Boing Boing » photos

Deflated giant duck

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 16 May 2013 19:19:58 +0000

You'll have seen the pictures of a giant rubber duck floating down the world's iconic waterways, from the Thames to Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong -- it's Florentijn Hofman's brainchild. What you may not have seen is what the duck looks like after it's been deflated, and that's even better -- a kind of puddle of duck, which has a Beatrix Potter-y ring to it until you see it and then it has nothing at all about it that suggests Ms Potter's works.

florentijn hofman's giant rubber duck: the aftermath (via Making Light)

Canadian anti-piracy bounty hunters ripped off photos for their website

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 15 May 2013 15:42:09 +0000

Canipre, a Canadian company that helps the entertainment industry send legal threats to people alleged to have infringed copyright, has been caught using several infringing images on its website. Included in the art that Canipre appropriated for commercial gain without permission is a CC-licensed photo that they could have used legally simply by crediting the photographer. Canipre blames its web developer.

I ended up getting a flurry of phone calls and e-mails from a guy named Barry Logan.
Logan claimed that the company used a 3rd party vendor to develop their website and that the vendor had purchased the image from an image bank.
I pointed out to Logan that if that was true, he had basically paid his vendor to rip off other people's creative work. Logan told me that he would contact his web provider and have the image removed. He also told me that he would provide me with the name of the website developer and the name of the image bank where they obtained my photo.
I did notice that they took down my photo, but I have not heard back from Logan regarding the name of the developer and where they sourced my image. I plan to contact Logan later today if he doesn't get back to me. [sic]

The best part is that the company claims it is motivated by a higher calling than mere profit: "[We want to] change social attitudes toward downloading. Many people know it is illegal but they continue to do it... Our collective goal is not to sue everybody… but to change the sense of entitlement that people have, regarding Internet-based theft of property."

The Company Helping Movie Studios Sue You for Illegal Downloading Has Been Using Images Without Permission [Vice/Jamie Lee Curtis]

Grandson explains reddit-restored, 60-y-o navy portrait to amazed Grandad

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 14 May 2013 05:15:18 +0000

Stephen sez, "I recently helped set my grandad get set up on his new PC and spotted a photo of him from when he was about 20 years old. It was in a sorry state, so I emailed it to myself and posted it on Reddit, where the community came together and restored it beyond its original state! It was amazing what they did, and so I printed off everyone's contributions and framed my favourite. I then got my girlfriend to record the moment I gave my Grandad, so that I could share it with the people who did the work! The result is a funny, yet heart-warming video."

Reddit and I give my 87yo Grandad a wonderful gift! (Thanks, Stephen!)

Ghosts in the Machine: the tiny people who live inside your computers

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 12 May 2013 02:54:58 +0000

Mark Crummett sez, "For several years now, I've been working on a series of photos featuring miniature figures living and working in our computers and consumer electronics. These are the people who Make Things Work. I'm happy to say that wired.com is featuring my 'Ghosts in the Machine' at their rawfile photo blog. Shows many pictures, plus a look behind the scenes!"

Computer Guts Become Eerie Landscapes in Ghosts in the Machine (Thanks, Mark!)

What happens when you forget pizzas in the oven for weeks

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 11 May 2013 21:44:42 +0000

A friend of redditor BigBoppinBill forgot some pizzas in the oven for "a few weeks." The result? A kind of glorious fungal jellyfish.

This calls to mind the timeless wisdom of the Jazz Butcher's classic, loony, over-the-top song, Caroline Wheeler's Birthday Present: "Do you know what happens when you leave a fish in an elevator?/You don't?/Well, here's a clue/Fish is biodegradable/THAT MEANS IT ROTS."

A friend of mine left two pizzas in his oven for a few weeks... (i.imgur.com) (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Wild west (anti)heroes in a rare (and maybe not real) group photo

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 09 May 2013 20:40:15 +0000

This may be a photo of Billy the Kid, Doc Holliday, Jesse James, and Charlie Bowdre, taken in Las Vegas (NM) in 1879:

"There is that story that these two met in Las Vegas at the Old Adobe Hotel on July 26, 1879, and during a card game Jesse asked Billy to join his gang..........Henry Hoyt and Migeul Otero say so in their books, and that they witnessed it..............But Jesse James did stay at the Old Adobe Hotel from July 26 through July 29 in the summer of 1879, according to an announcement in the Las Vegas Optic printed weeks later. The owner of the Old Adobe Hotel, W. Scott Moore, was from Clay County, Missouri, Jesse's home turf, and was a childhood friend of his. Hoyt recalled Jesse's missing finger and his alias, Mr. Howard. And Jesse was on the run, so New Mexico is possible."

Billy the Kid and Jesse James (via Kottke)

German children use bundled inflationary money as blocks, 1923

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 08 May 2013 15:13:34 +0000

Here's a little visual aid for any inflation hawks out there who're looking for just the right graphic to stick in a powerpoint decrying stimulus packages or extolling gold's virtue: a group of Weimar-era kids using bundles of devalued ~~Deutsche marks~~ Reichsmarks as building blocks.

German children using marks as building blocks, when Germany tried to pay its war debts by printing money, causing hyper-inflation. 1923. (via Dark Roasted Blend)

When hairdryers looked like mind-control devices

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 06 May 2013 13:23:29 +0000

Every now and again, Dark Roasted Blend busts out a super-set of vintage photos of some gadget, technology, or system from yesteryear that is so surpassingly fantastic that it stops you cold.

Today is a day where such a set has been posted. The photos of Vintage Salon Hair Dryers that Avi Abrams rounded up here are nothing short of spectacular. Every single one of these demands to be dug out of the scrapheap of history, refurbished, and used as a prop in a low-budget science fiction movie. Especially the kraken-hair ones.

Sleek Vintage Salon Hair Dryers

Labs of the heroic age of science

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 03 May 2013 18:46:02 +0000

On IO9, Vincze Miklós has rounded up a beautiful gallery of photos of vintage science labs, from the Renaissance to Pasteur and Edison and ENIAC. Labs like these are the source of the shared dream of what science looks like that dominates our contemporary consciousness, even though most labs today look very different (science, like many other tasks today, looks like: a person with headphones and bad posture typing at a laptop and periodically clutching at her wrists).

Incredible Pictures of Early Science Labs

Homeless man's A/B test of generosity based on faith

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 01 May 2013 14:58:35 +0000

Redditor Ventachinkway caught a photo of a homeless man conducting a clever exercise in behavioral economics disguised as an inquiry into the levels of spontaneous generosity as determined by religious creed or lack thereof.

When I passed him he proudly announced "The atheists are winning!" (i.imgur.com) (via Glinner)

Neatly disassembled typewriter

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:14:29 +0000

On the spectacular "Things Organized Neatly" Tumblr, an anonymous submission of a very neatly disassembled typewriter.

SUBMISSION: This is an old typewriter I had the pleasure to dismantle today :) hope you like it!

William Gibson tries the Google Glass

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 03:11:19 +0000

Technically, lending Bill these particular shades is a terms-of-service violation -- wonder if Google will revoke them?

William Gibson, Google Glass

San Diego cop smashes phone & beats up suspect: "Phones can be converted to a weapon. Look it up online."

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 01:07:20 +0000

A San Diego cop beat up a man whom he was ticketing for illegal smoking, after the man refused to stop video-recording the experience. The cop told the man that he feared the phone might actually be a gun disguised as a phone, before smashing the phone and tackling the man and smashing his face into the boardwalk. He was taken away in an ambulance.

It all seemed pretty civil until the cop writing the citation told him to stop recording, which Pringle refused to do.
“Phones can be converted into weapons …. look it up online,” the cop told him.
Last month, a South Florida cop confiscated a man’s phone citing the same reason, so maybe this is a new trend.
When Pringle tried to talk sense into the cop, the cop slapped the phone out of his hand where it fell onto the boardwalk and broke apart.
The other cop then pounced on him, slamming him down on the boardwalk where he ended up with a laceration on his chin.
“Blood was everywhere,” Pringle said. “I was laying on my stomach and he had one knee on my back and the other knee on the side of my face.
“They kept telling me ‘to calm down,’ that ‘you’re making this worse for yourself,’ that ‘you have no right to record us.’”

He didn't get the cop's name, and the SDPD won't give it to him.

San Diego Police Attack and Arrest Man Video Recording Them, Claiming Phone Could be a Weapon (Updated) 294 (via Techdirt)

The Portuguese Man-of-War

Rob Beschizza — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 14:48:33 +0000

Jakob Schiller interviews Aaron Ansarov, who collects ~~dead~~ men-of-war from the beach with his wife, then takes astounding photographs ~~of the remains~~. [Wired]

Great "do not disturb" status message

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 03:40:23 +0000

An unidentified person -- possibly an art student, based on the title -- has come up with a pretty seriously worded note to other people in the computer lab in order to remain uninterrupted while working on a deadline.

Art School gets busy sometimes (via Geeks Are Sexy)

Walk 1.4 mi. in London, take photos of 140+ CCTVs

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 00:34:32 +0000

James Bridle photographed every CCTV between his home in east London and Dalston Junction, a 1.4mi walk with about 140 cameras. Welcome to London, where we have 11 CCTVs per red blood cells.

Every CCTV camera between my house and Dalston Junction (via Super Punch)

Skrillex cuddles Minnie Mouse

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 22:05:55 +0000

Dubstep legend Skrillex is apparently visiting a Disney themepark somewhere in the world and getting cuddles from a Minnie Mouse head-character. The world is a big and odd place.

my new chick, sorry Mickey

Butterfly in a skull's eye-socket

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 17:44:05 +0000

Marko Popadic's photo "Oko" captures a spooky, sweet moment in which a butterfly alights in the eye-socket of a skull.

Oko (via Neatorama)

Just look at this liquid nitrogen-dipped banana being shot with a steel bearing.

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 19:10:25 +0000

Just look at it.

I Broke my Banana (Thanks, Philip!)

Beautiful photos of cellphone masts disguised as ugly trees

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 13:39:06 +0000

Wired visits Dillon Marsh's photos of cellphone masts (badly) disguised as trees, and asks why they even bother.

“There were already a wide variety of designs by the time I started photographing,” says Marsh, who completed the project over six months in 2009. “The designs loosely mimic trees that are found in the local environment.”
Meanwhile, in the American Southwest, fledgling company Larson Camouflage was responding to similar style-sensitive network companies. Larson makes scores of different “trees” but it kicked everything off in 1992 with a naturalistic pine that concealed a disagreeable cell tower in Denver, Colorado. To dress up a cell tower in plastic foliage can cost up to $150,000, four times the cost of a naked mast. Marsh is skeptical about the need for high-tech camouflage.
“Even though the gesture is well-meaning, in many cases the result seems clumsy and unconvincing,” he says of the South African technoflora. “Most people don’t feel strongly positive or negative about them, but simply view them as a curiosity.”

Cellphone Towers Disguised as Trees Are a Puzzling Attempt at Aesthetics

Tanker-truck full of inedible pig blood

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 02:44:17 +0000

Welp, there's something you don't see every day. Unless you work at an abattoir.

“I’m Goin’ to Prom!”

Photos & Recaps from the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament

Amy Seidenwurm — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 18:10:09 +0000

I start the New York Times Crossword every day (I can't always finish) and have often fantasized about throwing down with the real puzzle masters at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. Photographer Rufus Mangrove was there last weekend, and his artful shots of the event make it look like a blast.

Check out Eric Berlin and Rex Parker (my favorite crossword blogger) for more info and insight into the tournament. See you next year?

Albania is riddled with decaying Soviet-era bunkers

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 15:55:42 +0000

Wired's Pete Brook talks with Dutch photographer David Galjaard, author of the 2012 Aperture Foundation/Paris Photo First Photobook Award-winning book Concreso, a photo-essay on the insane "bunkerization" practiced by the paranoid Soviet Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha. Hoxha built a one bunker for every four Albanians, 24 per square kilometer, and now the country has no idea what to do with all these decaying, apocalyptic concrete blobs.

“I’m telling a story about a country and I’m using bunkers as metaphors,” says Galjaard. “Albania is an Eastern country but it wants to be part of the West. It has one foot in each, and the split is sort of unnatural. Albanians still have not found their identity so they struggle with the past, but also struggle with the future. And future for them is being part of Western Europe.”
The Communist leader Hoxha rose to power in 1944 as leader of the Party of Labour of Albania and ruled until his death in 1985. Hoxha was on constant alert for political threats and maintained his position with routine immobilization, imprisonment and eviction of his people and political opponents. Hoxha’s suspicions also extended beyond Albanian borders and the bunkers, which number 24 to every square kilometer, and were built in preparation for a multi-front war Hoxha expected from invading countries, East and West. Every citizen in Hoxha’s plan was a reservist. Twelve-year-olds were trained to fire rifles. The bunkers never saw action.
Today, Albanian authorities are at a loss for what to do. The reinforced concrete domes are as difficult to repurpose as they are to destroy. Tourists are fascinated by the bunkers strewn like confetti across scenery, but for locals they’re a largely uninteresting, if obstructive, part of the landscape.”

Paranoid Dictator’s Communist-Era Bunkers Now a National Nuisance [Pete Brook/Wired]

Things, organized neatly: a kentucky site for knollers

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 00:42:17 +0000

Things Organized Neatly is a Tumblr devoted to excellent knolling photos in which things are, well, organized neatly. Zomg, but this tickles something vulnerable in my hindbrain. Show here: a RepRap (in bits), and Cannoli in Buenos Aires.

Things Organized Neatly (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Bureaucrats of the world

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 01:50:01 +0000

Dutch photographer Jan Banning's book "Bureaucratics" is a collection of amazing photos of bureaucrats on five continents, each posed at his or her desk, in her or his office, with notes about rank and salary. Pictured above, "India bureau typeroom," Bihar. Below, Sheriff of Crockett County, TX.

The photography has a conceptual, typological approach reminding of August Sander’s ‘Menschen des 20 Jahrhunderts’ (‘People of the Twentieth Century’). Each subject is posed behind his or her desk. The photos all have a square format (fitting the subject), are shot from the same height (that of the client), with the desk – its front or side photographed parallel to the horizontal edges of the frame – serving as a bulwark protecting the representative of rule and regulation against the individual citizen, the warm-blooded exception. They are full of telling details that sometimes reveal the way the state proclaims its power or the bureaucrat’s rank and function, sometimes of a more private character and are accompanied by information such as name, age, function and salary. Though there is a high degree of humour and absurdity in these photos, they also show compassion with the inhabitants of the state’s paper labyrinth.

Bureaucratics (via Super Punch)

Secure documents

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 22:45:43 +0000

More scenes from a book tour: SECURE DOCUMENTS!

Secure documents do not enter sign, Pasadena High, Houston, TX, USA

Spider Duck

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 17:57:22 +0000

Scenes from a book-tour, part sqrt(-1): the SPIDER DUCK, at Austin's magnificent Toy Joy.

Spider Duck, Toy Joy, Austin, TX, USA

Stills from old home movies

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 03:17:51 +0000

Rick Prelinger sez,

Megan and I were very fortunate that Emma Hurst chose to spend her college field work term with Prelinger Library and Archives, helping with Megan's forthcoming book and my forthcoming movie. As she viewed and logged some two hundred hours of home movies, she curated a striking collection of still images that, like all great collections, exceeds the sum of its parts.
Home movies manage to be many things at the same time: faithful records of ceremonies, places and behavior; deeply enigmatic and ambiguous narratives whose essence we'll never discover; and footage that just maybe points the way to new modes of moviemaking we've yet to discover. Since home movies are effectively infinite (we have 9,000 in our archives), the first task is to find, isolate and reframe the images that we want to work with. Out of some two million frames, Emma picked these.

*stills

Caturday: headphones kitten

Xeni Jardin — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 22:11:05 +0000

"little cat enjoying music," shot by Viktoria Vitkovska of Kiev, Ukraine, and shared in the Boing Boing Flickr Pool.

HadOneJob: photos of monumental cockups

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 22:05:31 +0000

HadOneJob.com is a collection of images showing massive, inexplicable cockups that appear to be the result of terrible negligence and/or deliberate sabotage. I laughed and laughed, and then I cried. Then I laughed some more. Been there, been bitten on the ass by that (as recently as yesterday, when the guy whose job it was to close the door on my Delta flight from Newark to Phoenix broke the door in the process and put the plane out of commission).

YOU HAD ONE JOB! (via MeFi)