astridv | (no subject)

via

mccloudtour: Scott McCloud has posted the promised chapter 5 1/2 of 'Making Comics'. "A short online extension to Making Comics' fifth chapter, covering some of the issues associated with creating color art and panel layouts for screen display. "

I would recommend this to anyone interested in web comics. Food for thought. Of course I've been aware that by scanning pages and posting them 1:1, I'm not exactly using the medium to its full potential. Posting online offers many possibilities, of which hypertext is just one... at the moment I'm quite happy to keep doing what I do, work in print format basically and use the net to find a ready audience... but it's something to keep in mind for future projects *ponders*

One advantage of having this chapter published online - he links directly to examples. To my shame I must admit I never really looked into web comics, and after following some of the links, I must say I've missed out.

Take a look at this: "Pup" Ponders the Heat Death of the Universe by Drew Weing... surreal and beautiful. Also, quite large - the whole strip consists of one giant panel so if you have a lo-speed connection, be prepared for a long time to load (it's worth the wait).

Also looking interesting: Nowhere Girl by Justine Shaw. I haven't read it yet, but the artwork looks fantastic. I'm torn between turning green with envy and being inspired. Choosing the latter. ***In other news, I went running today and yesterday, wearing a t-shirt. To my right, birds singing. To my left, daisies and dandelions blossoming. Well, better than last week's perma-rain, I guess.***via

yhlee: A Timothy Takemoto argues why Japanese would make a good international language. I believe he's not kidding and the funney is entirely unintentional.

Probably even funny if you aren't currently trying to hammer over 1900 Kanji into your head. I'm still voting for Klingon instead.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From the wikipedia about Dark Energy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy):
Implications for the fate of the universe

Cosmologists estimate that the acceleration began roughly 5 billion years ago. Before that, it is thought that the expansion was decelerating, due to the attractive influence of dark matter and baryons. The density of dark matter in an expanding universe disappears more quickly than dark energy, and eventually the dark energy dominates. Specifically, when the volume of the universe doubles, the density of dark matter is halved but the density of dark energy is nearly unchanged (it is exactly constant in the case of a cosmological constant).

If the acceleration continues indefinitely, the ultimate result will be that galaxies outside the local supercluster will move beyond the cosmic horizon: they will no longer be visible, because their line-of-sight velocity becomes greater than the speed of light. This is not a violation of special relativity, and the effect cannot be used to send a signal between them. (Actually there is no way to even define "relative speed" in a curved spacetime. Relative speed and velocity can only be meaningfully defined in flat spacetime or in sufficiently small (infinitesimal) regions of curved spacetime). Rather, it prevents any communication between them and the objects pass out of contact. The Earth, the Milky Way and the Virgo supercluster, however, would remain virtually undisturbed while the rest of the universe recedes. In this scenario, the local supercluster would ultimately suffer heat death, just as was thought for the flat, matter-dominated universe, before measurements of cosmic acceleration.

There are some very speculative ideas about the future of the universe. One suggests that phantom energy causes divergent expansion, which would imply that the effective force of dark energy continues growing until it dominates all other forces in the universe. Under this scenario, dark energy would ultimately tear apart all gravitationally bound structures, including
galaxies and solar systems, and eventually overcome the electrical and nuclear forces to tear apart atoms themselves, ending the universe in a Big Rip. On the other hand, dark energy might dissipate with time, or even become attractive. Such uncertainties leave open the possibility that gravity might yet rule the day and lead to a universe that contracts in on itself in a "Big Crunch". Some scenarios, such as the cyclic model suggest this could be the case. While these ideas are not supported by observations, they are not ruled out. Measurements of acceleration are crucial to determining the ultimate fate of the universe in big bang theory