robotmonkeys

the monkeys know all

  • Penalty Cards

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    The World Cup is on. The US played its first match against England, and didn’t lose. I thought England had the “White Pelé.” He must have been hurt, because I didn’t see him out there. I only saw some pudgy bald guy. (Zing!) All I want is for the US will advance. Although, winning a game in the knock out rounds would be wonderful.

    I love the idea of FIFA. They’re the anti-NCAA. (Fuck you, and go die in a fire NCAA.) I love the idea of promotion and relegation, where entire teams move up and down.1 I love the idea of having the winners of the different national professional leagues champions play each other.3. I even love, the subject of this post, penalty cards. They just look cool, and I love how they carry over during tournament play.4

    I was looking at the history of penalty cards, and learned that they are a relatively recent invention. They date back to only 1970, and were quickly adopted by other sports. What really surprised me though, is that the iconic yellow and red, aren’t the only colors.

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  • Thomas Allen

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    When I attended the SF Fine Art Fair one the few artists that really stood out to me as Thomas Allen. His photographs, like “Epilogue” above, consist of cutouts from the covers of pulp novels arranged in such a way to tell a new story. Some of these photos are collected in his book, Thomas Allen: Uncovered.

    It’s second tier art, because the real visual oomph comes from simply the wholesale appropriation of the original artists’ works. It’s a collaged diorama, while executed with much more visual skill, it’s still reminiscent of the types of collages people would hack together from magazine cut outs, and turn in for extra credit in high school English I. Still, I do enjoy his work, even if I find its originality ironic.

    Previously.

  • The 2007-2010 Divide

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    2007:

    2010:

    Previously.

  • Brothers’ Kiss Redux

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    Back in 2009, I mentioned that the famous Berlin Wall graffiti Brothers’ Kiss was destroyed during restoration work on the The Wall. The artist, Dmitri Vrubel, vowed to recreate it, but in a new form. My friend John, recently got back from Berlin and happened to photograph the new Brothers’ Kiss.

    Previously.

  • Number Station UVB-76 Offline

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    The Russian number station UVB-76 has stopped transmitting.

    So what’s the big deal? Well this station has been continuously broadcasting a series of tones 24 hours a day, every day, since 1982. What this station does (or did – as the case may be) has been source of frequent speculation for almost 30 years now. It’s frequency and repetitive nature suggests that it might be used for ionosphere research, but occasionally a live voice has been broadcasted reciting numbers and letters. In light of its deactivation, the most disturbing speculation was its use as part of the Dead Hand. When the signal disappears, launch the nukes. (Given that I’m still alive, that’s obviously not the case now.)

    So why did it stop? Probably something mundane, but I’m holding out for the exotic.

    Update: Sun Jun 6 00:18:51 PDT 2010
    According to “Jimmy Device” on /., UVB-76 is back up. Hopefully I can find another confirmation about this.

    Update: Sun Jun 6 11:31:02 PDT 2010
    I found a link to Internet shortwave streams: globaltuners.com . I’m going to have to check out the frequency after they approve my account. I’ll keep all zero of you updated.

    Update: Mon Jun 7 11:55:44 PDT 2010
    I tried earlier this weekend and today trying to find the station using Global Tuners. Last night I couldn’t find it. Today, maybe something really weak, but probably not. I just don’t know. The UVB-76 Wikipedia talk page is saying that the cessation was only a rumor because the original post was traced back to a conspiracy site, but that doesn’t mean that the station isn’t broadcasting. This seems trivial to check, and I’m inclined to believe that it has stopped, but in all honesty, I don’t know if I was using the radios correctly when I tried. It appears that the Internet has failed us my friend.

  • Bletchley Park’s Archives Online

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    Bletchley Park (aka STATION X), is placing its archives online. Now this will be fun. I’m a big fan of Bletchely Park, and it is one place I would love to visit. As you probably know, Bletchley Park was the site of the Allies effort to break the German “unbreakable” Enigma code during World War II. Here “The Father of Computing,” Alan Turing and friends developed mathematical techniques, along with some of the earliest computers, such as the Bombe and the Colossus, to literally save the world. It’s an amazing place, much like Manhattan Project.

    I could go on and on about the Enigma machines, and how I long to own one, but not just any one. As anyone who as ever watchied the Antiques Roadshow knows, provenance is everything. I want Mick Jagger’s Enigma machine.

    But back the topic at hand…

    The Bletchley Park Trust owns the archives of the decrypted Nazi intercepts and wants to digitize them and put them online. I would love a search engine for this. Sort of like a data.gov of the Third Reich. Simon Greenish, CEO of the trust, said that a cursory look through the intercepts showed evidence of heavy traffic between the Nazis and ostensibly neutral countries like Switzerland, Spain, and Sweden. Mysteriously, there’s one intercept talking about shipping 4400 tons of mercury from Germany to Spain. Why this was shipped, hasn’t been determined yet. Hopefully after the archive is digitized, it will be.

  • Interesting Photo Round Up: Eyjafjallajokull

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    The Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull is still disrupting air travel in Europe (albeit much less than the initial continent wide groundings). These photos were found on the Boston Globe’s photo round up.

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  • Interesting Photo Round Up: San Francisco

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    Long live The Commons

    1851

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  • The Bansky-Frank Chu Divide

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    Bansky:

    Frank Chu:

    Long live the 12 Galaxies.

    via Catie Magee

  • Graffyard

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    Berlin graffiti artist Sweza has created an interesting take on street art. Since graffiti frequently gets buffed, Sweza has started taking photos of the art before they get removed. Once they are removed, he places a QR code at that location. Using his Graffyard iPhone app, users can retrieve an image of the previous graffiti on their phones. It would be interesting if multiple images are stored for the same location, if one could use Graffyard to travel back in time and see the previous graffiti in that location. Similar to the Eric Pakurar’s Chemical Warfare Project.