December 19, 2010
Shock diamonds (also known as Mach diamonds, Mach disks or dancing diamonds) are a formation of stationary wave patterns that appears in the exhaust plume of an aerospace propulsion system, such as a supersonic jet engine, rocket, ramjet, or scramjet when it is operated in an atmosphere.
Shock diamonds are formed when the supersonic exhaust from a nozzle is slightly over or under-expanded, meaning that the pressure of the gases exiting the nozzle is different from the ambient air pressure. A complex flow field results as the shock wave is reflected back and forth between the free fluid jet boundary and a visible repeating diamond-shaped pattern is formed which gives the shock diamonds their name.
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December 19, 2010
A sonic boom is created when an object travels faster than the speed of sound. When an airplane reaches the speed of sound, it makes such an explosive noise it can be seen with the naked eye. The visible part of a sonic boom is actually air that becomes compressed by sound waves. The thunder that a storm makes is also a sonic boom caused by lightning forcing air to move faster than the speed of sound.
The first plane to travel at the speed of sound was the Bell X-1 in 1947 and was piloted by Chuck Yeager. The cracking sound a bullwhip makes when properly wielded is, in fact, a small sonic boom. A bullwhip tapers down from the handle section to the cracker. The end of the whip, called the cracker, has much less mass than the handle section. When the whip is sharply swung, the energy is transferred down the length of the tapering whip.
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December 19, 2010
Captain Harlock is a fictional character created by manga artist Leiji Matsumoto. Harlock is the archetypical romantic hero, a space pirate with an individualist philosophy of life. He is as noble as he is taciturn and rebellious; he stoically fights against totalitarian regimes, whether they be earthborn or alien.
The character was introduced in Adventures of a Honeybee (1953), but did not debut as a lead character until 1978’s Space Pirate Captain Harlock. Since then, he has appeared in numerous animated TV series and films, the latest of which re-imagines him as an Iron Cross fighter pilot and a gunslinger in the American Old West.
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December 19, 2010
‘Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem’ is a 2003 feature-length Japanese animated musical film set to French duo, Daft Punk’s second studio album, ‘Discovery.’ The film depicts the abduction and rescue of an interstellar pop band. The film was produced by Daft Punk and Toei Animation, under the supervision of famed managa and anime artist, Leiji Matsumoto. The film has no dialogue and minimal sound effects. Daft Punk’s concept for the project involved the merging of science fiction with entertainment industry culture and was further developed with their collaborator Cédric Hervet.
All three brought the album and the completed story to Tokyo in the hope of creating the film with their childhood hero, Leiji Matsumoto. Many elements common to Matsumoto’s stories, such as a romanticism of noble sacrifice and remembrance of fallen friends, appear in ‘Interstella 5555.’ Daft Punk revealed in an interview that ‘Captain Harlock’ was a great influence on them in their childhood. They also stated, ‘The music we have been making must have been influenced at some point by the shows we were watching when we were little kids.’
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December 19, 2010
ALDI, short for ‘Albrecht Discount,’ is a discount supermarket chain based in Germany founded by brothers Karl Albrecht and Theo Albrecht in 1913. Karl has since retired and is Germany’s richest man. Theo was Germany’s second richest man until his death in July 2010. The Aldi group operates about 8,210 individual stores worldwide. A new store opens every week in Britain alone.
Originally Aldi stores were ridiculed as being cheap shops selling low-quality goods, and that Aldi’s customers were mostly people who could not afford to shop elsewhere. Gradually many German consumers discovered that the poor reputation of Aldi’s products was either undeserved or economically justifiable. This shift in public perception was boosted by actions like a series of cookbooks that only used Aldi ingredients, which led to the emergence of a kind of Aldi fandom into parts of the German mainstream.
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December 19, 2010
Fibromyalgia [fahy-broh-mahy-al-juh] (latin for muscle and connective tissue pain) is a medical disorder characterized by chronic widespread pain and allodynia (pain in response to something that should not cause pain, like a light touch). It is estimated to affect 2–4% of the population, with a female to male incidence ratio of approximately 9:1, but is considered a controversial diagnosis, due to lacking scientific consensus to its cause. Not all members of the medical community consider it a disease because of a lack of abnormalities on physical examination and the absence of objective diagnostic tests.
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December 17, 2010
Oscar Zeta Acosta (1935 – disappeared 1974) was an American attorney, politician, and minor novelist, perhaps best known for his friendship with the American author Hunter S. Thompson, who characterized him as his Samoan Attorney, Dr. Gonzo, in his novel ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.’ In 1967, Acosta began working as an antipoverty attorney for the East Legal Aid Society in Oakland, California. In 1968 he moved to East Los Angeles and joined the Chicano Movement as an activist attorney. His controversial defense earned him the ire of the LAPD, who considered the ‘Brown Pride’ movement more dangerous than the Black Panthers.
In the summer of 1967 Acosta met Hunter S. Thompson, who would write an article on Acosta and the injustice in the barrios of East L.A. for ‘Rolling Stone’ in 1971 titled ‘Strange Rumblings in Aztlan.’ When working on the article, Thompson and Acosta visited Las Vegas (inspiring Hunter’s later novel on the city). In 1972, Acosta disappeared while traveling in Mexico. His son, Marco Acosta, believes that he was the last person to talk to his father. In May 1972, Acosta telephoned his son, telling him that he was ‘about to board a boat full of white snow.’ Marco is later quoted in reference to his father’s disappearance: ‘The body was never found, but we surmise that probably, knowing the people he was involved with, he ended up mouthing off, getting into a fight, and getting killed.’
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December 17, 2010
Bodyflight is the art of ‘flying your body’ in a controlled manner. This include turns, rolls, lateral movement, fall rate control, and other acrobatics in the air. The skill of bodyflight makes it possible for skydivers to fly closer to each other while they are falling, to allow them to link together in formation skydiving, then fly apart to a safe distance before opening parachutes. Many skills of bodyflight can be learned in a vertical wind tunnel, to enable skydivers to become better at controlling their bodies in the sky.
The first human to fly in a vertical wind tunnel was Jack Tiffany in 1964 at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. The first recreational vertical wind tunnel was developed by a Canadian company named AERODIUM in Quebec, patented as the ‘Levitationarium’ in 1979.
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December 17, 2010
The Manhattan Project was the codename for a project conducted during World War II to develop the first atomic bomb, before the Germans or the Japanese. The project was led by the United States, and included participation from the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946 the project was under the command of Major General Leslie R. Groves, Jr. of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Robert Oppenheimer was the scientific director.
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December 17, 2010
The hobo nickel is a sculptural art form involving the creative modification of small-denomination coins, essentially resulting in miniature bas reliefs. The nickel, because of its size, thickness, and relative softness, was a favored coin for this purpose. Due to its low cost and portability, this medium was particularly popular among hobos, hence the name. Common hobo nickels sell for $5 or $10, and rarer or more desirable coins sell for hundreds of dollars.
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December 17, 2010
Love Tokens are custom engraved coins given as a gift. They were especially popular in the 1750s in the United States. They are made by machine-smoothing a coin (usually silver) on one or both sides, then engraving it with initials, monograms, names, scenes, etc., often with an ornate border. They can be mounted on pins or incorporated into bracelets and necklaces. The love token fad faded out in the early 20th century; love tokens engraved on buffalo nickels are quite rare and prized by collectors of ‘hobo nickels’ (altered coins).
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December 16, 2010
An amplified cactus is a cactus plant used as a musical instrument. It harnesses the acoustic properties of a cactus (preferably a Denmoza or Geohintonia), by applying contact microphones and amplifying their projection and tone. The effect is somewhat ethereal: Vivien Schweitzer of The New York Times reports ‘Jason Treuting played an amplified cactus, running his hand over the plant’s unfriendly spikes to produce an alluring sound like a babbling brook.’
The amplified cactus is a medium rarely written for, even in the contemporary music genre. John Cage, perhaps one of the most recognizable names in the contemporary music genre, composed Child of Tree (1975) and Branches (1976) for what he described as ‘amplified plant materials.’ Cage was a large proponent of chance music and felt that the organic nature of music without man-made instruments was very strong and influential. Another of the most famous pieces for amplified cactus is called Degrees of Separation ‘Grandchild of Tree’ by Paul Rudy which received mention at the Bourges International Competition for Electroacoustic Music in 2000.
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