Mark Wahl Frivolous Blog

Usually my spam filter would remove messages that have the message dated in the future, assuming them to be from improperly-configured clients. However it seems to have fortuitiously missed a few messages, refiling them in the data sharing folder.

From: Thomas Jefferson Stamford <stamford@nasa.mil> To: address deleted Subject: SURVEY REPORT 1 Date: 12 Apr 2012 10:13:13 0000

SURVEY REPORT 1

By good luck we have been able to transfer all our accounts and relationships into this empty social networking site. There have been no lost contacts from our community. We all count ourselves fortunate to have found this replacement so quickly after our previous site suffered a sudden and inexplictable bankruptcy.

This site we have moved to has no obvious branding and no domain name. We believe it to have been a staging area, a holder of identities in transit from one network to another. Its applications consist of the typical set of chat boards, horoscopes, groups, fan profiles, and search tools. As yet we have not been able to locate any administrative or moderation functions. We assume that this site was temporarily decommissioned due to a decline in use.

A curious feature of this site is in its lists of "friends of friends" and "people you may know", which, when we compared across several users, had few names in common and do not appear to be consistent with the size of our community.

Estimated size of our social network: 500 connections

(with apologies to ballard)

The author of "Six Earth Cities That Will Provide Blueprints for Martian Settlers" picked Black Rock City, an Antarctic base, Dubai, Las Vegas, Nunavut and pueblos of the Southwest. The illustrations show the buildings sitting on the surface or on the sloping side of a crater.

Presumably the inhabitants of these cities, when they're not playing with their Perky Pat Layouts, would either be recovering from radiation sickness or cleaning out the everpresent dust.

I'd suggest as my six models,

Coober Pedy

Interesting attractions in Coober Pedy include the mines, the graveyard, and the underground churches. The first tree ever seen in the town was welded together from scrap iron. It still sits on a hilltop overlooking the town. The local golf course - mostly played at night with glowing balls, to avoid daytime temperatures - is completely free of grass and golfers take a small piece of "turf" around to use for teeing off.
Siq

The Siq is a natural geological fault produced by tectonic forces and worn smooth by water erosion. The walls that enclose the Siq stand between 91-182 meters (300-600 feet) in height.
an Ice Hotel

The walls are more than 4 feet (1.2 m) thick on average. All of the furniture is made of ice. In addition to using ice glasses as in the Kiruna ice hotel, the bar (and room service) also serves cold cuts on ice plates.
a Combat support hospital

The great operational advantage of the DEPMEDS facility ... is the use of single or double expanding milvans to create hard sided, air conditioned, sterile operating rooms and intensive care facilities, which can produce surgical outcomes similar to that seen in fixed facility hospitals, and do so in an austere environment.
Cousteau's Underwater Habitat

Conshelf III was tested in 1965, six divers lived in the habitat at 100 metres in the Mediterranean near the Ile du Levant for three weeks. In this effort, Cousteau was determined to make the station more self-sufficient, severing most ties with the surface. A mock oil rig was set up underwater, and divers successfully performed several industrial tasks.
The caves of Afghanistan (book)

Some of these huge tunnels reached 1640ft and contained a hotel, a mosque, arms depts and repair shops, a garage, a medical point, a radio center and a kitchen. A gasoline generator provided power to the tunnels and the hotel's video player. This impressive base became a mandatory stop for visiting journalists, dignitaries and other 'war tourists'.

Lightness war

The phrase lightness war (or lightness race) refers to the art industry's tendency to paint, color and print art at progressively increasing levels of lightness to create an image that stands out from others. This phenomenon can be observed in many areas of the art industry, particularly in galleries and in pictures distributed as giclée and as Sofa-sized art. In the case of gallery prints, the war stems from artists' and distributors' desires to create pictures that seem as bright as possible or brighter than pictures from competing artists.^[1]

However, as the maximum brightness of a picture is dependent on its illumination, the overall lightness can only be increased by reducing the dynamic range. This is done by making the darker areas brighter while the brightest peak shades are either destroyed or severely diminished.

Example

All of this blog's posts by date

Lightness war

Example