site map

news and comment
fun

C O L O U R K E 'Y

Download software, including data source files from this page, which also includes short sample videos.

This software was created to scientifical analyse flocking behaviour, but it makes pretty patterns as well:

“Systems composed of a large number of interacting heterogeneous agents often display complex properties that cannot be deduced in a simple way by studying the behaviour of the single agent. This research aims to study three-dimensional complex pattern formation, in order to get a strong insight into features that may be relevant in more complex situations where the components move in a high dimensional configuration space. Animal group movements look very promising in this respect and we will concentrate our attention on the flocking behaviour of starlings, representing perhaps the best widely known example for the above class of behaviours.[...] Our goals are the following:

“a) By getting three-dimensional reconstructions of their movements, we aim to characterize experimentally in a quantitative and qualitative way these movements. [...]

“b) We want to construct new models that give rise to such complex group behaviour. The experimental data should be crucial in inspiring these models and to discriminate possible differences among them.

“c) We intend to interpret the biological meaning and relevance of the formation of thesepatterns.

“d) As far as collective movements are common phenomena also in human behaviour (particular relevant in economics) we would like to explore the possibility of exporting the models and the techniques to economic collective choices. In this way we try to develop ways to investigate the reasons of social events, e.g. fashions, to understand socio-economic herding, and possibly to devise methods to tame dangerous excessive market fluctuations.”

(add comment)

the web address for the article above is
http://www.abelard.org/news/fun0803.php#starling_swarms_110508

advertising
disclaimer

advertising
disclaimer

advertising
disclaimer

peak oil and the one horsepower answer

related material
peak oil

(add comment)

the web address for the article above is
http://www.abelard.org/news/fun0803.php#one_horsepower_080508

boomeranging in zero gravity - from xavier

Japanese astronaut, Takao Doi, took two paper boomerangs with him when he was part of the recent Space Shuttle Endeavour trip to the International Space Station.

Yasuhiro Togai, 2006 world boomerang champion, taught Takao Doi how to throw a boomerang and provided the ’rangs.

The question Togai wanted answered was, “Does a boomerang fly in zero gravity?”.

And the answer:

Yes, his boomerang did come back!

related material
space robots - international space station
Cité de l'espace - Space city

Lead from Pink Tentacle.

(add comment)

the web address for the article above is
http://www.abelard.org/news/fun0803.php#zero_gravity_boomerang_020508

jobsworths, politicans and rubbish collection

“A father-of-four has been left with a criminal record for overfilling his wheelie bin by four inches.

“Gareth Corkhill, 26, of Whitehaven, Cumbria, received a £110 fixed penalty notice after Copeland Council staff photographed his raised bin lid.

“When he refused to pay he was taken to court where magistrates added a further £115 to the fixed penalty.”
—
“ "Two days later two enforcement officers turn up on my doorstep wearing stab vests, read my rights and then issued me with an on-the-spot fine.

“ "I recycle and all my boxes are always full.

“Mr Corkhill, who shares a house with his partner and three children and also has a child from a previous relationship, said the authority recently switched from weekly to fortnightly refuse collections, but added that the supplied bins were not big enough to cope.”
—
[From a Whitehaven jobsworth:] “ "It is important that we all reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill.

“ "We can do this by recycling more of what is in our bins, and we would advise anyone who has a problem with too much waste to look at what can be recycled." ”

Try and understand jobsworths. The objective is not to provide bin space or rubbish removal, the objective is to maximise income.

That can be achieved in three ways:

1. halving collection frequency
2. halving bin size
3. increasing fines.

No. 2 has the problem of providing for, and therefore paying for, more bins, and the jobsworths have to do twice as much work every two weeks.

No. 3 has the associated problems of reprinting forms, retraining jobsworths and squeezing increasing amounts out of the poor.

Obviously, the most satisfactory and cost effective method is the method chosen by Whitehaven Council.

You require intelligence to be a politician. These are not simple problems.

It is also the duty of politicians to increase employment. Thus, to drive the offender into penury will provide more work for tax inspectors and dole executives to replace the money purloined from ‘the offender’.

With real effort, imprisonment could follow with much benefit to builders, prison officers, probation operatives, rehabilitation services and others.

Finally, remember the common British ‘solution’ for too much rubbish is to drive a few miles and dump the unwanted trash outside someone else’s abode, or in a skip, or on some lonesome embankment.

(add comment)

the web address for the article above is
http://www.abelard.org/news/fun0803.php#rubbish_jobsworths_210408

new uk coin ‘designs’, symbolising the break-up of the UK

The new coins for the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Image: Paul Grover

The new, official coinage for the United Kingdom, or Great Britain as it used to be more commonly known, has no image of Britannia, the lady that has symbolised Great Britain for centuries.

Instead, the coins show the royal coat of arms in fragments. One wonders at the (unconscious) messages being given out.

(add comment)

the web address for the article above is
http://www.abelard.org/news/fun0803.php#uk_coins_040408

living pictures in rice paddies

“Each year, farmers in the town of Inakadate in Aomori prefecture create works of crop art by growing a little purple and yellow-leafed kodaimai rice along with their local green-leafed tsugaru-roman variety.”

2007:

Rice paddy pictures of two of Hokusai’s 36 Views of Mount Fuji. Image: am.askanet.ne.jp

The images remain until they are harvested:

Hokusai’s wave and Mount Fuji being harvested. Image: inakadate.aomori.jp

2006:

“Inakadate * 2006 in the village of rice paddies * Art and the dragon. * ” Image: am.askanet.ne.jp

[Lead from pinktentacle.com, where further rice art examples are shown on this page.]

related material
the best crop circles of 2007

(add comment)

the web address for the article above is
http://www.abelard.org/news/fun0803.php#rice_paintings_130308

email abelard at abelard.org

© abelard, 2008, 13 march
all rights reserved

variable words
prints as increasing A4 pages (on my printer and set-up)