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Earth From Above – Photos By Yann Arthus-Bertrand

admin — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 04:41:43 +0000

On those pesky days when the world begins plunging into financial chaos and despair, it’s probably a good idea to try to remember we live on a REALLY big planet, and very little of it is made of money. As imaginary trillions turn into worthless pieces of paper, maybe some of those imaginary trillionaires will take a break from trying to horde the remnants of their empires, and take a look around. French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand has been looking around the world since 1994. In an attempt to inspire people to think globally about sustainable living, he has taken astoundingly beautiful photographs from the air in over 150 countries. These are not simply nature photographs; often the subjects are the sad results of industry, technology, or war. Who would think, for instance, that the waste produced by a copper mine could be beautiful? Referring to the resulting collection of images, Arthus-Bertrand suggests: “Though it invites us all to take our own responsibilities, this testimony remains resolutely optimistic. Each portrait, be it of the Earth or its inhabitants, aims at showing the best in order to appeal to what is best in us. For the will to protect is indeed strongest towards that which one has learnt to understand and love.” Which I guess will be a bit of a problem for those who have primarily “learnt to understand and love” their wealth.

How To Get A Head In Life

admin — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 12:34:09 +0000

You’ve probably seen the Elf Yourself ad campaign or the MyHeritage Celebrity Lookalike gizmo , but Mashable.com shows us 18 Ways to Get Your Head in the Game. Upload a picture of yourself to any of a number of sites, and soon you can be one of the Villlage People, a Wanted Criminal, or see your face on the cover of Rockstar magazine . Before you know it, you will have wasted an afternoon, and want to come back here and kill me for it. The Morphable image on the left is from MyHeritage. It was a little disturbing to find that I look like Bruce Willis and Howard Dean (and who the heck is Stephen Chow, anyway) but Drew Barrymore? If only I looked like Drew…my lesbian friends all adore her, she always gets a great table at restaurants…the only drawback would be being chased by whack jobs like Tom Green…Anyway, feel free to post links to your results in the comments.

Buy a Car, or Buy a Hasselblad H3DII-50?

admin — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:45:23 +0000

This is a beautiful machine, but there are only two reasons to think about buying this camera: 1.) It looks cool on the seat of your Bugatti Veyron 2.) You need hi-resolution billboard-sized photos. Although they haven’t announced the price yet, Hasselblad has released specs on their 50 megapixel H3DII-50. Yes, that’s 50 megapixels, creating 300MB image files at 1FPS (Hold still, dammit, or the pores on your face’ll be all blurry!). This is accomplished with a sensor that is twice the physical size of the largest existing 35mm DSLR sensors. The expected price? Since owners of the H3D-39II paid around USD37,000 and will get a free upgrade, it might actually be less than that. I don’t need one of these, but since my birthday is tomorrow, feel free to buy me a Nikon D80 so I can start my long-dreamt of career as a fashion photographer-slash-photojournalist.

Some Quick MetaBlog Highlights

admin — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 03:40:41 +0000

On Slate: 13 New Obama Rumors You Should Forward Right Now . My favorite: “Barack Obama buys AMERICAN STUFF. He owns a FORD, a BASEBALL TEAM, and a COMPUTER HE BUILT HIMSELF FROM AMERICAN PARTS. He travels mostly by FORKLIFT.” On TV Squad: The G4 Network is introducing a show this summer called Hurl, which “combines speed-eating with intense physical challenges.” Idiocracy may be closer to the truth than we think. Via Metafilter: Denis Darzacq’s photos of floating breakdancers (one is pictured at left). More floating people photos here .