Photo: ndevil
I got my Dell Mini10V in the mail yesterday. It's small and red and pretty, but I had one minor issue with my order. When I was personalizing my order online, it asked me if I wanted a 24WHr 3-cell battery or a 56WhHr 6-cell battery; the 6-cell was just $35 more, but had double the lif... More.
Jeremy sez, "Video of a starlings swarming; rather amazing, and recalls for me many images from technology and nature."
Bird Swarm
(Thanks, Jeremy!)
Previously:Toxic waste gets birds laid - Boing Boing
Crows Birds stealing coins from car wash? - Boing Boing
Boing Boing: Amazing photos of starl... More.
It's been a good 20 years since I had a real hankering to wear Doc Marten's around, but I have to say I'm tempted by these skeleton boots whose bones glow in the freaking dark!
1914 BONES 14 EYE BOOT
BLACK LAMPER
(via Street Anatomy)
... More.
It's gadgets like this Matrox 8-way video card -- which lets you drive eight 2560 x 1600 displays at once -- that make me think seriously about going back to a desktop machine and abandoning laptops. If only I could find 1) room for eight displays and 2) a graceful way of using the home partition on... More.
The MPAA has successfully shut down an entire town's municipal WiFi because a single user was found to be downloading a copyrighted movie. Rather than being embarrassed by this gross example of collective punishment (a practice outlawed in the Geneva conventions) against Coshocton, OH, the MPAA's sp... More.
RSS Feed
So cool. I love seeing stuff like this. The fluidity is amazing.
That right there is pretty f'in amazing.
it's actually a neural net processor
This farmer's son can only think, "So that's what a plague looks like..."
-- MrJM
I don't know what it's like anywhere else, but here in Rome, we get this every autumn. In fact, it's that time of year again and it's happening right now, outside my window. It's terrific and awe-inspiring, to see all these birds wheeling through the air in unison.
But thousands of birds also means a lot of poop. When they're done flocking, they like to chill down by the river. Walking along there now is like walking through disgusting, filthy, smelly snow.
If you want to really blow your mind for a moment, consider: how does the swarm decide how it moves? Birds are intelligent creatures individually, but does the swarm itself have an intelligence of its own?
That's amazing! I saw something similar, a larger flock but not nearly as dramatic in terms of the movement, whilst driving through Nebraska. It was incredible and made me ponder what it would have been like in pre-colonial days when flocks of birds could effectively block the sun out or the sound of hundreds of thousands (more?) birds nesting could deafen a person...
Every year, for one afternoon only, about a thousand starlings land in my backyard and strut around, occasionally flying into the air, then settling back down. I don't know why. After a few hours, they're gone. But it's quite a sight to see this Hitchcockian gang swarming all over the yard.
there
a flock of dots form a shadow on the sky
an ebbing and flowing exclamation point
the mass turns east
revealing birds in unison
swooping feather to wing
an animated speech bubble
declaring
the world, my friend
holds more than you will ever know
Leaded:
Love that.
A flock of starling is called a murmuration. The sound such a flock makes is exhilarating and almost other-wordly.
They didn't show the part where the swarm descended on a small town and devoured the inhabitants.
This past Saturday my husband and I were driving south on I75 near Piqua, OH. At 11:02am I received a call on my cell. While I was talking a noticed a huge flock of birds to the south on the right side of the car. They suddenly made a clear square with concave sides. I was astonished to see such a pronounced shape and it broke my conversation as I alerted my husband to look at the birds. Not even two seconds later they had formed into a very distinct triangle and I was exclaiming to the woman on the phone and then in less than two seconds more they were in a perfectly formed crescent moon. At this point I was sweating and covered in goosebumps; they made a looser shape of a square and then disbanded into more of a blob. It took miles before my internal system calmed down. When i try to compare it to something it was like a massive colorguard or marching band show that was on fast forward as it performed. I felt honored to witness it and wonder if others near that road also saw it. My husband then forwarded me the link to your BoingBoing when he saw your video. Thank you, Boing Boing and Jeremy. Thank you leaded also.