ideonexus

Tag: photos

  • NY Hall of Science: Optical Illusions

    Dancing Shadows The photo set for this exhibit is a big let down, mostly because the real life display is so dynamic. A still photo doesn’t capture what spinning geometric shapes does to your brain. A photo of a spring that isn’t there has none of the effect of actually trying to reach out and…

  • North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences: Underground

    Hiddenite crystal with card Mr. William Earl Hidden, July 24, 1905 This antique was my favorite object on display in the Museum’s “Underground” exhibit. A card from William Hidden (1853-1918), a mineralogist sent to North Carolina by Thomas Edison to look for platinum, and for whom the gem is named. See the complete flickr set…

  • NC Museum of Natural History: Mountains to the Sea

    Wildlife-Friendly Backyard At the museum’s center is a huge recreation of North Carolina’s many ecosystems, filled with both living and taxidermied animals. One of my favorite side displays was on how to build an eco-friendly yard that invites, feeds, and shelter’s wildlife. The Four Fundamentals of Wildlife-Friendly Landscapes: Offer a year-round food supply along with…

  • Copyright Infringement on Ideonexus

    I think I’ve gotten really good at this since I started running with ideonexus full speed, keeping the daily posts stocked with photos I get from NASA, wikimedia commons, and other legitimate sources, like flickr creative commons photos. However, I think it’s important to acknowledge that I did violate a photographer’s copyright in my 20071126…

  • The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences: Costal North Carolina

    The most impressive thing about the Coastal NC Exhibit are all the whale skeletons hanging overhead as you walk through the exhibit, animals larger than anything Earth has ever seen before, descendents of cow-like animals that once lived on land, some of which still have their hip bones still floating inside them, serving no other…

  • The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences: NC’s Natural Treasures

    Pileated Woodpecker The centerpiece of the NCMNS’ first floor is a room filled with displays of taxidermied animals living in North Carolina, many of which are endangered, and one on display, the Carolina Parakeet, only parrot indigenous to the United States, is extinct. The display impresses on us the wealth of biodiversity all around us,…

  • Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History: Hall of Gems

    Hope Diamond The Hall of Gems reminded me of this quote from Henry David Thoreau: “When the frost comes out in the spring, and even in a thawing day in the winter, the sand begins to flow down the slopes like lava, sometimes bursting out through the snow and overflowing it where no sand was…

  • The Smithsonian Air & Space Museum

    French Astrolabe, 1600s The Hubble Telescope was impressive. For some reason, I’d never realized how huge this orbiting eye on the Universe actually is, easily three-stories tall. Scale was a common theme for me throughout the museum. The walk-through size of Skylab, the claustrophobia-inducing interior of the cramped Mercury capsule. These pictures won’t fully communicate…

  • The Smithsonian Natural History Museum

    I’ve got a huge backlog of photos I need to get up on Flickr, enough to cover several months worth of Saturndays. Here’s two sets from the Smithsonian Natural History Museum: Hall of Bones Man and the Manlike Apes The Hall of Bones does a great job of illustrating the incredible biological and adaptation diversity…

  • Global Warming: What Me Worry?

    Road In Front of My House This is the road in front of my house at high tide. On the left, where there are now recently-planted trees you can’t see in this photo, I’ve been told there were once houses, but the flood zone claimed them. Several locals tell me that it was foolish of…

  • Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center

    I spent my last Saturday at the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center. It’s been almost two decades since I last visited the tourist attraction, and I was instantly blown away by how much it had grown. Where previously there was a single tiny building with a dock leading out to the neighboring marsh, there…

  • Blackwater Public Forum

    Blackwater Satellite Photo: 36.27 N 76.12W I live just 30 minutes south of the Blackwater Training Center, the company which has been in the news much of late for killing Iraqi civilians. Locals here in North Eastern North Carolina overwhelmingly support Blackwater, which is one of the area’s largest employers (600 locals), against the charges.…