ricketyclick

Every day, from 31 March 1979 through 25 October 1997, Jamie Livingstone took a Polaroid instant photo of himself, his family, his friends, or his world.

It’s an extraordinary collection, now available on the Photo of the Day website.

Chris Higgins told the story on Mental Floss.

Higgins also linked to an lovely little film by Charles and Ray Eames detailing the technology underlying the project, the Polaroid SX-70 instant camera. The SX-70 first enabled many of the uses that digital cameras now find. That camera was also a hacker’s dream, which could be cannibalized for at least two crucial technologies: The flat battery pack, and the sonar range finder. (That last is still a mainstay of many robotic navigation and detection systems.)

You may know the Eames by their chairs, or by another of their films, Powers of Ten.

Via the Anchoress.

---

Speaking of digital photography, don’t miss this discussion of how current high-end professional digital cameras, especially the Nikon D3x, are being marketed. It’s a bit over my head (I’m only getting maybe a third of the discussion points), but I believe it’s worthwhile for anyone considering the purchase of anything other than the most basic point-and-shoots. [Via Cold Fury.]

One of my favorite webcomics, Girl Genius, is taking a holiday break with a Gaslamp Fantasy reworking of Cinderella.

Cinderella, played by our favorite Mad-Girl Spark Agatha Heterodyne, has repaired her Fairy Godmother’s Magic Wand using Mad Science, and used it to transform a pumpkin into a coach to take her to the Prince’s Science Fair, where she plans to enter a project she’s been keeping secret from her Stepmother and Stepsisters, who will be entering their own step-projects. *whew* I do not know of any other webcomic presenting anything like this level of art, three times a week, without fail.

Story’s kicking along just fine, too.

Bravo to Phil and Kaja Foglio and their team!

Below the fold, Agatha-ella’s version of the Pumpkin Coach, far and away the best I’ve ever seen.

I cannot wait to see what happens when Agatha-ella uses the wand on herself for her ball gown. Oh, wait. It’s a Science Fair, not a ball. Hm. Not much you can do with a white coat, eh?
(more…)

In a total splurge, I got a Wacom Bamboo 6 x 8 graphics tablet.

It’s wonderful, and I wish I were artist enough to use it properly.

Unfortunately, last time I updated Ubuntu, it quit working. I had hoped that the upgrade to 8.10 would fix that, and it did — almost.

The stylus on this thing has an “eraser” button, which can be set in the GIMP to work just like an eraser. There’s also a wireless mouse that works with the tablet.

The stylus works, pressure sensitive, side buttons, and all, but neither the mouse nor the eraser work. I just spent a couple of hours dinking with /etc/x11/xorg.conf, which controls the user interface, but no joy.

So here’s my current mood:

Look, on a good day? I can pick out “Chopsticks” on a cheap toy piano. Controlling the GIMP with the Bamboo is like putting me in front of a really big pipe organ. I can pick out “Chopsticks” on any number of interesting-sounding stops.

Strongly, strongly recommended for anyone with any interest in drawing on the computer. Far easier to use than a mouse (fingers instead of wrist), pressure sensitive strokes — fabulous. I hope to be worthy.

One purchasing choice to consider: I went for the 6″ x 8″ pad. This gives you extra resolution. However, the cursor position on the screen is controlled by the absolute position of the stylus on the pad. To go from one side of the screen to the other, you must move the stylus from one side of the pad to the other. You cannot do this with simply wrist action; you must move your whole forearm. Also, with an ordinary mouse, if something on the desk gets in your way, you pick up the mouse, move it back a bit, and put it down. This trick does not work with the Bamboo. These problems would be less severe with the smaller 4″ x 6″ pad. Moreover, the small pad comes in a stripped down package with no mouse and no software — $70 versus $200 for the 6×8 Bamboo “Fun” package I got.

I think I prefer the larger version, but it’s definitely taking some getting used to.

[update]
I believe that ergonomically, the pen position, with your wrist held sideways, is far superior to the flat wrist mouse position. It’s the difference between a good handgun stance and the gangsta grip.

Fun with dead trees. Robert Sabuda, children’s book artist and author, gives lessons in making your own pop-ups. He provides outlines you can print out, color, cut out, and glue together according to clear step-by-step instructions. Projects range from a couple of basic technique demonstrators to an extremely complex, mulitlayered New York City skyline.

The only thing I can fault here is that there are no large pictures of completed projects, only tiny thumbnails.

Update:

• Raffle tickets are five bucks each. Call FBMG at 801-571-1160 to order.
• Paypal arrangements in the works.
• Raffle winners to be announced on 4 October.

Go here for pictures and more information as it becomes available.

---

Welcome, Freedom Sight Readers! I appreciate the link and the blog roll; I need to sit down and get my own in order.

---

My penis is not big enough or stiff enough to use in self-defense, and accordingly, I must accept my pathetic weakling status and own guns to compensate.

Preferably the biggest, longest, loudest, blackest guns I can get, right?

If someone asks whether I think they should buy a gun, I say, ‘Do you care if it’s pink?’ If you have a good and legitimate reason to own and carry a gun as a tool…then it shouldn’t matter if it’s pink.

If you’re buying it for machismo reasons, as a penis extender - which some people do - then you won’t want to own a pink gun. If it matters that it’s pink, don’t buy it.

As I responded at the time:

So long as it’s pink, it can be any gun I want, any caliber, any magazine capacity, any rate of fire? (By your analogy, the bigger the better, yes?) Carried open or concealed? (You wouldn’t want me to “open carry” my penis, would you?) No training, licensing, or registration required? (I know some folks think all males should be registered at birth as sex offenders, but you’re not that sexist, are you?)

All that in trade for some pink Duracoat?

Woo hoo! I’m ready, baby!

Well, hey boy howdy, how about a pink gun for a pink cause: Breast Cancer!

…We decided to take a Stag 15 and paint it pink, then raffle it off for Breast Cancer Research.  I took the gun back to my smith (www.gundoctor.wordpress.com) and told him what we were doing. He volunteered to do the Duracoating, but said that if he was going to do it, he was going to make it nice.  Turns out Joe’s family has been through this too.

Is that gun pink enough for you, you filthy little gun-fearing pants-shitting coward?

Or is that pink ribbon right there in front of the trigger still not speaking enough truth to my penis?

Friend Pat emails this video of underwater sculpture, intended to grow into reefs. I hope somebody’s taking annual photos so we can see a time-lapse of the reef growing.

More info at the artist’s website here.

Someday, some archaeologist is going to have a blast trying to figure these things out.

Via Curmudgeonly and Skeptical.

This was the future before I was ten. I don’t like all this stuff, but much of it fills me with what I can only describe as an odd nostalgia for the future.

Incredible architecture, interiors, furnishings, and appliances.

OK, notice anything a bit odd about this scene? OK, OK, apart from the rainbow appearing against a black sky, its non-circular arc, and the perspective that puts one pillar amongst the foreground trees and the other on a distant hill?
(more…)

Animated maps are wonderful instruments for understanding history.

Below the fold is the Civil War, a.k.a. The War Between the States, in four minutes.

(more…)