to test the ability of astronauts to survive reentry without a space craft. This project was quickly canceled. In 2003, Fournier attempted his first privately-financed jump but the balloon ripped while being filled. ‘The New York Times’ reports that Fournier has spent nearly $20 million on his two private attempts.
Fournier was scheduled to carry out the Grand Saut (Big Jump) project in 2008, which would have seen him ascend to 40 km (25 mi) in a balloon and freefall 34 km (21 mi) to earth before opening his parachute at 6 km (3.7 mi). In the process he was expected to break the sound barrier, and reach speeds upward of 1,000 miles per hour. His freefall was expected to last 15 minutes. Joseph Kittinger set the previous parachute record by jumping from 31,333 meters (102,799 ft) in 1960 (with a small parachute for guidance) under Project Excelsior. Roger Eugene Andreyev from the Soviet Union holds the longest freefall record of 24,483 meters (80,325 ft) in 1962.
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March 8, 2011
Yves Rossy (b. 1959) is a Swiss pilot and inventor. He is the first person to achieve sustained human flight using a jet-powered fixed wing strapped to his back. This jet pack has led to his being nicknamed Airman, Jetman, Rocketman and, later, Fusionman, according to his project steps. Rossy developed and built a system comprising a backpack with semi-rigid carbon-fiber wings with a span of about 2.4 metres (7.9 ft), powered by four attached Jet-Cat P200 jet engines modified from large-model, kerosene fueled, aircraft engines.
His first flight occurred in 2006, lasting nearly six minutes and nine seconds. Yves later successfully flew across the English Channel in 2008 in 9 minutes 7 seconds, reaching a speed of 299 km/h (186 mph) during the crossing. Later in 2008, he made a flight over the Alps, reaching a top descent speed of 304 km/h (189 mph) and an average speed of 124 mph.
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March 8, 2011
Graphic design is the art of communication, stylizing, and problem-solving through the use of type, space, and image. Graphic design often refers to both the process (designing) by which the communication is created and the products (designs) which are generated.
Common uses of graphic design include identity (logos and branding), publications (magazines, newspapers and books), print advertisements, posters, billboards, website graphics and elements, signs and product packaging. For example, a product package might include a logo or other artwork, organized text and pure design elements such as images, shapes and color which unify the piece. Composition is one of the most important features of graphic design, especially when using pre-existing materials or diverse elements.
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March 6, 2011
Bette Nesmith (1924 – 1980) was an American typist, the inventor of Liquid Paper, and mother of musician and producer Michael Nesmith of The Monkees.
It was very difficult to erase mistakes made by early electric typewriters, which caused problems for her. She put tempera water-based paint in a bottle to correct her mistakes, and secretly used her white correction paint for five years, making some improvements with help from her son’s high school chemistry teacher. Some superiors admonished her against using it, but coworkers frequently sought her ‘paint out.’ She eventually began marketing her typewriter correction fluid as ‘Mistake Out’ in 1956, and later as ‘Liquid Paper.’
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March 6, 2011
The Snurfer was the first marketed snowboard. It uses a noboard type of snowboard binding alternative. It was created in 1965 by Sherman Poppen in Muskegon, Michigan.
Poppen was outside his house one day sledding with his daughters, when his 11 year old was going down the hill, standing on her old sled. Poppen then ran inside his shop and bound two skis together. Poppen used a string and tied it to the nose of the board so the rider could have control of the board. Poppen’s wife called it the Snurfer. He licensed the concept to Brunswick Corporation to manufacture the Snurfer. Brunswick sold about a million Snurfers for $10 to $30.
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March 6, 2011
Warchalking is the drawing of symbols in public places to advertise an open Wi-Fi wireless network. Inspired by hobo symbols, the warchalking marks were conceived by a group of friends in June 2002 and publicized by Matt Jones who designed the set of icons and produced a downloadable document containing them. Having found a Wi-Fi node, the warchalker draws a special symbol on a nearby object, such as a wall, the pavement, or a lamp post. Those offering Wi-Fi service might also draw such a symbol to advertise the availability of their Wi-Fi location, whether commercial or personal.
The word is formed by analogy to wardriving, the practice of driving around an area in a car to detect open Wi-Fi nodes. That term in turn is based on wardialing, the practice of dialing many phone numbers hoping to find a modem.
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March 6, 2011
Wardriving is the act of searching for Wi-Fi wireless networks by a person in a moving vehicle. The term originated from wardialing, a technique popularized by a character played by Matthew Broderick in the film WarGames, and named after that film. Wardialing in this context refers to the practice of using a computer to dial many phone numbers in the hopes of finding an active modem.
Warbiking is essentially the same as wardriving, but it involves searching for wireless networks while on a moving bicycle or motorcycle. This activity is sometimes facilitated by the mounting of a Wi-Fi capable device on the vehicle itself. Warwalking (sometimes warjogging) is done on foot rather than conducted from a moving vehicle. Warkitting is a combination of wardriving and rootkitting (installation of software that enables privileged access to a computer while actively hiding its presence from administrators). In a warkitting attack, a hacker replaces the firmware of an attacked router.
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March 6, 2011
Wardialing is a technique of using a modem to automatically scan a list of telephone numbers, usually dialing every number in a local area code to search for computers, Bulletin board systems and fax machines. Hackers use the resulting lists for various purposes, hobbyists for exploration, and crackers – hackers that specialize in computer security – for password guessing.
The popular name for this technique originated in the 1983 film WarGames. In the film, the protagonist programmed his computer to dial every telephone number in Sunnyvale, California to find other computer systems. Prior to the movie’s release, this technique was known as ‘hammer dialing’ or ‘demon dialing.’
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March 6, 2011
Social Engineering describes methods of influencing people with the goal of illegally obtaining sensitive data (e.g. passwords, credit card information). Social Engineers observe the personal environment of their victims and use fake identities to gain secret information or free services. In most cases Social Engineering is used to infiltrate third party computer systems to spy on sensitive data; in that case social engineering is also called Social Hacking.
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March 4, 2011
eBoy (‘Godfathers of Pixel’) is a pixel art group founded in 1997 by Kai Vermehr, Steffen Sauerteig and Svend Smital. Their work makes intense use of popular culture and commercial icons, and their style is presented in three-dimensional isometric illustrations filled with robots, cars, guns and girls.
‘If we don’t work on other projects at the same time it takes about six to eight weeks to finish a very detailed cityscape, three eBoy’s working on it, nearly full time. But, if we have to do it in our spare time, which happens often, it could take years to finish a picture since we can’t spend so much time on it.’
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March 4, 2011
Pixels is a short film created and directed by French film-maker Patrick Jean. It’s about the invasion of New York by a classic 8-bit video games, such as Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Tetris, Arkanoid, and others. Pixels was picked up by Adam Sandler’s production company to be developed into a feature film.
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March 4, 2011
Pixel art is a form of digital art, created through the use of raster graphics software, where images are edited on the pixel level. Graphics in most old (or relatively limited) computer and video games, graphing calculator games, and many mobile phone games are mostly pixel art. The term pixel art was first published by Adele Goldberg and Robert Flegal of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in 1982. The concept, however, goes back about 10 years before that, for example in Richard Shoup’s SuperPaint system in 1972, also at Xerox PARC.
Some traditional art forms, such as counted-thread embroidery (including cross-stitch) and some kinds of mosaic and beadwork, are very similar to pixel art. These art forms construct pictures out of small colored units similar to the pixels of modern digital computing. Image filters (such as blurring or alpha-blending) or tools with automatic anti-aliasing are considered not valid tools for pixel art, as such tools calculate new pixel values automatically, contrasting with the precise manual arrangement of pixels associated with pixel art.
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