Meteorology: Clouds

Eerie "popcorn" clouds were seen in the NY skies this week - apparently, they're Mammatus clouds (and, yes, "mammatus" is from the same root as "mammary").

The Daily Mail has amazing photos of another new cloud formation, Asperatus clouds.

Check out Flickr for more photos of Mammatus and Asperatus clouds. I love this one. Ooh, I think I caught someone cheating on Flickr - here's one of those Daily Mail photos (by Ken Prior) being passed off as her own!

Photography: 130 Megapixel Scanner Camera

Camera built from old scanner and camera lens - I don't understand how it works, but very cool. Sample photos.

Advertising: Stock Photo Models

Funny/cute story about how a simple trip to the park when she was 19 resulted in this woman seeing her face all over the world. (Forgive her the spelling of "Spainard".) (And don't bother downloading the accompanying MP3 files. Wet Hair sucks.)

There is another ubiquitous model, the "Everywhere Girl", but she is an actress/model, so I don't think it's quite as interesting.

But that story does link to a search engine called TinEye, which allows you to search for websites that use an image - and it doesn't have to be an exact match. For example, I input the address of one version of the infamous Ruby shoots Oswald photo, and it found 7 others that were cropped differently. It also allows you to compare images, by toggling back and forth between overlays. A search with the James Brown mugshot found a version in black & white (that impressed me) and a version with Tom DeLay's face.

Music: U2 Cover

Pitchfork reports that the cover of the new U2 album is a photograph that was previously used by some "sound artists". (They sound like white noise to me.) I'm sure this was an innocent move by U2, who, like the rest of us, had probably never heard of these pretentious tossers.

Didn't U2 get into trouble for "The Unforgettable Fire" photos by Anton Corbijn, because he was copying the technique of another photo artist? Now they actually pay to use the original photo and get (very minor) flak.

My only objection is that the album is called "No Line On The Horizon", and the photo very clearly has a line on the horizon.

Pitchfork mentions this happened before to Bob Dylan and Luna.

The same photo was also used by Fountains Of Wayne and The Flamingoes.

You can hear the new U2 single, "Get On Your Boots", on their site. I like the "sexy boots" line but "Kinky Boots" would be better. In fact, "Zip Up Your Mickey" would have been a better title for the song.

Crime: Mug Shots

2008 Mug Shots Of The Year from The Smoking Gun. #16 is an excellent example of gurning. #8 is a model father-son relationship. But #7 is the most poignant - a single tear barely visible below the shades.