And you wondered why you had to learn geometry. …Uh, nsfw I guess.

Part of the documentary of extreme experience, “Touching the Void”, about two men caught in a fractal metaphor for the human condition. Screened the whole thing last night at Gonzo Science HQ - more horrifying in its way than the “Alive!” film - which is plenty horrifying itself and which also takes place in the Andes. But these two chaps here just have no luck AT ALL, confronted at every turn with impossible options and mindbending choices. And after this existential scene, it gets worse.

Regarding video formatting issues, for the time being most youtube videos seem to display best in firefox.

Just read the J.G. Ballard story “The Object of the Attack”,  (from the book War Fever) which features a fantastic sequence where someone builds an Ames Room to escape from an insane asylum. Good stuff!! As a science fiction writer, Ballard writes less about outer space than about our “concept of space”…

Lose yourself in watching these Judo throws over and over again. Hypnotic.

It’s been great knowing you all.  I love each and everyone of you beyond any words I could possibly express verbally or mentally.  I believe each and everyone of us is here for absolutely no purpose, whatsoever; and for that very reason, I consider everyone who has played a part in making who “I” am to be that much more significant.  I would especially like to give a shout out to my parents, all the friends I had growing up, my friends in the Twin Cities, and my good friends here in the Twin Ports.  When you look out at the stars at night, it’s really hard not to think about how goddamn unimportant everything we do is.  I love you.  Oh, and by the way, you can keep up on the end of it all here.

It’s parkour night here at Gonzo Science. Parkour is part gymnastic stunts, part guerrilla fitness regime, part self-expression, part urban exploration. This video nicely captures the idea that parkour is not just a different way of moving, but a different way of seeing, particularly in the urban environment. In that regard, it is a more or less direct descendant of the derive of the Situationists.

Short parkour film by Julie Angel, starring a bunch of parkour ladies.

Short parkour film by Julie Angel. Parkour Gents.

A collection of goofy shit presented for your edification.

This Czech truck trial is surreal as hell.

The physics behind the hamster wheel.

17 foot shark will haunt your nightmares.

A rebuttal to The God Delusion: Checkmate, Athiests!

Couch racing mishap: Warning- A couch is injured in this video.

A link which claims to have humorous content.

A parkour jump which will soil your trousers.

Gay scientists isolate gene for Christianity.

They were tricking and practicing downtown, getting a little video. They referred me to americanparkour.com for further reading.

Link here to New Scientist blog post about the mathematicians who have come up with what they call a ”plausible” model. Read the comments at the end over there, they are illuminating too, with people picking the model apart, especially this about how easy this was for the tiger:

On the other hand, they assume that the center of gravity of the tiger has to clear the wall. In fact, it probably only needs to get its front paws over the wall, and then pull itself up. Let’s say that the front paws can reach 3 feet higher than the center of gravity.

Also, the “launch height” isn’t zero, either. Here we can use the point at which the legs are at full stretch. Say another 3 feet.

So you can take at least 6 feet — and probably more — off the vertical height requirement.

Our first post on the matter may be found here.

File under ‘Super-fly Moves’. Oh, Snap!

A little topological eye candy. This thing has got one side.

Slo-mo water balloon punch.

Man getting smacked with slo-mo water balloon in the face.

More slo-mo balloons - this one not popping, very illustratively.

I will note that the ‘Geometry’ tag is a joke around here we use for all kinetic video - but it works.

Also, for some reason, Firefox users may need to double-click to get videos here to play, and it will take you to the Youtube page of the video in question, unlike Internet Explorer users, who can watch them play right here as easy as you please.

Which reminds me, Internet Explorer users, which is most of you, get an annoying message just beneath our masthead, telling you to use Firefox instead. This annoying message is something apparently hard to get rid of; we could probably get it to go away but only if we significantly change the look of the site as a whole, which we are reluctant to do. So Firefox users get no annoying message, but they can’t watch the videos quite as easily. Apologies. Any geeks with any tips on getting rid of the annoying message, please shoot us an email using the ‘contact’ button on the left. Thank you~

More slo-mo balloon popping.

Slo-mo water balloon popping.

Evel Knievel night at Gonzo Science, pt 4.

Evel Knievel night at Gonzo Science pt. 3

Evel Knievel night at Gonzo Science pt.2

It’s Evel Knievel night here at Gonzo Science. Thank you Allen for finding this stuff.

Allen found this. These archers could shoot the pecker off a billygoat at 100 yards.

Of course in the comic book world, you’d have to be able to shoot this good while running, jumping, flipping and dodging bullets.

A little Filipino knife fighting: the hideous geometry of being filleted alive like a fish.

The disintegration of John McCain’s campaign, while a little off-topic, is still fascinating to me as a study in reality engineering. It is hard to turn my eyes away from this man who thought he’d have a chance at the Presidency by aping someone unpopular (George Bush). The hubris is staggering …

The center cannot hold, man!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/13/AR2007071302227.html?hpid=topnews

EIGHT MONTHS LATER: He’s the nominee. A pretty amazing comeback I should say. One for the history books, especially if he becomes president, god forbid.

Spatial Studies with Tony Jaa: What the Daredevil Movie Should Have Been Like.