Landscape
sastyk | September 20, 2010In some ways, we may be fortunate that the house we chose falls in a middle place in time - old enough to have character and beauty and a kind of solidity, new enough that we don't feel compelled to restore it to a past moment in time. Nor do I worry too much about the scratches the kids put in the pine floors or the authenticity of any particular improvement, although we aspire to keep the place beautiful and suitable to its landscape. My home is a fairly comfortable, moderately shabby work in progress, a mix of old and new that could be done better, but that mostly serves our needs.
So…
gregladen | August 20, 2010This is the most challenging time of year for duck watching. But it may be easier than one thinks to bump into a wolf in the forest.
We've been exploring the western side of the north-central part of the state, in and around Itasca as far west at Tamarack Wildlife Refuge, where we saw several fine herds of tamarack clustered in the usual low flat areas they prefer.
Duck watching this time of year is very hard. In the beginning of the season the males are in full bloom. Females found near males are almost always of the same species. (Unless the male is a mallard. They do not…
gregladen | July 31, 2010When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time at lakes, but the idea of walking around a lake hardly every occurred to me or anyone else. This might be because the lakes were either really big (like the Great Sacandaga Reservoir) or nestled into deep sided rock canyons carved out by glaciers, and thus, not walk-aroundable. Lakes were central places, termini of inland pathways, points along long distance hikes, not things you walked around.
Eventually, I moved to Minnesota where there are probably between five and ten thousand lakes that a) are about the right size to walk around in several…
gregladen | July 18, 2010Where I grew up, lakes were important. We would spend considerable time driving to them, and once there, camp next to them for a couple of weeks. Every now and then we'd go and camp next to the really really big lake. The one with England on the other side, or so my brother would tell me. All the lakes had these big chairs along the swimming areas that lifeguards sat in. The really really big lake had extra tall chairs. I remember thinking that they could probably see England from up there!
But despite the importance of lakes in our recreational regime, lakes were actually fairly…
gregladen | July 5, 2010Does your back yard slope up, away from your house, or does it slope down?
The likelihood that your yard slopes one way or the other ... statistically ... depends in large part on what region you live in. (Here I'll be speaking mainly of the US, but the principle applies broadly.) If you live in New England, your yard is more likely to slope up. If you live in the Midwest/Plains, your yard is more likely to slope down
This is because in New England, we humans build our settlements around rocks. Because there are rocks. (If you don't believe me, note that all the famous rock farms are in…
bioephemera | May 12, 2009
These eerie photos by Alin Dragulin are exactly why tilt-shift photos are sublime. The toy-like cars and buildings seem cute and nostalgic, but the lack of focus traps the viewer in a claustrophobic middle ground, with no idea what story is transpiring. And why does everything seem so still? It's like a childhood memory written by Stephen King.
I asked Alin if he used a digital tiltshift filter to create the Toyscapes, and he said:
The Toyscapes are taken with a 4x5 camera and traditional film. I shoot digital for much of my work but these series of photos MAKE me slow down and be still.…
bcohen | February 23, 2009The industrialization of agriculture, egg version.
An egg factory in China. Click on image for link to original site, credited to AP Photo/Andy Wong as posted at the Globe by Alan Taylor.
The Boston Globe has an elegant photo series called The Big Picture at its website. I don't know why this isn't more publicized. Maybe it is; maybe I've been distracted. I got lost for a half hour surfing around past entries. Above is one of the images from a series, "At Work," and below are selections from that set. I put these into the series on Landscapes and Modernity here at the blog. (Try trees;…
grrlscientist | October 25, 2008tags: Autumn in the Palouse, landscape, nature, photography, Image of the Day
Autumn in the Palouse.
[Eastern Washington State, USA]
Image: Joe Fuhrman, 2008 [larger view].
The Palouse is where I grew up.
esiegel | April 18, 2008Bret Underwood, a friend of mine from my time in Madison, WI, saw my post on String Theory, and took issue with my statement that it wasn't testable. I'm still standing behind what I said, but let's address what Bret has to say.
I donât understand your argument above for why string theory is untestable. In fact, it seems to me you just outlined the best possible case for string theory! What you said above is that if I have a string theory construction of a phenomenon (say, the Standard Model or Inflation), which uses a set of parameters X, and makes some predictions, then I can find another…