One of the most valuable and yet most annoying parts of my photo-taking endeavors is manually geo-coding my pictures so that I can track down their locations later and plot them on a map now. The ATP Photo Finder looks to alleviate that a little, hopefully bridging the gap between my carpal-tunnel-inducing manual tedium and fully automated integrated-GPS cameras (incidentally I saw a press release about a year ago from a Philips spin-off working on an innovative solution to this - only capture the raw GPS satellite signal streams at the time of picture taking and crunch them later on upon transfer to a computer instead of in real time, which requires the inclusion of more space and power-intensive chips - if anyone can find it let me know). I support this product if only because it is philosophically compatible with my stance that humans should be saved from every possible form of data entry where their brains are not the sole repository.
:: Live action and delightfully free of Breckin Meyer
Circa 1989, around the time my female contemporaries were fantasizing about John Stamos, I had a brief fondness for Garfield, the comic. While I don't regret it - after all, it's precocious to have the humor of a middle-aged housewife before entering your second decade of life - I long ago closed that chapter in the book of Morland. Of course only the vaguest familiarity with the comic is necessary to appreciate the genius of Lasagna Cat, so that embarrassing childhood background I shared was just for pity.
In Berlin I saw an exhibit by an artist who purchased a mock T-72 training tank from China and hooked it up to a series of pumps to cyclically inflate and deflate it (you can listen to a classy description of this work by Michael Sailsdorfer if you'd like). I took a series of pictures over the course of the cycle and thought it would be fun to create a little animation of it:
Something about the rhythmic dip-and-bounce of that tank reminded me of the inimitable panache of the hydraulic-equipped low-riders of my youth, and I was compelled to create a proper movie and attach a soundtrack. It is short, but if I do say so myself, G-Funky:
Typically, and I am not alone in thinking this, celebrations of the New Year tend to struggle in living up to expectations. This time they were exceeded thanks in no small part to our host city of Berlin.
The last time I was in Berlin was ten full years ago, as a cherubic backpacker freshly graduated from high school (in order to help my perspective I actually tried to book the same hostel I stayed in then for this trip, but alas, no vacancies this time). Ten years ago the sky was littered to an absurd extent with construction cranes working on vacant lots. Now the cranes are fewer, but Berlin still has the vibe of a city undergoing a transformation, with the virtual overnight 1990 doubling of real estate available for free capitalist development leading to abundant space, an extremely affordable cost of living, and a resulting booming artistic community. Which is why, since artists tend to enjoy a party or two, Berlin is an ideal New Year's spot.
