blow up the school; pi san animation

with the nytimes reporting of increasing censorship by the communist party in china they've also produced a supplementary piece that outlines the creativity and pointed criticism of the government's actions.

animator Pi San's cartoons are a "mordant swipe at the educational system." One of his first animations of the wordcloud-headed character, Kuang Kuang apparently was viewed 3 million times on its first day posted. government officials reacted by slapping the artist with a fine for "inappropriate content."


here's the Pi San's first animation called: blow up the school.


there are many more available via youtube


* interesting editorial note:
the video is posted by an online chinese magazine called danwei; which is also a type worker house_ this term is connoted with the period of chinese history under heavy socialist influence.

#occupywallstreet

ideas

the results of an exchange of information after a rather awkward platform for discussing [@gsapp] the events that have surrounded the occupy wall street movement.

[yates mckee was terrific; articulate and insightful!]

see you on friday.

math = cool

proof that math is cool!


15 uncoupled simple pendulums of monotonically increasing lengths dance together to produce visual traveling waves, standing waves, beating, and (seemingly) random motion.


for more details see science demonstrations


the period of one complete cycle of the dance is 60 seconds. the length of the longest pendulum has been adjusted so that it executes 51 oscillations in this 60 second period. the length of each successive shorter pendulum is carefully adjusted so that it executes one additional oscillation in this period. Thus, the 15th pendulum (shortest) undergoes 65 oscillations.

this apparatus was built from a design published by richard berg [am j phys 59(2), 186-187 (1991)] at the university of maryland. the particular apparatus shown here was built by our own nils sorensen.

caffeine

excellent animation! simple architectural axons put to good use - taking on a life on their own.... a scary, gattaca-esque life.