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2007
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TRAVELS

Red Devils and the Ultimate Manga Horde

Well I just returned from a terrific trip, including a visit to Osaka and Kyoto with my Dad. The Namba Dotonburi district is always fun, with its giant seafood sculpture signage. The Red Devil takoyaki grilled octopus ball shop is looking pretty fashionable, too! In Japan there is no shortage of robots, and the one in Namba that amused me was the fat automaton struggling and hobbling with two cases of Asahi beer in front of the liquor store. This strikes me as a really good use of a robot - to portray a sweaty human carrying cases of beer, and none too steady on his feet! After swilling beer and munching seafood, you may want to stop for a rest at one of the fanciful hotels nearby, like the “International Hotel” with it’s curious facade.

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ARTS

Anti-Art School

In case you dropped out of art school, or never had the chance to go, or if you are just a drunken bum who likes to draw - there is always Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School. Indeed, this combination of

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ARTS

Critics at Large

Among the many brilliant comedy sketches by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, their dialog over sandwiches at the art museum is a riot. Questioning the value of huge investments for public art, they pass

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ARTS

Encyclopedias of Imaginary Knowledge

Books about imaginary fields of knowledge have always fascinated me. What started out in H. P. Lovecraft as an imaginary compendium of arcane knowledge Necronomicon, later became the fodder of wannab

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COSMOS

Space Junk Video

The Center for Space Standards & Innovation has some interesting videos of earth orbiting satellites. The satellite destroyed by a missile launched from Xichang, Sichuan (China) is depicted in a h

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HUMAN BEINGS

Box Office Brother

Here’s an amusing snapshot of my brother, Sangpo, on the set of the TV film series <a href=”http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000AQ6A9E?ie=UTF8&tag=diambayrese-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789

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IDEAS

triangular mesh modeling of 3-D objects

If you are interested in the math behind visualization of complex topologies, have a look at the publications of <a href=”http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3540486283?ie=UTF8&tag=diambayrese-20&

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HUMAN BEINGS

Douglas Adams speaks

A long lost interview with Doug Adams, author of the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, has surfaced at the online zine, Dark Matter. Bravo, Ian! LINK

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MACHINES

Building Mother Box

Remember Mister Miracle and his incredible super-detection + power-enhancing device: Mother Box? Well, now an erstwhile gadget maker has built a prototype for Mother Box! It combines a wireless detect

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TRAVELS

Journey to Xinjiang, 2001

In late August 2001, I boarded a plane at Hongqiao airport in Shanghai and flew to Urumqi. Riding in on the airport bus, I decided to jump off randomly in the center of the city and make my way by foot to the Hilton. Typically I would stay at a cheap guesthouse, but Dru Gladney said he was staying there that night and I wanted to talk to him about the possibility of creating a gazetteer of Uighur placenames. What an interesting place Urumqi was! After checking in and failing to find Dru, I took a camera and a notebook and started wandering the streets. Walking south I eventually found a large botanical park, fronted by a very large nursery selling plants and clay pots of every description. After wandering back through the center of the town to the Xinhua Bookstore, where I purchased my usual pile of maps and atlases, I decided to try a roast mutton stand that caught my eye earlier in the day. The place turned out to be well worth the extra hike, and I feasted on a platter of roast mutton and fresh baked Central Asian round-bread with sesame. The fellow outside carving the lamb carcasses and tending the grill was a good sport about letting me take his picture hard at work.