A Christmas Mushroom.

Guilty.

Cooper, after the discovery of the overturned recycle bin.

Macro view of moss.

The mind of the NSA

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3564#comic

Robert Culbertson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vfrkknSZrs&feature=autoshare

Originally shared by Stefani Banerian

Originally shared by Stefani Banerian
http://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279447

Originally shared by John Poteet

Originally shared by John Poteet

Positives: This happens nearly every morning in California. The sun rises and 4 gigawatts of industrial solar power comes online. There's another 2.7 gigawatts of residential rooftop solar that doesn't show on this graph. So what we have here are six nuclear power plants worth of power that are producing minimal carbon emissions and no radioactive waste.

Of course, this is a fraction of the solar power Germany produces on a clear day so California can do better. It's still a very good thing.

image: screencapped from....
http://www.caiso.com/Pages/TodaysOutlook.aspx#Renewables

#solarenergy   #california   #climatechange

On the comet...

http://www.esa.int/var/esa/storage/images/esa_multimedia/images/2014/10/comet_on_18_october_navcam/14986047-1-eng-GB/Comet_on_18_October_NavCam.jpg

At first glance it looks like a moonlit mountain scene, but on closer examination several strange things become apparent.

First, gravity is wrong for a mountainscape. There are many loose boulders sprinkled around in places where they would slide away, if this was a view of earth.

Second, in the sandy (sand??) area in the lower right there appear to be dune-like ripples, which normally form from wind, which would imply some kind of atmosphere.  But of course, this comet is floating in outer space, and has an extremely weak gravity.

But third, there appears to be some kind of haze in the photo.  Perhaps dust, perhaps gas coming from the comets interior.  Does this have any relation to the dune-like features?
http://www.esa.int/var/esa/storage/images/esa_multimedia/images/2014/10/comet_on_18_october_navcam/14986047-1-eng-GB/Comet_on_18_October_NavCam.jpg

another Bob Culbertson performance...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfsZyPT2fBY

Bob Culbertson jamming with his muse...

Bob Culbertson jamming with his muse...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaFvHBv4sjU

Originally shared by Sophie Wrobel

Originally shared by Sophie Wrobel

anonabox: Surfing anonymously just got easier

This is a very interesting kickstarter project - because it solves one of the things that many geeks forget about: making secure and anonymous internet access accessible to your average idiot.

The anonabox is an open-hardware, open-source box that contains, more or less, a pre-configured Tor access point. That means, connect the anonabox between your router and your computer, (or for wireless users, connect to the anonabox wireless network and turn off your router's wireless network) and you be surfing the internet over a secure, encrypted connection being sent over Tor.

Previously, using Tor involved installing and configuring some rather nerdy software, and blindly trusting that you didn't forget some configuration option along the way. For an average internet user, that's a world of difference in usability. Kudos to the anonabox team for solving their installation hurdle! Now, let's see how much market entry will cost, and whether this will help to promote smarter, more secure internet usage.

/via Danial Hallock 
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/augustgermar/anonabox-a-tor-hardware-router?ref=discovery

Distributed solar energy...

I currently have solar panels on about 35% of the roof area of my house, and I have reduced my electricity cost to near (but not quite) zero.  With 80% roof coverage, then, I could provide a surplus equal to what I am using.

According to the chart, Total Electrical Generation is 38.1 quads (with 25.7 going to "rejected", 67% waste -- what's up with that??).

What's interesting here is that the electrical infrastructure, unlike other energy infrastructure, is intrinsically bi-directional -- if the consumers were turned into producers, they can send power back out over the same wires that they are currently using to receive power.

This means that if residential and commercial customers turned into producers (eg, residential and commercial solar that on net produced as much surplus energy as they had been using), they could completely supply the current industrial use of electricity, even accounting for a 2/3 energy loss (to "rejected").

So, from a pure capacity and distribution infrastructure point of view, all current electric power generation facilities could be replaced by distributed local generation and storage, using the current grid.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/LLNLUSEnergy2012.png

Originally shared by Astronomy Picture of the Day (APoD)

Originally shared by Astronomy Picture of the Day (APoD)

Laniakea: Our Home Supercluster of Galaxies
Image Credit: R. Brent Tully (U. Hawaii) et al., SDvision, DP, CEA/Saclay
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140910.html

It is not only one of the largest structures known -- it is our home. The just-identified Laniakea Supercluster of galaxies contains thousands of galaxies that includes our Milky Way Galaxy, the Local Group of galaxies, and the entire nearby Virgo Cluster of Galaxies. The colossal supercluster is shown in the above computer-generated visualization, where green areas are rich with white-dot galaxies and white lines indicate motion towards the supercluster center. An outline of Laniakea is given in orange, while the blue dot shows our location. Outside the orange line, galaxies flow into other galatic concentrations. The Laniakea Supercluster spans about 500 million light years and contains about 100,000 times the mass of our Milky Way Galaxy. The discoverers of Laniakea gave it a name that means "immense heaven" in Hawaiian.

Originally shared by nixCraft

Originally shared by nixCraft

Want to run Linux on old laptop/hardware? Try DSLR (Damn Small Linux Remake) http://dslr.dimakrasner.com/

#linux   #distro   #kernel   #oldhardware

The Alps

Originally shared by a deleted account....

Originally shared by ****

Perhaps I should build something like this guitar to play some Maqam Music.

Microtonal Guitar (Part 1) - Tolgahan Çoğulu - Ma…: http://youtu.be/MYK_PF9WTRE
http://youtu.be/MYK_PF9WTRE

Yosemite again -- Sentinal Rock on the right edge.

Yosemite again -- Sentinal Rock on the right edge.

At the base of Yosemite Falls

At the base of Yosemite Falls

What bird is this?

Hi -- complete amateur here.  Joined the community to see if someone could help me with identification.  This small raptor (standing 6-8 inches at most) visited our yard (San Francisco Bay Area).  It looks quite young, and it has a band on its left leg.  Any information would be appreciated.

Japanese Garden, Portland, Oregon

Japanese Garden, Portland, Oregon

Super strong spider silk

http://www.wired.com/2010/09/super-strong-spider-silk/
http://www.wired.com/2010/09/super-strong-spider-silk

Another view of Varenna at sundown

Another view of Varenna at sundown

Varenna, Italy

Varenna, Italy

Lake Como

Lake Como

Santorini