Sunday, March 30, 2008

computer geeks + artists =


















http://www.complexification.net/

This is a lovely site where you can easily lose a few hours. Try it, you'll see what I mean. They did steal a page from my cousin sara's book -- she did a series of city traveler maps on translucent paper that, laid over each other, showed where she had traveled in new york in a given timeframe. it was somehow fascinating, and these folks have something conceptually similar, but much different visually. here's one of sara's mind-bogglingly detailed paintings:






sara's not a computer geek, by the way. she's old-school: paint, brush, canvas. i told you it was mind-boggling.

But. Back to the computer geeks. I think my favorites are "bubble chamber" (which, if you let it run long enough, creates a galactic, milky-way sort of image) and "box fitting"(which pixellates tornado photos into a sort of Klimt-like structured cubism), but i haven't looked at all of them, or even half. I actually stumbled across this site on a fascinating blog (you can find it here) that popped up in a google search for images of diatoms. how much do i love the interwebs??? THIS much!

(yes, it's overcast today with occasional showers. and yes i am a nerd. but you love it.)

Sunday, March 23, 2008

yay, beach!




















The Kids invited me to come chill with them at Kua Bay, which was awesome. Really fine soft sand is kind of hard to come by on this young island, and most of it resides in Kohala, the oldest of the 5 volcanoes here. (who's been paying attention?)

so i got some serious Sun Time in, with company for a change. After the Kids split, I thought it was a little crowded so I moved on to the next beach on the checklist.

and hey, this is a holiday weekend? wtf. This is Anaehoomalu Bay (or A-Bay), about 10 miles north of Kua Bay. Get outta my way, people! Damn!




A-Bay has an ancient Hawaiian fishpond (right) and the Pacific (left) with a very solid sandbar between. It's not the supersoft sand, and the atmosphere is a little hoo-dee-doo, but sometimes that's nice. There are lava paths that lead you through some archeological treats: the buildings of an old Hawaiian dwelling, the fishpond of course, and petroglyphs.


here's a not-so ancient structure being visited by vermin. This particular specimen is the mongoose equivalent of the Doodle. It's like four mongooses all put together in one. (BTW the Cat Ladies' Association has some serious political clout for getting that shelter built.)





















and this is a fake sunset. I wanted to get home by dark. It would have been a lot prettier than this and I must catch an A-Bay sunset someday. Just not today.....

Friday, March 21, 2008

fascinating neurological phenomenon of the day: synaesthesia

"Synaesthesia means the sensory receptors in the brain are cross-wired so that sounds are felt, tastes are smelled, sensations are heard, &c. Many people experience this to some minor degree (you feel that Wednesdays are purple, for example). "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

http://otherthings.com/uw/syn/

http://web.mit.edu/synesthesia/www/synesthesia.html

whoa.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

yikers! she's gonna blow!!! (maybe)
















(my boss took this picture this morning about a 5-minute walk from our office.)




Explosive eruption in Halema`uma`u Crater, Kilauea Volcano, is first since 1924
USGS HVO News Release March 19, 2008




At 2:58 a.m. H.s.t on Wednesday, March 19, 2008, a small explosion occurred at Halema‘uma‘u Crater at the summit of Kilauea Volcano in Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park. This event was erroneously reported as an earthquake earlier this morning. The explosion scattered debris over an area of about 75 acres (30 hectares), covering a portion of Crater Rim Drive and damaging the Halema‘uma‘u overlook. No lava was erupted as part of the explosion, suggesting that the activity was driven by hydrothermal or gas sources.



In addition to damaging the overlook, explosive debris covers the trail to the overlook, the Halema‘uma‘u parking area, and the portion of Crater Rim Drive adjacent to the parking area. On Crater Rim Drive the debris was up to 2 centimeters in size, with the size and thickness of debris increasing toward the overlook. The largest observed block ejected during the explosion was about 1 cubic meter (35 cubic feet) and must have been propelled from the vent located more than 70 m (230 feet) below the crater rim. Small impact craters from 30 cm (1 foot) blocks are abundant in the Halema‘uma‘u overlook area. Rock debris also extends halfway across the floor of Halema‘uma‘u Crater. The debris is composed of rock fragments that were derived from the walls of Halema‘uma‘u Crater. No fresh lava was observed on the floor of Halema‘uma‘u or in the ejected debris.



At 2:55 am, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory recorded a series of seismic events that may have been shallow, high-frequency earthquakes or minor explosions. The main explosion at 2:58 was associated with long period seismicity. Low frequency sound waves were also detected by the University of Hawai`i infrasound laboratory, operated by Dr. Milton Garces. These signals have persisted through this morning indicating continuing energetic release of gas from the vent in Halema‘uma‘u Crater.



The explosion produced a small crater along the east wall of Halema‘uma‘u that is about 20-30 meters (65-100 feet) in diameter. The crater occupies the area in which incandescence had been observed during the previous week. Sulfur dioxide emissions from the new explosion crater are still elevated, and sounds of rock breaking are frequent.



This is the first explosion in Halema`uma`u crater since 1924 and the first eruption of any kind in Kilauea caldera since September 1982.



Future explosive activity is possible and the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory continues to monitor the activity. Photos, text updates, a new Halema`uma`u crater webcam, and details about the Kilauea 1924 explosive eruption can be found at the HVO website http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Kohala Play-Day

I got to go into Kohala last thursday (no, there's no koalas there) and holy schmolies. This part of Kohala has been protected, restored, and fenced, and I got to see some of the most endangered plants and animals in the state! We were checking it out because my boss is brilliant and wants to survey some of the most gorgeous areas on the island to see what the insect fauna is like. Previous studies are lacking. We gonna find out how many invasives there are vs. native species, see if there's bad critters we need to do something about, and who knows, maybe we'll find something nobody's seen before! (We just did that with a wasp, in a different area.) Any botanists out there, it's been estimated that 'dozens' of undescribed epiphitic species exist in just the little part of the forest i went to.

We drove through the grasslands to get there, and again I have to point out the Many Faces Of Hawaii. If you didn't know where you were, you might say Ireland. or Vermont. See?






(i like that cow that's trying to hide behind the rock there. nice try, flossie, but i can totally see your bony butt sticking out. might wanna pick a bigger rock next time!)





Much of Kohala is grazing land for Parker Ranch, but some of the forest has been preserved. Here's a picture of what a fence can do for an ecosystem:









And I saw my very first happyface spider! (too lazy to crop & blow this up. so click on him:)









I was supposed to go snorkel at Puako this weekend, but instead I got a cold on Friday, and have been mouth-breathing ever since. hopefully next weekend I can find a beach that's not too crowded for the holiday weekend and make up for that. i'll keep you posted.

speaking of holidays, i'm still hoping christopher is going to come visit in june, and i've been reading my kauai guidebook -- we're talking about kayaking the Na Pali coast! "A few years back, National Geographic Adventure magazine ranked a kayak trip down Na Pali the number two thing to do on its list of America’s Best 100 adventures, sandwiched between dogsledding in Alaska (number three) and rafting the Colorado River down the Grand Canyon." (Chris & Brandy - if we do that, don't worry, it's a guided tour, and I swear I ain't gonna sit on my lifejacket! 8-P.) I'm very excited for my hawaiian vacation. I've still only seen this island and O'ahu! Embarrassing!



okay, happy short week to all. praise jeebus for fridays off. amen.

Saturday, March 8, 2008

this genre needs a name.

or maybe it doesn't. Seems like all my mainland friends have been checking out Leslie and the Lys on tour. what a treat that would be. I don't know if I've explained the musical situation here to you good people. I'll save that for another post. Anyway, belle has a great leslie video posted, and Chris has some live shots. But here is Leslie's glorious tribute to the interwebs (second in my book only to Dave Chappelle's " The Internet skit):

Honky-hop? Whrap?

Sasha Frere-Jones had a semi-recent article in the New Yorker about the lack of black influence in indie rock/ emo/ etc. He noted that, while other styles of black music have historically been co-opted by white artists, rap will never be, because white people simply cannot do it. They can come close, like the Beastie Boys and Eminem, but it just isn't the same. Sure, you've got Buck 65 and Sage Francis and everybody tryin to keep it raaaael, but their rap is not the same animal as Missy Elliott's or Jay-z's or Juvenile's.

I personally find it much more enjoyable when white people just have a little fun with the fact that they Cannot Rap. That's what makes these videos so funny. It's like watching chickens fly.

Next up: I recently watched the "Mugging" episode of Flight of the Conchords:

but my favorite video of this genre has to go to my dear friend billy, with this classic shout-out to my old stompin' grounds, Carrboro.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

mo' lava










here's what it looks like at night:




drawin a crowd. That pickup truck belongs to someone who was out fishing and came back to find out he was on the wrong side of the lava! he outran it and made it to the other side safely, but I bet he wished these hippies would have gotten out of his way.

and here's a completely
different view of hawaya:
(thanks to ginger for the amazing pix)

Sunday, March 2, 2008

hot lava!

if i was smarter, i could figure out how to make Chef start singing Hot Lava when you open this page. oh well!

so yesterday they ran a picture of the RIVER OF LAVA in Royal Gardens subdivision (near Kalapana, already been lava-ed a few times, population 2), then told people not to come gawk at it. Yeah, right!!! as if. It was about a mile hike to this action, the bottom of the river. We encountered people who'd gone further upstream, but what we saw was so awesome we didn't bother. They told us we were at the best place for lava appreciation anyway.

I hung back a bit while the kids (Corinna, Ginger, and Matt) got All Up Innit with a couple of dudes that were cooking apples and hot dogs in the lava. They had cameras on long sticks, which I'm totally doing when/if I ever go in search of hot lava again.

This picture was in case that hill they're all standing on melted into the lava sea. Luckily, they all survived, but my sissy status is solid now.



The other kids have pix of rescuing my camera, which fell (ok, i dropped it) into a crack (in cold lava) and was a bee-yotch to get out! We had to break some rocks and get a little scraped up, but the camera lived to deliver you these pics. i was halfway hoping we wouldn't be able to retrieve it so I can get the Olympus underwater digital camera i'm in love with.

Then we went to the black sand beach. I don't miss Louisiana as much today. :)

Oh! and it's my 1 year anniversary in hawai'i today! woo! happy anniversary to me!



Saturday, March 1, 2008

no they dih-uhn, or Why I Miss Louisiana

Exhibit A:









Exhibit B:

(Okay, full disclosure: Exhibit B actually came from North Carolina, and made me miss my sister more than anything, but also makes me miss nawlinz. )


Exhibit C is right hyah. Followed closely by Exhibit D.