Now if only we can create the same site for ‘lose/loose’. It freakin drives me nuts when I see people use loose when they should be using lose. I mean, what’s up with you? Seriously. Spell the damn word, correctly.
I came across SkreemR yesterday and it’s pretty damn cool if you’re a music buff like me. Why do I like it? Because they embed an audio player within the search engine itself. Which means that you can pretty much listen to the song immediately after you type in a search. Here, try Radiohead.
SkreemR is a search engine; none of the songs on SkreemR are hosted on our servers. SkreemR crawls the internet for audio tracks and then provides the information here for you to listen, download, or find out more about audio that you are interested in.
You’ll also get links to the YouTube and Flickr and the best part is you’ll get to download any song you want by right clicking and saving as. A very quick way to check out your favorite bands if you’re too lazy to dig up their CD .
STS-116 Mission Specialists Robert L. Curbeam, Jr. (left) and Christer Fuglesang participate in the first of the mission’s three planned sessions of extravehicular activity as construction resumes on the International Space Station.
Click on the picture for a larger view. For a very high-res version of the picture, go here. Very cool.
This collection of pictures just really shows you how the zoom function for any camera can be manipulated to transform an ordinary scene into one of sordid debauchery. Great work by xtrapop.
While waiting for Red Hot Chili Peppers to come on stage. I was standing in the photo pit shooting the crowd. Everyone was so sweaty and naked. Looked like a big orgy. Albeit not a very pleasurable one
The definitive method to deal with Mountain Lion encounters. I love it when they give reasonably good advice for the first two panels on the left and then ask you to fight back when attacked. Duh? Of course you gotta fight back! Not sure if shouting might work though. I’m sure Mas Oyama won’t have a problem with no puny lion but heck we ain’t all karate experts.
A 20th-century artist, Louis Wain, who was fascinated by cats, painted these pictures over a period of time in which he developed schizophrenia. The pictures mark progressive stages in the illness and exemplify what it does to the victim’s perception. (Source)
Ever wanted what it would be like to live in a city without advertising? São Paulo is where you should head. São Paulo is city that has passed laws preventing outdoor advertising of any sort. This means no posters, flyers, bus ads, billboards or even stickers.
“In September last year, the city’s populist right-wing mayor, Gilberto Kassab, passed the so-called Clean City laws. Fed up with the “visual pollution” caused by the city’s 8,000 billboard sites, many of them erected illegally, Kassab proposed a law banning all outdoor advertising.
The skyscraper-sized hoardings that lined the city’s streets would be wiped away at a stroke. And it was not just billboards that attracted his wrath: all forms of outdoor advertising were to be prohibited, including ads on taxis, on buses—even shopfronts were to be restricted, their signs limited to 1.5 metres for every 10 metres of frontage. “It is hard in a city of 11 million people to find enough equipment and personnel to determine what is and isn’t legal,” reasoned Kassab, “so we have decided to go all the way.”
This bold move was first initiated in September 2006 and has been well documented by photographer Tony de Marco. Here’s a Business Week article about Sao Paulo’s ad-free campaign and I’ve dug up some pictures of Sao Paulo as well.
An urban environment stripped of advertising feels a little odd but it just take a little getting used to. I actually like the spartan feel of it.
This might be a little offensive to some but I find the GFY (Go Fuck Yourself) movement to be…interesting. Flickr has several GFY groups which contain nothing but pictures of people flipping the bird. This one is the largest group, with over 200 members. Here are the group posting rules:
-Things to post here:
-you find a person or a picture on flickr that you just want to tell the person to “go fuck themselves”
-pics of people telling other people to go fuck themselves
-pics of people or concepts that you would to tell go fuck yourself to
The finger is a almost universal gesture that is recognized by all, despite cultural differences. It’s rather cool to see many people really getting into it on the web. Sure it might be rude but it’s hella fun at the same time, especially if you’re doing it to the camera.
Here are some pictures of girls flipping people off. Why girls? Cuz they look cuter doing it.
BERLIN—A young man bridges the wall between East and West Berlin, 1989. © Raymond Depardon
Slate magazine has a collection of Magnum photos which changed the world. Mostly doused in black and white gradients, these pictures feature significant historical incidents. Some of them, like the picture of the girl who grew up in a concentration camp are remarkably powerful reflections on our actions.
Here are some of my favorites:
CERRO MURIANO, Spain—Federico Borrell Garcia, Spanish loyalist militiaman, collapses into death, 1936.
This is a classic photo and I like it because the Spanish soldier looks totally peaceful and dare I say it, graceful even when falling to his death. Some have said it was faked but I don’t care. It’s beautiful.
POLAND—Teresa, a child in a residence for disturbed children, grew up in a concentration camp. She has drawn a picture of “home” on the blackboard, 1948. © David Seymour
This picture is just mind blowing. The kid is out of whack and severely traumatized by growing up in a concentration camp. Chalk lines that go nowhere and stay nowhere.
NORTH CAROLINA—A black man drinks at segregated water fountains, 1950. © Elliott Erwitt
White’s man burden. The difference is stark and very direct. It just hits you right in the face. White Americans even believed that they deserved better drinking fountains. Absurd.
SHARPEVILLE, South Africa—Police open fire on a crowd, killing more than 70 and injuring hundreds of others during what came to be known as the Sharpeville massacre, 1960. © Ian Berry
I love the shot of the clouds in the picture. Ominous. Apocalyptic. Bearing weight upon everyone beneath it.
WASHINGTON, D.C.—At the climax of his “I Have A Dream” speech, Martin Luther King Jr. raises his arm on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and calls out for deliverance with the electrifying words of an old Negro spiritual hymn, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”, 1963. © Bob Adelman
Walking in the shadow of the valley of death, King does his thing and the audio for this speech is electrifying.
ARLINGTON, Va.—Jan Rose Kasmir confronts the National Guard outside the Pentagon during the 1967 anti-Vietnam War march, 1967. © Marc Riboud
This is a very iconic picture for many reasons as it totally symbolized the hippy creed of love overcoming all adversity and conflict.
The key to the appeal of Riboud’s seminal image may be Kasmir’s empathy for her adversary. “All of a sudden, I realized ‘them’ was that soldier in front of me—a human being I could just as easily have been going out on a date with,” Kasmir says. “It wasn’t a war machine, it was just a bunch of guys with orders. Right then, it went from being a fun, hip trip to a painful reality.” (Source)
SAIGON, Vietnam—The Saigon fire department, which has the job of collecting the dead from city streets, has just placed a girl, killed by U.S. helicopter fire, in the back of their truck, where her brother finds her, 1968. © Philip Jones Griffiths
Grief has been a main subject for many photographers and the little boy’s despair is heartbreaking.
PARIS—Students hurl projectiles during the May 1968 student protest. © Bruno Barbey
The student protest in Paris was no Tiananmen but was a remarkably fun period for many students because of the massive energy on the streets. Protests, films, arts, secret meetings, marches, songs.. .the id unleashed in full glory. Barbey’s picture makes them look like they were dancing.
MEXICO—Mexicans are arrested while trying to cross the U.S. border, 1979. © Alex Webb
I love the color in this one. The maroon and browns of the shirts with the yellow daffodils. The helicopter becomes a misplaced contraption within the natural environment.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan—An Afghan girl at Nasir Bagh refugee camp, 1984. © Steve McCurry
No worthy collection of seminal photography would ignore this iconic picture by McCurry. National Geographic made it big and this is really just a beautiful picture. Her eyes are incredible.
NEW BRIGHTON, United Kingdom—1985. © Martin Parr
I would love to know the context of this slightly surrealistic picture. Is he sunbathing or protesting with his body? The placement of the body just in front of the demolishing tractor just makes it so ambiguous. Love the little kid in pink.
TEHRAN, Iran—Veiled women learn how to shoot in the outskirts of the city, 1986. © Jean Gaumy
Powerful picture. Women in Iran are generally treated like crap and heavily controlled by many fundamentalist rules. This picture is empowering and shows the strength of Iranian women.
BEIJING, China—Tiananmen Square, 1989. © Stuart Franklin
I can see why this picture was such a big hit when it was published. One person can make a change. Just one is usually enough to derail a movement or at least force it to reflect upon itself.
Tank Man, or the Unknown Rebel, is the nickname of an anonymous man who became internationally famous when he was videotaped and photographed during the Tiananmen Square protests on 5 June 1989. Several photographs were taken of the man, who stood in front of a column of Chinese Type 59 tanks, preventing their advance. (Wikipedia)
From 1960, another view of the Kilauea eruption near Kapoho, Hawaii. Building at left is the F. Nakamura Store. 35mm Ektachrome transparency. (via Shorpy)
Very cool. It’s kinda Gozilla-ish.. I don’t know why. I was half expecting Ultraman to enter from the right side of the picture.
