January 29, 2010 Mars will be in opposition to the Sun, and closest to Earth. At that time, Mars will shine in the sky at about midnight, rising to the east, just after sunset, the sun and its apparent diameter will be 14 seconds of arc.
At that time, Mars will shine in the sky at about midnight, rising to the east, just after sunset, the sun and its apparent diameter will be 14 seconds of arc.
In the approach that will take place on 29, 2010, at 16h 36 min., GMT, the Earth and Mars distarão only 99 million km.
Even the naked eye, is easy to see the bright red-orange Mars. However, more accurate observations will always require a place away from urban lights and the use of binoculars or spotting scopes with tripod, at least.
Only observers who use instruments with at least 15 cm aperture (diameter of the lens) will be able to view details of the Martian surface as the ice caps and dust storms.
Even the naked eye, is easy to see the bright red-orange Mars. However, more accurate observations will always require a place away from urban lights and the use of binoculars or spotting scopes with tripod, at least.
Only observers who use instruments with at least 15 cm aperture (diameter of the lens) will be able to view details of the Martian surface as the ice caps and dust storms. Read the rest of this entry »
Skull symbolism is the attachment of symbolic meaning to the human skull. The most common symbolic use of the skull is as a representation of death and mortality, but such a reading varies with changing cultural contexts.
Humans can often recognize the buried fragments of an only partially revealed cranium even when other bones may look like shards of stone. The human brain has a specific region for recognizing faces, and is so attuned to finding them that it can see faces in a few dots and lines or punctuation marks; the human brain cannot separate the image of the human skull from the familiar human face. Because of this, both the death and the now past life of the skull are symbolized.
Moreover, a human skull with its large eye sockets displays a degree of neoteny, which humans often find visually appealing—yet a skull is also obviously dead. As such, human skulls often have a greater visual appeal than the other bones of the human skeleton, and can fascinate even as they repel. Our present society predominantly associates skulls with death and evil. However, to some ancient societies it is believed to have had the opposite association, where objects like crystal skulls represent “life”: the honoring of humanity in the flesh and the embodiment of consciousness.
When a skull was worn as a trophy on the belt of the Lombard king Alboin, it was a constant grim triumph over his old enemy, and he drank from it. In the same way a skull is a warning when it decorates the palisade of a city, or deteriorates on a pike at a Traitor’s Gate. The Skull Tower, with the embedded skulls of Serbian rebels, was built in 1809 on the highway near Niš, Serbia, as a stark political warning from the Ottoman government. In this case the skulls are the statement: that the current owner had the power to kill the former. “Drinking out of a skull the blood of slain (sacrificial) enemies is mentioned by Ammianus and Livy, and Solinus describes the Irish custom of bathing the face in the blood of the slain and drinking it.” The rafters of a traditional Jivaro medicine house in Peru, or in New Guinea. The temple of Kali is veneered with skulls, but the goddess Kali offers life through the welter of blood. The late medieval and Early Renaissance Northern and Italian painters place the skull where it lies at the foot of the Cross at Golgotha (Hebrew for the place of the skull). But for them it has become quite specifically the skull of Adam. Read the rest of this entry »
Graffiti Analysis is an extensive ongoing study in the motion of graffiti. Custom software designed for graffiti writers creates visualizations of the often unseen motion involved in the creation of a tag. Motion data is recorded, analyzed and archived in a free and open database, 000000book.com, where writers can share analytical representations of their hand styles. Influential graffitis artist such as SEEN, TWIST, AMAZE, KETONE, JON ONE and KATSU have had their tags motion captured using the Graffiti Analysis software. Read the rest of this entry »
In 1708 a correspondent wrote in to the British Apollo magazine to ask, “Whence proceeds the custom of making April Fools?” The question is one that many people are still asking today.
The puzzle that April Fool’s Day presents to cultural historians is that it was only during the eighteenth century that detailed references to it (and curiosity about it) began to appear. But at that time, the custom was already well established throughout northern Europe and was regarded as being of great antiquity. How had the tradition been adopted by so many different European cultures without provoking more comments in the written record?
References to April Fool’s Day can be found as early as the 1500s. However, these early references were infrequent and tended to be vague and ambiguous. Shakespeare, writing in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, made no mention of April Fool’s Day, despite being, as Charles Dickens Jr. put it, a writer who “delights in fools in general.”
Many theories have been put forward about how the tradition began. Unfortunately, none of them are very compelling. So the origin of the “custom of making April Fools” remains as much a mystery to us as it was back in 1708. Read the rest of this entry »
January 29, 2010 Mars will be in opposition to the Sun, and closest to Earth. At that time, Mars will shine in the sky at about midnight, rising to the east, just after sunset, the sun and its apparent diameter will be 14 seconds of arc.
