UP UP AND AWAY

In 2003 Kevin Brooker and Rick Sheppe won the Transcontinental Glider Race across the USA flying an HpH 304C and Bill Kenyon finished second flying a 304CZ making it a one - two punch for HpH Glasflugel sailplanes and pilots!

Keeping Up With the Browns

Remote Lake Rotoroa (above), 12 miles long and 460 feet deep on New Zealand’s South Island, offers some of the best brown trout fishing in the world.

Comet Illuminated

This spectacular image of comet Tempel 1 was taken 67 seconds after it obliterated Deep Impact's impactor spacecraft. The image was taken by the high-resolution camera on the mission's flyby craft. Scattered light from the collision saturated the camera's detector, creating the bright splash seen here. Linear spokes of light radiate away from the impact site, while reflected sunlight illuminates most of the comet surface. The image reveals topographic features, including ridges, scalloped edges and possibly impact craters formed long ago.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD

What is a kinetic sculpture race ??

The Kinetic Sculpture Race has been an annual event in Ferndale, California since 1969. It began when local sculptor Hobart Brown "improved" the appearance of his son's tricycle, and was challenged to a race down Main Street by Jack Mays. Soon, another twelve machines entered to inaugurate the first race. Neither Hobart nor Jack won; instead, the first winner of the Kinetic Sculpture Race was Bob Brown of Eureka, California whose sculpture was a smoke-emitting Turtle that laid eggs. The race became an annual feature of Ferndale, California's annual Art Week; later became a cross-country event and one year had two races; hence the 39th running in 2007. In addition, other ongoing kinetic sculpture races happen around the world including the Balitmore Kinetic Sculpture race which is officially associated with the California race.

In this context, kinetic sculptures are cross-country, human-powered vehicles made to go on sand, water, pavement and other surfaces encountered on the annual 3-day World Championship of the sport held on Memorial Day weekend (last weekend in May) in Humboldt County, California. Hobart Brown passed away last week at the age of 73.

A Hobart Brown Quote: "Money doesn't always bring happiness. People with ten million dollars are no happier than people with nine million dollars." -- Hobart Brown

Public Enemy No. 1

Jeffrey Scalf still hopes to convince his neighbors in Mooresville to embrace Indiana's infamous native son. That would be John Dillinger, Scalf's great-uncle; but the idea hasn't gained much traction. "We make far more of a deal that Mooresville is the hometown of Paul Hadley, who designed the state flag," says librarian Bill Buckley.

For now, there's no statue or plaque in Dillinger's honor. No streets are named after him or mark his escapades. At one point, city leaders even told a local McDonald's to take down posters and other artifacts honoring Dillinger, or hawk its burgers and fries elsewhere.

That attitude still exists today, to Scalf's amazement. "There's a market in this," he says. Indeed, so many souvenir hunters have chipped pieces from Dillinger's headstone at the Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis that the family has replaced it five times. People have showed up uninvited at the Dillinger farm house just outside Mooresville and dug up the lawn, searching for loot stolen more than seven decades ago.

It has made Scalf so nervous that he has hidden all of his Dillinger memorabilia -- a handwritten jailhouse letter, a favorite straw boater hat, the fragile black leather belt the bandit wore the night he died.

He's storing it in the one place that would make Dillinger howl.

Inside a bank vault.

Bathing Beauty

Peter Shire designed this walk-in shower down to the very last grout line. The large tiles on the wall were all hand-built and painted by Shire according to his own drawings.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

She Defined Beauty and Perfection

Elizabeth Taylor is considered by many to be the most beautiful actress of all time.

Once New York's Tallest Skyscraper

Combining several innovations--steel structure, elevators, central heating, electrical plumbing pumps and the telephone--skyscrapers came to dominate American skylines at the turn of the century. The world's tallest building when it opened in 1913, architect Cass Gilbert's 793-foot Woolworth Building was considered a leading example of tall building design. Soon one of many new towering structures, the Woolworth building and other skyscrapers symbolized America's "can do" spirit.

In the blink of an eyelash . . .

Harnessing the electrical impulses of sight, scientists have built a robot guided by the brain and eyes of a moth.

As the moth tracks the world around it, an electrode in its tiny brain captures faint electrical impulses that a computer translates into action.

The moth, immobilized inside a plastic tube, was mounted on a 6-inch-tall wheeled robot. When the moth moved its eyes to the right, the robot turned in that direction.

The research, presented at the Society for Neuroscience's annual meeting in San Diego this week, marked the latest advance by scientists who are trying to perfect the link between brain and machine.

The technology might one day help people who are paralyzed or have lost their limbs regain the ability to move. Scientists have developed experimental devices that allow those patients to move cursors on a screen or crude robotic hands using only their thoughts.

Nostradamus has been credited with predicting the reign of Napoleon, the atom bomb, the moon landing and the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Nostradamus has been credited with prophesying dozens of pivotal episodes in recent history, including the rise of Adolf Hitler, the assassination of John F. Kennedy and, most recently, the destruction of the World Trade Center towers. On the Internet, Nostradamus followers and hoaxers alike have put together detailed interpretations of Nostradamus' works, as well as fabricated passages.

Small-Town Ingenuity Still Lives

A working prototype of the Aptera has finally been released. This diesel-electric hybrid, which weighs only 850 lbs., can get up to 230 mpg at 55 mph. Going from 0 to 60 in less than 10 seconds, the vehicle can go up to 150 total miles without a charge. Steve Fambro of Accelerated Composites, aka Aptera Motors, created the bullet-shaped two-seater in his garage, proving small town ingenuity still lives. The company has set a tentative price of $20,000 to its 3-wheeled creation and is already taking pre-orders.

“Venice – Bronze Morning”

Bruce Yardley -- Oil on Canvas

"Traghetto - Grand Canal Venice"

Jeremy Barlow -- Oil on Board

More Cool Art That Will Mess With Your Head

Maxim Gorky and the Russian Revolution

Maxim Gorky was revered as the leading Russian artist and intellectual associated with the 1917 Revolution throughout the lifetime of the Soviet Union. But did he really approve of Lenin and the Soviet experiment? Did indeed he meet his end at the hands of Bolshevik agents? Orlando Figes reassesses the position of this pivotal figure in a magazine article in "History Today."

Among the portraits of Soviet heroes that used to hang in every Russian school and library the one of Maxim Gorky was nearly always given pride of place with Lenin. Gorky was an icon of the Soviet cultural establishment. He was hailed as the first great Russian writer to emerge from the proletariat, as a life-long friend of the Bolsheviks, and as the founder of Socialist Realism, the artistic doctrine of the Stalinist regime which said that the artist should depict Soviet life, not as it was, but as it should be in the socialist utopia. The Soviet cult of Gorky took off in his own lifetime: there was a trilogy of films about his youth; the main street in Moscow was named after him; and his native city of Nizhnyi Novgorod was renamed Gorky.

Yet there was another Gorky, the man behind the icon, whom the Soviet public was not allowed to know. In his native land Gorky was a writer with a hagiography but no biography. The opening up of the Soviet archives has revealed a much more complex and tragic figure than the one that appeared in the censored collections of his works in. Russia. From his journalism (long known in the West) and his voluminous correspondence (most of which was buried in the archives) it is clear that Gorky was no devout Bolshevik, that he harboured doubts about the revolution.

Spectacular Photo "Torrens Sunset" by "inaudible" on Flickr

View of the Torrens river in Adelaide, South Australia, taken from the University footbridge. This photograph has been stitched vertically from three horizontal 50mm shots on slide film. (Photo by "inaudible" on Flickr.

They Made Television History

All 68 Episodes of the Landmark Series On 20 DVDs! Upstairs, the Bellamy family negotiated the scandals and successes of the English aristocracy. Downstairs, their loyal and lively servants showed far less reserve when confronting the challenges of their lives. Together, their stories made TV magic.When UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS debuted, network executives fretted that the series was not commercial and viewers would switch off in the thousands. More than thirty years later, it is universally recognized as one of the most successful and important shows in television history, seen by over 1 billion people worldwide and the winner of 9 Emmys, a Golden Globe and a Peabody, among many other awards.Take a final journey back to 165 Eaton Place with this comprehensive set featuring all 68 episodes of the unforgettable masterpiece, digitally remastered for presentation on DVD. The collection also includes the rarely-seen retrospective Upstairs Downstairs Remembered: The 25th Anniversary Special.

Art of San Juan Capistrano