News helicopters collide, killing four

Over downtown Phoenix, while covering a police chase, from CNN.com this afternoon:

  Friday, July 27th, 2007 - 4:58pm  |  disasters + news photos  |  Comments (0)

Piltdown in progress

Here’s a snap of a new painting in progress, Piltdown Manifesto. I like how the blue tape works here both to frame and conceal — I’m going to have to work that into a future painting, since it’s about to come off this one.

  Friday, July 27th, 2007 - 4:33pm  |  field reports + works in progress  |  Comments (1)

Charles Babbage on public cynicism of the new

Quoted by Doron Swade in his book, The Difference Engine: Charles Babbage and the Quest to Build the First Computer, this seems pretty much universally relevant:

Propose to an Englishman any principle, or any instrument, however admirable, and you will observe that the whole effort of the English mind is directed to find a difficulty, defect, or an impossibility in it. If you speak to him of a machine for peeling a potato, he will pronounce it impossible: if you peel a potato with it before his eyes, he will declare it useless, because it will not slice a pineapple.

  Tuesday, July 17th, 2007 - 2:48pm  |  criticism + science + technobabble  |  Comments (0)

Fireworks Mishap in Washington D.C.

From CNN.com: “A man runs away as fireworks explode on the ground on the National Mall in Washington.” Nothing serious, apparently, but a nice AP photo resulted:

  Wednesday, July 4th, 2007 - 11:41pm  |  news photos  |  Comments (0)