Clare Townhill

3D Printers and Symbiosis

RepRap from Adrian Bowyer on Vimeo.

Mosquitos are Awful, Spooning is Super

I hate mosquitoes.

What with all that buzzing and itching, the hubbub they cause is disproportionate to the microdrop of blood they make away with. Besides, I am the world’s most formidable mosquito hunter. I have brought to justice every single mosquito that has ever attacked me (except when I spend nights in rooms with patterned wallpaper, which makes mosquito hunting impossible).

Just beautiful. The work of Chistoph Niemann.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Lines from Andreas Muller on Vimeo.
For All Seasons from Andreas Muller on Vimeo.
Wind (Field) from Andreas Muller on Vimeo.
This beholder's eye finds these interfaces beautiful.
Vimeo: Andreas Muller
HaHaKid.net

Ume!

Blossom season has arrived in Japan. Here's a list of the ten best spots and the lovely email I got from a contact in Japan:

Dear Friend,

Here in Japan, ume blossom season has come! It is earlier than usual year, because we had several warm days recently. In Japan, ume blooming is the most impressive sign of coming of spring. Because ume blooms even in the cold February, it has been thought to be very auspicious flower. So ume blossom is very usual design motifs of kimono and other Japanese handicraft.
Every year, we noticed ume blossom were blooming in the neighbors and felt the coming of spring, but we don't have memory that we went out purposely to view ume blossoms.

1. Yoshinobaigou ( Aoumeshi, Tokyo)
2. Yugawara Bairin (Yugawara, Kanaga)
3. Kitano-Tenmangu ( Kyoto )
4. Minabe Bairin ( Wakayama )
5.Tsukigase Baikei ( Nara )
6.Dazaofu-Tenmangu ( Fukuoka )
7.Kairakuen ( Mito )
8.Yuuki Shrine ( Tsu )
9.Soga Bairin ( Kanagawa )
10. Sinsyu Ina Baien ( Nagano )

A Welcome Tweetment

One of the things I enjoy most about the internet as a mass form of communication is its ability to counterbalance: for every site raising money and posting well-wishes for Jade Goody is another taking bets on her death date. And, thankfully for us, for every Twitter there is a FML. F**k My Life is perfect for these troubled times: wince-enducing honesty from its contributors and warm glow of schadenfreude it bestows upon its gleeful voyeurs.

Doggy iD

Sniftag: Tails told, friends made. This really is very lovely. It's a Nike iD for dogs and their owners combined with an introduction service under the pretence of building social networks of four-legged friends. Genius.

From one snif to another. New research on what makes dogs noses so brilliant:

'Snot makes dogs supersleuths'

DOGS' extraordinary ability to sniff out anything from cocaine to cancer turns out to owe much to the gunk inside their nose.

Dogs have many more nerve cells in their nasal cavities than we do and a wider variety of receptors to latch on to odour molecules. Now a team led by Brent Craven of Pennsylvania State University in University Park has shown that the complex network of snot-coated tubes in a dog's nose also "pre-sorts" smells, which may make it easier for the brain to identify them.

Before odour molecules can reach smell receptors, they must get through a layer of mucus - and some molecules are absorbed quicker than others. To find out how this might affect smell perception, Craven's team used MRI images of a dog's nasal airways to develop computer models of how air travels along them. The team found that different molecules are first picked up at different points in the airway network.

Until now, research has focused on how receptors pick up different chemicals. "We've shown that the sorting out of the different odorants before they even get to the receptors is also important," says Craven. The team presented its results this week at a meeting of the American Physical Society's division of fluid dynamics in San Antonio, Texas.

Dogs From Outer Space

After every Black Monday a girl needs a dog Tuesday. I very rarely read anything in The Metro that makes me feel anything but a vague sense of self-disgust that I'm not reading something better. This morning Boris made my day. Alas Boris is not a man, although given my recent track record that's probably best. Boris is a three-year-old Bull Mastiff who is so big that he was snapped lolling in his Mum's garden by the satellites that snap pics for Google Earth. I love this quote from his owner: "We knew he was big, but not so big that he could be seen from outer space".

Most owners worry about losing their dogs if they slip through the front door - but with Boris, the bull mastiff, it is unlikely to be a major concern.

The dog, which weighs in at a stagger 14 stone, is so large he can even be spotted from space.

Boris, who is only three-years-old, can be seen on Google Earth images as he lazes in the sun outside his owners' house.

His enormous brown body is clearly visible stretched out in his favourite position on his front garden.

The dog often lounges for hours on end next to the sundial and was in his usual spot when the Google satellite snapped him in the garden.

And then I found this lovely thing via my ICA newsletter: Dog's Ears

Dogs' Ears! Click to watch us twitch and flap!

Dogs' Ears is about making music. Not any music, and probably not 'normal' music, but music generated by the flap of a dogs' ear whether big, small, upright, floppy, in the wind, stiff to attention or just simply super-strokey.

To do this help was needed to raise money to create the Ear-Music-Extraction System. And where better to look than directly at the source of inspiration - Our Faithful Friends! We have found a pack of the finest, most charitable International Celebrity Canines with the ultimate flap factor willing to chat to YOU for a tiny donation.

Meet them all from the Brazilian supermodel Poodle Naomi Pin-up and Rani the Bollywood-wannabe Jack Russell, to Fredrika the Swedish Society Spaniel with a love for Strindberg.

Sign-up to become an art patron and become co-owner of the furture generated Ear Music. And you get to chat with the dogs - flaptastic!

Enjoy.

The Cart Whisperer

Five happy minutes in an otherwise dreary morning. This caught my on on the homepage of Technorati, the video intrigued me (a rarer and rarer thing these days). Throwing caution to the wind I clicked and happily landed here at nomoreabandonnedcarts.com the home of Fillibert Liberty, Cart Whisperer and crusader to end the phenomenon of the shopping cart deserted midtransaction. I like this, a lot. I've definitely been known to hit and run on occasion. Making the online cart analogous to a real trolley filled with goods that you just walk away from (and implicitly the effect on the trader) is a very clever bit of thinking. It  goes to the heart of consumer concerns over the safety of their finances and downright fatigue of entering, and re-entering personal details, inventing usernames and passwords, billing addresses, delivery addresses and then worrying about who exactly gets to see them.  The site's 'sponsor' is Verisign. This article from NewScientist about Web 3.0 is a good complementary read.

Your Inner Fish

Here's a lovely bit of evolutionary trivia: Apparently our hiccups are caused because we're descended from fish. Neil Shubin, a fossil expert, has just written a book all about us and our fishy ancestry. Of hiccups he writes:

'Spasms in our diaphragms, hiccups are triggered by electric signals generated in the brain stem. Amphibian brain stems emit similar signals, which control the regular motion of their gills. Our brain stems, inherited from amphibian ancestors, still spurt out odd signals producing hiccups; this is essentially the same phenomenon as gill breathing.'

This is definitely a book that I need to own. I've always loved fish.

Amazon: Neil Shubin 'Your Inner Fish'

Laura's Songbox

I'm in love with a girl called Laura Marling and her gorgeous album 'Alas I Cannot Swim'. As a model of how to market in a Pirate Bay free-from-the-network era her Songbox is a lovely idea and experience. I'm probably not explaining this very well so I'll try to show you:

This is what you get for your funds and your trouble: all manner of artsy bits and bobs, a coupon to claim a ticket to one of a number of Songbox tour gigs, and the album, all for the extremely reasonable price of £14.98. How to make your consumer happy and connect them to other like-minded individuals all in one go (when you submit your coupon and gig preference you get given a link to the relevant forum should you want to hook up with other fans).

LauraMarling.com
Amazon: Deluxe Songbox [Limited Edition]