Tag Archives: history

Bookmarks for October 6th

By Ed Fladung | October 6, 2009
  • Samoan Tsunami Surfer Survivor story
    harrowing account of a surfer in Samoa who was out surfing, when the tsunami hit.
  • Why Capitalism Fails (and why it will fail again)
    "Since the global financial system started unraveling in dramatic fashion two years ago, distinguished economists have suffered a crisis of their own. Ivy League professors who had trumpeted the dawn of a new era of stability have scrambled to explain how, exactly, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression had ambushed their entire profession.Amid the hand-wringing and the self-flagellation, a few more cerebral commentators started to speak about the arrival of a “Minsky moment,” and a growing number of insiders began to warn of a coming “Minsky meltdown.”" [via Glen E Friedman]
  • The Politics of Spite – NYTimes.com
    Paul Krugman lays down some truthiness about why the current form of the Republican part: "at this point, the guiding principle of one of our nation’s two great political parties is spite pure and simple. If Republicans think something might be good for the president, they’re against it — whether or not it’s good for America."
  • Red Lionfish Invade Caribbean
    bat shit insane!: The red lionfish, a tropical native of the Indian and Pacific oceans that probably escaped from a Florida fish tank, is showing up everywhere _ from the coasts of Cuba and Hispaniola to Little Cayman. Wherever it appears, the adaptable predator corners fish and crustaceans up to half its size with its billowy fins and sucks them down in one violent gulp.
    Research teams observed one lionfish eating 20 small fish in less than 30 minutes. "This may very well become the most devastating marine invasion in history," said Mark Hixon, an Oregon State University marine ecology expert who compared lionfish to a plague of locusts. "There is probably no way to stop the invasion completely." – This article says that the infestation is limited to the eastern caribean. not true. they are catching Lionfish by the dozen in Cozumel and the Riviera Maya.
  • Yale Daily News – Yale Press drops distinctive logo
    “Branding tip: if your organization is lucky enough to have a classic Paul Rand logo, never ever fucking change it. Ever.” — Justin Ouellette [via Jen Bekman]
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Bookmarks for July 23rd

By Ed Fladung | July 23, 2009
  • 100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About | GeekDad | Wired.com
    my favorites:
    - #18: Computers and Videogaming: Wires. OK, so they’re not gone yet, but it won’t be long
    - #45: Not knowing exactly what all of your friends are doing and thinking at every moment.
    - #81: Han shoots first.
  • YouTube – PS22 Chorus "JOGA" by Bjork
    inspirational. the kids go full emo on Bjork's track. this is passionate teaching and engaged students. Apparently this class does several popular songs. and this one the kids learned in one day. I'm sending Luca to this school, where is it? more on their blog
  • Dicks of the World | Arkitip Intel
    I'm really digging this new board graphic by my old school homie Michael Leon. The United Nations erm, um, Johnsons
  • "We Bring Fear" | Mother Jones
    understanding Mexico's drug war: "There are two Mexicos. There is the one reported by the US press, a place where the Mexican president is fighting a valiant war on drugs, aided by the Mexican Army and the Mérida Initiative, the $1.4 billion in aid the United States has committed to the cause. This Mexico has newspapers, courts, laws, and is seen by the United States government as a sister republic. It does not exist. There is a second Mexico where the war is for drugs, where the police and the military fight for their share of drug profits, where the press is restrained by the murder of reporters and feasts on a steady diet of bribes, and where the line between the government and the drug world has never existed. The reporter lives in this second Mexico." [via Intersections]
  • Some E-Books Are More Equal Than Others – Pogue’s Posts Blog – NYTimes.com
    This is why DRM is evil: Amazon intentionally deletes Kindle owner's copies of George Orwell's 1984: "This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for—thought they owned…. it’s like Barnes & Noble sneaking into our homes in the middle of the night, taking some books that we’ve been reading off our nightstands, and leaving us a check on the coffee table." – the biggest screw up in the history of digital distribution.
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Bookmarks for June 18th

By Ed Fladung | June 18, 2009
  • How to Quiet Your Mind | Think Simple Now
    quick tutorial on quieting the internal chatter that ruins your peace of mind: "If you observe our problems, you will notice that most problems are rooted in the mind. The basic premise is the same: some external event happens, we choose to see only one side of the story, and then interpret the situation such that it causes some form of mental conflict, resulting in some form of emotional suffering." [via @nybe]
  • Know your type: Futura: idsgn (a design blog)
    The "Know your type" series is for all of you aspiring typography nerds that haven't reached "nerd" status quite yet. you know you love type, but you don't know why. Futura is the first in the series. You may have seen Futura from Stanley Kubrick and Wes Anderson movies. It was also the first and only font on the moon.
  • Fever° Red hot. Well read.
    damn! for those of you that are heavy RSS readers, this is a new hosted RSS reader application called "Fever", from Shaun Inman, creator of Mint. Fever rethinks how you group rss feeds and does away with "information glut, un-read item guilt and un-Bold elbow", basically your rss reading experience no longer has to be primarily about changing feeds from unread to read, you don't ever have to worry about that little unread count ever again. awesome idea.
  • Clay Shirky: How Cellphones, Twitter, Facebook Can Make History [VIDEO]
    must watch! – While filmed in May, his points are brought into sharp focus by recent developments in Iran (see #iranelection), as social media tools prove their power to change the world. Shirky explains: “Media is increasingly less just a source of information; it’s increasingly more a site of co-ordination, because groups that see or hear or watch or listen to something can now gather around and talk to each other as well…members of the former audience can now also be producers and not consumers.” [ via @jdotsmith]
  • Moray Eel eats Thumb | quietube
    this week on "that's fucking amazing": Diver messes with Green Moray Eel and gets thumb bitten off. Thai doctors create new thumb from toe and it works!
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Bookmarks for May 31st

By Ed Fladung | May 31, 2009
  • R.E.M. – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    weekend reading: "R.E.M. is an American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by Michael Stipe (lead vocals), Peter Buck (guitar), Mike Mills (bass guitar), and Bill Berry (drums and percussion). R.E.M. was one of the first popular alternative rock bands, and gained early attention due to Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style and Stipe's unclear vocals. R.E.M. released its first single, "Radio Free Europe", in 1981 on the independent record label Hib-Tone."…
  • NPR: The Oxford Project
    "Imagine photographing every member of your community. How long would it take? Days? Weeks? Years? It wouldn't be easy. Which is why Peter Feldstein is one of the few people — if not the sole person — to have done it. In 1984, he set up a small studio in his town of Oxford, Iowa (population 676), and, with a fat red marker, made a sign that said "Free Pictures." He taped it to a storefront on Augusta Avenue, Oxford's main street, and waited." – I'm totally gonna try this in Bucerias, MX.
  • The Critical Slide Society: Why didn't we make that?
    another great video! this one on the stop-motion vibe. there have been a few of these kinds of videos floating around the internets the past 6 months. This is by far my favorite. I love the water scene and sharks always win the prize.
  • sea layer: fun little one
    awesome pov longboard surfing video. lots of nice clips. great find, Maggie!
  • Sissyfish: How To Surf
    if you haven't seen this by now, you're not blogging hard enough. you're doing it all wrong. Learn to surf with Poochie and Blackkatt. can't get the song out of my head: "i know how to surf. surf. I know how to surf. surf."
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LIFE Mag photos

By Ed Fladung | April 2, 2009

For those hiding under a log (and gods know I hide under my own log of sorts) LIFE magazine has published all or most of the photos from all their back issues and it’s all searchable. Lots of historical photography to trove through, I could literally get lost on this site all day.

Incidently, it’s a shame that they haven’t published all the old articles as well. why not?

I started searching for photos of Charles A. Haertling’s Volsky House, a very organic mid-century modernist house, showcased in semi-recent issue of Dwell. But once I started to search the site, I quickly became distracted by the mountain of good photography. here’s a few nuggets:

3319392jpg
Cassius Clay and some guys from Britain that make music

Dr. J
Dr. J throws it down

To put the icing on the cake, some of the images can be purchased and printed via QOOP, a web-based photography printing service (you can print your flickr photos through QOOP as well). Photos are around $100 framed. Unfortunately, none of the Cassius Clay or Dr. J photos are purchasable, that’s a travesty.

This last image is one of my favorites. I’d love a shot of this framed on the wall. Total Classic:

3364625-2_400
Cassius Clay relaxes after becoming heavyweight champion

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After the Laughter (Comes Tears)

By Ed Fladung | April 1, 2009

wendy rene
Wendy Rene | illustration politely borrowed from OA

Wendy Rene – After the Laughter (Comes Tears)

I’ve had this song on repeat for the past day or so. constantly going back to it. moving on and then coming back. It’s been floating around my mind for years and a brief screening of The Wackness, prompted me to dig in the (pixel) crates for a copy of this beautiful, haunting, insanely wonderful song. Some true true soul.

While gooooogling for an image for this post I ran across an Oxford American Mag article that explains the historical context of the song and its resurgence (after being sampled by Rza). An amazing article and great read.

It would prove to be Rene’s greatest artistic success, but it had little commercial impact upon release. Rene released a few more singles, including the exuberant “Bar B-Q,” and sang and toured with Rufus Thomas and Otis Redding before fading from the public eye, retiring to motherhood and church-singing. “After Laughter” languished, more or less forgotten, for over a quarter-century.

“I love the fact that hip-hop has helped soul music to get back on the shelves or allowed a lot of people to rediscover these songs in their four-minute versions instead of our sampled hip-hop versions. Because those songs are great, man,” he says. “A song like ‘After Laughter’ probably spent two months in the stores when it came out, you know what I mean? To see that song as something people recognize now, that’s a beautiful thing.” – Rza

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Bookmarks for March 18th

By Ed Fladung | March 18, 2009
  • ad agency shop "Modernista" just launched their blog!
    i really dig Modernista's work. and their blog looks great and random and sprinkled with a cuss word or two. I have a soft spot for curmudgeonry.
  • Nathan Kensinger Photography: Coney Island – Under the Boardwalk
    gorgeous photos taken underneath the boardwalk at coney island. I especially dig the abandoned entrance and storefront ones.
  • Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable « Clay Shirky
    "The problem newspapers face isn’t that they didn’t see the internet coming. They not only saw it miles off, they figured out early on that they needed a plan to deal with it, and during the early 90s they came up with not just one plan but several."
  • doubleTwist
    "All your stuff, on all your devices, with
    all your friends — in seconds" – nice lifestream app. watch the demo.
  • TPM Photo Features | Talking Points Memo | Just Say No Yes to Earmarks
    "When the 2009 spending bill passed last week, Republicans on the Hill– and the stray Dem — were united in a chorus of earmark-bashing. In the words of Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY): "Cut 'em all out." But it turns out that while the senator from Kentucky voted against the bill, he had $10.6 million in earmarks — 13 separate earmarks, to be exact — in the bill. And he is by no means alone. Several members touted their opposition to the bill and then voted against it, even as they tucked in earmarks for their own districts (thanks to Taxpayers for Common Sense). Oh the shame." – I guess it's useless to question why we're getting stuff like this from TPM and not CNN or NBC?
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The Collected History of Everything

By Ed Fladung | January 20, 2008

pantufla

Flickr user Pantufla has sets of photos of just about anything you could think or ever needed to source. His goal seems to be to have a collection of everything. A great source of inspiration for designers, photogs and casual history buffs. Please file this one under: “how the hell does he have enough time in the day to do this shit”

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