Wishing Well

I hope Fibonacci has left his mark upon this figure. The fall of the spiral is the fall of hope as humans develop consciousness. It is a vicious cycle of life and death--a dying breed--that may fall into its own dimension of demise, or follow its own existential existence into higher consciousness.

Mind Caves 

An idea can be described by the synapse within the brain, sending serotonin sparks in a random direction and reforming old ideas. Thus an original creation can be found, but recalling exactly how that creation occurred is an unpredictable cycle. Mind Caves attempts to reveal the path to new ideas, since it is unclear whether you are moving forward or backward.

Electricity like barbed-wire wraps itself around every thought and move I make. Inside is a glimpse of new ideas, but they rarely make their way to the surface. It's like a seizure that doesn't quite happen, but doesn't go away either.

The Wishing Well

Nothing useful ever comes from wishing.

Space Lines

Los Alamos National Laboratory

I have a deep respect for the advancement of technology. However, government funded research, especially at universities suffer greatly from management and teaching practices. Each new generation of scientists suffer the follies and mismanagement of their predecessors, and in many cases many great minds are driven away because of resentment and dissatisfaction. I am torn because many great experiences have come from my involvement in research (not at Los Alamos), but so much waste and misuse of funding drove me away.

More Unnatural Naturals

Unnatural Beauty

Photo Collage

At least three photos were put together to create this image.

Parque Nacional Torres del Paine

Los Torres del Paine National Park

Chile

All Alone

Stargazing

I was up late last night, so I tried out a twenty dollar telescope from a everything-in-one pharmacy that was sitting around. Made in China. (of course... Thanks China!) Anyway, I've used it a few times to look about the neighborhood, and it performs fairly well--as one might expect from a cheap telescope. When directed skyward, however, it is a very tricky matter.

Relocated outside of town, in a rural neighborhood, the stars are much brighter. However, the performance was chaotic. The 4' tripod offered very little stability, and the swivel mount was very resistant, acting like a spring when applying small adjustments. In short, I look forward to buying a quality scope for stargazing.

Anyway, as far as telescopes go, I remember a little from physics classes. Aperture and focal length come to mind. If you are familiar with the dynamics of cameras, then telescopes are nothing new.


Aperture determines the brightness of the object by allowing more light in. So a larger aperture is a brighter night sky by allowing more light to enter the telescope.
Focal length is the distance between the primary lens or mirror and the eyepiece. The greater the focal length, the narrower the field of view just as your field of vision narrows as you look at something farther away.
Focal Ratio is focal length divided by aperture. I think my telescope has 43mm aperture with a 600mm focal length: f/14. This differs from photography's "f-stop". A smaller f/# will yield a larger field of view, whereas in photography a small f-stop reduces the depth of field.

GIMP

Nearly all the images I've modified/created are done with GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), which is free distribution software like Linux. Its incredibly useful for converting, modifying, and playing with images. The planets I've created were based on a free tutorial.