Bonsai

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Pixar, the beginning

This movie is the very first animation made by Pixar. It's also the reason why they use that small lamp as some kind of logo.

Honestly, it surprised me how good the animation was, coming from 1986. Or do I look at the 80's now as some kind of stone age? Maybe I do...Because in the 90's Jurassic Park was released.

What so ever, it's cool to know the symbolic value of the video.



There are loads of other, funny animations made by Pixar on Youtube. Maybe I will post some of them later, in a moment without inspiration.

Dubai, where else?

Housing one million people and being totally carbon neutral. Those are the goals of Ziggurat, a pyramid shaped building that has been proposed in Dubai. "Ziggurat" is the name people used to give to pyramids in the Middle East, back in the ancient times.

With a surface of 2.3 square kilometres and a height of 1350 metres, the megatructure has to provide living and working space to one million people. Because of an ingenieus internal transportation system there will be no need for fuel burning cars. The tower - pyramid - will use a combination of steam, wind, and solar power to keep itself entirely off the grid.

Timelinks, the design firm that unveiled the plans, says the purpose of the project isn't all about reducing the ecological footprint. They also want to show that complete cities can be built on surface areas 10 times as small as used today.

The project will be unveiled officially at Cityscape Dubai, which takes place from 6-9 October 2008.

Recycle a can

Without special reason

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." (Lao Tzu)

"There are no shortcuts to any place worth going." (Beverly Sills)

"It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves." (Sir Edmund Hillary)

LHC countdown

Watch this Countdown!, waiting for the Large Hadron Collider to be plugged in.

String Theory

The speaker in this video is one of my favorite figures in the world of physics: Brian Greene. He's a professor at Colombia University and when he was twelve he already did mathematics at an academic level. He's also one of the inventors of String Theory. This theory says that all particles are made of very little strings, that vibrate in a certain way. When it vibrates like this, it's an electron, when it vibrates like that, it's a photon, ...

Here it comes:



I've got to known Brian Greene because of his books. Especially his bestseller "The Fabric of the Cosmos" is a must read. Normally you should be able to find it an every decent library.

Switch, don't drill.

Dot

Do you see that little dot? Take another look at it.

Because, everybody you know lives on that little dot. Everybody you've known and will ever know. Everybody you have ever heard of. Everybody who ever existed. All happiness and all suffering, every birthday. Every religion and every ideology. Every couple in love, every king and all corrupt politicians. Every movie star, every football player and all orphans. Every one of them on that speck of dust, reflecting in the sunlight.

That little dot is an unbelievebly small stage in an unbelievebly big, empty space. And yet...On that small stage, every battle in history has took place. Every general who gained the victory and every bloodbath. Every riot and every party. Every happening you know of.

It's our home. As far as we know, that little dot is the only place where life has evolved. We have nowhere else to go to. Not yet. That's why we have to pay respect to our blue globe. We have to cherish it and protect it.

This picture is a beautifull demonstration of human arrogance and banality. Someone gets angry because the neighbour has parked his car in front of the window, again. What's the meaning of those things when you see that little dot is that infinite emptiness?

Carl Sagan, an American astronomer who died in 1996, could place our existance in a cosmic point of view like no one else could. To Sagan, this picture showed that we should take responsibility to be kind to each other and to keep this blue dot safe. It's the only home we will ever know.

"Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money." (Indian saying)