View allAll Photos Tagged constraining
A westbound Santa Fe extra departs Riverbank, CA. Thick fog has settled into the valley constraining operations by limiting visibility. This is classic tule fog, a dense vapor that hugs the ground for months at a time, obscuring landmarks and often disorienting motorists, especially at night.
During a lunch break on the second day of a photography class at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in mid-March 2014, our class was sent out to take 5-10 photos of anything that appealed to us intellectually and emotionally, without worry about whether we might be breaking the normal photography “rules” that would constrain our photographic efforts.
Everyone scattered in different directions; everyone saw different sights, focused on different people, and came back with a variety of different scenes that were interesting for the rest of the class to see.
It was a bitter-cold Sunday afternoon (or perhaps I was just under-dressed for the weather) so I didn’t venture far afield. I walked across 42nd Street to Bryant Park, took pictures of a few brave tourists and pedestrians in the park, and then walked east to the front of the New York Public Library, which forms the eastern side of Bryant Park. A couple more pictures, and I was back at the corner where I began: Sixth Avenue and 42nd Street.
It was on that corner that I viewed a loud, raucous man whom I first thought was a homeless vagabond of some kind, pushing a grocery cart containing plastic bags full of empty bottles, while yelling and screeching at everyone around him. But then I saw he was constantly referring to a book that he carried in his hands. A little book, a thick book, a worn and dog-eared book. I couldn’t see it clearly from where I was standing some ten feet away, but I thought I knew what he was carrying … and a closer look at a magnified version of the photos that I uploaded confirmed my suspicion: it was a Holy Bible. Whether ordained or not, whether acting as an emissary of some official church, he was certainly acting the role of a priest. Maybe a mad priest, maybe a deranged priest, but a priest nonetheless.
So I photographed him, too, and I thought the “still photos” would do him far less justice than a video clip. So I did that, too, and you’ll find it here in this Flickr set.
At that point, my time was up. I shuffled over to the food stall at the entrance to the park, paid for a small bowl of tortilla soup and a chicken-salad half-sandwich, and then scurried back across the street to my ICP class ...
East window of the north aisle by Florence Camm, 1932, depicting the Virgin & Child alongside Christ as Light of the World. The subject matter in this case does not sit easily since the donor clearly insisted upon constraining the artist by copying the very popular painting by Holman Hunt for the latter figure (something that occurred frequently in Victorian glass), a close imitation which thus sits a little awkwardly alongside Camm's original design for the Madonna & Child. The result is meticulously executed as always, but I can't help feeling it's a pity that an artist of Florence Camm's high calibre should be compromised in this way.
St Barbara's church at Ashton under Hill is sits on high ground set back from the main road through the village and thus doesn't immediately show itself to the casual visitor. To find it one has to look out for the lychgate set between houses and ascend the steep pathway beyond it where the building is picturesquely revealed in its lovely setting behind trees.
The building appears at first sight to be of mostly 15th century date stylistically, but this is misleading as some parts are considerably older and others surprisingly younger, for example the entire chancel appears to have been rebuilt in 1624 (marked by an inscription on the south side) and sits well with the medieval nave and tower, being a good example of rare Gothic Survival architecture (some of the stonework of the side windows may be reused medieval work). The east window tracery incorporates curious carvings of fish.
The church is entered via the south porch which shelters a Norman doorway, betraying the church's earlier 12th century origins. Within the nave and north aisle are spacious and light (thanks to clear glass and rendered walls) whilst the chancel beyond has late glass be the studio of Frank Holt and its floor level is unusually a step down from the nave (the reverse of the norm and a symptom of the hillside site). There is a handsome late medieval font in the north aisle with a fine window by Florence Camm behind it.
St Barbara's church is kept open and welcoming under normal circumstances, however like many has spent much of the Covid lockdown inaccessible. My visit was the exception, being part of the team repairing (fortunately minor) vandal damage to the east window.
www.worcesteranddudleyhistoricchurches.org.uk/index.php?p...
One more trek down so many more yet to do and enjoy!
This shot was snapped on the way back from Laguna Torre trek where for the first time in my life I had to abort the attempt to climb mountains due to winds near hurricane force screaming through thermal moraine and rugged ridges of the mountains where the path was… disappointed after several attempts to climb for two days we had to turn back due to time constrain… then standing there at the end of our trek, I was trying to soak up all that beauty of rugged peaks and hoping be back one day there to finish what we could not do first time… somewhat sad I had to suck it up – there will be another day, another hike, another opportunity!
Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Lens: Canon EF245-105mm
Exposure: 1/25sec @ F11
The day starts at 7:30 am with a 40-minute drive to the Punta Bandera dock to take a boat on Lago Argentino to Upsala Glacier, a large valley glacier on the eastern side of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field. Its higher portion lies in a disputed territory between Chile and Argentina. The glacier terminus is at Upsala channel of Lago Argentino. The Upsala Glacier is well known for its rapid retreat that has been ongoing since the glacier was first documented in 1810. The glacier showed almost continual recession up until 1999. The acceleration in ice motion during the two decades preceding 1999 may have been augmented by the release of backstress when the glacier retreated beyond the islands in Brazo Upsala. Another period of even faster retreat started in 2008. As of 2018 Upsala Glacier has retreated to such degree that it no longer constrains its tributary Bertacchi Glacier. The boat then drops us off at the Estancia Cristina, an Argentine cattle and sheep ranch located inside Los Glaciares National Park in Santa Cruz Province. It is here that we take a 4x4 for 45 minutes up a mountain, stop and continue up for another 20 minutes, reaching the summit around 12:30 pm. The ranch was founded in 1914 by Joseph Percival Masters, an Englishman who came to Patagonia with his wife in 1900; Estancia Cristina is named for Masters' daughter Cristina. Located on the coast of Brazo Cristina, a northern channel of Lago Argentino, Estancia Cristina still keeps the history of the Masters family alive. Its lodge has 20 rooms distributed over 5 buildings and it his here that we had lunch followed by a presentation of the traditional Mate, an Argentinean tea and a tour of the ranch. We then take the boat back to Punta Bandera and arrive back at the hotel at 8:00 pm.
The land of the giraffe women as polish explorer Vitold De Golish called it. Lies in eastern Burma plateau Dimpled by terraced, paddy-filled valley. Here lives Padang , atribe of about 7000 membes.
Legend claims that the brass rings protect the women from tiger bites. But actually the practice of waring them helps maintain individual and tribal indentity.
Rings worn on arms and legs may weigh a women Down with and additional 30 pounds of brass. Since leg Coils hamper walking. The women waddle. Constraines from Drinking in the usal head-back position , a ring wearer Leans forward to sip through a straw. And the voices of wearer, wrote British journalist, sound as if they were speaking up the shaft of a well.
During a lunch break on the second day of a photography class at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in mid-March 2014, our class was sent out to take 5-10 photos of anything that appealed to us intellectually and emotionally, without worry about whether we might be breaking the normal photography “rules” that would constrain our photographic efforts.
Everyone scattered in different directions; everyone saw different sights, focused on different people, and came back with a variety of different scenes that were interesting for the rest of the class to see.
It was a bitter-cold Sunday afternoon (or perhaps I was just under-dressed for the weather) so I didn’t venture far afield. I walked across 42nd Street to Bryant Park, took pictures of a few brave tourists and pedestrians in the park, and then walked east to the front of the New York Public Library, which forms the eastern side of Bryant Park. A couple more pictures, and I was back at the corner where I began: Sixth Avenue and 42nd Street.
It was on that corner that I viewed a loud, raucous man whom I first thought was a homeless vagabond of some kind, pushing a grocery cart containing plastic bags full of empty bottles, while yelling and screeching at everyone around him. But then I saw he was constantly referring to a book that he carried in his hands. A little book, a thick book, a worn and dog-eared book. I couldn’t see it clearly from where I was standing some ten feet away, but I thought I knew what he was carrying … and a closer look at a magnified version of the photos that I uploaded confirmed my suspicion: it was a Holy Bible. Whether ordained or not, whether acting as an emissary of some official church, he was certainly acting the role of a priest. Maybe a mad priest, maybe a deranged priest, but a priest nonetheless.
So I photographed him, too, and I thought the “still photos” would do him far less justice than a video clip. So I did that, too, and you’ll find it here in this Flickr set.
At that point, my time was up. I shuffled over to the food stall at the entrance to the park, paid for a small bowl of tortilla soup and a chicken-salad half-sandwich, and then scurried back across the street to my ICP class ...
"High-resolution analysis of the target region was conducted using the amazing and robust Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter"
HiRISE observation ESP_092506_1945 captures a high-resolution view of the Martian surface, illustrating localized geomorphic evolution driven by eolian, fluvial, or impact-related processes.
The image highlights terrain dominated by complex surface textures, featuring fine-scale bedforms—such as transverse eolian ridges (TARs) or small-scale dunes—superimposed across underlying bedrock and degraded crater walls. High contrast in pixel brightness reflects local variations in surface albedo and grain-size distribution, with fine-grained dark material accumulating within local topographic depressions and along low-lying troughs.
Evidence of degradation and physical weathering is visible in the form of fractured bedrock blocks, sharp rim crest degradation, and minor slope mass-wasting tracks along steeper inclines. The spatial resolution (approx. 25–50 cm/pixel) allows for the distinction of individual boulders and subtle structural lineaments, providing crucial data for constraining the regional stratigraphy, relative age relationships via micro-cratering density, and current atmospheric-surface interactions.
Acquisition date
21 April 2026
Local Mars time
14:55
Latitude (centered)
14.459°
Longitude (East)
34.863°
Spacecraft altitude
279.5 km (173.7 miles)
Explore: This was so beautiful and vivid in color that I just had to keep it that way instead of going black and white with it.
Strobist info: In learning the "Old Hollywood or Film Noir" type of look, I have found that using off camera flash into grids allows you to have focused light with beautiful falloff. Also, this style tends to have specific hot spots and hot hair lights on purpose.
This photo was shot with a Vivitar 285HV at camera left set to 1/16 into DIY grid to constrain the main light and a Lumopro LP120 set to 1/32 into DIY grid behind left to create the hair light. These were triggered with Cybersyncs.
I ask that you take the time to leave comments. I appreciate the feedback.
Wednesday January 20, 2021
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris inaugurated.
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Dudokpark 1, Hilversum.
Architect: Willem Marinus Dudok (1884-1974)
Rijksmonument 46773
Het Raadhuis van Hilversum is gebouwd naar een ontwerp van de toenmalige stadsarchitect en directeur van de dienst publieke werken van de gemeente, Willem Marinus Dudok. Het wordt beschouwd als Dudoks belangrijkste werk. Het gebouw geniet ook internationaal grote bekendheid en waardering en trekt al tientallen jaren bezoekers uit het buitenland. Volgens de vakliteratuur heeft Dudok zichzelf na deze schepping nooit meer overtroffen, al heeft hij wel enkele gebouwen ontworpen die – vrijwel altijd gebouwd op een kleinere schaal – bewonderd worden. Het raadhuis is gebouwd op de grond van het voormalige landgoed "Witten Hull" dat voor de bouw door de gemeente werd gekocht.
Ook het interieur van het Raadhuis is door Dudok ontworpen. Meubels, tapijten, klokken, lampen, alles moest precies bij elkaar passen. Zelfs de lettertypen die in het pand werden gebruikt werden door de bouwmeester uitgekozen. Het Raadhuis werd officieel geopend op 14 juli 1931.
In de Tweede Wereldoorlog was dit het hoofdkwartier van de Wehrmacht in Nederland. Het stadhuis was toen (tijdelijk) verplaatst naar een ander bekend gebouw, namelijk Hotel Gooiland. De toren was in die tijd gehuld in camouflagemateriaal.
Het Raadhuis van Hilversum heeft in de periode 1989-1995 een ingrijpende restauratie ondergaan en is weer in volle glorie hersteld. Bij de restauratie werden zowel externe als interne facetten hersteld. Zo is veel van het meubilair in publieke ruimten uitgevoerd in authentieke stijl (buismeubelen e.d.) en werden alle oorspronkelijke kleuren weer aangebracht.
Voor meer informatie en foto's, zie dudok.org/1931/08/13/raadhuis-hilversum-1927-1931/
Bron: Wikipedia & www.dudok.org
_________________________________________________________
The Hilversum Town Hall was designed by architect Willem Marinus Dudok to serve as seat of the municipal council of Hilversum in the Netherlands. Construction was completed in 1931. It is a much-admired building that is considered the finest example of Dudok’s work and internationally recognized as one of the most influential buildings of its time.
Not only did he design the building, but also the interior including the carpets, furniture and even the mayor's meeting hammer.
Dudok became Director of Public Works of Hilversum in 1915. Initially, he designed a traditional building intended to fit into the town’s downtown area. However, due to World War I and lack of funds this was not constructed. Dudok presented the first sketches for a new design in 1924, for which he was able to use an elevated location to the northwest of the town centre. This location, which did not constrain the building with composition or height restrictions, gave Dudok the freedom to express his considerable capabilities. It is surrounded by a park and the light-coloured building rises from water, highlighting the garden city character that Hilversum wanted to achieve.
Somewhat reminiscent of the early designs of Frank Lloyd Wright, this remarkable and in many ways unique structure was completed in 1931, by which time Dudok was Hilversum’s Municipal Architect, and was enthusiastically embraced by the people of Hilversum for its balance between form and function, fine workmanship and high quality finishes and materials used. Some critics, however, accused Dudok of diluting modernist designs and being halfway modernist, lacking a specific style. However, the end result is considered by many to be a testament to the consistent harmonic form, function, art and human need. Hilversum Town Hall is one of the most successful buildings in the history of the modernist movement.
During World War II the building was used as headquarters of the German Wehrmacht, for which it was necessary to camouflage the prominent tower. The building was restored between 1989 and 1995.
For more info (in Dutch) and pictures, please check dudok.org/1931/08/13/raadhuis-hilversum-1927-1931/
Source: Wikipedia
To Infinity and Beyond: This Is the Afterlife ~
Turning inside out, the young shaman falls though a long swirling tunnel formed of his inverted self, his unbodied mouth and eyes agape in a primal rush toward extinction.
He accelerates t
hrough a tightly wound vortex that shifts and bends to accommodate his course, always centred in the swirling tube which never touches his falling, disembodied perspective. The tunnel is made of light, and of his own bloodstream, and of all the memories and unremembered details of materiality and personality that made up his life – yet not merely ‘his’ life.
Every human, fish, bird, animal, insect, cell and blood corpuscle that has ever lived is there with him, all at once – the dying shaman can feel their bright fear and ecstasy pouring through him as they all rush toward an unseen destination around the curving, translucent bends of the primal vortex. Even though every being dies alone – no matter if a multitude of witnesses is present – the moment of death itself is one great screaming orgasm experienced simultaneously by every one, every single thing that has ever lived – all our eyes and mouths and ganglia agape at the same simultaneous culmination of our material existence.
The tunnel is an eternally vivid living record of past events and future dreams, all memories and visions embroidered into the seamless fabric of its swirl – and Ram’yana’s private past and the panoply of his personal memories are displayed most prominently to him, brightly livid episodes which emerge from the tubular walls as he passes. His strongest experiences – the most impressive ones, that imprinted themselves most brightly into the palimpsest of his being – leap out at him in high relief as he turns and twists and falls and flies, a singular eye of consciousness accelerating toward the endless end of the convoluted time tunnel that’s leading him home.
As the world we experience slips past us at the periphery of our sensoria, an ongoing tunnel vision moves with us at the extremity of our perceptions, whether dying, dead or alive. Journeying out of the physical plane, outside the material matrix of the world, Ram’yana is beyond time and the ken of time-bound beings; as he leaves four dimensional Timespace and approaches the speed of light everything twists into a tunnel which lengthens fore and aft.
He sees his grandfather and grandmother, Mickey Mouse and Pluto, all the dogs and cats and mice and goldfish that shared his boyhood years, the smells of his houses and the flavours of his lovers. He hears the laughter of his kindergarten friends, their bright faces visible all around him singing ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’, while pretty little Abigail jumps over a spinning rope twirled by Gina and Hannah, her long blonde pink-ribboned pigtails rotating around the sides of her head.
He holds his mother’s huge hand, grasping her finger through the wooden bars of his bassinet while she sings to him in the sultry evening air. He witnesses the expression of semi-resigned shock on his father’s face during the Cuban missile crisis and again when Kennedy was shot, sees the squashed remains of mosquitoes on the wall above his crib, watches the strange lights moving in the sky while all the neighbours point and speculate, sinks again with a collapsing sandbank on Bondi Beach, swept away with hundreds of panicking faces being pulled out to the deep sea along with him, while hundreds of man-eating sharks are driven off by the beating, splashing oars of desperate lifesavers.
He sees his mother’s eyes for the first time all over again and screams at the hard slap on his bottom as he hangs before Doctor Traub’s thick-lensed glasses in the bright, antiseptic birth theatre. His paternal grandmother smiles at him as she leans over and obscures his view of the magnificent giant yellow flowers of the magnolia tree while she wheels him in his pram; he can still smell the cloying fragrance of the flowers. His mother’s mother screams as he holds a dingo puppy up for her inspection and she tumbles over backward in her bedroom, breaking her hip while his eight year old eyes wash the scene away with tears that burn through the illusory years.
The Cat in the Hat and the Mighty Thor; the smell and Hungarian accent of alcoholic Uncle Tony, putting him off beer for years with his first taste of bitter ale at the age of six, and the bright laughing face of his babysitter Wendy by the blazing wood fire; the spray of blood when he cut his wrist falling onto a broken bottle at the age of three and the dizzying view from the emergency surgeon’s high private balcony; the first time he kissed a girl and the first time he dreamed of kissing a girl, all bound up together; flying through the sky in a propeller-driven passenger plane, watching circular rainbows following him in the clouds below.
White sulphur-crested cockatoos and sparrows circle his yard while kookaburras laugh in the gum trees; the first terrifying time his father holds him up high in the air to place him in the fork of a tree; his first night after he ran away from home, reclining on a beanbag in a Kings Cross commune reading Philip Jose Farmer’s pertinent To Your Scattered Bodies Go – everything is there, each scene and sensation embedded within and revealing a multitude of others. Everything. His dying mind seeks out everything he’s ever experienced, seeking a way back into the womb of living as he falls through something else entirely, riding a rollercoaster beyond the imagination of the most topologically tormented tycoon.
As Ram’yana falls he flashes before the eyes of his whole life – as others fall with him, many others, all others, sharing the time tunnel with his self-judging awareness. In the eternity of the Fall everything hidden or repressed is exposed in the Divine Light of clear sight and each being is their own Judge, emerging from the blindfold of their material existence to weigh their own soul on the ineradicable scales of justice and mercy. Conscience is the soul and the soul is immortally, inescapably honest with itself when released from the fetters of self-deceit and delusion.
Beyond time, at the singular moment of the great primal rush that is the birth and death canal leading from one world to the next, everyone experiences the same thingat the same time. We all come and go together in a mind-blowing orgasm; dreaming or screaming, laughing or crying, all emotion quails and pales before the rush of unstoppable motion that dwarfs any and every trivial concern.
No thought of gods or devils, life or death in the primal scream toward the Light at the end of the tunnel – the only thing that matters is holding onto your headless hat and the wordless regrets felt toward all the people, animals and conscious entities you ever knew deeply, or ever loved – and still love, deeply, tenderly, with a perspective of forgiveness, understanding and compassion never vouchsafed to your flesh-bound, in-coiled, emotion-embroiled mortal personality.
Ram is every human who ever lived and died, every fish ever caught in a current to swirl down into lightless depths beyond its control, every bird caught in a whirlwind that flings it to flinders, every animal diving for cover into cloaking vegetation from an inescapable predator, every individual blood corpuscle flinging itself on the way to the crushing pressure at the heart of its warm, pulsating cosmos. As he pours through the end of the world the tunnel twists and whirls, always hiding the point of it all, the point of no return, the heart of the matter, the source of every thing and being – and his mind expands to simultaneously see his spiraling course as a single thread in a vast interwoven image.
The tunnel is one thread among myriad drab and colourful strands in a great uncharitable tapestry, an inextricable part of its intricate pattern. The dying shaman follows the course of his life along its undulating strand and sees that his thread rises and falls above and beneath uncountable other interlocking threads, a spectrum of hues and textures in the enormously unfathomable tapestry. As his thread rises above another he is ‘conscious’, while the thread it occludes is ‘dreaming’; where his strand is covered by another thread, his mortal body sleeps and dreams while the other strand lives their waking life. Everyone and everything is there, all at once, simultaneously, lain out and displayed before him with no need for the flow of time to elucidate the infinite multiplicity of being.
Turn the tapestry around. The thought comes unbidden and the cloth reverses itself around him in a loopy topological twist; the implicately shared complementary nature of consciousness becomes apparent to his blown mind as he sees himself dreaming the lives of others, and others dreaming through his waking eyes and flesh. The intermingling pathways wind around the curving delineaments of their divine co-creation, which turns into itself like a Moebius strip until the beginning of one thread seamlessly winds into the end of another. The falcon is the hunter is the arrow is the feather is the truth. All is alive and whole; nothing is partial or frayed.
The tapestry is vast, but he’s able to follow his individuated thread through the colourful patterns and sees that the enormous conglomeration of dreams and lives is incomplete – not completed by the path of the single thread that is his experience of existence, rising from the tapestry to enter him as him. At the same timeless moment, Ram’yana approaches the plexus of light that is the destiny of all nations, women and men – the future and past of all that are born to fall along with him, minds blown in the blinding light of the immortal portal.
An immaculate blazing white-hot sun glows at the end of the tunnel. He can see it ever more clearly through the transparing walls of the vortex, thinning and fading in the face of the overwhelmingly brilliant source and core of existence. Ram sees the arcs of a trans-finite net spreading outward from the source, sees an infinitude of other vortices approaching its plexus from more angles than he can wrap his bodiless head around. They pass through each other in ways that defy and tease his mortal three-dimensionally entrained mind – but the arrangement makes subtle sense to a higher form of his being, trembling on the edge of an unchartable metamorphosis into something so much greater as to be intrinsically unimaginable. Simultaneously, on another level, the individual personality of the shaman approaches its ultimate rebirth and transformation in his flight toward the blinding light of the central sun.
The source of all is the hot, bright core and central axis of the centreless multiverse, the eternal end of every tunnel; the maw of a transdimensional creature about to swallow him up, the Infinite Light of God and his own silent heart gently glowing in timeless repose. He flies around a final bend in the dissolving tunnel, surging toward the arcane net that veils the core – which flares into him as the tunnel widens, opening into the final straight.
Ram’yana flashes toward the weave that’s flung to the ends of the cosmos, spreading himself to embrace the Light – and as he reaches it, he encounters the safety net. A web-like sieve is strung across the open maw of All, and as Ram’yana passes though it a great, resounding BOUMMB fills the boundless universe – the sound of one heartbeat, as loud as the boom that eternally creates the unborn, ever-living universe; the sound of Shiva’s eye opening and of one hand clapping.
Before your time, he hears and feels, not ready, not yet – unfinished – and he feels himself shrinking toward an infinitesimally small spot in the multitude of multiverses – back into the weave, where plan net X marks the spot where all things meet in his current-bound primate life.
Boumb… Boom…. Boom!
That’s why I’m here, writing this to you ‘now’ – the same ‘now’ that you are reading it in, really. I and eye remember it all vividly, not as something to slowly forget or avoid in the unfocused mind’s eye, but as an ongoing experience that is with me now, always, dynamically imprinted. It is with me as it is with you, when you close your eyes and open your memory to see truly through the waters of forgetfulness, to the infinite waters of eternal life.
Life and death, sensory wakefulness and supersensory dreaming are the same thing, appearing as the warp and weft of the reversible tapestry of existence. And everyone, each of us, is the whole tapestry, inextricably interwoven – everyone is everyone, and that’s about as close as this constraining corsetry of early third millennium Inglesh needs to get at this point in infinite time – xcept, perhaps, for the most important thing of all -
Every one you truly touch and are touched by, in every way, leaves the deepest and most prominent engravings in your heart, mind and soul. What we do unto others is what we do to ourselves – and other living beings are more than mere memory mirrors or handy usable tools. That’s what draws us back for more, and more again – the need to do better by our selves – over and over, until we do it right. Then we get another choice – or another chance to ride the carousel Wheel of Fortune again, if we so choose.
The multiple layers of ascendant consciousness are a self-filtering system of co-evolution – a system of slowly developing focus and perspective that leads our awareness to other dimensions, already inextricably interwoven with the relatively ‘familiar’ bounds of our largely unknown but ever-present reality. There’s no dim-witted hierarchy of order-givers or sword-wielding guardians barring the doors of higher perception – the gateway to Heaven on Earth. There’s just you – and me, and all of us, together. We all have our time to shine, and that time is always now.
Yet Death is not Dying. In the Bardo spaces between thy flowering carnations of existence, all the bright religious hopes and turgid superstitious terrors await the untrained monkey mind in its ongoing fall toward dissolution or reintegration. The Bardo Realms are entire worlds or pocket universes as apparently solid as the full-blown reality ye imagine around thee, right where thou art sitting, right now. How do ye know thou art alive, not dreaming this experience, right here and now? Do ye think that’s air you’re breathing?
A true story
By Ram Ayana @ hermetic.blog.com/2012/03/13/to-infinity-and-beyond-this-...
Shot on location as part of the photowalk series at Maurach, Lake Constance, Germany.
World Heritage Site stilt house museum in the background to the left.
Camera: Hasselblad 500C/M
Lens: Hasselblad F Planar T* 2/110
Film: Ilford Ortho+ @ ISO80
Filter: Hasselblad ProShade 6093 + Hasselblad B70 ProShade Adapter + LEE Big Stopper
Tripod: Gitzo GT3532LS + Arca-Swiss Core Leveler 75
Developer: Ilford DD-X 9m40s inversion @ 21ºC
Stop: Ilford Ilfostop
Fixer: Ilford Rapid Fixer 1+9
Tank: JOBO 1510
Scanner: EPSON Perfection V700 Photo
This is my first attempt of creating a circular panorama.
How i did this:
1)Shoot a 360° panorama. I took 6 pictures using a tripod.
2)Merge the pictures to one file. Crop the left and the right edges at the same point.
3)Stretch the height of the picture to get a perfect square (unselect "constrain properties")
4)Rotate the picture 180°
5)Apply the "polar coordinates" filter.
You're done!
Blockwise stent radial force tester, constraining half of stent to 2mm, while the other half is freely expanded.
joins turned off here - nice self-constraining edge. still getting lost in the parameter space frequently. these are saved from processing as pdf then rendered to bitmap with preview
Florence Namatovu, 46, and five of her children fill the entrance to her shop in Mukoko village in central Uganda. Namatovu farms five acres with her husband outside of town in the rolling green hills of Kalungu District. Local norms constrain women, for example to kneel when they greet a man. Yet, Namatovu has an eye on the future. She says every penny she makes goes to support her eight children and put them through school. Lately, she has made extra money of her own growing orange-fleshed sweet potato vines. With her earnings (about $225 a season), Namatovu is considering opening a bank account for the first time in her life.
Namatovu is part of a network of women who raise the orange-fleshed sweet potato, teach others how to grow it, tell communities about nutrition, and monitor the health of children under 2. The orange-fleshed sweet potato was introduced to female farmers in the central and southwestern regions of the country in 2014 by the Uganda branch of the Bangladesh-based nongovernmental organization BRAC . The effort takes aim at chronic under-nutrition and stunting that affects 33% of children nationally. The World Bank Africa Gender Innovation Lab is studying whether female farmers’ head start with the orange-fleshed sweet potato in Uganda can give them an advantage as the crop becomes more popular and profitable. Photo: © Stephan Gladieu / World Bank
A prefabricated “innovation hub” designed by Architectus has opened at Macquarie University in Sydney just five months after construction began.
The Macquarie University Incubator houses “hot desks,” digital conferencing facilities and meeting spaces and is designed to “amplify and imbue deep thinking around innovation, bringing together entrepreneurial spirit, ingenuity, collaboration and support,” according to principal architect Luke Johnson.
“The Incubator was designed to respond to the diverse and changing needs of its occupants, as well as two key aspects that informed the design of the space: a relocatable building and a short timeframe for its implementation.”
In a design statement, the architects explained that they met the first of these imperatives by designing spaces that did not prescribe use or function.
“In order not to pre-bias the interior spatial qualities of the Incubator, and therefore constrain its future internal micro-planning,” a “consistent clear ceiling height was a necessary and advantageous design principle.” This resulted in the Incubator’s flat roof profile, which allowed for “internal spatial consistency.”
The architects decided on a predominantly timber design, which was fabricated swiftly off-site and assembled at Macquarie University, including a ceiling structure made of cross-laminated timber (CLT), large span Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL) beams and Glulam V columns. Construction involved Lipman and Strongbuild.
Johnson said the use of a range of engineered timbers allowed the architects to create “a sequence of spaces that are tactile and characteristically warm, and somewhat unexpectedly, the natural aroma of this timber palette is a pleasure for its users.”
The majority of components was prefabricated offsite and quickly assembled to minimize disruption to the working campus.
“The resulting building was completed within five months of construction commencing,” said Johnson. “Despite flexibility and relocation being a strong factor of the original design brief, the Incubator has become so well loved that it’s likely it will now remain permanently in its current location.”
Sustainability was also an important factor in the design of the Incubator. Operable wall panels facilitate natural ventilation throughout the interior, while cantilevering roofs shade double-glazed windows. A monitoring system provides feedback on the building’s use of energy.
Source: ArchitectureAU
Explore: If I were only so lucky to have Susan and her twin. This is actually a composite of two photos with Susan looking at her "other self".
Strobist info: In learning the "Old Hollywood or Film Noir" type of look, I have found that using off camera flash into grids allows you to have focused light with beautiful falloff. Also, this style tends to have specific hot spots and hot hair lights on purpose. This photo is a composite of two separate photos. I started with the one laying down on her side and on the second one, I had to make sure that she did not touch/fill the same "space" as the first. This would have created incorrect overlapping issues.
Each photo was shot with a Vivitar 285HV at camera right set to 1/16 into DIY grid to constrain the main light and a Lumopro LP120 set to 1/32 into DIY grid behind each to create the hair light. These were triggered with Cybersyncs.
I ask that you take the time to leave comments. I appreciate the feedback.
Design for a CD compilation for the 4th in the series Stolen Music (for a group CD club). I chose to constrain myself to googling "Stolen Four" then using the results to create the cover. The painting is a Rembrandt that has been stolen four times, making it the most stolen painting of all time. I added in another level of the piece being made of four Stolen elements. The music/art/the type and the print (ink and paper) as no part was paid for. As this is a piece for fun it harms no one and creates the full reasoning on two levels.
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Deep Dream Generator(Digital DaVinci),Photoshop.
Inspired By The Terminator Films
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cwi0pkhoSE
Prompt:-Photo Real,GasPunk Style-,High Voltage Electrical Discharges,Fire and Smoke.Three Gaspunk Buxom Female Warriors Holding Automatic Weapons/Machine Guns,High Voltage Electrical Discharges around Head and Body,Clothing Metal and Leather,Thigh Boots,Standing in a Post Apocalyptic Street coming through the Mist,Guns Pointed towards Camera,,Detailed,Colorful,Constrain Proportions,'mdjrny v5 style'
(Updated May 13, 2024.)
Facing the house's southwestern corner. Ah, the Richardsonian Romanesque . . .
The first photo in this series provides a good close-up of the spotted pattern and carving attributes of the "Raindrop" variety of Lake Superior Brownstone (LSB); this one gives its somewhat mottled aspect from a little distance.
This splendidly somber building material is, geologically speaking, one variety of the Jacobsville Sandstone. Quarried on the outskirts of Marquette in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, this clastic sedimentary rock was deposited atop the massive mafic-igneous flows of the Midcontinent Rift. The latter date to late in the Mesoproterozoic era, but the Jacobsville's age, while necessarily younger than that, was until recently much more poorly constrained, due to its lack of fossils and other traditional dating tools..
But recently a flurry of papers detailing attempts to assign various LSB formations maximum depositional ages using their detrital zircons have been proliferating. The latest I've seen constrains the Jacobsville to the relatively short span of 993 to 986 Ma. That makes it very early Neoproterozoic.
To see the other photos and descriptions of this series, visit
The Brownstone Chronicles album.
And for more on this specific site, see my book Chicago in Stone and Clay, described at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501765063/chicago-i... and at raymondwiggers.com/publications-of-raymond-wiggers/.
www.recyclart.org/2015/11/recycled-art-interview-4-agatha...
We continue our series of posts interviewing "recycled art" crafters & artists. This week, we interviewed Agatha Lee (alias Agy) from the blog Green Issues as she is one of our active crafters and she bring very nice ideas around sustainable fashion. If you want to make your wardrobe last longer without hitting the stores, and know how to make sustainable fashion choices, you should visit Agy blog. If you think you deserve to be featured in the next interview, please, drop us an email.
Tell us a little more about you? Who you are? Where are you from?
I am Agatha aka "Agy", an eco designer who loves to make things, particularly out of waste textiles, and I am based in the sunny island of Singapore. I love sewing new clothes from old clothes, and making them more wearable instead of throwing them away. In fact, I am very passionate about sustainable fashion, and have just set up a for purpose organization in Singapore, Connected Threads Asia, to bring awareness to the social and environmental impacts of the fashion industry.
Why do you craft?
It’s fun, and it’s very therapeutic. If I don’t make or design something, I get very agitated.
How did you learn?
I used to watch my mother make our clothes – she is very good in sewing, knitting and crochet – and then I learnt a little in home economics in secondary school. But most of the skills are self-taught over the past 10 years.
Since when are you working with recycled & upcycled materials?
Since 2005. Wow, that’s ten years already!
What are your can’t-live-without essentials?
My sewing machine, sewing needles and thread.
How would you describe your style?
I would say "easy and carefree".
How is your workspace, how do you make it inspiring?
My home is my workspace but as our flat is small I don’t have a specific corner. I just use the dining room table and clear up after a project. It can be inconvenient and messy though especially when I can't finish a project within the day!
What sorts of things are inspiring you right now? Where do you look for inspiration?
Origami is inspiring me now – I was inspired by a visit to Hong Kong where I met fellow artist, Phoebe Lam of Stitch Paperie – she combines sewing with paper art. I love to take walks, meeting people and observing things, anything – buildings, plants, things people wear. I try to avoid the internet because it can be constraining.
When do you feel the most creative?
In the morning, especially around 7am right after breakfast, and it's quiet!
We live in such a mass-produced, buy-it-now society. Why should people continue to make things by hand?
People treasure hand-made items more, and you can see how much love and care went into it.
What is your favorite medium to work in?
I love working with textiles – my favourites are jersey and denim.
What are your tips for people who'd like to start crafting?
Don't be discouraged the first time you make something and it doesn't turn out well. Good things require practice and time, just enjoy the journey and you will grow.
What is your guilty pleasure?
Eating!!
What is your favorite thing to do (other than crafting)?
I love to read! It does take me away from my work but it is a good break.
Anything else you would like to tell to the "recycling community"?
To always explore and learn new things – never stop!
To finish, we've seen that you have an active blog. Since how many times are you blogging? Is that a full-time job or just a hobby to share your personal creations? Any websites that our readers should not miss?
Yes, I blog at Green Issues by Agy. I try to blog once a week but lately I have been very busy. This is my full-time job, and I also teach upcycling at workshops too.
Thanks a lot Agatha for this interview! :)
To see all the posts by Agatha, it's here.
During a lunch break on the second day of a photography class at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in mid-March 2014, our class was sent out to take 5-10 photos of anything that appealed to us intellectually and emotionally, without worry about whether we might be breaking the normal photography “rules” that would constrain our photographic efforts.
Everyone scattered in different directions; everyone saw different sights, focused on different people, and came back with a variety of different scenes that were interesting for the rest of the class to see.
It was a bitter-cold Sunday afternoon (or perhaps I was just under-dressed for the weather) so I didn’t venture far afield. I walked across 42nd Street to Bryant Park, took pictures of a few brave tourists and pedestrians in the park, and then walked east to the front of the New York Public Library, which forms the eastern side of Bryant Park. A couple more pictures, and I was back at the corner where I began: Sixth Avenue and 42nd Street.
It was on that corner that I viewed a loud, raucous man whom I first thought was a homeless vagabond of some kind, pushing a grocery cart containing plastic bags full of empty bottles, while yelling and screeching at everyone around him. But then I saw he was constantly referring to a book that he carried in his hands. A little book, a thick book, a worn and dog-eared book. I couldn’t see it clearly from where I was standing some ten feet away, but I thought I knew what he was carrying … and a closer look at a magnified version of the photos that I uploaded confirmed my suspicion: it was a Holy Bible. Whether ordained or not, whether acting as an emissary of some official church, he was certainly acting the role of a priest. Maybe a mad priest, maybe a deranged priest, but a priest nonetheless.
So I photographed him, too, and I thought the “still photos” would do him far less justice than a video clip. So I did that, too, and you’ll find it here in this Flickr set.
At that point, my time was up. I shuffled over to the food stall at the entrance to the park, paid for a small bowl of tortilla soup and a chicken-salad half-sandwich, and then scurried back across the street to my ICP class ...
Wish they had used the previous Mustang casting as the body, to keep the scale constant. Instead, they did a new and smaller body, which I imagine responds to size/material constrains.
Located in Port Dalhousie, now part of the amalgamated city of St Catharines, Ontario, on the South shore of Lake Ontario, is a large brick building originally built in 1900 by the Maple Leaf Rubber Company, and which began operating in 1955 as Lincoln Fabrics. This business produces a range of fabrics, including certain types designed for production of body armour. But as a photographer, one of the more interesting aspects is the rear of the building which faces onto the old Welland Canal remnants and the pedestrian walkway that follows the old canal. The strong, regular window pattern is broken by a staircase and four red doors. Creating a wonderful pattern when closely cropped. - JW
Tech Details:
Taken using a hand-held Nikon D7100 fitted with a Nikkor 18-105mm VR lense set to 50mm, ISO100, Aperture priority mode, f/8.0, 1/80 sec. PP in GIMP: slight crop to constrain image area to the windows of the building, slight tone curve adjustment to improve tonal range (to my taste) slight saturation boost to remove muddiness in the heavily overcast light, sharpen, add fine black and white frame, add bar and text on left, scale to 1800 wide for posting,
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D7A_4001_portdalhtextilemilladjcropbarsigbarsigx1800
Javanese dance (Indonesian: Tarian Jawa; Javanese: ꧋ꦠꦫꦶꦗꦮ) is the dances and art forms that were created and influenced by Javanese culture in Indonesia. Javanese dance movement is controlled, deliberate and refined. Javanese art often displays a finesse, and at the same time a serene composure which is elevated far above everything mundane. Javanese dance is usually associated with courtly, refined and sophisticated culture of the Javanese kratons, such as the bedhaya and srimpi dance. However, in a wider sense, Javanese dance also includes the dances of Javanese commoners and villagers such as ronggeng, tayub, reog, and jaran kepang.
Javanese dance and its discipline has different styles and philosophy compared to other Indonesian dance traditions. Unlike vigorous and expressive Balinese dance or cheerful and slightly sensual Sundanese dance, Javanese dance are commonly involving slow movements and graceful poses. Javanese dance have somewhat a meditative quality and tends to be more self-reflective, introspective and more oriented toward self-understanding. Javanese dance is usually associated with Wayang wong, and the palaces of Yogyakarta and Surakarta due to the nature of dance being a pusaka or sacred heirloom from ancestors of the palace rulers. These expressive dances are more than just dances, they are also used for moral education, emotional expression, and spreading of the Javanese culture.
TYPES OF JAVANESE DANCES
Javanese dance reflects the stratified hierarchy of Javanese society, and roughly can be identified within two mainstream of traditions:
Court dances (tari kraton)
Commoner dances (tari rakyat)
Court dances (tari kraton)
The courtly Javanese palace dance is the type of dances that developed, nurtured and fostered by Javanese Kratons, mainly Yogyakarta Sultanate and Surakarta Sunanate, the patrons of Javanese Mataram culture. Javanese sultans are known as the patron and the creator of Javanese court dances.
Kraton dances employs sets of rules about certain dance movements, body and hand gestures that requires discipline to learn. Gamelan orchestra is the prerequisite for Javanese court dance performances as well as for other Javanese art forms such as Wayang performances. The serene elegance, slow pace and constrains of its movements gave Javanese dance a meditative traits. Javanese court dances were heavily influenced by Javanese Hindu-Buddhist legacy. As the result the costumes, jewelry and story, often reflects or based on Hindu epic tales of Ramayana and Mahabharata.
There are three basic types of courtly Javanese kraton dance
Beksan putra – These are the dances for men, which serve two purposes: a military close-order drill and highlighting martial skills. Dancers may learn beksan putra dances to familiarize themselves with the movements for narrative dances.
Beksan putri – Putri is the Javanese word for female, and these dances include courtly dances designed for royal events with very precise movements and distinct staging with subtle layers of meaning. Such dances were often used for entertainment or courtship.
Beksan wayang – These are narrative dances from epic poems, and usually are named after the characters in them, usually an alus-style hero and a gagah-style villain.
WIKIPEDIA
PROCRUSTES IN SITU
PROCRUSTES
A full view both of PROCRUSTES and of the four panels behind. Below is a transcription of the full text of the Blue Triangle"
"We live in an age of miracles...August 6th, 1945. Born in a searing flash of light, god himself signed his magnificent demise with the most enormous phallic plume the world had ever seen. Terminus.... Fifty years have passed since the death of god...fifty years of the most miraculous discoveries, inventions and accomplishments—and fifty years of denial and deceit. We live in an age of miracles and refuse to accept the authorship of, hence responsibility for, the miracles themselves. We persist in denying our resplendency and responsibilities within the concept of a new age—a new age with a new concept of time, finite and creative. An Age of Miracles. Thousands upon thousands of men, women and children were consumed in this cataclysmic change of metaphors. God, like an ancient ruler incarnate, adorned his death with innocents, and their blood colors this new age. How old he was! As old as human fear. And though fear still holds us enthralled, we are no longer free to worship it. God is dead and, with him, men in His image. Patriarchy's grave lies in the blood and rubble of Hiroshima, beneath a poisoned cock of smoke. Is it possible that human evolution is gender actuated? Though all genders participate in linear development, environmental and in-species conditions select one gender innately qualified to compete successfully for survival. Meaning that the circumstances of exterior actuality create the internal reality for human evolution and communication—. (It is interesting that the word "gender" refers mainly to language and its syntactic relationships: masculine, feminine, neuter.) One gender has always dominated and, for reasons of mutual survival, the correlative genders, in symbiotic relationship, have supported and reflected the sense of reality, sustaining its primacy. Reality is that state which functions best and if actual conditions alter so, too, must comprehensive reality. Until August 6th, 1945, the actual conditions of environment demanded a masculine gendered reality. This is no longer so.... In a searing flash of light with its accompanying phallic signature, the cognitional symbiosis was altered completely: In a split-second shattering of the Actual, gendered reality shifted the masculine Alpha to Omega. "Mankind" became the human experiment's first gendered epoch. Delivered and signed, He presented the human corporation His final solution—total annihilation...magnificent simplicity. Humanity has been in a crisis of reality for fifty years—and a gendered struggle for dominance. Our cognizance has been presented two alternatives: the inevitable conclusion of masculine dominance within the concept of infinite time or the deposition of masculine reality and the acceptance of Time Finite within the reality construct of an alternate gender. Meaning...if humankind does not shift its metaphorical identity from masculine entelechy it will destroy itself. By his apotheosis will His prophecies be fulfilled. Armageddon. Life-everlasting—with no one to prove Him wrong. There is no real purpose in deconstruction. Mankind's epoch ended on the 6th of August 1945. We are engaged in defining a new age, an age free of the metaphors of dominance and fear—killing and hate. An age without god no matter what guise his bearded face. There is no need to correct the dead. All genders participated in symbiotic relationship. It is over. The hierarchy must change.... A new symbiosis must prevail. The gendered tribal role of provider and protector is without grace. It can no longer provoke obeisance and obsecration by virtue of birthright. We live in a new epoch of ungendered creativity—an Age of Miracles from which will be engendered a new entelechy. From time immemorial, reality has evolved in a constantly threatening environment relying totally on the masculine's ability to compete and provide within the actualities for survival: Man against elements, man against animal and man against man. From one against one to group against group to nation against nation and finally, on 8/6/45, man against life itself. Within the geometric inevitability of his evolving entelechy, mankind will conclude itself. Generation upon generation, century upon century, millennium upon millennium, this gendered primacy for survival has established a density of reality nearly impenetrable in its compaction of metaphor and myth. In a flash of light, humanity was plunged into a hiatus of astonishment, depression and exhilaration. In the face of universal suicide through the symbiotic reality of masculine entelechy, humanity has been forced to question the continuation of gendered supremacy. This fifty-year hiatus has been defined by a choice between revolutionary chaos or an ordered planetary annihilation through gendered apotheosis. Survival has stimulated cognition and revolution: that which would destroy us must be deposed—. The revolution is gendered, the outcome unknown. The symbiotic relationship between masculine, neuter and feminine genders has undergone a violent wrenching of cognitional reality. The past is undergoing a process of deconstruction with history rewritten to include rather than suppress feminine accomplishments and contributions. The neuter genders have positioned themselves viably within the hierarchy of revolutionary change. Under attack, the masculine has become schizophrenic and paranoiac in the realization that the only way to regain control is to subvert the appearance of evolutionary reality. We live in a time of chaos with the masculine and feminine obsessed with re-creating and reprising the past and the gendered neuter demanding viability within the symbiotic Now. We are at war with the god of our fathers. If the human experiment is to continue, He must be eliminated from the symbiotic equation, the past defined and this new epoch created in gender parity. Let the masculine have the past with its gods and redundant birthrights—. For this he must forsake intellectual apotheosis and enter into cognizant reality in full and equal partnership within the gendered Whole. The triarchy of masculine gendered reality continues to dominate this fifty year hiatus. Though humanity knows there has occurred vital and essential change at the very core of cognizance, war, religion and commerce continue patriarchal control of cognitional entelechy. This triarchy, with its fabric of mores and metaphors, has maintained symbiotic absolutism throughout epochal time with entrenchment so profound as to seem insuperable. Radical feminism, however, has made deep fissures and the traditional symbiosis has begun to break down. An inversion has also begun to alter the triumvirate itself. An epochal change has occurred. A new reality is being born. Since 8/6/45, humanity has existed within the solipsistic freedom of the suicide's choice to live or die. In Time-Finite, a new symbiosis is being formed, man-kind displaced, the death of gods. Humanity is on the edge. Either a new entelechy will be provoked or the Experiment will end. As we struggle to shed our epochal skin, split the protective and procrustean chrysalis, jettison the propulsive force whose prolonged embrace would destroy us, it is incumbent to look out over the broad landscape of masculine gendered reality. Feminine infusion within these past fifty years gives some perspective to those areas within masculine orientation willing to adjust to symbiotic evolution—and—those areas which have hardened and opacified their omnific control. Religion is, of course, the most obdurate and lies at the core of masculine entelechy. When man created God in order to reify himself in His image, he perverted the natural evolution of his gendered potential. By establishing this symbiotic inversion between himself and his idea of himself, a schism occurred within gendered masculine entelechy...a stunting and stultification. Of the three genders, the masculine seems pre-fixed and immutable—redundant and preponderant.... A blind actor on an unlighted stage. Isolated and solipsistic. Age-old deceits and perversions are increasingly apparent within the triarchy: war and commerce prosper without benignancy in mechanical expectation while religion utilizes both in its increasingly malignant hypocrisy of divisiveness and hate. This triarchy, once the viable center of gendered symbiosis, has become the Procrustes of myth foretold. Art and science, once engaged in symbiotic union within masculine entelechy, now exist as separate identities outside the masculine sphere of domination—and, because they lie outside, are suspect and threatening: Art no longer serves as meretricious pimp of patriarchal supremacy, nor science directed toward apotheosis. August 6th, 1945, shattered the ancient symbiosis finally and forever by actualizing choice: life or death—nascency or apotheosis. Masculine entelechy, as manifest reality, is disintegrating leaving only its hardcore triarchy to command obeisance: religious, military and commercial fundamentalism. Dominance is sustained by fear, threat and purchase. This final procrustean embrace must be broken. By universal recognition of 8/6/45 as the Omega and Alpha in symbiotic gendered evolution, how magnificent would be our release from redundancy. The actual truths of science and the real truths of art would once again be engaged in symbiotic viability rather than as threats and chattels of a dying entelechy. Science and art—neuters in gendered cognition—are its linchpins. Neither masculine nor feminine, they are the purveyors of truth. Throughout the epoch of Masculine entelechy, the triarchy achieved magnificence during its peaks of symbiotic benignancy: masculine, feminine and neuter in functioning cognitional harmony. Under masculine solipsistic dominance these high points have been minimal, fragile and transcendent. Procrustes slumbered. Like a railroad track, Art and Science in binary relativity have given testimony to gendered evolution; by their evidence do we see the successes and failures of the human experiment. Humanity at its most syntonic evolves in gendered parallelism without distortion or hegemony. As masculine entelechy is personified by the triarchy of Religion, War and Commerce, the feminine, through symbiotic allegiance, has been identified as distaff, mother and chattel. Species survival has, until 8/6/45, flourished within this symbiosis and, through the birth and death, birth and death patterned repeat of masculine gendered entelechy, Time seemed infinite. As long as the binary parallelism existing between masculine and feminine continued in solipsistic linearity, masculine dominance would prevail. This blind assumption did not reckon with neuter volatility within the symbiotic mix. As male and female neutrality lies between male and female sexuality so, too, does the neutrality of Science and Art lie between masculine and feminine genders. As Art and Science reflect and mimic each other's achievements with prophetic results, so, too, do the gendered entelechies of masculine and feminine reflect and mimic each other within a meliorating evolution through linear time. As Art foretold the eventuation of Science, so has the feminine reflected and defined the masculine. His death was in his birth. By actualizing feminine entelechy, the masculine evolved a solipsistic syntax for control within the gendered symbiosis while developing the mechanics and methods for survival in a hostile environment. By force and mimicry, the masculine established dominance: Feminine Spirit was actualized into dogmatic religion which has served to constrain feminine power and establish a perverted masculine surrogacy over birth and creation. Since 8/6/45 there has been a struggle to re-create and reconstitute human entelechy in an environment no longer threatening from without but rather from within. In an aversion to masculine apotheosis, the feminine is asserting itself to continue species evolution through finite time. Born in fear and controlled by fear, the landscape of human consciousness continues to be constricted by masculine solipsistry: chronic religious wars and conflicts, territorial greed, pretentious contact sports, incessant and unremitting advertising...the triarchy persists in postured exaggeration. As the struggle evolves and a new epoch is born, the neuter has attained unaccustomed freedom. Employed by the masculine for his evolving entelechy, the aborted apotheosis and abrupt shift in concepts of time from infinite to finite has unleashed a force no longer indentured. Art, being by nature prophetic, has existed within a kind of free-floating state for twice the time of Science. (It is interesting, however, that since 8/6/45 the triarchal head of Commerce has, with some success, managed to retain its servitude.) It is the Science of technology that has created this Age of Miracles. It is as though by denying (or postponing) Science its role as executioner of apotheosis it has, through technological apology, created an explosion of dazzling brilliance. Unacknowledged by a dead religion still searching for Lazarus and chronically threatened by neutered truth, the miracles of technology also challenge War's egocentricity and gender aggrandizement. War has increasingly become neuter-oriented much in the same vein as commerce—through feminine transfusion. From the Korean War, which occurred at the beginning of finite time, to the Persian Gulf War, which took place forty years later, War was transformed from a reaffirmation of masculine values and authenticity to an exposition of technological astonishments: neutered and ascendant. Denied apotheosis, Masculine entelechy is being absorbed into a neutered symbiosis of parellelism. The end of history? The question smacks of masculine solipsistry. We are within the nascency of a new age, a new concept of time, a new symbiotic entelechy. We must ask new questions—. A meliorating evolution is in process and humanity is in hiatal crisis between life and death and life. Masculine egocentrism has prescripted an afterlife; Symbiotic Parallelism envisions a life after mankind. The first requires the death of Life; the second the death of Procrustes. Two alternatives: the first very actual and the second very real. As long as the means for universal Suicide exists, Life evolves in hiatus through finite time. Humanity has become totally responsible for the miracle of Life in its continuance. In the face of this, god withers...and in a very real sense apotheosis has occurred. Mankind is free to enjoin itself in a new symbiotic entelechy—parallel and syntonic. The date 8/6/45 should be enshrined in human cognizance as the death of Mankind and the beginning of Humanity...a new epoch. It is 1995. Five years until the Christian millennium and fifty years since the annihilation of Hiroshima. The condition of humanity is toxic, poisoned by an entelechy redundant and untransmuted...corrupting and corrupt. Mankind, unremitting and unregenerate, has become an inversion of procrustean intent: the triarchy is destroying itself. In a protracted hiatus of apotheosis postponed, commerce is consuming the pretensions and personae of religion and war leaving a Janus of hypocrisy, Procrustean trafficker in fear and greed. As this perception becomes ever more cognitional, its actuality manifest, masculine solipsistry denied, its prophetic eventuation becomes ever more caricatured—morbific and mordant, aberrant and anachronistic, invasive and pervasive. Pre-millennialism is rampant, still promising rapture and damnation. The politics of reversal and denial are in ascendancy.... Blinded by fear and suffocating in angst, we refuse to establish the one signpost which could save us all: Hiroshima 8/6/45. Dies Irae and Deus ex machina. The triarchy must be forced to confess its suicide. A new epoch has begun. And what of Art? Over-shadowed by technology and constrained by commerce, it seems vestigial and mimetic in this age of miracles, serving as distaff to science in gendered neutrality. And what of Feminine gendered entelechy? What then of Humanity's evolving Spirit? What then of Art? As Science expands actual truth through the means and miracles of technology, Art seems unable to command its true equivalency. As Hubble looks out toward the very beginnings of the universe, Art must look deep into Feminine entelechy for its own essentiality within the concepts of finite time. If, as it seems, a meliorating evolution is progressing, then a feminine primus interpares is nascent; and with the death of procrustean religionism, Feminine Spirituality is released. Is it, perhaps, Art's purpose to define and configure the mysteries of this repressed and muted essence, to give persona and presence to this buried truth? Heretofore this essence, this spirit, this truth has been revealed in moments of ecstasy—profound religious or aesthetic experiences wherein an opacity suddenly becomes transparent and revelation occurs: a cosmic orgasm...a miracle. Art, from its earliest manifestations through its most opaque servitude in masculine entelechy to contemporary autotelism can be judged authentic only in terms of its capacity for transparency. Historicity means nothing. Originality means nothing. Authorship or ownership mean nothing—only its capacity for transparency. Throughout the ages and isms of linear time, Art's personae have reflected the shifting tastes and tableaux of their coeval existence. These surface perceptions often have great historical and anthropological information; however, the denser the first plane of perception, the more opaque and difficult the transmutation from object to experience. Even the most, supposedly, autotelic works are burdened by the opacities of technique and culture hype, procrustean in motive and intent. And most works are only surface manifestations with little or no capacity for transparency and transcendence. These works simply are until they aren't, leaving a few, oh so few, windows to Feminine ethos: to reality and truth. Suppressed, patronized and feared, this ethos—this ethic—this sublime clarity has been carried, protected and hidden within works of Art. Undiluted and volatile, it is Creation itself, exhilarating and liberating and awesome in its revelation. The more authentic the work of art, the more imbued with Feminine entelechy...the more astute and articulate the artist, the more transparent the access and profound the experience. The Feminine, whether actualized as Female or realized transcendentally, has been protected and exploited throughout evolutionary time, treated primarily as vassal and vessel within masculine solipsism; the miracle of birth, subservient to the sacredness of sperm...the subjective experience subverted by objective worth. This relationship between masculine and Feminine evolved virtually intact until this century and then shifted drastically on 8/6/45. Though parity has not been achieved, self-recognition is progressing at an astonishing pace (this is also true of the gendered neuter) and the diagonal hegemony of masculine control is moving toward symbiotic parallelism. This creates a climate both curious and problematic: As Feminine entelechy actualizes, what then of Art? Will it devolve into a kind of usage—propaganda for an increasingly fragmented and divergent society? A merging with technology into a single-gendered neutrality functioning with pragmatic opacity in the satisfying of evolving sensuous need? As this fifty year hiatus progresses through finite time, there is increasing evidence that as masculine superiority is challenged and feminization occurs, Science (technology) becomes ever more miraculous and neutralizing: Feminine entelechy will soon share the once unique power of reproduction with the entelechy of Science. Gender identities are in flux—no longer absolute within the human equation. As the Feminine neutralizes Masculine hegemony, Science is neutralizing the Feminine. What then of Art? If the miracle of Creation is being regendered and actualized into the miracles of Science, what becomes of the liberating ecstasies of Art? What of transparencies and transcendence? What of the Spirit? Has precognitional apotheosis precluded Art's purpose—its raison d'être? As Symbiotic parallelism evolves, will Art become merely the vehicle for an opaque communication? If the epicenter of Feminine entelechy can be produced in a test-tube, does this serve to destroy the entire entelechy or, as the death of Masculine procrustean triarchy has served, to integrate Masculine entelechy into Symbiotic Parallelism? I believe that Art, authentic in its entelechy of transparency and transcendence, will flourish throughout Time Finite as it has flourished throughout infinite time. And that as Hubble seeks out the beginnings of Time, the artist—if he indeed be an artist—will continue to probe cognizance for the miracle of Creation. We are an evolving mystery—a braided circlet of parallel threads twisted and tied into a Gordian knot of perplexing simplicity. On the Sixth of August Nineteen Hundred and Forty-Five in a Japanese city named Hiroshima, the solution of Alexander was proffered in penultimate predation. Thus far humankind has rejected this solution and for the past fifty years has involved itself in an intensified struggle to untie or at least record the knotted threads. Even the most orthodox and fundamental of religionists seem not quite ready for Rapture and apotheosis. We live in hiatus knowing that everything has changed, but not knowing what. It is a time of exaggeration. The Christian millennium fervor verges on hysteria with fundamentalists trying to revert, convert and invert with procrustean zest. Science, not employed as the sword for the ultimate severing solution, has become the wellspring for an astonishing shower of technological miracles, obliterating all but the most fundamental differences between the sexes allowing for a new and liberating parallelism devoid of hegemonic masculine supremacy. Art, struggling to retain viability in a hyper-actualized climate, has hardened its fundamental identities of precious chattel and valued propagandist. Both poses are redundant and hypocritical. On the verge of a new century, a new millennium, a new epoch, I cannot imagine a more thrilling and challenging time to be an artist. The entire human experiment is in flux. As the Holocene epoch ends, humankind has conquered its planet and is now in absolute control of its destiny. It can exist or not exist. No more "God's Will"—no more excuses. No more dogma or "God's word." The prophecies have been fulfilled. Mankind has delivered the future to parallelism. Art entelechies must be equal, including the entelechy of the planet itself. By its own law of survival, Darwinism is being replaced by a new Law of Connectedness, and professions that promote and advance masculine hegemony recissioned: War surrogate Sports, militant religionism...all manifestations of Procrustes, recissioned. As parallelism evolves, so, too, will new myths and metaphors evolve within a new construct of essentiality. We mourn the loss of war because we mourn the loss of patriarchy because we mourn the loss of god, the death of god and all his metaphors. We live in an age of miracles; a renaissance of human entelechy wherein courage wears a different face. Our new heroes will not be killing each other in the names of god and country, building an ever-increasing density of separation and hate. Rather, they will be destroying the masks and songs of Procrustes: Nasrin, Faulkner, Meinhold, Dunning, Hill—New heroes for a new age...a new epoch of syntonic evolution. As the heroes and martyrs of hiatal time gradually shift cognizance from the masculine actual to the Feminine real, the evolving persona of art seems unfocused: its gendering unclear.... Feminine entelechy, liberated by the Masculine apotheosis of 8/6/45, must now define self as an entity within an evolving symbiotic Parallelism. As Feminine entelechy resolves into definition, so, too, will the Face of Art."
PROCRUSTES IN SITU is the first part of THE PROCRUSTES TRILOGY and consists of the elements in the above photograph as well as a large Study with its Predella.
As Robert Cremean wrote:
PROCRUSTES IN SITU attempts to illustrate the obvious and redundant visages of Procrustes. He is omnipresent within the human condition: cutting, trimming and stretching each individual to fit the beds of conformity. During this phase of the Trilogy, I came to see how essential he is to everything that we are. Without Procrustes, there is no coherence. Procrustes is the antithesis of chaos. He is also the enemy of Art.
Procrustes thrives on repeat, stasis, and order. His sole purpose is to determine and control. Anything that threatens his authority and the dimensions of his beds is trimmed away or stretched beyond its viable scope of importance. The enforced illusions of Procrustes are in constant conflict with the Artist’s desire for truth, no matter what the cost.
In PROCRUSTES IN SITU, the connection between Procrustes and nature, sexuality and reproduction is considered. The linear extension of the species gives Procrustes great authority within the strictures of society. This is acknowledged in the beds of the mother, the father, the young woman, the young man, the child, and fear. Procrustes controls these beds through instinct. We are born into them. By these he controls us all. Chaos is not a threat to Procrustes in his natural form but rather to the illusions that that form has itself constructed. It is this illusion of identity that centers the drama of Procrustes: Theseus versus Procrustes, Art versus culture, chaos versus illusion.
Collection:
Fresno Art Museum
Fresno, California
Reducing variety is a factory approach to service design. This works when you can successfully constrain your inputs to a small number of possible states and control the environment where the service is delivered.
McDonald’s is an example of a service company that succeeds because it is able to reduce variety. Consider the McDonald’s drive-through experience: As a customer your orders are limited by what you can see on the menu. You order some quantity of menu items, which triggers a factory-like production process behind the scenes, while you pay at a payment window. You pick up your food at a delivery window. Purpose matches performance. Service delivered.
As a customer you are a willing participant in the factory experience. Your car is an item in an assembly line and you can be sure that the time between your order and the delivery of your food is carefully monitored by the company.
This works for McDonald’s because they have organized their promise around something that can be consistently and reliably be delivered in a factory-like way. For this to work, customers must follow the process as prescribed. If you walk in to a McDonald’s restaurant, you don’t expect the kind of service you would get in a sit-down restaurant. If you sat down at a table and waited to be served, you would be waiting a long time.
McDonald’s works more like a giant vending machine. You wait in line until you get to the machine interface, you put in your order and your money, and the food comes out the slot. This works for McDonald’s because they have narrowed customer expectations to match a factory-like service.
McDonald’s is an excellent service provider in their niche, not so much because they are excellent at service delivery; but rather because they have reduced their promise to a very narrow window, reducing variety in their inputs and controlling the environment as much as possible. There is a cost to this approach, however. People in such tightly-controlled systems don’t have a lot of autonomy and they have few opportunities to exercise creativity at work. So when a McDonald’s employee says “Have a nice day,” you might feel like it came from a robot. Because when people are treated like robots, they act like robots.
SNR G70.0-21.5 in Pegasus is a poorly known supernova remnant because, I suppose, it is one of the faintest known in the Milky Way, albeit also one of the largest. It began to be discovered in 2002, when some filaments were found in constellation Pegasus. Studies suggest it has around 90,000 years and it is located at about 3,200 light years, within the galactic halo and unusually far from the galactic plane. Its size is estimated in 290 light years.
Some of its filaments are quite straight when compared with other SNR, which indicates its old age.
This image covers an area of 6.4º x 5.2º.
During my research I could not find any photo of it besides one in a recent paper. Due to its extreme faintness, it was a real challenge to capture and process. Due to its large size, a mosaic was needed and due to several constrains, panels frames were taken in wildly different skies (Bortle 8 and Bortle 4). Also, I feel some more hours are needed to better highlight the (few) details it has.
This photo contains the information coming solely from Ha. In this one (flic.kr/p/2nTyPCJ) there is a version where RGB stars were added.
All in all, while not the most visually appealing photo I took, it was one for sure of the most interesting projects I've worked on.
Hope you enjoy.
Technical data:
Integration time:
Ha: 25h00
RGB: 13h26
Panel 1 (left)
Ha >> 07.Aug, 08.Aug, 01.Oct | 192 x 300 s (Barcarena, Portugal - Bortle 8)
RGB >>29.Sep | 326 x 60 s
Panel 2 (right)
Ha >> 09.Aug, 30.Sep, 01.Oct | 108 x 300 s (Santa Susana, Portugal -Bortle 4)
RGB >> 25.Sep, 11.Oct | 240 x 120 s
This needed some proper moody lighting and I ended up with 3 Fresnel focused incandescent spotlights. One directly behind and up high, another around the front and up high, using the barn doors to constrain it to a strip down the centre.
The third light is off to camera left and is only there to light the glass ball, and the top of the table. It is fully spotted up, and the barn doors closed to a small box.
The background fog is from a regular 1kW fogger with dense fog fluid. The heavier than air fog that sits on the table and in the glasses, is from a Lensgo Smoke B with the diffuser to cool it to ambient.
So the iPlymouth competitions have been running for 10 years now. Between March 2009 and June 2011 they were running on the iHerald site, before we moved over to Flickr. The winner of the first competition chose 'Eggs for Easter' as the theme for April. This was my entry, which won the second ever competition, in April 2009..
So I thought I would post it again on here, saying Happy Easter to one and all.
For info, this was 4 or 5 bags of mini eggs, which I separated into colours and laid out onto a sheet of glass, atop of blue mounting board. The reason for the glass (which you can't really see) was that underneath the glass was a template of a simple map of South West England, so that I could constrain the eggs to the correct shape. Once I was happy with my creation, I removed the template, and photographed it in the late afternoon sun to get some depth in the shadows. All a bit of fun. Thanks for looking, and Happy Easter!!
Barry Schwartz, author.
The Internet and all its applications give us great freedom and a seemingly infinite array of choices, yet it’s not clear how much happier that makes most people. That’s the contention of psychologist and Forum speakr Barry Schwartz in his book “The Paradox of Choice,” but it’s also the experience of many people we talk to. For them, opportunities are merely obligations in disguise. If you can do anything at all, then you are responsible if you fail to achieve greatness. You can no longer blame things on circumstance, lack of opportunity or other external forces. Any flaws in your life must be due to some personal unworthiness.
But it’s not all this bleak. Perhaps the antidote to this dilemma is not less choice, but a greater chance at creativity. In Linden Lab’s Second Life, you can create a new life – your own second life, not merely a pre-packaged choice. And with Rediff.com, India’s leading portal, millions of Indians are also creating new real-world lives for themselves in a world where many of them had extremely limited choice.
Schwartz develops his thesis about the downside of choice at considerable length and with specific analysis in his book. A psychology professor for 35 years, he’s talking not just about the angst of freedom, but about specific psychological mechanisms. For example, take our experience the morning of the day we went to meet him in Philadelphia. (He teaches at Swarthmore College, surrounded by bright but often unhappy students for whom everything is possible.) Our regular YMCA swimming pool was closed for maintenance, so after some deliberation we went to another Y. No problem there: Reasonable hours, free (to us as a Y member), on the way to the train. But…this Y had two pools: one large but too cold, and the other small and too hot. The choice was easy: We picked the larger, more invigorating pool. But for that whole hour of swimming we thought of how comfortable the other pool might be. The very availability of choice made us less satisfied with the option we had freely chosen.
It’s not simply the confusion of too many choices one can’t understand, but the way that all the options erode the pleasure of the best option.
This explains so much that is familiar but heretofore inexplicable. Why do more vacation choices lessen the pleasure of the vacation you actually take? And perhaps, why do too many online “friends” reduce the appeal of the friends you already have?
The solution to this challenge for each individual starts with constraining one’s own searches, says Schwartz: “Determine to be a satisficer, happy with ‘good enough,’ rather than an ever-searching maximizer discontented with anything but the best” …and with the Internet’s array of choices, how could you ever be sure?
A second tactic is commitment, he notes: Those money-back guarantees, while valuable in objective situations of defective products, decrease our commitment and lead to doubts. People who make irrevocable decisions tend to justify them and like what they have bought or done; people who dwell on an opt-out continue to agonize over whether they like the choice they have made. And mentally healthy individuals, in general, tend not to second-guess their decisions.
But more broadly, from the vantage point of society or at least from the IT industry, what are the implications? How can an online business support those personal approaches and make its customers happier – long-term?
Perhaps the commercial message of “paradox of choice” is that in a world of abundance it’s better to be a retailer or a community site or a vertical-search service, helping a user deal with the challenges of choice, than a manufacturer adding new choices to an already overwhelming array.
Annual Reports. Aicher made gradual adjustments to his designs for these reports, such as not placing the type over the jacket image by constraining the image.
these constraining chains, dictate every move, manipulate each action.
therefore you secede and fall back to this fractured world.
but these dark chains that hold you down wont hold forever.
It's a horrible, grey, rainy day today and I am having to do some work. That makes me glad that it is miserable as I feel there is nothing I am missing out on. Summer seems to have completely gone and yet the autumn colours aren't in full swing. The sculptures I've made in the last couple of weeks have made it look like the autumnal flush is full on here but that isn't true at all. The fire colored maple leaves I collected were all from half of one tree.
It's an odd one and I first noticed it last year. One half of the tree, in late august bursts into every shade of yellow, orange and red while the rest of the tree stays green and changes when all of it's neighbours do later on in September.
But much like it might appear to you that it is very colourful here, it felt like that to me too. Through collecting the most colourful leaves I could find, studying and working with them before photographing and looking at the photos, I got drawn into the colour and it filled my mind and senses.
Of course there are a few trees that are changing quickly but really they are few and far between. At least where the coloured leaves are below a height that can be reached by me. Yesterday I went searching and visited the trees I know best that produce good colours and things have some way to go yet. But the temperature is changing and a dip will certainly set them on their way.
I remarked yesterday that a year ago I thought I was getting into autumn too early. I changed my moniker to ...waiting for autumn... and by the time it was really in full swing I'd exhausted some ideas as I'd got in amongst the colours so early in the season. I think I may be doing it again this year. But when the weather can be so changeable and uninspiring you need to take your opportunities to get out there and use the colours you find.
It is another of the joys and fascinations of land art that with ephemeral materials, that appear only at certain times of the year, you cannot really plan what it is you want to make. If I wanted to make another Autumn Fire Colour Wheel then I would need enough fiery maple leaves. But there just aren't enough available again after what I harvested last week. When I created my first sculpture with cherry leaves it is something I have wanted to do again. But since then the four trees (in a group together) have not produced all those colours at once and the leaves have been more bedragled and diseased.
You have to play the cards that Mother Nature deals to you. This might seem like a pain and constraining to what you would like to achieve but it is the completely opposite of that. It is fascinating to learn more and more about how things change over the days, months and years. You'd never notice if you didn't look as closely as that and yet there is still many lifetimes of mysteries to discover.
I made this back in June when I created this and was waiting for the sun to move. Just a quick doodle on a rock (which might sound like a poodle doing its do on rock but it's not). The contrast was very strong so the rock looks like it is set in a sea of black as a camera cannot handle the dynamic range as well as the eye.
Oh and I'm now a Twit. Someone asked if I was a Twit and whether I announced what I've been up to as a Twit. Well I've always been a twit and now I'm a fully fledged Twit (as you can tell if you are still reading this) so if you wish to follow me on Twitter I am @escher303. Don't expect such things as "I've just pinned a leaf to a tree" and "I've just done another one" but I probably will mention if there is a new sculpture on Flickr or my blog and I'll have a whinge about the weather.
I'd thought I'd never bother with Twitter, and I don't do Facebook (arrggghhhh) but if it helps let anyone who is interested on what I've been up to then there it will be. But Flickr is the only social networking site for me. I don't really want to know what you've had for breakfast but I love to see what you've been creating. :-)
Two random somewhat experimental pages from the last few days. Very busy but somehow need a little sketch-time in my day…even though I am in a very uncoordinated mood- funny how somedays eye and hand are not in sync very well….and I seem in the mood to talk to myself.
A couple of frames to constrain my sketching to single page and not extend over the spiral binding….enjoying the change!
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Gotha 146 was a fast reconnaissance aircraft that was used throughout WWII by the German Luftwaffe, and one of the results of a mutual technology exchange program with Japan.
The Go 146 was actually a license-built, modified variant of the excellent Mitsubishi Ki-46. The latter type's career started in late 1937: the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force issued a specification to Mitsubishi for a long-range strategic reconnaissance aircraft to replace the Mitsubishi Ki-15.
The specification demanded an endurance of six hours and sufficient speed to evade interception by any fighter in existence or development, but otherwise did not constrain the design by a team led by Tomio Kubo.
The resulting design was a twin-engined, low-winged monoplane with a retractable tailwheel undercarriage. It had a small diameter oval fuselage with the pilot and observer situated in individual cockpits separated by a large fuel tank. The engines, two Mitsubishi Ha-26 radials, were housed in close fitting cowlings to reduce drag and improve pilot view.
The first prototype aircraft, flew in November 1939 from the Mitsubishi factory at Kakamigahara, Gifu.Tests showed that the Ki-46 was underpowered, and slower than required, only reaching 540 km/h (336 mph) rather than the specified 600 km/h (373 mph). Otherwise, the aircraft tests were successful. As the type was still faster than the Army's latest fighter, the Nakajima Ki-43, as well as the Navy's new A6M2,an initial production batch was ordered.
To solve the performance problems, Mitsubishi fitted Ha-102 engines, which were Ha-26s fitted with a two-stage supercharger, while increasing fuel capacity and reducing empty weight to give the Ki-46-II. This machine was also demonstrated to German officials, who became immediately aware of its potential.
Knowing that the German Luftwaffe lacked this fast type of aircraft (German reconnaissance aircraft of that time were either slow artillery observation types, or variants of bombers or heavy fighters), the RLM immediately asked for a batch of airframe kits in order to adapt it to the European theatre and test its capabilities.
The result was a delivery of seven engine-less airframe kits that arrived in Germany in early 1940. In the meantime, with the help of blueprints and other documentations, an alternative engine installation had been devised - the German aircraft was to be powered by liquid-cooled DB 601 engines, which delivered more power than the Ha-102 and offered improved aerodynamics, despite the necessity to add radiators under the outer wings.Effectively, many stock parts from the Messerschmitt Bf 110 heavy fighter were incorporated, so that development time was very short.
In May 1940 the first batch of the Gotha 146 (which had officially been described as a further development of a four seat, twin-engine transport aircraft from the 1930s) was ready, and they were immediately transferred to the Western Front and based in France.
Allocated to the 14. Aufklärungsgruppe, the Go 146 A-0 machines carried out various reconnaissance tasks over the North Sea, Great Britain and France, and they were also used for camouflage trials: each of the five aircraft sported a different paint scheme, raging from uniform, all-over grey to disruptive geometrical patterns, reminiscent of Dazzle camouflage!
The Go 146 was popular among its crews, since it was fast, agile and easy to fly. During the test phase in summer 1940 the Go 146 proved to be slightly faster than its Japanese Ki-46 ancestor, and with a top speed of more than 375 mph (600 km/h) it was hard to intercept by any British or French fighter. The results were so convincing that serial production was ordered, and from October 1940 on the Go 146 A-1 was produced in limited numbers, and the type was steadily developed further, including the change of the nose section that came withe the Ki-46III and augmented engines.
Specifications:
Crew: two (pilot and observer)
Length: 11.00 m (36 ft 1 in)
Wingspan: 14.70 m (48 ft 2¾ in)
Height: 3.88 m (12 ft 8¾ in)
Wing area: 32.0 m² (344 ft²)
Empty weight: 3,263 kg (7,194 lb)
Loaded weight: 5,050 kg (11,133 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 5,800 kg (12,787 lb)
Powerplant:
2× Daimler-Benz DB 601B-1 liquid-cooled inverted V-12, 809 kW (1,100 hp) each
Performance:
Maximum speed: 625 km/h (345 knots, 388 mph) at 5,800 m (19,000 ft)
Cruise speed: 400 km/h (217 knots, 249 mph)
Range: 2,474 km (1,337 nmi, 1,537 mi)
Service ceiling: 10,720 m (35,200 ft)
Wing loading: 157.8 kg/m² (32.3 lb/ft²)
Climb to 8,000 m (26,250 ft): 17 min 58 sec
Armament:
1x 7.92 mm (.312 in) MG 17 machine gun in the observer's cabin, facing rearwards
The kit and its assembly:
This sounds like a weird idea, but the Luftwaffe had seriously been interested in the Ki-46, even though no aircraft ever made it to Europe. On the other side, several German aircraft were delivered to Japan (including the Bf 109E, Ju 87 and Me 210) for trials, so reversing this procedure makes sense.
Anyway, a German version would certainly not have been powered by radials, since this type of engine was not very popular in Europe and rather seen as a "slow" option for bombers. So the idea was born to convert a stock Ki-46 II into a prototype with German liquid-cooled engines - and it was easier to realize than expected!
The basis is the Airfix Dinah, a vintage and very simple kit. Fit is basically good, but the clear parts were (in my case) somewhat damaged around the edges of both canopies. Engines and landing gear are also basic - so I used different wheels, and the radials were replaced, anyway.
I used DB 601 engines, taken from an Airfix Bf 110 C kit, which also donated the radiators.
The latter were easy to place outside or the engine nacelles, the engines took some effort. The DB 601's height is perfect for the nacelles, just the width had to be enlarged in order to fit the original, circular shape of the radials' attachment points.
The remedy was simple: two long cuts in the upper cowling made the new engines flexible and wide enough to press them onto the nacelles' front ends! Some putty was necessary to hide gaps and smooth out the intersection, but the result looks very natural!
Otherwise not much was changed. The cockpits and the pilots were taken OOB, I just added a typical ring antenna under the fuselage and an additional pitot under the nose.
Painting and markings:
The fun part, even though it took a while to find something... different. The typical RLM 70/71/65 splinter scheme with a low waterline for prototypes or bombers of the BoB era was a valid option, but soooo boring.
While looking for inspiration I stumbled across some experimental schemes that had been tested on Bf109E fighters from JG53 - and that's what I finally settled upon.
What the Go 146 now carries is effectively a mix of two schemes: the stylish, geometric pattern was taken from one Bf 109, the colors (RLM 61/02/71/65) from another. Everything was painted with brushes and without masks, some light panel shading, black ink and grinded graphite were used for weathering.
The markings are minimal, typical for German reconnaissance aircraft of the time and based upon Bf 110 of the 14. Aufklärungsgruppe, the decals come from various aftermarket sheets and the code was puzzled together from single letter decals (TL Modellbau). A coat of acrylic matt varnish finally sealed the kit.
An exotic whif, and despite the weird basic idea I made it even more spectacular through the strange paint scheme which reminds of similar experiments by the US Navy. Odd thing is that I had the idea for a German Ki-46 on the agenda for quite a while, but this was/is to become a beefed-up Ki-46III for the late WWII period.
Building this kit's ancestor now, even before the Ki-46III conversion even started, is a little odd - but confirms the feasibility of an engine change and adds another contribution to the 2015 "Battle of Britain" Group Build at whatifmodelers.com.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Gotha 146 was a fast reconnaissance aircraft that was used throughout WWII by the German Luftwaffe, and one of the results of a mutual technology exchange program with Japan. The Go 146 was actually a license-built, but modified variant of the excellent Mitsubishi Ki-46. The latter type's career started in late 1937, when the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force issued a specification to Mitsubishi for a long-range strategic reconnaissance aircraft to replace the Mitsubishi Ki-15. The specification demanded an endurance of six hours and sufficient speed to evade interception by any fighter in existence or development at that time, but otherwise did not constrain the design by a team led by Tomio Kubo.
The resulting design was a twin-engine, low-winged monoplane with a retractable tailwheel undercarriage. It had a small diameter oval fuselage with the pilot and observer situated in individual cockpits separated by a large fuel tank. The engines, two Mitsubishi Ha-26 radials, were housed in close-fitting cowlings to reduce drag and improve pilot view.
The first prototype aircraft, flew in November 1939 from the Mitsubishi factory at Kakamigahara, Gifu. Tests showed that the Ki-46 was underpowered and slower than required, only reaching 540 km/h (336 mph) rather than the specified 600 km/h (373 mph), but, otherwise, the aircraft tests were successful. As the type was still faster than the Army's latest fighter, the Nakajima Ki-43, as well as the Navy's new A6M2, an initial production batch was ordered. To solve the performance problems, Mitsubishi switched to Ha-102 engines, which were Ha-26s fitted with a two-stage supercharger, while increasing fuel capacity and reducing empty weight. This became the Ki-46-II, and this type was also demonstrated to German officials who immediately noticed its potential.
Knowing that the German Luftwaffe lacked this specialized, fast type of aircraft (German reconnaissance aircraft of that time were either slow artillery observation types, or variants of bombers or heavy fighters), the RLM immediately asked for a batch of airframe kits to adapt it to the European theatre and test its capabilities. Seven engine-less airframe kits were delivered to Germany in early 1940. In the meantime, with the help of blueprints and other documentations, an alternative engine installation had been devised: the “Germanized” aircraft was to be powered by liquid-cooled DB 601 engines, which delivered more power than the Ha-102 and offered improved aerodynamics, despite the necessity to add radiators under the outer wings. Many stock parts from the contemporary Messerschmitt Bf 110 heavy fighter were incorporated, so that the development time was very short, and the commonality of mechanical parts eased logistics and maintenance.
In May 1940 the first batch of the Gotha 146 A-0 pre-production aircraft (which had officially been described as a further development of a four seat, twin-engine transport aircraft from the 1930s to cloud its origins and mission) was ready. They were immediately transferred to the Western Front for field tests, and the specialized Go 146 became quickly popular among its crews. It was fast, agile and easy to fly – almost on par with state-of-the-art fighters like the Bf 109. During the test phase in summer 1940 the Go 146 proved to be slightly faster than its Japanese Ki-46 ancestor, and with a top speed of more than 375 mph (600 km/h) it was hard to intercept by any British or French fighter of the time. The results were so convincing that the type was ordered into serial production, and from October 1940 on the Go 146 A-1 was produced in limited numbers at the Gothaer Waggonfabrik in Thuringia. Even though production only ran at small scale, it was continuous, and the Go 146 was steadily developed further, including the change of the nose section that came with the Ki-46-III, stronger engines and an improved defensive armament.
This evolution led to the Go 146 B, which had the traditional stepped windshield replaced with a smooth, curved, glazed panel extended over the pilot's seat. It not only gave a more aerodynamic nose profile, the re-shaped nose also offered room for an extra fuel tank. The space between the two crewmen, connected with a crawl tunnel, held another fuel tank, the radio equipment (a Sprechfunkgerät FuG 16 ZY and a FuG 25a „Erstling“ IFF beacon), as well as a compartment for up to three cameras with several ventral windows, which could take Rb (“Reihenbildner” = serial picture device) 20/30, 50/30 and 75/30 devices that could be mounted in different combinations and angles as needed.
Power came now from a pair of new Daimler-Benz DB 603A liquid-cooled piston engines, which offered 1,290 kW (1,750 hp) each for take-off. Since the engine mounts had to be re-designed for the DB603s (the Go 146 A had used adapters to attach its shorter DB 601s to the original Ha-102 radials’ hardpoints), German engineers used the opportunity to redesign the complete engine nacelles. As a result, their diameter and “wet” surface was reduced, so much that the landing gear had to be modified, too. It now rotated 90° upon retraction, so that the main wheels were lying in shallow wells within the wing structure. Beyond better aerodynamics, structural measures saved almost 250 kg (550 lb).
Instead of the Go 146 A’s single 7.92 mm (.312 in) MG 17 machine gun in the observer's cabin, facing rearwards, the defensive armament was improved and consisted of a pair of 13 mm (0.51 in) MG 131 machine guns, firing rearward from FDSL 131/1B remotely-operated barbettes, one per side. This rather complex installation had become possible (and in part necessary) due to a center of gravity shift from the modified engines and their empennage. The weapons were aimed by the rear crewman through a periscope that covered both the upper and lower rear hemisphere. The control unit had a rotating transverse crossbar with a sideways-pivoting handgun-style grip and trigger at its center, "forked" at its forward pivoting end to fit around the crossbar, with the upper fork extended beyond the rotating crossbar to mount the gunsight. This unique aiming and control scheme rotated the crossbar axially, when the handgrip was elevated or depressed, to aim the guns vertically by rotating both turrets together, and a sideways movement of the handgrip would pivot either one of the guns outwards from the fuselage-mounted turrets for diagonal firing. The guns were electrically fired, and an electrical contact breaker prevented the gunner from shooting off the aircraft’s tailplane. When not in use, the guns would return to a neutral position that would allow to fire directly backwards with both guns.
Furthermore, plumbed hardpoints were added to the inner wings, just inside of the engines. These could carry a 300 l drop tank each for an extended range and loiter time. Single bombs of up to 250 kg or racks with four 50 kg bombs each were theoretically possible too, but the aircraft lacked any bomb aiming support. Crew protection was slightly improved, too, but the airframe was overall kept as light as possible. Despite these efforts, however, MTOW rose to 6,500 kg (14,317 lb), but this was still relatively light in comparison with the similar contemporary Me 410 multi-purpose aircraft, which weighed more than 9 tons and was powered by similar engines. Consequently, and thanks to its clean lines, the G 146 B had a top speed of almost 700 km/h (434 mph) at ideal altitude and the aircraft retained its excellent handling, even though its structure was rather fragile and could not take much stress and punishment.
Two versions of the Go 146 B were produced, steadily but only at a low rate because the aircraft received, due to its highly specialized role and limited offensive capabilities, only a low priority. The B-1 was the main variant and kept the A version’s standard wing, a total of 54 were produced between 1943 and 1945. Additionally, the B-2 was produced between late 1943 and early 1944 as a dedicated high altitude photo reconnaissance aircraft. This sub-variant had an extended wingspan of 16.00 m (52 ft 5 in) instead of the standard 14.70 m (48 ft 2¾ in) and an improved oxygen system, even though the cabin was not pressurized. Its maximum service ceiling was almost 12.000 m (39.305 ft), with a maximum speed of 415 mph (668 km/h), a cruise speed of 250 mph (400 km/h) and a range of 3,200 km (1,987 nmi). Only twelve of these machines were produced and put into service, primarily for flights over Southern Great Britain. When the Arado Ar 234 became available from September 1944 on, though, this new, jet-powered type immediately replaced the Go 146 B-2 because it offered even better performance. Therefore, the B-3, a planned version with a fully pressurized cabin and an even bigger wingspan of 19.00 m, never left the drawing board.
Furthermore, the RLM had idea to convert the fast Go 146 into a fighter amd even a night fighter in mid-1944 as the “C” series. But these plans were not executed because the light airframe could hardly be adapted to heavy weapons or equipment like a radar set, and it was unsuited for vigorous dogfighting. The type’s poor climbing rate made it ineffective as an interceptor, too. There were, nevertheless, tests with at least one Go 146 B-1 that carried four Werfer-Granate 21 rocket launchers under the outer wings, as a fast bomber interceptor esp. against the high-flying B-29, which was expected to appear over continental Europe soon. But this kind of weaponry never reached frontline units and the Go 146 was never operated as a fighter of any kind.
There were, however, other uses: in 1944 the Go 146 was enlisted as a fast liaison aircraft for the RLM (Ministry of Aviation) in Berlin. Stripped off of any armament and cameras and outfitted with two passenger seats in the rear cabin, at least one Go 146 B (with the confirmed registration “ST+ZA”, others in similar configuration may have existed, too) was operated by the RLM’s Zentralabteilung (central command) from Tempelhof airfield for top brass officials between Luftwaffe locations on German terrain. ST+ZA’s fate after January 1945 is uncertain, though.
Specifications:
Crew: two (pilot and observer)
Length: 11.00 m (36 ft 1 in)
Wingspan: 14.70 m (48 ft 2¾ in)
Height: 3.88 m (12 ft 8¾ in)
Wing area: 32.0 m² (344 ft²)
Empty weight: 3,830 kg (8,436 lb)
Loaded weight: 5,661 kg (12,480 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 6,500 kg (14,317 lb)
Powerplant:
2× Daimler-Benz DB 603A V-12 inverted liquid-cooled piston engines, rated at:
- 1,290 kW (1,750 hp) each for take-off
- 1,360 kW (1,850 PS) at 2,100 m (6,890 ft)
- 1,195 kW (1,625 PS) at 5,700 m (18,700 ft)
- 1,162 kW (1580 PS) combat power at 2500 rpm at sea level
Performance:
Maximum speed: 695 km/h (377 knots, 430 mph) at 5,800 m (19,000 ft)
Cruise speed: 450 km/h (245 knots, 280 mph)
Range: 2,800 km (1,522 nmi, 1,740 mi) with internal fuel
Service ceiling: 11,250 m (36,850 ft)
Wing loading: 157.8 kg/m² (32.3 lb/ft²)
Climb rate: 14.7 m/sec (2,900 feet per minute)
Climb to 8,000 m (26,250 ft): 15 min 20 sec
Armament:
2× 13 mm (0.51 in) defensive MG 131 machine guns with 500 RPG,
each firing rearward from FDSL 131/1B remote-operated turret, one per side
2× underwing hardpoints under the inner wings for 250 kg (550 lb) each,
typically occupied by 300 l drop tanks
The kit and its assembly:
This is a déjà vu build: I already did a “Germanized” Ki-46 in 2015, it was an Airfix Ki-46-II outfitted with DB 601s from a Bf 110 as a pre-series Gotha Go 146 A-0, an aircraft that (naturally) never existed but appeared plausible, since German military hardware including aircraft had been evaluated by Japanese forces. And why should this exchange not have worked the other way around, too? However, as I built this modified Dinah for the first time, I already thought that the basic idea had more potential than just one model, and the streamlined Ki-46-III just lent itself for an updated, later version.
This B-2 variant of the Go 146 was based on the LS Models/ARII Ki-46-III. Like the Airfix kit (its molds are from 1965, and that’s just what the kit feels, looks and builds like…), it’s a rather vintage offering, but it is in many aspects markedly ahead, with fine surfaces, recessed details, 3D engines and clear parts that actually fit into their intended places. The LS Models kit’s 10 years less of age are recognizable, and there are three boxings around with different versions of the aircraft (a Ki-46-II, a -III and a trainer with a raised tutor cockpit), differing in small extra sprues for the respective fuselage parts, but they all share a common sprue with the clear parts for all three versions.
The Ki-46-III kit was taken OOB, with just some minor mods. The most obvious change concerns the engines: they were transplanted from a Bilek Me 210, together with the underwing radiators outside of the nacelles. The Me 210, even though it’s from 1997, is a rather mediocre model with some dubious solutions, therefore earmarked for a conversion and ready to donor some body parts… The engine switch was insofar easy because the Ki-46 kit comes with completely separate parts for the engines and their fairings which also contain the main landing gear wells.
Because of this “clean” basis I decided to cut the nacelles out from the Me 210 and attach them to the Ki-46 wings, so that the DB 603 engines would have perfect attachment points. While this was a bigger overall surgery stunt than on the earlier Airfix Dinah, this was easier than expected and resulted in a cleaner solution that also underlines the Ki-46’s clean and slender shape. The modified nacelles were much smaller than the Dinah’s, though. The main wheels were replaced with slightly smaller and narrower ones from the scrap box.
Inside of the cockpit, I implanted a dashboard. In the rear cabin the seat was reversed and moved further forward. In the cabin’s rear a scratched targeting scope/weapon control column for the FDSL 131 installation was added. Since I left the single-part canopies (which are quite thick but very clear) closed I outfitted the model with a crew. The Ki-46 III kit comes with a pair of figures, but they are very small (H0 scale, at best!) and look goofy, so that I exchanged them with Matchbox WWII pilots, which had their legs bent and their bottoms cut away to make them fit into the tight fuselage and under the canopies.
Unfortunately, the Me 210 kit had already donated its machine gun barbettes (they had gone onto an upgraded Heinkel He 115 floatplane), so that I scratched them for the Go 146. WWII bombs became the fairings, some leftover landing gear struts were used as gun barrels, and round styrene bases were used as mounts that also lift the fairings slightly off the hull. The barbettes as such look a little superficial on the slender Dinah, but they are a nice, typically German detail, über-complicated for this type of fast aircraft that probably would have more benefited from leaving them away altogether to save weight and drag.
The (typically German) 300 l drop tanks come from Hobby Boss Bf 109s and each received four short attachment struts, made from styrene profile material, so that they could be stuck under the inner wings.
Painting and markings:
This was more complicated than expected. I wanted to apply a plausible, late German WWII livery with typical colors, but finding something that would be suited for high-altitude operations and not copy anything I had already done turned out to be challenging.
The paint scheme would be very light, with only low-contrast camouflage added on top. Therefore, the basis became an overall coat with RLM 76 (I used Tamiya XF-23, Light Blue, which is an excellent option). Inspired by He 177 bombers I found in literature, large blotches of a rather obscure and uncommon tone, RLM 77 “Hellgrau” were added to the flanks of fuselage, fin and engine nacelles. RLM 77 is/was a very light grey, and it was primarily used for markings like code letters on night fighters and not for camouflage. AFAIK it would later become the RAL 7035 (Lichtgrau) tone that still exists today. Humbrol 196 would have been an authentic option, but to keep the contrast to the underlying RLM 76 low I rather used XF-19 (Sky Grey) and extended the blotches under the fuselage and the nacelles, for a semi-wraparound scheme.
Then came the upper surfaces, everything was painted with brushes and without masks, with an intentional uneven finish. The wings and stabilizers were to receive a slightly darker camouflage in the form of RLM 02 and 75 splotches (with Tamiya XF-22 and XF-XX as proxies) over the uniform RLM 76 base, so that the aircraft’s outlines would be broken up from above. However, after first tests I found this did not look convincing, the RLM 76 was very prominent and bluish, so that I rather gave the upper wings and the spine a semi-translucent but continuous coat of paint, with the underlying RLM 76 just showing through here and there – much better. At this stage I added the decals (see below), but now found the upper surfaces to look too uniform and somewhat dark, so that, as a final measure, I added a meander pattern with RLM 77 (again XF-19) to the wings. This not only looked good and very “German”, it lightened the cammo and also helped to break the aircraft’s lines up. Some light panel shading to the uniform undersides, black ink and grinded graphite were used for weathering, but the effects are very soft.
Interior surfaces (cockpit and landing gear wells) became late-war style RAL 7021 Schwarzgrau (Humbrol 67), the landing gear struts were painted in RLM 02, this time Revell 45 was used. The propeller blades were painted in a very dark mix of green and black, the spinners became black with simple white spirals – the only detail with a high contrast on this aircraft.
The markings of this aircraft are minimal. Balkenkreuz markings only consisting of outlines were used, another typical late-war practice and for a low-visibility look/effect. They were taken from an Academy Fw 190 D. On the fuselage, the gun barbettes caused some headaches, because they take up a lot of space and made the application of a standard Luftwaffe code almost impossible. Consequently, the fuselage Balkenkreuze were placed ahead of the barbettes, partly disrupted by the observer’s lower side windows, while the tactical code became separated by the guns. At starboard the code even had to be reversed - not correct, but a pragmatic solution.
The model/aircraft belongs to a fictional unit, its code “P3” in front of the fuselage Balkenkreuz has no real-world reference and was executed in small letters, a typical late WWII measure. This part of the code was done with small, black 2 mm letters. A fictional unit badge, depicting a running greyhound, was added under the cockpit. It actually belongs to a German tank unit.
The “KN” part of the code, including the Ks on the nose, came from an Airfix Ju 87 B sheet. As an aircraft belonging to the 5th squadron within the unit’s 2nd group, the 4th letter in the code became “N”, while the 3rd letter “K” denotes the individual aircraft. The color code associated with a 5th squadron was red, incorporated on the aircraft as a thin red outline around the individual aircraft letter (another late-war low-contrast measure). To provide a little visual excitement, small red Ks were added to the nose, too, to make thew aircraft easy to identify when parked at the flight line.
Since this aircraft would operate over the Western front from German home ground, no further ID/theatre markings like fuselage or wing bands or wingtips in yellow or white, etc. were added. This, together with the lack of visible red as squadron code, results in a rather dry look, but that’s intentional.
After some exhaust and oil stains with graphite and Tamiya “Smoke”, a coat of acrylic matt varnish finally sealed the model and a wire antenna, made from heated sprue material, was added.
Well, an exotic what-if idea, but I really like how this conversion turned out, even though the livery evolved in a different way from what I had initially in mind. The Ki-46 was already an elegant aircraft, especially the Ki-46-III with its teardrop-shaped nose section. But, with the smaller, streamlined inline engines instead of the radials, this iteration looks even better and faster. It reminds a little of the D.H. Hornet? The gun barbettes are a nice “German” detail, and the makeshift high-altitude paint scheme adds to the obscure impression of the model. A really nice sister ship for the Go 146 A-0 build from 2015.