Not My Skill Set

There was a time when, to be a biologist, you either had to be able to draw well (or be able to may someone to do your drawing for you). Toilets also did not flush. It was a rough time. You can revisit some of that magic at The British Library’s Flickr page where there are literally oodles of images from old books provided free from copyright restrictions, because the books are old.

11001408434_78f1d80c72_o_d

I don’t know what this critter is*, but I am glad that I am a lot bigger than it is. I think I’m bigger than it…

*It literally comes from a tome entitled The British Miscellany: or, coloured figures of new, rare, or little known animal subjects, etc. vol. I., vol. II


Filed under: Curiosities of Nature Tagged: British Library, Flickr

There is enough room in this rabbit hole for all of us

11000417785_50feb0ac6d_o

From p305 of “The British Miscellany: or, coloured figures of new, rare, or little known animal subjects, etc. vol. I., vol. II” by James Sowerby

The British Library’s Flickr account is a bloody rabbit hole of lovely. And, all the images are being released for free without copyright restrictions*. I won’t guarantee that there is something there for every flavor of nerdery, but, if you don’t find your interests represented by something here, I think you need to seriously question your life choices.

*The British Library does offer you the option to purchase higher-than-screen quality images, which seems like a workable model to me.

The technology to receive HBO in 1989 was predicted a hundred years earlier…from p134 of the “The Conquest of the Moon: a story of the Bayouda” by André Laurie – pseud. [i.e. Paschal Grousset.]


Filed under: The Art of Science Tagged: Flickr, Linkonomicon, The British Library

Explore where you’ve been with Visits

Visits demo

Visits, a research project by Alice Thudt, Dominikus Baur, and Sheelagh Carpendale from the University of Calgary, is an exploration of your personal location history.

With visits you can browse your location histories and explore your trips and travels. Our unique map timeline visualization shows the places you have visited and how long you have stayed there. Add photos from Flickr to your visits and share your journey with your family and friends!

Visits works with geo-tagged Flickr albums, data from Openpaths and Google Location Histories. It runs locally in your browser, so no sensitive data is uploaded to our servers. When you share your history, it is up to you how much detail visits reveals and what remains private.

Simply plug your data in and explore short trips or even better, look at long-term location memories. The focus is less on analytics and numbers and more on helping you remember where you've been. [Thanks, Dominikus]