photos

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Photo Challenge #3: Show Us Your Junk

I'm taking a page from Ransom's blog and issuing a new photo challenge! Previous challenges called for you to send us pictures of your neighborhood's "pants," and local ill-advised business names. Both were big hits: our photo army is on the march. Now the challenge expands to crazy thrift store finds. Get your camera, go to your local thrift store, and snap a picture of the craziest thing you find! To get you started, here's a real item from a Portland, Oregon Goodwill (found by blogger Mary... READ ON

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Fun With Signs: The Lowercase L

Bloggers love posting pictures of signs -- we've covered misspelled signs, weird signs, and (my personal favorite) signs featuring unnecessary quotation marks. Well, in further proof that there's a blog for literally everything, I've come across a blog documenting the use of the lowercase letter L among uppercase letters. Yes, this is real -- since 2005, blogger William Levin has been documenting signs in which the letter L is written in lowercase, while the other letters are uppercase. Each entry... READ ON

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Victory Mail: WWII's Patriotic Post

Stationed overseas? Want to send a love letter to your sweetheart, or check up on the farm back home? Currently reading this blog via some kind of time-travel wormhole to World War II? If you answered 'yes' to all of those, it sounds like you need V-mail (and quite possibly a visit to the Chaplain.) For three years in the early 1940's (June 15, 1942 through April 1, 1945) the U.S. operated a V-mail service to military posts around the world. The service was based on the British Airgraph system, and... READ ON

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Tree Totaller

Check out this crazy structure from TheCellar's Image of the Day. Apparently, a Russian man started building a two-story home for himself, and then saw no reason to stop. Currently, the hand-built wooden dwelling stands at a towering 13 stories (or 144 feet).... READ ON

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Inspiring Images: FFFFOUND!

FFFFOUND! is a community-driven design resource, posting interesting images -- photos, graphic design, paintings, all kinds of stuff. Users can "save" photos (marking them as personal favorites), and the site then recommends images based on who saved which photos. It's a great way to get some design inspiration, or just browse awesome photos. By following the trail of related images you can find all kinds of wonderful stuff. For example, let's say I like the photo below, labeled: "Team Work : Tunc... READ ON

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Send Us Your Photos: The Oldest Thing You Own

We're working on a new feature for mentalfloss.com involving reader-submitted photos. To get things rolling, we're putting out a call for photos of the oldest thing you own. 142 readers have already discussed this in text (for the comments, see What's the Oldest Thing You Own and the greatest hits re-post), but now we're looking for photos. To submit your photos for this project, drop them in an email to flossypics@gmail.com, include your name (first name or full name -- your choice), your location,... READ ON

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Just say snow

Looking through the wintery archives at the always-terrific Cellar, I stumbled into this great photo. The shot is of more than 8,900 people setting a snow angel record in North Dakota a little over 10 months ago. What's most stunning about it though isn't that so many folks gathered for the event, but that the people of Bismarck hope this will change public perception of the place. According to a USA Today piece: Edna Arvidson, 84, of Bismarck, said she participated in the city's [previous] record setting... READ ON

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The Best Things Since Sliced Gingerbread

Gingerbread houses are not a Hattikudur-family forte. Every year my mom (a pre-school teacher) insists that my sister and I build a gingerbread house for her classroom. And every year, what should look like a cookie-cutter house ends up looking like a Frank Gehry/Ray Charles collaboration. Perhaps that's why I'm so astounded by the work below. It's all pulled from a Seattle gingerbread show last year, and there's more here. Link via the excellent... READ ON

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16 Incredible Planetarium Projectors

I'm a big planetarium fan. What could be more fun than sitting still in a big dark room and looking at stuff, while somebody talks about the cosmos and the sweep of time and stuff? No, seriously -- that's big fun for me. Planetariums combine the fun of sitting with the joy of staring. Also: darkness punctuated by points of light, and sometimes video. So I was delighted to come across a link to sixteen incredible planetarium projectors at object/design site Oobject. These projectors look like crazy... READ ON

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The Photo Detective

We've written about old photos before. Based on my informal surveys, I think most people are at least slightly obsessed with old photos -- there's a tension between the clear documentation of a moment (a photo) and the common lack of any information about the moment -- who's pictured, where was the photo taken, and when? Earlier this month there was an excellent profile in The Wall Street Journal called The Photo Detective, detailing Maureen Taylor's work with old photos, answering just such questions --... READ ON