Our dog has started her career as a famous artist just yesterday. She's into sculptures.
Sadly, she used my wife's glasses for a raw material:
Noooooooooooooooooo...!
Meet Lizzy
Lots has happened since the last time I posted -- I got married, for example. Once the professional photographer gets back to us with the pictures, I might even share some ;)
Today, however, I am able to introduce someone else to you, dear readers: Meet Lizzy!
Lizzy is a mixed breed, part (Miniature) Schnauzer, part unknown. The young lady is about 1 year and 3 months old, and Tara and I got her from an animal protection association, where she was dropped off by a family that suddenly decided they didn't want a dog anymore... She is very well behaved, hardly ever barks, and after a few moments of shyness, loves just about anyone she meets.
Tara and I are very happy to have adopted her and are gladly sharing our apartment now :)
Multnomah Falls
Browsing through the Oregon State University Archives on Flickr, I found this cool 1940 photo of Multnomah Falls, by the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon:
Click on the picture to see a larger version.
I totally dig the old American cars, and the overall "family day trip" vibe. Also, I just love the color of this Kodachrome color picture.
The falls, by the way, were still as gorgeous as they are in this picture when I went there 65 years later.
From Pig to Man and Back
Sean took this snapshot yesterday:
He says: "Okay, this swine flu nonsense has officially gone too far."
Oh, how right. I couldn't help but laugh at this picture. Ethically speaking, it would probably suit Californian farmers better to be concerned about their employees dying rather than their pigs. Just saying.
Happy Birthday, Oregon!
This past valentine's day a few days ago was not only even cheesier than last year's (on the radio, they were making up a "Valentine's Eve" on the 13th already -- how long until Valentine's week, month or year emerge?), it was also the 150th birthday of the State of Oregon. If I had to choose what American state I'd like to be a Citizen of, Oregon would rank pretty high on the list.
Just in time for the big one-five-oh, Oregon State University's archives joined the flickr commons, publishing some nice photos from the state's past for everybody to enjoy. I am delighted! Needless to say, the pictures are in the public domain (or so they assume).
Before the OSU Archives joined the "commons" project, they had already added another flickr account on their owns, publishing other gems from their vault, such as these great, historic football programs:
(Thanks for the link, Jean Pierre!)
Vintage Photographs of Karlsruhe
Searching for "Karlsruhe" on Amazon.com, I found a few sellers that reprint old photochrom (sic) photographs from the collection of the Library of Congress. Among them, these three beautiful old photos of my university city Karlsruhe (Baden), dated somewhere around the turn of the last century:
First, the "General View of Karlsruhe" as seen from the residence castle, facing south.
This one, "Lake in Public Garden" shows the Stadtgartensee, which is now inside the Karlsruhe Zoo.
At last, the Vierordtbad -- a public, in-door pool, that's been built in the 1870s. Completely renovated in the early aughts, it has now as "young" a look as ever. (Side note: The picture title is, incorrectly, "Vierortsbad" = "four city bath", but it was actually called after a gentleman named "Vierordt" who donated some 40 % of the original building costs back in the day).
Very nice photos! But, while this makes the city look "old", Karlsruhe is actually quite the kid, compared to other German cities. It was not founded until 1715, when the Margrave of Baden-Durlach decided to build a new residence -- and a nice little city to go with it.
German Federal Archives Donate Pictures to Wikimedia Commons
The German Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv) are donating about 100,000 pictures to the Wikimedia Commons, all under a Creative Commons 3.0 by-sa (Germany) license. From the wiki page:
Starting on Thursday Dec 4, 2008, Wikimedia Commons will witness a massive upload of new images. We are anticipating about 100,000 files from a donation from the German Federal Archive. These images are mostly related to the history of Germany (including the German Democratic Republic) and are part of a cooperation between Wikimedia Germany and the Federal Archive.
(...)
To our knowledge the donation of 100,000 images is single largest one to Wikimedia Commons so far and we are very hopeful that this is only the start of a long lasting relationship that might serve as an example to other archives and image databases.
As noted elsewhere, in Germany this almost counts as the "hell freezing over": When it comes to availability of historic documents created by the government, Germany has so far had a lot to be desired.
Among the photos uploaded so far by the import script are already some nice little gems of German history, for example:
"Feierabend", or "calling it a day" in the GDR. The slogan at the gate reads: "100% of our staff oppose re-militarization" (one and a half years later the East German government proclaimed the need for a new national army and founded it another four years later, in 1956) and on the factory wall: "Fünfjahrplan -- Friedensplan", or "Five-Year Plan -- Peace Plan".
How about this one:
Water cannon at the border between east and west berlin, right at the Brandenburg Gate (note its pillars in the background), only a stone's throw away from the modern-day German national parliament building. The sign reads: "Warning! You are now leaving West Berlin!" -- a similar sign can still be seen at the historic "Checkpoint Charlie".
Not a Firefox
I promise, my blog is not going to turn into a "desktop wallpaper collection", but this one is too cool not to show it to you:
"Ceci n'est pas le fond d'écran officiel de Firefox / This Is Not The Official Firefox Background Picture"
By the way, the photographer Denis-Carl Robidoux publishes a picture per day, all of which in different sizes to fit your screen, and for free, too.
Red Panda Wallpaper
Just found a nice red panda pic that works as a desktop wallpaper:
The picture was made by meantux on flickr, and is licensed under a CC by-nc license.
Summiting
Well, greetings from Whistler, BC! It's raining, but sessions have started so we don't really hang out too much outside at the moment anyway. And while meals are outside, they are luckily in a tent. Phew.
Of course at lunch, I was stirring the salad dressing and promptly a round piece of glass at the bottom of the jar broke out and decided to flood my pants with what I believe was yummy while still in the jar. Always good to have a pair of spare pants.
I added some pictures to ipernity already, so go over there if you'd like to see what I took pictures of. I also wrote some code to import ipernity into summit.mozilla.org, where I hope it'll show up soon.
Enjoy!