Ever notice how people texting at night have that eerie blue glow? Or wake up ready to write down the Next Great Idea, and get blinded by your computer screen? During the day, computer screens look good—they're designed to look like the sun. But, at 9PM, 10PM, or 3AM, you probably shouldn't be looking at the sun.
F.lux fixes this: it makes the color of your computer's display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day. It's even possible that you're staying up too late because of your computer. You could use f.lux because it makes you sleep better, or you could just use it just because it makes your computer look better.
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posted by crunchland
on Jun 22, 2010 -
65 comments
The Nature of Light and Color in the Open Air "Moreover, this book is written for all those who love Nature; for the young people going out into the wide world and gathering together round the camp-fire; for the painter who admires but does not understand the light and colour of the landscape; for those living in the country; for all who delight in travelling; and also for town-dwellers, for whom, even in the noise and clamour of our dark streets, the manifestations of Nature remain." - Marcel Minnaert
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posted by jquinby
on Dec 23, 2008 -
17 comments
*relativity by Drzach & Suchy. "Our work explores the relativity of perception and the dependence of appearance on the surroundings. It illustrates the fact that the message communicated to the observer can dramatically change with varying external conditions. Multiple images are encoded within a single physical object — a white panel, which displays the separate images under appropriate lighting conditions. The underlying principle of our technique is based on a simple observation: the shadow cast by an object depends not only on the object itself, but also on the light; therefore
the same object under changing lighting conditions can totally change its appearance."
[Via]
posted by homunculus
on Aug 13, 2008 -
11 comments
Light makes a comeback. “New technologies — more sophisticated imaging techniques, fluorescent molecules that act as beacons of light in the cell, and the computing power to gather and stitch together multiple images and create videos from high-powered microscopes — make it possible to harness one of light’s key advantages: gentleness. Unlike higher-resolution techniques, light microscopes can image biological structures without killing them or chemically fixing them. At Harvard, the resurgence of light microscopy is making it possible to see structures and events that have never before been seen in the context of living cells and organisms.” Also don't miss the
video samples of “in vivo” imagining.
posted by Frankieist
on Apr 19, 2008 -
12 comments
Apparently, the new black is... really, really black. "Researchers in New York reported this month that they have created a paper-thin material that absorbs 99.955 percent of the light that hits it, making it by far the darkest substance ever made -- about 30 times as dark as the government's current standard for blackest black." But what possible benefit to society could come from this blacker than black substance? Why,
invisibility cloaks, of course!
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posted by willie11
on Feb 20, 2008 -
53 comments
John Lennon’s lighthouse. He said, ‘Well, actually, I invited you because I wanted to know if you can build the lighthouse in my garden,’ and I said: ‘Oh, dear, no, no. It’s just a conceptual idea. I don’t know how to build anything.’
Yoko makes a dream of John's come true in Iceland. It’s
geothermal.
Amy Goodman's take on the subject. And, of course,
video.
posted by LeLiLo
on Oct 17, 2007 -
14 comments
"The trick to education is to teach people in such a way that they don't realize they're learning until it's too late."Fluorescein-dyed water appears suspended in midair, only to "flow" upwards moments later. The careful dance of a splashing drop is frozen and taken for granted, painstakingly analyzed in a brilliant defiance of how water should behave. Such is the wonder of what modder Nate True calls his
Time Fountain (YouTube embedded & worth it)—a well-documented, DIY version of classic science center favorite, the
Water Piddler. MIT's own
Strobe Alley is lined with photos created using the same technology, pioneered by
Harold Eugene Edgerton, a professor whose work you're almost
certainly familiar with. Naturally, some beautiful pieces have followed under the same ideal, courtesy
Martin Waugh.
posted by disillusioned
on Aug 8, 2006 -
14 comments
Little visual miracles. For more than forty years that most American of photographers,
Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters Lee Friedlander, has recorded
modern American urban life -- with its
jumble of
people,
signs,
buildings, and
cars, and
television sets. He likes to turn
a common blunder of amateurs -- photographing something nearby
with one's back to the sun -- into a
leitmotif.
His shadow plays the role of alter ego, sticking to the back of a woman's fur collar, clinging to a lamppost as a parade of drum majorettes passes by, reclining like a stuffed doll on a chair. Clever jigsaw puzzles, his pictures frequently reveal themselves to be
laconic, austere poems to what
Friedlander has termed "
the American social landscape',' meaning mostly ordinary places and affairs. "Friedlander,"
an exhibition of more than 480 photographs and 25 books covering decades of work, runs at MoMA through Aug. 29, before traveling to Europe until 2007. More inside.
posted by matteo
on Jun 14, 2005 -
8 comments
Sensacell Modular Sensor Surface. Make sure to check out the Quicktime movie. You can turn your entire home into the Michael Jackson "Billie Jean" video!
posted by ColdChef
on May 30, 2005 -
7 comments
Monsoon Dawn,
Roden Crater I've always wanted to make light something that you treasure. Not just light reflected in glass, or in a scrim, or on the surface of some object. But light objectified. We generally use it to illuminate other things. But I wanted to force people to pay attention to the thingness and revelation of light. This is a place that will do that.James Turrell [
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posted by y2karl
on Apr 10, 2003 -
14 comments
