Christo

I have never come across this name before - Christo. Today, when I came across a passing reference, I thought I had check it out. Its unbelievable what he has done. Check out the link on the title.

To entice you to read about it, here is an excerpt from the Encyclopaedia section on this topic featured on answers.com:

The two met in Paris and moved to New York City in 1964. A leading figure in conceptual art, Christo, in collaboration with Jeanne-Claude, has specialized in large-scale temporary outdoor installations. Running Fence (1976), a shimmering fabric curtain, was strung more than 24 mi (39 km) across the rolling N California landscape. Other projects have included surrounding 11 islands in Florida's Biscayne Bay with floating hot-pink fabric (1983), wrapping the Pont Neuf in Paris (1985), concurrent installations of thousands of 20-ft (6-m) tall umbrellas—blue near Tokyo and yellow near Los Angeles (1991), and wrapping Berlin's Reichstag in silvery fabric (1995). On the paths and natural contours of New York City's Central Park the two created (2005) The Gates, a meandering installation of 7,500 saffron-hued rectangular vinyl gates. Each was 16-ft (5-m) tall and hung, to about halfway down, with a pleated nylon panel colored to match, which blew with the wind and shifted color with the changing light.

If you are still reading, check this out - Running Fence. He did this work through Sonoma and Marin County (a lovely place north of Golden Gate Bridge in SF, where we lived for 2 years).

Learning with Answers.com

Answers.com has proved to be a really helpful site for me. As with the Oneclick Answers tool, while reading an article, it becomes very easy to click on a word (Alt + Click) to get immediate reference. This atleast proves to be a key thing to learning - the instant gratification of one's questions. Most people love to learn but are lazy to make that effort. I am definitely one of them and answers.com has helped a lot in satiating my curiosity.

I am reading an interesting article on the northern Alaskan region. There are so many references I come through which I have no clue about. Pass them and you never get the complete idea about the topic and miss out on learning. I have found it easy to jump to such references using Answers One-click thing. Ofcourse, it is very digressing because as you get into the details, one topic leads to another and its hard to end it. All in all, great stuff. Go try it. Damn this sounds like a commerical!

Snowflakes and Northern Lights

I have been lazy to come and write-up. But there are two things I learned in the last week. When it snowed in Redmond, talking to one of my colleagues enjoying the snow, I found that no two snow-flakes are technically alike. I do recollect that I made a passing mention of this in one of my earlier posts. For those with insatiable curiousity, below is more:

1. A snowflake primer
2. Is it true that no two snow crystals are alike? (Scroll down 1 page)

Northern lights (or, Aurora Borealis) have fascinated me ever since I came across its mention in The Polar Express. By the way, for those who havent watched the movie, go get it. Its a delight! At this point, I am just dying for an opportunity to watch this phenomenon. From what I have read, the Northern Lights which are, naturally, in the northern hemisphere can be viewed from places like Yukon (Canada), Alaska (USA) or the Lapland region (Finland). Basically, you need to be in the northern oval to be able to see it. Do visit the links above for preliminary information on the same.

The same phenomenon, taking place in the Southern hemisphere in Antartica is called Aurora Australis or Southern Lights.

While I was reading on Northern lights, i surfed onto reading about the north pole. I read something that initially made me wonder and later, smile about when I recollect. Here it goes:

The unique thing about being on the north pole is that from there, you can only travel south :).

Crab Nebula

What a beauty! Click to enlarge.

White Christmas in Redmond

It is snowing in Redmond!! Yooohooooo! It looks just beautiful. I just stepped out and had snow-flakes all over. One more thing I learned from someone is that no two snowflakes are alike. Yes, its like our finger-prints. No two snow-flakes ever are alike.