Zen and the Art of Prop Making

The jibberish text you see in some website templates and page layouts is known as Lorem Ipsum . It is used in the printing and typesetting industries so readers are not distracted by readable text when looking at page layouts. It originated in the 1500s when, so the story goes, a printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. Lorem Ipsum was born and it has remained more or less unchanged since that time and has crossed into the digital domain into desktop publishing software. The real source of Lorem Ipsum In reality, Lorum Ipsum it takes its roots from a piece of classical Latin literature written by Cicero in 45BC called "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum" or "The Extremes of Good and Evil". Nowadays there are many variations around with the majority having been adulterated with the injection of humour or randomised words. The Lorum Ipsum website warns "you need to be sure there isn't anyhing embarrassing hidden in the midd

These five large Japanese lanterns were made for Opera Queensland's 2012 production of "The Mikado". The photo on the right gives an idea of their relative size. Standing over two metres tall they have a commanding presence. Their construction was straightforward however the concave section in the middle was tricky to achieve which is described below. The timber lattice window sections are backed with translucent acrylic sheet to diffuse the lights that will be installed inside. Steps in construction The middle concave sections were first cut from plywood sheets and then assembled in the form of a cross. The edges were mitred so that bendy ply could be glued into the concave sections. After one pair of sides had dried the second pair of sides were covered making an enclosed column To make the lattice windows strips of wood were placed in a jig and a router used to cut the slots needed to assemble the timber lattice sections. Once these had all been c

A big problem with a blogs is the huge amount of time wasted dealing with automated comment spam . Their primary purpose is link building for better search engine optimisation and also for generating traffic to generally irrelevant commercial websites. The comment spam content is usually vague and general in nature having little relevance to the posts targeted. Recently the comment spam content has been socially engineered in the hope of increasing the chance of the comment being approved and published in a blog. Much of this type of comment flatters the bloggers writing style or depth of knowledge on *the subject*. It is the bloggers ego that is targeted in these instances. Controlling comment spam The blunt solution for controlling comment spam could be to simply remove the comment option on every post in the blog. Voila! No more spam. While this definitely solves the problem the down side is you sacrifice any reader interaction with the post. Some posts seem to receive far

The Wizard of Id was first created in 1964 as a result of the collaboration of writer Johnny Hart and artist Brant Parker. In the early 60's Hart was already successful with his creation of BC. The pair first met in 1950 when Parker was asked to judge a high school art contest. One of the entrants work so impressed him he organised a meeting. The entrants name was Johnny Hart. Wizard of Id humour The Wizard of Id is set in the mythical kingdom of Id ruled by "the King", a dwarfish monarch with a dry and, at times, black secnse of humour. As well as the Kings subjects (Idiots) there are several other major characters including Rodney the inept knight, the wizard and his domineering wife, Bung the court jester who is constanting drunk and the Spook, a destitute prisoner who is locked in his cell with only the Turnkey for company. There are several other players which are described in detail in Wikipedia . The King and the Wizard have a great relationship and a very dry sens

The original TRON movie was an exciting voyage into a virtual word where anything was possible so seeing the title paired with the word "duck" piqued my curiosity. I don't know why but there is something inherently funny about a duck or anything relating to them. I discovered this video ad for duct tape which, if you are familiar with the original TRON , is a witty send up of the classic motorcycle sequence in the movie. The original TRON The movie was originally released in 1982 by Walt Disney Pictures and was directed by Steven Lisberger. It starred Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn in the lead role with Bruce Boxleitner in a dual role of program/user Tron . The movie tells the story of Flynn as he attempts to hack into a major corporations mainframe to prove that they had stolen his work. He gets transported into a virtual digital world as a unique program/User. Here he teams up with Tron, one of his creations, to defeat the Master Control Program, who has been contr

The now lost Spirit rover mission, initially planned to last 90 days, landed on Mars in January 2004 and sent data back to Earth for more than six years. However, with two damaged drive wheels and getting stuck in the sand in May 2009 and with its solar panels facing away from the sun, the Spirit rover did not have sufficient power to operate its internal heaters and didn't survive the bitter Martian winter where temperatures dropped to minus 67 degrees Farenheit. No contact from Spirit rover Last communication with the Mars Spirit rover was March 22nd, 2010. Despite efforts to regain communication over the past several months NASA officials have decided it is a lost cause and will be *closing the book* on the mission this week. The Spirit rover twin, Opportunity, is still functioning on the other side of the planet and has travelled over 18 miles since its arrival in 2004 and is on its way to Endeavour Crater. More information about the Mars Spirit rover and other rov

The Waterfall Illusion by Escher, like his other drawings, is a sublime example of 3D illusions drawn in 2D. Some of the images are not so impossible to recreate in real life. A recent example I discovered was his 1961 drawing of a Waterfall Illusion recreated in real life. The illusion only works from one viewpoint but this is necessary with many illusions. How the Waterfall Illusion works While most two-dimensional artists use relative proportions to create an illusion of depth, Escher here and elsewhere uses conflicting proportions to create the visual paradox. The Waterfall Illusion has the structure of a Penrose triangle, an impossible object designed independently by Roger Penrose and Oscar Reutersvärd. Below is a video of a clever model reconstruction of the Waterfall Illusion drawing. Using elements cut in perspective the illusion comes alive when seen from a particular viewpoint. Many Renaissance churches used this single viewpoint idea to achieve fantastic effects o