With the help of a ceramic cup and liquid nitrogen this magnet can levitate. Making it a superconductor by causing it to have really low resistance and thus repels the black magnet from the silver one before the polarity reverses again as the liquid's temparature rises.
I love science!
July 16, 2008
Ferro-Fluid Demonstrations!
A ferrofluid is a liquid which becomes strongly polarised in the presence of a magnetic field.The fluid is basically made up of very small (nano-small) particles of ferromagnetic material. Ferromagnetic items are the same type of magnets you would find on your refrigerator, except these are obviously much smaller. They are usually suspended in water, and something interesting is that although they are a common type of magnet, they do not retain their magnatism on their own, only when an external magnatism is applied. That is what gives them the ability to display the external magnetic field so well. Thus people for a a few yars now have conducted living sculptures with this fluid, the results are amazing!
This one's so crazy that it looks computer-generated. With lots of preperation, the people who produced this video were able to create art with slowly moving magnets around the colloid of liquid and magnetic particles.
The electrons (delocalised) around the molecules are pushed to one side of the liquid by the magnetic field. Like charges repel (in the same way your hair stands on end if you rub a balloon on it.)
This one's long and a bit out of focus, but the music makes it creepy and the setup makes it look very alien like!
TROUBLE FOR JONZE'S WILD THINGS
LOS ANGELES TIMES writer Patrick Goldstein's blog paints a troublesome picture for the upcoming big-screen feature WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE from Warner Bros.Dave Eggers' script, from the classic children's book by Maurice Sendak, received good early reviews. The $80-million film was filmed in 2006 in Australia, originally slated for an October 2008 release, pushed back to fall 2009 and has now disappeared off the schedule.
Rumors have been brewing for months that the film is in serious trouble,
including accounts from a screening in December at which children in the
audience were crying and leaving the theater.
The story follows a mischievous boy who is sent to his room without
supper and creates a world full of exotic monsters. Apparently, the
movie's big problem is the boy, played by newcomer Max Records, is
almost entirely unlikable and comes off as bratty and mean rather than
impish.

Jonze also apparently had problems making the creatures scary or funny, as the actors in furry creature suits with animated faces just seemed
blank, without warmth or emotion. CG is now being used to create more lifelike monsters.
Warner Bros. head Alan Horn told Goldstein the studio's side of the story, denying rumors that Jonze has been taken off the project.
"We've given him more money and, even more importantly, more time for him to work on the film," Horn said. "We'd like to find a common ground that represents Spike's vision but still offers a film that really delivers for a broad-based audience. We obviously still have a challenge
on our hands. But I wouldn't call it a problem, simply a challenge. No
one wants to turn this into a bland, sanitized studio movie. This is a
very special piece of material and we're just trying to get it right."

Warners isn't in a particular rush, as its trying to fit the 12 to 14 New Line films into its release schedule. But it reveals a weakness in Warners' strategy of combining talented directors with mainstream material. They've had a number of successes, including Christopher Nolan with BATMAN BEGINS and the upcoming THE DARK KNIGHT, Alfonso Cuaron's HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN and Steven Soderbergh's OCEAN'S
ELEVEN series.
They've also had disasters, including giving INVASION to German DOWNFALL director Oliver
Hirschbiegel, both of which flopped.
"We try to take a few shots," Horn said. "Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. The jury is still out on this one. But we remain confident that Spike is going to figure things out and at the end of the day we'll have an artistically compelling movie."

Goldstein speculates if Warners' gamble will pay off with WILD THINGS, especially if Jonze is set on a dark, disturbing film and the studio wants a feel-good family flick.
July 15, 2008
July 14, 2008
U-Haul

You wouldn't think the U-Haul company would be involved into hi-res crazy vector art generated vinyl print imagery, but after seeing some striking graphics on the sides of their trucks here in town, I researched and quickly found the source of them all and it's quite the amazing stuff.
There's a different graphic for each Canadian province and each U.S. state. The one for Iowa is particulary great showing the tourist attraction for Iowa being the 40 mile-wide asteroid crater, along with the actual equation of the splattered ballistics range of materials from the impact formula for the meteor that blasted the earth millions of years ago.
Nova Scotia's graphic is a burning ghost ship. See the whole set here.
July 13, 2008
'Watchmen' Veidt Commercial Contest Winners
Well, the winners have been picked, and you can now see them all here. Below the cut, I've included a couple of the better entries that will have you remembering, "Oh yeah, I guess the '80s did have some stupid commercials."
[Via iwatchstuff.com]
BOLT!
'Bolt' Trailer [Empire] - via iwatchstuff.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)

