For a little perspective… LINK→

If you’ve read even a little on this blog, you know that I have a love of clocks—from the elegant and well-made to the curious and unusual. Roger Wood is my kind of artist. He builds “handmade, one-of-a-kind, whimsical timepieces” that are straight out of a Victorian timewarp. Lovely mechanical assemblages of both found and manufactured objects, his clocks are works of art. As Roger Wood himself says in a video interview available on CBC television, his works are “sculpture disguised as clocks.” One in particular that I fancy is the Jules Verne clock—maybe some day when I have a spare $700 burning a hole in my pocket. LINK→

In geography, the antipodes of any place on Earth is its antipodal point; that is, the region on the Earth’s surface which is diametrically opposite to it. Two points which are antipodal to one another are connected by a straight line through the centre of the Earth.

A nifty little site that uses Google Maps to allow you to “stick a pin” in a map to pinpoint your location, and then automatically shows you your antipodes—that is, the point on the far side of the Earth that is directly opposite from you. For example, the antipodes for Cumberland, MD (where I live) is a few thousand miles off the southwestern coast of Australia in the Indian Ocean. LINK→

The European Space Agency (ESA) reports that the Arctic icecap has “shrunk to its lowest level this week since satellite measurements began nearly 30 years ago.” This has ironically opened up the fabled Northwest Passage for the first time in recorded history. LINK→