A Walk in Edwards Gardens

My wife and I went for a little bit of walk through Edwards Gardens this late afternoon. Here are some photos I took. Click the thumbnails above to see the larger version hosted at Webshots.

Dark Sun Sizzling

A picture of the Sun from Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Is this our Sun? Yes. Even on a normal day, our Sun is sizzling ball of seething hot gas. Unpredictably, regions of strong and tangled magnetic fields arise, causing sunspots and bright active regions. The Sun's surface bubbles as hot hydrogen gas streams along looping magnetic fields. These active regions channel gas along magnetic loops, usually falling back but sometimes escaping into the solar corona or out into space as the solar wind. Pictured above is our Sun in three colors of ultraviolet light. Since only active regions emit significant amounts of energetic ultraviolet light, most of the Sun appears dark. The colorful portions glow spectacularly, pinpointing the Sun's hottest and most violent regions. Although the Sun is constantly changing, the rate of visible light it emits has been relatively stable over the past five billion years, allowing life to emerge on Earth.

From the Ashes of the First Stars

From NASA Image of the Day:

What did the first quasars look like? The nearest quasars are now known to be supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies. Gas and dust that falls toward a quasar glows brightly, sometimes outglowing the entire home galaxy. The quasars that formed in the first billion years of the universe are more mysterious, though, with even the nature of the surrounding gas still unknown.

Above, an artist's impression shows a primordial quasar as it might have been, surrounded by sheets of gas, dust, stars and early star clusters. Exacting observations of three distant quasars now indicate emission of very specific colors of the element iron. These Hubble Space Telescope observations, which bolster recent results from the WMAP mission, indicate that a whole complete cycle of stars was born, created this iron, and died within the first few hundred million years of the universe.

Geek Impresses the Girls

There was a time, before the commoditization of computer technology, when a computer geek could really impress a girl by carrying around his laptop. These days, just about everybody can be seen carrying around laptops.

End of the World

What does the end of the world look like? Click the thumbnail, and don't drive off the edge!

Daniel Edwards

There's something very much wrong with Daniel Edwards. He's a sculptor with an unusual interest. His topics tend to be on one extreme, controversial, and at other, simply sick. You decide where his pieces fall. Sampling of his subjects:

• 25-foot bust of Fidel Castro
• Provocative bust of Hillary Clinton
• A pregnant Britney Spears on all fours, giving birth
• The autopsy of Paris Hilton
• The bronzed poop of Suri Cruise

Documentary on Hillary Clinton's Busy

Documentary on Fidel Castro's Bust

Racism?

Going back a little to when Hurricane Katrina descended on New Orleans. The Associated Press had many photographs of the disaster, none told the story of racism in the disaster like these two however. When a black person salvages food from a grocery store, it's looting. When a white person does it, it's finding.

Stick-figure animation

Stick-figure animation.

The day before ...

What will tomorrow bring? [Source: Cherryflava.]

Infinity

Want to see something truly amazing? Click the image to the right. It's an example of an infinite animated gif.

It's a Wal-Mart World

Every wonder what the world would look like if was shaped by Wal-Mart's sourcing strategy? Not surprisingly, it's very much so Chinese. This is probably not much different for most retailers.

Nixon vs. Bush

Nixon vs. Bush -- the similarities, and the stark difference between the 70s and today.

Life in 4 Panels

Click the thumbnail to see the pic. It's good.

Calvin and Hobbes

"What about a recall vote? What about impeachment?"

Track Something

This is so true!

Life is Too Short

Love this ad -- it works!

Mehmet Özgür: Smoke Works

Check out the amazing smoke works of Mehmet Özgür, a photograhper with an amazing eye.

Vegetarian Circus

Milk in Coffee

Stolen unceremoniously from YouSayToo; who stole these from Irene Muller.

One Family, 30-Years

Diego and Susy started a ritual 30-years ago -- on June 17th, every year, they take photographs of their family. See the passage of time on the faces of one family.

Nothing is Impossible

(Scroll down using the bar on the side.) Found at Scribd -- an interesting site, where anyone can upload their documents to be shared with the masses. Check the site out. Pretty interesting place. I may just have to use it.

Cool Tattoo

Click the thumbnail to enlarge the image. Wow!

Greek Gods Family Tree

From ludios.org ... a Greek Gods Family Tree -- with links to Wikipedia entries. Cool!

Onion Magazine

Onion magazine ... the covers.

Disappearing Tunnel

See the road? It heads straight into the water, under the water, and comes up the other side. Cool! [This was found at panther house.]

Africa from the Air

Check out some amazing aerial photos of Africa.

Spread of Religions

From Wikipedia, the spread of religion across Afro-Eurasia over centuries.
?? Christianity ?? Islam ?? Hinduism ?? Buddhism ?? Judaism

Big Holes

Go to ImageShack® to Create your own Slideshow

Fognazos has these great pics of some very large man-made drain holes. Massive! Check them out.

PC vs. Mac vs. Linux

Field Guide to Iraq

Stolen unceremoniously from Darly Cagle's Cartoon Web Log!

Winter Photography

I went out last weekend with my wife to take some pictures while we still had some snow. The snow hasn't disappeared as yet, but with the winter we've been having, who knows how long this will last. The slideshow above will give you a short preview via a few images. Alternatively, click here to see all the photos as uploaded to webshots.

43,000 Americans a Year Will Die in Terrorist Attacks

Found here.

Crazy for Islands

Palm Islands and the World Islands, being created in the Dubai waterfront -- as seen on Google Maps.

Dogbert's Password Recovery Service

Dogbert's Password Recovery Service for Morons.

iProduct

Apple's iProduct. It doesn't matter what it is, you know you want it! [Source.]

Science too Controversial

Doonesbury ... stolen from here.

Cool Billboards

Click the thumbnail to see the larger image. [Source.]

Procrastination

As found on the internet.

Dance of the Flight Attendant

Amusing ... by artist Jen Wang. To see the complete dance, go here.

Hindu Temple

The Sri Mayapur Vedic Temple and Planetarium, Mayapur, West Bengal, India, once completed, will be the tallest Hindu temple in the world, although it probably won't beat out the Angkor Wat Hindu temple in Cambodia, for sheer size. At first, when I saw this, I thought of how obscene the prospect is, in a country with most of the population still in poverty ... but as I thought about it, the more I saw a sliver of hope for the poor. The temple represents a great tourist attraction, and if handled with a social conscience, it could extend economic and social benefits to the population.

Apart from the social commentary, this is one cool piece of architecture.

Death Penalty Around the World

This will mean different things to different people. Which way does your noose swing?

Starship Sizes

Forget size ... Lexx is the coolest looking ship around!

Iraq War in Cartoons

2006 in Pictures

From the BBC, Time, MSNBC, World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year International, and Reuters State of the World.

Things to Do in China ...

... when you're bored or completely phished!

Rendered Art

Check out some really cool rendered art.

Sunset on Mars

From NASA.

Forn Policy

Earth from Space

This is a high resolution image of Earth from space. Taken in 2004 by NASA.