Blue was once little-known in the Western palette. Homer’s sea was “wine dark”; blue would not be used as water’s color until the seventeenth century. It has evolved from its original association with warmth, heat, barbarism, and the creatures of the underworld, to its current association with calm, peace, and reverie.
Jesse Russell on Michel Pasteureau’s Blue: The History of a Color.
(Via Kottke.org)
This spectacular image of the Carina nebula reveals the dynamic cloud of interstellar matter and thinly spread gas and dust as never before. The massive stars in the interior of this cosmic bubble emit intense radiation that causes the surrounding gas to glow. By contrast, other regions of the nebula contain dark pillars of dust cloaking newborn stars.
140 megapixels containing about 1 million stars.
“What’s the trick?”
“You know what the trick is? Be a butcher for 40 years.”
Goddammit, @merlinmann, this is still so good, 9 years on.
“Every scientific man in order to preserve his reputation has to say he dislikes metaphysics. What he means is he dislikes having his metaphysics criticized.”
— Alfred North Whitehead
