odds-n-ends

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

A random blog post to make sure I get something logged for the month of July! Even though it’s only July 1, I feel like my recent intermittent postings mean I have to blog when I can otherwise I don’t know if I will anymore!

Okay so here we go:

Brooklyn Museum and the Flickr Commons

some pretty exciting things going on over at the Brooklyn Museum, including their consigning to the Flickr Commons, which is less about taking photography in the museum and more about sharing their image archives (as well as images taken documenting recent events, openings, etc.). That’s great, just great. Good for them! Brooklyn Museum Flickr sets

Firestats, for WordPress

Firestats is a great, simple, web statistics system that can be easily integrated with WordPress (which runs this site). It’s smooth, consise and pretty darned comprehensive:

fresh install – 0 statistics

Firestats automatically refreshes! 5 minutes after install, already 5 visitors. That’s cool! (Further down the page you get referrers, countries, search terms, the lot… I hate having to open another tab for my webhost to view urchin stats – Firestats is easily accessible from within the WordPress dashboard!)

Firestats – hello to my Ukrainian and Chinese blogcomradesurfers! all 11.11% of you! Canada… eh.

PicLens for Firefox 3

Following on from the success of over 8 million downloads of Firefox 3 on its launch day, new extensions and add-ons are emerging at an alarming rate, and most of them are pretty top-notch! Furthermore, at least on my system, memory hogging doesn’t seem to be as much of a burden anymore, even with 20+ add-ons running! One of my new-found favorites is PicLens:

PicLens google image search for “nick normal” – an image I’ve never seen before, but I recognize it to be by Lance Wakeling of artmini acclaim! to the right of his image, me and Ashley at the Steinway Street stop in Queens (photo by Josh Picker); below that an image from Peekskill NY, at bookworm or whatever that fantastic bookstore is called, from a trip taken by Kerry, Sarah, Jamil and myself; above the photo of me and Ashley an image of me taken by Cassie Thornton!

Huh? same google image search for “nick normal”. I definitely don’t recognize this photo, but wish I was there! That hexagonal game board with topographic layers! brilliant! (and that orc is soooooo dead! unles… he has… mithril!)

PicLens is quick to browse Flickr too. not sure if it browses titles, tags, or description, but it’s pretty fast! That’s sweet!

So yeah, get PicLens!

and lastly…

Note to self:

FIX YOUR FUCKING BLOG CODE!

i’m on it!

more images, less words

Saturday, June 14th, 2008

following on from the success of my recent some images, some words post, I present you now with more images, but less words (we’re primarily a visual culture after all, are we not?):

big trucks

from 2008 Feb 24 in the NYTimes, this graphic shows the vehicle power needed to move (and to protect, I assume) American troops in the world’s contemporary battlefields. My favorite is the Force Protection Buffalo Category III MRAP, a 20+ tonne vehicle that can carry 6 individuals the distance of St. Louis to Chicago for what would cost at consumer-rates $400-a-tank (not to mention the money needed to get the diesel to the battlefield!)

[via NYTimes - unknown article (or I'm too lazy to search)]

treehug the aristocracy

HRH Prince Charles is the owner of an amazing 37-acre garden known as Highgrove Garden. I’m not too keen on the British royal family, especially their acquisition of land and wealth – and they have a LOT of it – but this place looks pretty spectacular. Too bad I can’t take my non-existing girlfriend there for a stroll.

[via treehugger - A Visit to Highgrove Garden]

you gotta love him!

Martin Creed’s work #701. Creed’s numbering sequence makes for archiving art a really simple task! No flamboyant or wordy titles, and everything simply falls in order, this one, then that one, and so forth.

bike pr0n

[via moyercycles Flickr]

something I’m terrible at

is making business cards. there are some really good ones out there, and I just never follow through with producing them. Are they, the secret ticket to success?

[via fubiz.net]

some images, some words

Saturday, May 31st, 2008

two of my favorite things,

Katamari and Shadow of the Colossus:

I can’t honestly say who would win. All those colossi could be formidable.

[from pixeljoint]

ghost cars of the world

way cooler than my cars of Budapest, check out these Ghost Cars of the World.

PRESS IT ALREADY!:

some image resting on the nytimes server – not sure where from, what article, but i like it.

DIY Pet Architecture

paper work, paper cutting, printed art to play with, etc., it’s been in discussion a lot lately, on many peoples’ tongues. not sure where it’s going, but this is called DIY Pet Architecture, and is a current craze in Japan.

[via SuperColossal]