SquidHammer

YAP

2012-01-27T20:00:00.000-05:00

"Why do people take such an instant dislike to me?" asked Gingrich, "Because it saves them time" replied Bob Dole.

Pix

2012-01-23T18:43:00.000-05:00

Supernatural photo of an Elephant by Nick Brandt

Mexico

2012-01-17T21:47:00.000-05:00

I went to Mexico with the kids in the 1st week of January. Good food, good weather and this was the view from our room. Nuff said.

Happy Birthday Muhammed Ali

2012-01-17T20:17:00.000-05:00

He's 70 years old today, and still one of the most famous people on the planet. People love him and respect him, but most don't remember when he used to matter. And he mattered a lot. This Esquire cover dates from his amazing refusal to serve after being drafted by the US Army during the Vietnam War. He was stripped of his title, sent to jail and damned by almost everyone. He was widely hated as a threat to all manner of tradition (i.e. keeping the niggers down). The system tried to kick the shit out of him. They lost.

Edit: They didn't really lose. He won. And he won with style.

Sheeple

2011-12-23T20:30:00.000-05:00

I don't know what's going on here, and I don't want to find out.

21st Century Blues

2011-12-21T19:00:00.000-05:00

Yap

2011-07-14T19:58:00.000-04:00

A man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time.
Henry Ford

Yap

2011-06-25T19:10:00.000-04:00

We cannot absolutely prove, that those are in error who tell us that society has reached a turning point, that we have seen our best days. But so said all who came before us, and with just as much apparent reason
Thomas B Macaulay

June 24, 1812

2011-06-24T20:30:00.000-04:00

On this day in 1812, Napoleon crossed the Neimen and invaded Russia with 480,000 troops. Things went well for the French, until winter. The retreat was a horror and by the time Napoleon returned to the Neimen in early December, he had less than 25,000 troops left. At least 300,000 died of cold, hunger or battle (the difference being mainly deserters).

Yap

2011-06-23T20:19:00.003-04:00

An alliance with the powerful is never to be trusted.
Fedrus

My Pix

2011-06-05T14:47:00.002-04:00

Finished version of the Gehry building in Las Vegas, April, 2011
All of my photos are on Flickr.

Yap

2011-06-03T23:29:00.001-04:00

Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer.
W.C. Fields

Faves

2011-05-30T23:13:00.002-04:00

Bay of Baiae, JMW Turner, 1823, Tate Gallery

Turner is often said to be a precursor of the Impressionists. There is some truth to this, but not much. The Impressionists were literalists. They did not paint what they could not see. Turner, on the other hand, while perfectly capable of the most literal interpretations, loved injecting imaginary figures, geography and events into his paintings. In the exquisite painting above, that's no fashionable picnic party on the left, its Apollo and the Sibyl. You don't see classical Gods cavorting across the canvases of Monet or Renoir. The idealized landscape was what they fought against.

Turner was one of a kind. His early work was very much in the tradition of Claude, but after he visited Italy in 1817, Turner struck out on his own path.

In any case, Turner doesn't really reproduce. I've seen the painting at the Tate and it has a lightness and color you don't see here.

Yap

2011-05-23T01:45:00.002-04:00

Finality is not the language of politics.
Benjamin Disraeli

Yap

2011-05-13T23:48:00.000-04:00

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you really want to test his character, give him power.
Abraham Lincoln

More Funny Money

2011-05-12T18:44:00.001-04:00

Vegas Pictures

2011-05-08T14:04:00.000-04:00

Here are a bunch. I'm pleased with the quality overall, given my recent lack of experience and the consumer lenses on the camera. There certainly is a lot of stuff in Las Vegas.

No cultural icon or era is safe at Caesars Palace

The Bellagio

Lake, Bellagio

Trumpets at Caesars

Flowers #2

Frank Gehry Building #1

Frank Gehry Building #2

Desert flowers

Binion's

Neon Gold

Clark County Offices

Reflection on the Strip

Flowers #2

Flowers #3

Flamingo #2

Flamingo #3

Gehry #3

Flamingo

2011-05-04T20:58:00.000-04:00

Yap

2011-05-04T19:14:00.001-04:00

The dream to kill me will never be completed
Osama Bin Laden

Guess he was wrong on this one.

More Vegas

2011-05-03T19:20:00.000-04:00

Las Vegas

2011-05-03T19:04:00.000-04:00

click on image for huge

I went to Las Vegas last week for a vacation. Here is a quick and dirty panorama showing the view from my room. And to answer the question everyone has asked, I finished the week down $100 after playing craps and blackjack.

Yap

2011-04-23T23:38:00.001-04:00

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
Winston Churchill

Funny Money

2011-04-19T18:40:00.002-04:00

Funny Money

My Pix

2011-04-17T13:13:00.000-04:00

Mirror, Kew Gardens, 1993
Kodak High Speed Infrared

Yap

2011-04-17T13:07:00.000-04:00

Never in the House did I use the word which comes to mind. The nearest I came to doing so was when Sir Winton Turnbull, a member of the cavalleria rusticana, was raving and ranting on the adjournment and shouted: "I am a Country member". I interjected "I remember". He could not understand why, for the first time in all the years he had been speaking in the House, there was instant and loud applause from both sides.
Gough Whitlam

Fort Sumter

2011-04-14T00:02:00.003-04:00

Fort Sumpter, April 14, 1861

The other anniversary this week. The photo was taken 150 years ago today and shows the Confederate flag flying over the newly won fort.

Fukushima Daiichi

2011-04-13T01:18:00.002-04:00

Fukushima Daiichi reactors 1 -4 March 18, 2011. Photo by Digital Globe.

The press reports about the disaster at Fukushima have been fragmentary and occasionaly hysterical. This article from the BBC is the best one page explanation of what happened and what needs to be done. Highly recommended.

50 Years in Space

2011-04-12T04:18:00.001-04:00

Yuri Gagarin in the capsule before launch.

On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the 1st human to orbit the earth. It was a stunning achievement that took the world by surprise. As the tides of history flow and our own age is forgotten, they will still remember Yuri Gagarin. Nobody else can ever be the 1st man in space.

Yap

2011-04-11T23:41:00.001-04:00

In politics, nothing moves unless it's pushed.
Morton C. Blackwell

Yap

2011-04-11T19:46:00.000-04:00

If you need drugs to be a good writer, you're not a good writer.
Rod Serling

Pix

2011-04-11T19:16:00.001-04:00

One of the amazing photos from Japan showing the power of a tsunami.

My Pix

2011-04-09T12:48:00.001-04:00

Union Station, Chicago, 1988

My Pix

2011-04-04T20:15:00.000-04:00

Window, Paros, 1986. This was the day it started clicking for me in Greece.

Yap

2011-04-04T18:25:00.000-04:00

Rehab is 4 quitters
Grafiti on side of rehab facility

Cheap, Fast & Easy

2011-03-30T18:21:00.004-04:00

From the always awesome Tofutti Break

Yap

2011-03-30T01:36:00.001-04:00

POLITICS, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles
Ambrose Bierce

Yap

2011-03-29T01:33:00.000-04:00

If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution.
Emma Goldman

My Pix

2011-03-28T19:32:00.000-04:00

Attica, 1986

Yap

2011-03-28T01:35:00.001-04:00

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Samuel Johnson

My Pix

2011-03-26T12:35:00.002-04:00

The Embankment, London, 1984

I think its a monument to the Merchant Marine in WW2. The point of this picture is the shadows, which seem to almost explode.

Yap

2011-03-26T12:27:00.001-04:00

A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?
Oscar Wilde

Yap

2011-03-25T00:04:00.001-04:00

All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.
Dr. John Arbuthnot

Bon appetite Mr. Harper

Water

2011-03-24T19:31:00.000-04:00

Yap

2011-03-24T19:11:00.000-04:00

War on the cheap is always a rotten policy.
William Rees-Mogg

Yap

2011-03-23T20:37:00.000-04:00

Ah, better be a poor fisherman than meddle with the government of men!
Georges Danton

Well, it is when you lose.

Radiation

2011-03-23T20:27:00.002-04:00

Finally, a useful comparison of radiation doses. Watch out for those bananas.

Yap

2011-03-22T18:08:00.001-04:00

Barack Obama has now fired more cruise missiles than all other Nobel Peace prize winners combined
David Burge
via Twitter

Yap

2011-03-20T20:01:00.000-04:00

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Lester B. Pearson

Pix

2011-03-20T15:01:00.001-04:00

Oh. Oh. Cold War nostalgia looms. Nice plane though. Its just a jet engine with stubby wings and a seat on top.

Like many Russian weapons of the era, it was cheap, simple, reliable and very good. Anyone who could mount the infrastructure to maintain the plane could afford one.

Yap

2011-03-19T14:32:00.001-04:00

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
Oscar Wilde

Yap

2011-03-18T17:56:00.001-04:00

It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody
Richard Nixon

My Pix

2011-03-17T21:17:00.000-04:00

Everything under control at the Bank of England, 1993.
Kodak High-Speed Infrared

Yap

2011-03-13T19:22:00.000-04:00

Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.
Richard M. Nixon

My Pix

2011-03-08T19:05:00.002-05:00

Burnside's bridge, Sharpsburg, Maryland, 1996

A deluge of US Civil War books will be upon us as the 150th anniversary passes. Many will mention this bridge. I'm not a fan of "what if" when it comes to war. But many say that had Burnside not become so fixated on this bridge that he forgot about the battle, the Civil War might have ended in on this battlefield in September 1862. Its a tempting idea, but supposes McClellan would have pressed a decisive victory. This was not in his character.

In any case, to play with such an idea misses the entire point of that war; we had entered an age where it was insufficient to defeat an army, you had to defeat the nation. Its been the theme of almost every major war since.

Yap

2011-03-08T18:51:00.000-05:00

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
Thomas Jefferson

Pahlay Ball!

2011-03-05T18:08:00.000-05:00

Wrigley Field, Labor Day, 1988

I watched my first baseball game of the season last night. Boston beat The Yankees in Florida. I love baseball like no other sport. I love the balance of the game, the pace, the lack of a clock, the intensity of the individual contests between batter and pitcher. Most of all, I like that there's no set duration. You play until at least 51 batters are out. If that doesn't decide it, they just keep playing until someone wins. No overtime rules or special tweaks to make it more exciting.

I also love Baseball for the stadiums. Wrigley Field (above) was a terrific experience, but my favorite is Dodger Stadium. Nodding off to sleep on a Saturday night while watching a west coast game is my ultimate comfort food.

Yap

2011-03-05T11:34:00.001-05:00

"the trouble with quotes on the internet is that you never know if they are genuine"
Abraham Lincoln

Marketing Is Hard

2011-02-24T18:28:00.001-05:00

Who can keep track of all those stupid flags?

My Pix

2011-02-21T19:33:00.000-05:00

Danger in Halicarnassus. Turkey, 1986. Damn that's a long time ago.

Yap

2011-02-21T12:26:00.000-05:00

Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
Groucho Marx

My Pix

2011-02-18T20:16:00.000-05:00

Some guy hanging around the Vatican Museum, July 1986. Kodak High-Speed Infrared.

Yap

2011-02-18T20:12:00.002-05:00

God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through.
Paul Valery

My Pix

2011-02-12T18:17:00.000-05:00

Its been a long time, almost a year since I last posted a photo. Last Christmas (09), I scanned everything left from Greece, intending to finish all the Greek photos and post them by end of spring. Two things happened to thwart my purpose. First is I was sick enough through the spring, summer and fall that there was no energy for such persuits. Second, I was unhappy with the scans and due to the first reason, unable and unwilling to re-scan. Fortunately, I've had more energy since December. Also, I figured out a better way to scan and work on the photos. So here is the first of the last batch of Greek photos from 1986.

This one is taken on Paros.

Yap

2011-02-12T12:17:00.000-05:00

Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand
Kurt Vonnegut

YAP

2011-02-03T23:26:00.002-05:00

Americans detest all lies except lies spoken in public or printed lies.
Edgar Watson Howe

Another Interesting Map

2011-02-02T20:10:00.003-05:00

Map of ancestry by county, US Census 2000

Parasaurolophus

2011-02-02T19:14:00.002-05:00

The scientists have managed to re-create what this creature sounded like as they found intact skulls. Imagine hearing this in a dark Late Cretaceous forest.

Fox News

2011-01-31T19:32:00.000-05:00

Pix

2011-01-21T19:39:00.001-05:00

Artistic mug shots from 1920's Australia.

Yap

2011-01-20T20:24:00.000-05:00

There has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited.
Sun Tzu

WW2

2011-01-17T22:54:00.000-05:00

German Paratroopers jumping over Rotterdam, May 10, 1940. The photo is notable not only for the depicted action, but for the fact that this was the first occasion when combat troops had jumped from an airplane straight into battle.

Martin Luther King Day

2011-01-17T20:14:00.000-05:00

Yap

2011-01-16T18:10:00.000-05:00

War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.
Ambrose Bierce

2011-01-15T23:02:00.001-05:00

Great pun from a Reddit comment.

Mega-Regions

2011-01-13T20:34:00.003-05:00

Interesting map, generally agrees with the Nine Nations of North America. Found floating around the Internets, don't know who made it, but its a nicely crafted map.

Yap

2011-01-13T19:02:00.000-05:00

Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.
Ambrose Bierce

PIX

2010-12-13T20:15:00.000-05:00

Hanging out on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Yap

2010-12-12T13:21:00.000-05:00

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
Plato

Pix

2010-12-06T19:46:00.001-05:00

Norway - unfortunately, I don't know the source.

Alive Again

2010-12-06T19:28:00.000-05:00

As frequent readers may have noted, there have been no updates since April. I simply haven't had the energy. However, rather than waiting until I'm better, it seems better to post sporadically rather than not at all. So on with the show.

Yap

2010-04-09T19:20:00.000-04:00

Only the shallow know themselves.
Oscar Wilde

Pix

2010-04-07T19:02:00.001-04:00

Somebody hopped out of their car and snapped the dust rising from nearby mountains during Sunday's earthquake in Mexico.

Yap

2010-03-29T21:15:00.000-04:00

If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.
Abraham Lincoln

Yap

2010-03-27T19:40:00.000-04:00

Idealism is what precedes experience; cynicism is what follows.
David T. Wolf

Fun Facts to Know and Share

2010-03-26T21:29:00.001-04:00

"The difference between the 787 and its predecessors can be illustrated by a simple observation: There are only 10,000 drilled holes in the entire aircraft, compared with one million in a Boeing 747."

Yap

2010-03-25T19:45:00.001-04:00

I'm a big woman. I need big hair.
Aretha Franklin

Happy Birthday

2010-03-25T18:40:00.000-04:00

Photo by Don Hunstein - New York City, 1961

Happy 68th birthday Aretha Franklin. Yes, that means she's only 18 in the photo above.

WW2

2010-03-04T20:55:00.000-05:00

Counter-attack, Russia 1941. Unless he lost a limb, its unlikely that this non-com could have possibly survived the war.

Yap

2010-03-04T20:48:00.002-05:00

"That's impossible. You can't go faster than the speed of light."
"Of course not. That's why scientists increased the speed of light in 2208."
Futurama

Pix

2010-03-04T20:44:00.000-05:00

Cathedral of St. Nicholas, Mozhaisk, 1911
Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii

This is the eternal Russia.

My Pix

2010-02-10T18:58:00.000-05:00

Street and door, Sifnos, Greece, 1986
Kodak High-Speed Infrared

Some nice textures on this one.

All my photos are on flickr

Yap

2010-02-10T18:47:00.000-05:00

On two occasions I have been asked [by members of British Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
Charles Babbage

Yap

2010-02-09T19:28:00.000-05:00

It's said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That's false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance, it was done by dogma, it was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.

Jacob Bronowski

BTW, you can see all of the Ascent of Man on Youtube.

Pix

2010-02-09T19:07:00.001-05:00

Wow. The last night launch of the Shuttle made the best photo of the whole program. Looks like a Turner painting. He would have loved space shots.

Pix

2010-01-30T14:48:00.000-05:00

Pix

2010-01-06T09:12:00.002-05:00

There isn't much to say about this photo.

Burj Dubai

2010-01-04T20:41:00.000-05:00

Charles Crowell/Bloomberg via NYT

The Burj Dubai opens today. It is by some distance the tallest building on earth. Half as high again as the CN Tower.

Many commentators are calling the tower a symbol of arrogance, greed and an unsustainable free-for-all era. Some associate the building with vulgar oil money and uppity Arabs. And we all know Dubai was built with what amounts to slave labour.

But I disagree with those that say its ugly. IMHO, it is one of the most beautiful skyscrapers ever built. Its really hard to make something so big look graceful, but it is graceful.

The comments about its opening also remind me of very similar statements made about the Empire State Building. It was started at the end of the roaring 20s, but not completed until well into the depression. Some said the building would never fill, that it would be a white elephant, a lesson on hubris. Eventually, it did ok. I’m hoping the Burj will also eventually do ok.

Best Headline of the Week

2010-01-03T13:38:00.000-05:00

AT&T Drops Tiger Woods Like an Important Call
Gizmodo

Yap

2010-01-02T19:14:00.000-05:00

There is always a well-known solution to every human problem--neat, plausible, and wrong.
H. L. Mencken

Iran Again

2010-01-01T19:23:00.000-05:00

Just as Catholics need saints, the Shia need martyrs. Martyrs brought down the Shah. Demonstrations produced martyrs, their funerals became demonstrations. Once sucked into this escalating cycle, the Shah never got out. Everyone in Iran is acutely aware of this.

Iran appears to be in turmoil. The government's harsh methods had seemed to put the opposition genie, if not back in the bottle, then at least into hiding. The tectonic splits that were revealed after the election have been band-aided. We never did know what was going on behind the scenes, but whatever it was didn't amount to anything as far as outsiders could tell.

Its tiresome, but lets re-cap for those not following obsessively. The incumbent president, Ahmadinejad, was re-elected in June. The election was obviously stolen, a fact that was subsequently proved in various ways through statistical analysis of the results. Iranians took to the streets in their millions and used the Internet to get their message out to the world. In an effort to illegitimize the protesters, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Kahmenei personally endorsed the election results. As a result, the demonstrations shifted from protesting the election to protesting the regime. The government used brutal methods to suppress the street demonstrations. They managed to strike the right balance of violence. Enough to create fear, but not enough to create outrage.

At the same time, it became evident that there were splits in the regieme. Two key issues were revealed. First, that a powerful minority of Ayatollahs were against the concept of an Islamic Republic on religious grounds. Meaning they thought governments should have political accountability, and the clergy should not. So the clergy shouldn't be running governments.

The second, possibly critical, issue was the role of the Republican Guards, known as the Pasdaran. The Pasdaran are a bit like the SS, a military/political organization outside normal state beuracracy. They have military, intellegence, and commercial assets. Amahdinejad is their man. There was speculation in Iran, and in the West, that the stolen election was, in fact, a coup by the Pasdaran. Some of the available facts are consistent with this hypothesis. If so, it means the end of democracy and a military government cloaked in an Ayatollah's robe. Any serious attempt to change who is in charge would mean upheaval and perhaps civil war. None of this was clear, however. What was clear was that the government had mostly succeeded in keeping the lid on the opposition without a fatal over-reaction.

Yet the recent demonstrations, and the governments unprecedented violence to suppress them, suggest several possible developments. The first is that the opposition has not been cowed, just forced to switch tactics. In the Economist article linked below, they mention that the central bank is now refusing bank notes with writing on them. The oppostion has apparently been writing anti-regime slogans on the money. Those holding such notes, mostly ordinary people and businesses, now have worthless money. This is not a friendly thing to do and calls the credibility of the central bank into question. International trading partners have very little patience for this kind of thing.

That point leads to the possibility that one of two things are going on. Either the Pasdaran has decided their control is to total they can do as they pleases with no consequences, or they are scared and desperate. The Economist article suggests, for the first time I've seen it, that China and Russia perceive the Pasdaran may not prevail in the long-run. Being too close to the losing side the last time has cost the Americans dearly. Iran's new friends don't want to make the same mistake. The Economist is frequently optimistic with such assessments, but its plausible. And if that's plausible, then so is another Iranian revolution.

A pretty good article on the current situation is in the Economist here.