Random thoughts from the Pacific Rim
The San Francisco library keeps a great archive of historical photographs on its website.
This is an extensive collection with many unique photos of SF’s history. among them for instance more than 600 aerial shots of all the neighbourhoods, hundreds of pictures of historic bars in the city and more pictures of cable cars then you will ever want to see…
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It has been Gay Pride week in San Francisco and today we went to see the Gay Pride Parade on Market Street. This was the fourth time that we had a chance to see this event and it was as always breathtaking.
More than 750.000 people gathered on Market Street and in the Civic Center to celebrate not just Gay Pride but also what is so special about San Francisco – it doesn’t matter who you are, what you do or whom you love, you are always going to be welcome in this wonderful city.
More people partied together than do actually live in San Francisco and you couldn’t see a single angry face or nasty incident all afternoon. That so many people can have such a great time together without any major problems is a testament to the kind of people living out here in the Bay Area.
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If you think that the western public didn’t know much about Iraq, compare that to our knowledge of North Korea: Zero. Nada. North Korea could as well be located on one of Jupiter’s outer moons.
While doing some comparative architectural studies (ok, I was surfing skyscrapers.com) I stumbled over the fact that a 105 story hotel was built in Pyongyang. As if there are ever more than a hundred tourists in that country!
Well, they didn’t actually complete that building. As it turned out, by the time the construction of the concrete structure was reaching the 105th floor, they were running out of money. Oh, and the concrete started crumbling.
It’s easy to make fun of this fact, but it is intriguing to guess (and that’s all we can ever do) what drove the North Korean leadership to such lengths. I mean, those are the same people who are now threatening their neighbours and the US with a nuclear war on an almost daily basis.
We have to assume that these are people who will, even against all odds, go through with whatever insane plan has formed in their minds. They don’t just posture. When they thought that a 105-story concrete hulk in the middle of their capital is what makes the world a better place, they broke the bank, went all-out bust, probably killed a few workers in the process and let the surrounding countryside starve.
Assuming that they have nuclear weapons, we’ll have to be really, really careful talking to these people.
There is very few (good) content on the web about North Korea, but PBS has done a great job with Kim’s Nuclear Gamble.
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A small patch of green on one of SF’s more insanely steep hillsides, corner of Broadway and Himmelmann.
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Saw The Hulk today with a couple of friends.
It’s a very good re-interpretation of the comic books, taking artistic freedoms where necessary, but still staying close to the original atmosphere of the paper version.
The movie starts slowly and it takes quite a while before the exposition is dealt with, but once the Hulk fills the screen, the movie takes off like a rocket. I was very impressed in how Ang Lee uses some of the comic book characteristics, like multiple frames or merged images in the movie. There are several scenes where these kind of cuts remind the audience very directly of the heritage of the story.
Oh and don’t trust the trailers. This movie looks so much better on the big screen and my suspicion is that some of the trailer material was unduly rushed out of pre-production – it would have been better to just show nothing instead of the plastic-toy like animations of the trailers.
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One theme that has been going on for quite some time is that Japan always gets the coolest gadgets years before the rest of the world ever even hears about them.
It’s a shock to arrive in Japan and to realize that I’ve just stepped 2 years into the future. A visit to an electronics store in Tokyo or Osaka can be a real surprise if you only barely recognize what all those gadgets actually do.
KoKoRo is a blog by Yuichi, a Japanese game developer. He frequently is the first to post news of a cool new gadget in English and since he is very active in a couple of emerging technologies, he contributes valuable insights to his reports.
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Now that’s a great name for a blog…
Satan’s Laundromat serves up great photos from (mostly) New York. Mike takes pictures on his way to work, or just wanders around some of the lesser known corners of New York, shooting pictures of shop fronts, rusty street signs and life in the big city.
This man has a great eye for the hidden (and often unintentional) humour that can be found in the signs that surround us in our daily life.
Makes me want to put more of my pictures of San Francisco on Pacific Tides!
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The US occupation of Iraq is slowly turning into a dilemma not just for the US government, but for the whole world.
The American military is caught in a giant trap and while a rising body count will probably end the occupation, the world will be left with the task of rebuilding Iraq and keeping peace in a perpetual warzone and negotiating between murderous civil war factions.
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When does a media piece become art? It’s interesting to see how with every generation we have to re-draw the boundaries between interesting tinkering and art, now again with new media forms like web sites and Flash experiences…
Here is an example of what I would sort into the art bucket: Y0UNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES mixes classic jazz tunes with stark messages and stories told in high contrast, a few words at a time.
At first it doesn’t look like much and the fast rythm of the words is hard to follow, but after a few moments I was completely hooked. The stories have an amazing intimacy and are told in bold language.
Oh, and here are some viewing tips: Sit far back from the screen and keep the lights on – as I’ve said, it’s high-contrast…
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During my travels in China I was always fascinated by Shanghai’s history and by how close to the surface of modern Shanghai much of its past still is.
It’s still possible to find pre-revolutionary signage on some store fronts in the more quiet side streets and a lot of the building substance of the 1940s has survived – even with a war, a communist revolution and the storm of modernization that has been unleashed in the 1990s.
Shanghai in Images is a collection of historical photographs mostly from the 1920-1940s with many bustling street scenes and interesting views of old Shanghai.
And Shanghai’s Historical Western Architecture is a project to document many of the major historical buildings. The pictures were taken in 1994 and many are high-contrast black and white pictures that have the same quality of light as most historical photos.
Here for instance is the Shanghai Club in the 1930s and here the same building in 1994.
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