It’s Pi (Approximation) Day today ( 22/7 ) first celebrated 20 years ago by Larry Shaw at the San Francisco Exploratorium. Pi or π is the mathematical constant which represents the ratio of any circle’s circumference to its diameter in Euclidean geometry—it’s also an irrational number (it cannot truly be expressed as a fraction, and its decimal representation never ends or repeats), as well as a transcendental number (no finite sequence of algebraic operations on integers [powers, roots, sums, etc.] can ever produce it). More on Pi here or here.

Happy Pi Day :-)

Winnipeg Beach, Manitoba

We’ve spent an interesting day of serendipitous garage-sailing along the lake… lots of stimulating objects (old tools, whatchamaycallits, etc.) that will find themselves repurposed and/or fashioned into art objects.

Stimulating images of reuse near and far… sources unknown.

Adrspach, Czech Republic (from the New York Times)

“While it may seem suicidal, leaping across a gaping crevasse is actually an extreme sport that is gaining in popularity. Called rock jumping, or simply ‘jumping’ by the locals, this adrenaline-charged activity is taking place in the Adrspach-Teplice Rocks, a remote nature preserve in the northeast part of the Czech Republic.”

Known for its roughly 11 square miles of phallic sandstone formations, the region has been a breeding ground for lifelong rock climbers, including Jaroslav Houser, 63, the purported conqueror of more than 1,000 sandstone spires. In their frenzy to subdue as many unclimbed tower tops as possible, seasoned climbers like Houser unwittingly gave rise to rock jumping in the Adrspach. “The objective is to get to the top of as many towers as you can,” said Vladimir Prochazka, known as June Bug, a 59-year-old climber and a collector of Czech rock climbing histories. “You try to reach the hardest summit, sometimes by jumping.”

Read the full story in today’s New York Times here. Reminds me of doing the heart-in-throat Jump Traverse above 600 feet of air on Durance, Devil’s Tower, Wyoming….

…from The Ampersand blog (& many more there as well).

…with colorflip (beautiful in its high-chroma simplicity).

Washington, D.C.

From the “did you know” and “almost beyond belief” departments… according to the CIA’s “World Factbook,” the United States spent some $623 billion last year on its military (that’s $1.7 billion per day!) which dwarfs the military spending of all other nations combined. Yet this “leading superpower” gun-loving nation of 304 million people is already nearly $10 trillion in debt (view a debt clock here), the average U.S. citizen’s share of this debt is over $31,000 and the U.S. national debt continues to increase an average of $1.6 billion per day! Hmmm…

Image: a page from the May/June #77 issue of Adbusters

Berlin, Germany

100 years ago today, “SOS” became effective as the worldwide standard for the International Morse code distress signal (· · · — — — · · ·) when it was included in the second International Radiotelegraphic Convention (which was signed on November 3, 1906, and took effect on July 1, 1908). This distress signal was first adopted by the German government in radio regulations effective April 1, 1905, and SOS remained the maritime distress signal until 1999, when it was replaced by the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System.

From the beginning, the SOS distress signal has actually consisted of a continuous sequence of three-dits/three-dahs/three-dits, all run together without letter spacing. In International Morse Code, three dits form the letter S, and three dahs make the letter O, so “SOS” became an easy way to remember the correct order of the dits and dashes. In popular usage, SOS became associated with phrases such as “Save Our Ship” or “Save Our Souls,” though by some accounts, “these phrases were a later development, most likely used to help remember the correct letters (something known as a backronym).”

Hmmm… backronym.

From the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago: Jana Sterbak’s Sisyphus Sport, 1997, Leather straps on granite (backpack), 132 lbs. (60 kg).

(from somewhere in Macedonia—photographer unknown)

The opposite of a truth is often an even greater truth. I love the way that “turning something over” can reveal so much more… in keeping with that great quip by Josef Beuys: “When you cut your finger, bandage the knife.”

San Francisco, California

From the web zone of Joshua Heineman…“I’m breathing new life into the past using old digitized photographs from the New York Public Library. I’ve spent hours rekindling these moments, & they will not be the last… (it’s like the past has rediscovered a dimension!)” See more here.

Reaching for the Out of Reach 12: Photographer 18 stories above Fifth Avenue, New York City, 1906.

(Thanks, Adrian).