Culture

‘Mini Lisa’: Georgia Tech researchers create world’s tiniest da Vinci reproduction

"Using a tiny heated probe, a team of scientists have 'painted' a grayscale replica of the Mona Lisa that is more than 25,000 times smaller than the original. The 'Mini Lisa,' as it is known, is just 30 millionths of a meter wide. That's roughly 0.001 inches, or one third of the width of a human hair. The team created it using a powerful microscope and a process known as ThermoChemical NanoLithography, or TCNL. Each 'pixel' was 125 billionths of a meter wide – smaller than the smallest known bacteria – and Carroll and the rest of the research team went pixel-by-pixel to create the reproduction." Continue reading →

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SWAT-Team Nation: The Militarization of the U.S. Police

"Inside, gallerygoers were looking at art and dancing to a d.j.; outside, on the patio, several young women were goofily belting out the lyrics to 'Hakuna Matata,' from 'The Lion King'. Only then did masked figures with guns storm the crowd, shouting, 'Get on the fucking ground! Get down, get down!' Some forty Detroit police officers dressed in commando gear ordered the gallery attendees to line up on their knees, then took their car keys and confiscated their vehicles, largely on the grounds that the gallery lacked the proper permits for dancing and drinking. More than forty cars were seized, and owners paid around a thousand dollars each to get them back." Continue reading →

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Amazon launches online art gallery

"The 19-year online retail juggernaut, which began as a bookseller but now does everything from groceries to patio furniture, launched 'Amazon Art' to market works from galleries in Miami, San Francisco, New York and other US cities. The site showcases more than 40,000 works from over 150 galleries and dealers that run the gamut as far as subject, genre and period are concerned. Works range from modest canvasses like a $44 cat portrait to Norman Rockwell’s 'Willie Gillis: Package from Home,' which retails for $4.85 million. 'From gallery walls to your walls,' boasts the site, which enables users to quickly click through works by period and genre." Continue reading →

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Spain museum uses robot to spot cracks in artwork

"In the basement of Madrid’s Reina Sofia museum, a giant robotic machine painstakingly scans a painting by Catalan surrealist artist Joan Miro, slowly snapping hundreds of microscopic shots. The pictures taken by the machine, which uses infrared and ultraviolet photography, will help experts determine the condition of the 1974 oil on canvas painting in unprecedented detail. The device lets restorers see cracks, scratches and creases as well underlying preparatory sketches and all subsequent touch-ups that would be otherwise undetectable. The robot can work unsupervised round-the-clock and can be controlled by a computer from a remote location." Continue reading →

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Read more about the article Sovereignty and Responsibility

Sovereignty and Responsibility

On Tuesday, June 25, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down section 4 of the Voter Rights Act of 1965. This new ruling rightly restores the responsibility for protecting the right to vote on several states that were previously required to have federal oversight of their election laws. This ruling is a victory for state sovereignty, but with sovereignty comes responsibility. Which begs the question, is Texas ready and willing to accept that responsibility? Every ten … Continue reading →

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Michigan News and Alerts!

One insidious practice which sugar-coats the dose of Federal intrusion is the division of expense for public improvements or services between state and national treasuries…. The average American, believing in our dual-sovereignty system, must feel that the policy of national-doles to the states is bad and may become disastrous. We may go on yet for …

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The New MI Democrat Party

“A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny; that we will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and, above all, responsible liberty for every individual that we will become that shining city on a hill.” ― Ronald Reagan “The future doesn’t belong to the faint …

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Read more about the article What Happened When One Man Pinged the Whole Internet

What Happened When One Man Pinged the Whole Internet

"You probably haven’t heard of HD Moore, but up to a few weeks ago every Internet device in the world, perhaps including some in your own home, was contacted roughly three times a day by a stack of computers that sit overheating his spare room. In February last year he decided to carry out a personal census of every device on the Internet as a hobby. '[It] drew quite a lot of complaints, hate mail, and calls from law enforcement,' he says. But the data collected has revealed some serious security problems, and exposed some vulnerable business and industrial systems of a kind used to control everything from traffic lights to power infrastructure."

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