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Carrion Luggage  Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem. This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it. It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans. It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier." I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination. |
| From Smithsonian over 4 years ago, a bit of cinema history. How ‘One Hundred and One Dalmatians’ Saved Disney  Sixty years ago, the company modernized animation when it used Xerox technology on the classic film Really, that's about all there is to it; the rest is explanation. Take a closer look at Walt Disney’s 1961 animated One Hundred and One Dalmatians film, and you may notice its animation style looks a little different from its predecessors. But to do that, you also would have to see those older films. Be careful, or you might become a movie history fan. That’s because the film is completely Xeroxed. No higher honor for a corporation than having their brand verbed. “The lines were often very loose because they were the animators’ drawings, not assistant clean-up drawings. It really was a brand new look,” says Andreas Deja, former Walt Disney animator and Disney Legend, about Xerox animation. Heh, you can say that again. Deja? Again? No? No? Come on, that was a good one. ...tough crowd. With animation growing more expensive, tedious and time-consuming in the mid-20th century, Xeroxing allowed animators to copy drawings on transparent celluloid (cel) sheets using a Xerox camera, rather than having artists and assistants hand-trace them. Thus continuing the trend of machines taking over our jobs. The article goes into some detail over how animation was done before machines took over those jobs, too. It's interesting, at least to me, but I don't have much to comment on. While Walt Disney didn’t necessary dislike Xeroxing, he found it hard to get used to the harsh look, especially for a story like Dalmatians that he adored. “It took a few more films before he softened his attitude toward it,” says Deja. He was also more concerned with upholding Disney’s iconic quality and charm than with finances. Things are a bit different now, huh? As the article points out, they later moved on from this technique, too. Obviously. Nothing else to say, really. I can't say Dalmatians was my favorite movie or anything, but this little insight into animation techniques and their history is pretty cool. |
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