His Master’s Toys

Phoenix lander may have uncovered ice on Mars! From Foxnews…

TUCSON, Ariz. — Sharp new images received Saturday from the Phoenix lander largely convinced scientists that the spacecraft’s thrusters had uncovered a large patch of ice just below the Martian surface, team members said.

That bodes well for the mission’s main goal of digging for ice that can be tested for evidence of organic compounds that are the chemical building blocks of life.

More here…

I just finished watching Oliver Hirschbiegel’s outstanding film ‘Downfall‘ which is based on last 12 days of Adolf Hitler’s life in the bunker where he killed himself, narrated through the eyes of Traudl Junge, his secretary. The film portrays the human side of the ‘Third Reich’ (which created much controversy), and the events surrounding the death of some of the key supporters of Hitler.

However, apart from the outstanding narrative, the film had some superb techniques that helped recreate the drama and intensity of a war-torn nation with minimal depiction of battle sequences.

Claustrophobic setting: through complete lack of natural light, extreme use of ‘white’ light, contrast and shadows, it creates a feeling of suffocating claustrophobia in the viewer’s mind. The long shots go only as far as a section of a bunker would allow, and the camera shake that follows shells dropping overground (almost like an earthquake), create an atmosphere of captivity, where every single and rare outdoor shot almost comes as a relief. Seen through the POV of the characters, the bunker is safe, and the outside dangerous (due to constant shells dropping from an invisible aggressor). Yet, the moment a character steps outside the bunker door, it gives a fleeting sense of relief from the oppressive interiors, but one that can only last a few seconds due to the constant danger of sudden death from a bullet or a shell.
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A friend sent me the link to Chris Jordan’s site where he has put up his current work, a project he calls ‘Running the Numbers: An American Self Portrait’.

The following is one of the many incredible images displayed on his site, all of which are an absolute must-see. What you see below is not an oil painting. It depicts 106,000 aluminum cans, the number used in the US every thirty seconds.

See more of his work here.

Definitely my coolest find of the day:17 year old Bridger’s blog documents his efforts to build a multi-touch display for OSX. Check out the results here…

A little bit of self-publicity never hurts. Just another photograph from my photo.net photography portfolio.

I had to post this! [From Algomantra]

My fears came true in Shanghai. After visiting Island6 and having a great discussion with their artists and volunteers, we went to the awesome JZ Club, one of the best jazz clubs I have ever been to.

From China

We were talking to the drummer Gilbert, when minutes later, one of our bags was gone. The surveillance camera footage showed one of two chinese guys pulling the bag from under the table.

I lost my entire DSLR cam setup, two mobile phones, wallet. We did file a report with the police (which was another experience and a half), but knew that the situation was hopeless.

Apart from the gadgets, I was miserable about losing hours of work — just the previous day, I had spent half of an evening covering Shanghai’s speed juxtaposed with the old. All gone.

The Three Gorges is a scenic area on the Yangtze river, between cities Chongqing and Yichang. The historic river came into wider attention due to controversy surrounding the dam that has been built on it.

After escaping the bandits in the bus in Huaihai, and soaking in the outstanding old-town riverside scenery of Fenghuang, we managed to find ourselves in a train heading for Chongqing, hoping to catch a part of the cruise.

We arrived at 3 in the morning, and realized that it was the beginning of a nightmare. To cut a long painful story short, we basically ended up being massively harrassed by touts, spent nearly 3 hours roaming around with our backpacks just trying to figure out a place to sleep. In a land where you don’t speak the language, cannot read road signs, and everyone around you has a vested interest in you and is lying about nearly everything, and you don’t have a map…. how do you navigate? There is one and only one way…

Anyhow, we did manage to find a place (although lot more expensive than we needed), and eventually managed to get ourselves on a boat through the Yangtze. Will post a video soon.

Three Gorges dwarfs you. You stand and watch the giant mist covered cliffs, awestruck, and wonder how bandits and pirates must have ruled the land surrounding it. You weave stories in your head about the deserted towns and temples you pass.

The dam itself is an engineering marvel of our times. It was built ahead of schedule in 2006, a remarkable feat considering the sheer scale of the project. For it to be completed, millions of inhabitants living on Yangtzes shores had to be relocated. The dam is poised to provide for 1/10th of energy needs of the country.

Yet, many fear that a slight damage to the dam, and millions of lives would be washed away. It is China, the land of superlatives, and nothing is subtle in its scope.

Middle of the night in a sleeper bus to Huaihai in Hunan province. Or so we think, since no road signs in English, and the bus full of locals hardly understand our feeble attemps at Chinese phrases from the guidebook. As we lurch through the moutain roads, we hope that the bus ticket counter lady understood our destination, and that we somehow got on the right bus, and that we will know the correct bus stop.

At about 2 in the night, the bus stops at a town for about 5 seconds, to let a couple out. In my sleepy eyes, I notice that the signboard of a bank reads, ‘Industrial and Commercial Bank, Huaihai City Branch’. Before we can decide whether to wait or get down, the bus has already made its way back into a dark highway. In 15 minutes, we realize that we are back in the middle of nowhere, and there is no point in trying to get down at this point. We decide to go with the flow, and treat the bus as a hotel room. Figure out our location when the bus stops and make our way to somewhere reasonable from there. So we fall asleep, our dreams heavy with monsters of apprehension.

Three hours of driving through darkness, and we finally enter a massive town. We wonder if we have left Hunan province, or are still in it. The bus driver moves the bus into a dark bus station. We are about to drag our bags out of the bus, when a woman in the bus grabs my arm. In broken english, she translates the bus driver’s frantic chinese directed towards us.
You can sleep here till 6.

I nod, happy at the opportunity to save a 100 yuans, and gesture towards Poorva to come back up and go to sleep. Ten minutes later, my eyes drooping with dreamscapes, when someone shakes me awake. Its the bus driver. I notice that someone has closed the front door of the bus, and four men and one woman have surrounded me in a circle.

The bus driver pulls out a wad of notes from his wallet, and shakes it, and points to my pockets. I get his gesture instantly. How much do you have in there. Suddenly the puzzle falls in place. To say that I am freaked out would be an understatement. No less due to the wad of 2000 yuan in my pocket, and my fiance sleeping close by.

I decide to act cool and ignorant. I smiled and said Hello. And while I continue to freak out, I wonder if its all my imagination. I start engaging them in pointless english chatter, which they try their best to figure out. In between that, I ask Poorva if we should just leave.

One of the guys go out of the bus, and I decide to use the opportunity. Abruptly, I get up and ask her to move out asap. Before they are able to act, we are out of the bus in the open. The bus driver comes along with another guy, waving the wad of notes. I keep smiling and walk away.

In a short while, after a chat with the locals regarding Mao and geography and cartography, we realize that we actually have ended up in the right destination, Huaihai. I still wonder what the other town was that I saw in my sleep

Right now, we are sitting in a net cafe in Fenghuang. Gorgeous little town that has been frozen in time (in pre-modernization days), its alleys and riverside cafes and bridges out of a wonderful panoramic snap. In a short bit, we will go sample some street food.

One small lesson learnt: always be short of cash. And, always act like a fool.

…and halting for the night at Guilin. I had expected something totally horrid after reading the Lonely Planet’s review of the town, but I am pleasantly surprised. The town is big enough to not feel like an assault of western backpackers and tour groups (as some other destinations) and that itself makes it worth it.

Tomorrow I plan to test the mobile internet here, and then test the reach when traveling through more remote villages in central and northeast. I had initially planned to stay ‘offline’, but met two Australian travelers today morning who are on a 14 month bike trip through Asia (cutting across from SE Asia to India and then Middle East), and have a whole laptop + mobile internet setup with them and are blogging on the go.

On a different note — I re-read the facts of the Opium War. Its totally hilarious — (in simple terms) the Chinese begin with a winning import-export equation, and then the British dump massive amounts of Opium in the country leading to widespread addiction… and then when the King tries to stop the nonsense, they end up getting attacked and eventually losing Hong Kong.