The International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge 2010 - "Researchers are generating mind-boggling volumes of data at exponentially increasing rates. The ability to process that information and display it in ways that enhance understanding is an increasingly important aspect of the way scientists communicate with each other and—especially—with students and the general public. That's why, for the past 8 years, Science and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) have co-sponsored annual challenges to promote cutting-edge efforts to visualize scientific data, principles, and ideas.
This year's awardees span scales from nanoparticles to colliding galaxies, and from microseconds to millennia."
posted by Blazecock Pileon
on Feb 19, 2011 -
9 comments
"One of the categories of garbage has its own word in New York City, but it’s a category found everywhere that there is trash. There are things people will put out for discard: they’re done with it, they don’t want to see it again. Somebody else looks at that same object and says, “Whoa, wait a minute. That’s pretty nice. I want to keep that.” Those two chairs you’re sitting in were on the curb to be thrown out. They’re pretty nice chairs. I’m happy to have them. In New York, that’s called mongo. It’s a noun and a verb: those are mongo. People who take things from the trash to keep are mongoing. "
[more inside]
posted by liketitanic
on Nov 3, 2010 -
87 comments
Sleazefest: The Movie [
rather nsfw] is a documentary of the first Sleazefest, a two day festival of bands, barbecue, b-movies and beer that took place in August of 1994 at Local 506 in Chapel Hill, NC. The festival was extended to three days and became an annual event for the next
decade.
[more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue
on Sep 1, 2010 -
3 comments
Hello Hello Finally a myspace blog post worth seeing: funny window messages about neighbors with trash disposal concerns, vaguely reminiscent of the window messages in "You and Me and Everyone Else We Know"
[more inside]
posted by srs
on Jul 13, 2008 -
15 comments
Federal and state government officials and border activists say the garbage dumped in the
Sonoran Desert by illegal immigrants and their smugglers is staggering. The cleanup is costing taxpayers millions. The
Southern Arizona Project(pdf) is a multi-year program setup by the Bureau of Land Management to mitigate the impacts to the ecology by illegal immigration and smuggling. In 2006 alone, more than 1.18 million pounds of trash was collected along the southern Arizona border.
posted by netbros
on May 7, 2008 -
22 comments
Mr Fusion - coming soon. Startech Environmental Corporation's "Plasma Converter" works like "the big bang in reverse," creating nothing out of something. With the ability to break down any type of material (other than nuclear waste) into component molecules and and actually
generate energy in the process, we may be at the twilight of the landfill industry.
Via.
posted by jonson
on Feb 17, 2007 -
54 comments
Ilha Das Flores video "A tomato is planted, harvested and sold at a supermarket, but it rots and ends up in the trash. The end?
No. ISLAND OF FLOWERS follows it up until its real end, among animals, trash, women and children. And then the difference between tomatoes, pigs and human beings becomes clear."
A remarkable and devastating 12 minute film from director
Jorge Furtado.
posted by maryh
on Aug 18, 2006 -
15 comments
Drama is impossible today. I don't know of any. Drama used to be the belief in guilt, and in a higher order. This absolutely cruel didactic is impossible, unacceptable for us moderns. But melodrama has kept it. You are caged. In melodrama you have human, earthly prisons rather than godly creations. Every Greek tragedy ends with the chorus — "those are strange happenings. Those are the ways of the gods". And so it always is in melodrama.
His career as a film director lasted more than 40 years, but
Douglas Sirk (1900-1987) is remembered for the melodramas he made for Universal in Hollywood between 1954 and 1959, his "
divine wallow":
Magnificent Obsession (1954),
All That Heaven Allows (1955),
Written on the Wind (1956),
The Tarnished Angels (1958, William Faulkner considered it the best screen adaptation of one of his novels),
Imitation of Life (1959) -- all considered for decades
little more than a camp oddity. Now audiences are beginning to look deeper at the films of Douglas Sirk, at how, in megafan Todd Haynes' words, they are "
almost spookily accurate about the emotional truths". Now, lucky Chicagoans can enjoy "Douglas Sirk at Universal",
matinees at the Music Box. More inside.
posted by matteo
on Apr 29, 2006 -
14 comments
Where do your recycleables go? Minneapolis' Star Tribune has created a very interesting, informative, interactive feature, describing where your recycling goes after it is picked up from your curb. An educational way to spend your afternoon!
posted by santiagogo
on Apr 25, 2006 -
14 comments
Recent surveys show that fast-food packaging makes up about 20 percent of all litter, with snack foods comprising another 20 percent. Oakland, CA is the first city to tax companies who create
"Fast-Food Trash".
posted by stbalbach
on Feb 8, 2006 -
30 comments
The WEEE Man is a huge 3 ton figure standing 7 metres high and is composed entirely of WEEE (
Waste
Electronic and
Electrical
Equipment)--from washing machines to mobile phones and electronic toys.
The WEEE Man represents the amount of waste a single person in the UK is likely to produce in a lifetime. Measure your own footprint
here.
posted by fandango_matt
on Apr 28, 2005 -
13 comments
Trashtalking - German Style. Forget talking dolls, Berlin's speechifying its trash cans to thank pedestrians after they dump their litter. But is it appropriate to have immaterial things tell you how to use them? [More Inside]
posted by gregb1007
on Nov 23, 2003 -
15 comments
Freecycling. Reducing the amount of trash we generate by connecting people who have things that they no longer want with people who want those same things. The only rule:
Every item posted must be free.
posted by grabbingsand
on Nov 18, 2003 -
31 comments
"Toronto flings garbage at Michigan" no no!... - US Courts Canadian Crud! ...Eh?, well, OK: Toronto
trucks it's tons 'o trash across the border to dump in Michigan landfills, and some Yanks are
eager to buy, although others...
"It's so disgusting we don't even talk about it...Why can't they keep their garbage over there?" .....[''We need to put an end to this desecration of our beautiful state,'' fumed Representative Candice S. Miller, Republican of Michigan who also warned that terrorists or weapons of mass destruction could be concealed
amidst the rotting food and used diapers.]
......"Relations between the United States and Canada have been souring for two years....Canada's wishy-washy stance on the Iraq crisis...has irked Washington" chides the Boston Globe, clearly piqued that Boston is not in a position to
catapult cannisters of it's garbage and toxic waste northward at Canada, towards the "Great Concavity" of David Foster Wallace's
"Infinite
Jest". [other shades of "....Jest" loom as "...a reputed haven for terror groups." whispers the Globe...just like in Wallace's book!]
.....Toronto can't find any Canadian communities willing to furnish an immense garbage pit, while "
Michigan's underused landfills are famous for courting crud from outside the state's borders.": They approached Toronto with the deal.
["Ontario, meanwhile, accepts imports of toxic industrial sludge, low-level radioactive waste, and other dangerous refuse from Michigan and other US states."] Garbage is a protected "free trade" commodity under NAFTA and Michigan may need the 'trash jobs':
NAFTA has spurred automakers to
shift production away from the US and build new factories in Canada and Mexico. Canada's auto
factories are
7%
more productive than US ones and have lower health care costs. [
"The growth of imports to the
U.S. from these factories has contributed substantially to the growing U.S. trade deficit and
the related job losses."]. So: Canada sends garbage and shiny new autos south: the US sends radioactive sludge, spittle, jobs and curses north.
Meanwhile, walk across the border and the
murder rate per 100,000 (per year) drops from
42.6 (Detroit, USA) to
2.2 (Windsor, Canada):
"Are
Canadians somehow flinging all their fear and murderous rage into the US along with the garbage?" (asks the Daily Tabloid)
posted by troutfishing
on Mar 10, 2003 -
42 comments
We're exporting toxic technologies to third world countries. We all know computer components contain lots of chemical badness, and it seems that as much as 80 percent of US electronics trash is sent to developing countries, where it is becoming a major health hazard.
posted by brookish
on Feb 25, 2002 -
22 comments
Did you hear about the
Trash Bloc? Some anti-authoritarians are planning a bloc for the weekend of the IMF/World Bank protests that would go around Washington DC neighborhoods and pick up trash. I think we can all get down with that.
posted by sudama
on Aug 20, 2001 -
4 comments
