Searching for a specific motif on the internet resembles more and more the way a photographer decides on angle and frame.

Ads on the Wall, Clara-Zetkin-Str. (now Dorotheenstr.), Photo: Dagmar Lippe, May 1990

In cooperation with Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, The Deutsche Kinemathek has launched a huge online archive of private photos from the era of German reunification.  The archive is extraordinary, as it solely consists of private collections. It is an ongoing project that gathers snapshots from the lives of others, encouraging users to submit their own photos, videos and stories. 

“This is only the first step in newspapers by computers. Engineers now predict the day will come when we get all our newspapers and magazines by home computer, but that’s a few years off.” via

On Photoshop plastic surgery and celebrities dying to look like themselves.

Elliot Hoey, a Peace Corps Volunteer who lives and works in a kolkhos outside of Xalach, Turkmenistan took this photo in the “Telegraf” of the Xalach Rayon center. While cell phone coverage has recently extended to large swaths of Turkmenistan, for the majority of residents outside of regional cities the simplest method of placing a long-distance phone call remains the Telegraf and its wooden booths.

…and Learn to Love the Internet:
This subjective view plays odd tricks on us, of course. For instance, “interactivity” is one of those neologisms that Mr. Humphrys likes to dangle between a pair of verbal tweezers, but the reason we suddenly need such a word is that during this century we have for the first time been dominated by non-interactive forms of entertainment: cinema, radio, recorded music and television. Before they came along all entertainment was interactive: theatre, music, sport–the performers and audience were there together, and even a respectfully silent audience exerted a …

In this video, produced by The Takeaway, NYC Resistor gives us a look at what they do, from 3D printing to iPod hacks, all of which is entirely open source. They also offer a variety of classes, like php for beginners. Reportedly, a group of Google employees recently came in for a lesson.

The Information Architects Japan have released a beta version of their 2009 Web Trend Map, placing the most influential websites/webguys onto the Tokyo metro map according to criteria such as traffic and revenue that correspond to the actual Tokyo stations.

A fascinating Slovak research project maps phenomena and features early computer graphics.

“Harvesting human emotion” on the internet is the aim of artist Jonathan Harris and developer Sep Kamvar’s project We Feel Fine (wefeelfine.org).