The folks at Life have realized that their strength is not just in all of the photos they have at hand but in their curatorial skills. As this beta site shows, they have the content and it is no doubt rich and deep. So many pictures and categories – you could spend days in here. And of course they own a superb url..

Here’s an excerpt from their About page:

Welcome to LIFE.com, the largest, most amazing collection of professional photography on the Web.

LIFE and Getty Images, the two most recognized names in photography, have joined forces to provide you instant access to millions of breathtaking photographs — for free. LIFE.com not only lets you wander through the legendary LIFE and Getty archives, but with more than 3,000 new photos added every day, it also gives you the best pictures of the people and places shaping our world now.

From Travelution.co.uk found on Twitter from @alisamleo

What happened when a blogger decided to take on Ryanair

February 23, 2009

Here is an amazing tale from late last week, when an Irish freelance web designer/developer, Jason Roe [and Twitter], found himself involved in a extremely strange tête-à-tête with everyone’s, er, favourite low cost carrier, Ryanair.

It all started when Roe wrote a blog post about how he’d discovered a usability error in ryanair.com booking process.

In short, he says he found a bug in the system which allowed users to obtain a 0.00 charge for their flights.

There was some disagreement in the comments section as to whether it worked at the time. Roe claims it does.

Nevertheless, some people at Ryanair HQ decided to chip in. The comments are not what one would expect of a large company that has decided to engage with social media, to say the least.

This is just one of many from a succession of commenters under the ‘Ryanair staff…’ tag on the same post.

Crikey.

[NB: We have seen the IP addresses of the commenters and they all trace back to Ryanair HQ]

So, most people would say that the best method for dealing with a provocative post like Roe’s is to be measured and calm.

But then again, Ryanair – lest we forget – doesn’t exactly play by the same rules as others when it comes to dealing with customers, complaints, partners, etc.

[Read the full post - and it really is worth reading all the comments from Ryanair...]

Post by Kevin May on February 23, 2009 04:33PM
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Directed by Aaron Rose and Joshua Leonard

Co-director Aaron Rose will introduce the film this Friday at 7:15PM, Saturday at 3:00PM and Saturday at 7:15PM and will hold a Q and A afterward. Cinema 21.

BEAUTIFUL LOSERS celebrates the spirit behind one of the most influential cultural moments of a generation.

Here’s the synopsis:
In the early 1990’s a loose-knit group of likeminded outsiders found common ground at a little NYC storefront gallery. Rooted in the DIY (do-it-yourself) subcultures of skateboarding, surf, punk, hip hop and graffiti, they made art that reflected the lifestyles they led. Developing their craft with almost no influence from the “establishment” art world, this group, and the subcultures they sprang from, have now become a movement that has been transforming pop culture.

Starring a selection of artists who are considered leaders within this culture, Beautiful Losers focuses on the telling of personal stories. It speaks to themes of what happens when the outside becomes “in” as it explores the creative ethos connecting these artists and today’s youth.

Watch the trailer here.

B-Day ride to Bend 08 from Steve Hoskins Jr. on Vimeo.

Two of our Nemo guys, Steve and Morgan, grab the bikes and head Southeast from Portland, climb over Mt Hood, ride through the reservation via Madras, stop off in Redmond and finally hit Bend. Amazing.

Nemo CD Mark Lewman is out in Beijing checking out the BMX events, a big first for these riders – BMX, China, Olympics no way! They are all stoked check out the NYT piece. Meanwhile there was a crazy pile up that laid Kyle Bennett low – here’s pics of the action leading up to the crash.

Kyle Bennett, a team USA athlete racing for a slot in the finals, gets tangled up in the first turn. This was the gnarliest crash of the day.

The berms are asphalt and riders carve through the corners held in place by G-forces. Their bikes are almost level against the wall of the berm. So rad.

But one fuck up at this speed and it all goes to hell in a hurry.

The Dutch guy leading the pack buckles under the G-forces and he goes down, starting a chain reaction of bad stuff…

…Which ends with Kyle Bennett on the ground, completely jacked.

More at StudioNemo.

Related Posts: Nike 6.0 Lightning Bolts AKA Nemo in China, Freestylin’ Launch Party, Li Wei China’s Stunt Artist

Earlier this year, Portland enhanced its bike-friendly status by becoming the first US city to be designated a Platinum-level Bicycle Friendly Community. In 2006, then Commissioner now Mayor-elect, Sam Adams had launched a nine-part strategy to win that status and called together advocates and community leaders to work toward achieving the goal. Mission accomplished as they say.

There is a problem though. In Portland and across the nation as more people are affected by the high price of gas and switch to the bicycle for their commute tensions are rising between car drivers and cyclists. Along comes a timely new book – ‘Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do’ by Tom Vanderbilt which has been reviewed by Mary Roach, who admits to a map-reading-while -driving induced fender bender in Portland a few years ago. Reading this book may help understand the psyche of the person behind the wheel – human nature is at fault.

For anyone interested in the way traffic flows and why you find yourself sitting in many traffic jams this book seems to be a good read. What follows are bullet points that I’ve pulled from Roach’s review:

01. Traffic jams are not caused by flaws in road design but by flaws in human nature.
02. Gawkers cause a 12.7% increase in traffic slowdown after a crash and the rubberneckers themselves are so busy gawking that they often slam into the car in front of them as it brakes for the driver to get a better look.
03. Drivers will slow down to look at anything, even a couch dumped in a roadside ditch.
04. Starbucks places stores with drive-through lanes on opposite sides of the road to spare drivers the “agony of having to make a left turn during rush hour.”
05. In a 15 block area around UCLA drivers logged on an average day 3600 miles looking for a place to park.
06. Add a new highway and drivers will defect from others to clog it up.
07. Americans won’t accept congestion charging to help reduce traffic.
08. They will accept a surcharge for peak-travel time hotel rooms and airfares though.
09. We think we are good drivers and that’s a problem as we base that on the number of accidents we’ve been in instead of on the number of accidents we narrowly avoid.
10. In ancient Rome, Caesar declared a daytime ban on chariots and carts as traffic was so bad!

And how does this affect bicyclists? Well, Vanderbilt’s research has discovered that drivers pass bicyclists more closely on a road with bike lanes than on one without. And pedestrians can’t win either – more people are killed while crossing in crosswalks than while jaywalking.

The solution appears to be that we should separate cars, bicyclists and pedestrians and also implement a congestion charge on drivers to reduce the amount of cars in cities. Portland seems to be the best candidate for this experiment. Go Sam.

The engineers and technologists who designed and built the giant Airbus A380 may well be proud of their accomplishments in attempting to reduce this huge aircraft’s environmental impact. As their web site says “[they took] a fresh approach to its environmental impact, too. With a new wing design and composite materials accounting for 25% of its structural weight, the A380 is a much more efficient aircraft all round. And by producing only about 75g of CO2 per passenger kilometre, the A380 is contributing to the aviation industry’s commitment to constraining greenhouse gas emissions.”

So, a full A380 carrying 525 passengers between London and Los Angeles, a distance of 8750km, will produce 344,531,250gms of CO2. Yes that’s 344 million – I’m just saying…hat’s off to the marketers for using grams instead of pounds. They’re European, so they can.

The site also mentions that “The A380 burns fuel per passenger at a rate comparable to that of an economical family car.” All I can picture here is 525 cars driving 8750km. And what is an “economical” family car?

They go on – “There’s the extra space per passenger afforded by its twin, full-length, wide-bodied cabins. The cabin air, recycled every three minutes to keep the atmosphere fresh. The natural light provided by 220 cabin windows. And while the A380 feels more natural inside, the environment outside benefits too. From the dramatically reduced external noise levels. From the lower fuel consumption and significantly improved CO2 emissions per passenger kilometre. From the increased capacity at airports and the reduced need for expansion.”

I love that phrase natural light provided by 220 cabin windows because every flight that I’ve been on the attendants can’t wait to tell the passengers to please lower your window shades as the “entertainment” i.e bad movie or TV, is about to begin. Whether you like it or not you are forced to sit in a dark stuffy tube while people with headphones on guffaw at lame jokes. Good use of “natural” though.

And this is a good one – “From the increased capacity at airports and the reduced need for expansion.” The boast here is that the ‘planes are so big they can deliver more folks to be packed into your airport’s long lines at immigration reducing the need for the airport authorities to expand their airports. Brilliant! What a relief for those in charge of our comfort while we struggle through their over-crowded airports, they don’t need to do anything but allow Airbus A380’s to land.

It gets better – “Some operators might, for example, choose to seat their First and Business class passengers on the upper deck –providing a corporate jet-like environment for these clients – while configuring the A380’s main deck for an all-Economy layout.”

Dear Airlines, when you configure the ‘planes for your fleet, why not put the great unwashed underneath with the freight and be done with it?

An oil rig off the coast of California

Here in Portland I am seeing signs that the price of gas is making a difference in how people get around the city. Bus ridership has spiked, there are less cars on the road during the commuting hours and bicyclists seem to be everywhere. Yesterday as I walked my dog along the banks of the Willamette River, I noticed far more sailboats than the motorized variety. Maybe the price of gas is making Americans think twice before getting into the car? Maybe.

I carpool to the Nemo warehouse and it’s still a drag to see that of those cars that are on the road I’d guess that 95% of them are occupied by only the driver. And don’t get me started on the hypocritical Prius owners who fly past at speeds that exceed the legal limits. And on Sunday’s the Hillsdale Farmer’s Market is filled with people buying fresh, locally-produced organic food while the parking lot and the surrounding streets are crammed with their cars. None of this makes sense. If you’re concerned perhaps you can leave a comment on their blog.

It seemed that once gas went through $4 a gallon and the $100 fill up entered the public’s economic equation we’d see a marked change in the way we would use our energy. Unfortunately that’s really not the case.

Portland is one of the more environmentally-friendly and green cities in North America. If we can’t break the automobiles stranglehold on our city then what hope for other cities that are less friendly toward buses and bicyclists? Portland has also shown strong support for ending the war in Iraq. If we disagree with the Iraq war, and the inevitable future Middle East wars that will be fought over oil and water resources, what will we Portlanders do at home to reduce our dependence on foreign oil?

I argue that if we are unwilling to drastically reduce our gasoline use then it is hypocritical of us to oppose off-shore drilling in California and drilling and exploration in Alaska. We simply can’t have our cake and eat it.

Today, President George W. Bush plans to lift a presidential ban on offshore drilling to combat soaring energy prices, a largely symbolic move unlikely to have any short-term impact on the high cost of gasoline.

Who will stand in his way this time?

Related Post: I’m Sick of the Co-Opting of Green

Well not exactly. Portland, Or, the home of Nemo and thousands of cyclists has a problem it seems. The price of gas, the economic slump and the fact that Portland is a cyclists dream city has led to an uptick in the amount of folks biking everywhere. Inevitably they run into vehicles, and I’m speaking both literally and figuratively.

It’s causing a lot of friction. Case in point being this video of a fracas, that took place outside our offices here at Nemo, between a motorist and a cyclist caused, according to the driver, by the cyclist not obeying traffic lights. The biker literally attacks the guys car with his bike.

On the local blogs both sides have weighed in about who’s right and who’s wrong but there is only one solution – car-free streets for cyclists and pedestrians [who are treated worse than cyclists by drivers if you ask me.]

Being green isn’t easy. Wired magazine appeared in my mailbox again this month with some bold headlines on the cover – ‘Keep your SUV’ ‘Forget Organics’ ‘Go Nuclear’ and ‘Screw the Spotted Owl.’ Sure, they have to sell magazines and controversy sells magazines but those statements seemed a bit heavy-handed. [As for selling magazines, you will easily recall for example the Vanity Fair/Miley Cyrus debacle right?]

The story behind the eye-catching headlines brings us some fun-filled facts about our carbon footprints as we go about our daily lives… e.g. Live in Cities – the suburbs have created edge-cities which in turn create super-commuters who spend more than 3 hours a day in transit. Also those lawns need mowing out there – 40 million lawn mowers each spew 11 cars worth of pollutants every hour. A/C is OK – it’s cheaper to cool a house than it is to heat it so living in Arizona is better than living in the Pacific Northwest as less energy is used in AZ and there are less pollutants created by cooling. Carbon Trading doesn’t work – where’s the guarantee that the tree planted in Bolivia to offset $10 worth of air travel, won’t be chopped down before it absorbs the requisite carbon? [Sorry, you'll have to sell that Range Rover now.]

But, what grabbed my attention immediately is the Hummer vs Prius match-up – pound for pound, making a Prius contributes more carbon into the atmosphere than making a Hummer. The Prius is actually not a good investment if you are thinking about buying one to save money according to the Hybrid Cars web site:

“Don’t buy a hybrid because you want to make back an investment. That will take between five and twenty years, depending on gas prices, the amount you drive, and how good of a deal you got on the car. Buy a hybrid because it’s the most fuel-efficient car on the road, because the tailpipe emissions are very low, because it uses great technology, or because it’s fun to drive. If gas prices keep going up, then you might get your return on investment. For now, it’s not a good enough reason alone to choose a hybrid version over exactly the same size and kind of conventional car.”

And Omninerd lays out the cost vs value proposition of owning a Prius over a regular used Toyota Corolla. Also let’s not forget that running the Hummer is a different story re its emissions than the amount of energy required to build it.

Final fun fact: All the so-called clean development mechanisms authorized by the Kyoto Protocol, designed to keep 175 million tons of CO 2 out of the atmosphere by 2012, will slow the rise of carbon emissions by…. 6.5 days.

We need a different strategy. Buying a Prius might make us feel good but selling our cars and hopping on the bus will actually make a difference.

Let’s give Radiohead credit for trying. As they point out on their blog, for a modern rock band touring is highly inefficient – 125,000lb / 55,000kg of Sound, Lighting, Video, Band Gear, Office and Catering equipment needs to be moved between every show. They have looked into alternative methods of transportation such as rail but that didn’t work out. They have managed to find a way for their truck drivers to cool their cabs while they sleep without running their diesel engines all night which helps. What they seem to have overlooked is the geographical position of where their shows are taking place.

An article in Billboard points this out – Adding fuel to the fire is Radiohead’s self-stated intention of making its summer tour as environmentally friendly as possible. According to one fan post, “One-third of the concert-goers that night were driving around in circles, burning fossil fuels all the while. This is your save the Earth tour … and yet you play in the middle of nowhere with no public transportation leading there. You owe us!”

And from another, “If you gave even one tiny llama turd about environmental impact, you would never have scheduled a show at a venue 40 miles away from downtown D.C., nowhere near public transportation of any kind.”

Here in the Northwest the band is skipping Portland and Seattle to play the White River Amphitheatre which is located in Auburn, Washington, on the Muckleshoot Indian Reservation 15 miles northeast of Tacoma and 35 miles southeast of Seattle. So for Portlanders or folks from say Idaho, Montana and even Washington, it means jumping in the car and driving for hours not to mention that gas is now $4 a gallon….time for a rethink I reckon.

Here’s one of those moments where modern culture and history collide very nicely. The modern part being the simple viral nature of YouTube, an email from my friend Maf who is traveling around his birthplace, Wales and the old Llanfrynach Church organ. And like anything to do with UK history it comes with a simple tale. This one is about gaining access to the church – “Here’s a little video of the old pump organ in the church next door to my Brothers house in Cowbridge, Wales, UK (yes near England). To get into the Church you must got to the pub across the road and ask at the bar for the key. It feels impolite to ask for the key without getting a drink. I think a lot of people may be drunk when they visit the Church… awesome.”

Find more at Maf and Tara’s blog.

Click image to play movie

Southwest Airlines shot a timelapse movie of their latest aircraft, Illinois One, being built and painted. It took 26 different people over 3 shifts for 6 days to paint and took 93 gallons of paint, including primer and 10 different colors to complete.

Here’s a message from SqueakeClean, who’s in the Nemo circle of friends one way or the other, talking up his crazy fun times working with Kanye West on the Glow in the Dark Tour. From Sam in his own words:

“Hey all!
I just spent the last month orchestrating Kanye West’s Glow In The Dark Tour. It was one of the most inspiring creative endeavors I’ve ever been a part of, as Kanye is a very inspiring person to work with. He is SO PASSIONATE about making everything he does great in a time when there is a great deal of mediocrity in mainstream music. Seeing his crazy HUGE vision come together for this tour from inception to reality was unreal.

Kanye first asked me to do a remix of his song “Flashing Lights” for a video styled after an old school horror flick. He loved the cinematic qualities I added to the music and asked me to orchestrate his tour. As we developed the sound for Glow In The Dark and he began to figure out how it was an epic space story/adventure, we began to realize it had a strong Star Wars aesthetic. At all times, we had two screens of Star Wars Episodes 4-6 playing on the TV’s at the studio. What I ended up doing was redoing almost all of the songs somewhere between John Williams’ Star Wars score and Vangelis’ Blade Runner score, and also doing segues between most of the songs as well. This means big orchestra, brass, woodwinds, timpani, and tons of synths to help Kanye tell his space adventure story. I also ended up bringing in Skywalker sound (the people who did all the sound design for the Star Wars movies) to do sound fx for the show to enhance the experience for the audience, and we mixed the show in surround sound so it is really like going to see a sci-fi movie in the theater. Kanye had the most amazing people build his set and he even got Jim Henson to build him an alien! Kanye figured out this crazy way for all of his songs to tell this amazing story which takes place mostly in his spaceship and on an alien planet, where all of the songs (along with some dialogue) tell the story.
It’s an amazing show!! Go check it out!!! Glow In The Dark!! Coming to a galaxy near you…”

Glow In The Dark Tour is coming to Portland.
6/3/08 Portland, OR Rose Garden

Here’s the link to Kanye’s blog (which is really cool), where he posted some stuff about our work together…

Peace!!
Sam

Check these out:
Squeakeclean website
Squeakeclean MySpace
Squeakeclean T-shirts

I signed up for Dopplr recently. Here’s the blurb from their ‘About’ page.

Dopplr lets you share your future travel plans privately with friends and colleagues. The service then highlights coincidence, for example, telling you that three people you know will be in Paris when you will be there too. You can use Dopplr on your personal computer and mobile phone. It links with online calendars and social networks.

The service has attracted a following among business travellers around the globe. Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia recently named Dopplr his “favorite non-wiki website” in The New York Times Sunday Magazine: “You put in your travel schedule and link to your friends. It allows you to see where everyone is. I love it.”

Their blog will keep you updated with their updates. An iCal/Google calendar feature looks quite handy.

Pop star/rapper, Daft Punk masher, Kanye West will be your pilot today. Well ok not really but if you want to “Fly away with Kanye!” as his web site proclaims then you can. The rappers company, West Brands, has struck a deal with Travelocity to offer online travel services via KanyeTravel.com.