Heinz

Flooding Across Central Europe

Original author:

(author unknown)

Heavy rainfall over Europe during the the past week has swollen many rivers past their flood stage, wreaking havoc unseen in decades across Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic. At least 18 people across the region have been killed, and tens of thousands have been evacuated. In Germany, the crest of the Elbe River is now approaching the North Sea, as the swollen Danube River is surging toward the Hungarian capital of Budapest. Collected here are images from the past several days of those affected by these historic floods, even as meteorologists predict more rain over the coming weekend. [36 photos]

The city hall of Grimma, Germany, surrounded by floodwater, on June 3, 2013. Flooding has spread across a large area of central Europe following heavy rainfall in recent days. Eastern and southern Germany are suffering under floods that in some cases are the worst in 400 years. Tens of thousands of Germans, Hungarians and Czechs were evacuated from their homes as soldiers raced to pile up sandbags to hold back rising waters in the region. (AP Photo/dpa, Jens Wolf)

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Gold rush

I witnessed gold bar production at Austria's Oegussa company and it was impressive to hold something of so much value.

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Book Review: Mid-Century Ads

(Taschen)

Ever since 1957, when Vance Packard published ‘The Hidden Persuaders,’ we’ve had the idea that advertisements are a porthole to our cultural subconscious. The massive two-volume compendium ‘Mid-Century Ads: Advertising From the “Mad Men” Era’ (Taschen, 720 pages, $59.99) would certainly have us think so. It tells a more complex tale than the AMC drama invoked in its title, whose nostalgia for lost glamour is typically mixed with a heavy dose of condescension.

The advertisements of the 1950s and 1960s certainly didn’t shy away from casual sexism; the same blonde ‘girl’ sells everything from men’s shirts to Heinz ketchup, and she has nothing on how stewardesses are displayed. (American Airlines in 1967 saw fit to show a comely young woman in her hostess uniform staring directly into the camera with the tagline ‘Think of her as your mother.’) It’s easy to be smug about such ads—and about the brightly optimistic hues that heralded such wonders as tail-finned cars, color television and touch-tone phones.

But as the years flip by, the impression of a new energy in the culture is undeniable, most of all in verbal and visual wit. Most of the ads appear at nearly their original size, allowing readers to scrutinize the (often copious) text and appreciate a level of graphic design and typography that far exceeds anything served up on our tiny screens today. An ad like Braniff airlines’ dynamic presentation of its stewardesses’ outfits is simultaneously astonishing, offensive and an unintentionally apposite emblem of the late-1960s loosening of mores. We should think twice before condescending: When scholars gather today’s ads—for diet pills, direct gold sales, Viagra and worse—what will they imagine our own collective subconscious looked like?

—The Books Editors

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Fractal art - Wikipedia

A piece generated in Apophysis.

Showing breakage in space in non integer Multibrot set

A Fibonacci word fractal by Samuel Monnier

Fractal art is a form of algorithmic art created by calculating fractal objects and representing the calculation results as still images, animations, and media. Fractal art developed from the mid 1980s onwards.^[1] It is a genre of computer art and digital art which are part of new media art. The Julia set and Mandlebrot sets can be considered as icons of fractal art.^[2]

Fractal art is not drawn or painted by hand. It is usually created indirectly with the assistance of fractal-generating software, iterating through three phases: setting parameters of appropriate fractal software; executing the possibly lengthy calculation; and evaluating the product. In some cases, other graphics programs are used to further modify the images produced. This is called post-processing. Non-fractal imagery may also be integrated into the artwork.^[3]

Fractal art could not have developed without computers because of the calculative capabilities they provide.^[4] Fractals are generated by applying iterative methods to solving non-linear equations or polynomial equations. Fractals are any of various extremely irregular curves or shapes for which any suitably chosen part is similar in shape to a given larger or smaller part when magnified or reduced to the same size.^[5]

The Fractal Art Manifesto

As stated by Kerry Mitchell in The Fractal Art Manifesto,^[6] "Fractal Art is a subclass of two-dimensional visual art, and is in many respects similar to photography—another art form that was greeted by skepticism upon its arrival. Fractal images typically are manifested as prints, bringing fractal artists into the company of painters, photographers, and printmakers. Fractals exist natively as electronic images. This is a format that traditional visual artists are quickly embracing, bringing them into Fractal Art's digital realm. Generating fractals can be an artistic endeavor, a mathematical pursuit, or just a soothing diversion. However, Fractal Art is clearly distinguished from other digital activities by what it is, and by what it is not." According to Mitchell, fractal art is not computerized art, lacking in rules, unpredictable, nor something that any person with access to a computer can do well. Instead, fractal art is expressive, creative, and requires input, effort, and intelligence. Most importantly, "fractal art is simply that which is created by Fractal Artists: ART."

Types

A 3D fractal generated using Visions of Chaos

There are many different kinds of fractal images and can be subdivided into several groups.

Fractals derived from standard geometry by using iterative transformations on an initial common figure like a straight line (the Cantor dust or the von Koch curve), a triangle (the Sierpinski triangle), or a cube (the Menger sponge). The first fractal figures invented near the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries belong to this group.
IFS (iterated function systems).
Strange attractors.
Fractal flame.
L-system fractals.
Fractals created by the iteration of complex polynomials: perhaps the most famous fractals.
Newton fractals, including Nova fractals
Quaternionic and (recently) hypernionic fractals.
Fractal terrains generated by random fractal processes.^[7]

Fractal expressionism is a term used to differentiate traditional visual art that incorporates fractal elements such as self-similarity for example. Perhaps the best example of fractal expressionism is found in Jackson Pollack's dripped patterns. They have been analysed and found to contain a fractal dimension which has been attributed to his technique.^[8]

Techniques

Fractal image generated by Electric Sheep

Fractals of all kinds have been used as the basis for digital art and animation. High resolution color graphics became increasingly available at scientific research labs in the mid 1980s. Scientific forms of art, including fractal art, have developed separately from mainstream culture.^[9] Starting with 2-dimensional details of fractals, such as the Mandelbrot Set, fractals have found artistic application in fields as varied as texture generation, plant growth simulation and landscape generation.

Fractals are sometimes combined with human-assisted evolutionary algorithms, either by iteratively choosing good-looking specimens in a set of random variations of a fractal artwork and producing new variations, to avoid dealing cumbersome or unpredictable parameters, or collectively, like in the Electric Sheep project, where people use fractal flames rendered with distributed computing as their screensaver and "rate" the flame they are viewing, influencing the server, which reduces the traits of the undesirables, and increases those of the desirables to produce a computer-generated, community-created piece of art.

Many fractal images are admired because of their perceived harmony. This is typically achieved by the patterns which emerge from the balance of order and chaos. Similar qualities have been described in Chinese painting and miniature trees and rockeries.^[10]

Some of the most popular fractal rendering programs used to make fractal art include Ultra Fractal, Apophysis, Bryce and Sterling. Fractint was the first widely used fractal generating program.

Landscapes

A 3D landscape generated with Terragen
Main article: Fractal landscape

The first fractal image that was intended to be a work of art was probably the famous one on the cover of Scientific American, August 1985. This image showed a landscape formed from the potential function on the domain outside the (usual) Mandelbrot set. However, as the potential function grows fast near the boundary of the Mandelbrot set, it was necessary for the creator to let the landscape grow downwards, so that it looked as if the Mandelbrot set was a plateau atop a mountain with steep sides. The same technique was used a year after in some images in The Beauty of Fractals by Heinz-Otto Peitgen and Michael M. Richter.

In this book you can find a formula to estimate the distance from a point outside the Mandelbrot set to the boundary of the Mandelbrot set (and a similar formula for the Julia sets), and one can wonder why the creator did not use this function instead of the potential function, because it grows in a more natural way (see the formula in the articles Mandelbrot set and Julia set).

The three pictures show landscapes formed from the distance function for a family of iterations of the form z² + az⁴ + c. If, in a light from the sun. Then we imagine the rays are parallel (and given by two angles), and we let the colour of a point on the surface be determined by the angle between this direction and the slope of the surface at the point. The intensity (on the earth) is independent of the distance, but the light grows whiter because of the atmosphere, and sometimes the ground looks as if it is enveloped in a veil of mist (second picture). We can also let the light be "artificial", as if it issues from a lantern held by the observer. In this case the colour must grow darker with the distance (third picture).

Artists

The British artist William Latham, has used fractal geometry and other computer graphics techniques in his works.^[11] Greg Sams has used fractal designs in postcards, t-shirts and textiles. American Vicky Brago-Mitchell has created fractal art which has appeared in exhibitions and on magazine covers. Scott Draves is credited with inventing flame fractals. Some artists, such as Reginald Atkins, create fractal art for relaxation.^[3] Carlos Ginzburg has explored fractal art and developed a concept called "homo fractalus" which is based around the idea that the human is the ultimate fractal.^[12] Merrin Parkers from New Zealand specialises in fractal art.^[13]

Exhibits

There has been fractal art exhibits at major international art galleries.^[14] One of the first exhibitions of fractal art was called Map Art. It was a travelling exhibition of works which originated from researchers at the University of Bremen.^[15] Mathematicians Heinz-Otto Peitgen and Michael M. Richter discovered the public not only found the images aesthetically pleasing but that they also wanted to understand the scientific background to the images.^[16]

In 1989, fractals were part of the subject matter for an art show called Strange Attractors: Signs of Chaos at the New Museum of Contemporary Art.^[9] The show consisted of photographs, installations and sculptures designed to provide greater scientific discourse to the field which had already captured the public's attention through colourful and intricate computer imagery.

404 Error Pages, One More Time

The design of 404 error pages is often overlooked and underestimated. However, designed carefully, these pages can make a random visitor stay on your website, take a look around and eventually find the information he or she was looking for in the first place. Effective 404 error pages communicate why a particular page couldn’t be displayed and what users can do next. A search box and list of useful resources (possibly related to the missing page) could be helpful in this case.

We’ve already covered the design of 404 error pages in previous posts. In them, we also covered some interesting and useful ideas for designing 404 pages. Now, it’s time for a fresh dose of 404-error inspiration. This article presents 50 more examples of beautiful and original 404 error designs. Some of them are beautiful but not user-friendly, others are user-friendly but not really beautiful. Please use these examples as a source of inspiration; hopefully, this showcase has something for everybody.

Also note that some examples used in this post were suggested by our Twitter followers: please follow us on Twitter to vote on which article gets published next, discuss new ideas, get fresh updates and suggest great ideas for our next posts. Thank you.

Beautiful 404 Error Pages

Cut & Taste
Cut & Taste claims that “Someone on the staff is to blame for this! Rest assured, the proper person will get the proper amount of blame and humiliation dealt to them.” Notice how well the search box is highlighted. Beautiful!

Productplanner
Productplanner perfectly integrates its 404 error page in the overall branding of the website.

Mundofox.com
A 404 error page with a not-so-eloquent Homer.

Duoh.com
Probably one of the most colorful and abstract 404 error pages out there.

Apartmenthomeliving.com
A quite unusual 404 error page from a website that helps people find apartments.

Chrisglass.com
Chris takes his comrades on a trip, hunting for the right page.

Huwshimi.com
On Huwshimi a ninja seems to have stolen a 404 error-page: “you must return when the moon has friends and the fox is borrowed”. Gorgeous!

ilovetypography.com
A typographically beautiful (of course) 404 error page from ILoveTypography.com.

Newspond
Newspond uses a very strange illustration on its 404 error page. The circle defines the limits of the website, and the small image at the top is a miniaturized Newspond logo. A click on the image leads to the home page of the website.

Brightkit
“404 Fowl Not Found.” Brightkit shows a missing owl on a milk carton. Unusual and, therefore, memorable.

jhuskisson.com

Gog.com
“404: oh noes, there’s nothing in here.” (sent by @Chamb via Twitter)

User-Friendly 404 Error Pages

RealMacSoftware.com
An excellent 404 error page, functionally speaking, that contains a site map of the website.

InspirationBit
InspirationBit presents an overview of popular and recommended articles.

45royale
This error page contains links to popular posts and a cool illustration of a pretty freaky monkey.

Ma.gnolia.com

Have Fun With 404!

Yes, fun! Because 404 also is a place where you can show your sense of humor. You have the opportunity, so use it well!

www.techkultura.com
On Pawel Opydo’s blog: “Golden Rule of the Code of the Samurai: If this isn’t the page you were looking for, you have to do Seppuku.”

Abduzeedo
Abduzeedo suggests ideas for finding the right article and lists popular and recent blog posts as well as a tag cloud.

Habrahabr
An illustrative image (sent by sabugao on Twitter).

CSS Remix
This fellow is quite scared (sent by @dezignMusings on Twitter).

Pattern Tap
Don’t get angry, and don’t cry. Pattern Tap will take on the burden of the missing page.

New Yorker
The New Yorker magazine has been published since 1925, but it is definitely with it, with its own 404.

Frye/Wiles
Frye/Wiles Creative Agency.

Heinz
The 404 for the best-known ketchup.

Chelmsford Library
OMG, Smashing Magazine is missing in the Chelmsford Public Library!

Craigslist
An ASCII 404 error page from Craigslist.

The Truth
Is this really the truth?

Wulffmorgenthaler
Blame that weird beaver on Wulffmorgenthaler.

Henrik Hedegaard
Henrik Hedegaard seems to like the Simpsons.

NotaNiche
Refresh and see the next funny picture. A blog by Alexander Frison.

Daze of Our Lives
“Whatever the Dickens a so-called “Error 404″ is I haven’t the foggiest idea, but one has occurred. You can’t trust this wretched technology, can you?”

Limpfish
Wanted: a Web page.

Orangecoat
“Despite that song in your step and sense of purpose, you’ve hit a little bump in the road. These things happen. We’re going to do our best to make sure you keep dancing in the right direction.” Orangecoat gives a 404 error mind map.