active thrust

vid.

2010-10-15T11:59:00.001-06:00

This shows up on several other sites, but not here yet.

check:

Best of Beardown Productions from Tarka Wilcox on Vimeo.

random pics from camera phone...

2009-04-13T10:51:00.002-06:00

these are just a few random photos i found on my camera phone...
~t

Scintillation

2009-04-09T11:32:00.000-06:00

SCINTILLATION from Xavier Chassaing on Vimeo.

from vimeo.com I like the effect in the second half... very cool

march snows

2009-03-31T11:37:00.002-06:00

March went out like a lion this year, dumping 18 inches in less than a day on Boulder. My trailwork is going to have to wait until the ground rethaws but hopefully the snow will be clear by the end of this week. ~t

Lunch...

2009-03-27T14:42:00.004-06:00

Soup: serves two or three (or one hungry dude)

stock --
microbrew pilsner (1 oskar blues)
water (1 glass)
half dozen oven dried tomatoes (prepped with oil $ salt)
olive oil (dash)
sesame oil (quick dash)
sea salt (pinch)
soy (dash)
rice vinegar (dash)
Siracha sauce (good squeeze)
Grizzle (from the brisket)

veggies --
thinly sliced cabbage (double handful)
carrot, diagonal slice (one)
celery, " (")
basil, sliced (sweet or cinnamon, good fistful)

protein --
Charcoal grilled Beef Brisket, sliced in very thin strips (about 8oz, almost shaved)

heat soup pot, combine stock in no order, ditto with veggies and followed by protein. cover, simmer 30 minutes or until carrots are to desired texture, remove grizzle hunk.

Due to the semi-asian nature of the seasoning, I ate it with choptsicks and a standard chinese soup spoon. delish.

~t

new b&w

2009-03-24T21:50:00.001-06:00

take two...

2009-02-27T23:42:00.003-07:00

This is a re-edited, "remixed" version of the video below (which isn't available anymore)... some new angles and shots, and with better music this time. enjoy!

~t

hike

2009-02-23T16:43:00.002-07:00

The view north of Boulder looking East from a ridge above Left Hand Canyon.
~t

monday coffee...

2009-02-23T09:36:00.003-07:00

I'm sipping my second coffee of the morning, or third and fourth shots of espresso if I'm honest. I'm distracted by thoughts of finding new apartments, whether or not they are suitable for dogs or gardens or bikes (ideally all three). It came up during a chance run-in between my housemate and landlord that we need to find a new place to live... my landlord is like that. I'm also distracted by thoughts of how to stay in Boulder for more than another year.. I should be done with my PhD by mid 2010 but I'm thinking I will probably want to stay for a little longer than that. Boulder seems to have this affect on many people, but I find that many are actually successful at finding more permanent residence here, despite the competitive job market. First things first, I still need to focus on writing (not blogging!)

~t

Wu-Tang Clan Downhill Vid

2009-02-09T11:29:00.002-07:00

latest weekend outing... a weird riding location, actually an offroad vehicle area, and popular place to discharge firearms... note at the bottom of the ride I pass about ten people who are shooting. The top section is fun though... enjoy!

~t

more of the same...

2009-02-05T11:26:00.002-07:00

More anaglyphs... this is of the new desk setup. I've now moved my office one floor up to the structure lab. Finally I have my own window. Even better is the fact that the window looks out onto the flat-irons, unlike my previous office that looked out on the exterior wall of the football stadium. In other news, I rode to work this morning (feb 5th) in a t-shirt, and I should be outside riding all day but no, I'm sitting at my desk. lame. enjoy my fascinating world of being chained-up in an academic cave, now in 3D!!

~t

time killer

2009-01-28T11:16:00.002-07:00

a new 3D test... this was a bike of mine (had to sell it a while ago unfortunately) but as I was flipping through images on my computer I realized two images that were very close in their views of the bike but just different enough to offer a stereo view. By registering and then combining different channels of the two images, I made this anaglyph. This was just done with Photoshop, and is a pretty simple procedure given the proper base image pair. (View with standard red-blu 3D glasses)

~t

smokers beware...

2009-01-17T12:16:00.002-07:00

A sign dissuading smokers from lighting up inside Java Joe's coffee shop...

~t

slidey-snow

2009-01-12T09:32:00.003-07:00

The semester has officially begun, to the tune of 6 inches of fresh snow that fell overnight. I opted to drive in, and had one small bump with another car around a blind corner in the parking lot of the coffee shop I'm sitting in now. People all over town are driving like morons (this particular person slid into me, but we just barely kissed bumpers) so I'm hiding in the coffee shop across from campus that has comfy leather chairs and a fireplace. Thankfully there are no undergrads clogging the chairs, mostly because they don't have any work yet... but I can see that everyone in here is likely a graduate student or professor.

Distracting me from the sounds of two people next to me yammering on about something, is the Crystal Castles album that I just got turned onto... check them out:

~t

Forest Fires

2009-01-08T13:54:00.002-07:00

Yesterday and last night North Boulder experienced a thousand-acre wild fire. Almost 11000 homes were evacuated, but only 4 structures burned. High winds (gusting to ~73mph, ~116kph) damaged electricity lines which started the fire, which was then spread rapidly in the windy conditions. Several ridge lines burned, and the fire was visible more than 20 miles away.

I drove around the town at about 9pm, stopping to photograph the fire from several different locations. NCAR (in south boulder) was a good place to watch from (and more than 5 miles away from the blaze), but the photos from Violet park (adjacent to the fire, in North Boulder) was better for detailed shots... the pic below was shot from there.

~t

another mindless video re-post

2009-01-07T08:27:00.001-07:00

My brain is a bit frazzled at the moment and getting back into the swing of work is tough, so I'll just post this little teaser from the newly returned and reinvented redbull rampage contest.

~t

christmas tree

2008-12-22T14:33:00.002-07:00

This tree mysteriously appeared in my house without my ever having to raise a bow-saw in a national forest. another pic will follow once it's decorated... but I like it bare at the moment.

~t

2008-12-13T12:48:00.001-07:00

science blocks

2008-12-11T23:50:00.002-07:00

Figures take forever!!!
~t

building blocks

2008-12-09T21:01:00.002-07:00

Figures for a talk at AGU... these are the drafts, without any of the sciency-stuff on the edges of the block diagrams.

~t

back to work...

2008-12-08T12:32:00.003-07:00

Ah, I'm finally done with teaching this semester... and not a moment too soon. The American Geophysical Union's annual fall meeting is in one week and my presentation is 80 percent done, but that last 20 percent is pretty friggin' important. It's also the hardest, because it's the last 20 percent that makes the whole presentation work. It's taking me a while just to get back into my own research. Anyway, this week will be completely focused on finishing this presentation and trouble-shooting issues that some colleagues have brought up.

I am really looking forward to being back in San Fran...

~t

Winter!!

2008-12-04T11:46:00.001-07:00

today's

2008-11-25T17:05:00.001-07:00

seasonal

2008-11-20T09:45:00.002-07:00

This morning Boulder awoke to a thin veneer of ice coating every leaf and blade exposed to the sky, looking like we had been attacked overnight by someone set on varnishing the earth. Actually this is quite a nice change from the 70 degree days we've been getting... not to say that 70 degree weather isn't nice, but it is currently November in Colorado. My chilly bike ride to work this morning, for which I swaddled myself in fleece and down whilst slurping my coffee with one hand, took me past the same cop who wrote me a citation yesterday. This morning he was writing another bike-commuter a citation... as I rode past and gave the other biker a knowing look, I raised my coffee cup to the officer and reiterated what he told me yesterday, "keep one hand on the bar!".

more importantly, I also rode past a blackberry stand that I stopped at and snapped this picture of. A nice image of what this season should really look like.

~t

Picture Rock

2008-11-19T10:02:00.002-07:00

Be sure to watch the high-quality version on youtube (just click the video when it's playing)... this is shot over the last couple of days. Trail crews of volunteers built this trail with the guidance and support of BMA and IMBA, and Boulder OSMP.

~t

My living room...

2008-11-12T23:17:00.002-07:00

This was my living room, as it appeared this afternoon. Ridiculous. The silver bike in the stand has a cracked frame (the downtube is cracked across the primary pivot mount) so all the parts are getting transferred to the SC Nomad in the background... it's about time anyway. My one roommate who doesn't really ride was sitting in the midst of this disarray this evening and said he thought it was 'pretty cool' when I apologized for the mess. For the rest of you riding fools, living in these conditions is so-so, but it's much better when you have a two-car garage for the 'fleet'.

~t

rattlesnake gulch

2008-11-08T21:42:00.004-07:00

This is pretty shaky, but I uploaded a much higher quality version compared to the first one... sorry but shaky's what you get with a 54mm lens (the 170 degree wide-angle would solve that) but you can still get a sense of how loose and rocky this trail is. I am still searching for a really ideal trail to film from top to bottom... these clips are kind of test runs... hopefully by the spring I'll have a good plan for a trail shoot. BTW, notice the 8-point buck that was on the trail at the bottom!

~t

launch

2008-11-08T19:43:00.003-07:00

This is just a small step-down from one of the parking lots on campus... there's a bit of a booter to the take-off but the tranny is pretty shallow so it's not really a good idea to hit it with too much speed... you'll huck to flat and wipe on the concrete that's right at the bottom of the hill. For those of you not fluent in bikebrolingo: this hill drops off after a parking lot. There is a bit of a lip at the edge, so if you hit it too fast you will overshoot the smooth landing and that would be bad.

~t

Eldorado Canyon

2008-11-08T18:46:00.002-07:00

too funny.

2008-11-05T14:47:00.002-07:00

Whazzup!!! This was a Budweiser commercial in 2000... the redux is awesome...

~t

Amazing...

2008-11-05T14:00:00.002-07:00

We, as young people, are hungry for this chance at choosing the direction we want for our country, and the chance to shape the face we show to the rest of the world. This generation, my generation, faces eagerly for the first time forward into the uncertain future, knowing that we will be tested but certain of our ability to meet any challenges ahead. Like Barack says, "there is nothing false about hope", and we have shown this already. We will try, in the coming years, to bring change and support progress as best we can, so that everyone's hopes have a chance to be realized. Now is a time for peace, for unity, and for strength. My own hope is for all the people who feel as I do to realize that what we have won in this historic election is not change... but a chance to be a part of change, to participate in our own future, and to nurse and grow this nation back into what we think it should be. Our home, and a home to all those who want what we want... not to be rich, or consume everything in sight, but to live together and work together to ensure for future generations the same opportunities and freedoms that have been provided for us.

~t

Yes, We Can.

2008-11-05T00:55:00.002-07:00

If you're still bitter after listening to this, there's always four years from now. In the meantime however, deal with it. Congratulations President Obama. We HAVE chosen to change. Yes, We Can.

~t

Republicans and Voter Fraud

2008-11-04T15:17:00.002-07:00

WHY is it, every time I hear about a voter fraud scandal, it's in the form of an attack against democratic voters perpetrated by (presumably) conservative "citizens".

Note: I've separated the word "citizens" here because in my view (and that of various philosophical thinkers) a true citizen is someone who contributes constructively to their society... in some political models citizenship is only earned through service. People who practice voter fraud are not citizens; these people do just as much damage to our democracy as any militant terrorist could.

The latest fraud-scandal comes in the form of bogus text-messages telling Obama supporters to wait until tomorrow (AFTER election day) to cast their votes to avoid long lines. Personally I think the FBI (and CIA) should extradite whichever abjectly loathsome (again, presumably) republican schmucks that sent the messages to Gitmo to be forcibly interrogated and indefinitely detained.

~t

Brainard Lake

2008-10-30T11:56:00.005-06:00

Last weekend. Nice weather, great trail, no assholes. Yesterday I literally had a run-in with somebody who MUST have been having a terrible day. At least I hope he was having a terrible day because this guy was acting like a total *^%$. While I was descending a new section of single-track I met with another rider who was climbing; he looked like an experienced rider so I slowed down, said 'hello' and got over to the right of the trail. There was plenty of room for us to pass but this guy was incensed (apparently) that I had the audacity to not completely stop and get off the trail to let him by. Anyway, his response to this terrible slight was to purposely shoulder-check me right off the trail as he rode straight into me without even acknowledging my jovial greeting!

NOTE: (Technically, descenders yield to climbers. In practice however, most riders assess the situation and act accordingly. In fact, I generally yield to people descending and consider it a sign of respect and skill when riders slow and pass without forcing the another rider to stop. Slowing and pulling over to the right counts as yielding in my book)

It didn't stop there. This idiot then engaged me in a yelling match over trail etiquette, "Don't you know the rules!? Get off the trail!! I knew you weren't going to stop so I did that on Purpose! You got a problem with that?!" Jeez... I told him that I didn't have a problem with the rules, just him. I also told him to relax; "it's a nice evening, just enjoy the ride!" I rode away from him while he was still fuming. I could tell it would have made his day to get into a fight right then and there. In classic cheap-shot bully form, he even yelled after me, "Yeah! Keep riding P@$$&!"

I just laughed, but that totally ruined the ride... I never really understand what causes some people to just be jerks.

~t

leaf peep.

2008-10-27T15:11:00.000-06:00

fall strawberries...

2008-10-27T15:07:00.003-06:00

I brought my potted plants inside last week since it started frosting at night... the herbs are just kind of doing their thing, but the strawberry plant I've got in a pot was a bit shocked by the relatively warm clime of our living room. A few days ago I noticed a flower bud, and this morning there are two flowers on it... maybe I'll get a christmas strawberry!

~t

new vid

2008-10-22T14:53:00.002-06:00

this was just a little clip from the crested butte trip this summer... me doing a coaster-wheelie at the bottom of the 401. Too bad I was in front the whole way down the actual trail... I don't have any good clips from the actual ride.

~t

La Sals overlooking Moab

2008-10-15T12:33:00.003-06:00

I went for a ride up in the La Sal mountains near Moab last weekend... it was absolutely freezing up there (frozen ground and snow in the creek valleys) but beautiful. I bundled up and rode for a little while along the Trans-LaSal trail, ultimately eating lunch during a break in the clouds and then heading back to the shelter of my car. I snapped this along the way, and messed around with it a bit in photoshop... anyway, the view of the trail, overlooking Moab valley below. Of course my bike had to make it in the pic.

~t

Moab - 08

2008-10-15T12:31:00.003-06:00

Geo field trips

2008-10-15T12:13:00.002-06:00

Last weekend I helped my advisor lead a field trip for structural field geology. The trip was into the needles and grabens of canyonlands national park, in Utah. 20 people and 5 jeeps was a bit of a logistical nightmare, but nobody flipped a jeep off a cliff or anything, so that was good. This is why I like geology... field-expeditions into remote areas and exceptional structures like perfect full-grabens, relay-ramps and fault controlled sink holes.

learning to Pan

2008-10-06T11:41:00.003-06:00

I got stopped on the bike path the other morning by a man who asked to take my picture. He explained that he was taking a photo-techniques class and was learning about "panning" (where the photographer manually follows a moving subject with the lens while shooting, accentuating the sense of motion). I humored this and did a few passes for him while pulling wheelies and what-not. This version is a little modified from the raw file they gave me, but the effect is the same. Had I been shooting, I would have been closer to my subject, shot with wide-angle and used a flash as I over-panned (panned faster than the subject) in order to freeze frame the image but retain trails extending backward from the subject. anyway....

~t

Blog Blaugh

2008-09-24T13:36:00.002-06:00

The last few weeks have been dominated by students, teaching, meetings, and random tasks that have completely eaten up my time. Somehow, in the midst of all this, I've managed to get a few things finished, but nothing that was on my 'list' as of three weeks ago. Finalizing gravity profile models has not happened. I have not finished a draft of my next paper. I haven't even finalized my plans to attend AGU this year!

Add to all this a brief bout with a hell of a case of stomach-flu, and a general sense of fatigue, and the result has been a busy-yet-somehow-unproductive few weeks. blaugh.

~T

EU supports science research

2008-09-10T11:24:00.001-06:00

I think this is hilarious... notice all the loner noble gasses, brilliant!

~t

Meso-scale Structural Control of Western Taiwan Morphology Based on Integrated Analysis of Spatially Correlated Datasets.

2008-09-10T11:19:00.002-06:00

Taiwan has been described by various models which each approximate an overall behavior of the orogen, yet no single posited model has succeeded in providing a synthesis of the entire suite of geophysical and geological data available across a wide range of observational scales. Along strike variability of structural styles, seismological activity, gravitational field strength and flexural response of the foreland have all been addressed at island encompassing scales in previous investigations; most existing models of Taiwan’s evolution fail to account for certain anomalous observations at intermediate scales. Spatial correlation of several such observations in Taiwan occurs between different data types, and coincides with recognized shifts in structural and depositional regimes, highlighting a region surrounding Taichung and Puli in Western Taiwan. This region exhibits a discrete structural style from the rest of the foreland, historically experiences large destructive earthquakes and is also spatially correlative with a -60 mGal gravity anomaly. The Taichung basin itself is composed primarily of Pleistocene synorogenic sediments, is larger and deeper than any other basin elsewhere on the island and does not appear to be isostatically compensated, however the reasons for this have not been fully explained in flexural models to date. The existence of the Puli Topographic Embayment additionally suggests that variations occur in one or more of the parameters which affect rock uplift and/or erosion in the region, such as the strength of the underlying decollement, rheology of the deforming wedge, or changes in either tectonic or surficial boundary conditions. We suggest that the Chinese Continental Margin, which exhibits a systematically variable distribution of pre-existing normal faults, is structurally incorporated into the orogenic wedge beneath the northern Hsueshan and northern Alishan ranges, but is resistant to incorporation beneath Taichung and Puli. This pattern of structural inversion and incorporation strongly contributes to the meso-scale along-strike variations in overall wedge geometry of Western Taiwan. These observations support our new hypothesis that the Puli topographic embayment is the result of the indentation of a basement low, buttressed to the north and south by basement highs, rather than a result of indentation by the Peikang basement high alone. The spatial correlation of anomalies further inboard of the active mountain-front nicely demonstrates the long-term affects of this anisotropic template being accreted and subsequently incorporated into the orogen. This new work allows for a more integrated understanding of the interactive processes which are responsible for both large-scale and meso-scale morphologies of the Taiwanese orogen.

Kaoss Pad

2008-09-02T20:11:00.003-06:00

These are nifty expensive little gizmos that essentially replace a loop sampler, beat machine, tone generator and mixer/filter... all in one. This clip is of someone using only the internal circuits with no external source (you can run anything kind of external sources too). Kind of minimal-beat style.

~t

AAAaahhhhHHHH-CCHOOOOOOO!!!!

2008-08-29T08:04:00.004-06:00

sometimes I love colorado. but right now I wish I was in washington...

This is a map of the pollen concentrations today

~T

woah

2008-08-26T22:19:00.003-06:00

amazing breaking clip, really this crew has got to be one of the better I've seen.... I think this is from the "planet b-boy" documentary. Mostly I just like the clip.

~t

Igor Kenk

2008-08-26T09:46:00.001-06:00

This guy is a damn punk. Glad they caught him.

Prolific bicycle thief arrested

~t

owie...

2008-08-25T16:02:00.003-06:00

I finally figured out today why most people don't wear flip-flops while mountain biking. It has mostly to do, I think, with the fact that if you crash you run the risk of getting your feet cut up or mashed or whatever. Luckily (I suppose) I went the simple route and just removed some skin from the top of my foot. I was commuting home from my office on campus, and (as usual) was practicing wheelies and manuals and such, when I had to avoid a kid (freshman?)....

My front wheel slid out (once I had put it back on the ground... I know, 100% my fault) and so I found I was sliding along the ground in a kneeling position with my shin kind of tucked underneath me. At the end of the slide (My jeans left a 4 foot blue skid-mark on the concrete) I popped back up and hadn't even lost a flop... both were still in place, but I had managed to put holes in my last intact pair of jeans. I also put a few holes in myself but nothing worth complaining about. Darn kids ;p

(the lower right scab above my knee is from last week... the new ones are from today)
~t

ridge

2008-08-20T01:09:00.002-06:00

2008-08-19T16:19:00.001-06:00

Crested Butte

2008-08-17T21:58:00.003-06:00

home safe and sound after a weekend of riding...
~t

Clouds

2008-08-14T12:51:00.001-06:00

clouds during sunset Tuesday.

~t

HAHAHA

2008-08-12T16:30:00.002-06:00

I hadn't seen this one yet... awesome!

~t

Color Tests

2008-08-12T11:06:00.002-06:00

I tried to do an anaglyph using a color base... it works, but it's still a little hard to look at. The image itself (the overlain satellite image) is very low-res, things would probably look a lot better if I used a higher-quality image.

~t

Anaglyphs are awesome...

2008-08-11T19:13:00.004-06:00

Today I was supposed to go into work and magically turn about 10 pages of notes (already typed) into about 5 pages of carefully sculpted prose with a scientific twist. That somehow failed to happen (again) so instead I learned how to generate 3D anaglyph images using expensive software (a commercial single-user node-locked Mac OS-X license for ENVI+IDL = $7000).

Yeah... that's SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS... seriously. I should note that since this software was developed by faculty in my department, I get that same license for twenty-five bucks.

Anyway, I finally figured out how to make totally-sweet 3D anaglyphs from my also-totally-sweet high resolution digital elevation model data of taiwan... essentially I hope to be including images like this in posters so that I can give a poster presentation in one of those crowded AGU aisles with a bunch of people standing around, all wearing goofy red-and-blue glasses. The image below is a south-looking view across high terraces in Puli. You will need a standard pair of 3D glasses to see this, or just something red and something cyan to look through. Red goes over your left eye.

~t

return of the kiddies

2008-08-11T09:48:00.003-06:00

It's beginning. clueless adults with dazed-and-confused looks on their faces, children throwing tantrums and wishing their parents would just leave already... I speak of course, about the beginning of the fall semester. Along with the influx of something like twenty-thousand kids (I can say that, because many of them are ten years younger than I am) comes the heightened risks of commuting through town. Boulder, compared to a place like Manhattan, is bike-commuter heaven; many wide concrete paths wind through and around the perimeter of town, have painted lane markers and pass either under or over major roads. Bicycle-car interactions are minimized, but just as dangerous are the behaviours of uninitiated riders on the bike-paths. I have several friends who have suffered injury (broken collarbones, torn ankle ligaments, concussions) because of kids not knowing the rules of the paths, or just lacking common sense. I myself have found that some kids just home in on you like heat-seeking missiles; swerving directly into your lane, slamming on brakes in front of you, ultimately just doing everything in their power to bring about a head-on collision. That is why, this year, I feel very comfortable riding my 35 pound free-ride/downhill bike around town; it's a version of the compact-car/SUV crash model - The bigger vehicle wins. As the actual new-student arrival date approaches, I may start wearing my full-face helmet and body armor too... that way when some unwitting, unaware, foolish child swerves into my lane of the path I can offer a verbal warning but I am no longer going to swerve off the path, or risk my own injury to save them from the embarrassment of learning a lesson the hard way.

I regularly offer friendly advice to drivers in town... like when they pull in front of me across a bike-path I may whistle sharply and say, "hey, watch out for the bike path" or "please don't block the path". I generally assume that if a driver doesn't have a bike-rack on their car they don't know any better, so there's no need to curse and yell at them... most of the time. There are occasions when I wish I had something like a balloon full of honey or oil that I could lob, but maybe some of these magnets would be better.

It seems like biker/driver tensions are gaining momentum, but personally I just think more people are hearing about it... I have always been yelled at and harassed by drivers, regardless of where I was riding or what I was doing. Check out some good articles on the subject...

From BikesnobNYC, about a cop that should be strapped to a rusty bike-rack naked and flogged with an old inner-tube: NYPD assaults cyclist
...Or this one about the misadventures of commuting in a big city, And finally this from a more reputable source: The NY Times on Moving Targets.

~t

New professional contact

2008-08-10T14:22:00.002-06:00

After about three years I've decided to actually put my contact information and some form of a CV up on my department webpage... the content isn't there yet, but the splash page should be. Check it out here first...

~t

spaceships and church...

2008-08-08T23:44:00.002-06:00

see: "come on..." and "How stupid do you have to be?" for some background on this....

Reading back through some previous posts, and listening to some interesting talks about creativity in skool and what 'purpose' modern education serves (a valid question) I've come to realize, or perhaps merely posit, that organized religion is one of the last major stumbling blocks that human, global, society faces with respects to making the necessary steps to start exploring beyond our preconceived limits. The stars are one thing... is light-speed an attainable goal? what about superluminal travel (i.e. subspace or wormholes)?? Screw traveling to alpha-centauri... why can't we (humans) develop and disseminate electric cars? solar panels? wind-turbines? tide-turbines? geothermal exchangers? There exists so much calculable clout and solid design behind these ideas, it's literally a wonder these technologies haven't been globally shared and implemented already. ...but perhaps not so much a wonder when considering how much money stands to be made off prospects like drilling oil in Venezuela (which harbors some of the richest and most extensive, as yet untapped, oil reserves on the planet) or Alaska. ...or how much money the "big four" stand to make off their no-bid contracts in Iraq. It's disgusting, really.

I drive a car, whenever I need to transport more than 40 pounds of cargo. My car (a '96 VW golf) gets ~35mpg but I still feel lame driving it when I don't absolutely need to. It's a luxury; one that I feel privileged to have at my disposal, but a luxury none the less. If I had the money (or could cheat my way into it) I would quickly convert my golf, or buy a car like this one.

~t

Prophet, or perve?

2008-08-08T23:22:00.002-06:00

"To my understanding the Koran does not place a limit and it is up to what your own power, your own endowment and ability allows," he says. - this from Mohammed Bello Abubakar, 84, of Nigeria.

This man has married 84 wives, and has sired "at least 170 children"....

WTF!?!!

The other thing that gets me:
"Every mealtime they cook three 12kg bags of rice which all adds up to $915 (£457) every day."

OK... I buy rice by the 12kg bag, and here in Boulder (admittedly one of the more expensive places to live within the united states) I pay a whopping $25 per bag. So, by my back-of-the-envelope calculation, I would pay 75 dollars for three 12kg bags, whereas this man spends almost a thousand??!! ...boy is he getting ripped off (or the BBC reporter for this particular article is WAY off in their reporting. Either way, I'm glad I (most likely) will never sire even a hundred children (actually, I'd hope to keep the total to no more than twice two orders of magnitude less than that!)

[nieerd!;]

~t

today's screen

2008-07-30T18:53:00.003-06:00

School-Bus

2008-07-30T13:03:00.003-06:00

My body is a little sore. My arms are deeply scratched and my legs bruised. I've been exploring trails out in the Indian Peaks and Roosevelt national forest areas recently, with varying success... some trails are almost impossible to ride and others look more like the world-class singletrack that Colorado is known for. "School-Bus" approaches the latter... it's a medium grade (1000 vertical feet in ~3 miles) singletrack that winds across the sheltered slopes of Tennessee Mountain. The conditions include everything from tight aspen clutches with sandy hardpack to open pine forests with squishy loam and roots under tread. The climb out is not a killer, but definitely a grind; the real payoff is coming back down. The first time I rode it I wanted my full face helmet, the second time I rode it (yesterday) I brought my full-face, and all my body-armor. The descent is basically limited by your skill - or your fear - but the trails really allow for full-out speed, and the only thing you have to do is be prepared to thread a few tight spots. Even wearing full arm and leg guards it's a little sketchy, since nothing will ruin your day faster than clipping a tree with your handlebars at 30mph, pads or no. I came close yesterday, catching a full-grown pine tree with my arm. It didn't knock me over (or even slow me down) but I did get rashed through my arm-guard, a reminder that full armor doesn't make you invincible.

It's worth the risk though; trails like schoolbus demand one's full attention when going all out, and it's one of the few things that can get me to stop thinking about work... the forest blurs and everything in the periphery just disappears; only the twists and squeezes of the path ahead are left.

~t

desktop

2008-07-28T10:25:00.002-06:00

I can only work for so many hours in a day before I have to turn to some other task. Geology (and science in general) is so structured... my days are dominated by geometries, kinematics, gravitational anomalies and lithospheric flexural behaviours. Data is analyzed, solutions reached and results presented; it all seems very droll at times, as though a monkey could do this. Creativity comes into it at times, in the sense that it facilitates making connections between data sets and jumping to a conclusion (that I then have to prove)... but it still lacks a certain purity. Putting pen to paper, tools to wood or brush to canvas allows for such honest and unbounded creativity of the sort that scientists rarely get the chance to enjoy. I occasionally have small desktop projects, but recently I've just been making desktop images (for my screen) when I can't focus on science. Yesterday's (yes I was working all day Sunday) is below....

~t

come on....

2008-07-23T11:26:00.003-06:00

So, the Soyuz is being replaced and the Russians and Europeans have unveiled their new manned-spacecraft design. It looks like a turd. Now... I know that ballistics dictates that a radially symmetric design is the most stable in flight when things like lift are unnecessary... but come on, even a ballistics expert doesn't have to be blind to aesthetics. For instance: solar panels. I know the attraction to having outboard panels, but they are even more susceptible to damage flopping about like that... why not figure out a coating that would allow the panels to be incorporated into the skin of the vehicle? It would do away with external pieces that jam when folding, and it would look hella-sweet. What I'm really lamenting here is the lack of government interest in building a proper space-cruiser.. If these were cars, the Soyuz would be like the Yugo or maybe a geo-metro, the space-shuttle might be a cadillac sedan, but what I want to see oriting the planet is something like a super-duper lamborghini/hummer with a million little windows and a design that just looks awesome. What will aliens think when they look at us and see how our crude little ships putt around in orbit? we'd be like the dunces of the galaxy, sitting in the corner way out here at the end of an arm with our turd-like ships that can't even get us to the nearest star. lame.

hmmmm...

...this is more like it.

...even this would be better!

Claritin Apollo

2008-07-22T12:06:00.002-06:00

Feelin' a bit spacey today.... taking allergy meds and trying to work out what has and what hasn't been said about my research area in the published literature. The picture is just a shot from the Apollo 11 mission, that I played with a little bit during my morning coffee. Sometimes I wish I had my own awesome space-suit and brief-case-air-supply... at least the suit could keep the grass pollen out of my system.

~t

Kalmaegi

2008-07-21T12:25:00.003-06:00

Typhoon Kalmaegi washed over central Taiwan this weekend, dumping 900mm (yeah, that's three feet) of rain. 19 people were killed in floods or debris flows, mostly in Nantou county. Luckily for us (in a purely academic way) I installed a couple of automatic cameras in the region this spring... hopefully they captured some images of the rivers' responses to such an input. In the meantime tho, I'll post a couple of pictures from the news in Taiwan... The picture of the guy was taken in Taichung, the major city that sits in the central basin of the island and the picture of the house full of mud is from Yu-chi, a couple kilometers south of Puli. This is why I wear flip-flops and shorts when I'm there... because you really do have to wade through the streets sometimes.

~t

Spare Time

2008-07-15T14:29:00.001-06:00

...Maybe someday I'll have enough of it to get into something like Arborsculpture... check it out:

Arborsmith Studios

~t

Good Boy!

2008-07-14T12:12:00.002-06:00

On my way by Cafe Sole the other morning... This is actually a somewhat normal sight in Boulder.

~t

beat chef

2008-07-11T14:03:00.002-06:00

Hi All,

Friday finds me researching pina colada recipes and trying to come up with a new idea for something to grill for a group of friends... perhaps built around seared Tuna or maybe a variation of my butterflied Vietnamese/jerk chicken. In the meantime, I thought I'd share a recipe (from Beardyman) for a funky break. Just for extra measure, I'm also including another beardyman vid of beatbox looping... no instruments or drum machines are used, just a loop sampler.

~t

foods

2008-07-07T11:15:00.003-06:00

The last month has seen me struggle to overcome jet-lag, stare drooling at my computer during work, completely reorganize my house, move one roommate out and find a replacement, and eventually refocus on work to start analyzing some of the myriad data that I was given during my recent-ish trip to Taiwan. Once or twice, I've also managed to do fun things, like cook and ride my bike. I still haven't come up with any good biking photos this year, so I'll share a couple of cooking photos... I did a few seared pork ribs with an off-the-cuff marinade/rub (oil, salt, lime, cilantro, vietnamese hot sauce, chipotle, chile molido, tomatillos). Sliced thin, served with grilled asparagus and roasted tomatillo. I also took some of the roasted tomatillo and made some salsa for bread with a bit of virgin olive oil and some cinnamon basil.

~t

"Chuffed"

2008-07-02T12:55:00.003-06:00

A word I don't hear very often, but an interesting one. I was just reminded of it while reading this article from the BBC about a young woman who got stuck in a tree while trying to save a cat stuck in the same tree. I'd say I'm pretty chuffed about the work that I'm getting done finally, and patterns are becoming apparent, I just don't know what they all mean yet.

~t

Beatbox Flute

2008-06-25T12:18:00.002-06:00

I have never seen this before, tho apparently it's been on the internets for a while. Check it out:

By the way, both these guys are professional symphony and chamber orchestra musicians, this is a side project for them. Just google Beatbox Flute or Greg Patillo and you'll see some interesting things.

~t

Wireframes

2008-06-25T10:21:00.003-06:00

I've been choking on data recently... having problems converting data formats and getting over-focused on minutia related to really minor aspects of my work. Although it hasn't been the best use of my time (yesterday was practically a waste because of file format issues) I still came up with a couple interesting figures. I've been trying to show that a certain suite of terraces are actually and old basin floor deposit, but this image seems to say otherwise. Either that or the mapping is just off a little and the georectification could be changed enough to make an argument for that hypothesis.

Science seems largely subjective some times, which is a little scary. The picture is interesting anyway...

~t

Yanks

2008-06-22T11:58:00.002-06:00

With apologies to my southern liberal elite friends, you are not yankees. This was pointed out to me the other day, and of course it's true...

I was hoping to find some interesting terminology applied to those southern liberals who identify with many of the political and moral "standards" thought to represent Yankee ideals, but have not managed to find any such pejoratives. Instead, I've only run across many blog entries about bitter rural Americans and a few mentions of the so-called "upland southerners".

Perhaps the most interesting article I've run across on this search was the following, on the perception of outgroups:

Scientific American article on Harvard Students and Rednecks

~T

blocks

2008-06-18T12:53:00.002-06:00

I kind of wish I was playing with Legos today... it's just that kind of day. Instead, I'm drawing block diagrams through an imbricated thrust sheet that displays an incipient duplex which is terminated or stalled by a lateral ramp. yeah. Legos would be way better.... just not as productive. I caught coffee at Cafe Sole this morning.. taking a minute to sit outside and look out at the flatirons there, with the I.M. Pei designed National Center of Atmospheric Research prominently in the foreground of the foothills. Very idyllic, indeed.

Recently I've been more aware of the increasingly popular and derogatorily muttered name that conservative media has given many of the left-leaning members of society:

"Latte-Sipping-Liberals"

That's me! From an old article quoting a conservative interest group's advert during the last rounds of elections: "Howard Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show back to Vermont, where it belongs." Hey now... I like lattes (or Breve-Lattes to be exact), I love sushi, practically everyone in my hometown drove a volvo when I was growing up, and I also happen to have pierced ears. Rather than vilify something as tasty and benign as coffee or sushi, these folks should just bring back the term "Yankee", since that's really what they mean. The thing that really gets me about the idea of elitism is that somehow only Liberals can be elite. If (just as an example) a conservative man graduates from both Yale and Harvard, avoids military service, gets a wrap-sheet for substance-abuse related arrests and then becomes president, how on earth is that not the very definition of 'elite' with respect to all the negative connotations bred by the right-wing of this country?! Maybe it's ok to have all those advantages, as long as you're an annoying prick that's dumb as bricks. I personally would be thrilled to have someone who could be called a Liberal Elite as president. Wikipedia has a great article on this, which states, "In Thomas Frank's 'What's the Matter with Kansas?' the idea of a liberal elite is suggested to be similar to the character of Emmanuel Goldstein in the George Orwell book Nineteen-Eighty Four, the fictional hated enemy of the people. Frank argues that anger directed towards this perceived enemy is what keeps the conservative coalition together." ...interesting interpretation.

~t

Ride last night...

2008-06-15T17:31:00.002-06:00

went for my first trail ride since getting back into CO... just around Marshall Mesa in south Boulder, but the sunset was perfect. I stopped for a moment to watch deer grazing and red wing blackbirds flitting over the fields, all while the sun was casting rays upward from the few clouds over the Rockies. Unfortunately non of that was captured on my cell-phone camera, so I just took a goofy picture of myself that also didn't show up very well.

~t

Ah, mountains, sun, beers...

2008-06-15T17:29:00.003-06:00

Here's a pic for those of you in Taiwan or on the East Coast who might be missing mountains and sitting outside in perfect weather for happy hour... from the rooftop of the Lazy Dog pub in downtown Boulder.

~t

Still catching up...

2008-06-13T11:16:00.003-06:00

Hey all,

Still catching up... yesterday saw my afternoon nap turn into a 6 hour dream-filled sleep. I woke up completely disoriented and I couldn't even tell what day it was... anyway, I am starting to feel a little more in tune with normal hours here.

just a quick post, while I'm thinking about it: while I was staying in Taipei, I was generously hosted by Kamil and Micha, two post-docs working with John Suppe at Tai-Da. I must thank them profusely for their accommodations but I also wanted to share a post from their blog... While I was there I was often offered the convenience of a ride to work, albeit on the back of a bike. This is the norm in Taiwan, where one often sees two people riding one bike. Micha's comment about a rare metamorphosis is well taken, I suppose two geologists dressed up in ties riding the same bike really is an uncommon sight!

See "MiKaTaiwan" blog here, and pics of two guys on the same bike...

~t

Finally back

2008-06-12T11:44:00.002-06:00

Just an update... I am finally back from the other side of the planet. Yesterday was spent mostly asleep, even when technically conscious. see next post below for what I did on the plane-ride back. Today I am back in the office, sorting through 4 gigs of new data, and trying to get my feet back on the ground.

~t

greenhouse

2008-06-12T11:32:00.002-06:00

More for the color than anything, but also for the light. There have always been certain houses I've lived in that stuck in my mind... and the single unifying aspect of all these memories is light. The lines, the angles... how it hit my face in morning or crossed the floor in afternoon. My house will have light... bright light that wakes me at sunrise and easy light in the evening. Artificial light is always important, and so much can be achieved with it, but there is nothing like the sun. Two houses I've lived in so far have had dedicated "sun-rooms", overflowing with plants and framed by large windows on at least two whole sides. My mothers was open and clean, with hand woven hammocks hung across the corners offering spots to swing in the afternoon with a breeze from the windows and the sweet smell of the hand-spun fibers filling my nose. My fathers was small and cloistered, but jam packed with books and every issue of national geographic since the forties. A rocking chair in the corner was where I sat, or on the small single bed that made this a guest room.

I could have been an architect... I thought about it seriously for a time, but chose to pursue my love of mountains and rivers instead. That particular choice is the reason I am writing this in the SFO airport, after a 12 hour flight from Taipei. I suppose I could travel as an architect too, but I have the feeling that no matter what I do, I will always lust for more.

Houses in memory... brasil, bali, taiwan, all tropical. Factories, industrial plants, museums, research institutes. airports even. The idea for the green-house is minimalist... open studio-style rooms with kitchen/living downstairs, large sliding glass panes frame the back of the house which would look onto a small yard. This is designed for a city lot, neighbors on both sides, the large completely translucent, fogged acrylic pane covering the utility/closets/bathrooms on the front of the house (with perhaps additional opaque white acrylic panels on the upstairs shower). The roof serves as a sun deck with a full length planter built into the walls for herbs and flowers, maybe some strawberries and cherry tomatoes too. Stairs aren't shown here, but I'd like to put them somewhere out of the way, but central to the house, maybe by increasing the space between the front addition and the main-house enough to put them in between, accessing all the three floors of the main and two of the front. obviously still a design in progress, but for a time-waster to tide me over on a long flight I think it's a decent first cut. Back to work though...

-drawn with google sketch-up

~t

Humidittee

2008-06-06T08:57:00.003-06:00

from "I can has cheezburger?", a random website of funny cat pictures; also a bit of a response to a big country hair statement by blogger JustsomeGirl...

yes, there is a cat in there somewhere. back to all lowercase at the moment, no other reason than i am feeling very tired and kinda lazy. it's humid and warm here, but since the sun is down and moon is up (somewhere behind all the haze) the result is just a clammy feeling that permeates my very being. like standing next to ocean spray from waves in cool fog mixed with sweat. the breeze tonight merely acts stir the air, since it is already at saturation with water vapor. no chance to dry out... even MY hair is acting weird. thankfully not as bad as kitteh tho...

~t

Published!

2008-06-06T01:58:00.003-06:00

I just found the reference for a paper I helped with a few years ago... it was finally published! "River terrace development in response to folding above active wedge thrusts in Houli, Central Taiwan", Journal of Asian Earth Sciences, Volume 31, Issue 3, 2007. Those of you with access to science-direct or subscriptions to elsevier journals can access the article here.

I am the fourth author of five, but I definitely spent a solid month doing the analysis and figures for my contribution. Hopefully my first paper as first author (to be submitted sometime this fall, fingers crossed) will be in a journal that is a little more widely read, but as long as I start publishing before I get scooped I'll be happy...

~t

Earthquake correction

2008-06-05T00:47:00.002-06:00

Ha,

I thought it felt a little bigger than 5.3.... the Taiwan central weather bureau, monitoring agency for the more than one hundred seismometers stationed on the island, have reported the earthquake from the other night at 6.0

USGS, using a global array and being positioned on the opposite side of the globe, have considerably less constraint on the near-field data of the event... I tend to trust the local knowledge... after all, the Taiwanese are experts on seismicity almost by default of living smack in the middle of not one, but two active subduction zones and one of the most active subaerial orogenic wedges on the planet. Even the USGS seismic hazard map for Taiwan shows almost the entire island scoring off the chart on predicted seismic activity.

cool.

~t

How stupid do you have to be???

2008-06-02T22:13:00.002-06:00

Global warming bill faces stiff GOP opposition

A character's quote in a book I recently read said something like, "Genius has its limits, but stupidity is not constrained thusly." The GOP appears to me to be the very embodiment of this fact. "The cost is too high", "The people will suffer", give me a fucking break. It still boggles the mind that the very concept of global disaster seems somehow insignificant to these people when compared to the increased taxation of their beloved corporations. Do they think scientists are lying to them? ..that we as a community somehow harbor some ill-will toward their financial freedoms? I could care less if these same assholes stay filthy rich for the rest of their lives, but what I do mind is their head-in-the-sand approach and belief that they won't have to pay the ultimate price like the rest of the world if they don't realize that we (meaning humankind) are all in this together. we don't get a do-over. climate change and all it's associated challenges is already the primary threat to our way of life, and our very lives... bar-none. get it through your unbelievably thick skulls already.

...maybe they're just counting on The Rapture and are really that selfish, so as to spin around in the air on the way up and yell down to the rest of us heathens,

"suckers!"

~t

Bolognese

2008-06-02T21:07:00.002-06:00

Bolognese: served ~4

braise about 10 beef bones with several smashed cloves of garlic, fresh rosemary and a bit of dry lager, Kirin or Asahi. remove the bones (save!) and rosemary once the liquid has been reduced by 1/2 - 2/3, add a little olive oil and a small mixing-bowl's worth of chopped cherry or grape tomatoes and nice chinese eggplant (sweeter and softer than your standard aubergine). toss and coat with the mix in the pot/wok and simmer for a few minutes. add pinches of salt and pepper, then a splash of dry red wine like Tempranillo or Rioja. simmer the wine down, then add a little prepared tomato marinara and tomato paste (not more than a cup combined). this is your sofrito. once the vegetables have begun to soften, turn up the heat to high and add a half pound of finely chopped beef: this shouldn't be too lean but not chuck either, use whatever you like as long as it's fresh. sear the beef and tomato skins, then turn back down to low-med-low... add 5-6 finely sliced porcini mushrooms, a few sprigs of fresh oregano and thyme, stir and simmer for a bit. taste. maybe a little more wine, if not in the sauce then in a glass for you. if needed, add a little more salt, pepper. I add another tablespoon or three of olive oil (extra virgin, of course) and a small splash (1-2 tsp) of balsamic vinegar to brighten the acid a little. done. the texture should be reminiscent of thick chili and the flavor should be mellow but deep and meaty. serve with (preferably fresh) tagliatelle and the rest of the bottle of wine. some fresh brandywine tomatoes with basil and some aged parmesan on the side make it perfect.

~t

Tarka in Taipei redux

2008-06-02T19:57:00.003-06:00

back again... Yesterdays recconoitre to Miaoli was mission successful. Of course it wasn't a militaristic exercise (rather one of international cooperation) but sometimes it feels like a battle, just sitting though a 16 hour deluge of intellectual bombs dropped on you by your academic superiors and industry experts. It's no wonder to me, that given the opportunity on the free market, the Taiwanese (painting with a broad brush, I know) have very quickly dominated certain markets... they are smart, motivated and tireless.

It certainly didn't help that I only managed a few hours of sleep the previous night... thanks in part to a nice dinner that went on later than it should have (I made a rustic bolognese sauce that started with braising beef bones, more on it later). The real shock came in the form of Surface Wave arrivals from the 5.3Mw earthquake we had that night. Granted, 5.3 is pretty small. By a seismologist's standards it's barely worth putting down your coffee for (though if you did put down your cup it might not even spill the coffee) but it was certainly enough to wake me from sleep. Oddly, this was the first earthquake I've experienced that actually woke me up... I've slept though a few before. It's an odd sensation to describe; like having your bed attached to elliptical orbit linear actuators, or more simply being shaken very smoothly but strongly. The first acceleration is a bit like the feeling of nodding off in seminar, smooth and suave but enough to grab your attention. Then the accelerations quickly build and oscillate and, then, slow as smoothly and suddenly as they started.

wom - woom -
- WHOOOM - WHOOOM - WHOOOM - WHOOOM -
- woom - wom

I woke with a start and got out of bed, pulling on pants and walking into the hallway where my hosts (PhD's currently working on post-doctoral work in coseismic neotectonics) were also a bit wide-eyed but all of us were smiling. "Cool" was what came out of my mouth and the statement was echoed by my hosts. The frogs in the garden outside had been quiet till now but spent the rest of the evening nervously singing in noisy concert and stopping in perfect unison at each humanly imperceptible aftershock. My fight-or-flight response had been triggered by the sudden awakening and so I spent a good deal of time trying to fall asleep, all too aware of the frogs' sensitivity to vibrations in the ground.

~t

update:

2008-06-01T01:32:00.002-06:00

to "apologies" below... better (and shorter) cut and scratch video from Japan. unreal.

Still cloudy and cool in Taipei, thanks to the passing typhoon deflecting the mainland jet-stream. work is slow...

~t

"bewitched"

2008-05-30T23:34:00.002-06:00

curves arcing lines in skin, form perfect in the expression of a nature, both carnal and caring, silk and cool with depth and wonder, fluid grace of muscle memory from pain and practice, seem born to you and yet earned unequivocally, thunder and lightning reminding of my impressions electric and blinding but soothing and captivating, water flowing and feeling of rivulets on flesh, goosebumps rising to greet sensation and arousal of so many things deeper than surface, reminded constantly by images and occasions simple and new but familiar in recognition, of truths and dreams, unconscious coming to life and realizations sometimes late or even frightening or unsettling in the power of their roots, like trunks of maple and oak, firm and unswaying though attempting to look past, paths separate at once and similar if not parallel, merging or perhaps only linked through anastomosis, life currents carrying quickly but ultimately steerable ways wended, priorities questioned to be introspectively analyzed, logic has little place in the ultimate end when subconscious wants persist beyond these arguments, returning to blue and black and pale alabaster peach epithelium, a smooth scar of recognition not painful but permanent, enriched by the experience but torn twixt divergence and finally bewitched.

~t

...it started with the word, walking through the streets of Taipei as lightning sparkled in the heavens, then a rhyme rolling around as the thunder came and it was jotted with keys in the subway in less than a minute. sometimes flow of consciousness works that way...

apologies...

2008-05-30T22:58:00.004-06:00

...but I just can't not share this vid. I know most of you read this blog for the writing that occasionally shares some interesting insight into the world as I see it, be that the eastern or western worlds, academic or sporting worlds, occasionally creative worlds or just my own world... right now I'm not feeling very motivated to write anything insightful or even do work (yeah it's saturday and I'm in the office at NTU Tai-Da) so I'll post yet another youtube video that caught my eye. Japanese phenoms DJ Sara (9 years old) and DJ Ryusei (6 years old) scratching and cutting to some electro beats. pretty amazing; they have already played gigs like the Warner Music Group's 2008 Grammy Show.. they have to be the coolest kids in their class (uh, what, that's 1st and 4th grade???)

~t

...with due respect to Shigeki Kuroda

2008-05-30T07:13:00.003-06:00

Microtone Kitchen

2008-05-30T03:18:00.003-06:00

Random culture of the day: experimental scratch-artists -->

Microtone kitchen is a group of young turntablists from "Quebakistan", Canada (their term, not mine). They've attempted a melding of melodic composition and DJ scratching techniques and met with some varied success, but it's interesting to see the result even if they don't always achieve the most smoothly flowing rhythm. They're still fairly new and the reality of getting four or five turntablists spinning in synchronous concert is harder than one might think. That being said, I think they're on to something and will only get better as they learn to limit the Technical and favor the Fluid. A word of warning... if you're not a fan of highly modified percussive syncopation in music, don't even bother with the clip below.

From their myspace:
"The use of turntables, piano and guitar, together in one musical breath, is based on an effort to bridge the gap between musical devices of different traditions. Whereas guitar and piano have extensive histories in practice, the saga behind the turntable's use as an instrument (both rhythmically and melodically) is relatively new. Technically, the fusion of these instruments combines various pitch articulations in both diatonic and microtonic scales. Examining microtones with a ground in the classical system reveals new ways in which the psyche reacts to music."

note: their recorded sessions sound a bit more well-polished than the live clip above... I still like it.

~t

quick pics

2008-05-26T21:45:00.002-06:00

small lizards feast on winged insects after a heavy rain, Taipei

flowers in the mountains, Alishan range

mural at 'Tiger Mountain' elementary school, Tainan

~t

mmm-mmm, savory!

2008-05-23T02:51:00.004-06:00

I've spent the last week traversing the longitudinal entirety of Taiwan. A new bed every night, hours in a car each day, probably close to ten thousand meters of cumulative elevation change. A swim in the Pacific ocean, hikes in both the Hsueshan and Alishan mountain ranges and a plethora of terrestrial, aquatic and benthic organisms ingested. Besides the mild exhaustion resulting from a week of traveling over eight thousand miles (ok I admit some of that was in a plane) I feel enthused about extending my stay here an additional two weeks. At least now I get to sleep in the same bed each night.

While here I've managed to make some very important new connections with researchers and also reconnect with some who I already know... I have also managed, by the greater grace of who knows what, to acquire a newly expanded dataset provided by the researchers at a certain eastern hemisphere oil company. This of course is data that only a handful of western scientists (read: three of us) have access to and is not published anywhere (at least not in English-language journals) so I have decided to extend my stay here another two weeks in order to work closely with the people who have been instrumental in this acquisition. The goal, as it stands, is to reach some new understanding of this information and be able to act on it immediately while I can still meet with the creators of it face to face and ask questions, so that when I get back to Colorado I am able to synthesize everything into a paper which incorporates my existing/previous works and the new info. Exciting, a bit daunting, but overall very positive. ...perhaps "fuckin' awesome" is a better descriptor. I'll be submitting a manuscript to 'Tectonics' hopefully by the end of the summer.

On a side note, I'd like to share something that made me laugh out loud recently. While driving over the Alishan range our group stopped for lunch at 2500 meters, near the terminus of the train-line that joins WuShan Mountain to ChiaYi city. The weather up there was a welcome escape from the sweltering foreland of Taiwan; so often swamped by high humidity and crushed by the weight of this planets tropical latitude atmosphere. In stark contrast to the lowlands, the mountain parks offer breathable air and cooler climes worthy of light sweaters and rain parkas (in Taipei, wearing GoreTex gives one the sense of being zipped into a body-bag with an electric steam-iron). We chose a small restaurant that looked inviting and most importantly offered some refuge from the ceaseless drizzle and served hot Oolong tea. A quick scan of the menu (which had english transliterations) showed that there were the standard assortment of traditional chinese dishes, but also some more interesting offerings of aboriginal taiwanese origin... the second item in this list really caught my eye:

I ended up going for the stir fried wild boar, which was quite tasty. I decided to leave the fried guts (from an unspecified animal) for another time.

~t

I've never heard of this before

2008-05-12T15:44:00.002-06:00

Check it out:

Puppy is born green

who knew?
~t

Mw 7.8 in China, 8500 deaths estimated...

2008-05-12T10:30:00.004-06:00

this just happened while we were all asleep last night:

BBC report of Sichuan earthquake

USGS Moment Tensor and Scientific summary

If you want to know what a true "Active Thrust" is capable of, read the USGS summary. Scary stuff. This is why I want to go into geo-hazard assessment....
~t

... on a lighter note:

2008-05-12T10:08:00.001-06:00

Sheesh... I had this post all planned this morning, but after reading about the 7.8 it's kind of weird.

Anyway, today marks the eve of my next trip to Taiwan... a short two-week jaunt with my advisor throughout the island. I've been running around and feeling a bit scattered for the last few days, and today isn't really any different, except for the fact that it's the eleventh hour. The odd thing about me is that this is when I am the most calm, and the most productive... I have a lot to do, but I know that it will get done.

This morning I stopped by the neighborhood cafe to get some coffee, and decided to get a fruit smoothie instead. I suppose I should have asked, but the menu says simply "raspberry mango smoothie", not "raspberry mango fruit smoothie"... Upon lifting the very bright pink slush to my lips, I was overcome by a wave of high fructose corn syrup and citric acid. I asked the barista if there was sugar in the smoothie and she sort of looked surpised, answering "it's from a mix". I left the drink on the counter and said I wasn't worried about a refund when they asked (they were really busy). I suppose it's only in Boulder (I'm sure in NYC I would have been told to get bent for complaining) but when I politely suggested that perhaps they should let people know that there isn't actually any fruit in the beverage, or at least that there's lots of sugar, they apologized and gave me a card for a free drink. It seems likely that it's a result of doing business in the people's republic of Boulder... that if something's not made of organic fruit, it's justifiable grounds for complaint, apology and refund. As ridiculous as that sounds, I'm not complaining about those standards.

~t

Jenkees!

2008-05-10T14:45:00.002-06:00

I know it sounds like something Velma Dinkley would say, but actually it's the name of my new favorite You-Tuber, Ronald Jenkees. I ran across his stuff completely by accident, but I was captivated by his quirky style and impressive musical talent. Ronald is a self taught Keyboardist and Beat Producer who, at 4 years old, started lessons on piano but soon quit because his teacher wasn't into letting him Jam. He took it upon himself to learn the keys and it shows in his unique finger style ... it almost looks like a four year old playing sometimes, combined with the skill and soul of someone who's played their whole life. The most striking thing about watching his videos is the apparent bliss that playing brings him, and for anyone who has really played any instrument before it is instantly recognizable. Check out the video below, and then go see ronaldjenkees.com.

~t

french press

2008-05-09T10:14:00.003-06:00

why does the coffee that I make out of my french press always taste a little off? Still trying to get things done, realizing that it's friday and I only have 4 days (max) to do it in. I know that these will be done before then, but I also can see myself pushing too hard and getting sick, so I'll be trying my best to remain relaxed... it's too bad that my motivation doesn't spike until dealing with deadlines. It's also too bad that I'm such an whore for inane anal-retentive details. I obsess about crap like whether an active axial surface is oriented at 78, or 77 degrees from the fault surface at depth. Anyway, it's about the time when I finally realize that I just don't have the time to be worried about fine details, and I need to get the whole thing roughed out.

Friday feels like Monday today, but seeing as how Monday is the eve of my departure to Taiwan I'm going to try to treat that like a Friday... makes sense, no?

~t

Life Ambitions

2008-05-06T10:26:00.003-06:00

heheh, I just saw the most recent PhD comic strip... I'd like to share ;)

I just had a brief exchange with my advisor about work this week, and getting ready to fly out from Denver to Taipei this coming Tuesday... Apparently he didn't understand that when the ticket says we arrive in Taipei on the 14th it means we leave Denver on the 13th, so his plans to lead a trip into the needles district of Utah this weekend just got more complicated. I knew we were leaving on the 13th, but it doesn't make the work that I have to do before then any easier.

At the moment I'm taking a minute to look around the net for new news (check out the eruption in Chile) and enjoy my "Rizzbapple" fruit smoothie. Today is also the first day that I'm letting my finger air-out after almost cutting the tip off on sunday; my obsession with keeping my cooking knives razor-sharp has its downside. Maybe I should get my hands on some "pixie-dust".

~t

Bakfiets!

2008-05-02T11:14:00.004-06:00

I found a few fun pictures on my morning internet news & random image surf and thought I'd share them here. The Bakfiet is the cargo-bike with all the dogs in it. They're from the Netherlands and most of the images on the net of these shows parents carting loads of kids around in them, they are awesome, I'd love one. The second image is funny because of the little kid sitting in the saddle-bag... it's probably on a par with me riding in a plastic milk-crate bungeed onto the back of my dad's road-bike when I was a kid. The last one is funny just because the woman is commuting while wearing some pretty high-heels. That last image is from a blog site called 'Copenhagen Cycle Chic', which is dedicated to images of nicely dressed people commuting in European cities...

~t