Aug 24
Just had to share this here, a posting from BoingBoing on tests that Kodak made in 1922 of color film. It’s rather haunting actually, nameless people in color film almost 90 years old really kind of boggles the mind. Â The last woman in the film almost seems like a blonde human Betty Boop.
BoingBoing:Â Kodak 1922 Kodachrome Film Test
I was very sad to learn this weekend that Eric Baker’s image blog over at Design Observer is ending. Â I very much enjoyed the Saturday morning blog post of a seemingly random collection of images all based around a general concept or idea. Â They showed pictures of design ideas of bygone eras, store signs, people of all walks of life, small trinkets, foreign propaganda and much, much more. Â Sure there are other picture blogs of a similar nature, but Baker’s collections were just that much more interesting and engrossing for reasons I can’t really explain.
While I will not do this on a regular basis, every now and then I would like to post a series of images that just happen to catch my fancy at that moment or from the past week. Â Here is a collection for starters.
Looking at black and white photos has a tendency to warp our sense of time and make us think that certain events are further back in the historical record than the actually are. Â Looking at photos from 50, 75 and 100 years ago all create a complete disconnect from the time the photos come from. Â However if those photos are in color, suddenly the distance in time doesn’t seem so long as with an equivalent black and white photo, somehow seeming even a little relevant to the current time.
The Big Picture gives an example of this today with their posting of several color photos from Russia in 1910. Â While Russia has certainly progressed from this time, it’s hard not to think that some parts of the world still appear this way to us and that 100 years ago really isn’t all that long ago. Â Enjoy.
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/08/russia_in_color_a_century_ago.html
Iran announced last week that the teaching of music is not favored by Islam and should not be allowed to be taught or performed in schools throughout the country. While I find this to be a tragic development for Iranian culture, I can’t say that the situation is that different here in the United States.
Ever since the early 1980s, music education in the United States has been in a free fall and what was once a robust system of teaching music in the public school system is now mostly a distant memory in aging school yearbooks from the 50′s, 60′s and 70′s. The only option available today for those that want any serious type of music education are through private lessons or enrollment in local private music schools and youth orchestras. For those with less economic means, and without any form of scholarship or financial aid, a music education is very much a luxury.
When funding cuts make the usual rounds in the education system, the arts are almost always the first to go, with sports being the last victim, if ever. While sport is very much a valuable asset in physical stamina and health, music is just as vital in terms of mental sharpness and creativity, skills that very much apply to all aspects of human endeavor.
While the tragedy in Iran has been a sudden and abrupt one, the tragedy in the United States has been a slowly developing one, yet every much as damaging as what is going on in the Middle East.
http://www.newmusicbox.org/chatter/chatter.nmbx?id=6513
Most people understand that China is a huge country, not just in land mass but in just about everything else. Â China has the world’s largest population. Â China now has the world’s second largest economy. Â China is the “sleeping giant” although it’s certainly getting past that groggy state of waking up. Â The list goes on an on. Â But few news items state the following:
Foxconn … has announced that it will be hiring 400,000 more workers at new plants in China, thanks to a 50 percent increase in revenue lately. The total number of people working at Foxconn will be estimated at 1.3 million.
That is simply astounding! Â That’s like UPS deciding to add the entire city population of Oakland to its payroll. Â According to Fortune magazine, Fortune 500 company Wall-Mart has rougly 1.9 million employees, with McDonald’s in second place at 465,000. Â It’s anyone’s guess if that’s full-time employees, but for Foxconn to simply add an additional 400,000 workers to its existing 900,00 employees goes beyond anything that seems possible in the country. Â And that’s just Foxconn. Â I’m sure there are better examples of mass hirings in China for corporations like this.
Article: http://www.tuaw.com/2010/08/19/foxconn-hiring-and-relocating-400-000-workers/
Venetian glass makers in the Renaissance were a prized possession. Â So valuable in fact that they were guarded heavily from leaving Venice, and those that did were often assassinated or kidnapped back to Venice so that their secrets wouldn’t be made known to the rest of the world.
I wonder if this is the case with those that hold the secrets to the recipe of Thomas’ English muffins, the makers of those delicious nooks and crannies.
Among all the hubbub of Chelsea Clinton’s wedding yesterday, one little tidbit caught my attention:
Chelsea … “insisted her father lose weight before the ceremony. People close to the president said that by cutting out junk food and exercising more, he lost more than 20 pounds, going five pounds further than his daughter had ordered.”
Since I lost 50 pounds myself a couple of years ago, I like to think of myself at least a little bit of an expert when it comes to shedding pounds. Â It’s a no brainer that cutting out junk food is a sure path and good starting point to losing weight, and it’s really great to see the former President losing weight for his daughter’s wedding. Â But I would have thought though that his heart surgery a few years ago would have forced him to stop eating junk food at that point. Â I hope he doesn’t pick up again now that the wedding is over.
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/08/01/nyregion/20100801_CHELSEA.html
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