Kodachrome

Kodachrome 2010, a short film that marks end of the product, shows you why pictures made with the film look so distinctive.


KODACHROME 2010 from Xander Robin on Vimeo. via Laughing Squid

I'm late to Kodachrome's farewell (manufacturing ceased in 2009 and processing ended in 2010), but coming across this short documentary seemed like reason enough to pull together a few snaps and other links.


credit: Ansel Adams via Fortune


credit: George Eastman House via The Atlantic


credit: unknown via Vintage Everyday


credit: unknown via Grapehouse



credit: Walker Evans via Fortune


credit: unknown via Grapehouse


credit: Mike Roberts via Fortune


The CBS News Morning Show's story.


The Daily Mail offers more a reporterly send-off here, including the obligatory Paul Simon song.

The Daily Kos assembles pre-WWII Kodachrome photos from the Library of Congress and the Charles Weever Cushman Collection here.

Photographer Steve McCurry shot 800,000 Kodachrome frames over the past four decades; Vanity Fair slide shows his last roll of the stuff here. And Kodak interviewed him about his transition from kodachrome to ektachrome here. Finally, National Geographic is there when he reconnects in 2002 with the subject of one of the most iconic Kodachrome photos ever.

Breaking Bad's POV shots

A compilation of point-of-view shots from the TV series Breaking Bad with a lovely soundtrack from Jonathan Elias.

via Laughing Squid via MetaFilter

p.s. Breaking Bad Valentine's Day Cards

The Groove Sketchpad

The Groove Sketchpad app ($5) is part of Native Instruments' line of iMaschine music sequencers.


via Technosoul

The power of this pocket-sized studio is impressive, but my excitement is tempered by the demographics of iPhone owners and the current width of the digital divide. Not to say this is a bad time to be beat maker (or a maker of anything digital); it's just worth noting that gadgets considered ubiquitous or essential to some are still luxury items for others, if not out of reach.

The Sketchpad review below is less entertaining than the one above but easier to follow. For more on sequencers in general, click here.

1/24/12 Update: another Apple-based "machine" that looks cool.

DM1 - The Drum Machine for iPad - By Fingerlab from Fingerlab on Vimeo.

I like being able to fire people (read: oops)

Having seen the attack ads aimed at former HP CEO Carly Fiorina (R) during the 2010 California senate race, it seemed inevitable that Mitt Romney would face similar tactics during his presidential run and be prompted to defend his record at Bain Capital.

Mr. Romney is not making this task any easier for himself. Yesterday, while explaining his views on health care policy, he said, "I like being able to fire people who provide services to me." Uttering this line as many voters are struggling economically was like adding a spike to the club with which he was going to be beaten eventually.

When clarifying his remarks, Mr. Romney stressed the context in which he was speaking—the "people," in this case, were insurance companies. It's difficult not to extend the context, however, to include his belief that corporations are people. Rhetorically, it's tough to imbue corporations with human rights one day and then suggest to voters they can be callously dismissed the next.

Capitalism requires creative destruction, and now Mr. Romney owns both sides of that equation. 

Personal technology in 2012

Dig the flexi-screen.

24

Earth's history on a 24 hour scale.

Source: G-100 Introductory Geology at University of Wisconsin via this isn't happiness.

NYT's Cascade Tool

The R&D Group at the The New York Times Company has created Cascade, a tool for tracking the impact of a story or post across the web.


NYT Labs - Cascade from Lucas Black-Dendle on Vimeo.

Via Future Journalism Project. For more about the R&D Group see the Neiman Journalism Lab's tour.

3rd & Mission, San Francisco

Looking south on 3rd Street from Mission Street in San Francisco, 1961 (top) and 2011 (bottom)

Taken 50 years apart, these two photos are almost unrecognizable as the same block. A close look at the blonde brick building on the left allows you to make the connection.

I'm not sure why I get such a kick from these 'then and now' comparisons. Imagining how the past became the present must generate a little spark to the brain each time two dots are connected. And once your head is filled with pictures and stories and trivia, walking down that street is like walking down ten streets at the same time and any one of them can present itself, depending on your mood or what's happening.

(Thanks to OldSF.org for developing a fantastic tool to explore a large portion of the San Francisco Public Library's photo archive. The story of how their project came to be is an example of the volunteer spirit that makes the internet awesome.)

So what the story behind 3rd Street's transformation? How was this neighborhood south of San Francisco's financial district, one filled with rooming houses, pawnshops, bars, cafes, and parking lots redeveloped into an area of museums, fine hotels, large-scale retail, a convention center, a public garden, and a few pockets of affordable housing?

The SF Redevelopment Agency's summary of the 87-acre project seems rather flimsy. An historically rich account can be found in Rebecca Solnit's Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas (see Map 12 and accompanying text, pp. 85-90).

Photographs from Ira Nowinski's No Vacancy and Ben Pease's map are folded together with Solnit's beautiful prose, including perspectives from Jack London, who was born near 3rd & Brannan in 1876, and Jack Kerouac, who lived near 3rd and Howard and worked at the trainyard at 4th and Towsend for spell during the 1950s.

To the left: a slice of Pease's map detailing the neighborhood's buildings and uses in 1960. Clicking the audio/media tab of the UC Press page leads to a podcast interview with Solnit and UC Press Art Director Lia Tjandra about Infinite City.

The Dissident

"The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all. He is not seeking power. He has no desire for office and does not gather votes. He does not attempt to charm the public, he offers nothing and promises nothing. He can offer, if anything, only his own skin -- and he offers it solely because he has no other way of affirming the truth he stands for. His actions simply articulate his dignity as a citizen, regardless of the cost."

-Vaclav Havel (5 October 1936 - 18 December 2011)

Via shake things up via fuck yeah eastern europe

More Havel: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty obit [video]; Tavaana interview [video] about being a dissident; text from the July 1995 speech The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern World; and his wikipedia page