It’s been awhile since my last post, things have been, and still are, kinda hectic and stressful. Which makes me wonder why I’m expanding on the last post rather than posting on a new subject… oh right, I think it’s way cool.
Remember my last post? The one about The Library of Congress posting rights free historical photos on Flickr? Well, it turns out that there is a project called The Commons that Flickr piloted with LOC back in February. Since then The Powerhouse Museum, and The Brooklyn Museum have joined The Commons.
What is the Commons? Flickr says:
The key goals of The Commons on Flickr are to firstly show you hidden treasures in the world’s public photography archives, and secondly to show how your input and knowledge can help make these collections even richer.
Awesome. Like I really needed another reason to spend more time on Flickr.
Yes, there has been a few photography posts of late. Why? I took up the pastime, is why. This week in fact, I got serious and bought a Pentax K20D, along with a couple lenses. Yay.
Now, back to the headline that probably got you reading this in the first place. The Library of Congress has a Flickr Account, check it out here, for some pretty awesome early century (mostly) rights free photographs. If you follow the “Persistant URL” found in the comments of each photo, you’ll find a link to the archival TIFF file, very print worthy. Of course, they are just cool to browse too.
Fredrick Van posted this awesome screen-cast tutorial on how to remove people from your shots using multiple exposures and Photoshop. Read the accompanying post here.
If you haven’t already heard (seems to be everywhere this morning), Adobe has released the Photoshop Express Beta today. What’s Photoshop Express? It’s a stripped down web based version of Photoshop, sort of. It’s Flash based, it’s a photo editor, it’s a simple crop, rotate, limited-tone adjustment app - so forget about doing complex edits. The UI is very slick, clean. The core market are the people who aren’t willing to spend a C-note on Photoshop Elements. The Facebook integration works surprisingly well, the free account comes with 2GB free online storage, along with a gallery view.
It’s about time some of these corporate knobs wake up and use technology to their advantage. Would I be blogging about these books otherwise? I think not. Considering I don’t understand the “cult”, I’ll be giving the PDF a glance. If I like it, I’ll buy the paper version, as many, many others will do.
Update: So I snatched The Cult of Mac and had a look over the weekend, I’m not really any closer in understanding Macheads. To me, it’s no different than any other brand fanaticism, something I just cannot relate too. I guess I understand it in the way that I just don’t get any sort of product obsession, whether it be Harleys, Star Trek, Croc’s or whatever.
I would like to applaud both the author, Leander Kahney and No Starch, for their forward thinking. However, having skimmed the book, I won’t be buying a copy, which, in reality, is no different than going to a bookstore and skimming the print version, and making a purchasing decision based on the content in it’s entirety. Only this way, there is virtually no cost involved for myself or the publisher.
Last week my wife and I went out to get her a new cell phone. She has always liked my Sony Ericsson K790i with the 3.2MP camera. I like it too, while not a good camera, it makes for a pretty good cameraphone. I’ve never seen the logic in almost unusable 1.3MP cameraphones. To my surprise, the vendor had displayed front, center and shiny the 5MP Sony Ericsson K850i.
Nuts! Now my wife has a better cameraphone than I do.
“Are you jealous that I have a better phone than you?” She asks with a smirk,
“No, Moore’s Law dictates when it comes time for my phone replacement, I’ll be getting a better camera than you.” I said, concealing my gadget envy.
Turns out I didn’t have to deal with the envy for long, here’s my next cameraphone, well the sensor at least, Samsung has announced a 8MP CMOS sensor that is the worlds smallest, specifically designed for cell phones. Due for production this fall. Moore’s Law, I love you.
The new module, which is 10% more compact than current solutions, will have an ISO 1600 sensitivity, anti-shake capability, face detection technology, 1-cm macro and an automated shoot mode that is activated by silly, smiling faces.
As an artificial limb designer and hobbyist robotics engineer, artist Christopher Conte rarely uses blueprints or sketches to craft his elaborate biomechanical sculptures.
