Zeusaphone

The Zeusaphone is Tesla coil. What is really interesting about this Tesla coil is that it is able to play music through the sparks it creates. This is done through a master control. Along with the music created the Zeusaphone is also able to create different effects of its sparks by using different frequencies and pulse width.
Science coming together in an art form. The Zeusaphone is a great representation that both science and art don't always have to be what we think they should or would normally think they are. They can work well together or on their own. It also shows that people are able to express themselves in a variety of ways and are always looking for new ways to do so. Even something as dangerous as electrical sparks can to used and turned into interesting forms of expression (It's also really cool that music can be created through electricity).

When Entertainment Meets Nature- Parahawking

Parahawking is basically paragliding but with a unique twist, birds of prey actually fly along with the glider. Developed in Nepal in 2001 by Scott Mason, Adam Hill and Graham Sunders-Griffiths, paragliding has slowly grown into a commercial industry. They take rescue birds, the ones that can't be returned to the wild for one reason or another (most likely because they have become imprinted on humans) and train them to fly with the glider using food as a lure. The birds actually land on the arm of the person gliding to get the food. This makes it so the people basically get to interact with the birds in their own environment, something they could not otherwise do.

There are quite a few benefit to this type of program, which is why I have chosen to blog about this (that and it's just a cool idea to be able to "fly" along with birds in the sky). Humans gain an interesting way to be entertained and experience nature. But it too benefit the birds. By helping them to return to the wild or have healthily lives even if they can't it could help to bring awareness to people about these birds in the future so they may help to protect them. I think that not all people may think about this when going to paraglide but its at least a start that might get them to think about nature in our now very technology based world.

Something else I found interesting about paragliding is the fact that, with the birds help in flight, paragliders are able to glide longer and go farther then without them. These birds are so adapted to gliding over long distances while saving energy that they have developed ways to see thermals (rising warm air) so they don't waste energy flapping their wings to stay aloft (what they are seeing might actually be rising dust or small particles but the point is that in this way they know where the thermals are and therefore where to fly).

If we could find more ways to get along with nature like this then it might just help to improve the state our world is in.

Whole life with Half a Body

Kenny Easterday is a man that was born with a condition called sacral agenesis. Because of this his spine never fully formed and doctors had to amputate both his legs. He was offered prosthetic legs though he turned them down. As of now Kenny is 35, 14 years older then doctors predicted him to live (as most people with sacral agenesis die at a young age) and does many things one would not think possible without legs such as playing bowling and getting around without the use of a wheelchair or other device (as shown in the photo above Kenny walks using his hands).

The reason I chose to blog about this, I think, is both because this is not the type of thing that one normally sees people with "disabilities" doing and that it also becomes very inspiring to hearing about and/or see him going about daily life (without any assistance) with this "disability" when most other people would give up on being independent. It makes you think, "If he can do that, maybe things are not as bad as they seem in my life." Or something to that effect. In a way it's sad that that we can feel better about ourselves because we're "normal" and someone else is not but that's not quite it in some cases such as this one (at least in my opinion). In the case of Kenny I believe we draw inspiration from that fact he CAN do these thing and he DOES even though it may be harder for him to do so then someone with legs. It may be sad to us that he doesn't have legs, but in his view he's perfectly fine and capable of doing all these things that he was most likely told he could never do. I think this story gives us belief, a greater belief in ourselves that we can do more then we think we can if we just try.

Legend of Mana

The Legend of Mana is quite an old game now (well old considering the speed of which games are improving and being made and all that) but it remains one of my favorites. There have been numerous other Mana games (including many that are newer then this one) though I find I still like this one the most, even out of the newer games with updated graphics and game play.

There are a number of reasons I find this one better, the first being the artistic graphics. The Legend of Mana's environment makes me feel as if I'm walking around within a painting (graphics are all 2D). Though these areas are not fully explorable, it really doesn't detract much from the game in my opinion as there are multiple paths to take within one area. The newer games are fairly different in this aspect. They have multiple paths but they lost some of this artistic quality going for a more clean cut style.
Another point I love about this game is the multiple story lines which the newer games don't have. In Legend of Mana players can, for the most part, go to any area in any order. Newer games have a set story line that must be followed to advance. There are also main parts to the story line that must be completed in Legend of Mana though there are 3 paths you can choose to get to the end. Players can complete just one or if they want all of them in one game. In addition to this there are many side line stories that can be completed if the player chooses. See, The Legend of Mana is set up as if it were a book, and these quests complete it. Essentially the player writes they're own story.
One finally thing I'd like to speak briefly (there's so much more I could say about this game) about is the beginning of the game. Players choose there character and what weapon they start with (like many other games) but from there they choose an area of a map of which they're story will center. From there different areas are obtained through quests but whats really interesting about this game is you get to place these areas anywhere you want to on your area of the map, creating your own world in a sense.
Player creativity is what is amazing about this game. It pulls the player in and makes them feel like they are a part of the story. It's anything they want it to be, which is something I hope newer games like this one start to do more of.

Red Ice

The photo above is called Red ice and was taken and posted by dowdall of DeviantArt. There doesn't really seem to be much to this picture at first glance, it's just pretty and well done. Thinking more deeply about it though I have come to think that there was a lot of thought put into the taking of this picture. Lighting, weather, positioning, and possibly something else. This something else, I think, is a message of sorts. I may be totally wrong since the artist doesn't state that it has a meaning, but I think it does. This meaning may be different to other people as the meaning is interpreted differently by everyone but I think it's trying to show that the simple things, the ones we tend to forget, are the things that can be most important. It could also be showing that fragile things, such as leaves, have some resistance to things, such as frost and that we should try persevere challenges in life too. As well as taking a beautiful photo dowdall has done a great job of trying to make viewers think, whether they realized it or not.

MindFreak

Criss Angel is the star of a show called Criss Angel Mindfreak. The whole idea behind this show is trickery basically. Tricking the mind that is. Criss Angel is a magician or sorts, somewhat like Houdini, but he usually takes some of his tricks to an even higher level. For example he does do the classical card tricks and things like that but other tricks he do include walking up walk, going through walls to get into vaults, levitating, and being burred alive (he's done a lot of escape tricks).
He never calls it magic, he says straight out that everything he does is a trick, even going as far as to show how to do some of the smaller tricks. Every day people, such as myself, can only guess at how he does some of these seemingly impossible stunts. To some level we might believe some of it to be magic even though we know it's not only because we can't seem to explain it any other way.

This quality might have something to do with why people watch this show and attend shows in Vegas. In my experience it seems people like what they can't explain and as I've said before in other posts, things they can't do themselves. Criss Angel is very good at what he does, creating the a blur between reality and the unexplained with his illusions. This blur, I think, will continue to interest people. It's just human nature to be curious.

Truth Behind the Myths

MythBusters is a show that most of us will recognize by now even if they don't watch it. Basically, the mythbusters take myths heard in everyday society (such as are elephants afraid of mice and would cockroaches survive a nuclear bomb) and test whether there is any truth behind them. Most of the times they "bust" (untrue) the myths they test, but at times they stumble across something that's "possible" (could happen) or "confirmed" (true).

I like this show, I find it entertaining. Some of this is clearly the personalities of the shows hosts but I think discovering the unknown is also a part of this. I general believe society is at least a bit curious about what they hear or are told and they may want to know it what they are hearing is true (hence why mythbusters get so much viewer mail giving them new myths and asking them to retest old ones). Most of us wouldn't be able to test whether certain things are true because we don't have the means to but this is where mythbusters has an opportunity. They have access (or find some way to get access) to ways of which to test these myths (things like getting cars to drop from cranes). It's possible this is another reason this show is a success. People like to see things that don't normally happen or that they themselves can't do and therefore find it interesting to watch. Mythbuster, even when a myth is busted, try to take it to the next level, taking it to an extreme that would never happen. I believe this is yet another reason why mythbusters is a show that will continue to run as long as they are given new myths.