Photography
UserpicPhotographers Banned in the USSR
Posted by Sasha
Man With A Clock
Electrician

Banned by the KGB in the USSR, group of photographers, TRIVA.

 


Offbeat
UserpicAmazon AWS Has You Covered
Posted by Sasha

Amazon’s web services arm has updated its terms of service with a special clause that kicks in in the event of corpses consuming human flesh and the like fall of civilisation.

Clause 57.10 of the AWS terms of service states: “This restriction will not apply in the event of the occurrence (certified by the United States Centers for Disease Control or successor body) of a widespread viral infection transmitted via bites or contact with bodily fluids that causes human corpses to reanimate and seek to consume living human flesh, blood, brain or nerve tissue and is likely to result in the fall of organised civilisation.”

 


“The original workers that were not paid anything by their employers were newly freed slaves,” she tells Quartz. “This whole concept of not paying them anything and letting them live on tips carried over from slavery.”

Many Americans in post-slavery America initially resisted tipping, a custom that originated with European aristocrats. To tip was patronizing, Jayaraman writes in her book; it was seen as “despicable, undemocratic and wholly un-American.”

But the idea that anyone who accepted tips was in a lower class held on into the early 20th century. Jayaraman quotes an American reporter, John Speed, who reflected on the tipping system in 1902 while traveling to the North for the first time. His words underscore the inherent racism to tipping: “I had never known any but negro servants. Negroes takes tips, of course; one expects that of them—it is a token of their inferiority. But to give money to a white man was embarrassing to me.”

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Offbeat
UserpicAmazing Russian Truck
Posted by Sasha

It could be useful. You can drive it right into a lake.


Offbeat
UserpicOne more freak show
Posted by Sasha

David Bowie died recently. You may have heard. I wasn't a full-tilt fan and in consequence thereof didn't rend as many garments as some. As might be put by someone within hailing distance of youth, the dude was okay. He occupies a small amount of real estate on my playlist. One of them, "Putting out Fire with Gasoline," the theme from the 1980s remake of "Cat People," I went considerably out of my way to get.

Why do I bring it Bowie up now? Because in all the public mourning and celebration-of-life in print over the past week or so I don't recall seeing much about Bowie's super-legendary introduction to "New York's large and influential counter-culture, most of whom had never heard of David Bowie," as put by the site "The Ziggy Stardust Companion." That would have been September 28, 1972, his Carnegie Hall debut, which was the mightiest display of the power of the hipper-than-thou ever seen in the City that Doesn't Understate.

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Movies
UserpicWeather in Closed Spaces
Posted by Sasha

weather in closed spaces

Das Wetter in geschlossenen Räumen (2015) or "Weather in Closed Spaces"

Set at a luxury hotel in a conflict zone. Development aid worker Dorothea begins an affair with a young Arab drifter, Alec. A literal take on the humanitarian aid.

 


Photography
UserpicNew Year on Isla Mujeres
Posted by Moxietype
Locals swimming in Isla Mujeres
Locals taking a bath on December 31st in Isla Mujeres. Rolleiflex 2.8F, Kodak Ektar 100. 
Reading My Struggle book
Elizabeth reading "My Struggle" by Karl Ove Knausgaard. Rolleiflex 2.8F, Kodak Ektar 100

 

 

 

 


Photography
UserpicWay of Seeing
Posted by Sasha
Photo by Robert Frank
Iowa, 1956. Photograph: Robert Frank

Photography critic Sean O’Hagan hits back at Jonathan Jones’s damning claim that photographs cannot be considered fine art

Imagine, if you will, the following scene. I pop into the National Gallery to view the 2014 BP National Portrait Award and look in bemusement at the exhibition, which is mostly comprised of rather old-fashioned paintings. It’s an uninspiring show, a hotchpotch, as are most exhibitions drawn from open submissions. Inexplicably enraged by this, I rush home and pen an article claiming that painting is dead and that it looks anachronistic, indeed stupid, on a gallery wall in the 21st century. Not only that, but I then extrapolate that all painting is dull and stupid – Caravaggio, Rubens, Picasso, Hockney, Richter, the lot.


Photography
UserpicLisbon
Posted by Sasha
Lisbon
Lisbon. Rolleiflex 2.8f Carl Zeiss Planar. Kodak TRX400.

Photography
UserpicRosy Fingered Dawn in Amsterdam
Posted by Moxietype
Amsterdam Spui Photo

Spui, Amsterdam. Rolleiflex 2.8F, Carl Zeiss Planar, Kodak Porta 160


Photography
UserpicPhotos of Amsterdam
Posted by Sasha
Amsterdam, Prinsengracht
Amsterdam, Canal House in the Twilight
Amsterdam, Singel

The photos above were taken in Amsterdam on vintage Rolleiflex 2.8F (Model K7F) Carl Zeiss Planar 2.8 80mm lens using Kodak Ektar 100 film.


The mayor is backing the redevelopment of South Park’s eyesore neighbourhood into ‘SoDo SoPa’ – but Kenny’s father is not impressed. Kids, it’s time to get with the gentrification programme

By virtue of its location south of downtown South Park, the new zone will, the mayor announced, be named SoDo SoPa. “Sleek, sexy ... so SoDo SoPa.” Just listen to all those sexy single sibilant syllables. But acronyms are just the beginning: new retail opportunities can also have earthy, muscular names like Steed, the Stag and Brighton’s. One restaurant in Sodo Sopa is called Vernacular.


According to the latest study, giving your body enoough time to digest food is critical for optimal health and a good sleep. It is the case even if you eat all fat diet, versus have access to food at all times.

Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California recently published a study in the journal Cell Metabolism that investigated one important aspect of this problem. Their question: which is more important—what you eat or when you eat? For example, what would happen if you could only eat between the hours of 9 am and 4 pm? Would you gain less weight and be healthier overall even if you ate a high fat diet? Their answer was “yes.”

Mice were given free access to either a standard, nutritionally-balanced chow or a chow that was high (61% of calories) in fat. Some mice were allowed total access to the food at all times. Some mice were only allowed access to their assigned diet for an eight hour window during the early phase of their normal active period. As anyone would have predicted, the mice given total all-day access to a high fat diet (the standard American diet) developed obesity, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome and altered sleep-wake rhythms.


Offbeat
UserpicPicture of the Day
Posted by Sasha

Putin in submarine

The President of Russia Vladimir Putin is submerging in submarine to inspect the sea floor.


Reaffirming interview with Michael Houellebecq about the current events in the wake Charly Hebdo attack and nearly 100% coverage on Islam in French media.

Houellebecq’s main target in Submission is what he believes is France’s limp and cowardly intellectual and political class. In Paris, the most visible change when he returned from self-exile three years ago was the number of homeless “that had really exploded in the 10 years I’d been away”, but in the nation as a whole he noticed the media obession with Islam (“it really wasn’t talked about before I left”) and, most importantly, he says: “the people’s great contempt for its elite: politicians, bosses, journalists ... it was really very big.”


Here it is. My i-Phone WiFi selection went grey and not selectable. In short WiFi stop working. After spending numerous days resetting Networks, resetting entire i-Phone and following official instructions from Apple Discussion Board, and nothing worked. The i-Phone WiFi was dead.

What worked for me is not for a faint of heart. I found this instruction on the web and thought it was a prank.

1) Take a blow drier and turn the heat on.

2) Take your i-Phone and aim the heat towards the speaker ear piece. Continue to blast heat until you can't hold the phone in your hands any longer and the message comes up "The device needs to be cooled off before it can be used".

Turn the phone off! You probably will need to hold it in the towel by that time.

3) Put the turned off phone in the fridge and forget about it for about half an hour.

4). Turn the phone on. In my case the WiFi came back ON. 

I can't vouch that it will work on your phone, as it did on mine, but if you are about to put it in the trash, it is worth a shot.

Here are the original instructions that worked for me.


Offbeat
UserpicEnjoy
Posted by Sasha

Solo free tight rope walk record. Do not try it at home!


Word of the Week
UserpicDystopia
Posted by Sasha

A dystopia (from the Greek δυσ- and τόπος, alternatively, cacotopia, kakotopia, or simply anti-utopia) is an imaginary community or society that is undesirable or frightening. It is literally translated as "not-good place", an antonym of utopia.

Synonym: kakotopia


Ms Crighton-Smith, who was travelling on a train in south London, told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme: "I had Airdrop switched on because I had been using it previously to send photos to another iPhone user - and a picture appeared on the screen of a man's penis, which I was quite shocked by.

"So, I declined the image, instinctively, and another image appeared, at which [point] I realised someone nearby must be sending them, and that concerned me. I felt violated, it was a very unpleasant thing to have forced upon my screen.`

"I was also worried about who else might have been a recipient, it might have been a child, someone more vulnerable than me.

"My name on Airdrop says Lorraine so they knew they were sending it to a woman. The images were of a sexual nature and it was distressing."

How to turn Airdop off

Airdrop is specific to iOS device and Apple Macs. It uses wi-fi and Bluetooth to talk over a short range to other devices, like other iPhones.

Its default setting is for "contacts only", which means only people you know can see you.

But if you want to share your information or your contacts with other people, you may make a change to the settings and change it to "everyone".

"This means that typically in a train carriage, or tube carriage, you can see other devices," commented Ken Munro, a cybersecurity consultant at Pentest Partners.

"That's what's happened in this particular case, someone has enabled everyone and then hasn't then set it back. As a result anyone within wi-fi or Bluetooth range can send something to you that's quite horrible."

He added that Apple could tackle the issue by making Airdrop return to its default setting if it had not been used for 10 minutes or so.

A spokesman for Apple declined to comment.


From smartphones to designer handbags to cars even, counterfeiting has long been a part of Chinese industry, where trademarks can be a slippery concept.

Beijing was awarded the 2022 games on Friday despite the city's lack of snow.

Piggy-backing on the massive popularity of Frozen might be just the ticket to dampen down some of the criticisms levelled at the decision - from the lack of snow to China's poor human rights record.

But just how similar are the two songs? Judge for yourself: here's China's promotional number and here's Frozen's "Let It Go".

"Plagiarism, stealing, copying - that's the only thing China can do," said another YouTube user, zn4807. "There's nothing you can do, this is China, from officials to the people, there's a culture of plagiarism, theft and copying."

Chinese business magazine Caijing Online, cited by the New York Times, analysed the instrumentation in the songs and said they had similar prelude chords and an eight-beat introduction, and run at almost exactly the same tempo.

Read more at BBC.