Google hosted LIFE images from the 1750s to today
Some awesome images in here, but its really surprising the wide variety of images that they have. For instance: They have images of Paducah, KY. I particularly like this aerial shot that is marked as April 1952.
Wear Good Shoes: Advice to young Photographers
Alec Sloth asks a bunch of other photographers two questions. When did you first get excited about photography? And what advice would you give young photographers?
ProTip: You can use the + sign with your gmail address to help filter your email
I am going to start a "ProTip" series on the blog to just share some tips and tricks I have learned along the way that might make your life easier. They will probably be few and far between but hopefully they will help when they come along.
So for my first ProTip, with gmail, you can add a + sign and then something else to the end of your username and it will still be sent to your address. For example, if your email address is johndoe@gmail.com, emails sent to johndoe+foo@gmail.com will still get delivered to your inbox. Why this is cool is because in gmail you can set your filters up based on the email address that the email was sent to. So you can filter on everything that gets delivered to johndoe+foo@gmail.com to be automatically flagged with the tag "foo" and marked as read for instance. You can make up whatever you want after the plus sign, as long as its not another plus sign, space or @ sign.
Now the bad news is a lot of sites don't follow the specs and don't like to accept a plus sign in an email address. But for those that do, it can be a great way to filter your email address and make sure that your email address isn't being handed off to the wrong people.
Google Flu Trends
Google thinks it can tell us about flu outbreaks across the US quicker than the CDC. They have the data that shows they should be able to do just that. This could change a lot of things. I can imagine many other things being able to benefit from this. More discussion at slashdot
Obamaland and McCainland
via kottke, a graphical representation by county of how the US voted. If the election was won by landmass only it would have been a much different outcome. It really helps you visualize too the vast difference of population density of the rural areas compared with the larger cities.
In the coming days I will most likely be posting some data from this past presidential election cycle, mostly demographic in nature. If you notice I have tried not to become political on this website in any way and I hope to continue to be unbiased. I will not discuss policy or preference with anyone and will not reveal who I supported in the last election. I am only posting this information because it is interesting on several levels whether or not you agree with the conclusion. Please help me by keeping any discussions unbiased and civil. Again, this is not a place to voice your support for a party, candidate or policy, only to discuss the data surrounding the circumstances.
Wedding Photos
Sorry for the lack of updates still but I still haven't gotten my groove back since the wedding. But we have finally started uploading some of the wedding photos. So far we have just done the after wedding photos but we will have the rest up soon hopefully.
Honeymoon in Jamaica
Posting has been light around here lately because on October 25th I was married to the love of my life and I had the privilege of taking her to Jamaica for our honeymoon. We stayed at the Sandal's Dunn's River Resort. It was a great time, beautiful weather and a trip we will never forget. I'm sure I will have more about the trip and Jamaica in general later on, but for now enjoy the pictures we took.
Chris O'Shea - Audience
Awesome project using mirrors, cameras and programming. The mirrors "chat amongst themselves" until something catches their eye, then as an audience they all track that thing until they become disinterested and either track something else or go back to talking to each other. Make sure to check out the videos. I would love to be involved with something like this.
Banjo used in Brain Surgery
Okay, this is just nuts. This guy was having trouble with a hand tremor caused by a brain problem. While they have his head cut open, he plays the banjo so they can make sure they have the right spot on the brain. Like a weird episode of House or something. Make sure to watch the video. Just crazy.
Tilt Shift lenses have been around for a long time but are starting to become popular lately because of some high-profile examples. Basically, a tilt-shift lens
allows control of perspective and focus in a very precise way. A lot of times it has the effect of
making the scene look like a scale model, as these pictures show.
Here is another example of the model look and an article about the technique.
Recently though, Keith Loutit created some time-lapse videos using tilt-shift that came out great. Make sure to check out his other two videos on the right. It's really like you are looking at miniatures moving around in fast-forward.
If you are interested in getting into tilt-shift photography, you can buy some very expensive lenses, but lensbaby lenses are a great substitute. They are considerably cheaper than the professional counterparts but still offer a wide array of objects. They have also recently released three new versions.
Russian Experiment with Headless Dog
They somehow remove the head of a dog and keep the dog alive for a while by pumping blood through it. No telling how much pain the dog is in (if any) but it still responds to external stimulus like noise and touch. I don't think it could bark though. Sad, but still interesting.
Envelope Paradox
This is not the Two Envelopes Problem that I am familiar with, but still a good one overall. Say you have an adversary. The adversary has two envelopes and in each envelop writes a number. It can be any kind of number as long as its real. You get to open on of the envelopes and see the number that is written, and then you must guess if the other envelope contains a number larger or smaller than the one you opened. Is there any strategy that you can employ to raise your probability of winning to better than half? Think about the answer for a while and then click the link above to see his solution.
PDF Pad
For all of your uber-geeky graph paper needs, PDF Paper allows you to get a PDF that you can print out to make just about any kind of graph paper, calendar, flag, whatever you need. It may not be the most economical way but where else can you get 5mm Isometric graph paper?
Oh, don't forget...
Nifty little service that will let you put in your cell phone number, a date and time and message and it will send you that message when you scheduled it for. A lot easier than tying a string around your finger to forget what the string was for.
Disclaimer: I have not yet used this service and cannot vouch for it. I am only listing it here because of the idea not the service itself. If you do use it though, let us know how it went in the comments.
Earth From Above
The French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand is bringing his work to NYC in May 2009. Beautiful photography from the air, some of these views are unlike any other. Some of his website is in French but it is still worth checking out just for the pictures. There are many books of his work out there and he also had a TV Show apparently. (Video here). The first link is probably the best place to start with large views of his work. Via Kottke
Small Asteroid hit Earth Last Night
From the site:
A tiny asteroid discovered just hours ago at an Arizona observatory will enter Earth's atmosphere harmlessly at approximately 10:46 p.m. Eastern time tonight (2:46 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time). There is no danger to people or property since the asteroid will not reach the ground. It is between 3 and 15 feet (1-5 m) in diameter and will burn up in the upper atmosphere, well above aircraft heights. A brilliant fireball will be visible as a result.
Apparently, it did happen last night. This marks the first time that we have recognized that an asteroid this small was going to hit the earth before it did, which is quite an achievement. Although it was only about 12 hours notice, its something to build on.
UPDATE: Looks like its been picked up by a few other places: Slashdot, CNN and NASA
SUMO Paint
I am sure this is written in flex; It is a very compelling layered photo editor. Lots of brushes, lots of options. And it seems pretty snappy considering what it all it does. Its not going to replace photoshop for any serious users, but for the casual user, yeah, I think it would.
Human Powered Car
I haven't had a chance to see the video of this yet but basically think about a flinstone's car only using your hands in a rowing motion instead of the callous inducing running. Pretty neat stuff.
IronMan's Suit Defies Physics - Mostly
Brought to you from the ministry of the obvious, Wired does a piece telling you what you already know. Sci-Fi has a healthy dose of the "Fi". I watched the movie for the first time last night and was really impressed. It seemed remarkably well done. If you haven't seen it, skip the Wired article till you do, but its worth your couple of hours.
On a side note, the software and tech (not related to the suit directly except for that awesome HUD) featured a very prominent role in the film as well. Some scenes heavy on the "minority report" type effects, but all well done. If anyone knows of any discussions about the software around the internets please let me know.
Atlas of the Real World
Using software to show proportions of countries based on things other than land size. I have seen this somewhere else before but still quite interesting. If anyone has any other links related to this please let me know. The housing prices map is particularly interesting in today's economy.
Girl who bleeds without being cut
An article about a girl with what seems to be some sort of platelet issue keeping her blood from clotting.
Twinkle Dwivedi, 13, has a strange disorder which means she loses blood through her skin without being cut or scratched.
She has even undergone transfusions after pints of it seeped through her eyes, nose, hairline, neck and the soles of her feet.
Sometimes her condition is so bad she wakes up with her entire body covered in dried blood.
The picture with the article is quite striking. Especially since it gets the point across without being completely disgusting.
Focus & Recompose Exposed
Great article by James Duncan Davidson about why at large apertures the focus and recompose doesn't work the way you might think. This is why the 1Ds Mark III has a 45-point autofocus system, and why some are not happy about the new 5D Mark II's 9-point autofocus. Also, make sure you check out the depth-of-field calculator that he links to at the bottom.
A Shadowy, Wet World of Squirt-Gun Assassins
This has got to be one of the best ideas I have come across in a while. From the New York Times:
But first he had to get there alive. He parked his car a couple of blocks away and started the treacherous walk, his only friend of late tucked under his black shirt, a curiously damp bulge.
His yellow-and-orange Uzi-style squirt gun.
Mr. Deane, a freelance audiovisual technician, was becoming a player to be reckoned with in this year’s StreetWars tournament. With only a few days left, he stood a fighting chance at being the last person standing, the $500 prize in one hand and his dripping gun in the other. But with the pool dwindling, his own would-be killer could not be far.
More information at StreetWars
Posted on Mon. September 29, 2008 by Ryan Guill
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Falcon 1 made it to space, Winning the SpaceX Prize
It took four tries but eight minutes after leaving the ground, Falcon 1 reached a speed of 5200 meters per second and passed above the International Space Station. This is cool stuff.
How does $700 Billion Compare to other spending
Great infographic from the New York Times comparing the $700 Billion bailout to other government spending. It's worth a look.
Ten Thousand Cents - A Study of Mechanical Turk
More on Mechanical Turk later, but the basic idea here is that they paid 1 cent a piece for 10000 small drawings of a section of a $100 bill. Each person working on the project was unaware of the end result, just seeing an image and trying to match it themselves. This is the result. Make sure you check out the interactive bill. There were several results that were not great, but overall it looks like a very positive response and the final result is very convincing at a macro level.
Posted on Thu. September 25, 2008 by Ryan Guill
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Diegogarcity
A term used to denote the appearance of another term in multiple sources shortly after you have looked it up in the dictionary (or first noticed it).
I know I experience this pretty often although its hard to say how much is coincidence and how much is just you listening for the word and noticing it more.
More information on Metafilter and Wordorigins. I know I have heard about this somewhere else before too but can't seem to find it now. Thanks to Lin and Ash for helping me find it again.
Ancient Yeast used to Brew modern Beer
So they take a Lebanese weevil petrified in amber, open it up, find yeast in its stomach from a very long time ago, and they take it and grow it and brew beer from it, which several describe as spicy. Yeah, that's not strange at all.
Posted on Wed. September 24, 2008 by Ryan Guill
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