Many years ago (1995, I think), we were brainstorming new game ideas at my office. Under the "no idea is a bad idea" principle, I came up with a suggestion of a massively multiplayer morphing artwork, where each person in the game would be in charge of the color of one pixel, and teams would compete to see who could draw certain images (a bicycle, a house, a face, etc.) the most rapidly. I sort of envisioned it like a cyberspace version of those big sports stadium events where a part of the audience would all hold up cards in sequence, to make a design.

Well, my idea was greeted with near universal derision: "Ha! That sounds totally boring, no one would ever play that," (so much for the spirit of positive-reinforcement brainstorming, heh).

Anyway, my arch-critic from back then recently sent to me this link, of a "pixelfest collaborative artwork". It's not quite the real-time dynamic team-based thing I had in mind, but it's close enough to make me smile. :)

Feel free to add your own pixel!

- Elonka

Update: To see an animation of the 7000-odd pixels that have been placed so far, check here: http://haub.net/pixelfest/ . I found it especially interesting to see how certain people tried to "grief" the image early on with four-letter words, but then the community responded by erasing words as soon as they started recognizing them. Some interesting dynamics there. :)

Experiments - Pixelfest collaborative artwork

DARMSTADT, Germany -- The first pictures revealing the surface of Saturn's moon, Titan, were shown from Europe's Huygens probe showing what look like drainage channels on the surface of what until today has been a planet totally hidden from view.

The first image, taken from an altitude of 16 kilometers, has a ground resolution of about 40 meters, said Martin Tomasko, principal investigator for Huygens' Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer (DISR). Tomasko said that Huygens research teams now have about 350 pictures to work with. [Scroll to the bottom of this story to see raw image files of the Titan descent taken by Huygens. All images courtesy of ESA/NASA/University of Arizona.]

Huygens Probe Returns First Images of Titan's Surface

] Decades ago, it was physicist Enrico Fermi who pondered
] the issue of extraterrestrial civilizations with fellow
] theorists over lunch, generating the famous quip: "Where
] are they?" That question later became central to debates
] about the cosmological census count of other star folk
] and possible extraterrestrial (ET) visitors from afar.
]
]
] Fermi%u2019s brooding on the topic was later labeled
] "Fermi%u2019s paradox". It is a well-traveled tale from
] the 1950%u2019s when the scientist broached the subject
] in discussions with colleagues in Los Alamos, New Mexico.
] Thoughts regarding the probability of earthlike planets,
] the rise of highly advanced civilizations "out there",
] and interstellar travel -- these remain fodder for trying
] to respond to Fermi%u2019s paradox even today.
]
]
] Now a team of American scientists note that recent
] astrophysical discoveries suggest that we should find
] ourselves in the midst of one or more extraterrestrial
] civilizations. Moreover, they argue it is a mistake to
] reject all UFO reports since some evidence for the
] theoretically-predicted extraterrestrial visitors might
] just be found there.

wouldn't it be interesting but ... why would aliens be so coy

ET Visitors: Scientists See High Likelihood

] Tiny fluctuations in the density of matter after the Big
] Bang are definitely reflected in the distribution of
] galaxies in our Universe, according to two research
] groups. The findings confirm theories of how the Universe
] grew from being almost uniformly smooth to having dense
] clusters of stars and galaxies.

news @ nature.com - Echoes of Big Bang found in galaxies - Spread of stars in the sky traced to primordial ripples.

] Researchers at the University of Toronto have invented an
] infrared-sensitive material that's five times more
] efficient at turning the sun's power into electrical
] energy than current methods

[ Rad. They say something like 30% efficiency, so maybe something like 300 W/m^2 if I'm remembering right. Not bad. -k]

CTV.ca | New plastic can better convert solar energy

This is so cool!

The Periodic Table like you have NEVER seen

] SAN DIEGO -- A new study reveals that the center of our
] Milky Way Galaxy is loaded with black holes, as
] astronomers have expected in recent years.
]
]
] The galactic center is dominated by one supermassive
] black hole. It packs a mass equal to about 3 million
] Suns. Around it, scientists have expected to find a high
] concentration of stellar black holes, the sort that
] result from the collapse of massive stars. Each can be a
] few to many times the mass of the Sun.
]
]
] Observations have hinted at the existence of many stellar
] black holes near the galactic center. But nosing around
] there is hard, because the region is shrouded in dust.
] Visible light doesn't escape the region.
]
]
] The ongoing study, led by UCLA postdoctoral fellow
] Michael Muno, is searching the inner 75-light-years of
] the galaxy with the NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.
] X-rays conveniently pierce interstellar dust.
]
]
] Muno and his colleagues have found strong evidence for
] seven black holes (they could be neutron stars, which are
] also very dense). Importantly, four of the objects were
] concentrated in the inner 3 light-years of space around
] the supermassive black hole.

Milky Way's Center Packed with Black Holes

] ATLANTA (Reuters) - A new battle in America's fight over
] gay rights has erupted in Atlanta, cradle of the U.S.
] civil rights movement, where a golf club is resisting a
] city order to grant spousal benefits to its gay members.

Yahoo! News - Atlanta Golf Club Sparks Battle Over Gay Rights

] MOSCOW (Reuters) - As snow and ice melt away into puddles
] of dirty water months earlier than usual, Russians are
] asking what's happened to their once-dreaded winter.
]
]
] Scientists said the mild temperatures, which may be
] linked to global warming, were close to record highs for
] a Russian winter -- infamous for its ferocity and
] credited with frustrating invaders from Napoleon to
] Hitler.

Russians wonder what's happened to

] BEIJING (AP) - China is planning to make selective
] abortions of female fetuses illegal as a way to close the
] widening gap between the number of boys and girls in the
] country, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
]
]
] ``The government takes it as an urgent task to correct
] the gender imbalance of newborns,'' Zhang Weiqing,
] minister of National Population and Family Planning
] Commission, was quoted as saying Thursday by Xinhua.

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