Well, up here in the northwest, I think ive seen about 2 or 3 days where there was snow on the ground for a whole day. Usually we have snow from thanksgiving to middle february.. Bad year to buy a pass to go snowboarding =(
Re:Enough already
by
ackthpt
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Please, we've had more than enough snow already.. wh y don't you study sunshine or something?
sn0w 0wnz j00!
Seriously, this is one of the more intriguing articles I've ever seen on Slashdot. It's made my bookmarks and is certainly inspiration to whip up some stuff in PoV. I'm an old math and geometry buff (and former resident of the Great White North) and appreciate the beauty of snow. Perhaps moreso that I've got all the technology crap to play with it, yet now live in a warm climate.
Yet, there we geeks were, spellbound decades ago by Julias and Mandelbrots, and accumulating libraries of books, like:
The Fractal Geometry of Nature, Benoit B. Mandelbrot
The Science of Fractal Images (Peitgen, Saupe)
The Beauty of Fractals (Peitgen, Richter)
The Algorithmic Beatuy of Plants (Prusinkiewicz, Lindenmayer)
All the while, I could have gone outside and been inspired by a light dusting of tiny snow or those huge flakes which fell infrequently in a dead calm. Sometimes it is good to get outside.
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I don't understand how a story like this can make front-page slashdot, yet the story about the man burning his penis with his laptop can't. A distinct failure in public safety awareness, if I ever saw one.
Re:Bah!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
umm, that story was on slashdot, like a year ago when it was "news".
hey, i feel for you....posted the same story. but it is a thing of wonder to imagine that no two snowflakes are alike, unlike posts to slashdot about burned phalluses......
Yeah, and so are the thousands of B/W photos takes decades ago that proved the very same thing. Oh, excuse the hell out of me, THESE are in color! Woo fucking Hoo!
That no two snowflakes are alike has been proven a long, long time ago. No two randomly painted computer screens are the same either, nor are two humans.
It looks an awful lot like a navel lint contemplation session when the real issues are ignored in favor of total absorption into the obvious.
this text here because it's required to get the percentage of yelling down blah blah blah.
more text, stolen from the register because im too lazy to type more:
But what we're seeing now - and this mirrors the militarization of so much of civilian life - is the reverse. Ostensibly civilian technologies such as Groove's Peer to Peer system, or are being repurposed as surveillance technologies. And as the spooks welcome the technology companies, the technology companies reciprocate: welcoming them onto their boards.
Re:Make your own snowflake!
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Hahahahaha, that's actually a pretty good idea. Let me try:
FUCKING GOD DAMN FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK ASS BITCH SLASHDOT SUCKS YOU ARE ALL FUCKING RETARDED!!
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Re:Make your own snowflake!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
if i had the points id slap this post down to -1, metamods be damned
Not renting so much midget porn might be more effective.
Re:Make your own snowflake!
by
DarkMinds69
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· Score: 1
And, If you happen to do this with tracing paper, you can tape it to your monitor, and emulate Alpha blending. Works especially well for those of us still using low end systems..
Time to set the PCjr and TRS-80 back up...
Re:Make your own snowflake!
by
kesuki
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· Score: 1
Well the directions for that are even simpler!
1. Acquire tissue sample from $$$$exyGal 2. Clone DNA in ebryonic stemcell. 3. Surrogate mother raises baby $$$$exyGal 4.... 5. Profit!
Thanks Slashdot, I really get some much precious information from you, I wonder how I could live without your amazing knowledge. And its editors cleverness !
Three is still symmetrical, as long as the third one is in the middle. If two are on one side then it isn't.
OH! don't tell me they copyrighted a snow flake?
by
makoffee
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· Score: 2, Funny
j/k but why in america do people feel the need to put a copyright on EVERYTHING! In this case it only tarnishes a beautiful picture of cristalized water.:(
-- -makoffee
Each Snowflake is Unique
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Insightful
...so why does each image have a (C) Copyright on it?
Re:Each Snowflake is Unique
by
makoffee
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· Score: 0
because people are dumb.
-- -makoffee
Re:Each Snowflake is Unique
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
The *photograph* is copyrighted, not the fucking snowflake itself.. Morons.
Hello? He was being funny. Is your irony detector broken or do you actually need the "Funny" moderation to know when to laugh, you dozy git.
*SLAP*
It's not that bad
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Come on critics, we can have a diversion once in a while. What's wrong with some snowflakes? They are pretty, and the post doesn't take up too much space on the front page of slashdot. It's my opinion that this world could use a little more senseless beauty.
Hey, you're welcome to come by and take a truckload of "senseless beauty" off my driveway...please!
-- Just another day in Paradise
Re:It's not that bad
by
Elbereth
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
Come on critics, we can have a diversion once in a while. What's wrong with some snowflakes? They are pretty, and the post doesn't take up too much space on the front page of slashdot. It's my opinion that this world could use a little more senseless beauty.
Hey, I saw your sig -- you don't happen live in Paradise, do you? I'm about an hour north and we've had a truckload of beautiful snow (but now it's turned to mud) clogging up our driveway....
It's all about the pictures
by
majordomo
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I'm sitting right now one story down from the office of Ken Libbrecht, the guy who wrote the book (and the website). Ken told me that he was writing a book on the physics of snowflakes, and I asked him how he expected to get anyone to buy it. "Pictures," he replied, "lots of pretty pictures!"
Looks like he was right!
Re:It's all about the pictures
by
kfg
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· Score: 4, Interesting
And how is it that he got interested in the physics of snowflakes in the first place?
Bet'cha he saw some pretty pictures somewhere.
The advisor I was assigned to do my senior physics research project under had just written the book on the physics of boomerangs. Why? Because he thought boomerangs were fun, cool, and when he went to look up how they worked found out no one really knew.
My research project was on the dynamics of two wheeled vehicles. Why? Because I adored bicycles, and there were some issues with understanding just how they really worked.
Some people might be surprised at how much real science begins with the simple joy of tossing a boomerang about, or coasting down a curvey road, or some young mind thinking:
"Ooooooooooo, pretty. Me want touch."
KFG
Re:It's all about the pictures
by
742Evergreen
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· Score: 1
"Ooooooooooo, pretty. Me want touch."
Wasn't this also how porn was invented?
Re:It's all about the pictures
by
ehiggins
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· Score: 1
> "Ooooooooooo, pretty. Me want touch."
Oog The Caveman? Is it really you? We miss you!
-Earl in snowy St. Louis
melted fast.....
by
mao+che+minh
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· Score: 4, Funny
I guess snowflakes, and their servers, melt fast under the OVERWHELMING POWER of a slashdotting.
I look forward to seeing those beatiful images tommorow.
Re:Executive summary
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
wow, it WASN'T a goatse link. I applaud your maturity.
Re:Executive summary
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
goatse spammers should be shot, burned and pissed on. No way I'd post a link like that.
Re:Executive summary
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Thats my desktop background;-)
where is the mr.rogers story
by
tq_at_sju
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
yeah let's talk about snowflakes instead of how mr.rogers touched our lives...damn it
-- http://www.vanillaafro.com - take me seriously and I will shoot you
If THIS is newsworthy...
by
LePrince
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
If this is newsworthy, then this is too :
I developped a telepathic form of communication through IP. You want some proof ?
Close your eyes. What do you see? All black ? THAT'S MY WALLPAPER, ALL BLACK, NO DRAWING ! Wow... You see, through telepathy via IP, I was able to show you MY desktop !
If this doesn't make Slashdot frontpage, what will?
I developped a telepathic form of communication through IP.
That's nothing, I've learned to send commands to my wireless hub by wiggling my toes high in the air. I've also written an input driver that uses winks and blinks to navigate slashdot.:-)
Haven't got to see them due to the slashdotting, but snowflakes, and their incredible structures are very cool to see in my opinion. The perfect geometry of a snowflake and the variation of each has always amazed me.
--
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right. -Thomas Paine
Obligatory Simpsons Quote
by
Swaffs
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· Score: 4, Funny
"You know, fingerprints are just like snowflakes. They're both very pretty." -- Chief Wiggum
--
-- "Karma can only be portioned out by the
cosmos." - Homer Simpson [1F10]
Re:Obligatory Simpsons Quote
by
redherring22
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· Score: 1
Martin: Look! It's snowing!
Ralph: [catching a flake of grease on his tounge] This snowflake tastes like fish sticks!
( http://www.snpp.com/episodes/5F20 )
I don't understand how a story like this can make front-page slashdot, yet the story about the man burning his penis with his laptop can't. A distinct failure in public safety awareness, if I ever saw one.
Taco obviously spends more time looking at things with an electron microscope than he does with his new wife.
--
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Despite the comments from the more feeble-minded, I still have to say that these images are absolutely stunning.
Even after reading through the pages of scientific explaination, I really cannot fathom that the physics actually worked to create something quite that beautifully symmetric, complex, etc... .
Maybe it's all been faked by the government, like the Apollo moon landings...
-- "Owning a computer is like having your very own TV -- with a built in radio!" - Ed Helms
I Get To Experience The Best Of Both Worlds!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 4, Interesting
My observatory is based at 2,000 meters in one of the ten cleanest and driest locations around (the atmospheric aerosol concentrations are the lowest anywhere yet measured outside of Antarctica). As a result, not only do we get beautiful seeing and astronomical-imaging conditions, but the most amazingly beautiful and complex snowflakes I've ever seen. Life is good.:)
Re:I Get To Experience The Best Of Both Worlds!
by
circletimessquare
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· Score: 1
any available women up there?;-)
-- intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Re:I Get To Experience The Best Of Both Worlds!
by
Buck2
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· Score: 1
And where would that be?
"outside of Antartica" doesn't really narrow things down much
--
As my father lik@(munch munch).......
Re:I Get To Experience The Best Of Both Worlds!
by
permaculture
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· Score: 1
Cleanest and driest location, eh? The article says for a snowflake you need a speck of dust and some water molecules. How does the clean dry nature of your location increase the complexity of your snowflakes?
http://snowflakebentley.com/
-- Environmentalism is the new Victorianism. Everyone ties on a green corset and pretends we're virtuous.
Nice pics, I never know snowflacks were so lovely. keep up the great site.
Californian here...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Funny
These things fall out the Sky?!
Wouldn't it hurt if it were to hit you?
this is stupid
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
i don't understand how this passed the slashfilter. why do i care who has snowflakes on their desktop. this forced me the quarter inch scroll down that incited me to post this
Jesus, Fark would have passed on that site.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
If you can't post something geeky, don't post at all.
When I was young, I used to make my own custom snow flakes. Well, not really, I just dyed existing ones a pleasing yellow color; or sometimes clumsily wrote my name on them. I never though about taking pictures of them and putting them on a web site though. Obviously that would have been cool thing to do.
I dont know about you guys but I have naked chicks wrestling in baby oil on my desktop.. oh and my wallpaper is two naked chicks.
Re:Snowflake on desktop?!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Wouldn't the oil make their feathers discolored?
Cellular Automata?
by
boomgopher
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Anyone notice how snowflakes look like hexagonal 2D cellular automata? They exhibit a lot of the variation you see when you change the 'rules' of automata systems.
-- Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
Re:Cellular Automata?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
For a few insightful words on that very topic, take a look at Stephen Wolfram's 1200 page book "A New Kind of Science". Some links can be found on www.wolfram.com. In summary, very simple rules (such as from many types of cellular automata) can generate complex behavior, where "complex" is defined as deterministic but not predictable.
Re:Cellular Automata?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Oh sure...next thing you'll be telling us the entire universe can be seen as cellular automata...
Does this only confirm my expectations that no one at/. wants to go out? Certainly does! Why don't you go out, spring sun is shining and make a snowman or couple of angels to the snow.
I would find snow more frightening
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Some of the best eary snow flake photograph are from Bentley (1930s). There's even a web site for the Bently snowflake museum.
http://snowflakebentley.com/
Take a break from the trolling, posting and hacking, and enjoy the photographs. They're quite beautiful.
Re:Snow Flake Photography Pioneer
by
sking
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· Score: 1
indeed! bentley stands out as a true pioneer not only in terms of his art, but in developing techniques relating to photomicrography. many of his accomplishments were made while still in his teens, and true recognition of his art did not occur until after his death.
-- The AntiJoey
Re:Snow Flake Photography Pioneer
by
NeoSkandranon
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· Score: 1
We have a book of Bentley's work in the bookstore where i am currently employed. If you are at all interested in this sort of thing I advice picking up a copy, there are several hundred snowflakes against black backgrounds arranged by general type, and at the end some striking pictures of frost on windowsills and suchlike.
-- If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
Re:Snow Flake Photography Pioneer
by
Dr.+Mu
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· Score: 1
The book is Snow Crystals by W. A. Bentley and W. J. Humphreys. It's available from Barnes & Noble here.
It truly is a magnificent work. Highly recommended!
Re:Snow Flake Photography Pioneer
by
jackjumper
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· Score: 1
Actually I grew up next to the cemetary in which Snowflake Bentley is buried. Nice headstone.
(There's another grave in that cemetary that opens up, but that's another story)
Hey - two Vermont slashdot references in two weeks! Is that some kind of record?
Scary
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
But how will I know whether things are beautiful if I don't know millions of other people appreciate the exact same thing? How can the principles of mass production be applied to something when no are alike? How can it be advertised???
No thanks. I'm sticking to my DVDs, video games, and music CDs...er, I mean MP3s! I don't buy CDs of course! That would be wrong.
HaloSim3 Software is a sundog simulator which models how light passes through ice crystals that are suspended in the atmosphere. Beautiful and fascinating.
I'm not quite sure why this and ice crystals are so fascinating, but I have the book mentioned in the article, which consists of hundreds of black pages with 1" square images of snowflake magnifications. In the first instance it sounds insane, but it never fails to hold peoples attention.
Re:So how are you all doing?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
He already said he was doing good! You?
Doh!
Beautiful simple things
by
bigberk
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Nice to see stuff like this fly across slashdot on occasion. Helps me take a moment to appreciate all the cool design that was here long before and will remain long after us humans:)
Re:Beautiful simple things
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Shut up.
Re:News for nerds..
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
No, no, no... You've got it all wrong!
It is:
Shitspot News for Turds. Stuff that splatters.
Even more intriguing
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
FBI's fingerprint archives...
I am an ocean nerd
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Those pictures remind me of diatoms.
No I do not have a point.
Related story?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
Local man dismembers his own member Cherry Hill Times November 18, 1997
CLAYTON, NJ. Early Tuesday morning New Jersey State Police were astonished to come across a man on the side of the road without any clothing on bleeding from his groin. The 26 year old man was staggering about, holding his hand over his crotch, stammering, saying "can somebody please help me?" Police soon discovered that the man's penis had been torn off, leaving a bloody stump. Investigating the situation while summoning paramedics, Sheriff William Brown claimed "This is one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen in my career as a police officer, I really don't know what to make of it. The man's penis was gone." As the paramedics arrived the sheriff's deputy had located the detached member about 30 feet away lying in the ditch near the man's clothes, along with some drug paraphanalia. Paramedics had rushed him to St. Francis Medical Center 10 miles north where the ER staff was able to successfully reattach the mans penis." Medical examiner Soren Matthews, doing bloodwork had noticed abnormally high amounts of dextromethorphan, PCP, crack and marijuana in his bloodstream. "Dextromethorphan is a common additive in cough syrup, at recommended doses it can suppress the instinct and urge to cough during colds and flu.", Matthews stated. "At extreme levels, it can cause hallucinations, euphoria, a sense of detachment from reality and a general anesthesia."
Several hours later, police were able to speak with the victim and find out what exactly happened. They discovered he had drank 3 4oz bottles of Robitussin Maximum Strength several hours prior to being discovered. He had gone out for what he liked to call a "wonderwalk" and suddenly got the urge to masturbate. Not realizing that he couldn't feel himself, tried for several minutes and noticed a shock wave resounding throughout his body. He then realized that he was holding his detached penis in his right hand. He was very fortunate that the police found him when they did.
Matthews went on further to state "People need to be aware of what they are doing to themselves. Common over-the-counter medicines have specific dosages there for a reason and when you abuse that tragedies like this happen. Parents everywhere need to look for the signs that their children are 'robotripping'." According to St. Francis Medical Center, this was the 3rd dextromethorphan related incident that they had seen this year. The other two incidents were and both involved teenagers at party situations taking Coricidin, another brand of OTC cough tablets. Both of these incidents were unrelated to each other. The man, who wishes to remain unidentified, was not charged with the possession of the paraphanalia since the circumstances were so bizarre.
Re:Related story?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
a funny comment, especially because i'm on a light DXM high at the moment...i really hafta doubt the authenticity of that though, sorry, although the bit about coricidin (which is very dangerous because of the antihistamine it contains) makes it sound more legit.
i never understood all the poor lip service that coricidin has got... when i was a dxm junky, there was no better source of the shit than coricidin... when delsym came out, the best thing to do was take a box and half of coricidin and a bottle of delsym... when you started to peak, you took the last half a box of coricidin... because of the time-release nature of the DXM in delsym, you would be jaunting all night... coricidin has been one of my favorite drugs for a while, but i had stop using it, because after a while, it does start to alter you perception... boy howdy, those were the days!
-- Just because you're paranoid does not mean that the world is not full of assholes.
That was...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
...really fucking stupid, dude.
ASCII version of pictures
by
mraymer
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· Score: 5, Funny
*
and my personal favorite
* *
* *
The above one makes a great desktop for the graphically challenged.
--
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
Re:ASCII version of pictures
by
tunah
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· Score: 2, Funny
Re:ASCII version of pictures
by
Macster
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· Score: 1
Too bad the ASCII version is pentagonal, whereas all snowflakes are hexagonal.
Re:ASCII version of pictures
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Try changing the font.;)
Nice six-pointed snowflakes here - and I'm using lynx!
Re:God damn it
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Won't you just shut-the-fuck-up already? I mean, you reply to *every* motherfucking article on this website -- with worthless, nonsensical bullshit. Get a fuckin' hobby.
Hear hear. I agree totally. This "$$sexygirrl" is A. a guy, and B. only on slashdot to drum up hit on various porn sites.
I am truly amazed by the nearly perfect symmetry in these crystals. Were they picked for shots because of that, or somehow manufactured to look so perfect?
Either way, it's kind of awe inspiring to see such perfect looking designs on a microscopic scale. The universe never ceases to amaze me.
--
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
Why they're symmetrical
by
RobotWisdom
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Because each arm experiences the same conditions, the arms tend to look alike, producing large-scale, intricate, six-fold symmetric snow crystals.
This explanation is obviously handwaving-- the symmetry is perfect (or close to it) over scales of millions of molecules.
I've been arguing since 1980 or so that an ice crystal in freefall is not at absolute zero (obviously) so it must have internal vibrations. This is basically 'noise', but as it echoes thru the ice, it stops looking random and becomes symmetrical, like Chladni patterns on a vibrating plate or drumhead. (Or like the radiating circles from a drip of water into a circular pool, reconverging at an opposite point.) Because these symmetries are present from the first stage of growth, they maintain symmetrical growth.
I don't think the 104.5 degree angle between the hydrogens in water molecules is close enough to 120 to deliver perfect hexagonality-- it's probably due to the geometry of echoes in any disk, because hexagons can be inscribed in circles. (The spinning of the seed probably contributes to the flatness-- growing favors the outside edge of the bulge, otherwise it might be more spherical.)
Re:Why they're symmetrical
by
k98sven
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· Score: 1, Flamebait
This explanation [caltech.edu] is obviously handwaving-- the symmetry is perfect (or close to it) over scales of millions of molecules.
I've been arguing since 1980 or so that an ice crystal in freefall is not at absolute zero (obviously) so it must have internal vibrations. This is basically 'noise', but as it echoes thru the ice, it stops looking random and becomes symmetrical, like Chladni patterns [google.com] on a vibrating plate or drumhead. (Or like the radiating circles from a drip of water into a circular pool, reconverging at an opposite point.) Because these symmetries are present from the first stage of growth, they maintain symmetrical growth. [snip]
This explanation is just crackpot-science. Crystal growth and dendrite-formation are well-understood subjects within physical chemistry.
Of course their explanation is grossly simplified, that page is oriented towards the layman, not inorganic chemists. If you don't understand it, read a book on the subject.
Molecular vibrations are present at absolute zero, they're called zero-point vibrations and are a well-known consequence of quantum theory.
Suggesting that all water molecules in a snowflake crystal vibrate in harmony in a state of equillibrium violates the laws of thermodynamics.
Re:Why they're symmetrical
by
RobotWisdom
·
· Score: 2
This explanation is just crackpot-science.
(Why do geeks so often get defensive when you point out gaps in science's perfection?)
Crystal growth and dendrite-formation are well-understood subjects within physical chemistry.
Not symmetries that are maintained over distances of a millimeter or more.
Suggesting that all water molecules in a snowflake crystal vibrate in harmony in a state of equillibrium violates the laws of thermodynamics.
Which law is that? Conservation of Chaos?;^/
Re:Why they're symmetrical
by
k98sven
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
>>This explanation is just crackpot-science. >(Why do geeks so often get defensive when you point out gaps in science's perfection?)
No, I just get irritated when people flaunt their own ignorance as an argument that something must be poorly understood by everyone else as well.
>>Crystal growth and dendrite-formation are well-understood subjects within physical chemistry.
>Not symmetries that are maintained over distances of a millimeter or more.
What do you supposedly mean by "symmetry"? Snowflakes are not perfectly symmetric. Anyway, dendrite formation simulation (at the macroscopic scale) is a popular subject in numerical methods. Here's a quick link off google.
>>Suggesting that all water molecules in a snowflake crystal vibrate in harmony in a state of equillibrium violates the laws of thermodynamics.
>Which law is that? Conservation of Chaos?;^/
That's one way of putting it, if you like. Although "maximation of chaos" would be better. The second law of thermodynamics.
Molecular vibrational levels are Boltzmann-distributed at equillibrium, if all molecules in an ensemble were to vibrate at the same level they would have low entropy, in time (and in crystals this can be as slow as 10^-10 s) the distribution of vibrations among the molecules will spread out until a Boltzmann distribution is reached.
Re:Why they're symmetrical
by
RobotWisdom
·
· Score: 1
What do you supposedly mean by "symmetry"? Snowflakes are not perfectly symmetric. Anyway, dendrite formation simulation (at the macroscopic scale) is a popular subject in numerical methods. Here's a quick link off google. [dmawww.epfl.ch]
The level of symmetry in snowflakes is infitely greater than that demo. All the little filigrees echo each other, and the 'mistakes' are attributable to fractures.
Molecular vibrational levels are Boltzmann-distributed at equillibrium
That's only for a random fluid, not a crystal in freefall.
Re:Why they're symmetrical
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
(Why do geeks so often get defensive when you point out gaps in science's perfection?)
Amazing, isn't it? Don't even try and ever point out that model != reality on slashdot.
What passes for scientific understanding here is nearly always regurgitated dogma (ironic when you consider that most of these folks think themselves fiercely nonreligious). I appreciated your comments - and those of your correspondent (despite his lousy attitude). I take away that this subject, like most, remains an entertaining mystery.;)
Funny that there is so much less-that-positve response on this article.
Look at that natural symetry, always 6 sided.
You know, you are mostly composed of the same stuff as these snowflake: water.
even carbon forms 6 sided bonds, in carbon nanotubes and with it's good friends oxygen and hydrogen.
You are peering at the fundamental laws of organization here. It's beautiful and it seems to hint at something, at least to me.
you know, your brain has dendrites too.
Now the question is; if we are made of all this stuff that forms 6 sided bonds why do we have 5's of seemingly everything else?
By the way, I know this is just wanton meandering so don't take me too seriously.
in all actuality these are, after all, just snowflakes.
Really HIGH high-res pictures
by
nordicfrost
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
I have a gripe about wallpapers. Not long ago, a 1024x768 pixel wallpaper was HUGE. Not so anymore. At work we use screens with perverse resolutions, and any wallpaper on the looks pixelated and not very pretty. Why not store the wallpapers as 4000x3000 px pics? (Aside from size and transfer times) These are professional pictures, the input should be more than enough to do it...
The Life Of The Astronomer Is One Big Holiday!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Except for the shitty pay, the isolation and the knowledge that Universities are spending everything on their film schools...
But hey, getting wasted is much cheaper at this altitude!:-)
Re:The Life Of The Astronomer Is One Big Holiday!
by
circletimessquare
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· Score: 1
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
low oxygen is increasing your red blood cell count too... start running to pass the time and you can win marathons when you get back down lol;-)
-- intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'd just read the article (and downloaded some of the nicer pics) and I decided to do a little looking of my own... I took a few slides outside to get cold and after about 15-20 minutes I went outside and put a bit of snow on one slide at a time and brought it inside to look at it under my microscope (I didn't want to take the microscope outside, I was afraid that the lenses would cloud up..) and I could look for about a minute or so before they started to melt (which looks pretty cool too) and they really are neat to look at.. All the different shapes and sizes, it's easy to beleve that it's true that no two are alike... anyway, if you have a microscope and live somewhere that there is snow available go and try this, it's worth the time...
Bad news for Linux?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
There is something awesome about the purity and simplicity of these objects. It makes you realise so much of your life is just over-complex crap.
In the same vein I value the pure driving experience my Miata MX5 gives me, as opposed to my luxo barge Camry family transport pod.:)
--
be vigilant, be pure, behave
This reminds me of the golden rule of the slopes:
by
Mac+Degger
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· Score: 1
NEVER drink the yellow snow!
-- --
Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
more galleries
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Interesting
In my Mozilla preferences (Appearance / Colors), I have chosen to use my own colors and background insted of the colors and background specified by the page because I like reading my pages with black text on a white background.
When I went to see the pictures in the gallery (for example at http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/ph otos/pp01.htm), I was at first rather perplexed because I saw no picture. Just a blank page. But viewing the HTML source explained everything. The picture is as the background in a table, one cell high and one cell wide! WTF? Lousy webdesign by <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 3.0">.
Re:Lousy webdesign...
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Yup, it's pretty horrible. Most interesting to me is that no-one else complained about it. Perhaps like me they just edited ppNN.htm to ppNN.jpg.
Then again, perhaps all these OS whiners are running IE on Windows with stock settings. Nah...
Re: heres some pics of the new NEAT comet
by
cheekyboy
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· Score: 0
http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/indexback67.html
curse slashes 20 second rule, i can type faster than 20kps
-- Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Re:OH! don't tell me they copyrighted a snow flake
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
So just open it in photoshop or paintshop pro and do some creative editing.
For a moment I myself was on the forefront of frozen water research. In late 1997 I opened the freezer in my Providence, RI apartment/laboratory and discovered elongated spires of ice extending from the molds in which I had left room temerature tap water the night before (in order to form "ice cubes," scientific parlance for frozen blocks of ice of varying size). I immediately dubbed this formation "ice penis" and alerted my roommates to the discovery. Needless to say a press release was dispatched to the AP and a paper written for Nature, but i never heard back from them.
Since then I think Amazon has patented my ice penis work but I'm not sure.
Re:for a brief while...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
The amazing thing is that it inspired you to create a slashdot account.
You should really clean the molds out of your refigerator anyway, though.
When I was a kid, my dad and I read about Bentley and took my little microscope out in the backyard and looked at snow flakes for a few hours on a couple of different snowy afternoons. The scope was a little unweildy, but a simple magnifying glass was great.
If there are any parents out there, or people who resemble kids, I suggest trying this out on the next snowfall if you're not too distracted by digging out your car or drinking bailey's and coffee (with or without whipped cream).
(I tried to get some documentation out of Digital on this, but as far as I can tell even _they_ don't have it;-)
-- Linus Torvalds, in an article on a dnserver
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Slashdot Mirror
Please, we've had more than enough snow already.. wh y don't you study sunshine or something?
I don't understand how a story like this can make front-page slashdot, yet the story about the man burning his penis with his laptop can't. A distinct failure in public safety awareness, if I ever saw one.
Literally
Seriously, though, those images are amazing.
Oh yeah, this is really Slashdot worthy . . .
In a blizzard of enlightment, Slashdot editors got snowed into posting this by some flake!
Just another day in Paradise
I've been doing that since grade school. Here are my instructions:
--sex
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
Thanks Slashdot, I really get some much precious information from you, I wonder how I could live without your amazing knowledge. And its editors cleverness !
The naysayers are already popping out of the woodwork, but I think these are the coolest things I have seen in a long time.
It just proves, there truly is beauty in symmetry.
Download my free songs!
j/k but why in america do people feel the need to put a copyright on EVERYTHING! In this case it only tarnishes a beautiful picture of cristalized water. :(
-makoffee
...so why does each image have a (C) Copyright on it?
Come on critics, we can have a diversion once in a while. What's wrong with some snowflakes? They are pretty, and the post doesn't take up too much space on the front page of slashdot. It's my opinion that this world could use a little more senseless beauty.
I'm sitting right now one story down from the office of Ken Libbrecht, the guy who wrote the book (and the website). Ken told me that he was writing a book on the physics of snowflakes, and I asked him how he expected to get anyone to buy it. "Pictures," he replied, "lots of pretty pictures!"
Looks like he was right!
I look forward to seeing those beatiful images tommorow.
Beautiful snowflake image
yeah let's talk about snowflakes instead of how mr.rogers touched our lives...damn it
http://www.vanillaafro.com - take me seriously and I will shoot you
I developped a telepathic form of communication through IP. You want some proof ?
Close your eyes. What do you see? All black ? THAT'S MY WALLPAPER, ALL BLACK, NO DRAWING ! Wow... You see, through telepathy via IP, I was able to show you MY desktop !
If this doesn't make Slashdot frontpage, what will?
Here's my favorite snowflake picture:
Inspiring picture with Snowflakes
I love that site... hilarious (and no, I don't work for them or get money from them in ANY way)
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
one man's snow flake is another mans' glass ninja throwing star.
-makoffee
I've had a link to the snowflake page on my personal home page for some time.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
/.'ing image sites is bad, mmmmkay.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
... just do it online, with this Flash app.
I developped a telepathic form of communication through IP.
:-)
That's nothing, I've learned to send commands to my wireless hub by wiggling my toes high in the air. I've also written an input driver that uses winks and blinks to navigate slashdot.
Haven't got to see them due to the slashdotting, but snowflakes, and their incredible structures are very cool to see in my opinion. The perfect geometry of a snowflake and the variation of each has always amazed me.
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
-Thomas Paine
"You know, fingerprints are just like snowflakes. They're both very pretty." -- Chief Wiggum
--
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." - Homer Simpson [1F10]
Mirror, in case it gets slashdotted:
\/
---
/\
HTH!
I've had this sig for three days.
I don't understand how a story like this can make front-page slashdot, yet the story about the man burning his penis with his laptop can't. A distinct failure in public safety awareness, if I ever saw one.
Taco obviously spends more time looking at things with an electron microscope than he does with his new wife.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Despite the comments from the more feeble-minded, I still have to say that these images are absolutely stunning.
Even after reading through the pages of scientific explaination, I really cannot fathom that the physics actually worked to create something quite that beautifully symmetric, complex, etc... .
Maybe it's all been faked by the government, like the Apollo moon landings...
"Owning a computer is like having your very own TV -- with a built in radio!" - Ed Helms
My observatory is based at 2,000 meters in one of the ten cleanest and driest locations around (the atmospheric aerosol concentrations are the lowest anywhere yet measured outside of Antarctica). As a result, not only do we get beautiful seeing and astronomical-imaging conditions, but the most amazingly beautiful and complex snowflakes I've ever seen. Life is good. :)
In a society of snowmen, would these pictures be considered child pornography?
Support your local troll!
Nice pics, I never know snowflacks were so lovely. keep up the great site.
These things fall out the Sky?!
Wouldn't it hurt if it were to hit you?
i don't understand how this passed the slashfilter. why do i care who has snowflakes on their desktop. this forced me the quarter inch scroll down that incited me to post this
If you can't post something geeky, don't post at all.
That is a very interesting web site.
When I was young, I used to make my own custom snow flakes. Well, not really, I just dyed existing ones a pleasing yellow color; or sometimes clumsily wrote my name on them. I never though about taking pictures of them and putting them on a web site though. Obviously that would have been cool thing to do.
I dont know about you guys but I have naked chicks wrestling in baby oil on my desktop.. oh and my wallpaper is two naked chicks.
Anyone notice how snowflakes look like hexagonal 2D cellular automata?
They exhibit a lot of the variation you see when you change the 'rules' of automata systems.
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
Does this only confirm my expectations that no one at /. wants to go out? Certainly does! Why don't you go out, spring sun is shining and make a snowman or couple of angels to the snow.
if falling snowflakes were razor sharp.
Some of the best eary snow flake photograph are
from Bentley (1930s). There's even a web site
for the Bently snowflake museum.
http://snowflakebentley.com/
Take a break from the trolling, posting and
hacking, and enjoy the photographs. They're
quite beautiful.
But how will I know whether things are beautiful if I don't know millions of other people appreciate the exact same thing? How can the principles of mass production be applied to something when no are alike? How can it be advertised???
No thanks. I'm sticking to my DVDs, video games, and music CDs...er, I mean MP3s! I don't buy CDs of course! That would be wrong.
Scientists have discovered a way to create "designer piss paterns" in the snow. Stay tuned.
My Signature
help me find that yellow snow flake?
geek page at KY speaks
er.... did anyone notice that this snowflake has a serial number in the middle (hub) of it?
here
(pretty neat little site, IMO)
the most mysterious thing you'll see today
HaloSim3 Software is a sundog simulator which models how light passes through ice crystals that are suspended in the atmosphere. Beautiful and fascinating.
I'm not quite sure why this and ice crystals are so fascinating, but I have the book mentioned in the article, which consists of hundreds of black pages with 1" square images of snowflake magnifications. In the first instance it sounds insane, but it never fails to hold peoples attention.
ATH0 Bitcoin: 1DnwFLXczVZV8kLJbMYoheUrpqHesjxrSi
Not too shabby. You?
It's a slow night at /.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
He already said he was doing good! You?
Doh!
Nice to see stuff like this fly across slashdot on occasion. Helps me take a moment to appreciate all the cool design that was here long before and will remain long after us humans :)
No, no, no... You've got it all wrong!
:
It is
Shitspot
News for Turds. Stuff that splatters.
FBI's fingerprint archives...
Those pictures remind me of diatoms.
No I do not have a point.
Local man dismembers his own member
Cherry Hill Times
November 18, 1997
CLAYTON, NJ. Early Tuesday morning New Jersey State Police were astonished to come across a man on the side of the road without any clothing on bleeding from his groin. The 26 year old man was staggering about, holding his hand over his crotch, stammering, saying "can somebody please help me?" Police soon discovered that the man's penis had been torn off, leaving a bloody stump. Investigating the situation while summoning paramedics, Sheriff William Brown claimed "This is one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen in my career as a police officer, I really don't know what to make of it. The man's penis was gone." As the paramedics arrived the sheriff's deputy had located the detached member about 30 feet away lying in the ditch near the man's clothes, along with some drug paraphanalia. Paramedics had rushed him to St. Francis Medical Center 10 miles north where the ER staff was able to successfully reattach the mans penis." Medical examiner Soren Matthews, doing bloodwork had noticed abnormally high amounts of dextromethorphan, PCP, crack and marijuana in his bloodstream. "Dextromethorphan is a common additive in cough syrup, at recommended doses it can suppress the instinct and urge to cough during colds and flu.", Matthews stated. "At extreme levels, it can cause hallucinations, euphoria, a sense of detachment from reality and a general anesthesia."
Several hours later, police were able to speak with the victim and find out what exactly happened. They discovered he had drank 3 4oz bottles of Robitussin Maximum Strength several hours prior to being discovered. He had gone out for what he liked to call a "wonderwalk" and suddenly got the urge to masturbate. Not realizing that he couldn't feel himself, tried for several minutes and noticed a shock wave resounding throughout his body. He then realized that he was holding his detached penis in his right hand. He was very fortunate that the police found him when they did.
Matthews went on further to state "People need to be aware of what they are doing to themselves. Common over-the-counter medicines have specific dosages there for a reason and when you abuse that tragedies like this happen. Parents everywhere need to look for the signs that their children are 'robotripping'." According to St. Francis Medical Center, this was the 3rd dextromethorphan related incident that they had seen this year. The other two incidents were and both involved teenagers at party situations taking Coricidin, another brand of OTC cough tablets. Both of these incidents were unrelated to each other. The man, who wishes to remain unidentified, was not charged with the possession of the paraphanalia since the circumstances were so bizarre.
...really fucking stupid, dude.
*
and my personal favorite
* *
* *
The above one makes a great desktop for the graphically challenged.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
Hear hear. I agree totally. This "$$sexygirrl" is A. a guy, and B. only on slashdot to drum up hit on various porn sites.
amen to that.
Either way, it's kind of awe inspiring to see such perfect looking designs on a microscopic scale. The universe never ceases to amaze me.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
This explanation is obviously handwaving-- the symmetry is perfect (or close to it) over scales of millions of molecules.
I've been arguing since 1980 or so that an ice crystal in freefall is not at absolute zero (obviously) so it must have internal vibrations. This is basically 'noise', but as it echoes thru the ice, it stops looking random and becomes symmetrical, like Chladni patterns on a vibrating plate or drumhead. (Or like the radiating circles from a drip of water into a circular pool, reconverging at an opposite point.) Because these symmetries are present from the first stage of growth, they maintain symmetrical growth.
I don't think the 104.5 degree angle between the hydrogens in water molecules is close enough to 120 to deliver perfect hexagonality-- it's probably due to the geometry of echoes in any disk, because hexagons can be inscribed in circles. (The spinning of the seed probably contributes to the flatness-- growing favors the outside edge of the bulge, otherwise it might be more spherical.)
1
nerds contemplate flakes
inspiring awe, wonder
as a good heatsink
2
each flake is unique
not unlike slashdot stories
oh wait a minute
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Hmmm?
"I couldn't help it. It just popped in there!" - Ray
Hell, not even sheep wander up here... ;(
oh shit! sorry... there's always holiday ;-)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Dug out yet? It's sunny in Cali :)
--Thei Antispamist A useless endevor that will cer
Here are some nice fractal generated snowflakes...
...they're pretty cool to watch over your desktop after you turn off the stock background art.
Funny that there is so much less-that-positve response on this article. Look at that natural symetry, always 6 sided.
You know, you are mostly composed of the same stuff as these snowflake: water. even carbon forms 6 sided bonds, in carbon nanotubes and with it's good friends oxygen and hydrogen.
You are peering at the fundamental laws of organization here. It's beautiful and it seems to hint at something, at least to me.
you know, your brain has dendrites too.
Now the question is; if we are made of all this stuff that forms 6 sided bonds why do we have 5's of seemingly everything else? By the way, I know this is just wanton meandering so don't take me too seriously.
in all actuality these are, after all, just snowflakes.
Make your own online snowflakes here.
My Journal
I have a gripe about wallpapers. Not long ago, a 1024x768 pixel wallpaper was HUGE. Not so anymore. At work we use screens with perverse resolutions, and any wallpaper on the looks pixelated and not very pretty. Why not store the wallpapers as 4000x3000 px pics? (Aside from size and transfer times) These are professional pictures, the input should be more than enough to do it...
Except for the shitty pay, the isolation and the knowledge that Universities are spending everything on their film schools...
:-)
But hey, getting wasted is much cheaper at this altitude!
I'd just read the article (and downloaded some of the nicer pics) and I decided to do a little looking of my own... I took a few slides outside to get cold and after about 15-20 minutes I went outside and put a bit of snow on one slide at a time and brought it inside to look at it under my microscope (I didn't want to take the microscope outside, I was afraid that the lenses would cloud up..) and I could look for about a minute or so before they started to melt (which looks pretty cool too) and they really are neat to look at.. All the different shapes and sizes, it's easy to beleve that it's true that no two are alike... anyway, if you have a microscope and live somewhere that there is snow available go and try this, it's worth the time...
Limitations
Why are snow crystals 100% symmetric?
There is something awesome about the purity and simplicity of these objects. It makes you realise so much of your life is just over-complex crap. In the same vein I value the pure driving experience my Miata MX5 gives me, as opposed to my luxo barge Camry family transport pod. :)
be vigilant, be pure, behave
NEVER drink the yellow snow!
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
weird snow pictures from afar and up close.
How long until we see a dup posting for this story?
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
The crystal pictures with the light blue background colour make nice background pictures for OS X as they play nicely with Aqua's blue.
-- I love the smell of Blue Screens in the morning.
"We are studying how snow crystals form, and as part of this research we create snow crystals in the laboratory." Ice-9! Ice-9!
I want a new world. I think this one is broken.
That said, Ken Librecht is a really cool professor there who has done a lot of interesting stuff.
In my Mozilla preferences (Appearance / Colors), I have chosen to use my own colors and background insted of the colors and background specified by the page because I like reading my pages with black text on a white background.
When I went to see the pictures in the gallery (for example at http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/ph otos/pp01.htm), I was at first rather perplexed because I saw no picture. Just a blank page. But viewing the HTML source explained everything. The picture is as the background in a table, one cell high and one cell wide! WTF? Lousy webdesign by <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 3.0">.
http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/indexback67.html
curse slashes 20 second rule, i can type faster than 20kps
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
So just open it in photoshop or paintshop pro and do some creative editing.
For a moment I myself was on the forefront of frozen water research. In late 1997 I opened the freezer in my Providence, RI apartment/laboratory and discovered elongated spires of ice extending from the molds in which I had left room temerature tap water the night before (in order to form "ice cubes," scientific parlance for frozen blocks of ice of varying size). I immediately dubbed this formation "ice penis" and alerted my roommates to the discovery. Needless to say a press release was dispatched to the AP and a paper written for Nature, but i never heard back from them. Since then I think Amazon has patented my ice penis work but I'm not sure.
These are REALLY cool over here. Took a minute or two to make it work, but they're pretty beautiful.
e o.htm
http://www.lpsi.barc.usda.gov/emusnow/stereo/ster
Also, look at the other electron-microscope images here http://www.lpsi.barc.usda.gov/emusnow/default.htm
This is my Sig.
Please point out that it's Windows-only - and payware.
Thanks.
If there are any parents out there, or people who resemble kids, I suggest trying this out on the next snowfall if you're not too distracted by digging out your car or drinking bailey's and coffee (with or without whipped cream).
This is her hobby.
There are reasons why democracy does not work nearly as well as capitalism.
-- David D. Friedman
If she were working for the porn sites, wouldn't she be posting links to pages with ads on them, not just pictures?
There are reasons why democracy does not work nearly as well as capitalism.
-- David D. Friedman
(I tried to get some documentation out of Digital on this, but as far as ;-)
I can tell even _they_ don't have it
-- Linus Torvalds, in an article on a dnserver
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...