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Artw (2)

A short look at the role of chance, chaos and coincidence in three films: Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Run Lola Run, and Three Colors: Red.
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Dec 29, 2011 - 20 comments

Sylvester Stallone has designed a pen. It's called Chaos. It's by Montegrappa (auto-play music... and oh what music)
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Nov 8, 2011 - 117 comments

Chaos Cinema (Part 1 , Part 2). The decline of extreme action in movies and the rise of overindulgent chaos. [more inside]
posted by blue_beetle on Aug 22, 2011 - 92 comments

New math theories reveal the nature of numbers [1,2] - "We prove that partition numbers are 'fractal' for every prime. These numbers, in a way we make precise, are self-similar in a shocking way. Our 'zooming' procedure resolves several open conjectures, and it will change how mathematicians study partitions." (/.|via) [more inside]
posted by kliuless on Jan 22, 2011 - 45 comments

The chaos theory of evolution
posted by Artw on Oct 18, 2010 - 33 comments

Air traffic in much of northern Europe halted – due to ash from a volcanic eruption under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier in Iceland. The volcano under the glacier erupted for the first time in 200 years last month and whilst Iceland is renowned for its volcanic and geologic activity the sheer ferocity of the latest eruption (thought to be 20 times more powerful than the initial eruption on the 20th March) and prevailing wind conditions have culminated in the current traffic chaos. Flightradar24.com shows the current impact on the skies. Whilst the particles will disperse at high altitude and pose no threat to those on the ground, the volcanic ash is very dangerous to aircraft . Not only is there the problem of it clouding pilot vision but the ash can cause engine malfunction and damage the delicate airframe skin. One silver lining in all this is the anticipated glorious red sunset that should follow.
posted by numberstation on Apr 15, 2010 - 149 comments

The Readers of Boing Boing interview Michael Moorcock
posted by Artw on Jun 18, 2009 - 42 comments

Carousel is one incredible, continuous two-minute tracking shot of the deadly and eternal fight between cops and clowns [high definition versions here with additional interactive features]. Directed by Adam Berg, apparently 90% of the amazing stunts were captured in-camera.
posted by blahblahblah on Apr 18, 2009 - 22 comments

Phriday Physics Phun! What is the force Superman exerts to stop a plane from crashing into the ground, or the speed and mass of Vince Vaughn's winning Dodgeball shot? What's the force exerted by a Dominique Wilkins windmill slam dunk, or the speed of a retired Charles Barkley? What's the frequency of a cat's purr? ...the mass of a snowflake? ...the pressure inside a can of soda? ..the reaction time of the human fingertip? The Physics Factbook, via hypertextbook.com, is "an encyclopedia of scientific essays written by high school students that can be used by anybody," containing over 800 entries and special topics. [more inside]
posted by not_on_display on Jan 16, 2009 - 28 comments

"...the best place to hide bulls**t is in a refereed journal that’s not open-access!" The math-physics blog n-category cafe digs into the curious case of M.S. El Naschie. El Naschie is editor-in-chief of the journal Chaos, Solitons, and Fractals, published by the well-respected scientific publisher Elsevier and sold to academic libraries for US$4,520 a year. The problem? El Naschie has published 322 of his own papers in the journal -- papers that John Baez (of "This Week's Finds in Mathematical Physics" and "The Crackpot Index") describes as "vague, dreamlike imagery," "undisciplined numerology larded with impressive buzzwords," and "total baloney." Is El Naschie a reverse Sokal? Or a Markov process for producing random publishable papers? One thing's for sure -- he knows how to cure cancer.
posted by escabeche on Nov 12, 2008 - 49 comments

Dominoes Made of Dominoes Awesome and very chromatically beautiful. Watch for the hold-outs that refuse to collapse.
posted by axltea on Sep 24, 2008 - 21 comments

Remember all that talk about the Gulf stream turning south and England entering an new Ice Age?
Well, better take a look at this one: (at the bottom)... Ok, this is the Jet stream, not the Gulf stream, but turbulence is turbulence and chaotic systems have a way of quickly migrating to new attractors, often first displaying a kind of turbulence during the transition phase. Here's a link to a .pdf that may be helpful (or not...)
I tell you - Winnipeg (Canada's Global Warming Success Story) just keeps lookin' better and better! But, hopefully, never this good...
posted by sporb on Jul 24, 2007 - 11 comments

The Number 23 has a movie. It's been associated with everything from conspiracy theory to historical and scientific fact, and now the obsession of thousands of Discordians and worshippers of Eris (not to mention KLF fans) is the specific subject of a movie directed by Joel Schumacher and starring Jim Carrey. It comes out in February. I don't think I need to tell you which day.
posted by deusdiabolus on Jan 22, 2007 - 70 comments

Operation enduring chaos: ... the death squads are the result of US policy. At the beginning of last year, with no end to the Sunni insurgency in sight, the Pentagon was reported to have decided to train Shia and Kurdish fighters to carry out "irregular missions". ... From killing everyone named Omar (a Sunni name) who passes thru the wrong checkpoint, to simply marking businesses (and their owners) they want gone with red crosses, how various squads and militias and "armies" and "brigades" are running Iraq.
posted by amberglow on Oct 29, 2006 - 48 comments

Order from chaos! Fill a cylindrical bucket with water and make it so the bottom can spin. At certain speeds, stable regular polygonal shapes will spontaneously form at the turbulent surface of the water. See the video. [2.6MB avi] [via last week's PRL]
posted by sergeant sandwich on May 10, 2006 - 28 comments

Somebody made a funny. (the funny is a series of fake christmas cards with stories)
posted by snsranch on Feb 28, 2006 - 13 comments

The synchronization of two pendulum clocks was discovered in 1665 by Huygens. Two pendulum clocks mounted on the same wall always fell exactly out of phase with each other no matter what the starting conditions. Regardless of the initial conditions the system always ended up the same. In stark contrast, a chaotic system is extremely sensitive to initial conditions. How can these two seemingly seperate things be tied together? The synchronization of chaos. When two chaotic systems are synchronized together, information can be shared between them. It immediatly brings to mind applications for encryption, but it is still far away from everyday use.
posted by ozomatli on Dec 14, 2005 - 49 comments

"Chaos in the Middle East is not the Bush hawks' nightmare scenario--it's their plan." This is a fascinating and disturbing article by Josh Marshall for next month's Washington Monthly, released early due to recent events. Of course, whether or not the war will destabalize the Mideast is open to debate.
posted by homunculus on Mar 27, 2003 - 68 comments

Can some people intuitively find order in chaos? Scientists discover that certain people are likely to predict chaotic time series, such as the weather or the stock market.
posted by costas on Mar 7, 2002 - 13 comments

Northeast could face energy chaos, MIT expert warns "The existing transmission grids were designed to serve regional needs. Power transfers from one grid to another were meant for emergencies only. Computer simulations performed at MIT show that heavy use of grid interconnections to tap cheaper power sources can have unintended effects. Trades between two regional grids can adversely affect operations in a third regional grid, potentially leading to frequency and voltage disturbances." But don't panic, MIT's Competitive Power Systems Group (funded "from a variety of industrial sources") has a solution. FUD or useful idea?
posted by Allen Varney on Sep 19, 2001 - 0 comments

I-jacking!
Sippey encourages you 'to inject chaos and anarchy into the post button by hijacking the identities and namesakes of your favorite web "icons."'
Who do you want to be today?
posted by peterme on Mar 30, 2001 - 50 comments