Light in motion

Apparently, MIT Scientists have somehow developed a camera so fast it can capture light in motion.  Wow!  Buzzfeed lets you play around with the results using its new rubbable gifs.  Pretty cool.  Some details:

MIT researcher Ramesh Raskar gave a talk explaining how this works and what it means, and it’s definitely worth watching.

In short, his team used hundreds of camera sensors triggered in quick succession to capture pieces of images at a super-high framerate. And because the images came out almost pitch black — fast exposures require more light — the shots were taken over and over again and layered on top of one another until the light became visible. Incredible.

Definitely worth a look.

Photo of the day

From a series of NYT Photos looking at Hait’s recovery (or lack thereof) from the earthquake:

 

Temporary shelters dot the hills above Port-au-Prince, in contrast to the homes of Petitionville. 

Damon Winter/The New York Times

 

Journalists gotta write

For many journalists there’s a basic expectation of a story to turn in every day.  Sadly, this is the case even when there’s totally nothing worth writing about.  Yesterday, the Post ran a story entitled, “Ryan pick presents new challenges for Biden.”  Really?!  One VP debate against a guy who is admittedly smart and sharp on his feet and now Biden has a world of “new challenges.”  Give me a break.

I was going to let this go, but today I was confronted by a story in my Sports pages about how Coach K should run for office.  I would so never vote for him– he’s a hardcore conservative Republican.  This is where I’m a Dean Smith man– he was a true blue Liberal Democrat.  Anyway, Coach K is not talking about running for office.  The people around him aren’t.  Basically, a former Duke coach from decades ago thinks he’d make a great politician.  That’s the story.  Again… Seriously?

And, of course this goes for the TV guys too.  I admit, I’ll pretty much never turn down an interview on presidential politics (I actually turn down interviews on a fairly regular basis when I know it’s just too far outside my wheelhouse.  I was totally honest about my limits in the National Anthem case).  Anyway, the basic point of this story was Is Mitt Romney stiffing the Triangle since he’s campaigning in NC, but not in this area.  Short answer: too early to draw any such conclusions.  Slightly longer answer: if he is, so what.  Sadly, since they didn’t fit that theme very well, my very best quotes were left on the cutting room floor.