Eye for Science

I fucking love science

nobody@flickr.com (annburlingham) — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 08:07:43 -0700

annburlingham posted a new topic:

Here's a blog post about the Facebook page "I fucking love science" and its creator, Elise Andrew. It hadn't occurred to me before, but I'm going to post a link to this group on IFLS. Maybe they're send some people our way.

www.itsokaytobesmart.com/post/46001974046/i-fucking-love-...

Reply to Alan Turing

nobody@flickr.com (jnshaumeyer) — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 11:43:36 -0700

jnshaumeyer posted a reply:

This topic is arguably outside the bounds of our "Eye for Science" topic of science communication, but it is a provocative development that relates to an EfS subject.

However, neither fair-use guidelines nor BBC copyright rules allow us to reproduce an entire story without explicit permission, so I have edited your posting to an excerpt to indicate the article's content, plus a link to the complete article at the BBC's website

Alan Turing

nobody@flickr.com (Veee Man) — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 01:35:52 -0700

Veee Man posted a new topic:

Alan Turing: Inquest's suicide verdict 'not supportable'
By Roland Pease BBC Radio Science Unit

"Alan Turing, the British mathematical genius and codebreaker born 100 years ago on 23 June, may not have committed suicide, as is widely believed.

At a conference in Oxford on Saturday, Turing expert Prof Jack Copeland will question the evidence that was presented at the 1954 inquest.

"He believes the evidence would not today be accepted as sufficient to establish a suicide verdict.

"Indeed, he argues, Turing's death may equally probably have been an accident."

Complete story at this source: www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18561092

Reply to Science communication

nobody@flickr.com (jnshaumeyer) — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:07:16 -0700

jnshaumeyer posted a reply:

Gavin,

Thanks very much for the mention and for telling your science communicators about it, and now for letting me hear about the Birmingham course and more communication ideas; I'm very interested in hearing about those since science communication & understanding are my main concerns.

I also liked seeing the embedded slideshow; I knew about it but hadn't used it yet. I will. Here are my versions of random sampling of the pool of images:
scienticity.net/dp/content/wall-science-images
The "wall" gives (in this instance) 25 random images; the little widget on the lower right gives one. Each respond to a click with more. These were my first ideas for how to use and diffuse these little bits of science to a greater audience, but I'm always happy to hear more.

Speaking of Euclid vanderKroew, he's the scienticity mascot and oversees this project; I do all his typing since his hunt-and-peck method is slow. His main objective is to be a conduit for adding great images to the group that we can't get in another way, generally photographs from US Government (and others) agencies that are freely usable and deserving of wider distribution.

Happily, more and more institutions & agencies around the world are joining Flickr and sharing their archives. So far I've found that virtually all of them are happy to share images with the project. It serves our purpose and theirs, too. I think that's exciting.

Science communication

nobody@flickr.com (gavinwray) — Fri, 11 May 2012 05:34:56 -0700

gavinwray posted a new topic:

Hello,

I mentioned your photo pool today at a course for science communicators held in Birmingham (UK). I really like the way you combine attractive, visual images with a story behind the image.

There were about 25 students on the course and they thought your photos were a good way to introduce a non-technical audience to science.

Here is the post where I embedded the pool slideshow:

Thanks,
Gavin

EfS and Smartphones

nobody@flickr.com (jnshaumeyer) — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 20:56:28 -0700

jnshaumeyer posted a new topic:

I have recently done some small programming changes that I hope will make it easier to enjoy the Eye-for-Science experience with their smartphones.

1. To the main EfS image page, that you get to either by clicking a thumbnail in an eye-for-science widget, or by accessing the webpage , I've added a QR code image for that page.

The idea is that if you like the image you're looking at and would like to make it the wallpaper on your smartphone, just use an available barcode scanning app (for my Android I like "Barcode Scanner" by ZXing Team) to read the QR code, load the page in your phone's browser, and use your phone's option to make it your wallpaper. (On my Android if I touch and hold my finger on the image I get a menu with "Make Wallpaper" as an option.)

2. If you want to sample images from the Eye-for-Science database on your smartphone, I've made a slightly streamlined image page that you can access at . Each time you refresh the page you get a new image selected randomly from the group.

I did this so that I could make a pseudo-app for my phone. All I had to do was put a bookmark for this page on my home screen and -- voila! -- instant Eye for Science excitement.

I'm still having fun changing my wallpaper every 20 minutes or so.

Physics and fotograffy

nobody@flickr.com (Veee Man) — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 16:22:47 -0700

Veee Man posted a new topic:

It's interesting how closely fotograffy is linked to physics -

When you look at the light on a subject or scene,
that's basically the physics of light reflection and refraction.

When you look at shadows or dof, again, that's physics.

When you choose which focus to set your lens to, again,
that's physics.

When you look at contrast of colors, that's a combination
of physics and how the brain functions.

When you use a tripod for camera balance over time,
again, that's physics. Same with blur and panning.

When you see the sky as blue, the sunset as red,
and the clouds as white, again, that's physics.

When you sleep, that's because you're tired :-)

Also, in about 10 years, hopefully, we can take fotos
from one of these.

Demo Widgets Only a Beginning

nobody@flickr.com (jnshaumeyer) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 19:48:32 -0700

jnshaumeyer posted a new topic:

An important part of the "Eye for Science" project is the widgets and other apparatus beyond the group pool that helps get the images and the captions in front of the eyes of our audience. I put together a few unsophisticated demos of what I had in mind, but I hope that group members with programming skills to contribute take those as mere starting points for how we might get the job done. I also don't know, myself, the first thing about creating suitable widgets for, say, Facebook or Blogger or any of the numerous other social networking sites.

Here are the demo bits I've put together to use the Flickr API to help spread the scienticity goodness:
1. A widget, that I'm using on my blog; and
2. A demo version of the "wall of science images".
We're hoping that group members can help us improve these and create some new conduits.

What Makes a Good Caption?

nobody@flickr.com (jnshaumeyer) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 19:21:43 -0700

jnshaumeyer posted a new topic:

To be honest, I don't think we know yet, and I'd prefer not to be too precise nor too definite at this point. Our hope here is that group members will show us the way through their their own unfettered creativity in the captions they write for the photos they submit.

Brevity can be a useful characteristic. We don't demand that captions be only a sentence or two, but sometimes that's just the right amount. Here are three examples of short captions that still make an interesting connection between science, or the history of science, and the viewer's relationship to the natural world through: a word, a dragonfly, and a whale's tail.