Puppies and Flowers

photo: in2jazz 

From article:

Why the San Francisco Chronicle is a candidate to exit print

Play with me on this one: Which major American newspaper should be the first to throw up its hands and stop publishing a print product?

It's a question worth asking. This could be the worst year for newspapers since the Great Depression. The double-digit revenue declines long forecast by doomsters have arrived. While nearly all the major papers still post profits, albeit smaller than before, a few prominent ones are losing boatloads. At Hearst Newspapers' San Francisco Chronicle, according to a deposition given by James M. Asher, the company's chief legal and business development officer, losses of $330 million piled up between mid-2000 and September, 2006, better—or should I say worse?—than $1 million a week. During negotiations with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's unions, the owning Block family disclosed that the paper lost $20 million in 2006. Late last year, The Boston Globe was headed for unprofitability as well, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Read more at BusinessWeek 

Originally posted 2007-07-13 10:05:51.

Link to Flash piece and the main site is here.

Link to There, I Fixed It.

On June 3rd I switched the blogging software I had been using from Movable Type to WordPress. Some users have reported that their RSS feeds didn’t update and this is as a result of the switch. If you subscribe by RSS, you will need to update the feed URL by clicking on the icon in the upper right corner of the header banner.

Apologies for not having pointed this out at the time. In the next few weeks Puppies and Flowers will have a new look and feel (which will hopefully not affect the RSS feed again).

Any suggestions or leads? Let me know by sending a message to peter(at)puppiesandflowers.com or just leave a note in the comments section of any post.

Thanks,
Peter

Stunning photoshoot by photographer Steven Meisel and the beautiful Viktoriya Sasonkina. More recently known for this Calvin Klein campaign which was met with some controversy, not likely to happen with the current Louis Vuitton Madonna shoot.

What makes these icons so remarkable is the era in which they were created, in 1928 Otto Neurath invited Gerd Arntz to his museum for society and economics (Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum) where Arntz developed the Isotype, International System of TYpographic Picture Education.

View the Isotype collection here.

Link to theirison on DeviantART

A funny mid-20th century newsreel featuring amazingly accurate predictions of the year 2000.

BEST SHORT FILM – New York Comedy Film Festival

Link to Anthony Geoffroy’s collection.

I love these light bulbs by Pieke Bergmans.  Select 'work' then 'light bulbs' to see more images including the fabrication process.

From apartment therapy:

Pieke Bergmans' series of one-of-a-kind crystal LED lamps for Royal Leerdam Crystal and Solid Lighting are what the designer calls "light blubs." And what exactly is a light blub?

"The answer is simple," says the young Dutch designer. "It is a light bulb that has gone way out of line. Infected by the dreaded Design Virus, these Blubs have taken on all kinds of forms and sizes you wouldn't expect from such well behaving and reliable little products."

Bergmans calls her one-of-a-kind light sculptures "unlimited edition," in that that each unique piece is made using an industrial process she developed that can be repeated until the end of time.

Originally posted 2008-10-20 10:40:53.

Flickr user str820.com photographs objects embedded in tarmac, some of the comments are funny as people suggest what they think the objects are, shown here for example: 'mechanical mouse?'

Link to photoset

Originally posted 2008-01-28 10:17:35.

Link to YouTube

Originally posted 2007-07-19 21:23:59.

Time lapse video of 'the making of'

Animated GIF shows Homer scoring!
(Hit reload to watch again) 

Found here 

Original post here 

Originally posted 2007-07-17 14:59:36.

As a kid growing up in 1970’s Ireland, Rory Gallagher was the Irish equivalent of Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton. A brilliant live performer, he set  the bar for three piece rock ‘n roll bands globally.

photo: dazed.and.confused

Romanian witches go online

Romanian witches are going online in a bid to win more customers now the country is in the EU.

Witchcraft is a recognised profession in Romania where white witches offer spells, potions and readings of the future.

But witches say the EU has offered a much wider market, and they need to move with the times and embrace modern technology to reach even more people.

One of the country's most famous witches, Witch Rodica, has set up her own web and blog site – http://vrajitoare.blogspot.com – offering everything from a dream interpretation book to tarot card reading.

Rodica calls herself the "incontestable and undisputed leader of the Romanian witches" and claims she can cure impotence, epilepsy and alcoholism.

She said: "I still do spells and potions the traditional way, but the blog keeps me closer to potential clients and can be used to convince the sceptical that witchcraft is real."

The witches are also offering a new range of spells such as love potions for gay men and lucky charms guaranteed to win EU grant money.

Link to Anaova via neatorama

Originally posted 2007-07-11 11:27:55.

Owen Freeman links:

Owen Freeman website

Owen Freeman blog

Owen Freeman on Flickr

Aletsch Glacier/Switzerland 8.18.07: US-Installation artist Spencer Tunick and Greenpeace Switzerland present a living sculpture: hundreds of naked people symbolise the vulnerability of the glaciers under climate change.

Link to more images 

realated post 

Originally posted 2007-08-20 12:06:29.

Click images for larger:

Link to Koen Demuynck’s website.

Cylindrical Colonies (Interior view)

Bernal Spheres (Colony construction crew at work)

A couple of space colony summer studies were conducted at NASA Ames in the 1970s. Colonies housing about 10,000 people were designed. A number of artistic renderings of the concepts were made. These have been converted to jpegs and are available as thumbnails, quarter page, full screen and publication quality images.

Link to NASA

Originally posted 2007-07-06 14:58:33.

Lovely use of chiaroscuro.

Michael Beck on fineartamerica.com.