Category: Uncategorized Page 26 of 76

Now this is big news.

Google has announced that they are putting all 10 million pictures from the archival collection of Time-Life on line and available for searching via Image Search. There are some amazing photos included — many of them never before published.

According to the announcement on the Google Blog, the archives date back to 1750 — or to a time before photography even existed! It’s an amazing resource. Full marks to Google for pursuing a project like this.

Here’s an excerpt from the announcement:

One of our favorites is this classic Eisenstaedt image of children watching a puppet show.

Alfred snapped this in 1963, at the climax of Guignol’s “Saint George and the Dragon” in the Tuileries Garden in Paris. Just as the dragon is slain, some children cry out in a combination of horror and delight, while others are taken aback in shock. Every child is consumed with emotion, masterfully captured by Eisenstaedt’s camera. These amazing photos are now blended into our Image Search results along with other images from across the web.

Whether you’re looking for a particular image, or just browsing, I know you’ll enjoy looking through this collection.

I’m back from Regina, where I spent the Thanksgiving weekend. It was nice to be home for a few days, but the weather was not what I was expecting.

Sunday night, Regina got 17 cm of snow. Call it a Prairie October surprise!

I posted some pics from the snowfall on my Flickr account, if you’re interested.

One of the things I noticed was that come morning, the streets were filled with people with shovels, winter boots, coats, toques and mitts, calmly cleaning up the mess. There were even a few guys with snowblowers out getting a little pre-season training in.

That’s the way it is on the Prairies. They’re used to snow and when it arrives, they’re not put out by it. Quite the opposite of the chaos that erupts here in Victoria when those occasional blizzards show up (like this one.)

Even with the snow, there’s no place quite as nice as our cottage in the fall. My son and I were out there the day before the snowfall, cleaning up the yard and closing up the cottage for another year. I’m glad it’s still in our family, even if it is a few thousand kms from where we’re living now.

As a follow-up to my post yesterday about the Top 10 censored stories of the year, comes this story about photojournalist James Nachtwey.

He was a recipient in March 2007 of the TED prize (see my earlier post) and his wish was for help in breaking a news story in a way that demonstrates the power of news photography in the digital age.

As it turns out (I’m late to this story, I guess) today, Oct. 3, is the day that bloggers and news sites around the world are going to help him get his wish. I’m happy to take part in spreading the word, even if I missed the whole build-up and suspense part of things.

Nachtwey’s story is the growing threat of XDRTB – Extreme Drug Resistant Tuberculosis. Not that long ago, we thought TB was all-but-extinct. But it is making a terrifying comeback. Nachtwey used the $100,000 from the TED prize to build a website and document the ravages of this new pandemic. He deserves an audience and I’m hoping his wish comes true.

Here are few links to follow to find out what this is about:

Link to XDRTB.org, where you can see Natchtwey’s video, learn more about the photographer and view the photographs he’s made.

Link to Nachtwey’s original acceptance speech of the TED Prize from March 2007.

Those of us who have reached a “certain age” are paying attention to stories that claim that exercising our brains will pay off in our golden years. So we’re working on crosswords (which I still can’t do worth a darn), trying out Sudoko (works better for me) and staying married (at least according to this article from the Globe and Mail.)

But today, a post from Boing Boing caught my eye. Seems the Japanese have taken the idea of brain exercise to new, unheard-of heights:

Pink Tentacle has photos and a video of the “Reversible Destiny Lofts” in Japan, designed to physically and mentally challenge people in order to keep them healthy.

To NY-based architect-poets and “reversible destiny” philosophers Arakawa & Gins, comfort deserves only a limited role in the home. In their vision, a home that keeps its inhabitants young and healthy should provide perpetual challenges. A tentative relationship with your environment, they argue, is key to “reversing the downhill course of human life.”
Designed to stimulate the senses and force inhabitants to use balance, physical strength and imagination, the lofts feature uneven floors, oddly positioned power switches and outlets, walls and surfaces painted a dizzying array of colors, a tiny exit to the balcony, a transparent shower room, irregularly shaped curtainless windows, and more.

For rent: Reversible Destiny Lofts (w/ video)