a) Reprise of material posted on October 2 in previous years ...
2021: anagram swarms, Canadian scramble-towns 7 (wordplay maps)
2022: Italian loanwords, ciao (illustrated poem)
2023: decorative touches, Gaudi bench (fabric art)
Gaudi bench |
Hint for readers: to enlarge any photo or slide in these presentations, click on it, then follow the thumbnails at the bottom of the post. To exit this enlarged mode, don't panic, but CLICK on the small 'x' at the upper right of the black background field.
b) Today's Offering (Oct 2, 2024):
Birds, and occasionally other types of animal, may exhibit paired behavior that often seems to reflect the human proclivity for sharing among two mates of different gender. Photographs of these moments, often intimate, are only available for certain species, but are highly prized. We have tried to capture this state of pairing in a series of over 30 blogposts entitled "Portraits of Couples" (you can find these assembled into collections on our topic-based blog "Edifying Nonsense".)
We wondered whether a recent technical advance, automated background subtraction, targeted principally at single human subjects, might be of value in highlighting some representations of shared experiences in the biosphere as well as with humans. The software renderings below (the original photos were all taken by Giorgio) show some of our results. It seems that the technique is not bothered too much by the presence of two heads, but only works if the two bodies are touching. And, as with single bird photos, there is the danger that some dangly body parts, such as legs, claws, horns and beaks may be unwittingly amputated by the software.
emus |
bros |