Author Archives: Brian D. Butler

Conflict Cartography

Posted on April 18, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

I was recently bemoaning the fact that the main stream media in the United States can’t seem to focus on more than two serious conflicts at the same time, and even then, the coverage is sorely lacking. But I just … Continue reading →

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New York City is the best movie set in the world

Posted on April 17, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Texas-born filmmaker Jordan Studdard grew up with dreams of living in New York City. Now that he’s been there for seven years, he created an homage to his adopted hometown with a wall-sized map of the city, dotted with tiny … Continue reading →

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Go To A Happy Place

Posted on April 16, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

One Minute Park: I really, really enjoy this pure dead simple website.  One Minute Park couldn’t be more basic – click the link and you get transported to a  full-screen video, in landscape, which lasts for exactly 60 seconds and … Continue reading →

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First Impressions

Posted on April 15, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

On April 15, 1874, thirty artists, including Edgar Degas, Paul Cezanne, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Pierre Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley, held an exhibition of their works in Paris, at the Boulevard des Capucines, the vacant studio of the photographer Nadar (Gaspard-Félix … Continue reading →

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Literacy for Life

Posted on April 14, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

The Literacy Pen by The World Literacy Foundation and the Dutch firm Media.Monks is an amazing educational device designed to enable illiterate individuals to start writing and learning to read, instantly. Open source and compatible with all standard pens on … Continue reading →

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Maps, Art and AI

Posted on April 13, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

The very clever guys behind the website Brilliant Maps have utilized artificial intelligence programming to conjure up some quite interesting maps based on the painting styles of some great artists. You can see the results on their website and on YouTube in … Continue reading →

Posted in Animation, Art, Film, Maps | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Speaking Of

Posted on April 12, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

 

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Smoke Signals

Posted on April 11, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

 Mt.Etna‘s Southeast Crater has begun emitting countless graceful vapor rings (“volcanic vortex rings”), a phenomenon never seen like this before. Someone said “maybe because we receive so much bad news lately, Etna has decided to do something simply beautiful”.  

Posted in Europe, Film, Tourism | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

You may want to see this (or not)

Posted on April 10, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

The Abandoned/Ghost station project captures those mysterious stations throughout London which are long closed and disused. Many remain fairly intact and some even feature time capsule-like qualities, such as WWII propaganda posters hanging from the platform walls. The Museum of … Continue reading →

Posted in Europe, History, Maps, Public Transport | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Nightfall

Posted on April 9, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Imagine a planet in a system with six suns where total darkness, in the form of a solar eclipse, comes only once every 2,049 years. This is the setting of “Nightfall,” a short story that appeared in the September 1941 … Continue reading →

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