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Lightning over the Parthenon June 28, 2010. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

37 great hi-res pics of extreme weather from The Big Picture.

Don’t blink!

Time-lapse video filmed in Antarctica, in and around McMurdo Station and Scott Base. Go to antarcticimages.com for a better quality version of this clip; Blog is here .

[click for larger] by Dan Piraro; site; blog

Nice tilt shift photo of an Athens street by photographer/artist  Ben Heine. (click to see larger)

Police Spend All Day Investigating “Murder Scene” That Was Really a Movie Set. [via Gizmodo]

First person view [explanation] remote control piloting in Brazil (don’t miss the end!):

and NYC (arrests: none):

Without visual cues, humans will always ambulate in a circle — and there seems to be no explanation why. Read the whole article at NPR.

Via Slashdot: Being too clean can make people sick

[direct link] Real wingsuit flying, gliding through a gorge in Switzerland.

[direct link]

Mitchell Rose: Comedic Short Films; also on YouTube.

[direct link]

360 degrees: http://www.gillesvidal.com/blogpano/cockpit1.htm

EDAboard.com: International Electronics Forum

(skysky)

Circuit Index: Schematics, circuits, radio, Audio, rf, Switching, Power, electronics

Listen [MP3], then read the 365 Days Project post about this strange (now somewhat semi-cult) song, by the Baton Rouge band with the odd name and memorable pants.

Maybe they just cut the tape up, threw it in the air and glued it back together again. Whatever, it’s supremely ‘out there’…

From WFMU’s Beware of the Blog. [mp3s] Yep. It’s a Yodel extravaganza. But iffen y’all wants more, here’s a youtube video of an 11-year-old yodelling sensation. [warning: pretty cute.]

Goody Hair Baubles as Cable Ties in Short Supply? [Google Groups post]

Not having Goody products in Greece, we make our own – and are always on the lookout for those hard-to-find proper-sized beads. So if any of you USians (or UKians) happen across some Goody Twin Bead Hair Baubles (large) and want to send us some, well, that would be much, much better than a poke in the eye. Click the image above to see some photos of the Goody beads in action.

A machinist and a mixing engineer conspire to build the perfect sound cart. Do they achieve their goal? Here it is in its most recent incarnation.

More info on the tools page.

Nice! Images and narration of Munich’s unlikely surf scene.

this link will open in a new window, because the site will resize your browser. Bad, bad theatlantic.com!

Can you endure the world’s most unwanted song? [mp3]

The most unwanted music is over 25 minutes long, veers wildly between loud and quiet sections, between fast and slow tempos, and features timbres of extremely high and low pitch, with each dichotomy presented in abrupt transition. The most unwanted orchestra was determined to be large, and features the accordion and bagpipe (which tie at 13% as the most unwanted instrument), banjo, flute, tuba, harp, organ, synthesizer (the only instrument that appears in both the most wanted and most unwanted ensembles). An operatic soprano raps and sings atonal music, advertising jingles, political slogans, and “elevator” music, and a children’s choir sings jingles and holiday songs. The most unwanted subjects for lyrics are cowboys and holidays, and the most unwanted listening circumstances are involuntary exposure to commercials and elevator music. Therefore, it can be shown that if there is no covariance–someone who dislikes bagpipes is as likely to hate elevator music as someone who despises the organ, for example–fewer than 200 individuals of the world’s total population would enjoy this piece.

More info here.

[direct link] funniest cat ever.

AvionArt has a desk made from a salvaged and restored DC-3 Dakota Wingtip (click image for big, big pic). If you have to ask, yeah – you probably can’t afford it, but we’ve seen it priced variously at $20,000 and €20,000.

An Insider’s Look at the Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound [audiojunkies]

(click pic for large image)

PPRuNe Forums – Professional Pilots Rumour Network is an aviation board for airline pilots. You’ll find not only interesting tidbits about the industry but some rather harrowing gossip about all the things that can and do go wrong aboard commercial airliners.

Terminology, classifications, components and concepts from filmsound.org. A short collection from various sources.

Fantastic example of this optic phenomenon here. Stare at the small black dot in the middle for 30 seconds, then mouse-over the image, and though the new image is black and white, you will see it in completely convincing color. A different sort of example and explanation at omnivision.

America’s Top 40 host (Real Media) grapples with the emotional issue of death… and goddamn uptempo records. Outtake from fadetoblack.com.

complete with diagrams.

A copy of the Mona Lisa made from hundreds of computer parts at a high tech exhibition in Beijing this month. (via AP Photo)

How do we know? “Dutch researchers … scanned a reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece and subjected it to cutting-edge “emotion recognition” software, developed in collaboration with the University of Illinois.

The result showed the painting’s famous subject was 83 percent happy, 9 percent disgusted, 6 percent fearful and 2 percent angry. She was less than 1 percent neutral, and not at all surprised”

A timeline, from 1877 to 2005.

Some less than successful audio projects.

“I like to say that the THX sound is the most widely-recognized piece of computer-generated music in the world”

All about the THX Sound, at Music Thing.

(By the way, did you know that “Deep Note” is also the name of a 1970s porn soundtrack album? Deep Note: Music of 1970′s Adult Cinema amazon link)

Finding interesting video, sound and image files in unprotected directories.

Japanese Sound effects and what they mean.

Damn skeeters. Kill. Kill.

How-To: Build yourself a front projection home theater.