Image | Formats | The Committee to Nuke Elysium

I heard you like ships…

Fukushima haz a mascot.

U-Boat’s five models equipped with bubble-shaped acrylic windows can hold between two and five people and sink to between 100 meters and 1,000 meters underwater. Rival Triton, which is based at Vero Beach in Florida, is pushing the depth limit to 1,650 meters for similar battery-powered technology.
Storing an 18,000-pound submarine elegantly on a designer yacht can be a challenge.

Makers urge owners to have bespoke boats conceived with subs in mind or, alternatively, invest in a “shadow” vessel to transport these types of toys and tenders, smaller speedboats that accompany super-sized yachts.

Private submersibles are “a way of exploring for things that no human has ever seen,” Marc Deppe, Triton vice-president of sales and marketing, said in an interview. “For that you need depth.”
Sharks, hydrothermal vents and sea mounts are among the wonders the more jaded wealthy could admire from an air conditioned capsule complete with panoramic views and a sound system, according to Deppe.

There are also man-made attractions. U-Boat in July took Russian President Vladimir Putin 60 meters underwater in the Gulf of Finland to see The Oleg, a 19th-century shipwreck.

One of Triton’s subs was used in an oceanographic research campaign to film the elusive giant squid. The company is using the feat to develop relationships between rich submarine owners and research institutes too poor to acquire the hardware.

“A lot of guys who are billionaires have profound financial accomplishments and are now concerned about their legacy,” said Deppe.

* just in case you were wondering why the private space industry is ramping up now.

Created by cartographer Joan Blaeu, the chart is based partly on an exploratory voyage by the Dutch East India Company and also on Abel Tasman’s sightings in 1642.

Believed to have been mostly used as a wall decoration in a grand home or palace, the map was found in a storage unit in Sweden in 2010 and offered for sale in Stockholm for about $10,000.

A Matthew Barney extravaganza on the Greek Isle of Hydra, a renowned, car-free artsy fartsy hideout where everyone who is anyone goes everywhere by foot or burro. Hosted by collector/industrialist/Koons yacht owner Dakis Joannou, the performance/party/shark roast combined various events into one hyperreal Mediterranean spectacle.

A Buddhist monk wears a Geiger counter as he leads a small funeral ceremony for Yotsuno Kanno, who died as an evacuee at a cemetery in the evacuated town of Minamitsushima inside the exclusion zone in Fukushima prefecture, Sept. 21. Kanno, who was evacuated after the disaster at Daiichi plant in 2011 with rest of people from Minamitsushima, died in temporary accommodation in May, two weeks short of her 100th birthday.

blech:

Plan of Buckminster Fuller’s Geodesic Dome above Midtown, New York City (via hyperrealcartography, archimaps)

new-aesthetic:

Rare 3D Camera Found Containing Photos from WWI

“While visiting an estate in Ontario’s Niagara Falls two years ago, a film enthusiast stumbled upon a rare World War I Richard Verascope stereo camera previously owned by the French Army. Here’s what he found inside.”