If you’ve ever gazed upon a landscape so rich you’d like to just eat it, you might be interested in Carl Warner‘s Food Landscapes. Warner is a British photographic artist with, you could say, a taste for travel. He’s an architect of edible landscapes. With minimal Photoshop assistance, Warner creates fantastical images of believable landscapes… but there’s a twist: the trees in the image are broccoli. The water in the image is salmon, the rocks are potatoes. He builds his landscapes on tabletops with real food, but he builds these 3D scenes in such a way so that a brilliant landscape can be reflected in a photograph of the tabletop construction. So attention travelers and fans of travel! If you appreciate both scenery and food, this book might be a safe bet for your next coffee table book shopping spree.
iPhone app sees language barriers as opportunities
Potential language barriers have international travelers learning the basics of communication before arriving in a foreign land, just to make their way around. Knowing common terms, even with a limited vocabulary, can go a long way to fulfilling needs. But what about making friends during travel and communicating with them later at home? A new iPhone app has the answer and is available now.
Transfire XP brings the first chat and instant-messaging app with real-time, translated text. The free application features a user-friendly interface, fast message delivery, and supports over 50 languages.
Say for example, your new Argentinian friend, Javier, speaks only Spanish. With Transfire XP, you can now chat with each other in real-time, without any language barrier. Send a message wishing Javier a “Happy Birthday!”, and he will read “Feliz Cumpleaños!” on his phone. Javier then responds, “Gracias,” and you read, “Thank you.””The use of chat applications continues to grow as a replacement for text messaging. Transfire is on it’s way to becoming the gold-standard in instant messaging and translation for your iPhone. We hope Transfire will improve communication barriers on a global scale,” explained Elik Topolosky, co-founder of TNT Creations, Transfire XP’s creator.
The Transfire XP app finds contacts on your local phone or device, and supports contacts from gchat and Yahoo Messenger. Support for more chat platforms will soon be added, including Facebook, ICQ, Baidu and others.
“Transfire isn’t just meant to overcome language barriers; it’s a slick social networking app that sees barriers as opportunities,” adds Jonathan Topolosky, TNT co-founder
Flickr photo by avlxyz
Sexy goddess bares all in Boston
The ancient goddess of love, sex, and beauty is making an appearance at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Aphrodite and the Gods of Love is a new exhibition examining one of the most popular ancient goddesses and her place in the Classical world. More than 150 ancient works of art are on display, including famous pieces such as the Knidia, a life-size sculpture of Aphrodite made by the 4th-century BC Greek artist, Praxiteles. Another interesting piece is the Sleeping Hermaphrodite, a reclining figure who from one side looks like a voluptuous woman, and from the other like a man.
The exhibition traces Aphrodite’s sexy origins in the Near East and the place of her cult in Greek and Roman society. Aphrodite was a Greek goddess who was adopted into the Roman pantheon as Venus. She was the symbol of romantic love and ideal beauty. She also oversaw marriage, an odd choice since many of the myths surrounding her involve her cheating on her husband, the blacksmith god Hephaistos (Vulcan). Men worshiped her because she aroused male virility.
Being in charge of such important aspects of life made Aphrodite extremely popular. She was the patron goddess of Pompeii. Interestingly, Ramsay MacMullen in his Paganism in the Roman Empire points out that altars in private homes in Pompeii were more often dedicated to Foruna, Vesta, and Bacchus than Aphrodite. Perhaps because love received so much public worship, people felt they needed to give good luck, the home, and drinking some attention. They can be related, after all!
McMullen’s book (which I highly recommend) also touches on various ways the Romans worshipped Venus, including picnicking in the orchards around her sanctuary in Cnidus, and wild processions where a woman playing Venus led a string of dancing children playing Cupid. She and the other deities were very much part of daily life.
The exhibition also looks at related figures of Classical mythology, such as Aphrodite’s sons Eros (Cupid), the well-endowed Priapus, and Hermaphrodite.
If you want to meet this lovely lady and her interesting offspring, you better hurry. Aphrodite and the Gods of Love is only on until February 20, 2012.
Top photo: Fresco of The Judgment of Paris, Roman, Imperial Period, 45–79 A.D. Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Pompei. Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. © www.pedicinimages.com. Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
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Get to know Belarus through the art of motion timelapse
This timelapse video, One Day in Life, was created by professional photographer and Minsk native, Artem Sergeevich. It shows the country of Belarus in a way that will put any negative eastern Europe stereotypes out of your head and have you booking a one-way plane ticket there. Vibrant colors wash over a mix of countrysides and cityscapes, making the factories look just as beautiful and exciting as the lakes and fountains. It isn’t easy to capture images like these, and Sergeevich used a range of different cameras, some of which included a Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 60D, Tokina 11-16mm, and a Sigma 14mm, among others.
To see more videos by Artem Sergeevich, click here.
Love dogs? Check out Bau Haus dog cafe in Seoul, South Korea
When I say Bau Haus is a dog cafe, I don’t mean that there are cute dog photos on the walls or that it’s a meeting place for dog owners (although both of these are part of it) . The eatery is, literally, a cafe for dogs and dog-lovers to eat and hangout at. It is located in Hongdae in Seoul, South Korea, and canines roam around the eatery as visitors feed and play with them. You can purchase dog treats and pet presents, and there are small toys like frisbees lying around to use. Most of the pooches belong to the cafe’s owner and are very well behaved, although anyone is allowed to bring their dog to Bau Haus. And don’t worry about the animals making a mess as the employees at Bau Haus tend to the pooches, caring for them and cleaning up after them.